HaPpy HaLLoWeEn!!!

Today I searched and searched...high and low.......for the best pumpkin...
And I FOUND it!!!!!!

Then I said bye to all the other pumpkins!


Me and my best friend- The friendliest witch I know.
(I stuffed my mouth with that apple)

First picture with my new cousin!

Proud Daddies

Proud Mommies

Rob Thomas

So for my birthday, Derek got me tickets to see Rob Thomas (from Matchbox20-one of my favorite bands EVER)and I took my mom because she LOVES Rob Thomas. We had a lot of fun even though we got in trouble three times.
1. we parked in the VIP and got yelled at because all the cars behind us followed us. Let me just say there was NO SIGN that said it was VIP and frankly we were VIP so I don't know what the problem was. The man had a total attitude.
2. We tried to bring a flavored water in. You can only bring plain water in.
3. I was video taping a song and you can only take pictures, unless you were near a different and nicer security guard below us. Everyone else was doing it. Weirdo. Actually I think he just wanted to talk to us (my mom).

This is Rob telling everyone to 'give it up' for me.

While the opening band (One Republic) was playing, I saw Paul Doucette (the previous drummer, now guitarist for Matchbox 20) walk by and no one else recognized him. I pretty much freaked out and froze and then laid in wait until he came back by to go backstage. After waiting almost forever, I finally saw him. So I go up to him and I was like, "hey Paul!" and he lights up and is all excited someone recognizes him (usually people only recognize the front man I guess- and no one was probably thinking he would be there-although he was walking with a bodyguard) and I asked him for a picture and he said oh sure!, and then I said, "I LOVE The Break and Repair Method! (his side project- he's the singer) and he was stoked to say the least (they aren't very big, but they're really good).

As you can see he is short. I think that's why he put his head up like that to make himself not look like a shrimp by me. He is also married to Moon Zappa.
Thank you, Derek for the tickets!!!!

On another note- Train's new CD came out today. I REALLY LOVE this band too.

Baseball

I totally forgot about these pictures until today when I came across them looking for another picture. A month ago, we went to my friend Tamara's son's baseball game. This is Bennett's first year playing baseball.

It was fun going back to my old elementary school and the fields I played many seasons of soccer at.

Arden kicked Tamara out of her chair, stole her cell phone and attempted to make a call.

This was only a month ago, but it seems like she has a lot more hair now.

Pumpkin Patch

Last Friday, Arden and I met my friend Rebecca and her son, Trey at a pumpkin patch to take pictures of them. We had way too much fun laughing at them both especially seeing them dressed up in their silly Halloween costumes.







Doesn't it look like Trey is taking a peek under Arden's skirt?



Trey laughed at anything his mom did. Arden on the other hand is harder to please. Towards the end, she started warming up and laughing- especially when she got to hold a pumpkin but by that time, Trey was done with us.
I used to work with Rebecca at the Dental Office and we went through the ups and downs of our pregnancies together. There was another girl we worked with and she was due the same week too, but they had her due date wrong and she actually delivered about a month before us. Trey was born exactly one week before Arden. It was really neat being pregnant at the same time (because no one else really understood our issues) with someone and it was our first too. I remember when Rebecca told us she was pregnant on April Fool's day (of course everyone thought she was joking) and I remember thinking, "wow, I couldn't imagine being pregnant right now.".....3 weeks later I had my suspicions and a couple of weeks after that, it was confirmed. I enjoy getting together with Rebecca but we need to do it more often! It's really nice talking to an adult every once in a while and it's fun because we are both new at parenting.

Nonni's visit

Derek's mom came to visit for a week in September. You'd *think* during that time, I could have gotten caught up on blog posts, but I was too busy trying to catch up on other things...and shopping =).
Sept. 17, we went to the Southern Women's Show and met Kate Gosselin (from Jon and Kate Plus 8). I love that woman!!! She said Arden is gorgeous gave her her very own autographed picture 'to eat.'
There were sooo many people there to see her.

Arden and Nonni ready for church!

One Zero

TEN!

She's in the TWO digits! To celebrate Arden turning 10 months today, I cooked Chicken Tetrazzini. She loved it. She hasn't been too interested in baby food lately, she wants everything we eat.
Her sleeping and eating schedule is basically the same.
On Sept 16, she stood on her own for the first time.I can officially call her a 'cruiser' now too. She pulls up on anything she can and walks along the sofa like a pro. Today, she climbed to the top of the stairs by herself and really fast too. Now, I am sure she would have done this sooner had I let her, because she has gone up halfway, but we brought her back down at that point. Today I just figured, you know she's 10 months old, she probably wants to do something a little exciting. So, off she went (don't worry, I was right behind her). She reached the top and then took off into our room to look for Kali.
Last week, we stayed at Arden's babysitter's house to watch their three kids (8, 12, 14) while they went out of town. They have a large porcelain doll in the dining room and everytime she saw it, she laughed. I should've taken a picture of it.

Laughing at the doll:

They have a beautiful house and a nice backyard so I *attempted* to get some pictures outside, but it's really hard to get Arden to look at me and try to take pictures when all she wants to do is explore. Next time I'm going to get Clarisa to help me make her smile and distract her from crawling off.

First, I gave her a leaf to keep her from crawling away:

Next, I found my old Charlotte Checkers Access Pass in my camera bag:


Then my keys:

Actually I did get a good one of her smiling, but I have to get it converted so I can actually see it on my computer!
She loves getting her teeth brushed and giggles the whole time. On Sunday, #F (her top left)cut through the gums, so she has three teeth and another one will be arriving any day.

