The Holiday Spirit

It is Thanksgiving week which means it is one of my favorite weeks of the year. I can barely contain myself with the excitement!

Marcus' favorite holiday by far is Thanksgiving. He loves the family, food, football, hunting and tradition minus the stress, gifts, and overloaded schedule. And I totally get it. This year our Thanksgiving day is super low key and I am thankful for that.

I am going to act like an "adult" this holiday and contribute to the Thanksgiving feast. I am making deviled eggs and a two cheese squash casserole recipe that Marcus picked out. I am 26 so I guess it's time I start pulling my weight.

My family is blessed with some AMAZING cooks and I have never been needed in the kitchen but this year I'm providing even if it's not needed. It won't hurt me to practice my culinary skills and what a perfect opportunity to do so. If it tastes like dirt at least we will have Gram's dressing and Mamaw Carolyn's sweet potato casserole to fall back on. But I'm hopeful it won't taste like dirt! Or salty brownies. Or cardboard-y pizza. I could go on but I will spare myself.

We still don't have a picture for our Christmas card. I was banking on using one from her 12 month pictures but that didn't pan out so I'm not sure what we will do. Going to have to get creative! But I don't think we can beat last year's card/birth announcement anyway...

I loved getting to spend the entire holiday season at home with my newborn baby last year. We timed that one right!

I can feel the Christmas spirit starting to take over. I have watched a few cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies while rocking Georgia Grace to sleep, switched the sheets to flannel, and started the "When can we get the Christmas decorations down?" plea :) The fireplace has been a blazin' and my warm pajamas and slipper socks have never felt so good at night when I get home from work :)

And last night I baked 40 pumpkin muffins for Marcus' class and we had our first snow of the season!! It was just a dusting but it counts. I jumped at the opportunity to try out some of our winter gear. She doesn't wear many hats but agreed to this one. There's nothing like 19 degree weather and the first snow to put you in the spirit.

The holidays are here! Our 2nd holiday season as daddy + mommy + baby is upon us and we are ready for it!

Tradition & Throw-Up

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was one of those weekends you would gladly take a redo on. You know it's bad when you look forward to Monday and a fresh, clean start.

Marcus & Georgia both had stomach problems this weekend. We diagnosed Marcus with the stomach bug and Georgia we really aren't sure. I really think she had a touch of it herself. Because...

She fell asleep in these positions. Very non-Georgia Grace like. She has been a crib sleeper/napper since she was 12 weeks old so this was the first sign something was up.

She was totally fine one minute, laughing and jabbering, and then out of nowhere she upchucked...in her beautiful smocked pink pearl dress at Aunt Paigey's wedding shower three hours from home in a coffee shop!

Thank the Lord for a change of clothes and wipes.

Bless her sweet heart though. Her gag reflex that I have mentioned before is so intense.

We decided earlier in the week it was time to start brushing her teeth with an actual toothbrush. I get the toothbrush to her mouth and she gags! It is the strangest thing.

Even though it was a yucky weekend, we pressed on and attended my sister's wedding shower and church on Sunday (Marcus didn't get sick until Sunday night, and we didn't realize GGH was sick until afterward. We try not to spread sicky germs around!).

Paige and Eric's shower was held at his family business You & Me Coffeeshop in his hometown of Corbin, Kentucky. Such a neat, quaint shop situated in the downtown area.

Cute bride alert! 

They do showers a little different in Corbin. The shower was hosted by 9 different women who were associated with the Salmons family. The ladies opened the gifts for the couple and displayed them on the table for everyone to see. If the shower had been in someone's home, each gift would have been displayed in the room that it was for (i.e. sheets-bedroom, knives-kitchen). I had never been to a shower like that but I appreciated the tradition it represented. Also, it was an all-female shower besides the groom. I like that. Very southern.  

The newlyweds with their favorite niece who was giving some lovins during picture time. This was her 2nd OOTD.

I am so glad we were able to make the three hour trip for this special event. The drive from WKy to EKy is beautiful this time of year. Long, but beautiful.

During our outfit change, this happened! I was a little distraught from the whole event obviously. At least she was still for a minute :)

Sunday we kicked off turkey season! She's way too busy for pictures these days. This was the best I could get after several blurred attempts. She stayed in the church nursery and only cried for about 30 seconds and then she was fine. Progress!

Here's to a better week. We need everyone well and stomachs functioning properly for the Thanksgiving feasts next week!

Weekend + Veteran's Day

I will confess I am dragging this week. And I'm not sure why. We had a normal, restful weekend and I got more sleep than usual. I could barely keep my eyes open yesterday, hence the weekend recap on Tuesday. Caffeine and B12 haven't been able to touch this lethargy! I think it's still the aftermath of the time change.

