Warning! These pictures are in a totally random order.

A couple of months ago, our friends Christian and Christina called and told us to make plans and get a babysitter because they wanted us to come over and visit them at their new house for a cook out. They made sure to give us all plenty of time to plan it out so we could be sure to make it.
.

This night was fun. If this first picture doesn't give you an idea of just how fun, then I don't know which one will.

Yes, that's right. The guy in this picture is doing the moonwalk in a pair of jeans rolled up just so...

Although he doesn't have it quite like the original MJ, for a 250 pound 6'4" guy, he didn't do so bad!


A little karaoke was involved. Really, it was just these two guys and Cody, a big bear of a man who didn't manage to make it into these pictures. His wife didn't manage to make it in the pics either.

They manned the mic all night.




Bob, Christian(host), and Mikey

They were posing for a picture on another camera and I caught this candid side shot. Silly boys. Physically they look like grown men, but they really just boys...silly little boys.

This is Christina, hostess extraordinaire and myself. Somehow Trisha, Christina, and I all had on various shades of purple and black...what are the odds.

Tha wolfman was out because it was a full moon

aoooooo

ao ao ao aooooooo!!!

We had a toasty fire on the back deck...one I was almost certain was going to either burn the porch off their cute new house, or burn one or more of the guests.

Big sis Trish!
(note the purple and black)

Bob is by far the silliest of all!

We had some yummy grillage made by Christian and Christina. It was delicious!

more of the yummy food.

Look, I gave you fair warning that the pictures were all over the place.

Anyway, we had lots of fun. It's so nice to have friends that are at the same stage of life as we are because for so long we were the only ones with kids. Everyone was still going out all the time. Now they have to scrounge around just like we do when we all want to get together.

.

Our next adventure together is to the

Tim Mcgraw/
Lady Antebellum/

Love and Theft

concert that is coming to Oak Mountain in May!

Our seats are way up in the nosebleeds, but that's okay. That's all they had left for a group of eight. We'll find a way to have fun even if we never make it farther than the parking lot.

Can't wait you guys!

Six months post

Six months ago, Mikey and I welcomed our last baby boy into the world.

He grew in my tummy for nine long months, kicking and punching the entire time. He came out much the same way. Lets just say the first several weeks of life for him(and us) were rough.

I don't know if colic was to blame or if it was reflux. My mom would tell you that he is just like I was when I was baby because she lives to tell the story of how when I was three weeks old I cried for so long that she just put me in my bed and shut the door.Mikey's mom also says he cried for six months solid from a terrible case of colic. Thanks for not shaking our retinas loose moms!

But enough about us.
The next few months got a lot better.

He is still a demanding little guy, but I could kiss his sweet cheeks all day long.

He seems small, but I believe it's because he is tall and so that makes him seem skinnier than Huett and Sam.

We take him to the doctor for his 6 month check-up on Friday so I'll let you all know for sure about that theory.

Charlie, at 6 months, you can sit up by yourself completely unsupported. You sleep through the night most of the time but I do have to give you your pacifier atleast once a night, if not more.

You've just started eating and your favorite food right now is rice cereal with fruit mixed with formula. In fact, I fed it to you yesterday, and it made you so full that you passed out to sleep in your exersaucer at 5:00 in the afternoon and I had to wake you up at 7:30. I think you may've been out for the night.

You love it when Huett and Sam talk to you and you get really excited when you get to play with Archer. When I make a kissing noise, you grab the sides of my face and pull me in and give me big slobbery kisses. Sometimes you chew on my chin with your soft little toothless gums and I just love it!
Ooo ooo ooo...I love you!

Happy half year!

Farewell fair breastpump!

Frustrated days, sleepless nights. Breastmilk storage bags, sterilizing kits. Lanolin, tubing, phalanges. Chapped nipples, nipple shields (tmi?). Oh it's enough to make your head spin.

For those of you who aren't hip to this lingo, these are all things that come with your standard breastpump.

