Monday, January 31, 2011

I {Heart} Faces!

…Especially this one!


I could look into those gorgeous baby blues all day.

And that little pink pout just melts my heart.

To me, Perry’s face represents innocence, wonder, and all my love.

To check out more beautiful faces and to vote for Mr. Perry, click on the button below.



Sunday, January 30, 2011

A Memorable Photoshoot {Sunday Snapshot}

I had the exciting opportunity to do a photo shoot for my friend Leigh Ann’s little girl.  Sophia is such a doll, you just can’t take a bad picture of her.  Despite all the fun I was having taking pictures of Miss S, the photo shoot got a little bit more exciting when Leigh Ann went in to labor.  I went from the photographer to the bag packer and baby helper.  I even took a few shots of Leigh Ann during her contractions.  I was really excited to get to add labor and delivery photographer to my resume’!  These are a few of my faves from the afternoon.




Update:  After a few hours at the hospital, it was confirmed that LA’s contractions were due to severe dehydration.  Although I was a little bummed about not gettin to hold little Rio this weekend, it will only be a couple weeks longer (at most) that I have to wait!   


To see other Sunday Snapshots, visit Stefanie at Nihaoyall!  






Ni Hao Yall

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

{WIL/B&WW} The Day After

First off, I want to thank you all so much for such sweet words and prayers from last night.  Perry and I are much better today- We slept until 10:00, which was wonderful.  I was able to snuggle buggle Mr. P all night long and we both slept well, with exception of his stubburn cough.  Perry still looks pretty rough and my knee hurts really bad, but other than being banged up, I think we are both fine.  I think the initial shock of it all was the worst! 

Being Wednesday, I have several things that I'm loving!

I'm loving that my Mom is a nurse and was able to take care of Perry last night without us having to go to the doctor.
Mrs. Karen on the left, Baby Perry, then Nurse Grammie on the right-
You would never know Mom had been up for more than
36 hours straight when this photo was taken!

I'm loving that as a teacher, I don't have to tell my boss when I'm not coming in to work.  All I have to do is plug my absence into a web program called Aesop (which calles substitutes) and hope that a sub picks it up.  (If a sub does not pick up my absence, the other first grade teachers split my class.)  No- I NEVER do this and it is certainly not ideal for my students, but when emergencies come up, it's nice not to have to worry at all about calling to ask permission to be off and making arrangements for my class. 

This is a picture that belongs to my teacher friend, Anna.
She had it hung up in her classroom until she moved schools.
A little girl in Japan actually made it herself.  (It's a million tiny, colored dots if you can't tell!)
I thought it was SO amazing, I took a picture of her picture...
since she wouldn't let me keep it! ;)

I'm loving that my Grandmommy and Grandaddy are the ones who keep Perry during the day.  I cannot express how much it means to me that someone I know and love and trusts takes care of my baby when I am at work.  Plus, he has so much fun with them and is spoiled rotten- just the way a baby should be!!

Perry and Grandaddy hanging out by the barn.

Link up with Jamie and Lisa for What I'm Loving Wednesday and Black and White Wednesday!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

"Bum My Head!!"

Tonight started off as any other ordinary night for us.  I had some monogramming I needed to do for my side business, The Red Thread Monogramming, so I ran up to my Grandmommy and Grandaddy's house to pick up P and do a little sewing.  Justin was at home straightening up and I was going to head home soon to meet him for us to fix omelets together for dinner.  But, my Mom surprised the family with a roast dinner, so after I finished my sewing, we all headed over to Mom and Dad's for dinner.

As Mom was finishing up the meal, I was reading a Rachel Ray magazine and P was doing one of his favorite activities...Standing tipi-toed by the refrigerator filling a cup up with ice and dumping it into the dog's water bowl.  But then, he spilt some of the water.  So I jumped up and rolled up his pants legs, took off his socks, got him another pair and proceeded to put the dry pair on him.  While I was doing this, Mom was cleaning up the water.  But P didn't want new socks on.  So I said, "Do you want Daddy to put them on?"  To which he grinned and said, "Dadeeeee sock."  So I scooped him up and started walking to the living room to get Justin to help me put P's socks on him.  

Apparently, a piece of ice accidentally got left in the floor because as I stepped, my feet flew out from under me.  When I fell, I landed on my knee cap, and Perry was literally slammed into the floor.  I hit so hard, I was actually stunned, lying there looking at my child.  Thank goodness Mom was right there and sailed over me to pick up Perry.  In the eternity that it seemed to take me to get up, Mom had him wrapped in her arms.  I was standing there hysterical, knowing and hearing how hard we hit, seriously thinking Perry was dead.  It was the worst feeling of my entire life.  It had to have been at least 10 seconds before Perry did ANYTHING!  Then finally, a look of horror swept across his face and silent crocodile tears began to stream down his face, and then about 10 more seconds passed and he took a gasp of air and started screaming!!  Plus, there was blood.  It was awful!!  Perry immediately put his hands on his head and started screaming, "BUM MY HEAAAAAA!!!!"  

