Family Fall Party

Good Monday morning!

The Showcase Pic for this week is another cake made by the very talented Stephanie Phillips. I told her I wanted a football theme with Josh's number somewhere on the cake. She made the football rise up out of the cake. It looked great and it tasted even better. If you ever want a theme cake, call me and I'll share her information with you.

The Gallery Pics are from Josh's family birthday party. I'll be adding the obligatory baby pics the next four days. Too cute!

CONTEST! CONTEST! CONTEST! - Tomorrow I'll be sharing the rules for the "A Simple Life is One Year-Old" Contest. Actually, tomorrow I may be a little busy trying to think of a catchier name for the contest. Either way, I'll let you know about all the details. I will go ahead and tell you the winner will be announced FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16.

In weekend news, Josh and Mike had a wonderful time at the Tennessee/Auburn game. It was truly football weather at 7:45 p.m. in Tennessee Saturday night at the stadium on the river. Very, very nippy. Josh traveled well and thoroughly enjoyed himself. I don't think he had any OCD reservations about the trip at all, and if he did, they were small enough to not hamper his excitement. Twelve months ago, it would have been a totally different story. We are thankful beyond words, and we don't take this "simple" football trip for granted. We give God the glory for this latest hurdle Josh has jumped.

If the Tennessee/Auburn game was autumnal in nature, the JSU Game in Jacksonville at 1:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon squeezed the last bit of summer out of Alabama. We all were more than a little sunburn in various and sundry places. I finally found Austin in the band on the field, and even got some good pictures of him. I feel like I can keep my "Good Mother" badge. I wasn't sure after the Georgia Tech game when I wasn't able to spot him EVER the entire show.

Roxie and I left after the halftime show and drove to Oxford to spend a little time with my great-nephew Matthew. He is talking up a storm. He says "Roxie" and "Austin" very well. "Belinda, the Great" is going to be a little trickier (Code for I'M CHANGING MY NAME TO AUNT ROXIE).

And get this. He loves pumpkins. He loves pumpkins to the point he walked around the house showing me every pumpkin in sight (and Brandi has a lot of pumpkins in wreaths and arrangements and such). He loves pumpkins as much as I love pumpkins. He's my own little autumn kindred spirit. Sweet, sweet little guy.

Josh's family birthday party Sunday afternoon turned out very well. He received several gifts, a lot of money, a paintball party scheduled for mid-November AND he'll be getting his driver's license this week. He'll be getting his truck a few days later. It still needs a little work, but he wasn't impatient about it at all. He's always had the ability to "look forward to something," unlike some of us (Code for ME). It's a nice little trait to have, I think.

Josh's Birth Day Story - Part One

As I wrote on the blog last February, Austin's birth was an emergency C-Section. I didn't care for C-Sections. In fact, I thought the women I knew who had C-Sections and "loved" them were certifiably insane. I didn't like not being able to cough or laugh. I didn't like hurting if I tried to walk upright. I didn't like the driving restrictions. I didn't like the staples. I didn't like being allergic to morphine. The list could go on and on and on. (I'm a whiner. I admit it. I am NOT a good surgical patient.)

That being said, I was determined to have Josh without the C-Section. I told my doctor not once, but many, many, many times how I planned on this birth taking place.

But I've gotten a little ahead of myself, haven't I? Before we arrived at the end of the nine months, we had the pregnancy. Because I had gained 50 pounds eating powdered doughnuts and 3:00 p.m. Sneaky Pete hot dogs every day (and I mean EVERY day) during my pregnancy with Austin, I had decided to be much more disciplined with my eating habits during my pregnancy with Josh. And I did much, much better. By the time he arrived, I had gained 30 pounds... which I think is very, very good.

I had two little complications during my nine months with Josh... the first being my first bout with gestational diabetes. I had taken the test and was waiting for my results. The day I was scheduled to receive the results, I met my friend, Shelly, for lunch. I ordered the hot fudge cake for dessert when she informed me SHE was on a diet, and I absolutely could not eat hot fudge cake in front of her. Shelly was a formidable presence. I knew she was very serious. I also knew if I ordered the cake after she had TOLD me not to, she would throw it on the floor. (I am not kidding!) She was that kind of friend.

So, as a compromise, I ordered the cake "to go." She wasn't happy, but she didn't wrestle it out of my hands either. We said our good-byes and I went to my house. I was walking in the door with my box of cake making my way to the fork drawer when the telephone rang.

Now you have to understand something. I was living in Cullman at the time, and telephone calls (especially from family and friends from Trussville and Hoover) were precious. Also, I didn't have a cell phone with free weekend minutes OR an answering machine. I didn't have the option of NOT answering the telephone. Coming into the house a mere thirty seconds later, I would have missed the call altogether.

"Hello," I answered breathlessly as I started opening my cake box and reached for the silverware drawer across the kitchen. (I had one of those extra long telephone cords. Remember those?)

"Mrs. Faulkner. This Dr. Walton's office. I just wanted to tell you your test came back and you have gestational diabetes," an anonymous nurse-type person said on the other end of the phone.

"What does that mean exactly?" I asked, with a chunk of hot fudge cake and whipped cream dripping off the end of a fork right in front of my face.

"It means STEP AWAY FROM THE CAKE," she said. No, no. Not really. But she might as well have said those words. I lowered the fork as she gave me instructions, growing angrier by the minute at my EX-friend Shelly.

It was going to be a very long pregnancy without sweets... and my EX-friend Shelly was going to pay dearly for causing me to miss my LAST piece of hot fudge cake for the next 25 weeks. Yes... she was most definitely going to pay!

I'll let you know HOW MUCH she paid tomorrow.

Family Fall Party

Plan an early afternoon party for just your immediate family. Here are a few suggestions for a couple of hours of enjoyment in the fall.

Make a mini scarecrow to decorate your front door by stuffing old baby or doll clothes with hay and using a stuffed sock for the head.

Set up a row of pumpkins and take turns trying to land a hula hoop or a circle of rope around one.

Have a harvest slalom race in which runners must weave through a line of potatoes or turnips. (Or parsnips! You could use parsnips, because believe me they would be much better on the ground in a slalom course than on a dinner plate on your dining room table. I'm just saying.)

See who can squirrel away the most acorns or pinecones in ten minutes.

Get one ear of dried corn per player. First, hide the corn around the yard, choosing spots that are neither obvious or too hard to find. Now round up everyone and explain the object is for each contestant to retrieve an ear and remove all of its kernels. The first one to succeed is the winner. Once everybody in the group has accomplished the task, you can feed the kernels to the squirrels and the birds.

Plan an afternoon of leaf raking for the whole family. Make sure you have enough rakes to go around and get busy. After a couple of hours of hard work, reward your family with an old-fashioned hot dog roast. Sit around a fire eating hot dogs, marshmallows and drinking hot chocolate. (And don't forget to let the kids jump in the biggest pile of leaves. That's kind of the whole reason to rake in the first place, don't you think?)

Taken from Family Fun Magazine, October, 1999.

Have a wonderful, cool, crisp (or soggy depending on where you live in these great United States) fall day. I think I will. Tomorrow I'll have details for the CONTEST, a new recipe and Part Two of Josh's Birth Day Story. As I said last week, this one will only be a two- or three-parter. Roxie entered this world a little more dramatic than the average Faulkner brother (thank goodness). Oh, and I'll start sharing some baby pics of Josh tomorrow. He was (and is) too cute for words!

Take care, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Sincerely,

The Enchanting Belinda