Snow Ball

This past weekend Sarah attended her first formal dance. Beech High School held the Snow Ball, the first winter formal for the school in almost 10 years.

Sarah decided to go solo with a group of girlfriends. She said she would have much more fun being with her friends than having to worry about dancing with a guy and all the stupid things that goes along with boy stuff. Worked for us- one less thing to worry about :)

So she and I headed out to find a suitable dress. The dance was actually being called a semi-formal, so I guess not full out fancy, tu-tu type ball gowns, but kind of dressy. Sarah had a vision in mind, so out we went just she and I, so no distractions with JT or younger sisters giving their opinion on which dress looked best. The first store we went to we found several dresses that fit the bill, so Sarah tried on almost a dozen at that store and narrowed it down to one favorite pretty quickly. This is a tall feat for Sarah, as she is the queen of indecisiveness.

We couldn't just buy that dress and call it a day, no! We had to go to at least 4-5 more stores to make sure nothing else could top the one on hold at store #1. So we went and looked and looked, but nothing held a candle to the original dress Sarah loved. After buying a pair of very tall black heels- her 1st pair- we returned to store #1 and bought THE DRESS.

The evening of the Snow Ball, Sarah and 3 other friends met at Chili's to eat dinner. Afterward, they went to the Ball and danced their shoes off, literally. Sarah said dancing in the heels killed her feet and she took them off. She is a smart one, yes? Then once the Ball was over they all headed back to Delaney's for a sleepover. They did what teen girls do and had a blast together. Then the next morning, Paige and Sarah got up in time to make it to church together. Sarah was very tired Sunday afternoon, but she had the 3 day weekend of MLK Jr. to recover. She is now looking forward to her first Prom this spring.

Caring

Courtney was the recipient of an Award last week. Her teacher selected her as representing the "Caring" character among her classmates! She, along with other students were recognized for their outstanding character at an awards ceremony last week. Courtney is one to often think of others, shares with her sisters, and is a sweet girl. We are all so proud of Courtney!

Cheeser

Now that JT has 4 teeth-quickly working on making it 8- he has this cheesy smile he like to give to us. Speaking of getting teeth, the poor little guy is drooling like crazy! It's difficult to capture on film since its just a quick little face he makes. Here are a few pictures showing his developing smile.

Look I have 4 teeth!

Look at the long trail of drool!

The ultimate cheesy grin- little bit of wrinkly

nose. Lindsay's smile is lovely :)

Figuring It Out

This week JT is working hard at crawling. He is now starting to move his arms in the correct motion of crawling. I don't think it will be much longer until we have a fast little baby on the move!

The Big Freeze

The girls were very excited to have Friday off as a result of the "big snowstorm". I'm not sure exactly how much snow we officially had, but guessing somewhere in the 1-2 inch range. Our temperatures have been so darn cold that many of the roads have ice and are not safe for the buses to travel on.

Friday brought more snowfall, soft, off and on throughout the day. The girls were so happy and they were able to build a snowman and play around more outside. Their friend Catherine came over again and she helped to build the snowman and play in the frigid weather. With the windchill, it was probably around 10 degrees at the warmest part of the day. No thanks!

For those of you who don't live here and don't visit when it gets this cold, here is something that happened every winter here. The first winter we were here, I thought it was so cool looking. It still impresses me. Most of our area has a lot of limestone, to the point where you have to blast whenever you want to do construction. Anyhow, the rocks either hold water in them or when it rains and freezes, there are big icicles that hang from the limestone. Big clusters of them. Here is a picture of some from the backyard of one of our friends house.

Now here on Sunday evening, we found out that the girls have yet another snow day tomorrow! This is due to in some of the northern parts of our county, the roads are still unsafe to drive on, so the entire county has closed the schools for one more day. Every year the have up to 13 "weather/illness" days to use and so far this is the most we have have in one stretch. Never used more than maybe 4 each year since we have been here.

The girls have had only 2 school days in the past 4 weeks since they had Christmas vacation from December 18th - January 4th. I think they will be returning to school Tuesday. I just hope it warms up a bit!

Lucky Number 7

Every month I am amazed at how old JT is and how big he is getting. I don't know why, I know how to count and I have done this 3 times already. I think that God has given me the gift of appreciation of this time of babyhood by having JT much later after Courtney. I know for certainty how fast these years go by, how they grow up and mature. I can't imagine how my Mom must feel having an adult daughter who now has kids of her own-one day I pray I will be able to reflect on that same thing.

Anyhow, on to the big boy- 7 months old now! JT is now the proud owner of 4 teeth- 2 on top and 2 on bottom. One thing he has loved doing since his upper teeth broke through is this type of grinding/gritting of the 4 teeth. Imagine biting those teeth together and then making an awful sound- to me it's worse than nails on a blackboard. Well, my son loves doing that several times a day! He must know it gives me the chills and has fun tormenting me in a small way already :)

JT continues to not be a big fan of veggies of any kind now. It started with just the green ones, but is now starting to progress to most of them. I can usually get down about 1/2 a jar pretty well, but then he starts protesting. What I have found to work is kind of trick him by getting some fruit on top of the veggie. So he tastes more of the sweetness that he loves, but still getting the needed veggies. His personal favorite is banana. I craved these so much when I was pregnant, so maybe this is being passed on to him now that he's out in the world.

We are beginning to see the early stages of crawling now. I know that I have the post with JT moving and we continue to see more of that everyday. What he does is get on his hands and knees and rock for a bit. Then he gets into a plank type position, on his toes and then kind of shoves off with his legs to move forward. Sometimes, he even manages to get his foot flat on the floor with his butt high in the air, that kind of scares me since he's not the most stable yet.

In addition to moving around, JT can't seem to get enough of standing up! I'm telling you we are going to have a mini person just walking about the house before too long at this rate! JT loves to stand on our laps and also on the couch and then chew on it.

Lastly, it looks like JT is going to have blue/green eyes. His eye color changes depending on what he wears, the day of the week, heck I don't know! I'm just used to having brown everyday of the week :) Here's a good snapshot showing his non-brown eyes.

Let It Snow!

The first snow of 2010 has arrived! All week long, the forecasts have been calling for 2-4 inches of snow here in Middle Tennessee. For our area, that is a fair amount.

The girls, heck even John and I, were waiting anxiously last night for school to be cancelled. Where we live, just the thought it might snow, brings out the "Snow Bird"- a news channel's mascot who gives great news of school closings. Our county was one of the last ones to declare today a snow day- almost 9:30 at night!

The snow was expected to start falling early this morning, up until noon. We all got up and were so disappointed to see just a light dusting of snow just on the driveway. By now the weather reporters were saying 1/2-1 1/2 inches to fall today. I guess the weather system didn't come down like expected. The poor girls were looking outside the window praying this time when they looked, somehow the yard would be a white blanket. It wasn't until around 11a, that a slow steady shower of light snow began to fall.

Much to the delight of the girls, they rounded up all of their warm clothes and readied to go outside and play in what little snow there was. As of now, mid-afternoon, there is a light dusting of snow on the yard and enough on the driveway and trampoline to make some snowballs. The girls are outside playing with their friend Catherine. JT is sleeping soundly in the warmth of his crib. I'm here typing up our blog and ready to serve hot cocoa to the girls when they are finished playing and chilled to the bone.

Watch Out!

Yes, the time has come. Lock up your toys, baby proof the house! JT is in the beginning stages of moving/crawling!!! Fortunately for us, JT doesn't do this all the time and can't get very far, but for just turning 7 months, I think we might be in for some trouble very soon!