Wordless Wednesday - Cheesy Grins

Ali is now at that age where she will smile on command (fakely, of course - and yes, that's another one of my made up words). But it is just too cute, fake or not. Here she is showing off her new dress before church:
Check out my other Wordless Wednesday post on my main blog here.
Check out more Wordless Wednesday posts from others at 5 Minutes for Mom!

Ali the Tattletale?

Ali is getting to a really fun age where she will tell me things that happened when I wasn't around.

Now there is no guarantee to the accuracy of these tales, because she is obviously too young to understand lying, and too inexperienced at sentence structure to differentiate between imaginings and actual events.

However, sometimes you've got to wonder where she comes up with stuff if, in fact, it isn't the truth.

For instance.

We were driving today, and I almost missed my turn. So I slowed down rather quickly, and then did a rather sharp turn as well. To make it more fun for Ali, I said, "WHEEEEE!!"

Ali replies enthusiastically, "Pop Races!! Pop RACES!!" POP races!!!"

So Dad, I have to ask - do you tell Ali you're racing while driving around sharp turns? I mean, it's not that I would mind, or be surprised, seeing as you did plenty of that (safely) while I was growing up. But if this isn't something y'all have taught Ali, then she is QUITE perceptive.

:)

Wordless Wednesday - Sam's Trip

I'll push the down-low stuff if you'll push the up-high stuff, okay, Mommy?
Check out my other W.W. post at my main blog, and check out more W.W. posts from others at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Snippets of Life

Yes, it is the terrible truth: Ali is already on book 7 of Harry Potter:
Here are a few more pictures of the Sunday School party at the Burchfield's a couple of weeks ago. The little girls had SO much fun together!
Ali and AJ:
Ali found this teeny tiny hairbrush and was fervently brushing her hair with it:

Dancin' To the ABC's

I kept AJ the other day, and this is just some of the fun that Ali and AJ have together. It is so much fun to watch them play with each other!!!

Finally: A Sweet Mispronunciation!!

Another post from August that never made it past the drawing board. I remembered it today while we were driving in the rain and having this conversation again.

So I was whining last week about all of Ali's crude mispronunciations, but this week she has had a great one.

It's been raining pretty steadily here, and so when we've been in the car and Ali has asked me for crackers, juice, glasses, guitar, cell phone, books, and other various toys, I have been trying to explain to her that it is raining, so Mommy needs to be careful.

She accepts my explanation, and then repeats to herself, "Mommy Prayerful. Mommy Prayerful."

Every time she says this, it reminds me to pray - there's not a better way to be careful!!

ANOTHER Post About Sleepwalking

This post is another one that just somehow never made it to publishing. I thought I'd go ahead and put it up on B-Sides.

The other night, or more accurately, early morning, I was awakened by the cat meowing. She goes through phases of doing this (especially after we've been gone for a while), and I always try to stop it as soon as possible so that she doesn't wake Ali. When she's feeling REALLY obnoxious, she sits right outside of Ali's door and meows.

So I headed down the hall to try and find her, my eyes not really adjusted to the darkness, but was unable to locate her. She must be downstairs. So I headed back to bed.

I get in bed, and Chris asks me in a sleepy but knowing and suspicious voice, "where have you been?". I immediately realize that he thinks I've been sleepwalking again.

I tell him "The cat was meowing. I went to find her, but apparently she was downstairs". I was very aware that I was awake, and slightly annoyed that he thought that I wasn't. But with my track record, I knew I had no chance of convincing him that I was indeed awake, so I just let it go.

I rolled over, just hoping that the cat would meow again in the split second that it would take him to fall asleep again so that he would believe me, and thank goodness, she came to my defense and meowed. I wasn't sure if he heard it or not.

The next morning, Chris brought it up and said "I thought for sure you were sleepwalking last night. When you told me the cat was meowing, I thought to myself, 'I didn't hear no cat!!', but then the cat meowed again and I realized you were right."

Vindicated!!!

p.s. - Jennifer, regarding your suggestion on my last post about sleepwalking: I'm not so sure that there IS a cure for it, other than giving me some sort of heavy nasty medication, which I'm not too sure is worth it. I usually go through "seasons" of sleepwalking, and even though this season has been obviously more dangerous than ever before, I'm going to stick it out a bit longer and see if it will pass.

I think that the cause of this season is having a fully toddling toddler that I have to be nervous about, just like the last one was having a newborn that I was nervous about. Hopefully when I get "used" to having a toddler who can get into nearly anything, it will pass.

Shrimp Festival Music

Playtime/Photo Shoot (B-Sides)

A continuation from this post on my main blog:













For the "A-Side" photos, go here.

