A Visit to the Farmer's Market

The Charleston Farmer's Market is open for the season! Saturday mornings downtown at the farmer's market are seriously some of my favorite times. We had a great morning there and got a bunch of delicious produce for, like, $13 - you can't beat that!

               Happy Easter weekend everybody! Hope you enjoy special times with loved ones!

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

This may be a bit of a random post, but today I am going to talk about things I have been loving lately. Here goes.

#1 ~  Twizzlers. Seriously, I cannot get enough of this yummy candy. I don't even want to know what they are made of or how many calories are in them. And I have lost count of how many I have eaten in the last month. Oh, and they go really well with a nice cold can of chemicals - aka, Diet Coke, my best friend.

#2 ~ The fact that Liam finally decided to eat solid foods. He was in this weird stage where he wanted nothing to do with baby food but was still choking and gagging on "real" food. I was going a little crazy wondering if he was going to just waste away when, lo and behold, about a week ago he just started eating! Cantelope, avocado, turkey, grapes, turkey bacon, chicken, french fries (well, he's been doing that awhile) and almost anything that I have on my plate that he wants to try. Here is a picture I snapped at Chik-Fil-A last friday of him chowing down on some of Noah's kid's meal.

#3 ~ Barre Evolution. I signed up for these classes at a studio over in Mt. Pleasant in the hopes of doing something to improve my overall strength. Well, let me tell you I think we have a winner. The class is like a combo of pilates/yoga/ballet barre work with some good old fashioned things like squats and push-ups thrown in for good measure. It is one solid hour of hurt - but in the good way! I can easily see myself becoming addicted so I may have to start buying lottery tickets so that I can have a financial windfall and afford all the classes I want to take.

#4 ~ Whole Foods. Let me tell you, I had gotten to the point where I HATED grocery shopping. The mere thought of going to Publix yet again made me throw up in my mouth. But Whole Foods? Well, lets just say that whoever is behind the marketing or merchandising or whatever you want to call it is a genius! The produce section makes me so happy every time I walk in. And they have coffee, and gelato, and all manner of awesome prepared foods just waiting for me so I can even eat while I shop. All organic and pesticide free of course. So I can feed my family the right things and feel all virtuous at the same time. And let's face it, if the only way that I could get all that wholesome, chemical free food was to shop at some random market that smelled of patchouli and was run by an aging hippie named Sunshine then you can bet that my family would probably just ingest pesticide. (Relax! I said probably.) Oh, and according to Wes, "Everyone there is really cute!" He's right. I get tons of fashion inspiration from my fellow yuppy shoppers. In all seriousness though, it has been good. Noah is even interested in all the fruits and veggies and wants to help me pick things out. (Something he never wanted to do in our previous store, with the mediocre produce.)

#5 ~ And speaking of Noah, my last favorite thing would be titled, "All the crazy things that come out of  Noah's mouth".  For instance, in the above picture he is holding a cucumber which he insisted was a pickle. He kept saying in his loudest voice, "Mama, I will hold the pickle!" I kept shushing him cause I feared the judgement of all the other wholesome food consumers whose kids were sure to know the basics of produce at a very early age. But no amount of convincing made him call it anything other than a pickle. What else?.... Oh yeah, he still calls a propeller a "crapeller" and he calls the baby monitor the "thermometer" and the other day he put his arms up in the classic bicep curl and announced that he had "Muscle Sprouts"! My favorite though was yesterday morning when I was hurrying him along on our way out the door and he stopped, put his hands on his hips, and said "Oh Mama! With you it's always rush, rush, rush!"

So that's it friends. In no particular order, those are all the things that make me smile these days!

Dear Liam...

As of Friday, April 15th, you are one. ONE!!! As Noah has been saying, "He is not big enough to be one." I feel the same way bud! It seems like just yesterday I met you and you looked like this...

                And now you look like this... no longer a baby, on your way to little boy.

We celebrated you turning one by having a little family celebration on Friday night. Uncle Cy, Aunt Carissa, and Gemma were there.

                                                            As were Nana and Pops.