Saturday afternoon we introduced Georgia Grace to playing in a pile of leaves. Our beautiful Kentucky foliage is mostly on the ground now so Marcus raked them up and we just had fun.

My favorite toothy grin

 Sis observed vest season this weekend with her fur frock. I can't even handle it.

I love this picture except for our concrete driveway and tire shadows in the background. It's a Christmas card contender considering our professional pictures we had made had a lot less smiling!

This will more than likely be our last fall at our happy little home. We will miss this place when we leave. The tree in our front yard saved us lots of money on energy with its canopy, provided great shade for Georgia Grace's first summer pool days, and gave Marcus poison ivy the week before our wedding ha! The memories. 

We had a special guest Saturday night. Our cousin Keagen told me Wednesday that he thought this weekend would be a good one for him to spend the night with us again HA! Of course it was. I love his boldness and confidence in staying at our house. We always want our family and friends to feel welcome in our home. It was a fun night of pizza, football, Sandlot, cookies, forts, and popcorn. I actually think the fort idea was Marcus's. :)

We've decided we are going to hire Keagen to come every Sunday morning to watch GGH while we get ready for church.

Sunday brought our first official boo-boo. Georgia Grace was speed walking through the kitchen when she slipped and hit the edge of our bench which cut the back of her ear. She cried just a little bit and it wasn't until 5 minutes later that we found blood. We didn't think the gash called for stitches so we are cleaning it and applying triple antibiotic cream. She is a tough girl!

Sunday night we went to the birthday boy Cainan's dinosaur party. I can't believe this little country boy is already 5! I remember the morning he was born so well. He stole all of our hearts that day. Happy Birthday Cainan Dakota! We love you!

And in honor of Veterans' Day, here is our girl holding waving the flag for the pledge of allegiance at AKK yesterday morning! It's safe to say she is proud to be an American.

We had plans Sunday to go to the new memorial wall on the courthouse lawn to see it and take a picture with Papaw's brick but naptime interferred. Maybe this weekend we can make that happen.

The high is 39 today. Thank goodness we will be snuggled up at home tonight watching the Cats game. Homemade pizza is on the menu. Go Big Blue!

Tying Up Loose Ends

October is spilling over into November-oops!

I have just a few pictures that I want to share for documentation sake and because I think they are awesome :)

Remember I mentioned we took four generation pictures at the party? I bet you had forgot to ha! I remembered them the other day while I was scowling through my files for a certain picture when I remembered I never got around to posting them. Here they are in all their glory.

Me, Gammy, Georgia Grace, and Mamaw Carolyn

The Harrison girls with Poppa and Mamaw Novis

Dad and Papaw Ernie

(My favorite! I think they just looked better than the rest of us on this day ha!)

Granddad, Grandma, Marcus, GGH, and Grandmomma

Grandpa, Marcus, Georgia Grace, and Meme

Silly Georgia girl playing opossum in the $10 princess castle filled with balls. Solid investment.

The weekend before Halloween we had our annual homemade popcorn ball making party at Grandmomma's house. This is a longstanding tradition that I joined in on when I became part of the family and I always look forward to it. The husband was in charge of popping the corn.

Gram made the sorghum mixture (Isn't she a cute GREAT-grandma!)

And the rest of us (Shannon, Shanna, Jake, Granddad, and me) stirred, rolled, and stuffed the individual popcorn balls into bags for all the family and AKK trick-or-treaters.

Popcorn ball for mommy

A backside action shot of Georgia Grace scaling Gammy's stairs in her pig suit. She was happy for us to pack her the rest of the night after this failed attempt ha!

We got to trick-or-treat at "Aunt Rachel's" house with best baby friend Abbott. He was the cutest little farmer boy. A pig and a farmer-we live in the country y'all!

And that wraps it up! I think I am finished with the back blogging.

It's full steam ahead and I'm not looking back :)

Weekend Getaway

Happy November!

I really don't know how we are in the 11th month of the year. Marcus and I sat down yesterday to discuss our holiday plans and festiivites which made me excited for the season but also made me keenly aware of how fast time is passing. This will be our second Christmas with Georgia Grace and I am anxious to compare pictures and see her excited over the magic of the season!

Ok I'm starting to ramble but that was on my heart so I couldn't stop typing :)

This weekend we spent our first night away from Georgia Grace. I won tickets to the UK homecoming football game so the husband surprised me with a hotel room and dinner reservations for Saturday night. It was such a great reward for surviving Overwhelming October!

