Mama's Trip to Granny's House

Amy and I had planned on a girls trip to Granny's together, hoping to plan it after the boy's got back from their golf trip. I ended up changing our original date, because Matt's Mamaw and Papaw had sold their house in Ashland, and Matt and I were going to go down there for that weekend. 

Well, when those plans changed, it turns out Amy had made new plans and couldn't go on our original date.

Does that make any sense? 

Well, anyway turns out plans fell through, Amy encouraged me to go ahead and go - so Mama was headed to Granny's house alone. 

As in no hubby, no babies. A Mama trip, just for Mama. 

I was selfishly very excited for the alone time. Especially in the car, I love driving to Granny's, and love a new road trip CD just as much. I also, think I needed a little "me" time after a week of taking care of the boys solo while Matty was in Hilton Head. ;)

So, I was off, kissed all my sweet boys Good-bye and headed off in Matty's big truck, tunes in hand. 

I got there right after the sun went down, Uncle John was reading his bible, and Granny and Mom were pretty sleepy. So soon after I unpacked, we all said Good-night and I laid down to read. 

Didn't take long for me to call Matt again, and tell him how badly I missed everyone!

The next morning, Mom and I headed to the local flea market there, and I found lots and lots of goodies! 

4 Antique botanical prints

Silver water pitcher

Silver sandwich platter

A little cream lamp for my kitchen

& 

a Chicken Wire basket

 ...the best part, it was all for under $30!

I love thrift shopping, so I was a very happy girl after that quick trip. 

Mom and I picked up some Cherry Limeaids from Sonic afterward, then came home for lunch. 

After lounging around Granny's kitchen table,

 my cousins Jeremiah, Rachel and their daughter Catherine came over.

Rachel had got a new gun for her birthday, and they were all about to go shooting! 

My Uncle John talked me into going, after I said "No way" about 10 times. 

I think the last "gun" I ever shot was with my cousin Caleb, and it was a BB Gun. Ha! 

(I'm sad I didn't get to see Caleb and Shea and their girls this trip!) 

So Rachel and Jeremiah went on ahead, and I rode with Uncle John, and Catherine. Uncle John got Catherine a few fun things to do in the truck from the Dollar tree, something I know she enjoys so much and will remember when she's all grown up. :) 

Then we piled back in the truck, and before I knew it I was shooting a gun! 

As nervous as I was, never handling anything like it - it was SO MUCH FUN. 

They had targets set up, near and far, some trash cans and some concrete blocks. 

Jeremiah had recently built his own gun - I mean ordered all the parts, put it together himself, and I got to watch him shoot it for the first time! 

I'm not going to pretend like I know exactly what it was - but some kind of sniper gun. Very cool. 

Then, I got to shoot the big Daddy. 

All in all, I shot a .22 pistol, a 38.38 pistol, 9 mm semi automatic and an AR 15. 

(You better believe I made Uncle John recite all those to me, so I could write them down and remember!) 

Uncle John, Jeremiah and Rachel were all great teachers, and it was so fun getting out of my comfort zone, turns out I had a pretty good eye a couple of times - I even hit a concrete block with a pistol. I don't really know what that means, but Uncle John and my hubby seemed pretty impressed! :)

After shooting, we came back to the house, and said Bye to Mom, she was headed home since Dad promised to take her out to dinner that night. 

We were sitting around, when Uncle John suggested a motorcycle ride - and I quickly agreed. 

We rode down by the river, and then he took me to see my Aunt Marie's grave sight. 

Still so strange that she is not with us here on earth, but in heaven. 

I know she is watching over her boys, and her memories are forever with us. 

Sure do miss her, especially when I'm in Leitchfield. 

The motorcycle ride was fun, and came with beautiful scenery. It was a gorgeous day for it. 

I had SO much fun hanging with my family in Leitchfield that weekend, wished I got to see everyone, but it was just a quick trip this time - and I was aching to hold and kiss my boys. 

Can't wait to visit again, and I promise to bring all my boys next time! 

Rhett's Weight Check

After trying to force fatty foods down Rhetter's throat for 2 whole weeks, I couldn't wait to get back into the Doctor and check his weight.
(The appointment day, turned out to be the one and only snow day in Fayette Co. as well!)

I also had half convinced myself after telling everyone he needed a weight check, and everyone reacting as shocked as I was, that perhaps there was a mistake. Maybe I misheard the number, maybe she meant to say 22 but said 21, who knows, maybe something was wrong with the scale!

Turns out the scale was just fine. 

Our boy did gain 9 oz though! 

He weighed in at a whopping 21 lbs 9 oz. 

I was hoping for a little more I think, but our Doctor said that it was good enough. 

He still wants to check him out at 18 months, which is fine by me. 

It was a quick little appointment, but he gave us instructions to keep doing what we were doing with his calorie intake.
(He also got to see the aftermath of Rhetter's Hand Foot Mouth he contracted from the toddler room, that apparently spread like wildfire!)

Anyway, I honestly think that it has to do with how tall he has gotten, and how he DOES NOT STOP walking, crawling, running, jumping, climbing all day long until nap or bed time. For real. 

I sure hope he does get where he needs to be though, although I don't see him becoming a big chunker anytime soon, Case was the same way at this age, long and lean!

Just hope he gets back on that curve, and Mama can stop worrying so much!

