Don't mean to brag, but...

We were sitting at the kitchen table visiting with Drew's dad and stepmom and I was giving Tucker a bottle, when she grabbed hold of the sides. I let go and she held her own bottle while she finished it off. I would like to remind you that she is ONE WEEK OLD today. :-D My child is BRILLIANT!!! :-D ha! (Pictures to prove it and you can tell that these are not doctored.)

L&S,

Leslie

TA-DA!!!!!

She's finally here!!!

Tucker Elise Bowers was born June 6, 2008 at 5:20pm.

8 lbs. 15 oz.

21.5" long

Just a little roly-poly

She loves Daddy's arms the BEST!!!

First family photo

She is a snuggler for sure!!!

L&S,

Drew, Leslie, and Tucker

Let the Countdown Begin!

So today's the day of Tucker's anticipated arrival. So far no news...

If nothing happens before then, they will begin inducing early, early Friday morning. So no matter what, there will be a baby by this weekend. :-)

Any prayers you'd like to offer for safety, health, and possibly ease would be very welcome!

L&S,
Les

Thas alota baby!!!

For those of you who have ever wondered, "Where exactly does someone who is 5 foot tall PUT a baby?" here's the answer...

Nowhere up and down for Tucker to go, so it all goes FORWARD!!! Not sure why people ever think it's good to say such things as, "Are you sure you're not having twins?", "Your baby is going to be HUGE," "You are HUGE," "There's NO WAY you will go to your due date because you are SO BIG," and my favorite, "You must be MISERABLE being so big," but I'm getting those kinds of comments out the wazoo these days!

Just thought I'd share the beauty that is my HUGENESS with all of you. :-) Under 2 weeks now!!! Crazy!!!!



L&S,
Leslie

The Magical Beauty of Pregnancy

Just thought I would share some of my FAVORITE parts of being 37 weeks pregnant (officially "full term", by the way). Now, I'm not one of those pregnant ladies that feels gross and cow-like (most days anyway). I have actually enjoyed being pregnant (most days anyway). I've always been one that thought pregnant women were beautiful and I've tried to keep that thought somewhere in my mind as I've become 8 times my normal size. :-) However, when I thought pregnant women were beautiful, I never saw the REAL beauty that is full term pregnancy. Here are some of my favorite parts...

For my first feat of beauty, I give you the "magically disappearing belly button"!!! Please note how there is almost NO actual button left on my belly!!











For my second feat, I give you "The magical growing feet"!!! Notice how they are three times their normal size - AND this is after soaking in epsom salts and sleeping with them propped up.

Despite the discomforts and oddities, I am feeling pretty good still these days. I'm not the picture of comfort or anything, but Tucker is getting pretty stinking funny as she bumbles around in there. :-)

Onlye 3 weeks to go!!!

L&S,

Leslie

What does one take?

So now that the nursery is done (and I'm having Braxton Hicks pretty regularly), our next task is getting the "hospital bag" ready. Everytime I think about it, I think about new things that I need to add to my list. Music (calming and upbeat - because I'm too antsy to listen to calming music the whole time I'm there), heating pads, night gowns, socks, slippers, shoes, toiletries, stuff for the baby, something to "focus on" while delivering (is there really an object that can help this go more easily?)... this list goes on and on.

Last night, I began having Braxton Hicks crazy frequently and close together. Enough that I was making the decision of whether or not to call the doctor. Called my pediatrician friend and she gave me some advice and a "when to call" rule that ended with, "Listen to your instincts. If you do everything I say and you're still worried, call the dr. That's what they're there for." Anwyay, they began subsiding shortly after that call, so no real emergency. However, I've already had two this morning.

Maybe I should make that "hospital bag" more a reality than a theoretical list.....

Yikes!!!
L&S,
Leslie

The Results Show

We finally finished the nursery!!!

Here are some pics with furniture and all (ok, so there will still be more pics hung and a rocker added somewhere, but you get the gist...). It also includes the loot from our Georgia baby shower. Laura Kate was a fabulous little cousin and carried it all upstairs for me. :-)

Mama made these curtains for me. She turned the valances that came with the bedding into these based solely on my "I want this and this and this, and this might look ok" type of instructions. :-) So talented!

This is going to be our changing table. It's an old wash basin that was Drew's grandmother's. I painted the letters of Tucker's name to match the patterns in the bedding. If you look closely in the mirror, you can see Tucker. :-) tee-hee!

