Monday, February 28, 2011

Seven Doors

Audrey was reading in her bed the other night and Snow White was the bed time story of her choosing then. If any of you have ever had the privilege to hear her precious, angelic little voice reading a story you can just imagine how it sounded when I heard "And the seven doors were on their way home to college"!! I got a good laugh out of that one; it's definitely in her top 10 cutest things she's ever said!!



Friday, February 25, 2011

More Wedding Pictures

There is just something about New Orleans. Once you visit you want to go back again and again. There is an energy in the city that just cannot be explained. I know it's my husband's birth place and we go there quite often to visit family and such, so, naturally I would become fond of it over the years. But even before Jon and I met, I always had an affection for New Orleans. I had only been there twice as a child but it was always special to me, for what ever reason. (I guess my heart's always been with Jon!) Well, this wedding was and will be forever I guess a perfect memory in my mind, as well as for many others I am sure!!! It was so laid back and easy going. No one was stressed or running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Even though a few mishaps happened there was nothing catastrophic. And the only tears that were shed were joyful ones. Looking at the pictures, to me, it seems like we took a step back in time for this event. A classic southern wedding, for sure. And I reckon the jazz music that is constantly playing in my mind every time I look at pictures from this most special day helps with making it feel so classic, so vintage. I wonder if (other than the bride and groom of course) I'm the only one who wants to go back and experience this day every weekend?!!




Hughston, James and Harrison. Doesn't James look so
happy to be taking this picture!!


Playing Cinderella. Really they were.
Mid dance Audrey exclaims "Oh no it's midnight! I must leave"
and turns and runs down the steps.
To which James replies "Wait, don't leave. I don't even know your name"
Seriously??

Other than the fact that Will has his eyes closed and James isn't happy,
I love this picture. Something about it makes me think it's in the 1950's.
Guess it's the clothes, especially Angela's dress and James suit!

I believe this was the time we were dancing and she says to me
"You can go watch me mom."
Nice!!

 Bless their hearts. They took swing dance lessons for this occasion
and Angela's dress wouldn't allow her to do it. I think they had fun anyway!
And I love her purple shoes(purple was the color for the wedding)!


Second line. Explanation? Sure, why not!!
Second lining in New Orleans is basically walking or dancing in an organized
line or parade that marches to the beat of the right New Orleans tune. 
An umbrella is usually carried (since second line started out being done only in funerals)
but white napkins can also be raised and waved while parading around. It's fun, you
should try it some time!!! 


At Mickey and Becky's wedding last Summer, we took a crazy cousins
picture and we did one here! Left to right:
Emily, Ryan, Sherri, Jeffrey, Will, Angela, Becky, Mickey, me, and Jon

I love the all the single ladies in the back!!

Thanks to my son who begged and begged for a craw fish off
the groom's cake ALL NIGHT LONG, all the kids waited
impatiently for their own craw fish, or corn, or potato when it was
finally time to cut the cake!! I think James ended up sampling everything
that was on the cake except for the actual cake part!!

Ballerina in the making!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Dancing under the stars

Will and Angela hired an amazing jazz band to play their reception. James and Audrey love to dance at home to the ipod blaring through out the house so you can imagine how much they enjoyed a live band. At the end of the night I snagged a video of them "cuttin a rug" and if I do say so myself it's quite enjoyable! I apologize for the loud pleadings of a mother trying to get her son to show off his skills and the loud cackles of that same mother who obviously thinks her children are darlin!!



Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Wedding

On Thursday we packed up and headed out for New Orleans as soon as Jon got home from work and made it in about 10:00(11:00 EST). The occasion this time? Jon's baby brother Will was getting married!! It was a wonderful weekend to say the least. The weather was PERFECT, you forgot it was the middle of February. We got to meet all of Angela's family and hang with our own. Angela and Will had a very simple ceremony, the wedding party consisted of the two of them and Jon so there was no need to have a rehearsal but Mr. Ronnie and Ms. Susan hosted a supper for everyone in the bride and grooms honor. It was held in an apartment that they own downtown but is vacant at the moment. It was a lovely venue and my mother in law of course out did her self on the food. I'm wishing right now that I had a cup full of that gumbo and some bread pudding to wash it down with!





