Good Ol' Rocky Top!

This weekend the boys and I went with my mom and step-dad to Tennessee to visit my step-dad's family. We left on Thursday and drove to Gatlinburg and spent the night at this beautiful hotel called The Inn at Christmas Place. It was completly decorated for Chirstmas and Santa came to visit every morning and evening. My mom took Price to see Santa while I was in the shower and she said Price gave him a hug and a high-five.

Then on Friday we drove to Nashville and checked into the Opryland Hotel. The hotel was incredible. The boys and I had our own room that was conncected to Gigi and Papaws and our balcony looked out into the terrace. It has to be one of the most beautiful hotels I've ever seen. Inside it had a river that you could ride a boat thru, tons of waterfalls, shopping, lots or restaurants, and a lot of waterfalls and fountains. They even had a dancing fountain that Price loved. The first day we were there we walked almost 7 miles (Price included!) and still didn't get to see the entire hotel. On Saturday we went to a park and had a big cookout with Neal's family and then some of them came back to the hotel with us and spent the rest of the evening. Neal's neice, Leah Kate, and Price became great friends and enjoyed playing together most of the day Saturday. On Sunday we made the 8 hour drive home. It was exhausting but well worth the trip! Price and Owen were perfect angels! I couldn't have dreamed of better children. Gigi enjoyed spoiling Price and he got "birfday cake" or "ice tweam" every night (and whatever else he wanted...). It was a great vacation!! Thanks Gigi & Papaw!! WE LOVE YOU!!

If you'd like to see more photos then click here!

Price's Favs!!

I wanted to document all Price's favorite things now that he's two so I wrote them in his baby book and thought I would share them on the blog as well.

Favorite shows: "Dickey" Mouse & Max and "Whoo-by" (Backyardigans, "Melmo" (not Sesame Street - Just Elmo's World), And "Giggles" (Wiggles) are a close second!)

Favorite Things to do: Play at the Park, read and color

Favorite Animals: Dinosours & "Dunkeys" (Monkeys)

Favorite Songs: Elmo's song, Happy Tappin w/ Elmo, Twinkle Twinkle, Jesus Loves me and the Cuppy Cake song.

Favorite Food: Chicken nuggets (especially chick-fil-a) & fries, Fruit (any kind except apples) and spaghetti. And his favorite snack\junk Food includes "bay-ers" (Bears - which is Teddy Grahams), he LOVES "O-WI-O's" (Oreo's) and M&M's, which are known as "potty Pwizes", and he can eat his weight in goldfish!

Favorite Books: The Llama Books; He loves "Llama Llama Red Pajama" and "Mad at Mama", and also, "Is your Mama a Llama?". He also loves "Hit the Ball Duck" and "I knew you Could!"
He is partial to rhyming books.

Favorite Toys: His Rub-a-dub-tub bath toys, Dinosours, his train set, Toy cars & "twucks" and his Magna Doodle.

These are his favorite Bath toys, he actually takes them out the the bath when he gets out to play with them and finds them before bathtime again to put them back.

And here is Price drawing on his Magna Doodle. He has an awesome imagination. He likes to draw doodles and tell me what they are.







Can you believe in this picture he drew the following:
A dinosour
A Hewacopter (Helicopter)
A house
Mama
Dada
Baby Owen
Totie (Sophie)
Gigi
Papaw
Omie
Gandaddy
Mimi/Tay-wor (they are one in the same, apparently)
Miss. Bets-zie
Mary Gace
Mi-wey (Mily)
Twadd (Tradd)
Pice Jacks-won (I think he was trying to say Tradds brother, Jackson)
and a ho-worse (horse)!!

But I didn't have to tell you that because I'm sure you could tell from just looking at the picture, right?!?

Just a little update!!

Price is doing better. I have implemented a paddle that I use on his hand when he is misbehaving. So far....so good! I have also borrowed James Dobson's book, "The New Strong Willed Child" from the Lexington County Library. Hopefully it will help....I am already thru the first chapter and so far his experience with strong willed children stem from his dog, Siggie.....Not sure that is much of a comparison, but we'll see. James Dobson is a well established Christian writer so I have faith in him!

I have been working on Price trying to get him to eat a well balanced meal for a while now. He loves chicken tenders, french fries and spagetti but sometimes getting him to eat anything else is a challange. Price refuses to eat any vegtables except green beans. As of yesterday, Price has decided that he will now eat a small portion of veggies, IF and only IF he is bribed with Oreo cookies. He can pass up cake, ice cream, cartoons and much more to keep his veggie strike ongoing but once I introduced the Oreo's that went out the window. He makes some pretty nasty faces while chewing but oventually swallows and gets his Oreo!! I suppose I am counteracting the benefit of the veggies by giving him the Oreo but what the heck....He takes his multi-vitamin! :)

And Owen is doing great. We went for his 2 month check up last week and he was 13lbs. He is now usually sleeping thru the night, but occasionally he will wake up at 3:30am. He LOVES for people to talk to him and is always smiling! It's so precious. I tried to get a good picture of him smiling but he always gets distracted by the lights on my camera....
We went and had family church pictures made the other day and they got Fabulous pictures of Owen smiling. When I get them back I will scan them so I can share them with everyone.

