NASCAR

My only experience with NASCAR started after I began dating Jereme in high school. His family enjoys watching it and it was always on TV. It never really excited me.

So when Jereme came home and told me he had won tickets to the race in Charlotte (his employer is a sponsor), I wasn't sure how fun the experience would be. I knew we would enjoy being in Charlotte, babyless, but I imagined I'd be pretty bored at the race. Something about watching cars go 'round a track over and over again didn't seem exciting. But that was so not the case!

We enjoyed the concert which started earlier in the day and had fun walking around the inner track and seeing all the sights. We had box seats, complete with dinner, and I decided that is the way to watch a race! I enjoyed the headphones and radio which allowed us to listen in on the drivers and pit crew. The race went by a lot faster than I thought it would. And the cars definitely go faster than it looks on TV. I thought about how nervous I get when Jereme drives too close to the car in front of us on the beltline...I would be a mess in a race car. They drive so close and so fast! There were a few Michael Jordan sightings a few boxes down from us. Jereme and I walked around trying to find him, but no luck. But having him just yards away from us may be as close I ever come to a celebrity sighting!

We got to meet up with our friend Tina who was tailgating at the race. It was so fun to see her! Walking around the tailgating areas was pretty interesting. I don't think I've ever seen more bare-bellied men in my life! Because we were in a corporate box, we had to dress a little nicer and I think people thought we were lost.

Of course, no trip to Charlotte would be complete without a stop at Concord Mills. Jereme was in heaven at Bass Pro Shops and I tackled the mall!! Our feet were sore when we left.

Thanks Grandma and Papa Stout for keeping our sick little girl for us!

Happy 11 Month Birthday!

Emma Grace, you are 11 months old today! Just 30 short days left until you are one year old! You are getting so big!

This month has been exciting. You really took off with crawling. You follow us from room to room now and you are so much happier. You pull up on everything. You love to stand.

At the moment, your favorite things to do are stand in front of the fireplace and bang on the glass, and stand up in front of the bottom step and look upstairs as if you are about to conquer it. You like to walk with our help. I don't think you'll be walking tomorrow, but it won't be too long. You have started cruising (what the experts call it!) where you walk down the sofa while holding on to it or walk away from the ottoman towards the chair while holding on to one of the pieces of furniture at all times. It's fun to watch!

You are still a happy and vocal little girl. You love getting attention. You smile all the time. You are constantly babbling. Your favorite word is "mama" and you use this when you want me, when you're upset, when you want anything. You also say "do" (which sounds like dog without the "G") for dog. As soon as I go into your room to get you from your nap (usually followed by Charlie), you look around and say "do" when you see him. You still say "da da" for daddy, but you never do it on command. You have started saying "ba" for ball when you're holding Charlie's ball. You say "hi" and "bye" and will do something with your hands and we know that you're trying to wave.

You are still an excellent eater. You eat anything we put in front of you. You eat 3 meals and 3 bottles a day. You love bath time before bed each night. You get mad when I tell you no. Sometimes it is hard to discipline you because you're so cute. But it's for your good.

You enjoy going to the library for story time. You won't sit in my lap like the other children. You want to crawl around or stand the entire time. It's so funny to watch your independence come to life. You go to the church nursery twice a week while I participate in an aerobics class. You cry as soon as we get to the door, but you stop a few seconds after I leave the room. When I walk back in the room to pick you up, you cry again. You're in a mommy phase right now. I know it won't last forever, so I'll take it while it lasts. You love playing peek-a-boo.

Mommy and Daddy were away from you twice this past month. Once for a week while we were in the Bahamas and once during our overnight trip to Charlotte. You did great both times.

We can't believe that your big birthday is coming up so soon; we are so excited! We are so proud that you are our daughter and love you more than we thought possible. Happy Birthday sweet baby!

Visiting the park

There is a park near our house and we've just recently started taking advantage of it. Emma Grace is finally big enough to sit in the baby swings (even though they're still pretty big for her, she manages well and hangs on) and really seems to enjoy it.

First Date

Emma Grace and Henry had their first official date yesterday. It was totally Mommy supervised, but they didn't seem to mind. Henry played pretty hard-to-get by sleeping a lot. Emma Grace tried to get his attention by grabbing his feet a few times. We will work on allowing the boy to pursue!

Lou Ellen and I had so much fun catching up and sharing Mommy talk while we walked around the mall. I'm looking forward to more dates in the future!

Birthday Preview

I am having the best time planning Emma Grace's birthday party. I know she won't know the difference, but I want everything to be perfect for her. We're going pretty low key; hotdogs are on the menu and I'm making all the decorations. Most of my supplies have come from the Dollar Store. But I have enjoyed stretching each dollar and making Emma Grace's "Pink and Yellow Pom Pom Party" come to life!

