A Night at the Tapps'

Last night I decided to photographically document our thrilling, exciting activities at the Tapps'...

Wade sick with something like the flu :( - he'd been on the couch pretty much for 2 days at this point - getting really tired of watching basketball (!) and not being able to eat...

Me slightly sick with nasal congestion / runny nose, trying to help Wade feel better without getting his illness myself.

Mr. Tapp working on his laptop from the chair in the den.

Mrs. Tapp in the kitchen making Christmas cookies.

Brinkley...um, just chillin'

Paisley passed out on the rug next to the Christmas tree and presents.  She loves this whole big family / warm house thing being over there!

We sure were a bunch of sad sacks!  Hopefully things will get more festive and healthy by Christmas :).

Whirlwind weekend

It was a crazy but fun weekend, full of parties and gatherings and family and friends!

Friday night, I went to the "High Society Christmas Party" hosted by my friend Jill's boyfriend and his roommates. They live in this awesome 2-story white house right on Providence Road, close to the intersection of Providence/Providence and Queens/Queens. I have no idea how they scored that one or how they afford it, but it was a grand location for the event :). It was fun to have an occasion to wear something fancy and sparkly and go all out on makeup and jewelry and hair. While I was at the party, Wade was playing a basketball game in Lookout Mountain, and getting his jaw dislocated. Yes, he got hit under the basket and dislocated his jaw. I thought he was joking when he first told me, but unfortunately he was not... Apparently, though, there are so many muscles in your jaw that it snaps back into place pretty quickly. He just had to spend the next couple days with it positioned slightly forward from where it should be, making it hard to chew and painful to yawn. It gradually moved back and now seems to be in the right place.

Saturday morning, Wade drove the 6 hours home from Covenant, while I shopped with mom in the craziness of South Park Mall...all for Christmas presents for me - haha. Then mom and I finished just in time for me to rush back and change and leave with Wade and Paisley for Winston-Salem, to go to a Christmas party with lots of UNC friends of mine :). Josh and Erin Hall (8 months pregnant and glowing that she is) hosted the shindig at their beautiful house, and it was so good to see many friends I haven't seen since last Christmas! It was also great to introduce Wade to all of them and all of them to Wade. He of course won them all over and earned the stamp of approval :).

Sunday, we went to church and Hope's congregational meeting afterwards (which was very interesting, I must say). Then I cooked a quick lunch of soft tacos, which Wade appreciated far beyond its actual culinary merit! And I appreciated his appreciation :). We swung by and saw his parents briefly, and then drove out to Monroe to go to an open house for some of his good friends, the Chins. They just bought and re-did the old Belk Mansion, and it is beautiful! They're going to use it to house missionaries as a little bed & breakfast, as well as living in it themselves. It was all decked out for Christmas and looked amazing.

After that, we came back into town to have dinner with my family at Carmel Country Club, where much banter ensued amongst Wade, Hillary and Allen :). Then we continued criss-crossing the city, and dropped in at the tail end of my community group's Christmas party at Lynn & Megan's. FINALLY, at 8:30 pm, we got to change out of church clothes and watch a little Carolina basketball on a nice warm couch :).

It was so hard to come back to work today!

Barrett Brooks...coming soon! (But not before Dec. 28)

Last night, our community group girls had a baby shower for Brannon and baby Barrett. Not that I didn't expect it to be fun, but it turned out to be such a special time of laughs and friendly competition and just wonderful friends - I love these girls more and more all the time!

Stephanie and Leslie put together some awesome culinary treats, including my favorite chocolate chip cream cheese ball (it is SOOOO good!) and a chocolate mint cake (how can you go wrong with that?). Brannon's mom and mother-in-law were able to make the drive from Birmingham as well, and it was so special to have them there. They were hilarious during the games :). I have to say, these were the best shower games I think I've played at a baby shower so far (in my opinion).

First we played a Scattergories type game, where we had 3 minutes to write down a word for each letter of the alphabet that had to do with babies, pregnancy, children, etc. Having lived with a labor and delivery nurse for several years, I tried to think of medical terms that I didn't think other people would get (because you only get a point if no one else wrote down the same thing). Pitocin, Effaced and Diaphragm helped me to some extent, but my brain was sortof frozen for part of those 3 minutes, so I didn't get words by that many letters. Meredith won with 15 points - props for getting Apgar for A!

The next game was guessing how many toilet paper squares it would take to wrap around Brannon's belly. I won that game with my guess of 11! The actual number was 10, but everybody else guessed in the teens and low 20s. See Brannon, you're only 10 toilet paper squares! Not that big at all ;-).

Last thing was opening gifts... Little Barrett got TWO cute pink bunny towels, other bath stuff, some onesies and matching pants and socks, pacifiers, a blanket, and an adorable hat and pair of booties knitted by Meredith's grandmother.


All the girls! From left to right: Stephanie, Lynn, Christy, Megan, me, Meredith, Brannon and Leslie.


Brannon with her super cute diaper cake

Doggy Day at the Park

This weekend, the Tapps were petsitting for another golden retriever, and Mrs. Tapp wanted Paisley to come over and play with Abby, since their dog Brinkley is not so much into playing. So on Saturday, I brought Paisley over, and she and Abby wrestled and mouthed each other while the Tapps and I ate a yummy lunch of turkey sandwiches and vegetable soup. Then Mrs. Tapp and I took all 3 dogs to the dog park for a fun afternoon!

Poor Brinkley, the grumpy old man :). He is not amused as we get in the car and head to the park.

Paisley in the foreground (with the freckle on her tongue) and Abby and Brinkley in the background... I think they look like a pack of lions in this picture!

The panting continues... Abby in the bandana, Brinkley, then Paisley with the freckle and her funny little eyes closed :)

Once again, just checking out the scene... I think this was when they were all getting really tired!

