Addyson Grace Edwards

Here are a few pictures of my best friend Erica's baby girl! Isn't she just adorable!!! I can't wait to spoil her rotten!

Auburn Pictures

Michael and I had a GREAT time at the Auburn game! It was sooo hot when we first got there, but thank goodness it cooled down quick. We had amazing seats. 20 yard line, 6th row!!! I have never been that close to it all before. It was interesting! Definitely didn't need binoculars this game. We were mixed in with a few LA Tech fans that sat in front of us, but luckily everyone beside and behind were AU fans! I think otherwise Michael would have strangled me, after all I did buy the tickets (like I really know where Section 32 is!!!) But, it all worked out and we had the best time! Here are some (well, okay, A LOT) of pictures...

A Child's View

Tonight as Jake and I were all ready to cuddle up and watch Wipeout, we discover that it has been delayed due to the Presidential speech. So my Son turns to me and delivers his own speech! He says "Mom, I dont EVER want to be President!" As I curiously ask Why!?!?!, he replies with, "He has to give all these speeches and miss all of his favorite TV Shows!"

Plus, if Jake were President, the flag would be made out of Legos and all formal dinners with World Leaders would consist of Chicken Fingers, French Fries, Pizza & Ice Cream Sandwiches for dessert! ;)

War Eagle!!!

It's that time! Auburns first football game is this weekend!!! And Michael and I will be there with bells on! While I am not the "biggest football fan" out there, I still love the season. Michael lives and dies Auburn football. I swear if you cut him open, he would bleed orange and blue! I bought him tickets to the first game for our anniversary! I got some really good seats too!! I do think I got "The Best Wife In The World" award for that one! :) We are going to have a great weekend. That is, if Auburn wins!!! If not, then it will be a loooonnnnggg ride home! Hahaha...

Friday night we will be hanging out with great friends and playing cards and grilling out. Saturday we are leaving to go to the game and I absolutely can't wait!!! I love road trips and he and I have not been to a game by ourselves yet. We always have the kids with us. And while I will miss them, it will be nice to be able to get there early and walk around for a while. Sunday we will be in church. We started last week, and we LOVE it! This is a great church for us and the kids. It was a perfect fit! And thank goodness we are both off work on Monday! Not real sure what we are going to do...but I guarantee it will be better than being at work! :)

I hope you all have a great weekend!!! I know we will! :)

Long time, no post!

Hey Guys! Sorry I went on a break. We have been sooo busy at the Shuta household! Birthday Parties (4 total), starting school, starting soccer, and every day normal life thrown in there....hectic to say the least. I think we have finally gotten back into our "routine" though!

Jake and Mary (pictures from her party coming up) both had great birthday parties!! And I turned the big 3-0!!! Oh no! I hear 30 is the new 20 though, so maybe it will be great. Soccer has begun and I couldn't be more excited about it. This is my favorite time of the year. Fall is on the way, football season is about to start, and I love the weather and the trees. There is nothing I love better than being on a soccer field every Saturday morning and then planning for football parties later in the day! :) Fun Stuff!!!

This weekend is a busy one too. We all need a break! :) We are all going to the local High School's first football game this Friday night. Saturday we are going to the mall and to run a few errands. The new Lego Store has opened at the Galleria and Jake is about to die. He has already been with Nana (I think they were the first in the door), but this weekend is the "Grand Opening" and they are having a guy out in the food court building a 6 ft tall R2-D2 that the kids to get help with! Jake is going to need Ritalin that morning. His two favorite things....Legos and Star Wars! Should be a great day. The kids both have tons of birthday money to spend as well.