Shoes

This is how Arden feels about them:
She hates them.
Looks like this is going to be an exciting winter. Maybe the hate won't last long.

9 Month Check Up

One week ago(9.29.09) Arden had her 9 month check up. She had to get a finger prick to check her iron and I was shocked that she didn't cry....well she didn't cry when she got the finger prick, just after when the nurse was squeezing the blood out for a sample and wouldn't let go of her hand. That really bothered her. I'm thinking that bothers a lot of babies, but Arden does NOT like her hands to held. or wiped.
Stats:
height- 29.5 inches (off the charts)
weight- 21.3 lbs (90th%)
head- 45cm (80th%)
When we left for the doctor that morning, it was 50 degrees. There was a baby who looked 8-10 months old and she was wearing shorts and a t-shirt AND she was coughing like crazy AND her mom was in the 'well child' area. UGH stupid people.

Oh...iron levels were good.

Savannah (part 2)

You might say that this place is the main reason we went to Savannah (Paula Deen's 'The Lady and Sons' restaurant). Derek and I both love food and this place did not disappoint.

At 9:30 A.M., the hostess will come out and start taking reservations for the day. There is usually a line and it gets booked really fast, but Monday night the hostess told us the tourist crowds were gone and we should be able to walk right up with no waiting on Tuesday. We weren't taking any chances, so Derek headed over there at 9AM to get in line (and it was wrapped around the building).Here is Arden looking for daddy- that building across the parking lot with the red awnings is the back of the restaurant.

We got our reservation for lunch figuring if Arden won't go down for her nap, we probably won't be staying. Sure enough she would not go in her pcak n play. She was so incredibly tired but for some reason just did not want to sleep in that thing (boy am I glad she didn't have a problem with it for our NY trip). So we packed everything up, loaded the car, put Arden in her stroller and walked around to some parks and through the historic area. She slept for about 45 minutes (NOT long enough). She did good in the restaurant and LOVED the macaroni and cheese (that stuff is amazing). Derek and I both got the buffet. It had Fried chicken, baked chicken, lasagna, green beans, mashed potatoes, butter beans, collard greens, mac n cheese, yams, corn, roast and I'm sure I'm missing a couple more things. For dessert, we got a choice of banana pudding, ooey gooey butter cake or peach cobbler.

Arden is not too happy here because she dropped her last piece of mac n cheese and couldn't find it. I think she ate more of that than I did.


After a delicious lunch, we ran into Paula Deen! Arden was sooo excited to finally meet her (can you tell?)

After lunch we walked around for a few more minutes, got some ice cream at a very cute ice cream parlor called Leopold's and headed back to the car. That's when Arden fell apart. She was tired and cranky and apparently only wanted her bed. She finally went to sleep for 1.5hrs.

After her nap,we stopped to get gas and she jumped in the drivers seat- one hand on the wheel, the other hand holding directions. Not sure if she was trying to go back to Savannah or home.

Savannah (Part One)

Tybee Island (Arden's first beach trip):










On Sept 7, we took a trip to Savannah, GA. We were originally supposed to go Labor day weekend with my friend Jayne who lives in Florida. She backed out a month before so we decided we'd go when it got cooler (I've been told it gets really hot there in the summer). Then I found a deal I couldn't pass up on Sunday night ($80 for a new 4-star hotel 50 feet from The Lady and Sons) so we left Monday morning. When we got to Savannah and found our hotel, Arden was sleeping, so we decided to drive to Tybee Island which was 20 minutes away.

Arden LOVED the water. She absolutely loved it. She laughed when I took her in the water and the waves hit her.

We sat her down in the sand and she would crawl right back into the water.

Luckily she wasn't very fast because she did not like crawling on the sand. It was horrible. It was basically small broken pieces of sea shells. It was hard, sharp and her knees were so red. It was hard to wash off too. Here she is trying to walk instead of crawl:


It was pretty windy and overcast that day, but the water was actually pretty nice.

We headed back to our hotel so Arden could take a nap before dinner. That wasn't happening. She refused to sleep in her pack n play, but she was soooo tired. We decided to put her in the stroller and walk around. She went to sleep pretty fast, but it is really hard to walk around parts of Savannah with a stroller! The sidewalks have little dips where the drain pipes come off the buildings so the water doesn't drain all over the sidewalk...so every 5 feet there are these dips and it's hard enough going over them with a stroller (the front wheels get stuck, so we had to pop the stoller up the back wheels) and a total pain with a sleeping baby(this might have just been around city market- I can't remember). We walked around looking for somewhere to eat and The Lady and Sons next available reservation was at 8:15. Thart wasn't happening. I wanted to eat at Mrs. Wilkes, but the are only open for lunch so we walked to River Street to look there. That was exciting with a stroller too. To get down to river street, there is kind of a skinny little sidewalk but cars were parked on it, and the 'alleys' to get down there are all cobblestone. VERY bumby and impossible with a stroller. So we carried the stroller down (Arden still sleeping) and when we got to the bottom, we saw the elevator. We had a much easier time getting back up.


We ate dinner at Tubby's. Good, but VERY overpriced. I ordered a Fried Oyster Platter for $17. I can get them at Steve's in Charlotte for $11 with unlimited hush puppies and I get double the oysters at Steves. Mmmm I could eat there now. I love that place. Arden woke up when we got there, so a short nap, but at least it was something.
Here she is telling daddy 'No No!'

After dinner, we walked around River street a little more then headed back to the hotel thinking Arden might go to bed early since she didn't have her two regular naps during the day. Nope. She wasn't going down into that pack n play without a fight, so that's what she did until 10PM (she's usually in bed at 8:30).