Plain and Simple

A few quick pictures from the weekend. A VERY SIMPLE weekend I might add! That is what we needed. Simple is my new motto anyways, doesn't work for everything (outfits, clothes, etc...), but it does for most. There just isn't time to focus on all the "fluff" or randomness. Charlee Kate was so excited when Jeremy came home on Saturday. She missed her daddy a lot! She has been so sweet getting back in the groove and being back at school. I thought it might be hard since she had a fun week with her Gammy and Ella, but she has bounced right back in her routine with no problem! Looking forward to several more weekends of SIMPLE and nothing major to do. Just hoping after surgery Thursday, that we have a simple weekend and all goes okay!!!

She's back!

Oh when I picked up Charlee Kate yesterday I got the BIGGEST sweetest hug from her! She had so much fun with her Gammy and Ella, but she sure missed her mommy too. Jeremy was out of town last night, but all night and all day today she has been the sweetest little girl. I could just "eat her up". This morning she slept in late for me, then we went to Publix, Hobby Lobby, and the mall. She would just stop and talk to everyone, talk to me, never whined, just so much fun! When I told her we were going to the mall, she said "Mommy I love mall!!!". I thought to myself "this is my girl!!!" LOL. Time off is definitely needed for anyone, but I am so glad to have her back and be "mommy" again! Looking forward to a weekend with NOTHING to do. We have needed this for a long time!

I had to take a picture of these shoes! For anyone who knows me, I love shoes, especially for Charlee Kate, but these Stuart Weitzman's were my favorite. She had them at 1 year old and I found them for her now. I was sooooo excited!!! I have an obsession with clothes and shoes for her, but that has grown to coats and tights too. I love them all!

Tomorrow is even better.....

Not just because it is Friday, but because I get to see my baby girl!!!! Well I have missed out on posting this week! Its been a busy week. Lots of rain (yuck), lots of errands, lots of cleaning, lots of doing random things I don't always do, good runs, 3 girls nights, and NOW... I am ready for my baby girl to come home and be mommy again! I cannot wait to go get her tomorrow! I know she will miss my mom and Ella and I KNOW they have had a blast! I get lots of pictures a day on everything they are doing and she is so lucky that she had this week with those 2. She needed it and loved it, but I am ready to have her home. I have missed her terribly!!!!

I will be back to posts and pictures in a few days : )

I am going to enjoy all weekend with my baby girl especially since I SHOULD be all caught up with random random things!!!

Welcome to Bama!

My posts are messing up so you have to read below to understand it all. This time the pictures came before the words. That's okay though. These were all sent to me from my mom who has been texting me pics. Just a little insight to the fun these baby girls are having!

Having some time with Gammy!

While the girls have a popcicle... Pop likes to enjoy one too!

Wild kiddos!

Gosh I hate bad weather and 68/70 degrees in Bama right now usually means some bad weather is near. I was up all night! Remember... in my "other life" I am like a meteorolgist and I get very nervous about weather so I will stay up and track them all night. Middle of the night storms are even scarier to me. These turned out to be MUCH WORSE than they thought. So so scary! I made it though and the fact that my mom and dad had Charlee Kate was wonderful because it would have been hard on her to be up at 3:00 am and then go to school. We made it though, but a lot of people in the Birmingham area were not so lucky! This is the part about living in Bama that I totally dislike!!!!

On the other hand, Sunday was a great day! Boy do I miss that baby girl though. However, I received millions of pictures and she has to be in absolute heaven right now, which does make it so much easier to let her go and her not be here. Jeremy and I went to a fun/new restaurant Saturday night. We have about 40 amazing places, very few are chain within 5 miles of us, so we have lots of places to go for a first time before going a second time. We loved this choice, it was downtown 5 points! Then we watched a movie, amazing I stayed awake!!! Got to sleep in super late on Sunday, which was very much needed for the two of us, and have a relaxing morning with breakfast and coffee. Jeremy cleaned the cars and the garage while I did an 11 mile run. I have a race coming up and I really don't need to train too hard b/c I keep up with it, but decided a long run would be needed before it gets here in 2 weeks. Cleaned, ran a million errands and went in tons of stores I don't always get to go in, ironed, laundry, worked on a few projects, ready for bed on time. I was able to do it all without mommy guilt so that made it so much easier. A few more days with lots of things to do on my lists while it is just me. Then I can't wait to have my baby girl back! We will have a much better end to the week and start to the weekend b/c I have had so much needed caught up time to do lots of things and spend time with lots of people.