And of course,  Aunt J. She wouldn't have missed her Chunky's party for anything! (I am still scared she may make good on her threat of grabbing you and heading for Canada one day).  Since you are only one  and don't understand all the ritual surrounding birthdays just yet, Aunt J and Noah helped you blow out the candles on your cake.

Oh, and speaking of your cake. I ordered one from Publix - because they are so good - and requested it in the shape of the number one. Long story short, my friend Katy picked it up for me Friday afternoon while she was out and dropped it off to me. She had verified that the name was spelled correctly and everything so I thanked her and went to put the cake in the fridge. Good thing I snuck a peek cause it looked like this....

That is most definitely a backwards one! I called Katy and told her about it and we had a good laugh. She asked if I was going to take it back but I was too scared that I didn't really have enough time to get another one and its not like it was inedible or anything. "You just paid $30 for a backwards one!" she told me. I know, but now we always remember the birthday where Liam had the wonky cake.

The good news is that is tasted delicious and there was no mess up with the smash cake. That was just perfect. Liam, buddy, you totally went for it with that smash cake!

After the bath you opened your presents. What I mean by that is Noah and I opened your presents while you crawled around examining random bits of paper and packaging. No matter. You were happy exploring and you would have thought it was your brother's birthday by how excited he was to unwrap your gifts. Win-win for everyone!

 So, now you are a big boy Liam. We love you so much sweet boy and are so grateful that one year ago you came into our lives to complete our family!

Our Week

We have had some seriously busy (but fun) weeks lately, and this past week was no exception. First of all, Bebe was in town so Noah was in heaven getting loved on and spoiled. Also, the weather was gorgeous and we got to spend a lot of time outside. My Mom had even set up a photo session for Liam's one year old pictures which we did at Hampton Park, downtown, during the most beautiful morning. I will post some of those on here later - they turned out fabulous!

Noah and I spent several afternoons outside enjoying the sunshine while Liam napped. If you ever need photographic evidence that he is my son you can refer to the following picture.

On Thursday night I got to go out to dinner with my Mom, my sis, and my Mom's - boyfriend's - daughter, Jamie. (Did you follow that? BTW, Jamie is the aforementioned photographer who snapped all the great shots of Liam!) Jamie and Jessie both had birthdays this past week so we went to Taco Boy to celebrate with margaritas (per my sister's request). Here we are laughing at my Mom as she struggled to take our picture with my iPhone.....

We are laughing (or in Jessie's case looking extremely confused) because she totally had the phone backwards as she shot the picture and her first one ended up being this....

I guess when you still carry around a flip phone that does not even have a full keyboard for texting, you can easily get confused when taking pictures on "fancy" phones. Time to join the rest of the world and get a smart phone Mom! Anyway, we had a great time with lots of laughs. Here is a picture of the laughing as it continued on the drive home.

I should mention that there is another, funnier, picture of Jessie and Jamie but due to the fact that this is a family blog I won't post it. Let's just say that in the Taco Boy parking lot there exists a sign that reads, "Lock Your Coche" and Jessie may have misread the words lock and coche. That is all I will say about that!

And, last but not least, rounding out our week was last night's Pajama Rama at the Children's Museum. It really turned out to be a great success - which was a huge relief to all those involved in the planning of it.  My eyes have been opened to all the work that goes into planning fundraisers of any kind. It is no small feat, but that makes it all the more satisfying when the event turns out so well. Wes, Bebe, Jessie and the boys came to enjoy the festivities. I spent most of the time working in the pillowcase decorating room which was sponsored by a really cool guy!

Noah ran around and had a blast with his buddies and this morning asked me when we could go to the Pajama Rama again!

I am tired just writing this post! So I am going to go take my Sunday afternoon nap. (Which will no doubt be interrupting at least 5 times before I give up, but you gotta try right?!)

Bridge Run Weekend

This weekend was crazy busy. In addition to the birthday festivities for Aunt J, it was also Bridge Run weekend! We headed downtown on Friday afternoon to start the fun with the Kids Run and Expo. Before the races Noah enjoyed jumping on the jump castles and waiting in line for a balloon animal.