Upon final evaluation, I have a hurt, black and blue, swollen knee.  Perry's face is black and blue in three different places, plus his top lip is busted completely across.  To my complete astonishment, he didn't knock out any teeth!  As you will notice, there are no pictures to this post.  It seriously looks so bad, that Justin didn't want me to post pictures.  It all happened about 6:00pm, so we kept him awake until about 9:45 to make sure he acted okay.  The only time he threw up was right after it happened, and I think he just got so worked up that he gagged himself.  I am so thankful that Mom (RN) was there to keep an eye on him and make sure he was doing all the right things, otherwise, we'd have been at the ER.  

We finally made it to our house at about 10:15 to get snuggled in bed.  I have been crying since 6:00, beyond upset about the whole situation.  I can't even begin to explain how horrible this night was.  I am literally so sick to my stomach.  I'm not sure if I have caught a bug or not, but feel that it is most likely just a side effect of how upset and stressed I was about the whole situation.  Please pray for my sweet Perry because he also has been battling a very bad cold this whole weekend.  And just to know how bad this night was for us, I have taken a half day from school tomorrow to sleep late and snuggle with my angel bug.  This is a HUGE deal for me because I NEVER miss school.  But this was big.  Seriously, it was the worst night of my life.  


Monday, January 24, 2011

New Year’s Resolutions {Three Weeks In}

I’m not gonna lie. New Year’s resolutions are NOT easy to keep. But…. So far, I’m VERY proud to say that I’ve been doing a pretty good job. I am sad to say, that my ‘read the Bible in a year’ plan has been the hardest. But, you’ll be glad to know that I’m hangin’ in there. I think the biggest challenge with this resolution is not that I don’t want to do it, it’s just that by the time there is enough serenity in my house to do my reading, I am SOOOO tired. I just keep telling myself that anything worth doing is most likely going to require work.

Yes- My Bible is pink...
Along with just about everything else I own.

The cleaning/organizing thing has also been going okayyyy. We have our house up for sale right now, so that has been some motivation. I’ve sent a lot of stuff to Goodwill, but man do we have a lot of junk. I really want our back storage room to have a purpose, so I’ve been trying to motivate myself by saying it needs to be clean so that it can be something. That transformation might have to wait until summer though.

My kitchen is neat and organized.  It will not be like this for long.
I felt an extreme urge to document...

Oddly enough, the resolution that has been the easiest for me to stick to is eating healthier and being more active. My friend Kristi and I have been yoga-ing Monday-Thursday, and I now have running dates with my friend Carly on Fridays. I’ve also signed on to teach a future majorette baton lessons once a week, so I’m really excited about all my exercising opportunities. The best part of all these calorie burning dates is that they are with people I enjoy so much. It’s fun to have productive girl time. I’ve also noticed that eating better and exercising more is making me feel better. Who knew? So mayyyybeeee, come summer I’ll put on that bikini with confidence. Okay, so I might be stretching it… That tankini will hopefully look alright! :)

This is the squishiest, most comfortable yoga mat I have ever stepped on.
It's only downfall... it didn't come in pink! ;)

I’m VERY curious what your New Year’s Resolutions were and if you’re sticking to them. Let me know!! Hopefully we can encourage each other.!!

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Sunday Snapshot {Little Bitty}


Yesterday, my sweet Little Bitty turned 20 months old.  

My goodness what a little boy he is growing up to be!

Just in the past month, he has started saying, "I love you,

PEEEEZZZZ, and take you."

He now asks for "apuh jewww" instead of "dink."

He now tee tees on the potty... sometimes.

He gives bear hugs and big kisses.

He says bedtime prayers without you telling him to.

He has learned to blow bubbles in his bath water, 

which is lots of fun until he accidentally sucks it up his nose.

He has the potential to eat us out of house and home, 

and his favorite foods are blueberries and cheese puffs.

He is usually very well behaved, unless in church or weddings.

He loves his dogs and will play outside no matter what the temperature.

He has his Mommy and Daddy wrapped around his little finger.

No matter how old he gets, he will always be my Little Bitty! 


Ni Hao Yall

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Riding Along in my Automobile


This little car is one of Perry's favorite toys!  I think it is really neat b/c it once belonged to me.  In fact, I won it in a beauty pageant when I was Perry's age.  Despite it's lavender color, Perry thinks his "caaaaa" is totally "cooooo!!!"  I was very thankful that my Mom and Dad kept it in such great condition.  A little cleaning and Perry's new coup was good to go.  I love this picture, however I feel like Perry is definitely channeling his inner sixteen year old.  Yikes!! 

