Poem by Daddy.

If you have children, get a tissue.  I found this on my computer today.  Jarrod wrote it about Jesalyn.



I fell in love again.
It's grabbed me by surprise. It took grandma's hands, auntie's toes.  My eyes, her mother's nose.

I fell in love again. Hit by an angel from the sky.  It took many knots, maybe cryin'.  Took 3 AM Story time.

I fell in love again. Not so sure what to do.  Seems you turned my world inside out.  Moved both the sun and the moon. I fell in love again.
-Jarrod M Pruitt-

You may be one only once, but you can celebrate as many times as you want!

As promised, here are pictures from Jesalyn's birthday party #2. 

Her cake. I think it turned out awesome.  My mom made it and decorated it with the help of Aunt Laura and Aunt Erin.

 The birthday girl, in her tutu I might add!

Jesalyn had a lot of people show up to wish her a happy birthday!

Matching hats

And of course the cake!

Random Thoughts

Annnnd whoosh, it’s Tuesday already!  Ya’ll I have been crazy busy the past two weeks. You saw my post about 2 weekends ago.  Little Jesa turned one. Well, this past weekend we had her official birthday party. It was so much fun. Thanks to all of you that were able to come and celebrate with us.  I took tons and tons of pictures.  But they aren’t uploaded yet, so that post will come at a later date.  Today’s is just going to be mishmash of what’s been on my mind.

I have a child!  Yes, I know I should be use to this by now.  But Jarrod and I still look at each other in disbelief that this little girl walking around pulling out all of my pans and measuring cups is ours.  And she will be ours until the day we die.  We are someone’s mom and dad.  It’s hard to put into words.  But it’s crazy.  Amazing and crazy!

My child is girl!  Let’s get this straight public of strangers that don’t know us.  Just because she is still lacking in the hair department does not mean she is a boy. Before you just assume a baby’s gender based on whether or not she can wear a ponytail, please use other means to make this decision. The first place to start might be her clothes.  If the child in question is wearing pink, you should guess girl. I’m not saying that boys can’t wear pink (or girls blue) but if you have a 50/50 guess and they’re wearing pink, the best guess is female.  This is why.  Most parents that have this issue try to make it easy for you.  They don’t want to embarrass you by having you guess wrong, so most of the time they give you clues. If you don’t see the clues, just ask.  Boy or girl?  Being honest is much better than guessing wrong.

Speaking of children.  Do we want any more?? Jesalyn is at the age now where people start to ask; so, are you gonna give Jesalyn a baby brother or sister?? I'll admit. We have talked about it. We have moments where we are like, yeah if we had more money we should just go for it. We've always wanted two. But other times we are like "what in the world! How are we handling the one we've got"  There's no way we could have another.  So the book is still out on that topic.  So, for now....pass me the birth control please.

Sometimes I think I might be spoiling Jesalyn.  I don't know, you tell me.  She gets ice put in her bottle when she's drinking water and most nights I get my bottle of lotion out and massage her legs and feet.  If her mamma can't spoil her, then who can?

So, I’m on week three of my push up quest. After you do week 2, you are suppose to redo the original test and see how many consecutive push ups you can do and then follow that column for the next 2 weeks.  I did mine Sunday and was able to pump out 20.  Yes, I know I'm a wiener but if you remember my first test resulted in 10 so I've doubled that in 2 weeks.  In my book, that's a success.  Jarrod and I are drooling to get Insanity. It's the competition of the famous P90X.  Same type of program, but instead of using weights and pull up bars, you use your own weight.  If it wasn't so expensive I would totally by blogging about it instead of this 100 push up thing.  Let's just say, if Jarrod gets one of these jobs he has interviewed for, it's ours!  Keep your fingers crossed!

Just for fun:

Your only one once!

What a crazy and fun weekend it's been.  The family is gone and my house looks like a tornado just blew through it.  As a matter of fact, I should be cleaning it all up, but instead I'm going to post a new blog.  =)
So, yesterday was Jesalyn's first birthday.  I still have to blink sometimes to believe that she is so grown up.  Who is this little girl getting into my pots and pans all by herself.  Who is this little girl walking from one side of the room to another?  The past year has flown by way too quickly.  I start to get a little teary eyed if I think about it too much so I'll quickly move on.   Her actually birthday party is next weekend.  My 10 yr high school reunion is next weekend too and we didn't feel like driving home two weekends in a row.  Instead, my mom, Danny and my sister Janel drove down to visit.  It was so nice seeing them.  They were here for 2 days and we packed it full. Take a look for yourself:

 Jesalyn and Grandpa Danny waiting for everyone to get ready so we could leave

By the time everyone was up and ready, it was about 10:30 so we decided to head down to Mad Donnas and get some brunch.  Here she is with daddy trying to decide what to get

 She wanted a menu all to herself.  Yes, this is the wine/liquor list she is looking at.

