Where did the time go

Yikes! Someone is gonna take away my blogging rights if I don't get on here soon, huh? I never intended to get so behind!!

Well, first things first!!! In case you missed it... Our little family is expanding! Yup! Looks like the "Cortlyn Adventures" will be getting a new name here soon. We were caught by surprise, but are very excited about our April addition to the family! So, for now, we'll call the baby The Bean and just pray that everything goes smoothly! Cortlyn wants a baby sister- and she doesn't fall for any tricks! She knows she wants a girl. I'm sure she will be a super big sister!

Football is in full swing at USM! Cortlyn and I enjoyed a WONDERFUL game last week. Even going to the top of the stadium to watch the band at halftime. It was great! This past game was on TV and on a friday night. That didn't work for the Prego and Tired Christen, so Cortlyn and I stayed home. :( BUT in two weeks, one of my best friends Stephanie will be here and we'll leave the girls with a sitter and enjoy the game together! Cannot wait! Cortlyn is looking forward to "Sepony and Anyah" coming to the house!

Hopefully, I'll be able to get on here more often. I've been a little preoccupied planning our family trip to Disney World in December and now with the new Bean, I've just not gotten on here as much! I promise to try to get on and post more often!!!

Ready for some Football!

So, we are gearing up for another GREAT year of Southern Miss Golden Eagles Football! Woohoo! This year, Cortlyn and I are officially members of the PRIDE of Mississippi Marching Band. Doesn't she look professional? Well, defiantly look cute, right?

I really do enjoy the football season! And I'm sure that this season will be just as great as last year. Corey is having a great year with the GA's so far and things are running so smoothly. We are on the downhill slide of this DMA thing. Hopefully, we will be settling in back in the Atlanta area in a year??? Who knows. The fact is, we are open to going where God opens the door. We're hearing good things about openings across the country, so as always, we will be praying and keeping a good eye on the ATL.

My work is going really well, and in fact, I'm starting to work in a different department with more responsibility this week. I'm very excited after talking to the director of my dept. I am grateful for a job and training in the medical field. I really have enjoyed working in Nephrology, but I'm looking forward to a more challenging department.

Crazy Summer

Wow. Its been a year! We have survived our first year here in Hattiesburg! We are excited for the future and are on the downhill slope. The chances for Corey getting a great job next year seem pretty good, we already know of several openings in different states for the 2011 school year and we are sure that more will open up. We have a lot to consider as we gear up for finding a job! Of course, our first choice would be to end up back in the North Georgia area, but we are NOT being closed minded! If God opens doors in Texas, Florida or Arizona, that's where we will go!

On Father's day we ended up going to a local lake park. Nothing like Lake Lanier, but it was a blast. Cortlyn enjoyed swimming and playing in the sand and the adults got to go out on some jet ski's! Cortlyn got to go out in a tube for the first time. which was scary and fun at the same time. Of course, Mommy rode with her, but she seemed to have a good time!

We've been so busy lately! For the Fourth, we traveled to Birmingham to see our friends Stephanie, Scotlon & Alaina. It was a perfect time to rest and hang out! I would post pictures, but because I aim low, I left my camera! Stephanie is suppose to be mailing it to me... at some point!

Cortlyn is officially big enough to be turned around to forward facing. While the "law" says they can be turned at one year and 20 pounds, research shows that staying rear-facing to the limits of the car-seat is the safest! Cortlyn actually was sort of shocked when we turned her in our car. She is a tall little girl, with short legs (like her momma!) and we have her in the tallest carseat shell we can afford. She's growing up so fast!
Football/Marching season is quickly approaching. Just thinking about the football games and the excitement of the pre-game festivities makes me want to wear my Gold and black!

Cortlyn turns two...

Cortlyn's birthday party was a small affair this year. We figured that at two, she wouldn't remember the party, but wanted to celebrate it with our friends here in Hattiesburg. But apparently, most of the people IN Hattiesburg had plans for May 22nd, but that's okay. We enjoyed the small turn out.
Cortlyn's best friend is Stella. Stella is just a month older than Cort, but she's a little smaller than Cort. Stella's mom & I work together and we are always getting the girls together, and the really love each other. As you can see, they were happy to see each other!

Cortlyn was also joined by Caleb and the kids enjoyed some fruit, Capri sun's & got to decorate their own cupcakes. They had such a fun time with the sprinkles and the cupcakes, I must say tasted SOO good!

Cortlyn enjoyed opening her presents and she got a lot of fun books, puzzles and a special Birthday Barbie from Corey & me.
Cortlyn and Stella had a blast playing with the balloons after the party and one got away... look at how cute they are as they run after the balloon!

Hubfest and a Win!

Last weekend was Hubfest and it was SOOO much fun! If there is one thing we have grown to love about Hattiesburg, is the activities that the city plans for the community! Its great to live in a town that host community events so often. Hubfest is pretty much just a spring celebration where vendors have tents set up and they have a kiddie area.

