Spring is Coming

AveryAnn had a big week of riding forward facing in the car finally!  I'm kind of shocked we made it this long.  Now when we drive she's constantly yelling, "yook, mommy a ____!"  It's really cute!

Friday morning my hair straightener died.  I'd had it for 12 years.  It was the first thing I ever bought with my credit card (stupid, I know, don't be like me).  Of course this is turning out to be one of the most expensive months of the year for us so I'm going to have to strategically work a new one into the budget. 

Friday night we went to my parents house so my dad could color my hair.  AveryAnn was helping Granddaddy get some work done while I was processing.

Barrett curled up on the couch and took a little nap.  We got home late Friday night and crashed.

Saturday morning I got up and got ready for a brunch baby shower.  The kids had a fun morning at home with daddy!  That afternoon I took the kids to my parents house to spend the night because we were going bowling for my friend Anna's 30th birthday!  I also enjoyed a solo target run to get a wedding gift for a tea on Sunday.  I came home a took a little nap before getting ready for our little (group) date night.

I kind of love bowling!  I'm not great at it but I think it's so much fun!  We rode with Jeremy and Jessica and always have so much fun with them!

I love this sweet friend of mine!  I love that we've known each other forever but our babies brought us this deep, forever friendship.  We are soul sisters and almost always know what the other is thinking because we're thinking the same thing.  Also, she's so pretty both inside and out.

Love these girls!  Anna has a ton of friends and all she wanted for her 30th birthday was for them to all be together to celebrate. We were missing a few but we had the best time! 

Sunday, we got up and got ready for church.  I had to run by and get the kids dressed for church because I forgot to pack their church clothes. We went to Mass and then came back to my parents for lunch before the tea.

We went to the tea and then my sister and I ran up to go to HIIT.  Hope came to the tea and then she and John and Madelyn went back to mom and dads to hang out.  After HIIT there were more people at the tea so we stopped by in our sweaty gym clothes to visit.  After the tea was over we went back to mom and dads to visit.  Hope had taken these cute pictures of the girls while we were gone.  They are really starting to interact and play together and it is so sweet!

I took this picture of the three of them.

Then I told Barrett to kneel down so he would be the same height at the girls, but they got on their knees too and we all had a good laugh.

We finally made it home, way too late, but it was so worth it!  We don't get to see John and Hope nearly enough.  We don't live that far away but it's so hard to coordinate our lives and get together!  We're getting into a busier season at work and life.  Baseball practice starts this week and we're really excited!  This is our first year of coach pitch!  I think that's all for today!  

New Year's Eve

We haven't done anything for New Year's Eve in years and we were so excited to actually have plans this year.  We went back and forth about what we wanted to do.  I wanted to go bowling, no one else seemed excited about that.  Patrick called one day and said Sister Hazel was playing at the Alabama Theatre for their 90th birthday celebration.  I love any excuse to go to the Alabama Theatre and I was excited to get to dress up.  We made plans to go with Jeremy, Jessica, Brittany and Seth. 

We were all really excited until we realized how late midnight is, and how old we were.  So I made a giant iced coffee while I was getting ready.  You know you're old when your pregame for the pregame is coffee.

Funny story, Brittany and I both kind of stalked this sequin dress at Target all December long.  We wanted it but had no where to wear it and knew it would be silly to buy.  Well when we decided we'd be spending NYE at the beautiful Alabama Theatre I knew sequins would be perfect so I went back and grabbed up the last one.

We met at Jeremy and Jessica's house for pizza and drinks before the show.  We decided to all ride together and Jessica offered to be the DD

Meanwhile, back at my parents house the kids were partying hard.

Every year.  Oh that little NYE newborn.  I can't believe how quickly the time has passed.

We walked in just as Taylor Hicks was starting his set.  I loved him on American Idol.  I love that he loves Birmingham and he's a really good performer.

After his set he had a little meet and greet in the lobby, I didn't go get in line but I did see him taking pictures with fans. Just a super nice guy.

We're so excited to be out with grownups!  Also we're tired.

Sister Hazel was great.  Took me right back to middle school.  It was a fun little time warp.  The quit playing around 11:30 to give everyone enough time to go outside and countdown to the lighting of the new "Alabama" sign on 18th street.  It was freezing so we killed time taking pictures in the lobby.

Jeremy and Jessica

Brittany and Seth

Patrick and me.

Then we made the guys take our picture.

