Happy Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving being with family and of course delicious food. I was in charge of the side dishes and I had so much fun picking some delicious dishes, thanks to the pioneer woman. Creamy mashed potatoes, roasted asparagus, crockpot stuffing, and stuffed mushrooms. um!

Eddy loved pigging out on "bacon" which is what he kept calling the turkey.

We ate at my parent's house with my brother Tom and his boy Colton.

It was a great day, thanks mom.

Happy 100

This is the official 100th post on our family blog, and yes, get ready for a list of 100 awesome, (but still time-consuming,) things to read. First, here are ten things that I love more than just about anything:

1. Brandt
2. Eddy
3. Food
4. School!
5. TV
6. Family
7. Hate (sometimes, I must confess, I really love to hate things)
8. Christmas
9. Babies
10. Little Stuff

Now, to break this 100 thing down just a little, I'll do my top ten list for those top ten things that I love.

List #1 Brandt! I love . . .
1. His obsession with sports
2. When he explains sports to me and thinks I'm listening (hehe)
3. When he wrassles Eddy
4. When he calms me down
5. how friendly he is with every single person on the planet
6. long car rides with him
7. snuggling on the couch, ohh, we're so cheesy
8. I love that we're cheesy
9. Cooking together
10. and being giddy in love!
I am such a dork, but that's one of the many reasons he loves me.

List #2 Eddy
Oh, my Eddy, Eddy O. Where do I begin!?!
1. His cheesy, cheesy smiles. I wonder where he gets that from?
2. His love of Popsicles
3. His big jumps
4. His big vocabulary
5. He pretty much amazes me with everything he does or says
6. when he walks up to give me a big hug, yells, "SIKE!" and runs away
7. that he is big and tough,
8. but always turns back into a mama's boy
9. I love how happy he is (and I kind of hope I have something to do with that)
10. and I love being his mama!

List #3 Food
ummmm.
1. I love to eat food
2. love to cook food
3. love to watch foodie shows
4. love learning to cook
5. love cooking with my family
6. love family dinners, even when it's just me yelling at Sadie to get off Eddy's face/plate/fingers/anywhere near his food zone.
7. love trying new recipes
8. love late night snacks
9. love a good bowl of Marshmallow Mateys in the morning
10. love Thanksgiving dinner

List #4 School!
I have loved school before I was old enough to even go to school so it will be hard to narrow this list down to only ten things.
1. I love learning, watching kids learn, helping kids learn. It's just exciting to be around all that good learning energy.
2. Dorks like me were just made for loving this kind of school stuff.
3. I love back-to-school and get excited when I see notebooks on sale and pencils for pennies. I really never need to buy any of those things, but I just can't help myself.
4. I love being a teacher.
5. I love laughing with little kids because they have a stellar sense of humor. I can't even tell you how much I miss kindergartners and their poop jokes.
6. I love how kids get excited over the smallest things.
7. Kids will think the world of you for no great or grand reason.
8. It is amazing to see how amazing little people are.
9. I love that recess is the greatest thing in the world.
10. I love making kids happy.

List #5 TV
Oh, I know I should have better hobbies than this, but I really don't.
1. I tivo Oprah everyday. Brandt teases me for it, but I don't care. I watch Oprah.
2. I love the Bravo network. They have the best trashy tv around. Hello, The Real Housewives!?! Any city, it doesn't matter, they're all crazy.
3. I must confess when I'm feeling extra emotional I love a good lifetime movie. Just sometimes.
4. Brandt and I love watching Monday night tv on CBS with "How I Met Your Mother" "Accidentally on Purpose" and "Big Bang Theory."
5. We are addicted to TOP CHEF!
6. We really do watch a lot of tv.
7. We love Amazing Race, even though I usually fall asleep.
8. We also love Thursday nights on NBC with "The Office." Oh, the office. Does tv get any better than that.
9. Wow, this is embarrassing how much tv you will all see that I watch.
10. It's a good thing we have tivo.

List #6 Family
1. I love my family.