This is the dresser I found at the church consignment sale. So far, it's getting quite full of clothes so tiny it's hard to imagine a REAL human could EVER fit into them. :-)

L&S,

Leslie

A Nursery in the Hizous!!

So we finally did it!!! We finally got the nursery painted!! The nursery is not totally done, but the painting finally is (and the rest will be at least presentable by Sunday). Here's a bit of the progression:

The room began in this LOVELY shade of Brady Bunch pea green. It was ALMOST a nice lime green, but it resembled dirty diaper a bit too much for keeping. We figured we'll see this color enough as it is in this room. :-)

Mmmmm, primer is SO PRETTY!!! :-)

The final color.

The "accent wall" as it is so commonly called on design shows. :-)

More pics to follow of the finished nursery- bedding and all. :-)

L&S,

Leslie

Ahhhhhhh

The view from my front door

L&S,

Leslie

Seriously!!!

I have officially found the perfect piece of baby attire for Tucker.

The top, for those of you who can't read it, has Beatles lyrics. It says, "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."

And the bottom is covered in little rows of music notes.

It seriously doesn't get any cuter!!!

L&S,

Leslie

SCORE!!!

In the Woodstock area, many of the churches have a bi-annual baby-stuff consignment sale for missions. They have very high standards for items that can be sold, and they only accept baby things - nursery furniture, strollers, high chairs, diaper bags, clothes, toys, etc. I went for my first time Friday, and I must admit, I went with low expectations, thinking I might find a few baby clothing items that I wanted and that would be it. Boy was I wrong. I did find some baby clothes (tons of expensive onesies in great shape for next to nothing), but I also found a small umbrella stroller, the exact diaper bag Drew and I had registered for, a high chair, a dresser (pictured below), and my FAVORITE ITEM, an old-fashioned cradle (also pictured below). It was SO MUCH FUN!! And most importantly, I now have something in which my baby can sleep if, heaven forbid, she were to be born early. :-) Yipee!!!

**The furniture has yet to be moved to the nursery, so the pictures aren't the greatest quality, but you get the idea. :-)



L&S,
Leslie

The Bump

Just in case any of you were wondering, here's what the bump looks like these days. I'm all mid-section. :-) Things are great here in Woodstock (though busy as usual). We are finally getting started on the nursery. I bought a craddle, dresser, high chair, and tons of fun baby goodies today at a baby consignment sale at a local church. Very exciting!!! As soon as actual painting/work begins on the nursery, I'll post pics.

L&S,
Leslie

Ugh

Ever have a day that's just a complete do-over? Actually, scratch that - who would want to do a day like that OVER? Let's just scratch it!!! Nothing major. Just all of the small things in life at once. Work was bad, long, and hard. Body's aching. My work partner is driving me CRAZY. Losing my voice. Raining outside. Husband's out of town. Tried to call two others just to have a happy, good conversation, and got "complained to" by both of them (though I guess I can be glad I wasn't complained AT). Found a hair in my sandwich at ABC for dinner. Then found out a friend gave my name and number to some kid at her church who is doing required sales pitches for a "scholarship" for college and he called saying that the friend was "sure I'd be nice enough to help him keep his scholarship". UGH!!! Scratch it and start over tomorrow!!!

In the good news department, my lost voice means a short to non-existent work day tomorrow and I'm going on a scrapbook retreat this weekend! Very excited about that!

Here's to a better tomorrow!!!
L&S,
L

The thermometer says WHAT?!?

Round ONE:
The typical southern nightime snowfall. It began around 4pm and snowed until 8 or so. Unfortunately, it then warmed up enough that it turned to rain and made most of the snow disappear before morning.
















Round TWO:
This time, it began snowing before noon. It snowed pretty hard for a few hours and hovered right around 32 degrees most of the day, allowing the snow to stay for a while.

If you look closely in this picture (between the tree and the stones), you can see the kind of snowman MOST southerners get to build - as it's all our average snowfall will allow. :-)



















Drew and I found that noone had disturbed the neighborhood park snow when we got there, so we used a VERY large portion of it to build our own snowman. Because we were a few blocks from the house, his non-snow structure is relatively rough and VERY impromptu. All of you northerners will notice a SURE sign of a southern snowman - leaves, dirt, and debris all over the snowman, as our snow is never deep enough to not pick up the smut off of the ground when rolling the snowballs. :-) (If you look closely, you can see baby Tucker peeking out during her first week of snow.)






