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

{WIL/B&WW }

First of all, I have to say that I'm NOT loving that this post contains no pictures.  You see, whenever I try to upload a picture, it pops up and says:"Whoops! You're out of space. 
Photos are stored in your Picasa Web Albums account and are included in your 1 GB free quota for photos. Additional storage you purchase is shared between Gmail, Picasa Web Albums, and Google Docs, and is in addition to your free quota."   I DESPERATELY want to fix this problem, and thus far, the only people I know of that it's ever said this to is me and my friend Mary Louis.  Neither of us having been blogging for long, so we don't know what's up.  Can anyone out there help?  PLEASE???????


I am LoViNg that Justin and I attended our first adoption webinar last night. It was so much fun and informative, and yummy!! Huh? That’s right. We decided to turn our webinar reservation into date night. So, Justin picked up our FaVoRiTe Mexican cuisine from Munoz, right down the road. Delish!! (I meant to take a picture of my fajita quesadilla to put in my {365}, but I was so hungry when Justin arrived that I ‘remembered’ that plan about half way through my meal. Needless-to-say, it would no longer have been a delicious picture.)

 
I’m also LoViNg that I finally bit the bullet and bought Photoshop!! I AM SO EXCITED about this purchase. I’ve been going back and forth and back and forth between different programs and where to purchase it from, so after MUCH Q&A from lots of sweet blog friends (THANK YOU) and 4, yes 4, trips to the Apple store, a 45 minute conversation (ok-so 23 of those minutes I was on hold) to Adobe , and prayers- yes, I prayed over Photoshop, I bought it! I CANNOT WAIT to start some upcoming classes and learn lots of new techniques and editing tidbits. Woo Hoo!!

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m LoViNg that I am FINALLY back in school. After an entire week of ‘Snow Days’ and then celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I was ready to get back into a routine. Plus, grades were due today and since I couldn’t enter them in from home, I had this looming burden hanging over my head the whole break. It was good to be back and meet my deadline. Plus, I love my teacher friends, so I was glad to see all the girls again!

Hope you’re having a WoNdErFuL Wednesday!!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Sunday Snapshot: {Snips and Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails}

I am EXTREMELY girly.  I have always wanted to have baby girls- to clothe them in precious pink, monogrammed dresses and adorn their hair with extremely large, flowery bows and headbands.  Where as, I truly hope to one day parent a precious little piggy tailed, pink polished, prissy princess, I am SO BEYOND THANKFUL that God gave me a little boy!! I tell Perry all the time that I can't believe I love a boy as much as I love Him!!  He has stolen my heart, and I feel forever indebted to God that he has blessed me with such a joy!!

And then, there is his Daddy.  This man has blessed my life immensely, as well. He has changed me in so many exciting new ways!  I now have an insane love for onions and bell peppers and Auburn football.  Both, things that I never thought I would care about.  I love that I get to experience family nap time with him, and we have family kisses and bedtime prayers with Perry.  I love that he cares as much about adopting a precious little angel as I do, and encourages Perry every night to pray for his little sister.  

So, living with Justin, Perry, Otis, and Jasper (Miss Sadie lives at my Mommy and Daddy's house) ... I am seriously outnumbered by the guys.  And for the time being, at least- I'm Loving It!! :)






Link up for Sunday Snapshot with Stefanie at Ni Hao Ya'll! 


Ni Hao Y'all

Friday, January 14, 2011

The Only Thing More Disgusting than Hot Coffee....

Is cold coffee!!


YUCK!!  BLUK!! EEWW!!

I had have a HORRIBLE headache today, so I thought a good dose of caffeine might help.
And it did...for about a minute.  All I could think about was how I had just subjected my poor tongue to such torture.

So, I drove through McDonald's to get a smoothie that I KNEW I would love.  It didn't help my headache any, but it rescued my taste buds.  


So, basically, I'm back at square one.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Vlogging- Sorta

So, there is apparently this new thing called "vlogging" going around the blogging community.  For those of you, like me, who had no clue what this is, it is videoing yourself saying a bunch of words and phrases for your fellow bloggers to hear your accent/dialect.

