Tour of Ford's Nursery

Lacey is still in the decorating and organizing stage of Ford's nursery.  I went over there to help her go through clothes and give her some input on what she NEEDS and what she may want to return for other things.  There are only so many baby towels he needs!  You know, that type of stuff. 

I snapped a few pictures while I was there.

Here is looking in from the doorway.  Lots of things still need to be hung and the mattress has yet to be put in the crib. 

So if anybody is curious, the bedding and curtains are from www.laylagrace.com.  The crib is Pottery Barn.  She is also getting a gliding chair and carpet....should be arriving soon.  And the chandelier is from At Home.  She thinks it's an Aiden Grey. 



Below is a headboard  that Lacey upholstered herself with pewter velvet fabric.  She covered the bench herself.  AND she painted the painting.  Did I mention I have one crafty sister??

Here is one of the chest of drawers.  She had this for the longest time and hated it.  So she stripped it,  painted and glazed it.  Our grandfather built a (removable) railing to go on top and it will be the changing table.  She has yet to put a pad in.   :-)

Here is the area to the left of the crib.  Another smaller chest of drawers that she painted and glazed.  On top are miscellaneous items.  She plans to hang pictures of her and Mac and the picture with a bunch of old pictures is Mac's great grandfather...the original Donald Russell.  (Correct me if I'm wrong here Lacey!)

On either side of the crib, our grandfather Poppop built some custom shelves!

Here is what Ford will wear home from the hospital!

So sweet...I love all detail!

It was fun just going through baby things.  Making lists of what she needs, labeling drawers, making return piles.  I'm glad we did, because we realized she needed baby hangers!  You just forget about some of the little things. 

I also went through my stuff and pulled out all of the tiny little outfits that I borrowed from my mom that my little brother wore!  Happy to pass them onto Ford. 

So that is the beginning.  Hopefully everything else will come together and I can post more pictures when it's done. 

She will have 9 weeks left come Wednesday.  Or 2 months from Thursday.  Which is the 21st!  WOW, can't believe it's so soon.  Things are really winding down now!!

Club Pub

It's been a while hasn't it!  Well, I had a pretty good day yesterday at Publix and wanted to share.

Pictures doe NOT include the 2 bottles of ALL detergent I got for $1.99 each!

It wasn't a huge trip.  The only things I did NOT have coupons for were the cotton balls (the girls wanted to paint their toenails/fingernails), the milk, and the eggbeaters.  (I've been eating southwestern egg wraps for breakfast lately and they were on sale!)

Total before coupons/sales:  $86.10

Total after coupons/sales:  $24.32

Total savings of : $61.78!!!!

I think I was most excited about the pack of Sharpies - it was $2.50 - which is a great price for them!  The 4 pairs of scissors were FREE, the crayons were $0.34 and I had a $1 coupon which means I "made" $0.66 for buying them.  The Spenda packs were $0.19/each - AWESOME price!  2000 flushes were $0.74/each, chex mix/bugles $0.29/each, pack of noxema razors were $0.49, the hot pocket snackers were $0.67/each.

Like I said, it wasn't a huge trip, but we got some school supplies, and always needed detergent.  And with all four kids in tow, I don't have the time/patience to do too big of trips. 

Lil: The Smartest Poodle Ever :)

Well, I told you I'd tell y'all about Lil, so here it goes.

My first "daughter".  Who's been demoted 4 times and definitely knows it.

Anyway, I got a wild hair one day in college and decided to buy a dog.  A puppy really.  I knew I wanted a purebred toy poodle.  It's what I grew up with and loved.  I called around and found a breeder in Memphis.  I drove the hour up there to pick her out.  All by myself.  ($%*??? what was I thinking?)

Paid the $$ for her.  Money I shouldn't have been using to buy a dog.  I don't even think I can bring myself to tell you how much I paid for her.  YIKES!

Drove home with my new little un-named puppy.  To an 2nd floor apartment.  With room mates.  In a complex that didn't allow dogs.  Again, looking back, I was CRAZY!  I thought it was a great idea! (sarcasm)

It took a while to name her.  I think the name Lil evolved from calling her "Little Monster".  I don't even remember decided to just make it Lil.  It's just what she became.  (*My brother in law called her "Little" for the longest time.  He gets it right now!)

It only took about a week or two to realize I was in over my head.  So much, that I actually called the breeder and asked to return her.  Well, I didn't but was not the best pet owner.  She stayed in my room, and tore up the carpet at the door.  I was horrible at house breaking her.  I would take her out on the porch!!  ????

I think eventually my roomates were fed up and the complex caught on and said something to me.  So she stayed at Robert's place which was in the middle of nowhere.  Plus he had a lab that she hung out with.

