Feliz Navidad!!!

Feliz Navidad!!! We had our annual family Christmas with Mark's family and we got to host this year. We actually planned for that (or maybe schemed is a more appropriate word) without any inkling that we would be pregnant at Christmas. Much less 9 months pregnant!! Part of the benefit of hosting is that you are not responsible for a main food item and you get to pick a theme. I chose Mexican. Shocker. We provided homemade salsa, homemade guac and cheese dip from the Mexican restaurant across the street. I also wanted to provide dessert - another shocker. You would think that I actually make these crazy concoctions considering how excited I get about them, but these miniature cake tacos were the creation and brain child of Kate at http://www.andeverythingsweet.blogspot.com/. I put the candy buffet together and it just gets easier every time. I actually randomly had all of the candy since I had red and green from various prior events. These buffets make me happy!!!

Of course we also supplied beverages. We all know that I don't begrudge others because I can't partake!! So knowing our family, I provided various varieties of good beer as well as good white wine! ha ha! Well, I assume it was good - I didn't taste test it and I'm not positive I would know good wine from bad at this point. I also made some organic margs, but I don't think they were touched! But you can't have a fiesta without them!

I also put a picture of our table up...this is the first time we have ever set our table and eaten at it. I was VERY excited. We've had the Christmas plates (the reindeer plates from Pottery Barn - too cute) since last year so I was really excited. We had to borrow a table cloth - ha ha, we don't own one!! Well, we might now - Joani let us "keep it" at our house for next time we need it!

I also know that the fam is full of good sports so I got some festive head gear and took a few fun pictures! We had a great time and played the famous gift swap game. Yet another shock - FJ and I came home with the gifts we brought after several rounds of stealing from anyone who got in our way. What fun is the gift exchange game with family if you don't cheat?

We had a terrific Christmas and got lots of advice, stories, well wishes. We'll see everyone probably pretty close to Christmas day at the hospital!! I can't believe that next year we'll have Rhett with us!!

A night out!

We have been working hard for several weeks on getting the house together and moved around. We've been up to our ears in "baby stuff" (I know, get used to it...). So we rewarded ourselves with a night out. Or maybe FJ just decided to take advantage of his designated driver one more time? I would have...

Crossfit Peachtree was having their Christmas social and I haven't missed one yet, so I was really excited to attend this year! I haven't seen Ray and Bridget (the owners and the folks who helped get me into Hawaii shape for the wedding/honeymoon and even encouraged me to get my cert, entrusting me enough to put me on their coaching staff) since I stopped coaching at CFPT. I wasn't even showing yet, so you can imagine what a shock it might have been to see me at 9+ months pregnant!! ha ha ha! In a bar no less. It was great to see them and hear about some of their recent travels and the newest addition to their fam - a German Shepperd named Luna. It was also great to see some of the other coaches and members. A lot of familiar, supportive faces! Everyone was really excited about Rhett. I was also very proud and excited to tell them that I had been crossfitting at Crossfit North Fulton by our house until a couple of weeks ago (stopped because of the cold and the errands that were consuming our lives). I have no idea if they were just being nice, but everyone was being very complimentary, too. That's always fun!!!

It was awesome to see old friends and we had another party to go to, as well! It was another birthday and we know how I feel about birthdays. Let me pause to mention that I also attended a birthday dinner on Thursday last week for a good friend, Lindsey! I somehow got away without taking any pictures - but they are on Facebook so I'll see if I can steal some and post them. I am beyond being selective - it's not like it's possible for me to look skinny in any of them! ha ha ha!

We went from Midtown to Buckhead for Wes's bday! As luck would have it, we also got to see Lindsey on Day 3 of her bday celebration!!! Reagan, Julia, Mike D, Andy and some other great familiar faces were there! We had a blast and I'm really glad we were able to make it. Wes is responsible for one of my favorite Bacon t-shirts and FJ's "A Poodle is my Homeboy" tee...just a fun Wes fact for you! ha ha!

We were home before midnight, but it was nice to get out for a night and see some folks!!!

Falling behind - shocker!

So, total shocker, but I fell behind on the blog again! So here goes a handful of posts and updates...

Thanksgiving - what a great week! I worked from home Wednesday and Friday and we were able to get a lot done. My sister came in for the shower and came back for Thanksgiving, too. My oldest nephew, Trevor (almost 13) also came so it was fun to hang out with him, too.