The REAL beauty of southern winter - the day AFTER the snow, we got INSANELY freezing temps. It had "warmed up" to 20 degrees by 9:45 am. It never even got CLOSE to freezing all day that day. (I remind you - the day AFTER the snow.)

And the innies have it!!!

We had our ultrasound today. We both went into the appointment assuming it would all be about boy or girl and we both left saying, "There's a BABY in there!!!" That is one AMAZING doctor's appointment! It is amazing to see a little baby with flailing arms and know that it's inside of me!!! WOW!!!

Here are the first online pics of Tucker Elise Bowers.




Tucker's little profile




Sweet little footprint




It's a girl!!




Facing the camera

L&S,
Leslie

Innies and Outies

Just wanted to let you all know that tomorrow's the big day. We get to see the baby again tomorrow (new pics that resemble a baby more than a piece of rice this time) and we find out innie or outie. Yipee!!!

L&S,
Leslie

A little indulgence

Disclaimer: For those of you who aren't in love with my nephew, Eli, you may want to skip this blog. I wanted to upload some videos from our Christmas with Eli tonight so his father in Kuwait could see some of the fun. :-)

Cindy gave Eli a fire truck for Christmas. It took forever to get him to tear the paper, and the second it tore far enough for him to peek inside and see what it was, he quit tearing the paper and began trying to pull the truck out of the paper. He finally just crawled inside with the paper still around most of the truck. VERY cute! So far, he's only learned to "drive" in reverse. :-)





L&S,
Leslie

Say Cheese!

Just wanted to let everyone know that we now have an appointment for our next "portrait session" with Baby Bowers. :-) tee-hee! (Translation: We've got the date for the ultrasound.) This is the one where we can find out if the baby has an innie or an outie. :-D Yippy Skippy!

L&S,
Leslie

For Your Christmas Pleasure

Be sure you make it to the end. It's quite fabulous!!! :-)



L&S,
Leslie

These are a few of my favorite things....

So lately, I've noticed an abundance of stupidity on television (more than the normal teenage show stupidity). Ads have begun to get more and more ridiculous as time passes. Here are two of my favorite new commercial phrases. (ACTUAL QUOTES from commercials that run on TV DAILY)

EAT ALL YOU WANT AND STILL LOSE WEIGHT...AND WE COULDN'T SAY IT ON TV IF IT WASN'T TRUE!!!

(Really? There's absolutely NO lying on TV, huh? I missed that announcement.)

This line appears in a toilet paper commercial in which an ACTUAL PUPPY is running along strips of toilet paper and judging their softness and strength:

Puppy fantasy. Not a demo.

First off, do we really KNOW what a puppy fantasy consists of? Do we think SO LITTLE of man's best friend as to think his fantasies are about running along strips of toilet paper? Secondly, have Americans (and such groups as PETA) gotten SO out of hand that we have to explain to people that this REAL PUPPY isn't ACTUALLY running along toilet paper? Really?!?

Good grief!!!

L&S,
Leslie

Oh yeah, by the way....

For those of you who don't know already,

DREW AND I ARE EXPECTING!!!!!

And morning sickness is for the birds... Hard to be excited about ANYTHING AT ALL when you are on the verge of puking TWENTY-FOUR/SEVEN (literally). Can't wait until this part is OVER.

We have a first "picture" of Baby Bowers, but our scanner is broken, so one must imagine. In the picture, he/she is the size of a piece of rice. If the books are correct, he/she is now the size of a single peanut shell. (How can something SO SMALL wreak so much havoc on my body?!?) God's creative abilities are QUITE amazing!!!

L&S,
Leslie

He knows EVERYBODY!!!

Okay, so just one more Eli video...

This is a better clip of him naming us all - "Dwew", "Wetwie", and "DAAAAAADEEEEEEEEE".



L&S,
L

Tha Cooooo!!!

Okay, so in case you were wondering, I am SO EXCITED about being an aunt!!! 18 months is just so fabulous because they are constantly learning and sharing. Eli amazes me with something new each time I see him. (His most recent is his recognizing and naming an air pump.) But my favorite phrase so far (other than my name) is "Oooooh, Tha Coooo!" (aka - Oooooh, That's Cool!) So here's a little clip for you all! This time he's saying it on a prompt, but he also says it to anything that amazes him (like when Drew and Matthew were flying balsa wood airplanes).