My breastpump and I have had a tumultuous past. I hated her, but I couldn't live with out her. No new breastfeeding mom can(In my opinion)

I lucked up one day at work and got her out of sheer luck. I rented one when I had Huett that looked ancient and came in a big blue container that looked like a tackle box. When I was pregnant with Sam, I was working at UAB(and still am). At that time, every patient that delivered at UAB got the choice of a carseat stroller or a breastpump as a free gift. Well, one patient thought she was being sly and on her first day, she said she wanted the breastpump. On the second day, she said she wanted a car-seat stroller. Somehow wires got crossed and they actually delivered her both gifts. Well, one of the nurses realized it and told her that she couldn't have both and made her choose. Well, she chose the carseat stroller. When we called our lactation consultant to find out what to do with the breastpump she said if the patient had opened it then there was nothing she could do with it because she couldn't give it to another patient. Well, the patient had indeed opened it, but hadn't actually used it. A co-worker said well don't just throw it away( these medela breastpumps cost $300 +) Give it to Tiffany, she's about to have a baby! And that was all she wrote! Lucky huh?

Well, I said farewell to her for the last time last week. I've passed her on to a friend who is about to have her second baby. I was actually a little sad to see it go. Not that I ever enjoyed using it, but being able to physically provide for your tiny baby is one concrete achievement during such a difficult time when a newborn baby comes home and you feel like you aren't doing anything right. Especially for someone like me who never got the hang of actually breastfeeding without it feeling like I was feeding 3 little baby piranhas.

She went with me everywhere while I was breastfeeding. You name it, we went. I've pumped in the parking lot at Stix, driving down too many roads to count, in the back of my parents 12 passenger van, every room in my house, every house of my family, and my husbands family, at work ,and in a few dressing rooms.
.
That is one of the few baby-related things that I am not sad to let go. I'm sad that I won't have another baby, but I am NOT sad that I won't ever have to use a breastpump again.
.
In other (but equally Important) news, Mikey's "specimen" results came back negative...That means his "sterilization" worked. So that's how I can be certain there will be no more Hill children. Or atleast there better not be, or people might be wondering...haha that would be one intense visit to the urologist.

Hard and fast friends...

I have Trisha... Huett, Sam and Ava have each other(or gran gran), Mikey has Sam and me, MawMaw has Aunt Shell, dad has Dennis(haha dad, if you are reading this). We all have our best friends. Those we have things in common with outside of just a normal familial love that is inborn and unconditional. Mikey and Sam love sports and spend the majority of their time together doing something athletic, be it golf, basketball, baseball. Whatever. I know that sounds crazy b/c he's only three but it's obvious to us, Mikey already has met his match. Who knew a three year old and a twenty-eight year old could have so much in common. Huett seems to be taking a more intellectual path and likes to play on the computer. He'd prefer a lot of the time just to hang out with me, or my mom as opposed to other kids. I can remember being like that when I was little. I'd rather sit around the adults and just listen to them talk. I knew that was weird but I couldn't help it. I'm sure it got on the adults nerves too. Oh well. And that doesn't mean he won't be athletic(it's fine if he isn't but with two athletic parents such as Mikey and I, how can he not...I'm kidding) but he just seems so smart. And Trisha and I finish each others sentences a lot of the time. She speaks thoughts that I have had but have never mentioned to anyone and it's really freaky but it's so cool to have someone who just plain gets it. I hope everyone has that with someone.

..

..

I write all this to explain that I hope Charlie and Archer will have this close relationship with each other. Huett, Ava, and Sam are like triplets. And although it seems silly looking at these pictures, we've had more than a handful of people ask us if Charlie and Archer are twins.

They get to spend a lot of time together because my mom keeps both of them while Trisha and I work. It's safe to say our kids see each other atleast 6 days a week, but usually it's everyday and that's allright with us. Mikey says we are like the Griswalds. Especially when we go camping which I am already getting psyched about!
Just to show you how close we are, as I'm writing Mikey and Trisha and our friend Glazer, are headed to Birmingham to sign us up ( and Glazer's wife Lisa) for Kidsmarket, which I will no doubt be posting about later. That is another thing I am psyched about. A little piece of heaven that comes twice a year!

.

