What Will I Do???!!!!???

I leave for 4-H camp in the morning. 5th grade goes every year. Last year was so much fun and I am sure this year will not disappoint, however last year little man came with me (I was 5.5 months pregnant). What will I do not being able to see this precious face for the next 2.5 days??? I am hoping that I just stay super busy at camp and time flies. Tonight I tried to rock him to sleep. I just wanted to hold on a little bit longer-I leave bright and early in the morning. He was not having it-the kid hates to be rocked...he much prefers to just be laid in his crib. I on the other hand would love, just for tonight, to rock him for hours. He went to bed in his big boy pajamas and I couldn't help thinking how incredibly fast the past 8 months have gone by. I hope he doesn't change too much in the next 2 days. I told John if he says a word or starts to crawl, he is to act like it never happened :) Here's hoping that he doesn't give his daddy fits while I am gone and that he misses me just a little bit!

Introducing Baby Emma!

Will has a new cousin! John's cousins, Jimmy and Mary, gave birth to this little cutie on Tuesday. She is SO tiny and precious and adorable and sweet! Can you tell that I love her already??!! They came home from the hospital on Friday and we took Will over today to see them. She is so snuggly. Funny how Will was just like that 8 months ago, but time flies and you certainly forget just how tiny they were!

Emma Catherine Velotas

After holding her at the hospital, and knowing John's other cousin has a girl on the way, I told John that I had baby fever!! He laughed (not a funny laugh, but a you just almost gave me a heart attack laugh) and then proceeded to tell me that he thought that free basing acid and cocaine at the same time sounded like a better idea. I guess that was his way of telling me he had not quite caught the baby fever again :)We sure do look cute as a family of 4! We might just have to steal her for the night (and then be promptly reminded of why we are not quite ready for another one).

Babble

I have decided that I think it would be absolutely perfect to only work 4 days a week...

Today I got to stay home with Will! My mom has the whole week off to vacation with my dad in San Francisco. John's mom is keeping Will the rest of the week, but today I had to stay home. I LOVED it!!! I still am not sure if I am "stay at home mom" material, but I could definitely use one more day to the weekend. We lounged around this morning. Then, while Will napped, I did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, put away laundry that had been folded for a few days (or ten), and got myself ready. We met John at Newk's for lunch which was a very special treat! We tried to do that once a week over the summer and it definitely spoiled all of us now that I am back to work and we can't do that anymore. After lunch, Will and I hit up some of the local consignment shops and then came home just in time for it to rain and enjoy the perfect napping weather.

The reason for the blog post title...

On the way to lunch today Will was just babbling away, not making any sense, but definitely loving to hear his own voice. He does this often in the car. John has really been working with him to say Da-Da. I figure this is probably easier than Mama and instead of confusing him and working to try to get him to say all different words, I would just work on Da-Da as well. I am such a good sport, I know! So while driving to lunch I would say Da-Da which would be followed by Will saying "balalalaba waaaaaa palalalba." I would say Da-Da again, only to hear "hahahalalalal bababababab waaaaaaa." And then I started to laugh. I was reminded of the Friends episode - "The One Where Joey Speaks French." He is auditioning for a part that he needs to be able to speak French. Phoebe agrees to help him learn. She says a french phrase and then he is supposed to repeat it, except he always just says jibberish, but he is really proud of himself because he thinks he is saying the same thing. To him, it sounds the same. This is kind of how I see it with Will. He is just a blabbering away, thinking he is saying exactly what we want him to.

If you have never seen the Joey clip, it is worth checking out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jNVo9Orh2Y

EIGHT!

Will is 8 months old today...I say this every month, but it is so hard to believe!! He is just as cute as ever (even in those questionable orange and blue colors that have appeared in his wardrobe a lot now that football is here)!

-Will still just has those 2 teeth in the middle on bottom. We are wondering when more are going to appear.

-He squinches his nose when he smiles or laughs and it will melt your heart in 2 seconds. It is absolutely adorable!!

-He babbles all the time, but has yet to say a word.

-He is still VERY ticklish on the sides of his ribs and giggles so hard that it takes his breath away.

-We are sure he weighs at least 22 lbs now...we need to weigh him to confirm this, but he is a chunk! He wears mostly 12 months clothes-only a few of his 9month things fit him.

-He has started to shriek and scream...John says it sounds like a terydactyl. It is so high pitched and once he starts it is hard to get him to stop. We think he just likes to hear his own voice. See the picture below. So animated!

We went to Botannical Gardens today to have his picture taken. It will be a few weeks before they are ready to preview but I can't wait to see how he did. He was so good, just more interested in the grass and the pine straw than smiling for the camera. John and I looked like 2 crazy people making animal sounds and screaming his name right behind the photographer trying to get him to look :)

Here is some of that orange and blue I was talking about. Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Mary got him some super cool kicks. He looks so grown up in these pictures...this is why I rarely put him in shorts!

