December 2009

When did years start flying by so quickly? I know it’s all relative to the amount of years that you’ve been alive. Christmas used to take forever to arrive, but that was when we were 8 years old and one whole year was an eighth of your whole life. I guess this just means that 27 years old isn’t as young as I’d like it to be.

But it has been an incredible year. I have had the heart of a mother for the entire year. That’s really hard to believe. I got pregnant in September of 2008, so that means that just the thought of sweet baby Hudson was with me at the beginning of 2009 and will be with me for the rest of my life!
I’m going to share the highlights of my 2009 with you!

1. Todd and I celebrated one year of marriage in May. We took a long weekend trip to Savannah. I was seriously pregnant and wasn’t able to do as much as I would have liked, but we’ll go back. Now Todd and I are halfway to our second anniversary and are busy planning our 2 year anniversary trip.

2. I received the most beautiful, special gift on June 5 when Hudson was born. It was a long couple of days while I was in labor and delivery, but he’s here. And he’s the most amazing little person I’ve ever met. He turns 7 months old next week. Thank you all for allowing me to brag about him so much for these past seven months. I’m a proud momma, what can I say?

3. I got to spend a lot of time with my parents and brother this year. A lot of that time was a result of my complications from the delivery, but they were there for me and that’s all that matters. Todd, Hudson, and I traveled to Dallas a couple of times and I stayed for two weeks one of those times. This past week in Gatlinburg was a great way to end the year.

4. I fulfilled my first Vice-Chairmanship position in the Junior League of Columbia and have been asked to Chair the same committee next year. A wonderful friendship has come out of my time on this committee over the past few years and I’ve very thankful for that!

5. Todd and I joined our Sunday School class last January and have been unbelievably blessed by the amazing friendships that have developed. We are surrounded by the most loving and supportive couples.

6. In 2009, we traveled to Dallas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, and North Carolina. That’s a lot of traveling for a pregnant woman and a baby!

7. I met one of my dearest friends, a fellow blogger, in 2008 and continued to develop that friendship in 2009, along with other friendships. We had an amazing weekend in Charleston and we’re looking forward to doing that again in 2010 with more bloggers. I also got to participate in a so much fun Champagne Thursday in Dallas. I love all of my friends that I’ve met through blogging and Twitter and I look forward to meeting more people in 2010.

8. With the help of the friend mentioned in #7, Blue-Eyed Bride got its own domain and grew even more than it did in 2008. I’m amazed every day by the opportunities that come out of this little blog that didn’t have a comment on it for months. I was paid to blog for SC Johnson company for their new Pledge Multi-Surface product and I learned so much! A camera crew came into our house to film our cleaning trouble spots, I cleaned with Pledge Multi-Surface, and then wrote about it. I’ve been able to do a few product reviews and a fun movie review and DVD giveaway is coming up! Blue-Eyed Bride can be a full-time job for me and I’d love to get full-time job pay from it someday.

9. I became a SAHM in 2009 when I realized that I couldn’t bear to go back to work when I so enjoyed being at home with Hudson every day. It is such a wonderful job and I can’t imagine doing anything else. My dear husband also had a huge career move this year when he and others started their own law firm.

I am so blessed to have such a beautiful family; a loving husband, an adorable son, and two crazy dogs who just happen to worship the ground we walk on. Life is good.

Todd, Hudson, and I are planning on welcoming 2010 at home, in our pajamas, after eating a most delicious celebratory feast! (I could write a book about the reasons that I think that New Year’s Eve is overrated and a disappointment.) We realized that we don’t like having official plans and it’s much more fun to do something low-key– at least that’s the case for us.

I hope you have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve! I’ll be back to wish you an official Happy New Year and let you in on my plans for 2010 and even put my resolutions in writing.

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I hope everyone had the merriest of Christmases!

Christmas is so much fun with a baby! I know that each Christmas will only get more fun. The look on Hudson’s face when he walked into the room and saw all of his grandparents, great-grandmother, and uncle looking at him was priceless. Then he saw what Santa Claus brought him and he was so excited!

Santa brought him this Radio Flyer Rocking and Bouncing Horse. It’s wonderful. It’s soft enough for him to chew on. It has a little harness for the little kids. It’s supposed to be a great toy for him until he’s 3 years old. He can’t fall off, it makes “neighing” noises, and it plays “Home on the Range.” He bounces on it and has really mastered the art of bouncing on his little horse. I love that the bouncy horse doesn’t have springs, but instead uses industrial strength rubber bands! I think those old bouncy horse springs are scary!

His KK and Poppie gave him the Charles Dickens Nutcracker and have started a new collection. His RC and PC started a new train set for him. They plan to give him a new car for his train every year. I think it will be so much fun for him to look at his nutcracker collection and train set every Christmas when we decorate!

Santa knew that Hudson’s mommy and daddy would have trouble bringing all of his toys back to South Carolina in their SUV, so he delivered one of his gifts to Columbia. He got  the Melissa and Doug giant giraffe. I’m pretty sure the dogs will be more interested in the giant giraffe than Hudson is.