L&S,
L

The back of my neck...

So, thanks to Locks of Love, you can now have a great view of it -- the back of my neck, that is. Got a new 'do. Here's before pics, pics of the donation ponytails, a pic with my stylist, and pics of the new 'do. :-D







Love & Shipoopies,
L

Wetwie

Okay, folks! It finally happened. Eli (my nephew) finally learned to not only recognize me, but to say my name when he sees me! :-D (This is very exciting as Leslie is not the easiest of names for a toddler.) You havet o make it to the very end of the video and he's a little excited, so it's kind of distorted. (He CAN say it more clearly.) But you will TOTALLY get the gist. He is some kind of precious! :-D




Love & Shipoopies,
Leslie

Do-over

Well, we've made it to redecorating the kitchen. (Our first re-do was our master bath. I'll have to post before and after pics of that some other time.) I'm including a before picture of the4 kitchen. Please note the "stone" wallpaper. You can't really grasp the loveliness that is this wallpaper in the pictures (as people keep saying, "I like it" upon seeing the pictures), but TRUST ME. It's FABULOUS!!! The only in process pictures I'm missing are the ones were the top layer of paper was removed and the paper backing was still there, along with the bright lemon yellow paint that was under the lovely stone paper.

Before

Lovely gray primer (with tons of stuff piled on the table and on the dining room floor).

The mostly finished product. (The orange is going to receive a glaze to darken it up a touch.) Thanks to Mama and Munner for sewing the beautiful curtains.

A better view of the curtains. Please note gameday food on the table and the "childproofing" backwards garbage can (from Eli's visit). :-) tee-hee

We're very pleased with the change. We're also pleased with our lovely IKEA bookshelf and plant on the living room side of the half wall. (You can see them in one of the after shots.) If we're not careful, we're going to make this place a home. :-D

Love & Shapoopies,
Les

Luckyyyyyy

How lucky are those who know exactly what they want to do with their lives?!? I wish I knew. Lots of things I love to do, but not sure how any of them could be a living made. ho-hum...

Old enough to appreciate history???

The older I get, the more I appreciate history.

I find as we furnish our house, that I am enjoying finding furniture from our past. I feel like having furniture that is a part of our memories, or better yet, a part of our parents' or grandparents' memories, makes it feel more like HOME. From items with which we have short histories, like the table Drew got from Shorter and our couch - my first piece of furniture I bought new - to items that connect us with family history.

We will soon be getting a pair of chairs that were my Mamao Tucker's (Munner's mom). I'm sure they were Munner's at some point as well, but for the entirety of my childhood, they sat in my parents' bedroom. We played in them, had long talks in them, and even kept clothes in them. :-D They are full of childhood memories, and I also can't help but think of my sweet Mamao Tucker each time I look at them.

Then there is this --

This is the chair in which Drew and Matthew were rocked as babies. It's teh chair in which Cindy was rocked as a baby. It's beautiful. It's comfortable. Heck, my feet COMFORTABLY reach the ground while sitting in it. Though it was given to me as a bribe from my mother-in-law (I saw the wink-wink, nudge-nudge in her eye), I LOVE that it is now part of our house. I can't wait to get it in our house. (Drew wants to febreeze any "other house" smells out of it before bringing it in so Cosmo doesn't feel the need to "make it his" like he did with our China cabinet.)

And this --

This desk belonged to Drew's Grandma Mary (Ricky's mom). It sat in her entryway (as it does in our house). It was in Ricky and Cindy's home. It's LOVELY. And Drew had so much fun cleaning it up and making it beautiful again. It's now OURS.

How great to have families so great that we want to bring them into our house!

Love & Shipoopies,

Leslie

Glimpses

I haven't blogged yet since the move because I was waiting to upload my pictures, then on some amusing anecdote, and then on finishing some rooms to get some good "after" pictures. I was just waiting on something amazing and amusing for you guys. I finally decided that though I still haven't found the perfect anecdote, I should share some last glimpses of Louisiana. This is a pictorial (with bits of commentary) of our last days in the big BR.

We went to Alligator Bayou (an educational alligator farm that lets you see, feed, and hold alligators and teaches you about the ecosystem of bayous) in our last week in Baton Rouge. It was SOME KIND OF HOT before the sun went down, so they gave us "parasols". As you can see, mine was VERY effective. (Leave it to me to be amused by an umbrella amongst live alligators.)

