A Beautiful Day

It's so beautiful outside today and I had to run to Target to get a refill on my steroid cream, so I took the camera with me to look for beautiful sites.

Go check out my picture blog if you'd like to see what we found..

My Birthday Weekend

Turning 30 was very emotional for me. I knew it would be. It really made me reflect on my twenties. On my decisions. My life. It's a lot to take in. How different things are now versus how things were when I entered the last decade. At twenty, I was a completely different person than I am now. My life barely resembled what it is now. For some reason, all these thoughts flooded my brain in the days leading up to my birthday, but Saturday, it really all came to a head.

Anyway, I'm great now, but Saturday was a lot. I'm so thankful that some of my life-long girlfriends were here to celebrate with me. There is something to be said about having a great group of friends that you have been friends with for 18 years. They're just irreplaceable. It was such an incredible day that they gave me and I will really be eternally grateful to them. I would've been a mess had I been home alone.

We talked, reminisced, listened to oldies, ate mexican food, and drank yummy Pomegranate Martinis. It was really one of the best days I've had. Truly. It was.

Here we are after a few drinks, playing with my lights and all the cool new backgrounds Jackie got me for my birthday.... I will treasure this picture FOREVER....


I think she's so beautiful... naturally, just so beautiful...



And here's Michelle in Emma's bumblebee wings... this really sums up her personality to a tee.. LOL... she was making us all crack up all day with her southern/valley girl talk.. and if you look really close, you can see the top of the martini glass at the bottom left of the picture... :)

Sara Beth, Star, and Georgia... I'll love you girls forever....

~ Lucy :)

Then Sunday, I went to my grandma's house for my birthday dinner... Here's Emma and Mama Peggy swingin on the front porch...

And my cousin, Stewart, with Noah, who is again showing off his clapping skills. It's his favorite thing ever...

The tin man that hangs in my grandma's flower beds.. isn't he cute?

And they just look so in love... :)

My beautiful sister, Megan... she's sixteen, I'm thirty... WHAT. ever.

Gorgeous Daffodils...

It was a really great birthday weekend and I am now happy to report that I have embraced thirty. I really don't think turning forty will be nearly as hard as thirty has been for me.

I'm ready for the next ten years now!!!

Stuff..

Noah's been pulling up to standing on his own for a couple of weeks now and I've been meaning to post about it, but well....

These pics also show his handsome new little man haircut...

He is so interested in whatever his big sister is doing. Always right in her face, trying to figure it out...

As always.. I just wanna eat him...

He has the cutest crawl... he uses his forearms instead of crawling up on his hands. It's precious, but he picks up every little piece of anything laying on the floor with his shirt...

Okay, that's it!!

Kennedy Home

My granny grew up in an orphanage in LaGrange called Kennedy Home. My whole life, her main topic of conversation has been all her stories from growing up in the orphanage. I love these stories, most of which I've heard 5,000 times each, and I could probably recite them almost as well as she does.

So, around Christmas, as we were driving to Cracker Barrel for brunch (as we do 2 or 3 times a week) she was telling me one of these beloved stories. I told her I wanted to go soon to the orphanage to get some pictures of her there, so I'd always have them for my memories...

Thursday, we took a day trip to the orphanage and even though everything was dead and gloomy looking, we did manage to get some good pictures.

Here are a few of my favorites...

I think this house is absolutely gorgeous... if I lived here, I would REALLY feel like a queen! :)

But, back to history, this is where the person IN CHARGE lives...

This is the only dormitory that my grandma actually lived in as a child that is still standing. I put a vintage finish on it, because I thought it was quite appropriate...

My beautiful granny with Emma...

My love...

The princess posing by a big ol' tree...

I think we're going to take another trip there in the spring/summer when everything is alive, blooming, and vibrant!

Noah's 1st REAL Haircut

Well, I did the first major cut.. the cutting of the baby curls, but my sister, Heather, shaped it up and made him look like such a handsome little man yesterday.

I know most of you can't believe I did this so early, at only 9 months, but he has so much hair! It was hanging in his eyes constantly and I just couldn't take that. I'm really glad I did it now, because it really looks so good!

Noah with Aunt Heather...

"Hey, Mom, whatcha doin back there??"

"500 pictures... REALLY, is that necessary?"

I LOVE this one.. if you click on it to make it bigger, you can see the little snips of hair flying out from the scissors!

All the ladies in the salon just loved him!