Now back to the point of this post, I think it is inevitable that they will be best cousins and I am excited about that.

I think a tight-knit happy family is the best thing we can give our kids(and ourselves).


They're so sweet!
And do you all realize that one day between my kids, Trisha's kids, and Chad's kids,
we'll have seven teenagers:
2 eighteen year olds,
1 seventeen year old,
one sixteen year old,
and three fourteen year olds?
.
That should be interesting...and that's putting it mildly!

Chris Young...again

This past weekend, Mikey, his brother Ethan, and I took Huett and Sam to The Bassmaster's Classic weigh-in. This, however was not the main attraction, at least in our eyes. Chris Young was the entertainment before the weigh in. For those of you who don't know, Mikey is a huge Chris Young fan and has been since he was on Nashville Star. We've gone to see him a lot of different times. We went to see him when he was on tour with Nashville Star in '05 at VisionLand. Mikey went to see him at the Grand Ol' Opry, We met him and watched him at the Princess Theatre in Decatur(what, you haven't heard of it?),We saw him at The Cullman Rodeo(try to hold your jealousy to a minimum)which you can see chronicled here,We saw him open for Alan Jackson, and we saw him at Cafe Firenze which you can see chronicled here, so this was just one more to add to the list. Not to mention Mikey watches him nightly on youtube, which means I do too, and we still have episodes of Nashville Star from 2006 saved on our Tivo. Is that weird? Well, if it is, blame it on Mikey. Honestly, one of the great things I love about Mikey is how when he really likes something, his enthusiasm about it is infectious and he manages to get his entire group of friends behind him. He is definitely a leader, a trend-setter amongst our friends, because I don't think you could find a one now that doesn't know almost all the songs off of CY's 2 CDs.

Chris was really jammin' out. He's pretty cute too, which is why I don't put up too much of a fuss about seeing him all the time.

Before the concert started, we went to the expo and looked at boats and fish. The boys were intrigued by the money tank(or whatever you want to call it). We had to go back and look at it a few different times.


Giant Racing Lawnmowers! Now we're havin' a good time! Don't they look big in this picture. They are so funny. They demanded to wear shorts because Mikey was. Granted it was the warmest day we've had so far this year, it was still pretty cold when the sun went down.
.
Anyway, we headed to the main part of the BJCC, where the concert and weigh in were to be held. We thought we would go ahead and sit down and feed the boys(and ourselves) before the concert started. Wrong. The doors didn't open for another hour and a half. We had no where to go and our car was on the other side of the civic center, so we waited it out while the boys played on the huge concrete wheelchair ramps outside. Well, needless to say, we were at the front of the line. So once the doors opened, Mikey carried Huett and Ethan carried Sam, and we were off. We wanted to get as close to the stage as possible. Well, Mikey and Ethan went in the first opening there was, and went down to the front row and started walking around toward the stage. We were in the front row almost as close to the stage as you could be. It was a weird set-up because trucks carrying boats had to drive through the middle for the bass weigh-in, but we were as close as we could get. Well, a few minutes later, we start looking around and notice that all the people in our section are wearing these passes around their necks. Strange, I thought. Mikey starts to wonder if we aren't supposed to be sitting in this section. I reassured him that they wouldn't have let us down here if we weren't supposed to be sitting there...on the front row. Then, we begin to realize that the whole bottom level is full of only people wearing these passes Later, we hear an announcement made that the entire bottom section of the Civic Center was for members of B.A.S.S. (some fishing club).
It is at this point that we realize that we aren't even supposed to be on the bottom tier at all. We are supposed to be up in the nosebleed section. We felt sneaky the whole time, but please don't think we got up and moved because we didn't! Sometimes God chooses to bless us in the most unexpected and silly ways, but we'll take it. It was a blast and I'm sure the next time CY is in the greater Birmingham area, we'll be there!

Who needs a security system

When you live with



Real-life
Super Heroes?

You don't raise sons, you raise heroes.

And if you treat them likes sons,


They'll turn out to be heroes,


Even if it's just in your own eyes.
~Walter M. Schirra, Jr.