A little bit of Houston, Toe Make-Over, and Progress

In an effort to blog more, I am just randomly writing my thoughts and happenings down to document our life.  So...

One thing I miss about being in the big city of Houston (besides my friends and our church) was all the different types of restaurants we could choose from within a relatively close proximity to our house.  We like Indian food and there were so many places in Houston to eat delicious Indian food or just pick up fresh naan.  While I haven't tried the one place that was recommended to us here in Savannah, I did find a great Indian grocery store in Pooler that has decent naan(although not fresh) and boondi.

Another favorite place in Houston was Yia Yia Mary's.  It has great Greek food and yummy cheese if you have to wait in the bar area to be seated.  If you are ever in Houston, you should eat at this place.  We also loved the Greek festival in Houston in October and Niko Niko's (this restaurant was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Network.)  But back to Yia Yia's.  There are 3 things there I absolutely love-and these dishes are typical staples at most Greek places.  I love their lemon potatoes side dish.  And I HATE lemony things!  I also love Pastichio.  The first time I had this dish was at a little place in Greenville, SC called Never On Sunday.  Look it up if you are ever in that area but as the name states-it is not open on Sunday.  Pastichio is a Greek lasagna and it is super delicious.  But you could share this dish with two other people.  Lastly, the red pepper dip appetizer is AWESOME!!!  And being pregnant I was craving some.  So I googled it hoping to find a copy cat recipe.  I found this blog that had a recipe and decided to make it.  

Roasted Red Pepper Feta Dip
2 medium red bell peppers, stemmed, halved lengthwise, and seeds and white pith removed
2 tablespoons olive oil
juice from half a lemon
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
pepper to taste
1 clove of garlic
8 ounces crumbled feta cheese (about 1 1/2 cups)


Heat the broiler to high and arrange a rack in the middle. Place peppers on a baking sheet cut side down, drizzle with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, and season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Broil until blackened and charred, about 15 minutes, rotating the pan as necessary.


Transfer peppers to a bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let sit until cool enough to handle, at least 20 minutes. Remove peppers from the bowl, reserving any liquid.  Peel peppers and place in a blender.

(If you need a shortcut, you can use roasted red peppers in the jar.)

Add feta, juice form half a lemon, garlic clove, and remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Blend on high until smooth, about 1 minute. Serve with toasted pita wedges pita chips.

I am lazy pregnant and tired of standing on my feet, so I just used the roasted red peppers in the jar and I would recommend not adding the oil if you do it that way because it was more liquidy.  I also used naan bread instead of pita because I don't like the pita at the grocery store here.  It was yummy!  And if I can't go into Houston anytime soon, it makes me feel like I am enjoying an appetizer from there!

Today, I also randomly decided that Spencer needed a pedicure.  When Spencer was born, her feet were larger than the average newborn-as in they wouldn't fit in any of those cute newborn shoes.  They have continued to grow too and since her feet are a little bigger than most 21-almost 22 month olds, I decided she needed big girl toes!  So I grabbed her bumbo-yes she can still sit in it and chooses to many times-and brought her to our bathroom.  I trimmed her toe nails and filed them some and she sat and laughed and enjoyed her girl time.  Then I painted them a bright pink girly summer color.  And dried them with the cool blast on my hairdryer.  She was so excited and promptly went to show her daddy her pretty toes! Here is her first pedicure:

  When she gets old enough, I will take her with me to get her toes done at the nail place that has the little girl pedi chair.  

Finally we have progress on the house.  We kept driving by the lot, at my insistence, and they hadn't done anything.  I just wanted to see some dirt moved or something...So Friday we drove by again hoping but thinking we would just see the same thing...no progress.  But this is what we found:

It is not much but it is something!  I can't wait to see more.

The next exciting thing on this week's list is our OB appointment this Thursday.  Our boy is and has been consistantly measure a month ahead of schedule.  I know the date is not wrong and I passed my glucose test this time on the first try so the doctor ordered another ultrasound just to make sure everything looks okay.  I am not nervous or anything-well maybe.  Just that I am going to be having this huge newborn.  My aunt did say that she didn't have GD with her son and he was 10lbs 12oz.  And she told me my grandmother and her brother were 12 and 13 pounds at birth!  Of course this was during the depression and they were birthed at home so they could have been way over their due dates.  But somewhere in my family is a big baby gene and Grayson may have it in him!  I kinda wanted a small baby-you know those cute 6 pounders-but I don't think it will be happening this go round.  So we will get to see him again on Thursday morning!  Stay tuned...

 

Settling Down and making memories

For the first time in our married life, Jason and I are finally settling down.  Ha Ha Ha!!!!  Isn't that funny?  No, we are not wild and crazy party types or something else really strange.  We are just in a place where we feel we will stay for a while.  And this is the first time we have felt that way since we got married.

