Going the distance.

My very best friend ran her first half marathon this weekend. While you might think that this was a great feat, you truly would have a much greater appreciation if you knew a little more of her history.

Callie and I have grown up together, and she has always had the incredible gift of maintaining a model-like figure on a diet of fried foods. When we were in high school she once told me "salad is for rabbits." Needless to say, she has never had to physically exert herself to burn calories, and who can blame her for not wanting to? She moved to California and got a little granola in her veins (just kidding), and all of the sudden she discovered what she would describe as the joys of running. Oh how the tables have turned. Over the last couple of months I have been blown away by her dedication to her new found hobby as well as her discipline to train her body for such a feat. She is trying to convince me to join her in this thing of long distance running, and I am still looking at her like she has 4 heads. My words to her were, "If I had time to pick up a new hobby, running most definitely would not be it." I have always loathed running just to run. However, this persuasion is coming from the girl that ate a Chickfila meal as an afternoon snack and couldn't run more than 1 mile only a few months ago...so I will sheepishly admit stranger things have happened. That being said, I am SO incredibly proud of Callie. I really cannot express how much I admire her for what she has been accomplishing out in California. I just hope she doesn't disappear completely after burning all of those calories!

This weekend Callie came home to run her very first half marathon. We went out to the sidelines of Mile 9 to surprise her and cheer her on.

Josiah waiting on her to pass...

Still waiting...

This was her right after she passed Mile 9 (and us). Seriously? She looks incredible! (and she was beating her projected time!)

Here she is about to cross the finish line...

There it is in all of its glory---Callie RUNNING across the finish line after not stopping for 13.1 miles. P.S. Callie beat her best projected time and finished in 2 hours and 9 minutes. WOW!

DONE!

The rest of the pictures are of various people there to support Callie and run the race themselves. They are posted so Callie can have them. It's really difficult to carry your own camera on a 13 mile run.

I am so proud of you Callie!

Chickfila and Choo-Choos

Today we had Josiah's 2nd Birthday party. We did it with the theme of Chickfila and Choo Choos, as they are two of Josiah's favorite things. We just invited family and close friends, primarily those with small children. I suppose it was a perfect storm (or our friends secretly don't like us), because none of our friends with kids could make it. Seriously, none. So, we had a great party with about 10 adults eating Chickfila nuggets off of train plates and oogling over Josiah performing (sometimes unwillingly) all of the traditional birthday tasks. When I say great, I am not lying. It really was.

I didn't really take many pictures, as the house photographer (ie, my best friend Callie) was in attendance. Hopefully I will be able to share what she captured in the coming weeks. Here are the few photos I did take:

This was the cake after he blew out the candles and pulled the trains off!

All of his birthday loot. I don't look forward to figuring out what to do with everything once we have multiple children!

The Big Boy is 2!

Josiah's 2nd birthday was Wednesday, and we spent the day doing everything he loves to do. We went to Monkey Joes and jumped until his heart and legs' content. He loves to play the basketball game there, and usually we just play once or twice since it costs money. That being said, on your birthday you can play as much as you want! He played quite a few games of basketball. He enjoyed putting the money in the slot. For some reason he pronounces "money" as "te-ting." I'm honestly not sure why he thinks it sounds the same, but since playing he has taken great pleasure in asking for "teting" for his pockets.

After Monkey Joes we went to the pet store to choose a fish, one of our gifts to Josiah for his birthday. He had a good time looking at all of the fish. He is still learning how to be gentle with the fish bowl, but he LOVES to tell me that the fish needs food. He holds his hand out so I can put some pellets in his hand each day.

After choosing our fish we went to Chickfila where Josiah ate his very own Kid's Meal and ice cream and played in the playground.

He was so exhausted from our activities!

After his nap, we went out to Noni and PawPaw's house, because no favorite day is complete without that. Noni and PawPaw got him the gift of all gifts--a rideable train! What a fabulous cap to the end of a birthday.

I feel so blessed to have had the privilege to carry this child in my womb and watch him grow up for the last two years. He is a beautifully sweet boy, and I pray that the Lord will use him in a great way in the days and years to come.

Halloween

For Halloween we decided to continue with tradition and share the evening with our dear friends, the Foss'. Of course, this year was much different, as the belly Lori sported last year has turned into a very cute 7 month old baby girl! It was raining intermittently and misting the whole night, so we went out to visit just a few houses. Josiah became QUITE a professional with the trick-or-treating. It was really funny when in the days following he would go to his pumpkin, reach for candy, and then look at me sheepishly and say, "trick or treat!" as if that would HAVE to mean he could have some. He sure is in love with candy (and not a day too soon). Check out our little trick-or-treating video on the video bar!

Happy Birthday, Grandpa Grady!

Today is Grandpa Grady's Birthday! As a special surprise, I videotaped Josiah saying Grandpa Grady's name for one of the first times (it is pretty hard, you know!). Though we don't get to see Grandpa Grady very often, we still love him very much and look forward to seeing him next month! Happy Birthday, Dad!

A collection of random shots.

I realized there are quite a few cute, isolated shots of Josiah over the last couple of months that I have forgotten to add to the blog...so here they are, for your viewing pleasure:

"Make a funny face!"