While I have to say, I'm going to be quite the party pooper and not exactly participate (for real- I will refrain from inflecting such ridicule and embarrassment upon myself....I spent my whole Disney cruise saying "ya'll" to everyone who met me.  For real people.... it CAN'T be that funny!), I did think some of the questions were kinda cute.  So, I thought I would share my answers.... in black and white, of course! ;)


  • What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house? Rolling a House.... which I was never allowed to do, and now think it is so tacky and rude of people to do.  I suppose it is due to the fact that while in high school, several of my guy friends rolled our house like I'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!!!! We came home from a football game and it literally looked like it had snowed!! (We live on a mountain in a very. wooded. area.  They rolled our house, driveway, front porch where you couldn't even walk up it, our playhouse, inside our playhouse, my dogs, the pool..... It was INSANE!!! And guess who had to clean it up at 7am???
  • What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball? A Rolly Polly- BTW... one of my FAVORITE places to eat!!!
  • What is the bubbly carbonated drink called? Coke-my favorite is by far Mountain Dew
  • What do you call gym shoes? Tenn-a Shoes-I hardly ever wear shoes, but if I have to, it is most likely Uggs or Flipflops
  • What do you say to address a group of people? Ya'll
  • What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs? EEEEEEEKKKKK!!!! But to type it, I would press G-r-a-n-d-a-d-d-y  L-o-n-g-l-e-g
  • What do you call your grandparents? Grandmommy and Grandaddy
  • What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket? A Buggy
  • What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining? "Hey look!! The sun is out and it's raining!! I bet there's a rainbow somewhere close!!!"  :)  Then, I always think of Noah's Ark!
  • What is the thing you change the TV channel with? A Zapper... I'm pretty sure that's just a family thing though.  ;)

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Black and White/What I'm Lovin' Wednesday: {Where's Perry?}

Where's Perry????


Peek-a-Boo!!!


Winter Storm 2011 started out fun for us (lots of fun sledding on Monday), but has since turned in to an icy mess.   Even though we are literally stuck inside, Perry has been making the best of it.   Between him hiding in his tent and now hiding in the cabinets, peek-a-boo is certainly not in short supply around here!

Be sure to link up with both Jamie and Lisa!!
What I'm Loving Wednesday: littledaisymay.blogspot.com
Black and White Wednesday: thelongroadtochina.blogspot.com



Monday, January 10, 2011

Snow Much Fun!

We woke up today to exactly what the weather man predicted!  (And let's be honest, that doesn't happen too often! ;)  Although I will have to make up these weather days later in the school year, the Murphree household has had SO much fun today!!  (And will tomorrow too as my school is still canceled and there will be no way Justin is going to make it out of our icy subdivision!)








We rolled out of bed around 8:00 and had a yummy breakfast, then we bundled up for some sledding.  Luckily, there are several really big hills in our subdivision, so we grabbed our sled (the plastic box that I had my classroom Christmas tree stored in) and had a blast!! I'm not sure who had more fun, me or Perry.








After we sledded for a while, we let out Jasper (Otis is still recovering from his 'ACL' surgery, so sadly, he had to stay cozy in the house), walked out to the highway for a look at the roads, then hiked back through the woods to the playground at the end of our street.  Perry and Justin had a great time sliding in the snow and Mr. P just loved the see-saw (as always).







Of course, I had a blast clicking away and capturing so many wonderful memories!!  After our fun in the snow, we came back inside for some lunch, gave Grammie a phone call, (She is stuck at the hospital delivering/taking care of new born little bitties), and then took a lazy nap.






When we woke up, Justin had a nice fire going in the fireplace, so we put some taco soup on the stove, and got cozy on the couch to watch our Auburn Tigers fight for the Championship.  Warrrrrr Eagle, HEY!!!




Sunday, January 9, 2011

Truly, Madly, Deeply

Sometimes, there just aren't words to express how much I love him.  This is one of those times!!





Ni Hao Y'all


To add your own Sunday Snapshot, visit Stephanie at Ni Hao Ya'll.  

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

What I'm {Loving} Wednesday


I am loving that (so far) I am doing good on my resolutions to:
1. Read the Bible in a Year
2. Get Organized
3. Eat Healthier/Get Active

I am ESPECIALLY loving that my little Perry is getting in on the action.  After dinner, he picked out this apple from the refrigerator all by himself.  When I told him to bite it, I didn't really think he would.  But this kid LOVED eating his apple!!  He at nearly the whole stinkin' thing!! Even half the core!  So glad this little guy is loving his healthy snacks! 




Our Adoption Timeline

  • June 19, 2011- We are officially "Paper Pregnant!" We have submitted our Waiting Child Application to Holt!
  • July 5, 2011- Submitted our formal Home Study Application to Villa Hope
  • September 6, 2011- Submitted all of our paperwork for our Home Study
  • October 8, 2011- Completed our First Home Visit
  • October 17, 2011- Completed our Second Home Visit
  • November 14, 2011- Home Study Approved
  • December 1, 2011- Filed our I600a
  • February 1, 2012- I600a Approval Letter
 
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