Saturday morning before heading to Lexington we went to watch our cross-country team compete at Regionals. I coached the BCXC team for four years before turning the program over to Gran Stan at the end of the season last year. Being a working mom I knew my free time had to be spent with my family so I transitioned from coach to #1 fan this year :)

Baby girl had a big time watching all the action. Neat story- one of my XC girls had asked her grandmother to crochet a blanket for Georgia Grace when I was pregnant last season. The grandmother just so happened to be there yesterday AND I brought that blanket to put around GGH! Such a sweet sweet gift from a wonderful family.

Her favorite part of the meet though was the snacks HA!

The girls team earned Back to Back Region 2 Runner-Up titles this weekend with three girls (Olivia, Chanda, & Delaney) finishing in the Top 8! Our boys team finished 3rd in the Region with two finishing in the Top 8 (Ethan & Nolan) and Ethan became the Region Champion! Both teams will advance to the state meet Saturday November 9th at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. I couldn't be more proud of them!

When we got home from the meet we took Georgia Grace to Grandma Harrison's house to say our goodbyes and hit the road. She looks real sad we are leaving doesn't she?! We packed her an overnight bag and everything :). She split her time between both Grandma's houses because there was no way we were choosing one over the other ha!

 She did great while we were gone. We tried to call/FaceTime her but she would just kiss the phone and then she was gone HA!

I didn't take many pictures of our weekend because Marcus absolutely hates taking pictures (what a shame he decided to marry me) so I respected that for the most part and kept them to a minimum :) I couldn't resist a Starbucks selfie though!! Covered face and all!

And just one more during halftime of the game so I could send a "thanks" tweet to the twitter account I won tickets from (@ButlerCosports). We were pretty frozen by this point. It was 48 degrees but felt much colder than that since we aren't use to the cold temperatures yet. And mostly because I left my earwarmers in the room ha! But it was a great game and a good win for the Cats. And we got to see one of my sister's good friends crowned UK Homecoming Queen so it was time well spent!

We came home to a happy but worn out baby. She went to sleep at 5pm and slept until 5:30am this morning!! The daylight savings "fall back" effected all of us. That on top of spending the weekend in a different time zone had me all out of sorts. But the sun rising before 6:30 this morning was a nice start to the week for this early commuter.

Happy Monday!

Life Interrupted

Between planning a wedding and planning a first birthday party, we have been super busy. But not so busy that we haven't taken time to enjoy other special events in our lives.

October is a very special month for our family because we have three October 2012 babies on the Embry side. Maddux Chase (9th), Will Lincoln (30th) and Georgia Grace (30th) were all born within three weeks of each other. Sadly we had to miss Maddux's party due to Paige's wedding shower but we were able to attend Will's this weekend.

The big birthday boy enjoying his smash cake! Sweet boy.

We found a new thing that Georgia Grace loves-a pool of plastic balls! I have seen this on Pinterest and other moms doing it but never made one of our own but I think we will need to invest in one now. She had a "ball"! :)

Will, Georgia Grace, and Avery. Sweet baby friends.

The three baby cousins with their mommies (I'm ashamed of the picture quality, I left my good camera at home. Maybe we can get some better ones Saturday at our party)

All six Embry cousins. This was the best out of about 10 pictures LOL!

Saturday night the Ross's invited us over for some soup and football. We discovered something else that Georgia loves that we will NOT be investing in-a dog bed. We could not keep her out of it (or the candle burner or the TV screen...). She entertained us all to say the least.

Sunday we left GGH in the church nursery again in hopes we could make a regular routine out of leaving her in there during worship service. She made it about 20 minutes until the nursery door was opened and that was it. They had to come get me but not before she took this selfie on our friend Kathrine's iPad ha!

I'm hoping the nursery situation will get easier. I know ultimately she would enjoy the nursery more than "big church" and we would hear the message clearer without having to entertain her. I know it will come in time though and we will just have to be patient until she is ready.

It was Pastor Appreciation Sunday so we had a special dinner after church. She was much happier after a little mommy time and a nap.  We are so thankful for our pastor, Brother Taylor, who selflessly gives his time to minister to our church family AND the community. He is a great leader in the ministry! I'm thankful for all that he has done for my family.

Sunday night we went to cousin Keagen's hayride birthday party. No hayride for us so we just entertained guests inside. Keagen was the one that came and got me out of church that morning and his exact words were (to our friend Gina), "Can you get Katie? She's crying her eyes out!" He really knows how to paint a picture with words :) Cannot believe that big hearted boy is a big 9 year old. We love him so much!

This week is off to a rocky start (hit a deer on my way to work, had a baby/restaurant catastrophe, and a dead battery in our SUV) so I am hoping we are getting all of that out before the birthday party weekend. We are 3 days away!! I can't wait!