The wedding was set for 3:30 Saturday afternoon in the Botanical Gardens at City Park. It was a glorious day, no one could have dreamed of more perfect weather for such an occasion as a garden wedding in the middle of February after the winter we had!!


Conservatory at the Botanical Gardens. Isn't the view so pretty?

Hands down best money I've ever spent on clothes for these two!


Those hands behind her back just KILL me!


Beautiful cousins Isabella, Millie and Audrey!



Saying their vows


Don't think this one needs an explanation!


Mr. and Mrs. Mizell


He looks proud, doesn't he?!






Audrey fell asleep just as the ceremony was ending!



The Mizell family with our final addition. Grownup addition that is
and we are so happy and thankful to have Angela be a part of us. They
are perfect for each other! Love you guys.


We had to make everybody wait for the family pic so Mr. Man here could 
get his punch and at least not be crying in the pic! We lived on the edge that day....
the twins didn't have a nap before the wedding!



Stay tuned for more pictures!

Friday, February 11, 2011

Story Time

Not the story time you are thinking about. No. I mean 3 year old story time where you start making up stories about things to try and dodge the punishment bullet or the "I am so disappointed" speech for the fifteenmillionth time! As I was sitting in the living room trying to motivate myself to do something productive for the day (other than take a shower and get dressed) I heard an awful commotion coming from the kids room, something we are quite familiar with these days. It starts with James hollering at Audrey, Audrey bursting into tears followed by "HE PINCHED ME" and then sometimes James will start crying (when Audrey feels the need to retaliate).

Today the same scenario as described above happened and James started crying, really crying. So I called Audrey in to tell me what happened and this is how our conversation went:

Me: Audrey what happened?
Audrey: Uhhhh
Me: What did you do to James?
Audrey: Uh, my big baby hit him.
Me: Your big baby hit him?
Audrey: Uh-huh. She just got out her crib and hit him in the head. My big Cinderella baby did.

Trying my best to not crack up laughing at the huge, very inventive fib my 3 year old daughter had just told me I sent her to the corner and went to see about James. I found him trying to button his Buz Light Year jammies and wiping tears from his eyes. I asked him what happened and this is how that conversation went:

Me: Did Audrey hit you with her doll?
James: Yeah. I, I just started to pinch her.
Me: You started to? Did you pinch her?
James: Yeah.
Me: And that's why she hit you with her doll?
James: Yeah.
Me: Son, you have got to stop doing that.
James: Yeah, I know.




Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Makeup Syrup

The kids and I were laying in bed this morning and I asked them if they wanted pancakes. James said "Yes! With makeup syrup"! Makeup syrup? Audrey and I looked at each other and kinda laughed and before I could even begin to figure out what he was saying Audrey said "You mean Maple Syrup"!



We love Dr. Seuss in our house and Jon brought home a couple of books that we had not heard of that a student of his told him to check out. The Sneetches and The Lorax. The Lorax has kinda a sad ending and last night while Jon was reading to them during James' breathing treatment, Audrey got down and started following me around. She said she wasn't sure that she could hear the "Worlax" right now!!



Last Tuesday Audrey got sick and is just now getting better. Neither of us slept for a week which was pure torture. She had an ear infection which was the cause of the green goop in her eye (not pink eye like I thought and had Jon put some drops in her eye which made her scream like a raging banshee which caused the blood vessels around her eyes and up her forehead to burst!nice) and bronchitis which made her cough all.night.long. for 4 nights in a row. Monday night was the first night in a week, like I said, that we've slept all  night long. Jon also had bronchitis but got himself some prescription cough medicine and a z-pak so he was at least able to sleep at night and feel better much sooner than Audrey! Since she is allergic to penicillin the doctor gave her Omnicef, which unbeknownst to me, takes 72 hours to start working. Friday and Saturday were the worst days and nights of all, I've never seen my peachy so sick. It was a tough week for the Mizell's last week but we have survived! Now, if only James and I can dodge the really sick bullet. I did learn however that James and Audrey are totally different patients. I'm not sure if it's because James has been sick more times (many more times) than Audrey and he just knows that mama knows best or what but, Audrey is the most difficult patient ever. She wouldn't do or try anything I told her to or suggested to try and make her more comfortable. I did eventually convince her it was much better to be warm and fully clothed while you are sick so she has been wearing appropriate clothing for the last week now!!!