Then we made them let us take their picture.

With the Alabama sign that's always been there.

And the new one!

Group shot!

Both signs all lit up!

We quickly got to the car because it was so cold.  We headed back to Jeremy and Jessica's house, ate more pizza and then headed home.  It was such a fun night and the perfect way to close out a banner year welcome in a new one.  2017 was good to me.  I learned a lot about myself.  I'm so proud of all the progress I made.  I'm so excited looking forward to all 2018 has in store.  It's going to be a great one!

Weekend Review

I've listened to podcasts on and off for a while now.  I've been working by myself a lot over the last four months so I've been listening to them all the time.  I've found several that I listen to weekly and can't wait for the next one to be available.  One of my newest favorites is Arc Stories.  My sister told me about it and I was hooked after the first episode.  I listened to all 50 episodes in about a week.  It's based here in Birmingham and it's basically just people telling stories.  All the stories are told in front of a live audience and it's just super entertaining.  I've laughed and cried while listening.  They have a live event every month and this month's was Friday night at the Botanical Gardens.  I'd tentatively marked in on my calendar but wasn't sure I'd find anyone to go with me.  My sister texted me and told me they were going if I wanted to tag along.  I talked to Patrick and he said he'd go too.  He didn't really get it what it was all  about but said he'd give it a try.  It was a beautiful night to hang out in the park. 

Y'all, we were so surprised at how much fun it was. There were six storytellers.  They were all so good.  We laughed so much and just had the best time.  It was something different and fun for a little date night.  We're already planning to definitely go to the one around Christmas.  (I hope we get to one before then though.)

Saturday I picked up the kids from my parents and we hung out at home all day.  It was nice to not have to be anywhere. 

Sunday we went to church and then lunch at my parents.  Barrett begged for them to hide Easter eggs for him to hunt.  Which they of course did and he had a ball.  That afternoon we had ragball pictures.

They were running behind schedule so it took longer than we expected but Barrett did great. 

Barrett complained about his ear hurting all weekend but it didn't seem to serious.  It usually hurt the worst when it was time for him to do something he didn't want to do.  Well Monday he woke up with a fever so I decided to go ahead and take him in.  Ear infection, both ears.  Since he was running a fever I couldn't take him to the office with me and I have a lot of work to do this week.  (The next two weeks are two of the busiest weeks of the year for me.)  Thankfully my dad was working from home and said he could keep them.

If you have to go to the doctor you might as well look cute.  By that afternoon he was feeling better and Dr. Farr said he could resume normal activity as soon as he felt like it so we went to practice.  We had the best time at practice.  All the parents are really involved and it was so much fun.  I was helping get the kids to first base after they hit the ball. After practice I told Barrett how proud I was and how much fun I had with him and he said, "I'm proud of you for helping coach Mama."  I laughed so hard. 

We planted some azaleas a few months back and they bloomed this week and they were so pretty.  They're not very big but they had so many flowers.  We are loving this time in life.  Its hard and most some days I want to run away but it's also really, really sweet.  Barrett and AveryAnn really adore each other and we're just trying to soak it all up. 

A Weekend Away

Spring is always a little crazy around here.  Work gets busy and when work gets busy I feel like our whole life is chaos.  Add in Barrett playing ragball for the first time and I know it's going to be wild.  So before everything gets wound up Patrick and I decided to sneak away for a long weekend at our friends Tony and Carla's house.  My parents graciously agreed to keep the kids so we could enjoy the weekend just adults.  (I'm forever grateful to both sets of our parents who are always willing to keep our kids.  I know not everyone is so fortunate to have family around so I try not to take it for granted.)

We got there around 8:00 Friday night and headed straight to dinner.  I couldn't wait to eat some seafood!  After dinner we went to the Florabama to have a famous "Bushwacker".  While we were there this girl walked up and I knew I knew her from somewhere but could not put my finger on it.  She was five feet away from us most of the night.  I finally realized she was on Big Brother but I couldn't remember her name to save my life.  I couldn't remember which season she was on either.  I tried to google it and I couldn't come up with anything useful.  We decided to go to a different part of the bar and I finally remembered her name (Meg).  I was going to go back and talk to her but I never did.  I'm almost positive it was her.  Patrick went to close out his tab and he said when he walked by some guys were talking to her saying they recognized her.  I wish I would have said something to her but I didn't.

After that excitement we headed back to the house to hit the hay.