Pais and Binky - we were trying to get them to pose together, but this was the best we could do!

And my little girl, totally passed out that evening after her exciting day :).

Girls' Night - Christmas style

Friday night, my community group girls had a Christmas movie night at Lynn and Megan's cute apartment. We watched Irving Berlin's White Christmas, one of those old classics that I still had never seen.  Too bad I fell asleep during the second half - I knew I shouldn't have let myself lay my head down on that pillow!

Lynn, Christy and me all PJ'd out...except me, I don't know what I was wearing!

Our favorite mommy-to-be Brannon...only one more month 'til Barrett Elizabeth makes her debut!

Hot chocolate in the microwave...mmm mmm good :).

And what would hot chocolate and girls' night be without a little Bailey's... or you can just swig it straight from the bottle like Stephanie ;-).

Party time

I just want to say how pleased I am at the way December parties are working out for my schedule this year! Hopefully this post won't jinx me, but so far, almost everything I've been invited to or in the works for planning is falling on different nights. The only conflict is the 15th - one party in Charlotte and another in Winston-Salem - can't make both, and on the 13th I'll have to hit a baby shower and engagement party in the same night. But every other thing that has come up, the dates suggested fit perfectly into my open time slots! When does that ever happen? Granted, that means parties almost every single night, but I don't have to miss out celebrating with any of my friends - yippee!

The Sudan teacher

I was just reading that the British teacher who was imprisoned in Sudan for a class project has been released and allowed to go home to Britain. If anyone hasn't seen it on the news, she let her class of 7-year-olds name a teddy bear, take it home and write stories about what they did with it. The kids chose to name the bear Muhummad, and the teacher was arrested for inciting religious hatred and insulting Islam and the prophet Muhammad.

She could have received 40 lashes, 6 months in prison and a fine for this "crime." Muslim clerics in Sudan were encouraging riots, and people were calling for her to be executed!

Are they for real? It frustrates me to no end that this could happen and people have to be so PC about it! I mean, sure, people were denouncing her arrest and saying she should be freed and she didn't mean to offend anyone... but seriously, if some teacher named a teddy bear Jesus, would there be any type of fuss at all? Heck no. They are so insulted that the name of a "prophet" was given to a stuffed animal that this woman deserves DEATH or prison? How about the millions of people who insult Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords - the holy God of the universe - in MUCH worse ways EVERY single day all over the world?

I just cannot stand such a double standard, that Christians are berated and mocked and scolded for "pushing their religion" on people - i.e. actually believing something is true and standing up for it. But you know, Jesus warned us about this type of thing long ago, and never said standing up for Him was going to be the popular thing or was going to get us well-treated or praised or admired here on earth. But He has overcome the world, and we look forward to the day when He will set things right and judge justly.

Thank you, Father, that you have not repaid ME according to my sins, but offered your Son to reconcile me to You and give me the hope of eternal life. Help me to remember that constantly and live in light of your grace!

Taggy McTaggerson

I've been tagged by Libba and Courtney, so I guess I should play along, right?  Here we go...

The rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself.

3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

4. Let those people know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

How many weird things can I come up with?  I just posted 100 of them not too long ago.  Hmm, I'm sure there are 7 more...

*I love love love Christmas lights!  I keep them up all year in my house (well, in my room...I don't go so far as to keep them up in the den or anything) and turning them on makes me smile and puts me in a happy mood.

*These days I think more and more often about things like what to name my kids, what they will call their grandparents, what my wedding colors should be, etc.

*If Paisley lives a full life, she will most likely see me through marriage, kids, job changes, house changes, deaths of loved ones, and many hard and good times... that's an amazing thought to me.

*I love trail mix - so much so that the Tapps bought me about 3 bags of it just this weekend while we were visiting Wade :).

*I'm always looking to buy more Carolina blue clothing because I have shamefully few items as a UNC grad... but I think maybe it's not the best color on me, because my baby blue wardrobe never seems to grow.

*I love the feeling of a well-stocked refrigerator and pantry after a big trip to the grocery store, when you have ingredients on hand to make whatever you fancy at the moment - just pick a recipe!

*Wade and I talked on the phone for almost 70 hours in the month of October.  That still cracks me up, and impresses me.

I'm gonna break rules 3 and 4 and skip tagging others for the moment.  I don't have enough friends who are regular bloggers (despite the list of friends of kimness).

Basketball games!

I promised you pictures of Wade playing basketball, so I tried very hard to get some this weekend!  I think I need to experiment with my camera some more to figure out how to take the best pictures of fast motion and things like that, but these will have to suffice for now :).  

Covenant played Bluefield College on Friday night and UVA-Wise on Saturday.  They lost the Bluefield game (guys in blue uniforms in the pics below) and won the exciting UVA-Wise game (red uniforms).  The Saturday game was crazy, because about 2/3 of the way through it, the Virginia-Wise coach got really upset at a call and started all-out yelling in the refs' faces many things that should not be repeated.  Their bench got all into the fray as well, and they ended up with two technical fouls on the coach and one on a bench player from that one argument.  The coach then was ejected from the game, and he stormed off the court, pushing over the water coolers on his way out, which they proceeded to mop up for about 10-15 minutes.  Dan Nielson then shot (and made) six free throws in a row for all those technicals, and then someone else shot two for the foul that the call was about in the first place!  It was quite exciting :).

Wade playing defense... he's number 24 in white.

Again on the D.

Wade making some free throws - I love the hand position ;-).

Wade shooting some more FTs against the thugs of UVA-Wise.  Those guys had 9 fouls in the first 5 minutes of the game, before Covenant even had one.

Yay, I'm so proud!  After the game - you can see the 75-72 scoreboard in the background.  It was close til the end, but Covenant held them off and pulled out the W.