Our first house in Spartanburg, SC was so much fun and we loved our little place.  We realized quickly that whenever we started having children, that house would become too small for us and we knew that the house had an expiration date on it for us. We weren't sure when that would be but while we were there we enjoyed fixing up the yard, repainting the entire house and a few projects here and there every month.  This is a picture taken of our old house right when we moved in:

Then God had plans we never foresaw.  We moved to Texas in the summer of 2008, after 4 years of living in our first house together.  It was bittersweet.  Because we didn't know how long we were staying and if we would like living in Texas, we decided to first rent an apartment and get to know the area a bit.  So we went from our 1300 sq ft house with a yard to an almost 800 sq ft apartment with one bedroom.  It was.....a whole lot of change.

We lived there for a year and a half and decided that with the dogs, we needed to just rent a house since the economy was so unstable and we still weren't sure if we were settling down in Texas.  Luckily, God had just the perfect place in mind.  Just down the street from my friend was an available rental house with fenced in yard and the rent was no more than our apartment.  So we moved into our "Texas house" and it was nice to have more space for us and the dogs.  Thanks goodness too because right as we were moving out of the apartment, we discovered that we would be having another person to live with us in about 9 months!  Here is that house:

Although our Texas house was older and had a few issues, we called it home for a year and a half and made many memories there.  We brought our first baby home from the hospital to that house.  Our baby learned to crawl there and we had many friends and family over for dinner there.  We even lost that beautiful tree out front to a wind storm right after Spencer was born!  But we knew after having our baby, Texas would not be our forever home.  We needed to be closer to family than the 16 hour drive from South Carolina to Texas.  But we weren't sure how that was going to play out but our hearts were yearning and open an opportunity that God would soon open.

We were celebrating Christmas 2010 with our new baby in Virginia with my extended family.  Jason takes his work with him where ever we are and Christmas day night, he took a call from one of his business/family friends.  When he got off the phone call, he came back to join the family and I could tell he was excited.  His friend, Steve, had called him out of the blue that night to tell him he was thinking of moving to Georgia and wanted to know if we wanted to move too?   Really???? YES!!!!  You see, Steve's brother lived outside of Savannah and his family was visiting this brother for Christmas.  And the east coast got a snowstorm on Christmas day that year.  They were snowed in and couldn't get back to Texas on their scheduled flight.  We got snow and enjoyed our baby's first Christmas being a white one.  They had decided it would be nice to have family in the same town and the Savannah area was nice.  We, of course, were on board with this plan.  This way, we could move back to the east side of the country, be closer to family and live in a new place but at least we would know a few people here.

Fast forward a few months.  They put their house up for sale, Jason found a job in Hilton Head that would allow me to stay home with Miss Spencer, our rental ended the month we would move and by June 2011, our family was living under one roof together again, in another rental.  Steve, Jen, and their kids, moved out later in August when their house sold.  Here is our rental house here:

We have lived here almost a year and now we feel like this is a great place to actually settle our family, grow our family, and the economy presents a great opportunity for us to buy a house we can live in for a while.  So when we moved here, we kept an eye out for houses, lots, new neighborhoods, and got the scoop on where to and where not to live in this area.  We learned that Effingham County has much better schools than Chatham county.  We have looked a foreclosures but there is a builder here who can build a brand new house that is bigger and newer (obviously) than the foreclosures in the area.  After prayers and crunching numbers, we made the decision that God was opening the door again to home ownership.  This month, we signed a contract on a new construction house that should be finished right after Grayson is born.  One of the last memories we will make in the rental, is bringing home our baby boy before we move to our new house to make more memories for our family.  Here is what the outside structure of the house will look like, the floor plan, and our family standing on the lot where it will be built:

Since we have never built a home before, we are planning to make progress pictures every few days.  Stay tuned for the progression!

Therapy...What??????

When you have a child, you hope and pray at birth that everything is fine and healthy.  For me, my wishlist at birth was that I would have normal, natural (but with meds) birth, that my baby would breastfeed well, and that I would not have to leave the hospital without my baby.  Well, I ended up with a C-section (which wasn't the worst thing) my baby came out hungry and had no problems latching or sucking, and after some tears and fears about a small case of jaundice, Spencer and I went home together from the hospital.

She has developed pretty normally-meeting all of her milestones at the average time-except one.  My daughter started talking around 12 months.  Her first word was not momma or dada- but DOG!  But as the months went by, she was not talking as much as I thought she should.  She could identify her body parts, follow one and two step directions, listen to books and express her little opinions but she didn't do this through words.

