Quote for the day...

"That's not a bear, that's my stomach." Jimmy Kelley, III, referring to his tummy growling.

Amelia Turns One!!

We celebrated Amelia's first birthday this afternoon with both Ginny and Marty's families as well as family friends. The party was at Jimmy and Ginny's parents house and we had a great time. Yummy BBQ from Sandfly and of course cake and cupcakes from Bakers Pride. The theme of the party was cupcakes! The invitation and Amelia's dress both had cupcakes. Little Jimmy had such a hard time resisting the urge to open all of Amelia's presents but he really did a great job and realized that it was Amelia's birthday. As he was eating his cupcake (or at least eating the icing, I don't think he actually ate any of the cake!) he said "this is the best birthday ever!"

Notice the cute little cupcake hair bow

Mom and Dad

Cupcake dress and opening presents

I think Jimmy just stuck a finger in the cake

Dreams

Last night was the night for dreams! I woke up at 5 am to hear little Jimmy crying out in his sleep. He kept saying "I want my birthday cake" over and over again. I just rubbed his back and then just picked him up and rocked him back to sleep. I am sure that it was a nightmare to him as someone was probably trying to take his birthday cake which is something very important to 2 1/2 year olds! We've been celebrating birthdays a good bit lately. Had a birthday party last weekend, celebrated my niece Amelia's birthday on the 23rd and we are also celebrating her bday again this afternoon which means even more birthday cake!

I also had my first "baby" dream (or at least the first one I can recall). I remember having them a lot when I was pregnant with Jimmy but I think this is the first one of this pregnancy. I dreamed that I had given birth and gone home and had to come back to the hospital the next day and I had no idea whether it was a boy or a girl. Finally, when I got back to the hospital Jimmy told me it was a girl! I have been thinking boy the whole time while Jimmy has been thinking girl. Up until a couple of weeks strangers on the street have told me boy and then just last week my Dr. guessed girl and yesterday our pediatrician's nurse guessed girl. We'll just have to wait and see!

Pimp my Blog

As you can see, I decided to spruce up my blog a little bit. I was inspired by Courtney's blog so I went to Cutest Blog on the Block and found this free template. Then I went and edited some of the font colors to try and coordinate with the blog. Blogger actually recommended some colors that they thought would complement the template. Computers are so smart.

Show us your Life-Desserts

It's Friday at Kelly's Korner and today's "Show us Your Life" theme is Desserts. Dessert is not my specialty, I prefer cooking to baking. WHY BAKE WHEN YOU CAN BUY??!! In Savannah, we have several places to get some yummy desserts. These are my favorites:

TWO SMART COOKIES


Photo credit: www.twosmartcookies.com

The iced sugar cookies are my FAVORITE and come in all different shapes, themes and sizes. They also have an assortment of all other cookies too: chocolate chip, sugar and ginger (yum!) just to name a few. These are a staple for showers and birthday parties.

BAKER'S PRIDE
This is my go-to place for cakes. Here is a pic of Jimmy's cake from his 2nd birthday:



Here is a cute cake from a friend's birthday party last year:


Photo credit: Jennifer Mims

For other desserts I like the Fresh Market too!

Giddy Up!

We went to a fun birthday party on Saturday at Norwood Stables. It was for my friend/co-worker's daughters 3rd birthday! The kids got to play with bunnies, ferrets, kittens and a goat. The goat actually got out of the pen a few times and tried to join the kids and have some pizza! The best thing was the horse and pony rides! Jimmy got to ride his first horse. I think he liked it, though, he only did it once. I think he was more interested in the pizza, cake and "cowboy cookies." We took a friends daughter with us as well and I think it was her first time on a horse too but wasn't too fond of the "horse smell."

Show us Your Life-Dinner Recipes

I am once again participating in Kelly's Korner Friday and today's theme is dinner recipes. What a great idea! We all get stuck in a rut so it is nice to get some recommendations of tried and true recipes rather than searching aimlessly through a cookbook for something new only to be disappointed in the end! I always find that church, civic groups or school cookbooks are the best because they really do contain good recipes that are easy to make. My perfect week of cooking is to make something on Sunday that can be leftovers for Monday. Something easy on Tuesday (maybe soup and sandwich). I work Monday and Tuesdays all day so not much time once I get home to cook and we prefer not to eat too late. Wed and Thursday I try to make something yummy, lately it has been fish and Friday and Saturday are up in the air as we generally eat out one of those days.

The following recipe is from our church-Isle of Hope Methodist and their recent cookbook Mosses, Marshes and Memorable Meals. One of our church members, Martha Nesbitt is a well-known cook in the south and also has collaborated with Savannah's best known cook, Paula Deen.

Chicken Tetrazzini

1 (8 ounce) package thin spaghetti
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 onion, chopped
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1 cup sliced mushrooms (canned or fresh)
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup sherry (optional)
1 (8 ounce) package grated sharp cheddar cheese
6-8 green onions
1 (2 ounce) jar pimiento , chopped
3-4 cups cooked chicken breasts cut into pieces ( you could probably even use a rotiss. chicken)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook spaghetti 4 minutes after coming to a boil; drain and place in a greased 9x13 inch baking dish. Saute onions and green pepper in butter. Add mushrooms. Add flour and stir until smooth. Add milk and broth; cook and stir until thick. Stir in sherry. Add half of cheese and remaining ingredients to sauce and mix well. Spread chicken on top of spaghetti. Spoon mixure into baking dish on top of chicken. Top with remaining cheese and bake for 30 minutes.

This is great leftover, for large families, and can also be frozen.

