to make it look like I’ve been posting all week…here are some posts:
Happy Birthday J-Bug!
Happy Birthday Mom!
Visiting with Friends
Stay tuned…the wedding slideshow will be up presently! And, if I have time, a surprise from Josiah (no he’s not walking yet…but he’s doing something no other kid in our home has done quite this early while not walking).
1. We returned late from my mother’s surprise birthday party, my niece’s birthday party, and staying up late at my parents’ playing their Wii! AND, I thought it’d be smart to rush to Wal-Mart and get some monthly shopping in because of the busy day on Monday…see below.
2. On Monday, I had some friends from out of town over…which meant rushing to get the house clean…and I was pooped from the weekend and took a 45 minute nap (unheard of around here…even when I’m pregnant, so don’t get any ideas).
3. On Tuesday, we did more shopping and my favorite activity…looking for shoes for me and Zoe. I hate shoe shopping. When you have a clunker size 10 foot, it’s so hard to find shoes. I’m pretty picky too…I want shoes that are comfy and again, hard to find in my size…unless I want to pay out the wazoo.
4. On Wednesday, movies…love the free movies here, check and see if your theater does them during the summer, it’s a nice a/c getaway. And another nap…I also watched the documentary The Business of Being Born. Quick Review: It’s very graphic, which is fine for me, not for Mark or other men, though. It’s basically a big plug for women to have babies at home…what I got out of it is that giving birth is not about a “medical” condition that you have, but it’s a great womanly experience but must be tended to with experienced staff whether it be a midwife, nurse, or whatever. It did talk about how a lot of health care professionals had never seen a women give birth without medical assistance and I can vouch for that…my first nurse with Josiah, bless her heart, hadn’t the first clue as to how to help me labor with him! Okay on we go…
5. Thursday, I baked:
5 loaves of bread
7 hamburger buns-that are little flat and defunct 🙁
4 batches of granola bars for Mark’s workday breakfasts
3 1/2 dozen muffins for Sunday mornings (Zucchini and strawberry…yumm, after I get over my baking phews!)
Okay, I could’ve done more and wanted to do some biscuits to put away but I was pooped.
Now I’m off to try and get a sash on Zoe’s flower girl dress. Tracy’s wedding is Saturday. Tomorrow we’re off for fingerprinting (adoption), bridal luncheon and rehearsal. I hope to post pictures from this past weekend before this coming weekend…wish me luck!
On Monday night we visited with some friends who had moved to Nebraska a few years ago. They were in town staying with some other friends. They have a two daughters and a son (11, 7…I think, and 4). All the kids enjoyed playing together. It was fun being able to catch up.
Ace and Zach talking “man” talk.
Zoe and Talia have always gotten along well.
Liam and Katie (the female version of Liam) showing us sand.
Talia’s self portrait.
Katie enjoying some beans.
The men talking.
Katie really enjoyed the watermelon. We got a kick out of watching her tummy fill with water…she walked around chomping on watermelon with her shirt up.
And this was Katie after three or four triangles of watermelon! Actually, she was trying to flip.
JB crawling!
Today, we celebrated my mother’s 60th birthday. I can put how old she is because she says she hates being 59! She wanted to get over to an even more solid number…like she accomplished something. It’s been a really tough year for her, so it was nice to surprise her with a big party. She was surprised…which is hard to believe. We were even able to find her a sugar free cake (thanks to Publix) since she has diabetes.
The sign that greeted mom!
My niece turned 9 last week! Mark and I are just in denial about this. It was just yesterday that we celebrated her birth not her birthday. She had a great cowgirl/barn party theme complete with roping cows (a stuffed one) and bobbing for apples (which Zoe did well on). Being the wonderful aunt that I am, I did not get any pictures of the birthday girl. Please forgive miss J-bug. Zoe, Ace, Liam and Josiah about ran/crawl themselves tired. They had such a good time. Josiah scooted out on the floor (it was in my niece’s church’s gym) and just spun in circles…he didn’t know where to start. Zoe had some time warming up to my niece’s friends. J-bug was wonderful and introduced her to several of her friends…after that it was all over. Ace just loved playing as did Liam.
Cowboy Josiah!
Granddaddy gettin’ so good cuddles.
Ummm, bad mother here. We’re getting ready to see family this weekend, so I forgot to post Josiah’s eleventh month. So, here goes…
He is still growing and definitely going to be eating us out of house and home. I’m wondering if I can teach him how to cook at one years old. He’s a mockingbird and copies a lot of our sounds and facial expressions. He’s started to learn how to clap. He loves to say dada but not mama. And if you ask him where dada is, he’ll look for him until he finds him. In the car, Ace is his entertainment and Ace knows it. He’s still not sitting up from laying down, although Mark said he did it in the crib the other day. He can crawl in his one legged way all over the place and is getting pretty fast. He likes to pull up on me and for me to hold him under the arms while he walks. He just started shaking his head yes when we lay him down to change him…that’s our opportunity to brainwash, I mean, teach him, to obey by asking yes or no questions.
And last but not least, you know when he is really happy when he grins so big that he squints his eyes. He’s such a joy in our family. I’ll post a picture after this weekend, but if you must see him now, scroll down and look at our Asheville pictures.