2. I love getting together with my sisters for craft day and just talking, talking, talking.
3. I love holding my cute, chubby nephews and squealing over their fat rolls.
4. I love talking on the phone with my mom
5. I love teasing my dad
6. I love teasing my whole family
7. I love being the middle child. I would never, ever have said that during my traumatic middle child years, but I think I've grown out of that.
8. I love that my family loves me, even after they read this horrendously long post.
9. I love family traditions
10. I love being a sister

List #7 Hate
Yes! I was looking forward to this list the most.
1. I hate, hate, hate stupid people. That could pretty much sum up this whole list.
2. I hate people who refuse to use a turn signal, or who blow through stop signs as they look right at you! Banbury!! It's only a two-way stop and I have the right of way, idiot.
Wow, excuse my hate language.
Brandt's family loves to give crap to their Aunt Mary Lou, who is a saint for raising three Shaw boys and being married to one. Whenever Mary Lou even comes close to saying something negative they say, "Whoa, watch the hate speak."
So watch out, because here comes a whole lot of "hate speak."
3. I really hate how people text talk. I especially despise lol.
4. I hate Qwest for forcing me to only have phone service through them. I can't wait to drop my land line, but I'm not looking forward to a long and complicated customer service call that I will probably have to do twice because it wasn't in their notes as they passed me back and forth between 8 different representatives.
5. I hate rabbits.
6. I hate The American Red Cross for guilting me into donating blood every three months, but I always end up doing it, but I still hate when the needle goes in. I hate when they have to prick my finger just to test my blood. That one probably hurts the most.
7. I hate yelling at my dog, but she just doesn't listen like a kindergartner would. I love kindergartners. They listened to everything I ever said, but not my dog.
8. I hate getting stains out of Eddy's clothes. In fact, his hamper is full of dirty clothes right now that I just can't bring myself to wash because of all the stains I'll have to scrub out.
9. I hate hot days. I need to lock myself inside with the AC blasting if it goes past 85.
10. I hate that I am typing such a long and dorky post!

List #8 Christmas
1. I love the whole season!
2. I love to put up the tree, I'm trying so hard to wait until Friday.
3. I love to go on light rides.
4. I love when it snows!
5. I love Christmas music
6. I love Christmas traditions
7. I love wrapping presents
8. I love all the excitement and anticipation
9. Brandt and I met and dated and pretty much got engaged during Christmas 04.
10. I got my Eddy Otis on Dec. 26th 2007.

List #9 Babies
Oh yes. I must first say that I am not pregnant . . . yet. I know I'm obsessed with being pregnant and wanting another baby, but alas, not yet. So this is not an announcement, got it!
1. I love babies!
2. I love how tiny they are
3. I love how chubby they are
4. I love their little smiles and their big eyes
5. I love to cuddle babies!
6. I love being pregnant. I absolutely loved every second I was pregnant with Eddy. The only hard part about being pregnant for me was just having to deliver the baby at the end.
7. Oh boy, I need to have another baby just so I can shut up about babies!
8. I love to rock little babies
9. I love little baby clothes. I get so distracted in Wal-Mart just walking past the baby section and seeing all the cute little clothes.
10. I love seeing how much babies change and develop little personalities.

List #10 Little Things
1. I love that this post is almost over!
2. I love getting ready for Christmas
3. I love when Eddy says, "Garbage" and throws away his fruit snack wrapper. So polite.
4. I love that he has to find me first thing every morning.
5. I love seeing Christmas lights in the snow.
6. I love getting a high score on Bejeweled Blitz.
7. I love cleaning and organizing
8. I love when Eddy says, "I love you"
9. I love being happy
10. I love my life.

Where did my baby go!?!

I was just messing around on Picasa today and made some cute collages of my cute baby boy and getting dangerously baby hungry, as if I wasn't before. But something tragic happened today. Eddy decided he is big enough to go potty. what!? Yes, potty. He came up to Brandt today and said, "Potty." Well, I figured it was just his "boy" sense of humor and he just likes to say dirty words. Brandt thought he was saying he would like to go, so he took him into the bathroom de-diapered him and plopped him down on the toilet. I stood back ready to laugh when nothing would happen, but he peed! He was so proud too! He jumped right off and flushed it away. I wanted to cry.

Look at this boy!?! He is not nearly old enough for that sort of business, so I thought for sure it was a fluke. It would never happen again. He is ages away from potty-training, right? Well, after preschool he came up to me and said, "Pee." Huh? "Pee." I took him into the bathroom, diaper off, bum on, and then another full on pee! This time I have to admit that I was a little bit proud. When Brandt came home for lunch Eddy showed off his new trick again.
I'm still in shock and denial. I don't want my biscuit to grow up this fast, but I guess he is. I love looking at his pictures and seeing how much he has grown and changed and how much he can do now. I am one proud mama who is head-over-heels for her little man.