More posts and updates to come soon : )

I heart weekends!

LOVING THIS WEEKEND! (as I do all of them!)

Cousins! We have so many fond memories together!!! So glad Karen suggested us all getting a picture together!

Charlee Kate is sooooo lucky to get to know all of her great grandparents. Here she is with my dad's dad and her cousins. Poor Ella didn't feel good, but she hung in there! Tyler, Peyton, Ella, and Charlee Kate

The girls loved playing in Peyton's room!

Having a tea party! It was so cute to watch. They were adorable and having the best time.... then I went and got my camera. That always changes things, LOL

Charlee Kate's Nana would love this because she would love to have a tea party with her.

Getting ready to leave, she HAD to have all that crazy dora play jewelry on, haha

Love the new outfit

These TOMS, a favorite from Neimans that I Have had for MONTHS! Finally she can wear them

Getting ready for school Friday. I love this shirt and she wore her cute UGGS

Heading out to play with Jace and Baby Blake and for the adults to have fun and dinner. We had so much fun Friday night with them! (just forgot to take pics)

I have NO IDEA how shorter weeks seem so much longer than a 5 day week. I think this may just be a "working thing" or maybe even a "teacher thing", but gosh... short weeks seem to go on forever sometimes. However, we made it! YAY! Busy weekend ahead. Our weekends have been so much fun since Christmas, actually since like November. I love it when we get to do things with family, friends, just our little family, and even just Jeremy and I by ourselves from time to time. We headed to Atlanta today which was a lot of fun! My parents brought Ella back from Atlanta and then took Charlee Kate as well once we got to Oxford. OMG Charlee Kate is so super excited to stay with her Gammy, Pop, and Ella for several days!!! I am going to miss her, but this extra time could not have come at a better time! Jeremy and I can have a date night tomorrow, Sunday involves brunch, a long, long run, then some cleaning and errands that I can't wait to do b/c it is long over due, then he has to go to a show. That means days of me doing things that don't always get done, meeting friends, finishing some projects, and running some errands. Our weekends have been busy so I haven't had any "catch up time". May not be fun things the whole time, but I need that catch up time to feel caught up and not have mommy guilt! Thank you so much to my mom for getting CK for a few days!!! More than anything, it means a lot to CK to have that time with her and Ella.

Stay tuned for the details on the upcoming surgery! Yes the Wilson Clan will have another surgery taking place in their house!

A Mommy makes for a better teacher!

I had someone actually tell me this my first year of teaching. It almost hurt my feelings because in my mind I thought "I am a good teacher even though I do not have children". I thought about that comment for years and years and years. Never really crossed my mind COMPLETELY until I had Charlee Kate. Now, I completely understand what she meant by that comment. No matter what, I think and teach totally different NOW than I did 2 years ago or 2 1/2 years ago. When parents ask me "silly questions" or want information about their child that a "teacher" may think is a little off, I switch to Mommy mode and it all makes sense. Would I want to know that if it were Charlee Kate? How would I feel if that was Charlee Kate's teacher?

When students come up to me and ask me about something, feel sick, want to go outside for recess (and its 32 degrees so I say "no"), touch the walls, floors, etc... all the nasty things with germs and I get all over them to use anti-bac, I am thinking like a mommy. I am thinking about what I would tell Charlee Kate and what I would hope her teacher would tell her. Most of all, I love them and want them to feel safe. Academics is way down the line on the priority list. I care about what the teacher is teaching Charlee Kate, but first and foremost, I want my child to feel loved and feel safe for the 7 hours out of the day that she is NOT with me!

I write this post because I had a conference with a sweet parent today about something totally not related to academics. I never once talked to her from a teacher point of view, but more of a mommy point of view. I am with her child for 7 hours each day! My goal was to help her in whatever way I could because I would want the same thing. I pray for teachers that will love Charlee Kate and make her feel safe everyday! I also pray that I remember these things even when kids (or parents... b/c 9 times out of 10 they are worse than the kids) want to drive me crazy! LOL... The weekend is almost here!