Is Ali a Feminist?

THIS one was NOT rehearsed. . . I guess she just remembered her rehearsal from Friday's post-debate video.

I think Ali is focused too much on Sarah in this election. . .

Tying Up the Loose Ends in Atlanta

This is a month-old post that just never got published on the main blog. I never had time or never thought it was the right time or something, but here it is on B-sides!

So I've had three blogs about our Atlanta trip, but there was so much more. I can't begin to scratch the surface of how absolutely wonderful our trip was. It was one of our most awesome dates ever! I am so thankful to my Mom for keeping Ali so that we could go.

Here are the last of the storylines from Atlanta.

1. We went through quite a "cultural" district to get to Taverna Plaka. We saw Thai bar-be-que, French cuisine, Italian food, and several establishments of ill repute. The ones that stuck out to me the most, though, were the three Ethiopian Cuisines that we saw. I have never heard of such, and would have no idea what consisted of Ethiopian cuisine. I'm just hoping it's not bugs and monkey brains. I just can't help but think of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" when I think of Ethiopian Cuisine. I don't even know if that's on the same continent of the setting of the movie, but that's what my mind associates with it.

2. The weekend was rough on my eardrums. It started at Taverna Plaka, compliments of DJ Arti. Wow. Then, we went to Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. This was my first experience there. I never quite realized that "Hard Rock" was literal. By the time we had finished our burgers, I was literally about to involuntarily sprint out of the restaurant, fueled by my aching ears. Then the ballgame. Of course it was loud, but then at Leigh Tiffin's first field goal, amidst the crazy cheering, Chris wanted to make sure that I knew that was his career long field goal, so he yelled it into my ear so closely that his lips were touching my ear lobe. This sent unbelievable stabs of pain all the way down into my ear canal. I tried to hide my pain, but when Chris noticed I was quick to assure him that he was the straw (that broke the camel's back), not the cause. It took about an hour, but the pain finally subsided. And now it seems back to normal.

3. We watched GameDay on TV in our hotel room. Lee Corso had the team Mascot's helmet delivered to him via Army skydiver. Chris looked out the window, and sure enough, we could see him from our Hotel Room:

4. We stayed in the Ellis Hotel. It was super nice. Kind of, "cozy" and boutiquey, but really quaint and modern. Here's a pic:
5. I could see my dream hotel stay from the window, the Westin. 73 Floors. I do love heights. Chris, not quite as wild about the idea of staying on the 73rd floor of a hotel that resembles the Tower of Pisa, promised that we could stay there next year if Alabama plays Virginia Tech in Atlanta and we go to the game. Yipppeeee!!! Here is a picture of it from our hotel window:
6. Can anyone explain to me what's going on with the windows?? All of the Atlanta downtown hotels had missing windows. Is this normal daily wear and tear, or are all of these buildings still missing windows from last year's tornado through downtown??
7. While tooling around in Olympic Centennial Park midday on Saturday, we saw up close and person Kirk Herbstreit (sp?) from ESPN Gameday. He was really close, signing autographs and taking pictures. Me, being the shy person that I am, was afraid to approach him. I think I may have held Chris back too, although I didn't intend to. I am a terrible wife.

What are B-Sides?

I know that is the question that Ali will be asking me one day, as the phrase "cassette tape" will have no meaning for her. So I'll go ahead and explain: There used to be these funny, partially see-through grey things with ribbon in them that played music. They had two sides, and you had to pop them out and turn them around to get to the B-side. The songs on the B-side were supposedly never quite as good as the first side, since they tried to hook you with it.

What does this have to do with blogging?

Believe it or not, despite my 1-3 posts per day on my main blog, I have recently gotten a few complaints that I don't blog enough. I also have people that say I blog too much and they can't keep up with it. But for those who want more, I have started B-Sides. I actually DO have a lot of material each week that never gets blogged for lack of time and space, and so this blog is for the stuff that I decided in the past AND decide in the future doesn't QUITE meet up to my OCD perfectionistic standards to go on my main blog.

AND this is a place for me to blog about stuff in our every day life without the pressure of making it funny, entertaining, or otherwise creative. Here, I am going to try my hardest to put NO standards on myself - for quality or quantity.

This will be hard, as I am obsessively goal-oriented and have trouble NOT putting pressure on myself for everything from how much work I get done in a day to how good of gas mileage I get. I love statistics and I kill myself always trying to outdo every statistic in my life.

But not here.

This is just a place for me to chronicle our lives more closely and put up material left over after the main blog. Due to that, this blog may have little or no interest for anyone but family members, but you're welcome to read if you like!

And so I introduce. . . B-Sides.