Fun For Fall

Being a stay-at-home mommy is so nice. I get more time to do lots of fun things with my little biscuit. Like dinner at Mueller Park, catching Eddy and his crazy faces,

enjoying the pumpkin walk with cousins,

(check out that cute booty)

And now I have all the time in the world to make delicious messes. How cute are these caramel apples?! You use a melon-baller to make little bite-sized apples to dip. Daddy only got to eat one because Eddy and I pigged out.

(Don't look too close, they aren't food magazine worthy, but still yummy.)

Yes, there are some definite perks to staying-at-home. I also get to clean the kitchen an infinite amount of times each day, but this happy Biscuit is worth it.Here is Eddy's latest obsession - stickers. This came from his new pants. He also enjoys scotch tape. He is very tricky, or as Eddy likes to say, "I funny."

I Love You

Top ten reasons I am one lucky mommy.

1. When I say, "I love you" he says, "I love you too."


2. Watching my crazy man do all sorts of silly tricks and then say, "I funny."


3. His new phrase, "P-Poo." He means "P-U," but can't quite pronounce that "U" and technically "P-Poo" is more accurate to what he is referring to.


4. He tries to avoid bedtime like nobody's business. Last night he kept saying "P-Poo" trying to get me to change his diaper 20 times.


5. I love when he wakes up from naps now. He can hop right out of bed and come find me. I love hearing his little footsteps come down the stairs and then hear him fling his body against the couch trying to sneak up on me.


6. He is my little chef. He loves to smell what's cookin', loves to see everything I'm doing and pushes a kitchen chair everywhere I'm working and say, "Sq's me."



7. He loves "PETE-ZA." He devours it, well, the top of it. He still avoids any type of bread product.


8. His new obsession is pouring. He loves to pour cups of water into other cups of water. He tried pouring peanuts today. Yeah, I better go sweep that up, but it can wait.


9. He loves to be independent like getting his own chocolate milk. I try to avoid too much mess, but he insists on pouring the chocolate in and then putting his sippy cup lid on.


10. He also is fascinated with getting dressed, or undressed. It is so funny trying to watch him put socks on or to wiggle out of his pants when it's bath time.

Eddy with Baby WadeYes, I am one lucky mommy.

I think it's time for another.

This is the Daddy, and no this is not an annoucement. Emily already used her blog to announce a baby.

Cuzzies

My sister Shelly and her adorable boys came up not to far back and we were able to get all the cuzzies together. We have eight boys now, sadly, no cute baby girls . . .yet. But we had a lot of fun oohing and ahhing over our two newest boys, Baby Wade and Baby Luke. Here is our chunky monkey Luke sitting in a Bumbo. Can you believe this boy is only 3 months old? The boys kept us entertained. Brody and Jack arm-wrestling. Don't be deceived by their size, they are quite strong, trust me. I tried arm-wrestling Jack and I'm still not quite sure what happened but elbows were flying everywhere. I was quickly defeated.

We even got to spend an afternoon down at Gardner Village.
AHHHH! Crafts!?! Poor boys, but what are mommy's supposed to do?

Jack and Eddy became good buddies traveling in the car together. Jack would talk or tell funny jokes or by the end of the long day just start screaming which Eddy loved to copy. We had a fun little chorus of screaming boys who thought they were soooo funny!

Sweet little cuzzies.

Big Boy Bed

Lately, staying in bed has been an issue for Eddy. He would get up a couple times during the night and just want a "pi-dow" (pillow) and a blanket and sleep on the floor. Odd. Well, then he wanted to sleep on the floor right next to our bed and then some nights his parents were just too tired to fight and would lay him in their bed.

Well, after staying up until FOUR in the morning mommy decided enough is enough. Time for a big boy bed! Daddy is pretty sure this idea could be a disaster, but I think it can't get much worse. 4AM! So last night we said goodbye to the crib.

Here is one last shot of the big boy and his crib. Helping daddy . . .and now the finished product.

His eyes are just taunting me, "really mom? You thought opening up this crib was a good idea, really? You think I'm going to sleep in here all night?! See you at 4am! he-he-he."

And he did.