No momma wants her kid to fall behind and the more and more I saw kids her age, the more I noticed how much she was not saying.  We asked her pediatrician at 18 months, and she definitely thought there was some catching up to do but not to worry because she would probably be caught up by age 2.  But after talking to a friend who is a speech pathologist, she suggested I get her tested if I was that concerned.  After all, they may just say wait and see but if she could qualify to get help, I could start it ASAP so she wouldn't be further behind.

Thank goodness I went with my gut instinct to get her tested.  She was tested and although her receptive vocabulary was on par with her age, her expressive vocabulary was way behind, which qualifies her for speech therapy through Babies Can't Wait-our Georgia intervention program.

Today was our second speech session.  Thankfully we were assigned a female pathologist who comes to our house once a week to work with Spencer as I look on and watch so I can learn what to practice with Spencer during the week.  It really looks like playtime mixed in with getting Spencer to try and say-or attempt-a word and use the sign language to communicate what she wants/needs to do.  So far we are working on open, ball, ring, block, bubbles, pull, push, hit, cookie, cup, and train.  Spencer is fast learner and attempts the signs well, but we are still working on her speech and especially initiating the speech.

This experience in no way worries me or disappoints me as a mother, but I am glad that I sought out help for her as soon as I knew about the program.  I know one day we will be asking ourselves-when will she be quiet?????  I can't wait for her to reach that point!  I also can't wait for the day when my baby girl says,  I love you momma!

Spencer's first real beach experience!

When we lived in Texas, we lived about an hour from Galveston Beach.  We took Spencer there twice.  Here is her first trip to the beach at 3 months old when we went with my parents.  She liked the sound of the waves but she didn't touch the water yet.

We took her againg when she was 7 months old with Jason's parents.  

Again, she didn't touch the water.

Now we live about 45 min from two different beaches- Hilton Head Island and Tybee Island.  Spencer has been to Tybee twice-last summer when Mandy and Limeris came to visit but we didn't go out on the sand and back in February when it was really cold.

This month she had her first real experience at the beach.  We made a girls day out with the kids-my friend Jen and her two kids and Cindy-her sister-in-law- and her three kids and Spencer and I.  We headed to Hilton Head to Coligny Beach.  Apparently it was rennovated a year or so ago.  I don't know what it as like before but when we went, it was a great public beach.  It has free parking, the kids water fountain for them to play in at the entrance/exit, clean bathrooms with changing tables, outdoor showers with changing cabanas near them, feet washing stations, and no stairs-thus creating a great rolling experience for Spencer as she rode out to the beach in her wagon!  We packed food and water for the day and plenty of sunscreen.  Spencer wore her pink crocs and hat and at first she was running and having fun in the ocean with the big kids. 

Then a wave knocked her down and she couldn't get back up with the sand eroding away underneath her feet.  So after she got out of the ocean that time, she didn't want to go back in the water.  But the sand-that was a different story. We found a hole someone had dug and I showed her how to dig and play.  She was perfectly content with the sand toys and sand.  She would come sit in her wagon for snacks and we would wash off occasionally in the water.  But she was a becoming a little sand crab.

 Campbell was pulling Spencer around on this boogie board and she really wanted it back to play in the ocean.  We just told Campbell to pull Spencer to the water and she would get off once she got near the water because we knew Spencer had been running from the water all day.  Well Campbell did pull Spencer up to the water...and waited for her to get off.  But Spencer wouldn't get off!  So I ran down to the shoreline to get her but Spencer just walked right in.  By this time the tide was low and there was a tidal pool that didn't have waves.  Spencer realized that she could walk out in the water and it was just below her waist without waves!  Now she didn't want to leave the water.  These next two were taken when we were leaving.  She got a little upset that we were getting out of the water-hence the thumb sucking.

 Then to get the sand off of all the kids, just let them play in the water fountain!  Then change them right before hopping in the car.

We can't wait to go to the beach again!

Our First Easter Egg Hunt

The church that sponsors our MOPS group also sponsored a community Easter Egg Hunt in Pooler.  Chick Fil A, a radio station, and another business also sponsored the event.  My parents happened to come on Easter weekend and joined us for the event.  I bought Spencer a new Easter basket to use every year and I also bought a similar one for Grayson to start using next year.  The egg hunt was at a community park and was free to the public, but it was a ticketed event.  We got our ticket early, and got to the hunt early, thank goodness because I left the ticket at home and we had to go back and get it.  But we still made it with time to spare.  We were on the little kids field and we practiced the night before picking up eggs and putting them in the basket.  Spencer proceeded to then take them out of her basket and put them back on the floor.  So I was a little unsure about what she would do at the real event.  While waiting for the event to start, the Chick Fil A cow and princess cow were there to dance and entertain.  Spencer liked looking at them but not getting near them.  She wore an awesome consignment find-a smocked bunny dress! 

There were 12,000 eggs on the two fields. 

Then we entered the field to get ready for the hunt. 