Here are my VERY RANDOM pictures taken with my phone! Boy when I have the new phone in a few weeks these pics will be so much better, but it still won't replace the big dog camera! This little face reminds me of a lot each day!

On mornings that we don't have time to sit at the table for breakfast, I make sure her breakfast is made and then I serve it to her on a tray in front of her favorite tv show. Now that sounds like something I would like myself, LOL. We would much rather eat with her and about 80% of the time, that happens, but sometimes we have to resort to this during the work week.

Those allergies were getting to her this morning. You can see the watery eyes.

This was a very random picture sitting in the car on our way home from Gatlinburg.

Gatlinburg!

We had just an amazing trip to Gatlinburg! We haven't been here in 9 years (since our 2nd Anniversary). I have wanted to come for several months, but this weekend seemed to be the best time, after the holidays, so we had something to look forward to when I have the "Christmas blues". I have to admit... I almost cancelled it this past week because my work week was crazy busy, Jeremy had been gone for 5 days, CK had been sick, etc...!!! I kept thinking "lets just stay at home", but I never would actually say it. NOW, I am SO SO SO glad we did not cancel it. It was exactly what we needed!

We picked Charlee Kate up from school on Friday and headed out. I kept telling her we were going on a "trip" so she has been waiting for our "trip". Then once we got in the car she ask me if we were going to New York. I laughed so hard. Her Nana read her a book about New York and so that is on her mind! I told her, in a few years, I will definitely be taking her there. Until then... it was Gatlinburg for this trip. She was the best car rider for 5 hours. She watched her IPAD for awhile, we stopped for dinner, then she watched it some more, then talked to us for 2 hours! We kept thinking she would go to sleep but it never happened, but she was so happy. After she saw the condo we were staying in, she was so excited! It was midnight before she fell asleep. I realized this was the first time she was really staying somewhere different than a family member's home so it was all new to her.

Our next 2 days involved lots of resting, sleeping, coffee in the mornings and some oatmeal, then out on the town for a bit, fun sight seeing places....we took her up the mountain in the bucket lift, saw snow, took her to the aquarium, ate at some good places, even went to the new outlet mall (which had some great stores to my surprise).... so all in all, it was just absolutely wonderful! I didn't have to clean, pick up, any of the usual household chores. We plan to do this every year or every other year for sure because it is such a fun/relaxing trip.

We made it back home safe and sound, with plenty of time for me to unpack and be prepared for the week. Somehow I had to throw the Superwoman cape on so I could get in a run on a nice day, go to the grocery store, cook dinner, get all unpacked, and bake a couple of items. It worked!!! At least it is just a 4 day week ahead of us and Jeremy isn't gone 5 days this week.

Back to the routine with work, cooking dinner, and then I am adding BAKING back to my list. New recipes I want to try! January is going to be over before we know it, then we have Valentine's Day to look forward to! So much happening...but fun stuff ahead. Not another trip until the end of February. Also, It looks as though the Mercedes it will be! I have such a hard time with decisions. Hope everyone else had a great MLK weekend!!!

The sun was shining on the mountains very brightly behind us but I LOVED seeing the gorgeous mountains every morning when we woke up.

She was so excited to head out on our first adventure for the trip! All dressed and ready to go!

Lots of snow on top of the Mountain!

We gave in and let her ride this goofy little old carousel. I was amazed it was still only 25 cents. Luckily we have the handy dandy anti-bac b/c this just made her day!

Riding Uber Gatlinburg to head back down the Mountain. She called this the big bucket.

Off we go for another morning. We both look sort of tired here. Not sure why b/c we had about 11 hours of sleep, but somehow we were tired, haha! She would not want to wear anything in hair but this headband. I knew we would put a cute hat on soon so I just let it go.

This little girl has the shoes that I want. I love these silver uggs! I found her the famous pink Stuart weitzmans at bloomys recently. She had these at 1 yr old and they were my fav! She can now wear some toms I had forever and I got her a few new colors. The shoe department is always where I head first for her. The lady at school ask me where they came from hoping to find them in bham. A few do, but most of my favorites are somewhere else.

The Aquarium visit. She did NOT like the sharks at all! She love seeing all the fish, but the penguins were her favorite.

She would crawl under this tank and put her head up in the middle... so cute!