Sunday is the best day though! We are starting to a new church on Sunday! Let me tell you how excited I am about this. The kids are super excited and so are we. We have visited this church several times and after "shopping around" we have decided this is the best fit for our family. There are tons and tons of kids there age that go to this church and they are always having special functions for the kids. All of our friends are members of this church. This is going to be a great thing for the kids and for Michael and I. I cant wait!!!! Sunday afternoon we have a Birthday party to go to on the lake. It will be nice to finally be at a party that I am not stressing over and I can just sit back and relax! :)

And I don't know if I have mentioned this before but, Gatlinburg is my absolute favorite vacation spot EVER! I just love it!!! We have never been able to go with the kids b/c going to Gatlinburg during the summer is just foolish (no snow, no Fall leaves, etc.) but we have figured out a time this Fall/Winter that we are able to go with the kids for 4 days!!! We have already booked our cabin and planned the trip. Jake is so excited. I showed him the cabin with the pool table, hot tub, etc. and he can't wait. He has been before, but he was so little I doubt he remembers any of it. The only bad part is that it is soooo far away. Gives me something to look forward to, but I am not very patient! :)

I hope I got you all up to date on our busy lives. I am sure there is MUCH more that I am not recalling at the moment. I will try to get better at posting, but this is the first time I have been able to breathe in about a month!

H0pe you all have a great day!

Happy Birthday Jake!!!

My baby is growing up too fast! Jake turned 9 today. I can't believe that he is getting so big!!! A few more years and he is not going to want to hear "the story" anymore! Every year on his Birthday I tell him the story about how I went to the hospital early in the morning and who all was there waiting and how the doctor came in and brought Jake out of my tummy. His favorite part (and mine as well) is when I tell him about how the doctor laid him on my chest and with every ounce of energy he had, he tilted his little head up and looked at me. That was the sweetest moment I have ever had. He had to see just who had been talking to him for the past 9 months! I have been head over heels in love with that boy ever since! I always tell him that story (with a little more detail) every year on his birthday at exactly 2:02 p.m. because that is when he was born. That was the best day of my life. Those are the memories that are worth a million dollars and I would not trade them for anything!

Happy Birthday Jacob Owen Gurley!!! We love you more than anything!!!

Jake's Birthday Party

A Hectic Blast

The next few weeks are sure to be very very hectic. But, along with the busy hustle and bustle it is sure to be such a blast as well. Let me break down the next 5 weekends for you.

This weekend we are having Jake's 9th Birthday Party. We are having 8 kids, other than our own, over for a swim party on Saturday. Then after that they are all spending the night!!! I am going to have kids everywhere. But Jake is super excited and has been counting the days down. He said yesterday "This is going to be the best Birthday Party EVER!". Which makes it all worth it!!! That is what is happening Saturday and part of the day on Sunday. Plus, tomorrow is my Mom's Birthday as well. So somewhere in all the madness we have to find a good time to celebrate that as well.

Next Friday is Jake's real Birthday. There will be gifts and celebrating that day as well. Then Saturday, Michael, Jake & I are packing up to go camping with my parents at Lake Guntersville. We haven't been in about 2 months so that will be a lot of fun. Michael and I are coming back late Sunday and Jake will stay with Nana & Papa until Monday.

The next weekend (the 7th - 9th) is another busy one. Saturday we are having an "adult swim party". Some friends of ours are coming over that day to swim during the day, grill out for dinner and play cards that night. That is always a lot of fun. That Sunday is Mary Katherine's Birthday. We will get her for a few hours that day since she will be at her Moms that weekend. Probably take her out to eat and give her some gifts. Her party will be the next weekend.

The next weekend (14th - 16th) is going to be relaxing and....wait....what am I talking about??? No it isn't! The 15th is my 30th Birthday!!! Woohoo!!! It really isn't bothering me like I thought it would. Just another day! So my Parents always take us out to eat for our Birthday's so I am sure we will do that Saturday night. Then that Sunday is going to be Mary Katherine's Birthday Party! We will repeat everything that we did on Jake's Birthday (minus the spending the night part). Pool Party, Pinata, etc. Fun times will be had by all.

And finally...the last weekend that have plans for is the 21st - 23rd. Michael and I are taking a trip by ourselves to the beach! We did this last year as well for our anniversary and are going to keep the tradition going. We had our second anniversary on the 20th of July, but as you can see, with all we have going on..this will be the first chance we have to actually do anything. We went to Fort Walton Beach last year, but I think we may try Gulf Shores this year. Change it up a bit. Although I love taking vacations with the kids, this will be a nice weekend to relax and recoup from the crazy hectic month we had!!

