Big Blue Ball

Who knew that spending $2.99 at Target could bring our boy so much adventure? We spotted it a few weeks back while shopping at Target. Miller reached up from his perch in the shopping cart to the towering stack of balls a mile high above him. We claimed it as ours after selecting just the right color and size. Landon and Miller had a blast bouncing and kicking the ball and dodging customers all over the store. On our ride home, it was quite a site, Miller's wouldn't let go of the big, blue ball in his car seat. We could barely see out of the back window for heaven's sake! He held onto it for dear life until we drove into the garage and he could finally get his new bouncy ball inside.
We nicknamed it his yoga ball because it's almost as big as he is. He loves to bounce up and down while sitting on it, and throw it up and down the hallway. Today, we took the yoga ball outside for a little while to play with it on the grass. It wasn't long before Carter and Grant from across the street came over to enjoy backyard fun. We played our hearts out until bed time. I'm one exhausted momma tonight.

Baby Season

Spring has sprung. And, so has the stork! It's baby shower season around our house. There's just something about March, April and May...baby arrivals and baby showers are popping up right and left! Lisbeth, Melissa A., The new Mrs. Melissa Simmons, and I hosted a baby shower for Brittany today. We decorated in blues and browns all in honor of baby Hinson due to make an arrival in May. You could feel the love in the room already for this precious baby boy. I could sense Brittany's excitement over the outpouring of love and gifts. There's just nothing like your very first baby shower. Of course, we played a fun game led by the gamemaster, Melissa. Brit had to don a blindfold and guess various baby items in the secret bag. She passed with flying colors!



Our sorority pledge class seems to be following a trend, using their maiden names for baby boys. The tally is three so far: Miller, Dawson, and now Hinson. I just love when you can use family names as a heritage for your newborn.

"Mrs. Simmons" a.k.a. newly married Melissa, brought along these fun moonclouds from Birmingham. Aren't they just the cutest with the H initial? They were oh so yummy.



Fun was had by all. Courtney even toted along baby Anders. Oh how I could have just taken this stunning baby boy home with me. His cheeks were so round and kissable. Can't wait for the next baby to enter the world of Adipi Mommas. Who's next?

Celebrity Chef

Did you see our friend from NY, Curtis Stone on Oprah today? It was an interesting show where celebrity chefs go home with different families and help them transform their boring, or frozen meals into healthy nutritious meals. The family that Curtis transformed averaged $50.00 a night on take out food for their family. Good Golly Miss Molly, that's over $20,000 spent on take out each year. And, how unhealthy! He took them grocery shopping, showed them how to shop with a list and gave them recipes for 7 days of meals. They were shocked at how much they could purchase for $120.00 a week. Each chef has posted the grocery list and recipes on Oprah.com. Check it out

Small disclaimer: Oprah and I aren't BFF's. Even though we share the same birthday, I disagree with some of her far out ideas. I do enjoy watching some of her shows and think that she's done some great things in the world

The New "Newbie" Shoes

So we've had a great debate in our house over the past few weeks on athletic shoes for Miller. After a "pretty please", Landon agreed that Miller could sport red keds again this spring as long as he had a pair of "real" tennis shoes. Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate Landon speaking up for Miller's manhood. Poor Landon, always having to put up with my love of monogramming and longalls.
Since I knew Miller's size after measuring him a few weeks back, I went ahead and ordered some New Balance "newbie" shoes online at their outlet store. The best part of the deal was that they arrived at my front door Monday morning. I love UPS shopping & free shipping too!
Problem solved: Shoes that please mommy and daddy!

Same Ole, Same Ole

This weekend brought some much needed same ole, same ole to our house...in a great way! I love our family time of just simply being together. The warmer weather has allowed us to take walks as a family after dinner again, a tradition that I'm excited to start back up this spring. On Saturday, Landon helped one of my dear friends move, while Miller and I ran all sorts of errands to get ready for his family birthday celebration in a few short weeks. We let Miller choose the theme this year with a lot of guidance and steering the cart towards a Landon favorite!
Miller is sporting a new hair cut today. His long, unruly locks were driving me bananas. So after church, we scheduled a snippity snip for our little rag-o-muffin. He looks so handsome with his preppy, short cut. You can tell he's proud of his clean cut look too. I caught him admiring it in the mirror. I told him he was so handsome and he kept repeating to me, "so handsome, so handsome" as I combed it just right across his forehead. I'm so smitten with this little boy of mine.
Miller and Landon enjoyed a fun daddy & me playdate at KidStock, our church park 5 minutes up the road. Shane and Allie met up at the park for some afternoon playtime. It worked out perfectly for this daddy duo to enjoy the kiddos together. It makes daddy duty go by so much more quickly. I always love these opportunities for Landon to share in some of the fun that I get to experience with Miller during the week. And, I heard Miller kissed Allie on the cheek with some prompting I'm sure. Too bad, the dads didn't get any pictures of their adventure at the park.
Besides adjusting to "Springing Forward", a quick visit with Grandmama & Poppy, spring shoe shopping for Miller and amazing Greek burgers compliments of Landon, it was just an ordinary fun filled family weekend around here.

Vroom Vroom

Landon surprised Miller with an Iron Mountain piggy bank truck from work this week. And, as you can imagine Miller can't separate from his new favorite toy. He wants to take it with him in the bath and even to bed at night!

While I was capturing a few shots of our boy playing with his "Ni-orn Mountain" truck this afternoon he kept telling himself," On your bottom", "No truck on table!". I guess he's knows the rules about scratching furniture with all of his toys on wheels! He's played with the truck so roughly, that the top of the piggy bank came off. We now call it a convertible truck. He likes it better this way because now Buzz Light Year can be a passenger in the truck.

I hope Miller's not too disappointed when we tell him that Landon is in sales for Iron Mountain and isn't the truck driver. We'll break it to him slowly over time.

Car Conversations

I can't remember what it was like to drive somewhere without my little chatterbox in the backseat. Miller loves to jazz things up on our travels around town by adding his own little commentary to things going on all around us. Some trips, he just wants to insert certain words to his fave songs. Yesterday, he piped in with "Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho-san-an-a,Ha Ha Ha-lelujah." Heaven forbid, that I skip a song on his favorite CD. He lets you know with a sound of displeasure that you just can't skip songs, they have a certain order that they must be played in.
Things really get exciting when we navigate around a construction zone. Miller shouts out, "steam shovel, biiiiig truck, cement truck, backhoe, bulldozer, oh all the trucks, do ya see them? right, there."

Our tradition every morning in the car on the way to Ms. Karen's is to name all of his buddies to get him excited about the morning. I got him started today by asking, "Who are you going to see today?" Miller's response..."Baby Thomas, Hannah, Caroline, Nathan, and Truck Book." I guess he considers his favorite book at her house, a dear old friend. I laughed right out loud when Miller proceeded to cheer as we were driving up to Ms. Karen's house, "Happy Friday", "Yay!" I guess he's really listening like a sponge every Friday when I greet everyone this way.

Happy Friday to all of our blogging buddies!