I found these invitations at Swoozies during their going-out-of-business sale. They had just enough and I quickly snatched them up! We've had some interesting feedback on the "no gifts" part of the invitation. Jereme and I decided that we wanted people to come and celebrate with us and not worry about spending money on finding the perfect gift. Plus, I'm smart enough to know that a little phrase on the invitation won't stop some people from buying her something if they really want to, and that's fine with us!

To match the invitation, I'm doing pink and yellow with the decorations. Martha Stewart sells these paper pom poms at Michael's and I really liked them. But they were just too expensive. So I found a way to make them myself! These little flower pots will be on the tables and large pom poms will hang from the ceiling!

My Cricut machine has been so useful as I tried to personalize things. I'm a fan of details, so I had to spruce up these beverage bins! One says Happy Birthday and the other says Emma Grace. They will hold the pink and yellow beverages!

No birthday girl can go without a birthday hat!

Since there won't be a lot of children at the party, I opted out of doing traditional favors like some sort of toy. Instead, we're having a candy bar (all pink and yellow, of course) where guests can fill up their favor bag with candy!

I better stop now before I give away all the details. Just one month until the big day and I can hardly wait! And I'm just in denial that this party means she will forever be measured in years instead of months!

Where's Emma Grace?

We started playing peek-a-boo with Emma Grace a while ago. She loved it. Now she plays peek-a-boo with us. The only problem is that she seems to have forgotten that the original version involved covering her eyes. Take this picture for instance:



It might not look like it, but we are playing peek-a-boo while walking in Target. Emma Grace puts things on top of her head and waits for us to ask "Where's Emma Grace?" over and over again. After a while she will take it down and we will say "There she is!" or "Peek-a-boo!". The hilarious thing is that she's looking at us the whole time!! But she seems to like her version of the game much better than ours!

The stairs

I thought it might be a while before Emma Grace found the stairs. Clealry I have much to learn.


I took this picture on my phone this morning. I sent it to Jereme with the following message: Houston, we have a problem!

(Past) Time to Baby Proof

Emma Grace crawled for the first time on April 11th. I will always remember this because I was keeping Lou Ellen and Caleb's dog while Henry was being born. Rouge (their dog) has food out all day long and she sort of grazes during the day. I had to keep her food in the kitchen because Charlie is supposed to stay out of the kitchen and I thought that would keep him from eating Rouge's food. Emma Grace was on the floor in the kitchen while I did dishes and she crawled to Rouge's bowl to get the food. She did this three times before I finally moved her to another room. Did I mention she was trying to eat Rouge's food?

It was really exciting and I got pictures on my phone and everything. I figured that would be the end of her just sitting. I was wrong. After that, she would only do it if I really coerced her or if there was something out of reach that she really wanted. We finally decided that she just wasn't interested in crawling and we would just wait for the walking to start.

Well, that's all changed, especially in the last few days. She has become so good at crawling that I have started loosing her. One minute she's in the living room, the next minute she is gone. She is also using both legs, where as she once was just used one leg and sort of dragged the other leg behind her. We called it her bum leg! She's also pulling up on furniture all by her self and sitting back down when she gets tired. It's amazing that she crawled for the first time over a month ago and in one week she's taken off! The best part is that instead of crying when I leave the room, now she can follow me. She's so proud of herself!

And now she is in to everything. She loves to empty her diaper bag or her toy basket. And judging by some of the things she has started going after, like:

A heavy ceramic piggy bank conveniently found on the bottom shelf in her bedroom

The mass of electrical cords from Mommy's unfinished craft project

And the bottle of wine, also conveniently found on the bottom shelf of our wine rack

I'd say it's (past) time to baby proof our house!

Emma Grace and Papou

Two peas in a pod!

Bahamas Vacation

Jereme and I just got home from a fantastic cruise to the Bahamas! We left Emma Grace in Jacksonville with the grandparents and left in the wee hours of the morning on May 3.

We made a pit stop in Savannah for breakfast and I fell in love. Savannah, you have not seen the last of us.

But we continued on to Port Canaveral, Florida and boarded our ship, the Monarch of the Seas. We definitely went economical (older ship, interior room), but it was Jereme's first cruise and I think it's always good to start out at the bottom and work your way up! We figure by the time we're 60 we can splurge for the balcony room!

We arrived in Cococay on Tuesday and spent all day on the island. I did that horrible thing where you decide you're going to wait a little while to put on sunscreen. And the next thing you know, you're fried. Yes, day one. But have no fear, the hubs was more than protected from the sun.

It was fun to relax and take in the sights. After spending most of the day there, we boarded the boat and went back to our room to get ready for the Captain's Dinner.

When we woke up on Wednesday, we had already ported in Nassau. We had a reservation for snorkeling bright and early in the morning (as my family would say: we wanted to go ahead and get that over with). Jereme loves snorkeling. I think once you do it once, it's kinda the same thing every time. Nonetheless, it was beautiful and we even scored a free bag of fish food (without having to pay the $3 the boat crew wanted to charge!) which really brought the fish to us!