Oh and did I mention that in the middle of all of this madness Jake starts soccer and school!! I signed him last night for soccer. It should start the middle of August and school starts then as well. He will be going to a new school this year (moving up to the "big boys school") so that will be interesting to see how he likes that.

So much to do...But it is ALL worth it!!! :)

I Didnt Think It Would Happen So Soon

So yesterday afternoon we were going to eat with my parents for dinner. For those of you who do not know, we live right next door to my parents. So after work instead of going home I just drive to my Mom's house. We all eat dinner (lasagna...it was great!), Jake & I go downstairs and film another Star Wars Lego's movie (too cute!), and then we sit around for a while and talk and watch Jake's masterpiece. Around 7, we decide to go home. So we all walk home and get settled into our nightly routine. Only to have my Mom call me about 30 minutes later to let me know that I had forgotten MY CAR!!! Completely forgetting that I had drove over to Mom's, I just left with Michael and Jake and walked home. I could not stop laughing. Imagine my surprise had she not noticed and I had gone downstairs to leave for work this morning. I would have called the cops and filed a report with it sitting 100 yards away from me! Whew!!! I knew turning 30 next month was going to have it's hurdles, but I didnt think they would start this soon! :)

Boy, That Will Wake You Up

Fire alarms going off in your house at 2 a.m. will definitely get your sleeping butt out of bed with a quickness. I have never seen myself, nor my husband jump up and immediately run around the house like we did last night. We didn't even say anything. We were in detection mode. It is sort of the same reaction you have when your child is sleeping with you and all of a sudden you hear that "bluh...bluh....BLAH" sound of vomiting. There is no rolling over and stretching and rubbing your eyes and letting them get focused. You are UP and you are as alert as you have ever been. Jake was asleep in his room and the child didn't even budge. Of course that is the first place that I run (and when I say run...think Olympic training). Snoozing away! There are two feelings that you have when you see your child enjoying his zzz's while the fire alarm is going off. 1. Thank Goodness that he didn't wake up. If he had woken up, he would not have gone back to sleep and there is only so much UNO Spin & Battleship that a Mommy can take a 3 a.m. Plus he would have been scared every night for the next two months about the house burning down. 2. OH MY GOSH!!! He didn't even budge! What if this had been a real fire and he didn't even hear it??? He has a fire alarm in his room...right above his head and he didn't hear it. At that moment I hopped a bus and took a short trip right to Panic City (lovely place this time of year!)!!! So, after we repeated this process for the 2nd time, (Yes, it happened TWICE in about 20 minutes!!!) Michael and I got back in bed and flipped and flopped for about 20 minutes. I then realized that I would sleep MUCH better if I went and got in bed with Jake. That way if it did go off again and it was the real deal I would be there to wake him up and get him out. So heart still racing and mind still running with all the "what if's", I curled up next to Jake and went sound to sleep...finally. I always considered myself to be a comfort to him when I was sleeping with him after he had a nightmare or woke up and got scared...but the tables had turned and he was then a comfort for me!

It's Getting Close

About 6 more weeks to go!! Erica is having her baby the first of September. Mommy & Addyson Grace are both doing great. She had her baby shower today. So many cute, tiny little gifts!!! She is going to need a bigger closet I do believe! I am very much looking forward to being an aunt again. Spoiling is my specialty!!!

Back to Reality

We are back from the beach. Those seven days flew by! Why dont they go by that fast while we are at work? We had the best time. I think this was by far the best vacation that we have taken. We played putt putt too many times to count, rode go karts, went bowling and to the arcades, ate...and ate...and ate some more, swam, played at the beach, went crabbing at night...and relaxed! Such a blast! Nana and PaPa were able to come and stay with us the last two nights as well. I was so glad they could come. Everyone had an amazing time! We were all glad to see the house though on Saturday. The kids missed the pets (we also added 2 new pets to the clan while we were gone...turtles! Both the kids got their own turtles at the beach!) and I missed my bed! Home Sweet Home!

Here are some pictures of the fun...