Roll Tide!

Thanks Paw Paw for buying Everett some Alabama gear. My dear readers, you have no idea how scandalous it is that Everett has gone almost 2 full years without ANY Alabama gear. Hello P.K.? What took you so long???


I hope you can all sleep a little easier at night now knowing that all is right in the world again.

A Horse is a Horse, of Course of Course

Or it could have been a pony. Or even a donkey. I have no idea. Point is, Everett was only too excited to ride his first four-legged animal. I mean, honestly, doesn't this face just scream, "I'm so excited and I just can't hide it?"

Or maybe this one?

We traveled up to Ellijay last weekend for the Georgia Apple Festival. It was super fun and there was loads of apple-inspired food. I had a delicious apple dumpling that was to die for. Seriously, it was one of the main reasons I wanted to go. It was a beautiful fall day and the highlight for Everett being the horse/pony/donkey ride. He put up a pretty big fight when the ride was over.
And for those of you who have more apples than you know what to do with, may I suggest the following recipe. I've made it several times, always to rave reviews. Perfect with apple cider or a cold glass of milk. Happy baking!

Grandgirl's Fresh Apple Cake from Georgia
Recipe courtesy Paula Deen

Cake: Butter, for greasing pan

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

1/4 cup orange juice

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3 cups peeled and finely chopped apples

1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup chopped pecans

Sauce:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Generously grease a tube pan.

For the cake: in a large bowl, combine the sugar, eggs, oil, orange juice, flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and vanilla extract; and mix well. Fold apples, coconut, and pecans into batter.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a tester comes out clean, about 1 1/2 hours.

Shortly before the cake is done, make the sauce: Melt the butter in a large saucepan, stir in the sugar, buttermilk, and baking soda, and bring to a good rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil for 1 minute. Pour the sauce over the hot cake in the pan as soon as you remove it from the oven. Let stand 1 hour, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

The following video is evidence enough why important to watch what you say in front of a toddler. Will was doing an excellent imitation of some of the more colorful folks here in the South and who should decide to follow in his dear old dad's footstep but our clever little guy. (Excuse the poor lighting, but make sure you have the volume up).

Words, Glorious Words!

Happy one month birthday to Juliana! One month ago today you were born and our lives will never be the same. Congrats to Mom, Dad and Everett for handling the change so well!

Doing what she does best

Everett is a funny little guy. LOVES his sister a lot. His first word in the morning when I go to get him out of his crib is, "Baby?" He has to know where she is at all times and chances are, when he finds out where she is, he has to go and mess with her. He loves to give her kisses on the cheek and "hold" her in his lap. Heck, I've even caught him laying next to her just babbling away (while she's asleep). Lest you think Juliana has an angel for an older brother, I've also caught Everett rolling over her head, pulling her hair, and pinching her arm (With chubby arms like hers, I admit, it's hard to resist).

His latest attempt to be with Juliana ALL the time comes in the form of not for one second letting her enjoy the vibrating chair all by herself. No sir-ee. If she's in it, he's right there beside her, showing her the finer points of hanging farm animals. He's attempted on several occasions to climb in the chair with her, which usually results in me taking her out and him jumping right in.

Paula mentioned today that she thinks Juliana's looking more and more like me. I think the picture below is a good indicator why:
Seriously, if I were Juliana, I'd be irritated that I never had a moment's peace in this chair!

Juliana, irritated:

And here you have it. Not two seconds after I figured Juliana had had enough and who decides now is the perfect time to play in a chair he hasn't had a thing to do with in over a year??

As for the title of the post, there was a time not so many months ago when I was growing a tad worried over Everett's, um, lack of vocabulary. I know boys' verbal skills usually develop slower than girls, but like any mom, I wondered if he'd ever start communicating with actual words. Well folks, we're proud to say that Everett can say at least 66 words/phrases! Among our favorites are:

*Mommy (funny, because no one refers to me like that. Guess where he picked up this jewel? "Caillou" on PBS)

*Dad

*bubble

*outside

*choo choo

*balloon

*popsicle

*Bailey (my parents' dog)

*bless you

*please

*cheese

*I burp

*I got it

Now if we could only get him to say, "Mom, I really need to go to the bathroom. Can you take me and put me on the toilet so I can do my business there and you can be done with wiping my stinky bum?"

The Kiddos

Fear not our faithful readers, all is well with us. The lack of posts lately has little to do with the fact that we now have kids (plural - wow, that's weird!) and more to do with the fact that I've been lazy about taking pictures of the wee ones. I really have no excuse. But, I promise to do better! I know how antsy I get when folks go a while without updating their blogs, so I promise not to let so much time lapse between posts again!

