1. Our reunion was Friday and Saturday. I think as far as reunions go, we had a good turnout, but we thought it was going to be a little sparse. It by far wasn’t packed, but the group of people there were fun and several groups of friends showed up so hopefully no one was just completely bored out of there minds. I have to say it still felt a bit like high school though. I still felt like a nerd when I talked to the “popular” kids.

2. Here is ze hubby and I at said reunion…

3. It’s frigid in Alabama. Got down to 29 yesterday. The older I get the less I like winter. Fall, yes. Winter no. I miss those breezy 70 degree days and I think they’re gone until Spring.

4. Our weight loss is going well. John has taken a smidge of a hiatus but is still keeping off a few of the pounds he lost. I’m down 49.7 since January and 15.8 since we started this diet together. Looks like we started 2 months ago, so it’s not record weight loss or anything but I’ll take it.

5. My dear best friend has moved back across state lines! Welcome home, Miss Roz. I got to hang out with her a bunch this weekend because of the reunion and Dash and I got to hang out with her dear little one Monday night. Such a sweet girl.

6. I have to say, while I was hanging out with the aforementioned sweet girl, I was reminded of life with a six month old. Stationary. Ahhhhhhh…. Back when “not for Dash…” wasn’t part of our everyday vocabulary.

7. Speaking of vocabularly, Dash is starting to talk up a storm. He’s learning new consonants and when he does, he learns several new words at once. So far the list is: Hat, Light, Log (thanks to geotrax logging building), Mamamamamama, Da, Coke (shame on me, I know. It’s diet usually, though.), bird, book, burp, poop, moon, duck, fish, sheep, pig (although neither of those really sound like that)… maybe more. Odd assortment, huh? He also has a few sounds that he makes in the back of his throat with his mouth closed, Choo-choo, vroom and Cuck-oo. I don’t know how he does it.

8. A very sweet little girl turned three yesterday…

9. Sarah turning three made me think how long I’ve been following Erin’s blog. Since she was about 8 months old, I guess. And then it made me wonder how long all of YOU have been following this one. Most of you have at least since I was pregnant in Sept. 06, and some of you a while before that. Long time, huh?

10. Sweet Lauren is getting very, very close to welcoming her own little bundle. I’m pretty sure she’s going to push me over the edge on the babyfeverness. Seeing how Dash was with Miss S. Monday made me realize that he would be great with another little one around. Plus, I think he’d dig seeing the old baby toys out again, we could hardly get him out of Miss S’s bouncer. Oh, if only I had my camera.

11. Before anyone gets any ideas… I’m seriously trying to lose some more weight before we TTC again. I’m about 20 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight and I’d really like to get back there again before we start on the journey all over again. I don’t know how much longer I can hold off with all these sweet babies around, though.

Watermelon Necklace, originally uploaded by auburn2001grad.

My boy.

I was a bridesmaid in one of my best friend’s wedding this weekend. We packed up the car and headed to Gulf Shores, and while I was helping set up Dash and John had a blast romping around in the sand. Sand’s awesome, rolling waves, not so much.

Before he realized the water out there MOVED. Moving water is not cool.

We saw a lot of this this weekend…

One of like two shots I got of him sitting still…

Daddy and Dashy flying a kite.

The wedding was gorgeous and Dash was freakishly well-behaved. I think it was a mix of shyness and exhaustion.

Oh, and I almost forgot this one…

When he gets older, I’m in so. much. trouble.

Check out the post below this, it’s new, too. I just wanted to add this so you could compare.

This was us at Tate Farms almost exactly a year ago (from Friday, I think…) and there are pictures of us THIS year in the post below…

Brace yourself, I have a lot of pictures. I’ll keep the descriptions brief…

From several weeks ago at the BBQ festival…

One of Dash’s favorite games, stinks at bedtime. (That’s the crib he’s under…)

Our teeny tiny baby fish. Those pebbles in the bottom are the little marbley ones you buy for candles and stuff.

John’s been on a team building a rocket. They shot it off this weekend…

John’s team…

Dash and John in front of the giant tractor that Dash couldn’t get enough of. See his leg sticking out like he’s ready to take off? He was.