The whistle blew and the hunt was on.  We were instructed to pick up just 12 eggs.  Spencer started picking up the eggs-and keeping them in her basket.  After she had 12, she picked up a few more.  Then they said everyone had their 12 eggs so go ahead and pick up more.  The eggs had to get off the field somehow!

 Needless to say that she got way more than 12 eggs.  But all her eggs had just candy-some eggs were filled with coupons and two eggs had free Chick Fil A for 3 months!  But Spencer had fun and she picked up the eggs.  We are so proud of her!

He will be called...

When I was growing up, as most girls do, I doodled names of my future children in all kinds of print.  Most of these names were just made-up, ones I heard that I liked, or really creative.  When we got pregnant with Spencer, I liked NONE of those names anymore.  Since Jason and I are named the #3 and #1 names of our birth years, we both wanted unique names for our kids.  However they must be easy to pronounce, easy to spell, be strong, not to trendy, and preferably from somewhere in our family.  One of the names I loved after seeing it on my family tree was Ella Grace-but since everyone else thought that was a great name-I mean in Clemson World I was seeing two or three in each magazine I got-this name was x-ed of the list.  We love Spencer's name, even though it is traditionally a male name.  Everyone who hears her name loves it and it fits her.  Spencer is my grandfather's aunts name and we think a surname back on that side.  Her middle name, Reece, was just something we both liked.  We had picked out Cru- a shortened version of my maiden name- for a boy just in case.

So at the beginning of this pregnancy we were thinking if it is a boy, we would use Cru, but we changed the spelling to Crew to make it easier for him in the future.  But we had no middle name.  While both our families had a plethora of male names that were unique-for instance Propus- and we knew these men stood for great character in our families' history, we didn't want our child to curse us in the future for being made fun of at school. I also like my grandfather's name, Edward, but being that the Twilight series is so popular right now and our last name is Hardy-Ed Hardy doesn't work for me!  There were also many J and H names in our families but I personally don't like to have the same initial for the first and last name and we didn't want a J name for our child for fear that the non-J-named children would feel they were left out of the J club that mom and dad were apart of along with a J-named sibling.

So then Jason and I were thinking-lets just come up with a strong middle name to go with Crew that is not necessarily a family name because Spencer's middle name is not from our family.  We went through name sites and books.  But we couldn't find anything we like to go with Crew.  At least as a middle name.  But Jason did not like the idea of calling our child by his middle name so moving Crew to the middle to go with another name didn't work either.  We even went to sites and put in Spencer's name to come up with good sibling names.  That was interesting...but no names showed up in that list that we liked either.

Finally the night before our big ultrasound, we decided to scratch Crew altogether and start with a new family name.  And we both liked it and it represented both of our families.

So our baby's name will be .....

Grayson William Hardy

 Here is my dad reading the names for our families in Virginia.

Grayson is Jason's great-grandfather's name and William is my dad and brother's name.  My brother has already nicknamed him G-Dubb but we shall see how that holds up.

Gender Reveals to Friends and Family

The day after our doctor's appointment, we were traveling to Virginia for my grandfather's 80th birthday.  Then we were heading to Anderson to see Jason's family so we thought, we will just tell them in person.   But we had a small gender reveal party her for our friends the night we found out.  That day was so hard because I met my MOPS group at Hobby Lobby right after our appointment.  I wanted to tell them but was waiting for the party.  I did let them know that we did find out for sure.  My friend Jen said that it must be a girl because if it was a boy I would not be able to stop myself from buying some boy stuff to make for him.   So I threw together this small party in two days. 
"Whooooo is coming in August?"  This sign was on the front door.

 In our entryway:

 Drinks and cups and plates for the party:

 A place to cast your vote:

 Spring peeps:

 Party favors:

Our Family:

 Jason cutting the cake:

 The icing revealed what we were having:

 I just love Jason's face here:

My friend Jen's daughter, Campbell, said before I got pregnant, that the next baby would be a boy because Spencer likes boys.  Then when I got pregnant she still said it was a boy because Spencer needed a boy.  Right before she found out, she voted girl though.  Jen said Campbell was going to pick boy but then she saw that her mom voted girl so she changed her vote.

Then we went to Virginia to see my family.  Here are my maternal grandparents-he is the one turning 80.

 After his birthday show of sorts, we had my dad and my grandfather open the box of balloons to reveal what we were having. 

 Its a boy!

 Spencer was getting especially interested in the balloons.

 The next day we went to my dad's mom's house and used the same box of balloons. 

 My dad and his mom opened the box

 We took the same voting board to all the parties.  Here are the votes so far.

 Again Spencer was excited about the balloons.

  

 Finally at Jason's parents, the last votes were cast.

 The cake was readied:

 And the cut was made:

So we are having a boy and everyone knows it!  Next up...naming this baby!