One of my other easy go to faves is the frozen chicken pot pie at Fresh Market. It is yummy and costs around 10-12 dollars.

Joys of being a homeowner!

I came home yesterday from work to discover that our AC was broken. We called Coastal Air and they came out to check on it and they delivered the bad news...time to replace our 15 year old HVAC unit. I guess we had been heating and cooling on borrowed time but of course one of the biggest expenses of homeownership happens to occur at the worst time when I am 3 weeks from my due date and September can be just as warm as July or August. Luckily, the weather has been a little overcast the past couple of days and we just got some rain that the temp has stayed fairly cool (78 degrees) that we can at least sleep and be comfortable. In Savannah, you can't really wait until the spring to replace it because you may need AC on Christmas Day like we did last year! They will be here tomorrow (pending no issues in getting the equipment) and we can crank that baby up tomorrow night! It should also be more energy efficient so hope to save some $$$ on the electric bills which can get pretty pricey in Savannah in the summer.

The heat konked out on us when we lived in town on 52nd street. Luckily we still had the home warranty (we kept it for a couple extra years since the house was so old) and it was replaced with little cost to us so I guess we shouldn't complain, but I still will!

The cost, good God, I don't even want to say! All I can say is that I would much rather spend the money and be here:

Big Brother

In just a few short weeks Jimmy is going to be a big brother. I am not sure if he realizes it just yet! I got him the cutest big brother t-shirt from Backyard Baby. It is a great company founded by a friend in Savannah who is a SCAD grad and former professor. She specializes in kids personalized t-shirts (furry ones, too!) and accessories. Her website is currently under construction but will direct you to her temporary site so you can check out some of her designs. You bet I will post a pic of the new big brother soon!

Remembering...

Like everyone else today I am remembering 9.11.01. It is one of those dates that you will forever have etched in your mind as to where you were and what you were doing. I was at work at SCAD and was instant messaging my friend Whitney in Northern Virginia with the new and exciting AOL instant messaging service. We talked daily and she was the first person to tell me that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. I checked the internet and watched some primitive live video online. As the events of the day unfolded someone did bring a TV to work so we could watch what was going on. It was such a terrible day for our country and even more terrible for the families of the thousands of victims.

Labor Day Weekend

We had a great Labor Day weekend! Well I guess it could have been a little bit better if Georgia had won their game against Oklahoma State! They looked so good right at the beginning, but just couldn't pull it out in the end. I have to admit that I don't really keep up with Virginia football and can you really blame me!? They lost to William and Mary!!!! That is just pathetic. Virginia has too big of a football program to lose to a team like William and Mary. I hate for people to lose their jobs, but it might be time for a new coach!

Jimmy and Josh took little Jimmy and Katherine to the riverhouse for the day on Monday for their first fishing excursion. They all had a great time and Katherine got to try out her new Barbie fishing pole! They both "caught" a fish and reeled it in (with a little help from Josh). It sounds like they just enjoyed running around, drinking juice boxes, eating lollipops and fruit snacks. Sugar!!!

Show us your Life-School Pictures

It is once again Friday at Kelly's Korner and the "show us your life" theme is school pictures. Well, I don't have any old school pictures scanned in, but thanks to Facebook I was able to grab this photo from when I was in the 2nd grade at Hamilton Elementary. I am on the end of the table, far left, bottom. You can't miss the awesome bowl cut. I always wanted the long hair and pigtails but my mom said it was too hard to take care of and it would always be in my face.



I moved on from the bowl cut to a perm in the 4th or 5th grade. A home perm by my friends mom. I had the perm until middle school (complete with the big bangs, I was partial to half of my bang curled back and the other curled under) when I decided to get a short-short hair cut. Disaster! Then I wanted to grow it out so got another perm. Even worst disaster. By the time I got to high school I just wanted long straight hair! I did get some bangs my senior year.


Since we are on the subject of school pictures I thought I would add the pic Jimmy's teacher sent yesterday of his class at "circle time." Not really the best circle but I am sure by the end of the year they will have it down. I am sure the teacher is happy that they are all at least sitting down, much less in a circle!

A morning to myself.

Now that Jimmy is back in school I had a few hours to myself this morning. I went to Wal-Mart and actually had an enjoyable shopping and parking experience. Got everything I needed and picked up a cute Georgia t-shirt for Jimmy to wear this weekend for the big game, a Halloween t-shirt and then a cute pumpkin sleeper that I can put this new baby in for Halloween. Surprisingly, this is the FIRST thing that I have bought for the new baby. Not because I haven't wanted to but I keep thinking it will be a boy and that I will just use everything I used for Jimmy-clothes, bedding and the baby "stuff". I do need to get some BPA free bottles (which they came out with after Jimmy stopped using bottles).

I did buy a Thomas the Train potty seat. I REALLY want him to start potty training and he has gone on the little potty a few times but really is not all that interested. He keeps saying he will "try later." I feel like most of the kids his age are potty trained and maybe I am just feeling the pressure and he really isn't ready. The Thomas potty OR the Hershey kisses did not entice him. I guess I will "try later" too.

First Day of Preschool.

The first day of school went great! Jimmy dropped him off and although he would not pose for a picture (see below) there weren't too many tears shed in the morning. Jimmy picked him up and he said that he had fun at school and when asked what he did at school he said "I got M&M's!" That sounds like a pretty good day to me. The teacher sent an email saying they sang their ABC's, read a book, played on the playground, had a snack (they drink out of big boy cups!), did a couple of art projects and sang more songs. Sounds like a busy day!