It's the Great Pumpkin 2011

[Catch It's the Great Pumpkin 2010 and 2009 here and here. Mary Bullock has different colored eyes every year! Wonder what next year will be?]

Our annual October obsession with the pumpkin patch is well under way around here. We were temporarily derailed last week of course, so we're a little behind. We've only had three patch trips so far, but I'm sure there will be several more before November.

It has come to my attention [via Jill] that what we call a pumpkin "patch" in Florida is kind of laughable to the rest of the world. There are no pumpkins growing here. It's just a place for us fall-starved folks to go and pretend for a minute that it's not still in the upper 80s straight on through December.

But we'll take whatever we can get!

We're back!

Ok, so that little hiatus got ridiculous. We have all been sick, with the exception of Lee, who somehow manages to avoid the germy slobber the rest of us share. He has a maneuver wherein he only kisses the cheek of a sicky with the side of his mouth, and you don't even realize he's doing it until you're in fever misery and he's bouncing out for a quick run. He's stealthy that way.

Lee was also our official grocery shopper during our week long convalescence. I sent him for Pedialyte popscicles, which I remembered someone recommending to me last year during the great Stomach Flu of 2010.  But Publix didn't have them. So guess what I did? I made my own.

I know! GET ME OUT OF TOWN. I'm still pretty proud of them. And I've got one left in the freezer if anyone has a sicky of their own soon.

But we're all recovered for the time being. We've had a visitor the last few days, my friend Jill. She just left a little while ago, and the babies are going to be bereft when they wake up and it's just mama. 

Speaking of babies waking up, my break is over! Stay tuned for birthday festivities, The Great Pumpkin 2011, and more soon.

Dear Kimmy,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I heart you.

Big Canoe + Big Congratulations

Ashley, one of my best friends from college, got married this past weekend in Big Canoe, GA. Although logistically challenging, we [Aunt Jen, Bobo, MB and I] managed to make it there and back in one [four?] piece[s]. It was great fun with best friends in a beautiful setting, and it was awesome to see the last of The Feet officially become an old married.

There were many favorite parts of the weekend, but I'll just tell you about my least favoritest and my most favoritest, just for brevity's sake.

My least favorite part of the weekend was that Rachel wasn't there.  She's 39 some odd weeks pregnant and couldn't make the trip, which was a bummer. She can always be counted on to remember the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to any of us, and then, after drinks, retell it very loudly.

Not that I've ever done anything embarrassing. 

Right?

My favorite part of the weekend was this part-- when we decided our last six feet rehearsal dinner poem was way too tame and and actually agreed to use the term in the buff in one verse. The in the buff part was a lie but it was so funny that we didn't really care.

And then Kim made the gesture

which I could not adequately capture on film because I was simultaneously slapping the table and trying to take a breath.

It was not appropriate for all audiences.

Just perfectly appropriate for a bunch of girls for whom the last 15 years kind of disappear when they're together. Seriously, if you could picture us all with a bit more in the eyebrow department, this is pretty much how we were. 


Plus imagine Julie in her ubiquitous argyle sweater.

You people make my heart SUPER happy.

Another person who makes my heart super happy: my twin sis, who left her own baby with her husband, flew to Jacksonville, drove 8.5 hours with me and the babies, and then got pooped and peed on for two days while I reenacted my late adolescence with the girls, then drove us all home. This is the same [my only] sister who flew down to help me paint the nursery last November when I had the big freak out. I owe her some major favors now!

Now to tackle the laundry and catch up on sleep! That might take me till next weekend. :)

Mazel Tov, Y'all

Why yes, I did just fly to Nashville with a newborn baby.  People look at me like I'm a little nuts when they hear this. It was a little nuts. But I only would have done it for a few people on earth.

Jill is one of them. She got married last weekend with one of the best weddings I've ever attended. We started off the weekend with a bridesmaids luncheon at The Hermitage Hotel. That's the [Hur-muh-tij] not the [Hur-muh-TAAAHJ], for all of you who are not from around those parts [Julie!]. And yes, there is champagne in that orange juice. I'm sorry to say the champagne is not the reason for my poor picture taking.  I really just need to study my For Dummies book a little more. :)

This is Ashley, one of the only other people I would have flown with a newborn for. Luckily, her wedding is a few months away. Hopefully I will be getting more sleep then and will not look like a bloated zombie in my bridesmaid's dress.

Fingers crossed. 

The rehearsal dinner was at Nashville City Club, where we performed our second-to-last-ever rehearsal dinner poem.

I wish I could say this was after the champagne, but it wasn't. My friends are just weirdos.

The wedding ceremony on Sunday was one of the most beautiful services I've witnessed. One of the bridesmaids even cried through most of it.
Oh wait. That was me. 

The reception was definitely one of the coolest parts of the weekend. It was at The Loveless Barn, where we dined on fried chicken and biscuits. I'm not sure wedding fare gets any better than that, at least not for me. :)

And the bride and groom where pretty fabulous, too.


