Tornado Destruction

First off, I want to thank God that all our friends or family were safe after the horrendous tornadoes and severe weather that central Alabama experienced yesterday.  Secondly, I am praying for all those who lost loved ones due to these storms (as of tonight the death toll was almost 200 just in Alabama alone) or experienced damage to their homes.

I have said this several times and others from Mobile agree...  Give me a hurricane any day of the week over a tornado.  Ever since I moved to Montevallo for college, I have been extremely uneasy whenever any of those tornado sirens go off.  Granted we had a few scares with hurricanes in Mobile, but they just don't seem to cause the extreme damage that tornadoes cause.  I can't thank God enough that my family and home were left extremely unscathed compared to just about everyone else in the area.  We were without power for about 12 hours on Wednesday, but that is the extent of damage.  We didn't have any trees down or hardly any limbs down in the yard.  It was a wake up call when Gabe came home early afternoon yesterday with pictures of his grandparents yard or to see all the amazingly scary pictures posted on Facebook, etc.  I'm stealing a few pictures that Beth took of Grandmother and Granddaddy's yard.  Those massive beautiful oak trees they planted so many years ago were knocked down, but luckily didn't damage their home.     

With Pop in this picture, you can really tell how massive these trees were.

It's crazy to think that Gabe, Meagan, Abby and I were at the Krispy Kreme in Tuscaloosa just a few weeks ago and now there is nothing left of it.  I spoke to a friend of mine who lives in Northport and luckily they are fine, but she knew a girl who lived right behind that Krispy Kreme that didn't make it.  Gabe said there were several Regions employees that lost their homes completely.  It's just so surreal to look at the pictures on CNN and other news websites to realize that those pictures could have been of Leeds/Moody if the mile wide tornado had taken a path about 15 miles south of where it hit.  This whole thing has been a sobering experience.  All I can do is just pray...

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend!  Ours was filled with Easter egg hunting, playing and visiting with friends and family.  Mid-day Saturday was spent at two Easter egg hunts.  We visited Mimi and Pop's church hunt first and then headed over to U-Ba's and Aunt Beth's church hunt.  I had envisioned Nicholas searching for eggs, really wanting to hunt them down and put them in a basket.  No such thing occurred.  At both Easter egg hunts he was more of a people watcher than interested in hunting down any eggs.  Here are a few pics from Saturday.

Checking everything out before the hunt

 Looking cool in his shades

 Even with Mimi and Daddy pointing the eggs out, he was just NOT interested

Cute pic with his cousin Meagan

Of course you know he loved the bubble machine at FBC Moody.

I'm the king of the playground!!  Or as Nicholas says "Ta-Da!"

 
Saturday afternoon we headed over to Nini and Hollie's house for a visit with Nicholas' third grandmother.  I forgot to take any pics, but they just love Nicholas to death and we enjoyed spending time with them and had a great dinner.

Sunday morning the Easter bunny did stop by our house.  Nicholas of course was a big fan of the Mickey bubbles.  We were pleasantly surprised to have the 9:30 church service not super packed (thanks to the church adding an extra service today).  The ladies of course love having Nicholas in the nursery.  They consistently tell us every time we pick him up that he was so sweet and good.  I did ask if he socialized much and they confirmed what I thought and said that he mainly keeps to himself.  We can hopefully get him into a Mother's Day Out program at some point so he can get used to being around other kids his age.

Still has a bit of bed-head in this picture

Then Sunday evening was spent having dinner with all the Davenport clan up at Mimi and Pops.  After dinner we attempted the egg hunt yet again and despite Meagan and Abby's help, Nicholas still wasn't all that interested in hunting down any eggs.  

And to end the evening, Nicholas put himself in Sadie's cage.  For whatever reason, when Sadie is out of her cage, Nicholas likes to climb in and even shut the door.

Happy Birthday Granddaddy!

We want to wish Clayton Martin (aka Granddaddy) a wonderful birthday!  This loving and generous patriarch of the Martin family is 87 years young today.  We hope and pray that your wish comes true and you beat your sister past the 90 mark.  We love you!

 All of the Martins gathered last night to celebrate.  We had a great time and good BBQ.  Nicholas really enjoyed chasing after all the girls.  He was also a fan of Sam (as you can see below) and kept wanting to rub his head, tickle him and also enjoyed a few of his toys too! 

The funniest thing happened to Nicholas.  He had on these cute overalls.  Well he was playing with Abby and Ava in the other room and he walked into the room where all the adults were chatting to discover that his diaper was around his feet (and yet his overalls were still fully in tact).  He had wet his clothes and unfortunately part of the bathroom floor.  No one knows how he managed to get his diaper off and around the overalls.  (My guess is that he is not used to wearing overalls and was pulling on them and somehow caught one side of the diaper to make it come loose).  So the rest of the night Nicholas went pant-less.  Ironically, Gabe purchased a package of the "Jeans" Huggies diapers (you know the commercial "I poo in blue") earlier that day and if we had put them on him, he would have looked completely normal.  So here is what he looked like for the last bit of the evening.   

Here is Anna sweetly wanting to "share" Janie's new duckie stuffed animal.  She is so close to walking and before long she'll be joining the other kids in running around everywhere. 

Nicholas is a hoot in so many ways.  He loves being outside and playing with sticks, berries and especially his bubble machine.  He has no fear for any creatures including bumble bees, lizards, ants, etc.  We were walking to the car on the way to the birthday party and Nicholas proceeded to immediately find an ant and squish him with his finger.  Nicholas has also discovered the art of procrastinating at bed time.  After his bath, we normally will drink some milk and read a book.  When I pick him up to put him in bed, he will suddenly want to read a different book or drink more milk.  The cutest thing is when I'm holding him and we are telling daddy "nigh-nigh" he will use another procrastination method of putting his hand behind my head and Gabe's head, push our heads together and a say "pease".  So we kiss and then he will just say "gain" and "gain" over and over.  It works a few times, but not for long.   I will definitely praise him because once he is in his crib there is no crying or fussing - he either goes right to sleep or just plays/talks quietly (except for the wrestling maneuver he did a few weeks ago).            

Nicholas also has the ability to get into trouble.  However, I was surprised at what happened just a few minutes ago.  Nicholas climbed up on the coffee table (which is a no-no).  I spanked him, pulled him down, told him no-no and just a few seconds after that he said "Sorry Mama".  Granted I would prefer that he not get into trouble, but at least he has a conscious about it (or pretends to ;-).