Me successfully teaching Dash to “cover your ears!” when the rockets went off. He really liked them; especially the parachute part.

After the rockets, we headed over to Tate Farms.

He was way too enthralled to look at me.

Dash in the corn bin, with about 100 other kids, half of which were WAY too old to be in there with little kids. He was timid at first…

But that quickly turned into this:

And eventually, this:

He had corn everywhere.

Sunday, we headed down to our friend Steve’s going away party. He’s a radio reporter and left NPR out of Birmingham for a position in LA. We’re going to miss him, but the LA gig is nationally syndicated so at least we can still hear him.

(Notice the curly hair. This is after I did all that stuff I was talking about a few posts ago. Not too bad, right?)

The Mr. and Mrs…

This is how much fun Dash has with trucks…

And coffee cups (empty, of course. I’m not crazy. At least not THAT crazy…)

So this might bore you all to tears… If you have curly hair or your hair’s been a little limp and blah here lately, you might find it interesting though…

My hair turned curly when I was 12, thanks to dear old dad and a few hormones it went from thick and straight to curly and unfortunately, frizzy. My dad didn’t know what to do with it since his is short, and neither did my mom since hers is fine and stick straight. We tried several things, from relaxer, to perms, to gels and sprays and they all looked like garbage. Finally, when I was 15 or so, Rachel from Friends came out with her layered look and suddenly the hair care market was flooded with products for layers - products that hold your hair without being stiff. Great for the layered look, and great for curls, too, it turned out.

Every once in a while I change up the product I’m using, either because they stop making it, or it stops working for my hair. I’ve been using the same gel and hairspray on my hair at least since college, so a good 6 or 7 years now. Here lately, my hair has turned into this frizzy, non-curl holding mop on my head. Bleh.

So I go looking around online, and came across this website (www.naturallycurly.com for those of you (anyone?) interested. (And this isn’t an advertisement for them, but if someone would have pointed me here like 10 years ago I would have been mucho thankful). The site is a spin off (and may be sponsered by, I’m not sure) of a book a stylist wrote (and I actually read several years ago) about a natural approach to taking care of curls.

Here’s the nutshell…

First, you cut out all the styling products that leave buildup on your hair, mostly silicones. (Dimethicone is in a ton of stuff. Anything ending in ‘cone is a silicone) Silicone is a smoother, and a shiner, so it’s usually in curly hair products. Then you use a clarifying shampoo to get rid of all the buildup. And then, here’s the real kicker, you stop shampooing your hair and start “shampooing” it with a natural conditioner. Crazy right? It gets better.

This site is acronym loaded. CK, KK, all kinds of stuff. No idea what it stands for. Turns out CK stands for Curl Keeper and it’s this lightweight water-soluble gel. All these girls swear by it and have much curlier hair than I do (mine’s apparently deemed 3A on their site, whatever that means. ) After reading a few other forums on there, come to find out that KY liquid does the same thing that curl keeper does. I kept thinking, ok, what does KY stand for? Surely it stands for something. Surely it’s not… KY jelly… right?

Turns out, it is. Only the liquid form. You know, I’ve put crazier things in my hair, so what the hell. Off to the drugstore I go.

So I’m in the drugstore with Dash, buying my clarifying shampoo (Suave clarifying, like 2.53 for a jug of it), deep conditioner to use right after the clarifying (bioinfusion something or another), conditioner to use in the place of shampoo (suave naturals, 2/3.00 and also a giant jug) and KY freaking liquid. With my baby. And hair products.

So I do all the stuff I’m supposed to (wash with clarifying, put the bioinfusion in for 3 minutes, rinse it out, rinse with cold water to close the hair folicle, put freaking KY mixed with Herbel Essences Tightly Wound in my hair and scrunch with a t-shirt, diffuse) and lo and behold, my hair looks better than it has in years.

(In small, sheepish voice) Thank you, KY.

So I look in the back seat one day while Dash was eating goldfish and he had stuck one between his toes. The following is a recreation of what happened next.