We had a great first Christmas with our little boy!

And… for those that were wondering, one of Todd’s gifts to me was the violet Hunter Wellies! I finally got them. I think they were my most-wanted item of the year, and this SAHM will appreciate not having to get her pants soaked in puddles anymore. My great gift-giving Todd got me a few other wonderful things that I’m so excited about!

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Sorry for the delay in announcing my giveaway winner!

The winner of all of my favorite things is #33, Anne!

Congratulations, Anne! Email me at eeakin11 {at} gmail {dot} com with your address and I’ll get everything mailed to you when we return from the mountains!

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1. My last post was my 500th post, so this is my 501st post! Who knew I’d have so much to say?

2. My girl crush, Carrie Underwood, is engaged! And have you seen the ring? Holy rock, Batman!

One of the things I loved about Carrie is that even though the media talks about her, she does everything she can to stay out of the tabloids and the spotlight.

I’m sorry. I’m blinded by her bling again.

She’s going to be a beautiful bride. Y’all know I’ll be stalking her wedding picture.

3. We leave for Gatlinburg tomorrow! You should see the packing we’ve done! Todd and I exchanged our gifts to each other last night so we wouldn’t have to bring everything with us. But we still have all of our stocking stuffers for everyone, Hudson’s toys, Hudson’s suitcase, my suitcase, and Todd’s suitcase. We have to bring the stroller and pack ‘n play, too. We’ve borrowed a car-top carrier from a friend and we’ve officially turned into the Griswolds. But whatever works… we gotta get all of our stuff up there!

4. One of my favorite things to do over Christmas holidays is to go see lots of movies. And it’s especially fun to go with my mom. I’m so excited about this year’s lineup that includes “Up in the Air,” “It’s Complicated,” and “NINE.”

Am I forgetting anything? What movies are you going to see?

5. I’ll be able to blog from our cabin! Yay! So you won’t have to go too long without hearing from me. Lucky you!

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Seriously. Why is it that when you have a bazillion things to do, mother nature brings on the rain. And not just rain. Rain on a thirty-four degree day.

This is where we live. Do you see a garage anywhere in sight? No? That’s because we don’t have one. It’s usually not an issue, but today, in the rain, it was an issue. We needed a garage.

My first concern was making sure that Hudson didn’t get wet, so I covered him with a blanket and the hood on his car seat. But it’s nearly impossible to hold an umbrella while carrying his 40 pound car seat. Yes, it’s 40 pounds. He weighs 22.1 pounds (as of last week) and the seat itself is close to 20 pounds. I’m not a small gal, but that doesn’t mean I’m a strong gal. So I didn’t even try with the umbrella.

Anyway, enough of that. I had perfectly blown out hair when I walked outside, but I just had to let that go when I got outside. I was getting wet and there was no way around it. While trying to get the car seat into the base in the car, I stepped in a pile of leaves and they pulled off one of my flat shoes. (No, I don’t have any Wellies yet.) So I’m trying to get the car seat in the car, but my shoe has fallen off and I am standing barefoot in a wet pile of leaves. Cold water is raining into my J.Crew flats and for some reason I can’t get the car seat to go into the base.

I get it in there. I get in the car. And I shiver all the way to the stores that I have to visit to pick up last minute gifts. When we arrive at the store I have to do it all over again.

Apparently Best Buy has shopping carts, but they were covered up by a wall of flat screen TVs today. Very helpful, Best Buy. Thankyouverymuch. So I hobble all over Best Buy with the 40 pound car seat in tow (because I couldn’t see the shopping carts!), and pick up the couple of items that I came to find. After I check out (after waiting in line for 20 minutes– if you need something from Best Buy for a Christmas gift, get it in November) I walk to the door. There’s an older man working the door and he actually says to me, “Don’t slip and fall out there in the rain with that baby.”

Gee, thanks, mister. Care to give me a hand so we can make sure that doesn’t happen? Or are you just going to state the obvious?

There was also another man standing there as I struggled to get the car seat in the crook of my elbow before running in the rain back to the car. He was staring. Staring with a look on his face that said, “I should offer to help her.” He looked like a kind man and if he had offered to help me I definitely would have accepted the offer. But he didn’t offer and I hustled out to the car with bags and baby.

Now, tell me. Those of you that have been pregnant and have had babies. Why do people fall all over themselves to help a pregnant woman– holding doors for her, walking her to her car so she doesn’t have to carry anything? Always asking if she’s okay. But as soon as the baby arrives, they’re not going to help you. They may stare at you (or stare at your cute baby), but they never offer to help?

I don’t expect help. Don’t get me wrong. But I actually need more help now than I did when I was pregnant. I’m toting around an immobile infant. He also happens to be very heavy healthy.

I just wanted to see if anyone else has experienced this. I know that pregnant women are much cuter than new moms and probably more fun to be around. But I’m just not sure why people stopped bending over backwards to help when I clearly need more help now than before.

On to prettier topics… I’m dying over this kitchen from the KraftMaid Kitchen advertisement. Swoon.

I’m currently lusting over black kitchen cabinets, but this may be my new favorite. It’s kind of gorgeous.