We got up Sunday after getting slight 30 minute stretches of sleep (thanks to a sick Josiah) and went to breakfast. Now, I have to say that I was less than enthused about breakfast. The innkeepers told us on Saturday that breakfast for Sunday was Baked Eggs Louisiana. What that was, I don’t know, but I knew that Louisiana serves lots of seafood/fish/crab stuff. We googled it and found that a version of it included crabmeat. I made up mind to try it, but that was it. When it was served, the innkeeper stated that it was bean and corn salsa on an english muffin with an egg and bacon wrapped around it. Delicious! I loved it and so did Mark. It included a wonderful sauce drizzled over it and asparagus, which was yummy too. Josiah impressed the guests and innkeepers by devouring the fruit and an egg as well as an equally yummy lemon rosemary crumb cake. Innkeeper, Thom, remarked that he had never seen a child Josiah’s age eat that much food in all his years in the culinary world. By the way, Josiah ate three small pieces of french toast and fruit the next morning!
I’ll put in a plug for the bed & breakfast we stayed at and then move on to our day on Sunday. It was called the Aberdeen Inn and it was very very nice. The innkeepers were just wonderful. They have a little cottage out behind the house and guest rooms and that’s where we stayed. It was a good thing since Josiah was sick and didn’t sleep like he usually does. I hesitate to say that the rooms were underpriced for the conditions, but they were quite inexpensive compared to other places we were looking at staying at but they were wonderful and very beautiful…and for the food…well, just re read above! We were minutes from downtown and the Biltmore. The innkeepers are so friendly and they were really great with Josiah and loved doting on him. I highly recommend them if anyone is going that way soon or later!
Alright, on to our day on Sunday. We arrived at the Biltmore only to be told we had to have a timed entry. Mark had gotten it for 11 and it wasn’t quite 10:30. So , we decided to go to River Bend Farm and get our bike passes. By the time we got there it was close to 11 and we had scheduled our picnic basket (Mark had…how romantic) for pick up between 11:30 and 12. We changed our entry time and headed out to bike. Our goal was to make it to the gardens which was roughly 4 plus miles away. We almost got there when my knee started hurting (couldn’t have been for the fact that the last mile was all uphill??) and Josiah had enough of his helmet falling over his face. We trekked back down and hastened back to the Biltmore to get our basket and lunch. It was wonderful! We got a neat little basket with two sandwiches, drinks, cookies, cheese, and chips. Yes, Josiah enjoyed it too. Check out the napkins:
If you look closely, you can see the two men sculptures on the columns.
These ornaments were in the courtyard around a window. There were musical sculptures all around the courtyard windows. Amazing how much detail went into these.
A view from one of the first floor balconies.
Enjoying lunch on the “grounds” of the Biltmore!
On to the gardens:
Hey! Here’s a picture of my new haircut…after sweating two gallons and wearing a bike helmet for an hour…lovely, huh?!
Rose Gardens (one side of them)
For Jacie: They had several horse and ponies at the farm. You would have loved it girl!
We ate at the Moose Cafe and it was not healthy like the night before. But it was goooooodddd! They served us biscuits that were huge with homemade apple butter…which we came home with. Oh, my! Wonderful! We may have stunk up the place because we went straight from the Biltmore to the cafe…opps!
And Monday, we ate breakfast and came home…to Liam running a fever! He’s still got one but I’m hoping it’s the same thing Josiah had and he should be over it by tomorrow…I hope!
Here’s the car part pictures. For my wonderful friends who read this, pay no attention…there were some email problems but my blog is accessible, so I agreed to post these. I’ll post more pictures from Asheville after the kids are down for a nap.
Funnies from the kids:
Ace: We had apples, bananas and parrots for breakfast.
(This after we were asking them about their weekend and having to get specific about things like food. I think…hope…he meant pears)
Zoe: Papa and Grandmere read the Chronicle Son to us.
(The Prodigal Son)
Ace: These are my lookers.
(His binoculars that we got for him while away)
Yes, folks, this transpired all in one night!
We spent most of the day traveling to Asheville. We stopped in a small
town that advertised shops and antiques and restaurants down town.
There weren’t any restaurants that looked open down town, so we
traveled closer to the interstate and found this sign:
Uh huh, the signs are everywhere!
By the time we got to Asheville, we found our B&B and checked in.
The innkeepers were really nice and had to play with Josiah.
Unfortunately, Josiah didn’t feel up to playing. Any guesses why???
He had a fever. So, after he took a brief nap, we headed out to find
meds for him. After a trip to the store, we went downtown and watched
all the colorful folk there. We ate at the Tupelo Honey Cafe. My
health conscious friends will be happy to know that I had a Carolina
Chicken Sandwich which consisted of local produce, antibiotic free,
free range chicken and a cranberry mayonnaise. Mark had
antibiotic/hormone free hamburger. Pretty interesting that several
restaurants we picked out happen to have organic/healthy food. Not
done on purpose, it just happened.
Yea, a giant iron. A man in front was playing the fiddle and dancing. He had good acoustics, I can say that much.
Josiah’s take on Downtown Asheville.
Do you think this guy’s seen Monk? Another street performer/living statue.
On the side of the Grove Arcade, which was a “mall” of sorts. Mark and I were amazed at the detailing/architecture in the building and lots of the buildings downtown.Next up, the Biltmore.