Game Day

We had such a fun day in Auburn on Saturday. So much fun that it took the rest of the weekend to catch up on rest!! We left around 9am and met up with some friends for lunch. Then we headed to campus. Will was such a trooper. We were out in the heat from about 12:30 until almost 6. He only got cranky once when it was way past his nap and finally he just crashed in his stroller. Taking a baby to tailgate is a very interesting experience. You can't just sit for very long. Will liked to be moving. I also had to figure out the logistics of how I would pump in the afternoon while we were there. I ended up in the referee dressing room in the coliseum. LONG STORY :) But it was nice and air conditioned and Will got to finish his nap in there and then we fed him before going back into the heat for Tiger Walk. We were so excited to introduce him to his very first Tiger Walk but he didn't exactly share our sentiments. As soon as the crowd started cheering, Will's little lip puckered out and he started to cry. I had to walk him back to the curb right by our tailgate before he would calm down. I guess it was a lot to take in all at once! Of course we got in a lot of play time with Kate, which also called for another photo session. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Those two are too cute for words. Now that Kate is sitting up and they are both a bit older, they are very aware of each other. We could not keep Will's hands out of Kate's hair...the bow didn't stay in for long. It is hard work trying to get babies to look at the camera at the same time. I probably have 20 pictures where either Will or Kate or both are mid-blink or looking another direction or look intoxicated. But they were adorable in their Auburn gear!

I made this outfit for Will after I made the first one. He looked precious in it!

Will's Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Mary bought him this awesome Bo Jackson jersey romper, so we changed him into it once we got on campus!

John's cousin, Peter, is an Auburn Cheerleader this year. At this point, Will was way overdue for a nap and was way over having his picture taken, but I was so glad we got to see Peter and get his picture taken. Maybe we can swing a group shot with all the cheerleaders and Aubie at some point this season!

Right after we left Peter, Will was OUT!

John getting Will pumped up for Tiger Walk-there is no telling what he is talking to him about...

Will and Kate in their preferred mode of transportation (please look at Kate's feet crossed-adorable!!)

Kate's face is priceless...she is looking at Shealy like "Help! What is he doing!?"

This is the best I could do at a shot with both of them looking

Tired of the Mamarazzi!

Just look at those chunky thighs!!!

Keeping With Tradition

In keeping with tradition, I am posting this video on here like I have done for the past few years the day before the first Auburn game of the season. It is by far the most talked about thing that I have ever posted on this blog. I cannot tell you how many people have seen this hysterical footage of John at Tiger Walk in the Swamp. All year long we run into people that are friends of friends of friends and they talk about John and this video. We like to think of it as his 15 minutes of fame. It for sure cracks me up each and every time I watch it. We are headed to Auburn on Saturday to kick off the first game of the season. I cannot wait to see some of our old friends and John cannot wait to give Will the experience of his first Tiger Walk!

Incentive

I love Us Weekly magazine. I started reading it in college and got a subscription shortly after we got married. It was much more costly than other magazine subscriptions since it comes weekly, so after two wonderful years of reading I tried to save us money and decided I could do without. We had just been through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace and I decided that it definitely wasn't a necessity. I found myself getting in the longest line at Wal-Mart just so I could read my favorite sections. John would bring them home randomly if I had a bad day, and they always appeared in my stocking for Christmas.
Today all three of us made the trip to Publix for our weekly groceries. We had just done our budget for September and found that we majorly overspent in the grocery department for August. The middle of the week trips to pick up a "few items" did us in. We try to only spend $100 on groceries a week. Now, we are really trying to not go out except for a dinner and lunch on the weekends, so that means more groceries need to be bought while still trying to stay at our weekly $100. We got all we needed for the week and were in line paying when I spotted it. Kendra and Kourtney on the cover, telling all about their pregnancies. I know it is silly but I LOVE that magazine! It was then that John decided to make a game out of our weekly grocery store visits...he made a deal with me. Each week when we checked out at the grocery store, if we stayed under $100 including tax, then I could buy Us Weekly. Talk about incentive!! As soon as he told me this, I glanced at our items on the belt to see if we could do without any :) There weren't any so I nervously watched as she rang everything up. Garbage bags. Cereal. Rotisserie Chicken. Frozen Pizza. These were some big ticket items. Low and behold we were just under (and I'm talking cents) $100 so I got to take home my magazine!!! And we even got Ice Cream!!! I asked him what happened on the weeks when we needed to buy diapers, knowing there was no way I could buy diapers and enough food for us to last the week and STILL be under $100. He replied that I would just have to tighten up and be clutch. Oh how proud Dave Ramsey would be!!