Insane Kentucky Weather

Matt had left for his boy's golf trip (to Hilton Head this year - so jealous!) on Tuesday, so the boys and I were missing Daddy, and doing our best to stay busy to make the days go by faster. 

One night, I took the boys out for a gorgeous drive in the country. 

One my favorite things to do. 

We had to run to Kroger after that, but first we stopped by the Pet Smart near by to check out the animals. 

I was contemplating trying to talk Matty into buying one of these sweet puppies! Until I remembered we have a humongous puppy already ;)

The parrots in the store whistle, and say Hello to you...and this was Rhett's reaction! Hee! 

Other than our little country drive, and adventure out to the Pet Store and Kroger, our days had been pretty uneventful so far. The only plans for the week were that Friday, Amy and I were going to have a girls night at my house. We were going to order in dinner, and watch movies after the kids were in bed. Well, Thursday evening, I was on the computer checking the forecast, when I noticed that we might be getting some scary weather the following day. 

So Friday morning, I checked my phone again and saw this...

Umm Hi white blob right over our house. 

I called Meteorologist Matt Williams (my forever nickname for him, as he loves to track every storm) and he had me download a Weather App on my phone that he already had. It would alert me if we needed to take shelter. Our safe place in our house is our downstairs bathroom, it's under the stairs, but very small. Too small if we needed to stay there for an extended time. So, I texted Amy while she was still at work, and asked her if we could go to here house since she has a basement. She of course said that was fine, so that was the plan. I watched the Weather Channel all day, and they were predicting that we would get the worst of it around 1 or 2pm. I planned to head on over around noon or so. I packed up the car, with the pack n play for nap time, snacks, diapers, wipes etc. The whole day just had a creepy feeling about it. The skies were an odd color, newscasters were stating over and over again that "there will be dangerous storms today", and that it shouldn't be taken lightly. After seeing the damage done last Tornado season, in places like Joplin - I do admit I take it much more seriously. Especially after watching a youtube video last year. Someone too a video with their phone, right in the midst of a tornado wreaking havoc right about them. Hearing babies crying, and people screaming and crying - I just balled my eyes out, as I can't imagine how terrifying that would be.

I set Gunner up in the crate, in our safe place, I even took down the picture frames on the wall behind him, in case things did get bad - I honestly kept thinking, "What if our house is gone after today?" 

I was so divided, on one hand I just knew we would be just fine, but on the other, all I was thinking about was getting to the safest place possible.

I said lots of prayers, that's for sure. 

We ended up heading over a little earlier than noon, because Rhett was showing the tell tale signs that he needed a nap. Before we headed over, we heard the news that school was letting out 2 hours early. That was when it got even more real for me. 

So before long, we were all in one house, the weather channel, rumored to be sending their guys to our town, actually headed north of us, but still it was all happening so close to home. Hours went by, without any alerts to head to shelter. So Amy's older boys ended up going on and going to their friend's houses as earlier planned. (Both friends had basements, so she felt comfortable) We were in and out of her bedroom checking the weather (we had it on back there so we wouldn't scare Avery, storms are already a little scary and getting out of school earlier didn't help to make it any less scary!) 

As time went by, we started relaxing a little, thinking about dinner. Talking about whether we were going to stay at Amy's or head back to my house...when my phone went off.

 It was alerting our specific location to head to shelter NOW. 

We grabbed our babies, and the little bag of snacks that Amy had packed and went to the basement. I had the pack n play, blocking Rhett into one corner of the basement, I tried my best to keep the boys happy with toys and snacks as we waited. We turned on our local news channel, waiting to see what was going on. 

Sweet Avery was really freaked out by all of this, we comforted her, and assured her that we were just being as safe as possible - that we were going to be just fine. 

Thankfully (Praise the Lord!) the threat did not last long at all. We had no damage whatsoever. 

Eventually, the entire threat left our city - and just like that the creepy feel of the entire day just lifted off of our shoulders. 

We took some deep breaths, and decided to head back to my house to continue on with our girls night. 

We stopped by McDonalds and Chili's on the way home though. (I'm surprised they were even open!) 

We were so hungry by this point, and our nerves were completely shot. 

A day of waiting for something scary to happen, is just exhausting. 

However, we are unbelievably thankful that we were only waiting, and never had to experience it.

Those only a couple of hours away from us were not so lucky. Some people lost their lives.            

 Towns, houses, cars, buildings, trees, just completely destroyed.

I can't imagine going through any of that, I only hope that my faith would overcome all of the sadness, and that HE would get us through it, as I hope and pray the people that are dealing with this are. :(

...

As if, a tornado in March isn't wild enough. Monday morning, the morning of Rhett's weight check, we woke up to this...

Seriously Kentucky? Well you always keep us guessing.

After Rhetter man's weight check, he was ready for a nap, so Case and I headed out to build a snowman.

He was just a little guy, but we had fun! 

 After this, his neighbor friends came out, and they had a blast having snowball fights and building snow forts!

Just my kind of winter, ONE snow day, with some good snow to make a snow man, and the next day was in the 70's. NO JOKE.

It was one wild week, but the best part about it, was when Daddy came home from his golf trip the Sunday night before all the snow...

 
Precious.
... Mommy missed Daddy too! 
:)

Bath Time

These were taken before hair cuts, but had to add this to the blog.

Crazy boys :)