Saturday was supposed to be a beautiful day so we loaded up the boat and headed out.  Our first stop was the FloraBama (again) for (another) bushwacker.  Then we cruised all day.  We stopped for lunch at Pirates Cove.  It was a little cool out but it was a beautiful day!

Boys and their toys.

After lunch we headed to an island, parked the boat and hung out for the rest of the day!  The island is home to the abandoned Fort McRee.  It was abandoned before the civil war.  It was a neat place to explore.

I was so glad I took my real camera because I was able to grab some really beautiful images. 

After we spent some time exploring we had a campfire and watched the sunset.  It was so much fun and so cool.  Once the sun set, we made our way back to get the boat out of the water and find some dinner.

Sunday we got up and it was cool and cloudy and windy so we decided to hang out at the house.  We went out for lunch and then laid around and relaxed.  It was so nice.  We decided to do a shrimp boil for dinner and it was delicious.  We spent the rest of the evening watching movies and hanging out.  We were already dreading going home. 

We woke up this morning and got packed and headed home.  We were sad to leave but so excited to see the kids.  I'm so thankful that Patrick values time away just the two of us. We try to do this at least once a year.  I also try to let one of our parents keep the kids over night once a month or every other month.  Its good for the kids to spend the time with their grandparents and its good for us too.  We had the best time.  We'll never be able to thank Tony and Carla for the hospitality they show us each time we come visit.  I basically just invite myself down and they welcome us with open arms.  We can't wait to go see them again. 

Brewery Tour

Friday was Jessica's birthday and we'd been talking about going on a Brewery Tour for a few weeks so we decided it was the perfect excuse to book it.   The Birmingham Brew scene is booming and can be a little intimidating if I'm being honest.  We like beer but are loyal to our domestic brands.  We were excited to check out the local craft beer without having to think to much about any of it.  We went with Jeremy, Jessica, Matt and Jennifer.  It was the perfect night out with friends.  We had the best time. 

We met Clay, our tour guide, at Railroad park.  He gave us a rundown of the history of the city.  Then we loaded up in his van and headed out.

Our first stop was Cahaba Brewing.  Clay chose 4 beers for our flight and to my surprise I actually liked most of them.  Patrick seriously only drinks Bud Light and he found one he enjoyed as well.  Clay gave a history of the company as well as the building.  He also taught us about each beer we were trying.  (After the first stop we were all convinced the tour was worth every penny).

Our next stop was Avondale.  I'd been to this one before but it'd been a while (also I was pregnant so didn't get to enjoy the beer.).  While Clay ordered our beer and got us a table we walked next door to Post Office Pies and ordered a few pizzas.  After we ordered we headed back to Avondale.  Clay told us all about the three beers we tasted and while we were enjoying them he walked back over and picked up our pizzas for us and brought them back.  After we finished our flight we got a 1/2 pint of whatever we wanted and Clay told us how that beer got it's name.  This was my favorite stop of the night.  The beer and pizza were fantastic.

I may have been overly excited about all the cute little glasses.

The third stop was Ghost Train. It's fairly new to the city and I liked it a lot.  It was very laid back.  They seemed the most excited about showing off their beers.  They immediately brought us a sample and then the flight.  I loved their presentation so much.  You could tell they put effort into it.  The beer was pretty good too!

I liked the two middle ones the most.  I learned that I'm not a huge fan of dark brews or most IPAs

The last stop of the night was Red Hills Brewing Company in Homewood.  We really felt like VIP here.  They were wrapping up a special event and we had the place to ourselves.  By this stop, I was a little tired and wasn't sure I could taste any more beer but I pressed on.  Patrick opted for one single beer instead of another flight. I didn't love those two on the end but I enjoyed getting to try them and learn about them.   

Love this guy and how he's learned to just go with whatever I suggest.  He was pretty sure he was going to hate everything he tried but he found something at each stop that he would drink again.  It was fun to step out of our comfort zone just a bit. 

The tour company we used was Red Clay Tours.  When my sister and her husband, Clay, returned from their trip last year, Clay decided this is what he wanted to do.  He has put so much research, time and heart into this business and it really shows.  It's so much fun watching someone do what they love.  The only decision we had to make was what we wanted on our pizza and I'm pretty sure he would have gladly given us suggestions if we'd asked. (Pizza was not included in the price of the tour but totally worth the twenty bucks)

If you're looking for something different to do book a tour. You won't regret it.