She was the craziest little poodle.  She would run off ANYWHERE chasing birds.  In fact, in the middle of Robert's marriage proposal in the Grove, she ran off chasing a runner and he had to run and go get her.

She was SUPER smart.  As most poodles are.  She knew tons of tricks really soon.  I enjoyed teaching her those.  She would also fetch anywhere.  We would take her to the dog park and she would fetch better than the labs all the frat boys were trying to train.  She once tried to "fetch" the biggest tree limb in the pond.  It was 10x bigger than her but she grabbed it and dragged it as far as she could.

Eventually, she calmed down and we had 4 kids.  She's been great but she's approaching her 10th birthday and isn't showing much grace towards the kids anymore.  Well, Landon really.  They don't get a long really well.  But she's not aggressive or anything. 




.

Oh, I almost forgot.  She got pregnant right before we moved to Birmingham.  And had her babies on Valentines Day!!  I delivered them too!


Olivia would play with them.  They were pretty cute, but we gave them all away.  

We tried once more to breed her with another toy poodle but were unsuccessful.  :(




She really is the smartest dog though.  Here is Robert doing a trick with her a couple of years ago.  Watching this I realize she's put on a couple pounds.  We used to think it was her hair but when we cut her, WOW.  Notsomuch.

Lil has been a great dog.  She now keeps to herself most of the time.  She doesn't run away or act out anymore.  She still knows most of her tricks too.  I know we will miss her when she's gone.

Oh, one more thing.  I know we have lots of "L" names in our family.  Especially when it comes to Lil and Lillian.  But the one thing I kept saying was, "I'm not going to not name my child Lillian just because I have a dog named Lil.  Lillian will be around a lot longer than Lil!"  Sorry Lil! :-)  But we love ya!

8 Decades...What Do You Do?

Even though we celebrated Sugar's 80th birthday last weekend, this past Saturday was her ACTUAL birthday.  So what do you do after 8 decades???

You ride 4-wheelers, sea doos, and go tubing!  Right!?

Photo courtesy of Lovey's iPhone

We waited for Sugar to come by on the tube....

A little friendly, parent supervised, wrestling.  Robert was keeping score.  Can't remember who one.  But it was funny.

Here she comes!

Do you know of any 80 year old great grandmothers that tube?!??

"Hey Shu Shush!"

Go Sugar!!

Taking a dip.

After a day floating in the water, we decided to meet up with friends and tube/wake board/slalom/ski. 

Don't these two look so much alike here??  So cute.

Then we headed back to our place to cook out and ski some more.  The lake was so smooth on our way home, we decided to book it!

Lil wouldn't even open her eyes.  I know I've never told y'all about her, I promise I've had a post waiting for MONTHS about Lil.  Maybe I'll post it this week since I can't edit pictures - and if I can't process them, what's the point in taking a ton anyway.

SLOW DOWN ROBERT!!

I'm hoping we can get Landon wake boarding one day!  I think learning it young is probably MUCH easier.

I actually slalomed this weekend.  It took my I think 3 or 4 tries to get up!!  AWFUL!  But once I was up, it was good.  I have no proof though so I'll probably do it again before summer's up.  I try and do it at least once a summer!

BUMMED

Y'all, it was time.  My computer just HAD it up to HERE with me.  I have a mac mini (which I LOVE) and it's 5 years old.  I guess on it's 5th birthday (pretty close, I got it summertime) it threw a temper tantrum.  Well, I guess I exacerbated it a little.  I was trying to free up space (down to 1 GB) and must have deleted some important things. 


After trying to repair with my Snow Leopard disk, I was forced to wipe it clean and start over.  All my files that I would have been upset about losing are on my external drive.  Music/movies/PICTURES!


But it's all the little "customized" settings I had.  All my bookmarks - even though most of them are saved in google reader and my brain.  The kids bookmark is gone - they'll have to rebuild that one. 



And also all the websites I've asked my computer to "remember" for me.  GONE. 


So I'm being forced to start over.  Which is hard, but also, I think I needed it.  My computer is basically BRAND NEW.  With 51 GB of space now.  WOW.   Even thought that's relatively small for most computers.  Again, that's why I have a 500 GB external hard drive that is about 3/4's filled up!


I will probably cringe or cry a little when I realize what I "really" lost. 


Oh, and PHOTOSHOP!  :(  I used Photoshop and Bridge to edit my RAW pictures.  So I may just dabble with iPhoto and their RAW settings until I can get Photoshop back on. 


BUT I did manage to edit this weekends pictures before the big crash.  I will post soon!!