"Smile!"

One of the first cold nights.

This just reminded me so much of the Wicked Witch under the house that I couldn't help but laugh.

The new thing is for Josiah to ask to take his nap in "Mama's bed." One day Jonathan joined him.

He might get me one day for this, but this is Josiah sitting on one of his potties.

Look for some forgotten videos, too!

October fun.

Jonathan had a very successful Atlanta launch of his new project, www.buyarecordsavealife.com on Thursday night, and we discovered something very important. Josiah has his father's love of the limelight. Jonathan called Josiah up on stage to help him with the claps in his song, "She's too pretty to be so ugly." It is Josiah's favorite song of his daddy's, and he listens to it over and over and claps along with it. I didn't know how Josiah would react when I plopped him up on stage, but he just walked over to his dad like it was nothing new. Jonathan started to play, and Josiah danced his little heart out on stage right, pausing only to dramatically hold his hands in anticipation of the claps. It was so funny it made me cry. He did such a good job performing for the crowd. Someone videotaped some of it, so we are hoping to track that down. Trust me when I say you should wish you were there!

Today Josiah and I decided to take a practice run on his Halloween costume today. I justified it by saying that the forecast has rain for next week (it really does), though I really just couldn't wait to see how cute he is going to be. Nana and Grandaddy were over visiting and I took some pictures of Josiah playing with Grandaddy, too. Enjoy!

I should mention that later this evening Josiah was browsing his books when he came across a Santa book. He looked at it and pointed to Santa, having no idea who "Santa" is of course, and matter-of-factly declared, "Grandaddy." It was hilarious, and now you can see why.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Josiah's 5 Favorite Things:

5) Choo-choos

4) Na-na

3) Drums

2) Chickfila

1) Basketball goals

You know you're a mom when...

You know you're a mom when...you find rocks in your dryer.

You know you're a mom when...someone tells you they need a towel and then uses the bathrobe you're wearing because surely it is the same thing.

Public potties eat people...maybe.

In the last couple of weeks we have experienced some setbacks with the potty... specifically related to the public potty. It all started a few weeks ago at the Greek Festival. We had just sat down to eat when Josiah told me he needed to go potty. I took him into one of the port-a-potties and stood him up to lower his pants. He leaned over and looked down into the looming abyss that is the port-a-potty and suddenly said, "No! no!" in a very high pitched, insistent voice while simultaneously grabbing his pants so I couldn't pull them down. I knew what he was thinking. We exited the port-a-potty and went back to the table. A few minutes later he told me he needed to poo-poo. I took him back and made him sit on the potty despite his previous protest. He didn't really protest, as I sufficiently distracted him and tried to make him comfortable by singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" a couple of times. He peed, but refused to comply with his original requested needs. We exited again. A few minutes later he said he needed to poo-poo again. I hung my head, as my food had yet to really be eaten. This time Paw Paw took a try at it, and he was successful. I knew Josiah was fighting the battle of needing to go but not wanting to let loose in the port-a-potty. Let's be honest. Who DOES want to do that? He isn't too young to know you must be absolutely desperate to utilize the port-a-potty in such a manner.

Last week Josiah told me he needed to go potty while out. I took him to a public restroom with automatic flush. Unfortunately Josiah is so light that it confuses the potty. It began flushing continuously, and Josiah looked up at me with ultimate terror. He scrambled up into my arms and absolutely refused to use the bathroom. I didn't make him. We put his clothes back on and headed home instead.

After these two events Josiah was convinced he was correct in his hesitation toward using a potty outside of the home. We went to lunch with friends last week and took his potty seat with us. Even though we had his potty seat, he was too intimidated by the public potty. He needed to poo-poo and told me a couple of times. I took him to the bathroom each time, but each time he would sit on the potty and then declare, "nope!" Before we left he said, "Poo-poo...uh oh." This sentence, short and to the point...is one I hate to hear. Sure enough, Josiah had pooped in his underwear and knew it. He usually hates that feeling, but I guess he was weighing his options and felt it was the better choice. I cleaned him up and wrapped up his dirty underwear (and discovered I should carry a ziplock in his bookbag for situations such as these). I told my girlfriend how he had recently developed this anxiety related to public potties and knew it was the reason he made such a choice.

Our history left us with quite a predicament this morning when we found ourselves at the store with him requesting to poo-poo. I took him in and breathed a sigh of relief to see it was a manual flush potty. Who would ever guess one would hope for such things? I sat him down and he peed, but once again refused to poop. I knew he needed to go and really didn't want to play clean up today. I turned around and sat on the potty and pulled him into my lap to put his pants back on, defeated. Like most brilliant parenting solutions...I accidentally stumbled across one. A light bulb went off in my head and I slid back on the potty and put him in between my legs. I held him there securely and gave him a sweet embrace to show him he was save while talking to him about using the potty. He immediately dropped the huge load he had been holding back. Brilliant! I congratulated him on overcoming his fears and silently celebrated this victory for my future as a member of the public with a two year old in tow.

Now I just have to hope the same tactic works next time.