That is supposed to be a lion in case you are wondering. A blue lion (of course). If it looks like a dog that's because it is, and the balloon guy managed to convince Noah that is was indeed a lion.

Noah was registered for the under 5 quarter mile run. As usual it was mass chaos and very crowded so all the parents ended up running with their kids, including me. Of course the fleece that I was wearing made my unexpected run a bit toasty but that is beside the point! We started in the back and Noah was very hesitant at first. I encouraged him to pass people if he felt like it and slowly we began moving up. In fact, as we circled the lake we moved from the very back to the front pack of about 8 or 9 kids. Right about that point was when Noah told me he wanted to walk.

"That's fine buddy, but just so you know, we are in the front and the finish line is right up there."

He looked where I was pointing, smiled, and instead of walking sped up to pass a couple more people before we crossed the finish line. I was so proud of him!

              Here we are coming through the finish chute....and here he is holding his medal.....

And, though he did not run or anything, here is a picture of Liam just for the sake of cuteness!

                     By the way, how cute are his new shoes?! He looks like such a big kid!

On Saturday morning I woke up bright and early (actually it was dark and early at 4:30am) and headed out with my Mom to the big event. We waited for a couple hours in the cold but I found a Dunkin Donuts and got some coffee so it wasn't so bad. After awhile we lined up in our corrals - my Mom walked and I ran - and got ready for the start.

Confession time. I could not have been less ready to run 6.2 miles over a 4% incline. My running as taken a serious back seat lately and I have only been getting about 8 miles a week with none of those runs being longer than 4 miles. I haven't actually run anything over 4 miles since November. So, all of that to say that I was not expecting to do well at all. In light of that I didn't even run with my watch so as not to stress myself out looking at my slow miles.

It was hard. That bridge was incredibly steep to my under trained legs and I wanted to walk so bad. But I remembered how Noah refused to walk and vowed that if he could do it so could I. I may not be able to run fast but I was going to run all of it darn it! And I did. I crossed the finish line and my legs felt like lead and I didn't even look at the clock cause I was sure my time was horrible. Even so, I was proud that I didn't quit. My feet and legs hurt bad by the way!

Ouch!

The funny thing was, I checked my results today and saw that ran it in 1 hour flat. (1:00:11, to be exact.) That is not my idea of my best race, but I must admit that I was very proud of that time given how ill prepared I was. I am now inspired to train for a race for real and do really well. I see some more racing in my future! 

And last but not least, (and speaking of under trained) this morning I joined my mother in law for the After the Bridge Run Ride. Yes, despite the fact that I have only been on a bike twice in the last 2 months I signed up for a 30 mile bike ride. (I know, I smoke crack.) It was mighty slow, but we finished and I did not get run over by an eighteen wheeler, so I consider it a success. 

And now, my tired legs are off to make some brownies to reward myself for all my hard work!

Happy Birthday Aunt J

Today is my sister's birthday and you won't believe what happened! We were walking down the street and she spotted a hundred dollar bill on the ground. She decided to split it with me and we went on a shopping spree!

So, you don't believe it, huh? Good....April Fools!

Today really is Jessie's birthday and we really did hang out this morning. Liam and I took her to her favorite place for a birthday treat - Menchies. I had never been before (seeing as how I live West of the Ashley) but she works nearby and goes all the time. It was just as yummy as she said it would be. Although, I will admit to seeing the flavor signs and getting confused for a moment.

I honest to goodness thought that the sign that said "Original Tart" actually said Original Fart. That's an interesting flavor, I thought to myself.....I never claimed to be smart!

Anyway, I decided just to be safe I would go with the coconut flavor, topped with dark chocolate chips and graham cracker. Yummmmm!

Liam was a huge fan as well.......

Jessie was very excited to be at Menchies, especially in the company of her favorite almost one year old, Chunky D. And, since it was her birthday, I let her get seconds AND purchase a packet of Menchies silly bands. 

Look how happy they made her! 

Don't worry, I got her a real present too. I will give it to her tonight - but my guess is that she may end up being most excited about the stuff from Menchies.