Life has been going really well. I'm so grateful to NOT be pregnant anymore and have more control over my emotions!! I tell you what, it's wonderful knowing that if I'm happy or sad or crying, at least now there's a reason, not just "the pregnancy hormones". I feel great! My recovery has been going exceptionally well too. I'm amazed at how well I'm getting around and the things I can do. The c-section with Everett was definitely way more painful that this time around.

I had a 3 week check up with my doctor on Monday. She gave me the go ahead to start walking - yea!! I'm sooo ready for some serious weight loss. I did have to laugh though. The doctor said, "You can start walking, but no serious exercise. Like I don't want you doing sit ups or anything." Some of you can relate, but I don't think I could do a sit up right now if I tried!

And now on to the pictures:
The picture below is pretty much how we've seen Juliana for the past three weeks. The girl loves to sleep! And I'm definitely not complaining. I love it. And yes, she gets that from me.

Check out those arm creases. We sure do love our little wide-eyed Michelin baby.

Everett is still adjusting to having a baby sister around. He'll go from super nice and loving, as evidenced here:

To too rough and tough (he's squeezing her head just a tad to tightly) in a matter of seconds.

Here's our rapidly chunking up baby, just chillin' with her dad.

And here's a great story: All of Everett's pants are 18 month and make for some great high waters. Basically, he looked like a dork. So my mom and I took him to Old Navy yesterday for some new jeans for the fall. We picked up a couple of long-sleeved shirts while we were at it. Anxious to see if they fit, we put him in a new outfit yesterday afternoon. Later in the evening, while we were busy and Everett was watching "Curious George", I guess the shirt started to bother him because the next time we saw him, this is what he looked like:

Umm, yeah. Let's hope he doesn't adopt this style of dressing when it really starts to get cold!

And to conclude, a couple of more shots of Miss Yellow Bird. Who do you guys think she looks like?

Brotherly Love

Everyone keeps asking how Everett's reacting to having a new sibling in the house. We've only been home from the hospital since Thursday afternoon, but so far, so good. Actually, he doesn't pay too much attention to her. He usually notices her once or twice a day, wants to give her a kiss and then he's off playing with trains and cars.

But the other day he was absolutely precious. Completely unprovoked by me, he came up to Juliana and starting loving on her. As you can see from the pictures, he appeared to be in absolute heaven. It was the first time since her birth that I thought, "Alright, this is going to work and they're going to be friends!"

(I especially love Juliana's crazy-eyed expression in the above photo. Newborns are so funny about focusing on people and things.)

Our sweet little angel sleeping, which is just about all she does. We're keeping our fingers crossed that she's as good of a sleeper as her older brother!

And Three Becomes Four

We are now officially a family of four! We can't believe it, but are thrilled to announce that Juliana Brooks Giddens made her speedy (and early) appearance into the world on Monday, September 10th at 6:31 am. She weighed 8 pounds even and measured 18 inches long.The entire birth story is one for the record books of course. I began having contractions around 8:30 Sunday evening. Also around this time, I began to have some stomachaches from the spaghetti I had eaten earlier in the day. Around 11 pm the contractions began to get more intense and more regular. We left for the hospital around 2 am, but not before I had the chance to throw up about five times. Lovely, just lovely. So not only was I feeling labor pains, but I was also dealing with stomach and now, nausea pains.

Once we arrived at the hospital, the nurse hooked me up to check out my vitals, as well as the baby's. She discovered almost immediately that Juliana's heart rate was in the 180's and 190's. A normal baby heart rate is between 120 and 160. A high heart rate usually indicates some sort of fetal distress, which is never good. They continued to monitor me and told me that I really needed to go ahead and get an epidural (strike one for my labor goals) in case things went south quickly. If I didn't get the epidural, and then needed an emergency C-section, they would have to put me completely under with general anesthesia (no thank you!). After a few hours of no progression (I was only dilated to a 4) and Juliana's heart rate still running incredibly high, the doctor delivered the bad news: I would need another C-section (stike two and three for all my labor goals). They were really concerned about the baby and worried that with her heart rate being this high now, that the trauma of labor and delivery would make things even worse.

The surgery went fine and recovery has been a MILLION times better than with Everett. Thank goodness for modern medicine and competent doctors! And now, what you've all been waiting for: PICTURES!!!

Just cleaned up

Just barely clothed

Everett's first time in the hospital

He had a blast and didn't seem to mind that he hadn't seen his sister yet.