I couldn't beleive how well he did! He sat right there for her the whole time. Never fussed or moved at all! I wonder if he'll always be this cooperative for his haircuts...

Life's Lessons

My friend Amy posted a blog this past week on this topic, so I hate to steal it, but it's so appropriate for the week I've had.

I've been such a horrible blogger this week, but it has truly been a week like no other.

This week I:

1. Discovered what a "true" friend is and how even when you think people love you and care about you, that they often have other, sinister motives festering against you in their brains, regardless of what they say to your face.

2. Because of the above, I have realized how much I love the friends who are genuine, loving, and caring... the ones that will pick you up when you're at your lowest of lows.

3. Got to spend THREE days with a genuine, true friend, who I absolutely adore. She let me take 5 million pictures of her (she does love being the model, though), some of which are a late Valentine's present for her hubby, some of which were just purely for fun!

4. Had my heartbroke a million times over, BUT received so much love from those who care that it was actually a good thing. It showed me... oh, yes... it showed me...

5. Because of this week... I will ALWAYS be ecstatic for all the accomplishments of my friends and family members, regardless of any extenuating circumstances...

6. And, no matter how positive and wonderful you may think something is, you can always count on someone making it into something ugly and negative. Gotta just look past those!

Here are some pictures of my GORGEOUS friend Michelle...

It almost feels like cheating when you get great pictures of someone who just naturally radiates beauty and kindness...

I'm so thankful she was here for me when I needed my friends the worst.. I love you, girl!

On another note... I'm still trying to name the BLOG that I'm going to use to post PICTURES!

What is in the front of my mind is... GRACIE JAMES

I love it... I think it sounds very trendy, which is my goal for anything I do... I love it, because its' Emma's and Noah's middle names.

My only issue with this is that I very much intend to have a third baby, and I don't want to immediately give this child a reason for needing therapy as an adult.

SO.... do you love it or hate it?

PLEASE tell me... even if you don't know me... I need as much feedback as I can possibly get!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tony spoiled us very rotten this Valentine's Day. Emma and I both got huge boxes yesterday. Hers had this ginormous teddy bear and little red roses, which she LOVED. She loves getting flowers so much. Everytime she walks by them in the kitchen, she talks about how beautiful they are.

Admiring her roses...

Aren't they gorgeous?

I also got this beautiful star Tiffany necklace that matches my star drop earrings I got for Christmas. Isn't it so pretty? I love stars...

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!!!

Playin with Photoshop

Emma looks kinda sad, but really, she was just sleepily watching The Goodnight Show.

Noah was not cooperating. I was taking these on the new black background and this is pretty much the only one where I could get him to look at me...

Too Excited for Words

I cannot contain my excitement, so I must write an entry about this...

You already know (well, you should) that Tony got me my awesome camera for Mother's Day last year and since, at the time, I had a brand new baby and was getting used to now having two children instead of the one, I've just been piddling with it ever since.

Well, I am now ready to learn more about the actual art of photography. I've joined the Mission 24 blog on here and I've also joined a forum called Clickin Moms. Carrie told me to join that and I'm really learning a lot from reading what those girls do everyday. Not to mention how much I've learned from talking to Carrie about it everyday. I am so thankful to her and my friend, Amy, as they have definitely been my inspiration for wanting to turn this hobby of mine into something more.

NOW I am so happy to report that I have my FIRST photoshoot scheduled. My friend Michelle wants me to do boudoir shots of her for her husband for Valentine's Day. We're actually doing them the weekend after Valentine's Day, but they're still going to be his present.

My hope is that we will be able to do them without laughing. She's a person who laughs a lot and I know if she starts laughing, I'll start laughing and lord.. it could end up taking a while... LOL

I am so glad that we're doing it next weekend, though, and not this, because my new lens (that is actually my birthday present) is due to come in Friday. I ordered it last night and I am so super excited about it! I hope that I do a good job for her, because I know I'm going to be so scared of doing something to screw it all up! LOL

If there are any of them that she wouldn't care if the world saw, I'll post them, but odds are, she won't want me to post them, so the first shoot will probably be a secret. :)

We Should be Quarantined and Other STUFF!