Audrey's work of art

James Bryant's

Monday, February 7, 2011

20 Weeks

Tookie and I had our 20 week check up today and everything checked out wonderfully!! She is still a she and has 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 perfectly formed legs, feet and arms.......so far nothing shows any reason for any one to be concerned about anything which is news we had been praying for!


Her first tootsies shot, my personal favorite. I wuv me some baby feet!!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Of sleep and pregnant women

I've never really been one that needed a lot of sleep. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy sleep but I've never really needed a lot of it. Lack of sleep for just a few days has never really affected my mood, under normal circumstances that is! (long term lack of sleep like with newborn twins does, I'll admit that!) During this pregnancy I've had sufficient lack of sleep on more than one occasion and it's just now occurred to me that I have to make up that sleep during the day or I am no good for like 3 days after. Give me 4 nights in a row of lack of sleep and being on my feet and on the go constantly and well, you just get a big old blob of what appears to be a almost 5 month pregnant woman that even though she's said ten thousand times that the doctor is certain there is only one baby in there this time, people continue to make jokes like "are they sure there's only one?" "Looks like you're eating for three seeing how many times you've been up to this lunch table." "Sure there's only one? Maybe it's three this time" and etc. etc. etc.



Last week I had a great week. I felt great, slept great and got tons of stuff done. I felt like such the good little housewife and mommy each and every night I lay my head on my pillow to go to sleep! The kitchen was clean every night after supper, the playroom, living room and kids rooms was picked up every night. Oh I felt like I was on top of the world! Really "gettin her done!" On Friday night, Saturday morning and Saturday night of this past weekend we went to church at Pisgah to hear Elder Ronald Lawrence. It was a wonderful weekend, lots of good preaching and fellowship and well worth the achiness my growing belly felt every evening. I stayed up late Friday night since we had company and got up early Saturday morning but didn't take a nap that afternoon because I wasn't tired. (Dumb) I fixed stuff to take to church, still feeling great btw, and we went to supper and then service. I was a little extra tired by the time church was over and had to ask Jon to cut the conversation short. By the time we started home, I couldn't even answer the kids 5th batch of never ending questions that even though daddy was in the car was always, always directed at me! Jon told them they had to direct all questions to him 'cause mommy was out of commission (yeah, like they know what that word means) and surprisingly enough they did. James would start out with mama and then quickly change it to daddy. It was cute!



I was so out of it I went straight to bed after I got the kids all situated and slept all night thinking I would be so refreshed in the morning. Wrong! I woke up feeling like a truck had run over me but I got up any way, did the usual Sunday morning thing and went to take a shower. By the time I got out and started to blow dry my hair I literally could hardly move. All I could do was crawl to the bed and flop down. I even sent Audrey upstairs by her self to fetch her father. He knew something was wrong when he heard her little footsteps coming towards him down the hall! Needless to say, we stayed home from church that morning and stayed in the bed watching cartoons on Netflix from the time Jon left till the time he got home. And pretty much the rest of the day.To top it all off, James started getting sick Saturday and coughed Sunday and Monday nights all night which interrupted my sleep. He's better now, still has a runny nose and a little cough but it's loose now and he didn't cough at all last night! Audrey however, started running a fever yesterday afternoon, has a nasty, nasty runny nose, a horrible cough and raspy voice and now she has green goop coming from her left eye ever so often. The eye doesn't look red right now but I'm sure it will be tomorrow. Oh and she also has the most horrible gas (sorry baby) she's ever had. Jon is also sick, he's got the nasty old head cold with bad cough but he doesn't feel too terribly bad during the day he says. Last night Audrey crawled in the bed with me around 2:30 a.m. with a fever and we didn't fall back asleep till almost 5. I felt awful this morning, terrible mood, pitty party for myself.


 I decided to lay down with the kids and slept for almost 2 hours this afternoon! I still feel tired but my oh my how my out look on life has changed. The glass is half full again!! I reckon the motto for this story is "Amanda, take a nap every day that you miss a good portion of sleep the night before, even if you don't think you are tired or think you have to much to do to waste time on sleep. It's not a waste of time at this point. It's the only way you (and your family) will survive the next 4 months"!!!!