Swonderings

''Everytime I hear that song, I go back..." What is a song or songs that have special meaning to you, and why?

Got this question from the Women at Home message board and it reminded me of "our" song. While we were engaged, Travis sang this song to me while playing it on his guitar and it made me melt. Still does.

My romance doesn't have to have a moon in the sky
My romance doesn't need a blue lagoon standing by
No month of May, no twinkling stars
No hide away, no soft guitars

My romance doesn't need a castle rising in Spain
Nor a dance to a constantly surprising refrain
Wide awake I can make my most fantastic dreams come true

My romance doesn't need a thing but you
My romance doesn't need a thing but you

Must be feeling mushy. We put Travis on the plane tonight for another week long business trip for work and won't pick him up until late Friday night. I've been catching up on reading blogs this evening and relaxing while I wait for him to call and tell me that he's arrived. This week has been busy with my niece here and daily trips to visit my sister and the baby. I'm looking forward to a slower week next week, as well as posting my photos from my photo request post. Feel free to still throw your request in. :-)

On the Road . . .

The days are full going back and forth from home to the hospital to see the new baby . . . I'm feeling sleep deprived, behind and very blessed. Not necessarily in that order. You can see more pics of the new little guy here. (These are from my photo blog). This link here is from my Dad's photography website. His photos are better than mine (and some of mine are stolen from his!) :-)

Thanks to those of you who have posted requests for photos - woo-hoo! If you missed out on this exciting opportunity, I'm taking photo requests . . . tell me three things you would like to see pictures of from my life and I will post them. It can be anything - locations, things, people, etc. :-) You still have a chance to get your request in - I will probably start posting the photos next week. Travis is off on another work trip next week so I'll need something exciting to liven up my posts!

Response to Comments: Becky, I still subscribe to CK, but mainly for any articles and pages done by Becky Higgins - my all time favorite scrapbooker. :-) Sorry for the baby fever, Crystal - I have it too, now!

Annoucing...

My new nephew, Myles Reed Gray!

Arrived this morning at 7:38 a.m., 9 lbs., 2 oz. and 20 3/4 inches long. My sister wasn't due until the 20th, so I hate to think what size this boy would have been had she gone to her due date!

I, of course, will be updating this post later with a picture, or two!

Edited at 5:31 p.m.:

A Few Notes

A few scattered miscillaneous thoughts before I go work on my Bible study this morning during Noelle's nap...

Response to comments:

Claudia: You asked about scrapbooking ideas and getting started. My best tip is one that I'm stealing from someone else. :-) If you want to work on a scrapbook for your family, start with the photos you want to scrapbook first. If I'm in the mood to work on Noelle's scrapbook, that's what I work on. If I make myself work on our family album or something else, then I find I am easily distracted and get very little done. Work on what you are fired up to work on! There is also a magazine that I would recommend you checking out if you are just beginning scrapbooking called Simple Scrapbooks. It's a great magazine for just getting started - they really emphasize simplicity which I like on a scrapbook page. That way the focus really is the photos! This is the book that started the Simple Scrapbooks magazine . . . I have it and have used a lot of the ideas from it.

An idea taken from Mrs. Darling . . .
I'm taking photo requests . . . tell me three things you would like to see pictures of from my life and I will post them. It can be anything - locations, things, people, etc. Make me feel loved, folks! :-)

Please pray for my sister, Kathy. She is scheduled for a c-section tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. (CST). Of course, I will be posting information on my new nephew, but it may be later in the day after I get a pic of him at the hospital. My neice is staying with us this week while my sister has her baby and we are going to try and be at the hospital around lunch time. My sister doesn't want her daughter to see her until after she has become "un-groggy" from the anesthesia and such. Apparently Jordan was most freaked out when she saw "Auntie Nef" (me) so sleepy and tired after my c-section and was really upset at how groggy I was. We're trying to avoid a repeat of that!

Noelle has her 1 year check-up at the Dr. today. Good timing as she woke up yesterday with massive amount of green coming out her nose - ick! I'm about to buy stock in Kle*nex as much as I'm using. :-)

Weekend in Review

What a busy and fabulous weekend! :-) Thank you all for the birthday wishes for the girl! Dana, that pic of Travis in the hospital bed with Noelle is one of my favorites! They had gotten me up to move around some, and I was so excited to be out of the bed after my c-section that I stayed in the rocking chair and Travis confiscated the bed. :-) Michelle, I'm so enjoying your blog - it's giving me a good idea about what is to come! :-)

We had Noelle's birthday party with family yesterday. It was just the family and very simple, and we had a great time. (I think Noelle did, too!) The birthday menu consisted of her favorite foods - chicken nuggets, macaroni & cheese, peas and fruit salad. My family had been protesting that birthday kids that can't talk shouldn't be allowed to pick their birthday meal. However, I did notice my Dad and brother-in-law heading back for 2nd's on the chicken nuggets and mac & cheese. :-) (You can click the birthday pictures for more party shots!)