Cortlyn got her first taste of a Mugshots burger. MAN those are SUPER good! They are huge and just the best burger you have ever tasted! Mommy and Cortlyn shared a burger, and Cortlyn wanted to show it off... and so did Daddy!

In the kiddie area, they set up coloring stations for the kids. Cortlyn thought that was super cool!

Waiting in line for the bouncy house!

And here is Cort getting ready for her audition for Stomp!

We also had a HUGE success this week for Homes of Hope for Children!!! They are the unofficial winners of the grant for $250,000!!! That means they will finish the girls cottage (and lets be clear- this cottage is a BEAUTIFUL home!) and Commissary as well as furnish the home! All while continuing to be debt free! This means, that there will be seven girls living on campus this summer hopefully in time for school to start! Praise God!

Homes of Hope for Children

Shelley and Addy came to visit along with the Belmont Softball team (ok, ok- the girls on the team were here to play softball & Shelley tagged along with them). While they were in town, we went with our friends Michael & Julie Garrett to the Homes of Hope for Children campus. In the picture, you can see the building that is housing the offices and the house parents (And actually, the house parents are almost cut off in our picture there!). This is going to be an AMAZING ministry to the children of southern Mississippi. They are currently trying to win a grant from Pepsi for $250,000. If they win this money, they WILL open DEBTFREE this summer! Please visit the website to see more about their incredible vision and vote daily in the month of March for Homes of Hope for Children. I'd love to be a small part in helping them change the lives of 7 young girls this summer!

Just an update!

Things have been quiet yet busy around the Southern most Francis household! We've been enjoying the bipolar weather, with a trip to the playground last weekend and bundling up in the puffy jacket this weekend! Crazy. I really thought the weather in Georgia was crazy, but I believe that Southern Mississippi has the corner on that now!!!

Cortlyn is getting more vocal everyday. We're struggling some with her extremely good manners. "Peez!!" is said several times in a row on a daily basis, yet we have no clue what she is wanting when she says it! We're getting better, but we are hoping that she figures out some other words to help Mommy & Daddy out here!

We've got a busy spring ahead for us. Corey's school schedule is full of concerts, events and recitals (well... they haven't quite made it all on the books yet- but he is trying to schedule them!). We're trying to enjoy as much family time right now as possible! We've been cooking dinners at home a LOT and sitting down at the table together. I know that this won't always be possible, but I do love it!

We made it out to Target today with the sole purpose of purchasing shoes (Can someone tell my kid to STOP growing??? We're going to go broke here!!). Of course, the shoes are past the dollar spot and really- who can resist a stop at the Dollar Spot? I searched to see what we needed (a new spoon for the kitchen, a counting book for Cortlyn) and then I saw some silcone cupcake holders! I had already decided with Cortlyn's newest interest in helping and how much fun she had with cookies for Santa, that for her birthday, we'd be decorating cupcakes as the cake AND game! Well, these cupcake holders are colorful and come in different shapes. I got flowers and butterflies! I'm so excited! Strange that cupcake holders would make me so happy, but I'm a mom- isn't that what we do? I also happened to see some sprinkles that were pink and red for Valentine's Day! So, I grabbed those too! I'm thinking I'll have to check back, because they may have some green and gold sprinkles at St Paddy's day and pastles at Easter if I'm lucky! :) We'll be ready for lots of cupcake decorating by the time May rolls around! Oh, and in case you were worried, we DID end up buying some shoes for the girl! She's now comfy in her size 6 shoes.

Melting for "chalk"

I know... I'm terribly behind in updating the blog. Has it really been over 3 weeks from Christmas? 2010 is already going terribly too fast, and I wish someone would find the slow down button!

We haven't taken too many pictures lately, I know. We're bad parents! We've missed 3 whole weeks of her life at this point. Honestly, our biggest task has been cleaning up after her with all the toys she got spoi- er- blessed with at Christmas. She has enjoyed her activity table and loves when we change out the top of the table for her. There is one small problem that I wasn't prepared for... See, she now understands that she can easily open the bins herself. Oh, and that she can carry said bins. Which means, the contruction bin will end up in the living room and the nursery bin in the kitchen, while the kitchen bin is mixed in with doctor bin on the floor in her bedroom. I thought these bins would be great, but I'm starting to think that MAYBE they should be kept in the closet and brought out one at a time. Oh well, live and learn!

Daddy has been busy prepping for his qualifying exams. He has spent time studying at home and at the office. Its a good thing he has stuck around the house. I mean, how else is Cortlyn going to be able to help him study and show him what he is missing if he's always at the office, right??
Isn't she just adorable sitting there with him? I could really just scoop her up and squeeze her to death!

We have now entered the stage where Cortlyn is getting increasingly more frustrated because she KNOWS what she wants to communicate with us, but her language skills aren't there yet. Its hard, when you can see that she wants something. (I know there is a difference when she is just whining!) Tonight was a prime example. Cortlyn walked into the kitchen, while dinner was cooking, and started fussing. She wasn't hungry (as I had watched her stuff her face with cheerios when I picked her up from her sitter's house!), but she didn't want milk or water to drink. I picked her up, thinking maybe that is all she wanted and when she was in my hands she THEN reached towards the cabinet where the Ovaltine is kept. Sigh. Well, I reached in and got it out and she started clapping and wiggling with excitement. I went ahead and put some in her sippy with her milk and she was happy as a lark. I wish it was always that easy to help her find a way to communicate with me. We worked on saying "chocolate" but it turned out to sound like "chalk." Chalk works for me though.