According to Tony, our whole family (well, the members that are currently present in the house, i.e. Me, Emma, Noah, and Marley) needs to be quarantined. Reason Being-- In the past month, we have suffered the following:

1. Emma waking up on a Saturday Night sometime around the middle of January.. let's just say the 10th (I'm pretty sure this is accurate, I just looked at a calendar)... throwing up her insides and a sky-high fever. This turned into a bad cold... and I woke up that Thursday morning with the same thing, only about ten times worse (thank GOD I got it to this extreme and not either of my children). I thought I was dying. It was so bad that I didn't blog for about two weeks **gasp!!** The dying part of this funk that I contracted from my little beauty lasted about two days, after I was done dying, I was just really sick for about two weeks... and even now, I still have congestion lingering from this funky funkness. Emma's all well, I'm happy to report.

2. I forgot to mention that the BEST.. oh, yes, BEST... part of this funkness was that we both had horrible sores in our noses with scabs so massive, they took up the entire area of our nostrils. Isn't that a nice visual?

3. Now, during this time, thank goodness, my little love muffin (Noah) steered clear of all our funky germs. Not sure how, he makes a point of sticking his tongue in my mouth during at least two or three kisses a day. However, he did randomly spike a few fevers and have a few snotty days throughout.

4. Sometime in January, I also started getting these little tiny, itchy bumps on my right elbow. I showed them to my doctor when I went in during my dying and he told me to just put cortizone on there.. I did that, it didn't help and only continued to get worse.. and I finally got some steroid cream today.

5. About two weeks ago, our dog, Marley, got beaten up by some wild animal in the woods behind our house to near death. I really wish I knew what did that to him. If you read my old blog on myspace, you may remember that it could have been anything from a wild dog to a coyote, a bobcat, or even a bear.. yes, we have bears back there.. but they've never appeared outside the woods...

6. Last week.. Noah's eye.. you all already read about that.... then this past weekend, he developed a little rash on the bottom of his belly that I took him BACK in for today after my appointment.

7. Then yesterday... I was sitting at my computer (of course... it was NAPTIME!!) and I heard the chime go off that signals me that one of the exterior doors has been opened. Well, since I wasn't expecting anyone, it alarmed me. So I stopped. "Mama??" I yelled out. No response. So, I got up from my seat and hobbled across the bonus room... my right foot was asleep and I was trying to wake it up to get ready to go down the stairs. No such luck. So, I start hobbling down the stairs. I had a really bad feeling about this, I could FEEL that something was about to happen, but I kept going.. I didn't know if there was an AXE MURDERER in my house with my baby sleeping down there, so I must go DEFEND my household... right??? Whatever, I would so scream, grab the baby and run... So, I kept hobbling.. two steps after the bad feeling.. my leg gave out, foot rolled to the side, and BAM! I SPRAINED MY ANKLE.

I almost passed out.

A wave of nausea rolled from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

My vision went black with little white flecks of snow spotting up sporadically in front of my eyes.

Emma was behind me and I went limp. She immediately jumped to my rescue. Thank goodness there was no Axe Murderer in my downstairs, because I was completely unable to fight anybody off.

She literally held me up as I regained my vision, gasped for breath, and grabbed a Ziploc and filled it full of ice for my now crippled ankle.

She was so sweet. She helped me to the couch and made sure the ice didn't fall off my leg. This is the end result... Isn't that egg on the side of my foot just so attractive? I really think so...

So, because of all of this, Tony told me today that he thinks we should just be quarantined for a while to prevent us from contracting any more funk or being involved in anymore catastrophes.

What do you think?


And today, I had my yearly appointment with my OB/GYN, so thank goodness school is not a mandatory activity for Emma at this stage. She went with me to help her handicapped mother out with the baby brother. Very good. She is the biggest helper... really, she is...

I had the hardest time cramming her feet into her shoes this morning, so upon leaving the doctor's office, we went to Shoe Carnival (where it's always buy one get one half off, that's what I'M talkin about!) and got some new kicks. She is in an 11 1/2!!! She's only four!! These things look like boats on her feet, but so super cute!


And she is so on top of her chores! In her daddy's absence, she takes out the trash AND she feeds the dog!

Now, this is the best.... Noah (8 1/2 month old NOAH) ate his first piece of pizza right by himself tonight... the WHOLE piece! I have pinched off little pieces for him in the past, but tonight he kept reaching for it, so finally I let him hold it and he just tore it UP!

Gosh, he's the cutest thing ever...

He looks so much older than 8 months to me here...

I think he's tired of me taking pictures of his messy face.... that is SUCH a Candace look he's giving me...

As a side note: I'm sure my cousin Carrie ( you remember, the super fab one) probably wishes I would get quarantined... without a phone.... I have to be verging on driving her INSANE with all my camera and editing questions... holy cow, they're just never-ending....