On the boat ride back to Nassau, we got to see a lot of celebrity houses (Oprah, Elvis, etc.). We spent the rest of the day exploring Nassau, visiting shops, and eating yummy food. We ventured down a side street and I stopped dead in my tracks. Imagine my surprise...traveling all the way to the Bahamas to see my people! Yassou and Kalispera!

We had another great dinner that night (this night was our anniversary celebration night - we got extra dessert and they sang to us). The food was delicious. And you have that feeling that, since you've already paid for the food, you should consume everything you possibly can. So we did. This includes pizza at midnight.

Thursday was a day entirely at sea as we traveled back to Florida. We enjoyed lounging by the pool and watching the Men's Sexy Legs Contest (the announcer got Jereme to come upfront to participate, but he slipped away without her noticing) and the Women's Biceps Contest (this involved push-ups; I could have totally participated, but I hated to embarrass the other contestants). And let me not forget the Belly Flop Contest. Ouch. Another great meal, followed by the cookout/pool party that night, and we were ready to call it done! It was time to head back to the room and pack up to leave the next morning.

It was a long drive back to North Carolina, but Jereme drove as fast as he could. We were so ready to see Emma Grace. We figured either she would smile and be happy to see us, or cry once she realized we had left her. She did nothing. It was the weirdest thing. I don't think she really knew what to think. But she warmed up to us. Thank you Grandma, Papa, Cee Cee and Granddaddy for taking such good care of our baby girl!

Another milestone

Jereme gave me another Mother's Day gift...making sure our daughter didn't fall out of her crib. It's embarrassing to say, but we have neglected lowering Emma Grace's crib for weeks now. I was so afraid it would be too late once we did (and the "Parents of the Year" award goes to...). Emma Grace is pulling up a lot now and I've gone in her room several times only to find her standing in her crib. One little lean over the railing could have been a disaster. But, Jereme saved us all from that scenario on Mother's Day and lowered the mattress. And he did it shirtless, which makes for nice pictures for Emma Grace's baby book.

As usual, my job was supervisor and photographic documenting specialist. Emma Grace (also shirtless) worked on emptying one of her bags from her visit with the grandparents that I happened to leave in the hallway. She took that job seriously, as you can see. And of course, Charlie's job in every situation is to keep track of Emma Grace and lick her when we're not looking.

I feel so much better knowing that she's safer. But going in her room now...it just looks so different. It looks like a big kid's crib and not a baby's crib. But I think she likes it.

Mother's Day

Today has been a very special first Mother's Day for me (although I did make Jereme celebrate last year since I was "with child and very much a mother" - as I told him). Emma Grace slept 30 extra minutes this morning and that alone has made today wonderful (which just goes to show it's all about the small victories). We visited the Farmer's Market this afternoon and came home for nap time. Jereme is outside right now washing my car and I am so excited! I was spoiled with a new dress that I got before we left for the Bahamas and a new book that I look forward to reading this summer on trips to the beach. Tonight we are going out for BBQ at The Pit. It's nice to have a day where your hard work is recognized and you are given extra love and attention. Happy Mother's Day to both of our moms and all of our grandmothers.

Dear Mom,

I don't really know where to begin, except to say thank you. Thank you for choosing to have me even though you weren't sure you could afford it. Thank you for taking such good care of me and making sure that I had everything I needed and much of what I wanted. Thank you for loving me when I wasn't very lovable. Thank you for taking me to church, even when I didn't want to go. Thank you for all the times that you put yourself last. I noticed. Thank you for coming to every dance recital, every parent observation, every school event, everything. You never missed anything. I didn't know what it meant to juggle a career and a family. Thank you for being as excited for my wedding as I was. Thank you for making it perfect. Thank you for telling me that you're proud of the Mom that I am to Emma Grace. It helps on days when I feel like I've failed. Thank you for being such a good Cee Cee to your granddaughter. She loves you. I love you. Happy Mother's Day.

Ashlee

Dear Emma Grace,

You have made the past 10 months of my life magical. I never knew what unconditional love, sacrificial love, really meant. Until you came along. I would do anything for you. Anything. You are the most precious baby I've ever laid eyes on. Your smile is contagious. Your laugh melts my heart. I love how expressive you are (whether you are happy or sad, the world will know it!). I love how much you enjoy getting attention from people - my sweet only child! My biggest joy has been watching you grow and develop and seeing the world through your eyes. Motherhood is harder and better than I ever thought it would be. Every long night was worth it. Every hard day was worth it. Nothing you could ever do would make me love you less. Thank you for saying "mama". It makes me so happy. There were many days, early on, when I had no clue what I was doing. I wondered if I was really cut out to be a mom. Thank you for sticking with me as we learned together. There is no one I'd rather spend my days with. You make life so so much better. I love you sweet baby. Thank you for making me a mom.

Mama