We went to my dad's wife's brother's house (I just like to complicate things) and spent the holiday with Carolyn's family which is a lot of fun! Tons of food, games, football, etc.

On Friday night we went to FJ's high school's football game (Chattahoochee). They are having a terrific season and are undefeated. This was a play off game, too. So FJ, Billy, Packie and I ventured to their old stomping grounds to relive some glory days. It was ridiculously cold!! Being from Metter where football was HUGE, it was really weird to go to my first ATL suburb school football game. I'm pretty sure my single A high school football stadium was about the same size as Chattahoochee's! They were up 14-0 at half time so we ducked out -- it was cold and FJ had to work the next day.

So on Wednesday we had movers take our guest room and living room furniture to FJ's parents' storage unit (it was borrowed) and also had them move our master bedroom suite to the guest room and move the den furniture to the living room in preparation for our new furniture to be delivered on Friday! So Wednesday and Thursday we had an air matress in our master bedroom where April and Trev slept and the boys camped out in the den if they wanted to watch TV.

Friday the furniture was delivered and of course there were some glitches. Why wouldn't there be? I'll spare the details, it all got worked out.

Saturday, the baby furniture was delivered...the assembly kit for the crib was NOT! And here we went again!!

The past couple of weeks have been a lot of up and down with getting ready for Christmas and finishing up some changes to the house. We are getting to a point where we are winding down, though and couldn't be more excited!!

Happy late Thanksgiving!!

One more shower!

My awesome sister and step mom planned, put together, executed AND cleaned up an amazing shower for me and FJ. I keep saying these showers are for "us" but this one really was - it was co-ed. We were able to include FJ's friends as well as some of my guy friends in the celebration. The theme was Vegas and of course costumes were encouraged and somewhat expected...I mean have you met us?! A few things are certain for Rhett's future...he will have a love of fun, no lack of entertainment and will be thoroughly and frequently embarrassed by his parents.

**Check out these pics of some of the games and costumes!!

April and Carolyn put together decorations, food, beverages, games and of course made sure that the most important thing of all was present - our friends!!! I'm very proud of myself - that's three showers/parties in a row where I didn't do anything but provide a list of names and addresses and show up! And this one was another perfect shower! I couldn't have picked anything out better myself.

We got tons of great stuff for Rhett and were able to celebrate again with a lot of our friends. We even had a few come from out of town (Ollie and Anne came from Hilton Head, John and Lindsay came from Athens, Rob and Amy came from Columbus, Jill's mother Lynn drove up from Metter and Carolyn also came from Metter --- I'm sure I missed some folks here). And thanks to David for letting us take over the club house in his condo building, too!

Some of the highlights include watching the boys race trying to chug beer from baby bottles - through the nipple and of course watching people sniff the baby food in teh diapers which looked tragically like pooh. I immediately made a mental note to not smell baby food again. Ever.

Thank you both for the awesome shower. I can't wait to put together these pages for Rhett's baby book -- I've got to give him some sort of warning as to what he is getting into, right?! FJ and I are VERY lucky to have family that is so excited and is going to so much trouble to welcome our new addition. We can't wait for him to meet you both!!! Love yall!

Beckie's 30th Birthday!!

Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday dear BEECCCKKKKIIEEEEEE!!!!! Happy birthday to you!

One of my very close friends, Beckie, is turning 30 this week. I insisted upon throwing her a birthday dinner to celebrate. 30 is just a number, but we all know that for a lot of girls 30 can be a milestone. And I knew that for Beckie, it was, so I wanted to make sure it was celebrated and celebrated right!

As soon as I convinced Beckie to let me throw her a party (back in September... as I was winding down from Joani and Mark's anniversary party - are we noticing a trend?), I reached out to Kate... http://www.andeverythingsweet.blogspot.com/ since I pretty much have her on retainer. I described Beckie to Kate and told her what I was going for. Then I waited for 2 months for the week to arrive to see what Kate had conjured up!!

http://andeverythingsweet.blogspot.com/2010/11/miniature-party-girl-cakes.html

Check these cakes out! For those who don't know, Beckie loves all things outrageous. She loves designer anything, especially bags. She loves shoes, Victoria's Secret and showing off her curves and...assets! :) Beckie is the reason that our group of girlfriends use the term Skank as a term of endearment. She is full of personality and owns it! And I love her for it!