Cookies and Santa

 I decided that Cortlyn needed to prep for Cookies for Santa... since he would need some for Christmas Eve, right? So, last weekend we had our first trial run!

Cortlyn was not all that excited about cutting the cookies... So, Mommy just had to cut them out and let her get on to the fun part anyway...

 THE SPRINKLES!!!!

 She got the idea of the sprinkles, right?

 And we had to let her taste the yummy-goodness!

Due to the traveling back to Georgia at the time when Santa usually comes to visit, we have arranged for him to visit us a little early. It is a little early, but Santa made the necessary changes to his schedule to help us out! So, since he is coming tonight, we went to visit him today. Cortlyn seemed very excited about visiting with Santa, so I was sure we'd get a great picture like we got last year. 

 

Except someone didn't want to sit in Santa's lap!!!! So, instead of freaking her out, we decided that Momma would just stay close- and in the end we got a GREAT picture... that we can crop!

Snow in Hattiesburg???

First things first! Big Mama Blog is giving away $100 gift card from Hersey Kisses! I could always use a little extra cash, and if you are interested, go comment here!

So, they had been talking about it on the TV all week... but do you really expect in Southern Mississippi to wake up to this outside your front door??

Cortlyn has a little cough and a runny nose, so I couldn't let her stay out for long, but she has to play in the snow a little right?

Here Daddy is giving her a little snow to see what it looks like, and how cold it is!



This is the view from our back yard... the sky doesn't look real, but I swear it is!



And then, she was done... she had walked in it, touched it, but like her mother... she wanted where the WARM is!!!
And this week we went to the Tree Lighting at USM, the pictures I took came out horrible, so this is really the only one. You can't see the tree and the ornaments very well, but it is a beautiful tree!

The Zoo

As previously mentioned... there is a Zoo in Hattiesburg. Its nothing terribly exciting, and it only cost $2/person to go, so at least its affordable! But we don't have gobs of animals to look at. But Cortlyn seemed to enjoy it, even if she could understand why she couldn't go play with the big cats and birds...


The monkey didn't seem very happy about being in a cage with the parrots...Peeping at the prairie dogs
Super Cortlyn!

I wish this had turned out a little better... but the guy who drives the train took it.

Butterfly's events!

Cortlyn had many opporunities to wear her Butterfly costume this week... First there was the Zoo Boo (see last post!) and then we went to the Oak Grove Elementary School's Fall Festival. When we arrived at the school, I let Cortlyn run in the field behind the school, while I got the stroller and things out of the car... she thoroughly enjoyed the chance to run in the wide open field!


While at the festival, Cortlyn also had fun in the bouncy house! She would barely get stood up, when she'd get knocked down again! The girls in the house with her, were so sweet and helpful, but of course, their bouncing was knocking her over. She didn't mind though! Cortlyn was smiling and squealing the whole time, and was NOT happy when Mommy crawled in to get her out!
Cortlyn got to play a few games, although, she had a hard time understanding what the games were at times...
On Saturday, our friend Julie invited us to her friend's house to go trick or treating in their neighborhood. Cortlyn enjoyed all the new children and toys. She played very well with them!
We decided that we needed the kid leash for Cortlyn though... she didn't want to hold our hand while we were walking around... but she's nearly 30 pounds!!!

Zoo Boo!

Tonight, we joined Cortlyn's Sitter Nita and her daughter Alyssa, sister Amy and niece Emma at the Zoo Boo! It was the first time we got to try out the Butterfly outfit I came up with for Cortlyn! My friend back home Michael Ann, made the tu-tu and I've had the wings for a while!

We finally have a picture of Cortlyn's Sitter!! This is Nita!

Cortlyn LOVES Alyssa! They get along very well!

This was while we were waiting for the train to take us on a little trip around the zoo. It was dark and all the animals were put up for the evening, so there aren't any pictures from the ride.

Cortlyn enjoyed the Carousel ride!

The Art-LESS Walk

Last Saturday, we went to the ArtWalk... which was missing most of the ART! It had rained earlier in the day... But we still had a good time walking around at the few things that were there and exploring what downtown H'burg has to offer. Which isn't a whole lot, other than a great looking tiny whole-in-the-wall greasy spoon and a brick oven pizza place that looks yummy.

We took peanut butter samwich for the Cort Cort. She enjoyed her dinner and ride. (It looks so dark... but it wasn't really even all that late! I think it was the flash.)

Cortlyn thoroughly enjoyed getting her groove on to the steel drum band...

We met her sitter at the art walk... her daughter decided she didn't want to be in the stroller anymore, so Cortlyn decided THAT was the stroller she wanted to be in.