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I’m so excited to reveal our Christmas card to you! Last year, the beautiful and talented Nina of According to Nina designed a precious card for us. We were expecting our first baby at the time and had announced the news by then, but were still reluctant to put it on the card. It was also fun to have our first card be just about the two of us!

This year, there are three of us (five including the dogs) and I’m just overwhelmed by the difference a year makes. The amount of love in our house has increased exponentially. Hopefully everyone that should have received a card in the mail has received it already and this post isn’t ruining the surprise for you.

I wrote the text and selected the photos, then sent the text to the fabulous Tracy  Turpen. She designed and printed the card for us. And she never told me that she thought my cheesy text was, in fact, cheesy.

Did you send out Christmas cards this year? Don’t you think receiving Christmas cards is one of the greatest things about Christmas time? We’ve got a giant bowl on our table full of Christmas cards. I’m so excited to hear from so many friends this time of year!

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As I mentioned on Tuesday, there are a lot of things I want to do to help Hudson celebrate his very first Christmas. I’ve already mentioned that we’ll spend Christmas in the mountains in Tennessee and that we decided as a family to go easy on the presents. We agreed to stocking stuffers only and Todd and I will exchange a few gifts. We’re all very excited about spending such a long amount of time together– without being in someone’s home and invading their space for a week.

Just because we’ve chosen not to get gifts for everyone in the whole family doesn’t mean we’ve chosen to leave gifts out of Hudson’s first Christmas celebration. I went back and forth on this and wasn’t sure what we should do. I know he won’t remember a lot of what we do, but we will. (My friend, Whitney from Glamorous Life of a Housewife, wrote a great post about why she’s giving her baby boy gifts for his first Christmas.)

We’ll remember the look on his face when he opened that special thing that we’ll always remember that we gave to him. Someday we’ll show him the pictures from the sweet event. Giving him a gift on Christmas Day doesn’t prove our love for him, but it does show my appreciation for some of the Christmas traditions and wanting to experience that with the newest, most precious, member of our family.

My parents are planning on starting a collection for him (that I’ll share with you later) and I hardly see this gift as silly to give a baby. It’s thoughtful and special and he’ll get one every year from them.

We got him a couple of fun gifts that I’ll share with you all later (but really I want to tell you NOW!), but I’ll go ahead and tell you one of them. On Christmas Eve I plan to give Hudson a pair of Night Before Christmas pajamas and a copy of The Night Before Christmas book. My dad read it to me nearly every night because I loved it so much and I knew the entire poem by heart. I want to read this story to Hudson on Christmas Eve.

I also want to read the Christmas story to him. I could also recite all of Luke Chapter 2 when I was in the 2nd grade and I want that tradition to be with our baby boy, too. (Yes, I was a memorizing machine when I was little.)

As far as his future Christmases go, I want to continue to do these things every year. I don’t know where we’ll celebrate Christmas every year. We could be in Dallas. We could be here. We could be in a wonderful vacation spot. I would love for our boy to wake up at his own house every Christmas morning, but I also know that Santa Claus visits you where ever you are. We spent every Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house until I was in high school and being with so much family and having so many cousins around to see what Santa brought us was always the highlight of my day. I also know how much fun it is to be in your own house and be able to play with all of your toys and all of your friends on Christmas day. But I don’t have a crystal ball and I only know what our plans are for this year.

I’m just excited to share all of these amazing things with Hudson and give him something to look forward to every year. I can’t remember a time when I was more excited for Christmas to come!

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Are you singing now?

… Brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favorite things.

flickr image via here

Because I love blogging so much and I appreciate all of my readers so much, I wanted to do a giveaway featuring some of my favorite things that I’ve talked about this year. Most of the items are for the home and one of the items is for a kid in your life.

1. 2 Kate Spade Holly Heights mugs via One Kings Lane (the mugs only). One in green and one in red. Aren’t these so adorable? Don’t you just want to sip hot chocolate next to your Christmas tree out of these?

2. An Archipelago Lindenwood reed diffuser. I have these in almost every room in my house and I’m in love with the fresh, natural scent.

3. A Low Country Luxe candle in my personal favorite scent, High Cotton. These are all over my house, too, and I just love them. They burn perfectly and evenly and the aroma subtly consumes your home in just a few minutes. I love it.

4. Last but certainly not least, our favorite Sophie the Giraffe. Or Sophie la Girafe. She’s French, you know? Sophie has been a lifesaver for Hudson this year and she comes in an adorable box. We saved Hudson’s Sophie box because she really is like a collector’s item. She’s a great gift to give to a child in your life if you don’t have one of your own.

To enter my Favorite Things Giveaway…

1. Just leave a comment telling me what would be on your favorite things list.

2. For an extra entry, tweet about this post and link to the giveaway. Make sure you let me know that you mentioned it on Twitter and l’ll give you one extra entry!

3. The winner will be announced on December 22– just in time for me to get out of town for Christmas with my family!

Thank you for being so supportive of me this year and always being such an encouraging group of women. I’m happy to share our lives with you!

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