My parents bought Noelle her "big girl" carseat (forward facing). After everyone left, Travis put it in the car and we loaded Noelle up for a quick ride to try it out. She wasn't sure what to think of it at first. Then, as we drove a little further, we heard her giggling at stuff out the window - I think if finally dawned on her that she could see outside now! She even dozed off in it by the time we got home - a sure sign that it was comfy. :-)

Memphis report: Our trip to Memphis was great. We spent the day at the zoo. I didn't realize until Travis and I were talking that he has only been to the Nashville Zoo and now the Memphis Zoo. (And, the Nashville Zoo is a work in progress - there's not much there). He was loving it! My favorite were the giraffes - there's something about how different they look, yet when they walk, they are so unbelieveably graceful. We spent a long time watching the giraffes in their pen. You can see some of the pictures that we took here. The pandas were also very cool! I think what made them so neat is that their pens were enclosed by thick glass - you could get right up to the glass to see them. They weren't pinned up like most bears at the zoo. (Where you are separated by a big fence and then a "moat" that the bears can't climb across, etc.) Noelle could put her face right up to the glass to get a good look at these bears.

Aside from the zoo, we had a great time on the drive over and back. Travis loves to take back roads so we went down some trails that I don't think many have been on! He found one gravel road on the map that ran right along side the Mississippi River - he was able to get out of the car and even skip some rocks into it. Travis had never been West of Nashville before so he saw several new sights - cotton (still in the field), kudzu, and the mighty Mississippi. Can you believe we never made it past Graceland!

Our one funny story from the trip. We stayed at a Ramada Inn in Memphis. When we checked in, we were told that they had a continental breakfast in the mornings so that seemed a perk to staying there for us. Well, when we went downstairs, their "continental breakfast" was the biggest assortment of granola/breakfast bars I've ever seen, some Little Debbie oatmeal pies, and that was it! We started giggling as we selected our assortment of breakfast bars - Noelle was loving it that she got to eat an oatmeal pie for breakfast. :-) They didn't even have coffee set out. As we got back in the elevator to go back up to our room, Travis commented that it wasn't exactly what he expected and we started laughing all over again.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to our big girl Noelle - she is one today! Lord, thank you so much for the blessing of our baby and what a joy she is to us! Thank you for this year that we have been so blessed to enjoy her in our family! Click the picture to link to a few pictures of Noelle's first days! :-)

Quick Recap

Our two days in Memphis was a blast . . . more on it later, but one pic to tide you over for the weekend.

Flying . . .

by the seat of my pants today. Up at dawn grocery shopping, then off to Bible study, back home to feed Noelle and her stay-at-hom-Dad, church work from 1-4 p.m., off now to clean house before people invade.

We're off to Memphis for the next two days for a familial get-away - back home Friday sometime. See you then!

Noelle is such a Daddy's girl. :-)

I've had no motivation today. None at all. Could it be the lack of caffiene? I'm out of Diet Coke . . . Hmmm. I feel guilty when I don't check much stuff off of my to-do list, but I know sometimes I just need some down time. I guess it's a good thing I laid around today . . . tomorrow is going to be busy! Travis has the rest of the week off starting tomorrow (yeah!) and I'm going to take advantage of that and go grocery shopping early tomorrow a.m. before my Bible study. (Early + Walmart = good). Then Bible study at church, and since Travis is off, he's going to keep Noelle for me. Then clean up around house for our Community Group tomorrow night, and also do my layout of the bulletin and as much stuff as I can for Sunday. We're planning on taking a mini road trip to Memphis on Thursday and Friday just to go away for a few days. They have a Chinese Panda exhibit at the Memphis Zoo now and we may check that out. The part I love is that we really don't have any plans - other than just family time. :-)

More later . . . off to motivate myself towards making dinner!

Not much...

Quizzes have broken out amonst the web like a plague . . . so of course, I did several. But before you get to that, I leave you a quote from my 6 year old neice from this weekend. To set this up, she was playing in a soccer game Saturday morning and got hit in the face with the ball. (No injuries, thankfully).

Me: So what happened when the ball hit?
Jordan: Luckily I wasn't wearing lipstick or the ball would have stuck to my face.

You have to realize, this kid wears a lot of Mary Kate & Ashley sparkly lipgloss lipstick. I laughed. :-)


Beretta92fs. You're good. Almost as good as a Sig
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What handgun are you?
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YOU ARE CATNIP


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Wendy. You are kind and respectful. You enjoy fun
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motherly nature and your youthful maturity.
Your biggest flaw is that you are conflicted
about whether or not you want to grow up.


Which Peter Pan Character are You?
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The New Me

I've changed the name of my blog - I'm now "Olive Tree."

"Why the change?," you ask.

"I'm so glad you want to know," says I. :-)

The verse at the top of my blog is my favorite verse. It's one that I latched onto during a Bible study I did on David (Beth Moore's Man After God's Own Heart). I want to flourish for and in the things of the Lord, like an olive tree - so the new title is symbolic of that. Plus, the whole "Sticky and Messy" thing was not really me. It was a phrase that I had heard a friend use regarding having young children and it doesn't really apply to me . . . yet. :-)

Anyhoo, happy weekend all. Just wanted you to know that you haven't accidentally stumbled onto the wrong page - still me!