This was Owen's first Sunday at church. I forgot to take my camera in to get a picture with him and his teachers so I just took one of him in his outfit once we got home!

Owen loves to look up at the mirror above him in his swing and watch the birds and butterflies on the mobile.

I can't belive how fast they are both growing up. My sweet babies.....

Terrible Two's? That's an Understatement!

Well, I thought the best of the terrible two's were already behind us but last Sunday I changed my mind! It was our AWANAS kickoff at church and I was so excited that Price was going to get to be in Puggles, a milestone since it's his first extracuricular church activity..... I was going to help teach in his classroom and get to see him with his friends and help teach him more about Jesus and see him get excited about the Lord....and he was going to be the cutest, smartest, most well-behaved child in his class....I just knew it!!
REALITY CHECK: Price is the most stubborn, hard-headed, strong willed child I know! (He must get that from Josh....)
What was I thinking??? He's TWO!! (But, in the defense of most 2 year olds.....All the other children seemed to be handling the situation much better then Sweet Price!)
He wanted to play with what everyone else was playing with......not much of a sharer....
He screamed when he couldn't color as long as he wanted to... paint as long as he wanted to....
He screamed when I wouldn't let him drink the paint water and when I tried to get him to put it down before he spilled it....TOO LATE....It spilt...and ruined Mary Grace's beautiful painting....
He screamed when I wouldn't let him put the paint on his eye lid (he thought it was eye shadow...I should probably turn on the cartoons while I am putting on makeup from now on...)
He screamed because he didn't want to sit in a circle and read....or sing Jesus songs......
He screamed non-stop for almost the entire 2 hours. I wanted to cry!! My Sweet Price doesn't act like that! At home he would have been sent to his room (after a little spank, spank!)until he was finished with his screaming episode, but what to do at church??
I was mortified! What happened to my sweet baby boy?
I had my camera to take a picture of Price on his first day of AWANAS but then decided I'd rather not have any memory of that exhausting day....so no pictures to share!

Then today at church, another breakdown.....It's a lose/lose situation. Josh pulls up to drop us off at the door and he screams because he can't take his Thomas the Train toothbrush inside. Then he wants to stay with "dada". Great! I shut the door! "MAMA! MAMA! GO WITH YOU!" Open the door, go to take him out...."NO, DADA! GO WITH DADA!", as he hits my hand that is trying to unbuckle him. (This went on several times) Cars are waiting behind us to drop off their children. I get him out and figure he will forget this nonsense and will be excited to go to his classroom....Not so much! Drops to the floor at the top of the stairs, kicks and screams!
The entire Children's area gets completely quite as they look up to see who is allowing their child to have such a tantrum! (THE EMBARRASSMENT!! )
Ashley L. to the rescue! She calmed him down and took him to his classroom...No Problems!
I make it to Sunday School in tears because of my 2 year old!
He only acts like this with ME! He wouldn't dare do that with his dad! WOULDN'T DARE!
His Sunday School teacher says he's great on Sunday Mornings! Tonight at Puggles I wasn't there (After last week,I decided to teach 4th Grade Girls instead) and he did great!
HMMMMMmmmmmm.......What to do???
Prozac? No! Don't want to get addicted!
Abuse? No! Don't want to get arrested!
Boarding School? No! Too expensive! (and I might miss him a little....)
I'm at a loss!! HELP!!

Unconditional Love

Unconditional Love is loving Price even when he throws a tantrum and doesn't listen and obey. Unconditional Love is loving Owen even when he wakes me at 3am and I am so tired I can't see straight.
Unconditional Love is loving Price even when I am dissapointed he didn't do what he knows he is suppose to.
Unconditional Love is loving Owen even when he screams at the top of his lungs for hours and I don't know how to make him stop.

Unconditional Love is God loving me even when I don't do what I know is expected of me.
Loving my children is the closest thing I'll ever experience to God's love for me. It helps me to understand how he feels when I don't obey. It helps me realize that I should try to work harder to please him, to follow him, to obey him.

I am glad I love such a forgiving God!!

Facebook Faux Pas

Okay, so after reading Cate's "My name is Cate and I'm a Facebook Addict" post & then having breakfast with some of my mommy friends and finding out that EVERYONE has a facebook page, I decided to investigate!! During my investigation apparently I sent an email to EVERY SINGLE PERSON I HAVE EVER EMAILED IN MY LIFE asking them to be my Facebook Friend. I'm not sure how, but this list included many people that I do not know (my email saves all email addresses that comes thru my email for some strange reason, even if it's a forward) and some that probably didn't appreciate the email, such as my Sunday School teachers and pastor! I am MORTIFIED!! I was on the phone while roaming the site and apparently I did something without paying too much attention....
Geez, I should have known better!!
And yes!! Facebook is quite addicting. Don't join unless your ready to neglect your household duties!! :)