 I'll preface the next pictures by saying I feel guilty.  I promise I'm not a horrible mom, I just fell for the "all parents do it once" phrase.   But, you gotta admit, it's funny.

...after taking a bite of a lemon...

  Even though she made these faces and I think even gagged once, she kept wanting more.  I only let her do it a couple of times.  There were definitely some people behind her glaring at me.  

Grandpa Danny is a civil war buff. He did reenactments for years. Apparently the Nashville area has lots of war history and sites to see.  So, he took us to Fort Negley

We were on our way home for a nap and passed a consignment store.  You know we had to stop.  I scored these super cute shoes from White House Black Market for $15!!

By the time the naps were done and we had eaten supper it was almost time for the birthday girl to go to bed.  We had a cake, but I didn't want her to get hyped up on sugar right before she laid down. So we postponed it to the next day (today.)  

This morning we got up and ate breakfast at Panera.  My daughter is such a clown.  I'm already anticipating the notes from her teachers telling me that she was disrupting class by sticking erasers in her nose.

I normally don't encourage her to stick food or the remains of food on her head, but this morning I thought "what the heck!"

We stopped at Target and we saw these boots.  There was no discussion.  We bought them

And finally the cake!  She didn't know what to do with it at first (of course that could have been fear, because as soon as we sat her down we all pulled out our cameras and cellphones.)  She looked at us like "what is getting ready to happen?"  She finally figured it out and dug in. We eventually had to take it away from her or she would have ate the entire thing.  *Yes, I know the cake isn't iced. We got too busy the day before to do it. Plus, remember she is doing this all again (and officially) next weekend*

The Push-Up Queen

No, not yet, but I will be in six weeks hopefully. And for all of you out there with the "dirty" minds, I'm talking about real push ups, you know the exercise kind.  I use to be in pretty good shape in college.  I could rock some push ups, bench pressed a small, but good amount for my size.  I was one of the only girls on the "guys side" of the gym.  The side with all the free weights that could for sure intimidate you if you didn't know what to do with them. I knew what to do with them...well, most of them any way.  All this to say, I've lost alot of my muscle.  I'm not saying I'm in horrible shape, but compared to my college years I've pretty much regressed.  Things have been crazy busy for oh, about....12 months (which I'm sure has absolutely nothing to do with Jesalyn...wink, wink).  And since, we are living on one paycheck for the moment, we really don't have the money for a gym membership.  I try to do what I can around the house.  I lift my dumbbells and do my squats and crunches when I get the chance, but I just don't have the time to get that "really sweaty, out of breath, man I feel so good" workout in.  I miss being in good shape, I miss my old skinny jeans.  And while, I haven't got the flappy skin when I wave on my arms yet, I did inherit my moms arms.  This is not a bad thing.  My mom has awesomely buff arms.  But with these arms come the responsibility of keeping them toned or they turn out just looking thick.  But I've got a plan.  While reading this months "Fitness" (thanks Sami for last years Christmas gift!) I came across a website:  www.hundredpushups.com that claims if you follow their plan, you can work your way up to doing 100 consecutive push-ups in just 6 weeks.  So, I'm going to test it out.  The first thing you do is an initial test.  You do as many push-ups that you can and then match it to the correct column and follow that column for six weeks.  My initial test resulted in 10.   Not great, but it could be a lot worse.  I'm talking about boy pushups, not girl ones and there was a time in my life when I couldn't even do one. Tomorrow, starts week one.  Check back in every so often to see how it goes.

Saturday Errands

So I'm super pumped about my Saturday off today.  Jarrod loves it too, because I have a full day planned for us.  He just loves it when I fill his Saturday full of errands and trips (can you hear the sarcasism dripping?)   So far on my list I have the farmers market if I can get all of us up and motivated.  I've been looking for a pottery coffee cup.  I have looked and looked for one for several years, ever since working at Sacred Grounds coffee in Edwardsville IL in college.  Yes, I know it's kind of crunchy of me, but I'm okay with that.  I just haven't found one that I'm in love with yet.  Next on the list, we need to head over to Target and get another baby gate for Jesalyn.  We bought some, but we need one that's longer heading into our kitchen. While at Target, I might just pick up some long-sleeved onsies.  She's got a couple that fit her, but it's fall now and she needs more people! Of course, we have to go to the grocery store.  I don't know how, but we never seem to have food, despite the fact that I visit the grocery store at least twice a week. I guess I just haven't become efficient in my grocery shopping yet. There are tons more that we need to do today but I won't bore you with the details any further. I will say this though, I can not get myself up and going in the morning without my special cup of coffee. Special, because I doctor it all up and make it yummy. Coffee is much much better with a little whip cream and a few dashes of pumpkin pie spice.  Have a mentioned that it's fall yet =)