Mazel Tov!

Part III: Pleasantville

Ok, it wasn't Pleasantville. It was Staunton, Virginia. But that's just splitting hairs.

Wish I could say I'd taken these! But no. I'm not that proficient yet.

It was so beautiful, the weather was perfect [at least, it seemed so to someone who'd been sweltering in Florida], and Rachel's house is--ohmygosh--amazing.  In fact, Lee called me to tell me that our plumbing had exploded right after I left her house, and I almost turned back around and declared myself their new housemate.

Mary Bullock and Riley played their little hearts out for two days. MB, ever the early riser, woke up at 5:30 both mornings saying Wake up, Ri-ee, Wake UP!

This was right before Riley tossed her water bottle into the duck pond and I threw myself on the ground in an attempt to retrieve it. Can you tell that I sometimes forget I'm pregnant?

Riley's play room is a thing of dreams. If you read Rachel's blog, you know she made that play kitchen herself out of two old nightstands. She is crazy talented, ya'll. I don't think MB would have batted an eyelash if I had left her right there to play for another week. But I'm selfish, and I'd have missed her. I will give her extra hugs and kisses to compensate for my utter lack of creative genius. Hopefully that will be enough?

It was so good to see Rachel and her husband Paul, too. It kind of broke my heart a little to see how much Mary Bullock instantly loved them, and then to think how seldom we get to see each other. I wish we were next door neighbors.

Plus then I could just send MB over to play in Riley's playroom. Wink!

Thanks for having us, sweet friends!

Starting the Weekend with a Splash

Mary Bullock and a few of her baby friends hit the zoo early this morning, before the rush and before temperatures started soaring. We saw all the usual suspects and then hit the splash park, which we'd never done before. Major success. As my friend Leigh explained, it's all the fun of the pool, but you don't have to worry about drowning!

I sent a few of these pictures to Lee sitting at his desk at work, and he responded: "Lucky ducks." But it's not luck that enables us to do fun things like splash in the park at the zoo on a Friday morning. It's hard work--specifically, his hard work that allows us to do these things.

So, thank you, HBIC. Your sacrifice is never far from our hearts. :)

Jiggity Jig/Jog

[So, Lee and I have a disagreement that perhaps you can weigh in on. Did your grandparents ever sing "home again, home again jiggity jig [jog]"when you were little?

Well MY grandmother always said jiggity JIG, which makes perfect sense to me, and Lee's grandmother always said jiggity JOG.

Please settle this dispute for us before Mary Bullock ends up very confused.]

Anyway, I'm back from Nashville! It was a great weekend that started out with the most interesting seatmates on my flight. I ended up with these six roses,

one for each of the six of us. The woman who got the rest of them was the girlfriend/ex-wife of one of my seatmates. I told you it was interesting.

The rest of Friday night was spent squealing with laughter at decibels that I'm pretty sure only dogs can hear. I think we had some wine. Rachel, do you remember if we had any wine?

Saturday involved stuffing ourselves silly at Monell's, shopping in Franklin, cupcakes, and naps. Sadly, we are not the spry young women we used to be.

We also went to the Help Haiti Live concert on Saturday night at the Ryman.

 

What an awesome concert at an awesome venue! Ya'll. We got to see Alison Krauss and Union Station. We were in the balcony, but it still felt really close. [I think that makes Alison and me BFFs now.] And I don't know if you saw my facebook status, but Taylor Swift was sitting in the audience a few rows away.

So, an amazing weekend with the girls. And, I have to tell you that Lee did an amazing job with Moon Beam this weekend. They went to the Jacksonville Arboretum, explored the Cummer Museum, and I somehow managed to come home to a clean house. Lee says it was easy peasy.

I told him I would take that under advisement.

Making Progress

This year, instead of exchanging gifts with our dear friends, we all gifted each other with food, drink, laughter, and the usual totally inappropriate conversation in the form of a progressive dinner. It was a lot of work and logistical maneuvering since most of us have young children, but it was a great time! [I suggested skipping it all and going to the spa next Christmas, but I was voted down. So it must have been OUTSTANDING actually. Because the spa is nice.]

Round 1: Cocktails and Hors d'Oeuvres

The signature cocktail: Limoncello, Prosecco & Raspberries. Yum!  And also possibly the cause of my pounding head this morning.

Round 2: Dinner

[Dinner was at our house, which is why there were no posts from me from Friday till now.]

No pictures of the food...it wasn't that pretty anyway. It's hard to make a complicated dish when you're going to be at someone else's house for two hours before dinner. But it was yum, which is good, since we have enough leftovers to feed the neighborhood [come on over!].

Round 3: Dessert

Meg's Rum Roll was delicious. I'll have to coax the recipe out of her if I ever get up the nerve to try it. 

Even when the wine wore off, we had to agree that it was one of the best Christmas parties ever. If you were there, please excuse the fat sloppy kiss I probably planted on your face.

It was only because I love you.