One last crawfish boil in Mandeville. Though I'm not a fan of eating the little creatures (which, by the way, in Louisiana, must NOT be called "crawdads" or "mudbugs" as we call them in Bama), MANY of our Louisiana memories revolved around crawfish boils and the fun that ensues at them. This is the Louisiana version of a fish fry or barbecue - only there's MUCH more alcohol and you get the added bonus of playing with and chasing your food BEFORE cooking it. :-D

At the very end of May, we made it official. MASTER Bowers

Back to the Alligator Bayou. Quite possibly the WORST picture ever taken of me, however, it does show me holding an alligator. In my defense, I was MUCH calmer holding him (and YES, he proved he was a him during the "Pass the alligator around" session) until the man in the red shirt behind me put the baby alligator he's holding on my shoulder. I thought it was the ginormous snake that was being held behind me...hence the face!!!

Thanks to my friend Marisa, we have a great pictorial of our last night at our condo. All of our friends helping us move... our stuff in boxes... our mostly empty condo... Cosmo trying to get out of seclusion... and our GIANT truck. Let me just tell you, folks, caravaning with a truck THAT large GREATLY increases the travel time. :-D

As hot and humid as a post-nap mouth; overcrowded from Katrina; loud, chain-smoking, college-kid neighbors; and a teenie-tiny condo, but it was still HOME for us. We made so many amazing friends, learned so much about an amazing culture, ate some great food, improved our skills at trivia, ate an enormous amount of seafood, tailgated like crazy, and just had FUN!!! Baton Rouge is a culture that will always be a part of who we are. Though we're glad to be where we are now, we LOVED Baton Rouge and all of our wonderful friends we made there!

Love & Shipoopies,

Leslie

Georgia on our minds - and soon to be on our tags

Well, folks, we're in! And, by "in", I mean it's all somewhere within the confines of our walls and/or garage and/or parents' houses. (We still haven't collected all of that.) But we have our couch, mattress, clothes, and computers inside. We also have a cat who LOVES windows close to the floor and running up and down stairs. He has also decided that he LOVES to scare us by sleeping on the railing that looks over the two story living room - meaning that if he fell, it'd be a LONG way down - AND he's decided that he loves to pee on our new china cabinet. That's fun. :-/

I'll put up pics VERY soon. (I'm currently in Clanton and therefore away from the camera and its USB cord.)

Blast is July 20 and 21. If you're in Clanton (or can get there), you should come. Should be a good one!!

Love & Shipoopies!
Les

On the Road Again!

Well, Drew goes and gets the ginormous truck this afternoon. (And yes, this puppy is so big that we read somewhere in the fine print that we have to go through all weigh and agricultural stations. -- And by the by, where in the heck do they have agricultural stations? I mean, I live in Alabama and I've never seen one.)

Anywho, we're exhausted and excited.

This is probably the most ahead-of-time packing we've done before the actual loading. The packing has been getting done (rather quickly as our boxes didn't get here until Wednesday) and it's been pretty organized. So far, no really random boxes. We've done the occassional, "I have a hole. Do you have something that fits there?" conversation while loading a box but for the most part, it's all been pretty together.

I'm so very excited about the new place -- all of the space and different rooms and a yard!!! Definitely looking forward to being closer to everyone (except Uncle Randy and Missy, and I guess I'm actually moving farther away from you two, huh?!?).

Nevertheless, moving is always emotionally difficult -- saying goodbye to your favorite places and people. In the whole scheme of things, we haven't really been here that long, yet we have really bonded so closely with so many of our friends here. Goodbyes are just hard. Tears, and the hopes that you won't become those friends who say they will call, but never actually do. Or even worse, that it won't become one of those relationships where one of you calls and the other never returns the calls. Of course, everyone says they will keep in touch, but it's hard knowing that some of them really won't.

Anyway, I suppose that's enough deepness (or maybe too much) for 7:30 in the morning on 5 hours of sleep. :-)

I love you all and hope you'll come see us at our new place soon!!


Love & Shipoopies!
Leslie

What's that you say?!? A REAL house?!?

That's right, folks! We have a contract on this puppy!

By the end of June, we should actually be living in this baby - IN Georgia!!! How tremendously thrilling!!! :-)

If you'd like more pics and haven't received them yet, drop me your e-mail and I'll send you a power point with all of the pics in it. :-)

Yipee!!!

Love & Shipoopies,

Leslie