And now just general Giddens Family cuteness:

Oh, and the winners from the last post are:

Date: Heidi

Weight: Shanna

Time: Emily

Congrats to you three and you'll be receiving your prizes in the mail shortly.

Let the Guessing Game Begin!

Alright folks, the time has come to see which one of you is the best guesser. That's right, I'm conducting my very own (VERY scientific, of course) poll to see who guesses correctly the time, date and weight of Miss Juliana's birth. Here are a few facts to help you in your choices:

1) Everett was born on his due date - I was exactly 40 weeks pregnant.

2) I am now 37 weeks pregnant.

3) At my doctor's appt. yesterday I measured 3 centimeters dilated and 70% effaced.

4) I personally feel like there's no way I'm going to my due date (Sept. 24th).

5) Since I'm trying for a VBAC, I will not be induced. They also won't let me go more than a week past my due date. (If it gets to that point, I'll have to have another C-section).

Can't wait to see who wins! Yes, there WILL be a prize.

The Ritzy Ritz and Other Relatively Exciting Stuff

Whew! Will and I just returned from an overnight stay at The Ritz-Carlton Lodge at Reynolds Plantation. We went as part of a company meeting/getaway for Will's work. As two who have never stayed in super nice hotels before, it was quite the experience. It was AWESOME and we're excited to return, hopefully soon. The rooms were spacious, the bed was super comfortable and the bathroom was huge. The service was impeccable, the staff friendly, and don't even get me started on the food - YUMMY!! We had an amazing sit-down dinner last night that was so good - spinach and ricotta ravioli, seared beef, chicken, veggies, potato cake and dessert - creme brulee with a berry compote. I was in food heaven! All in all, it was a lovely little trip and I'm so thankful to my mom and Paula for watching our little man so Will could attend his meetings and I could simply relax. I know we won't have another opportunity like this for awhile, what with Juliana's entrance into the world rapidly approaching and such, so it was a wonderful 24+ hours.

And to cap off my relaxing day, I'm proud to say that I finished my very first Sudoku puzzle! I've been wanting to try my hand at these puzzles for quite sometime, but I've simply been too intimidated to try (I know, silly, right?). I'm not good with numbers and logical-type problems are not exactly my forte these days. But with time to kill and pen in hand, I gave it a go and here's my proof:

As you can see, it was not a flawless attempt, but I was using pen and I was so thrilled with my success that I gave myself a check mark when I finished. Yippee!!!

In other news, I finally got my hair cut. I've been planning to for awhile since for the past couple of months I've felt rather dowdy and too mommy-ish. I told my stylist that I didn't care how short she went (I figure hair always grows back), and this is what I ended up with (this is me with the haircut and me at 36 weeks):

And for a close-up:

I'm pretty happy with it and Will likes it too. He was shocked at how short it was! I've had it this short before (for those of you who remember Freshman year of college), but that was quite awhile ago. As a side note, it took her an hour to cut it and during that time THREE different people came by to sweep up the hair. Each time the sweeper commented, "Wow, that's a lot of hair on the floor!" Yes, it's true, I have a lot of very thick hair.

As for Everett, he is awesome! He's at a really fun stage where he is just oozing with personality. He knows that when he's in trouble he has to go sit on the fireplace until we tell him he can get up. His vocabulary is increasing everyday (In sacrament meeting on Sunday he dropped something on the floor. Once he picked it up, he showed it to Will and excitedly exclaimed, "I got! I got!"). He still fighting through some tantrums, but overall, we're just so happy with how well he's doing and how much he's learning. Here are some recent shots of the little man:

With his cousins, Max and Marissa

And here, for whatever reason, absolutely LOVING the fact that my mom made him look like Little Red Riding Hood:

Happy News!

Tired of thinking and dealing with our accident situation, I decided to post something a little lighter. Is anyone else as excited as we are about the new season of "The Office"? For a quick recap to get you revved up for SEPTEMBER 27th (one month and counting), check out the following video:

Favorite lines:

"There's a new sheriff here in these offices. And his name is me."

"Alright, then it's a date."

And of course:

"Who was that?"

"Nobody. You and I are done."

"WHAT?!?"

1999 Toyota 4Runner: RIP

We went to see our car at the wreck yard yesterday. We were pretty surprised at the amount of damage our car sustained. Here it is in all its glory, what's left anyway. We are really grateful that we weren't more seriously hurt. Good bye ol' girl, we're gonna miss ya.





Adios, amigo!!