Beyond all of that, Beckie is one of those people who loves to be involved in the exciting times in her friends' lives. She was in 5 or 6 weddings the year that FJ and I got married and she was at every shower, party, bachelorette, luncheon etc for every wedding.

We had a great turn out, 14 people total and 14 individualized "skank cakes". We went to Eclipse Di Luna and had a pre-set menu. I provided some decorations that matched the invitations that went out (pink and animal print, of course!).

It was so much fun. Good food, good cake, good cocktails (so I heard) and good company!!!

Happy birthday Beckie!! I hope 30 is your best year yet and I can't wait to celebrate 31 with you, too!!!

It's raining showers!

The week between the 6th and 13th was a bit blurry. I was in Metter for two days with Jill and her family to mourn the loss of Mrs. Mavis (Mimi). I got home Tuesday, stayed in the car and FJ came out to run errands with me. Wednesday went very similarly - I went to work, came home, walked the dog and we went back out to run errands. Wednesday evening Kevin Gessert got into town. You might remember him from the deck!! FJ and I had so many projects to complete that we decided to ask Kevin if he might want to come spend a few days with us to help us check off some of our list. He was more than happy to help and we insisted on hiring him for the few days. The quality of Kevin's work is definitely professional grade as we learned from the deck so we really got a steal!! The short list of the projects included: remodeling our guest bathroom (tiling, installing a new vanity, etc), tiling the laundry room, installing a custom closet in Rhett's room and installing some overhead storoage in the garage. Simple, right?!?!

Of course in the midst of all of this, I got a cold. I knew it was bound to happen. I usually get sick right around Thanksgiving and it's not like I've been eating incredibly well or exercising (I was doing really well till about the beginning of November when things just piled up) to ward off sickness. The dust from the projects didn't help either! So by Saturday I was in a world of misery.

But I did have something really exciting to look forward to and a reason to get out of our dusty house. Joani had organized a baby shower for us with several of her friends!! We did a brunch/tea at St Ives (where FJ and I got married) and it was so much fun. I was expecting to be overwhelmed with advice but we ended up laughing, telling jokes or stories and having a great time for hours!! FJ and I also got some of our bigger items which was really exciting for us. It's so amazing to see so many people come together to support our family. Many of these ladies were at our wedding or parties related to that. I had also spent time with several of them (or at least exchanged emails) when we threw Mark and Joani their anniversary party. It was so good to be able to spend some time with these amazing women!!

Joani really outdid herself. We played a fun game, chatted, ate, had a cocktail or two (well I had no cocktails) and opened gifts. All in the company of the largest stork balloon I have ever seen in my life!

Fish & Furniture

I'm WAY behind on updating the blog...or we've just been doing a lot so there is much more to say than before!!

Let me back up a couple of weekends. The weekend of the 7th, FJ's dad and step mom (Frank & Gina) came to visit from Greensboro, NC. We had a great weekend with the two of them. We ate TONS of good food (Veni Vidi Vicci, Stoney River, breakfast at our favorite diner, Mexican food, pizza, you name it - we ate it!), went shopping for the baby and for furniture and visited the aquarium. It was a packed weekend, but a BLAST!

We are having our new furniture delivered the day after Thanksgiving so if I can get caught up, I'll have more pictures soon. We got a new bedroom set (a KING!!!) and will be moving our bedroom set to the guest room. For the past year, Joani and Mark (FJ's mom and step dad) have been kind enough to let us borrow some of their very nice furniture throughout our house. They are finishing out above their garage and will need some of it back so the timing worked out almost perfectly. Frank and Gina also got us some new furniture for our den so we'll be moving our den furniture to the living room which was also furnished by Joani and Mark on loan!! What Joani and Mark don't realize is that I'm somehow going to hide some of that furniture in storage or help them forget about it so that when we get a bigger house, we can "borrow" it back...

We also got our pack n play, our swing for Rhett and the bumbo seat. Gina and Frank are super excited to meet Rhett and we were glad to have them to visit. We have never been able to host them at our home before because we lived in the condo and when we got the house we didn't have a spare room for awhile. I'm glad they were able to see the house before it was completely taken over by the baby stuff!

Definitely an exciting weekend! Thank you to Frank and Gina for the exciting gifts - it's a huge help and we are really excited for all of Rhett's new things as well as the big people furniture...now we just have to coordinate the moving parts which we all know is one of my favorite things to do!