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After 3 failed tries to go, as a family, to the pumpkin patch, our day was finally here! We have waited a long time to go and seen so many cute pictures of friends and family enjoying all the fall festivities that the pumpkin patch has to offer. After a long day for me at work, Jason traveling, and Hank at school, we all loaded up and headed out to Smyrna for big time family fun! We met Hank’s teacher, Norie-Anne, and her daughter, Delanie, on the way up. The drive took over an hour due to some untimely traffic issues and Hank was NOT happy mainly because he had not had a nap at school. So, we were anxiously awaiting our arrival to see some great pumpkins and to get our screaming kid out of the car. As we spotted the huge wooden pumpkin sign, signaling we had arrived, we turned a corner up the driveway only to be met by a colossal “CLOSED” sign. I was immediately crushed. Norie-Anne jumped out of her car and said “Come on! We drove all this way and it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission!” So we proceeded to throw our kids up against some pumpkins for a few quick pictures before being verbally mauled by the owners!

Do they look a bit stunned?!?

As soon as Hank got out of the car he started saying “Ball! Ball!” and pointing to all the pumpkins! Here is his “I see a ball face!”

Not sure if we will make it back to the pumpkin patch, my dreams were pretty much squished today and we have a busy few weeks ahead. Maybe we will try but our family might not survive another pumpkin shaped disappointment!

My Sweet Friend Rachel tagged me in this little “Blog Game” and made me feel very special! So, now I get to tag 3 people too…Amber Newell, Katie Songer, and Lindsey Jackson consider yourselves TAGGED!

1. What time did you get up this morning?
Lets just say Hank woke up at 11:50pm, and not much sleeping happened after that for any of us!

2. Diamonds or pearls?
Diamonds…A girls best friend!

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
The Dark Knight…on a date with my hubby

4. What is your favorite TV show?
The Office and Friends reruns

5. What do you usually have for breakfast?
Coffee…and cookies/cake/brownies/candy if available, if not, just coffee

6. What is your middle name?
Christine

7. What food do you dislike?
TOMATOES…blaaaggg!

8. What is your favorite CD at moment?
hummm, I am still really into the “Once” soundtrack (I know I am behind)

9. What kind of car do you drive?
Jeep Liberty, I have always wanted a Jeep and last fall my husband bought me one!

10. Favorite Sandwich?
The Iroquois from Bread & Co. (almond chicken salad on cranberry bread)

11. What characteristic do you despise?
When people make fun of others to be funny

12. Favorite item of clothing?
Matchstick Jeans from J.Crew

13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
Ireland

14. Favorite brand of clothing?
J.Crew and Baby Gap

15. Where would you retire to?
Newport, R.I. and I would own a sailboat

16. What was your most recent memorable birthday?
September 5, 2007. The day Hank was born.

17. Favorite sport to watch?
Football, of course!

18. When is your birthday?
June 17th

19. Are you a morning person or night?
neither, these days…pretty much tired all the time!

20. What is your shoe size?
8.5 wide (I am sad to say that I have BLOCK feet)

21. Pets?
Nope, but I have Hank and Jason

22. Any new and exciting news you would like to share with us???
I’m going to be an Aunt, again! Norah is going to be a big sister!

23. What did you want to be when you were little?
a marine biologist (I had no idea this was Rachel’s too!)

24. How are you today?
Tired, from our long night, but it was a slow day at the clinic, so that’s a positive

25. What is your favorite candy?
I don’t discriminate when it comes to sugar…but i do like M&M’s and Reeses Easter Eggs the best

26. What is your favorite flower?
Pink Roses

27. What is a day on your calendar you are looking forward to?
Oct 17th, Hank and I are going to the mountains with my extended family!

28. What is your full name?
Shai Christine Bynum (Whelan)

29. What are you listening to right now?
Hank breathing over the monitor (he is a little stuffy and snoring)

30. What was the last thing you ate?
Does Diet Coke count?

31. Do you wish on stars?
What does this even mean?

32. If you were a crayon what color would you be?
Pink

33. How is the weather right now?
Cool and Fall-ish…I love it!!!

34. The first person you spoke to on the phone today?
Jason

35. Favorite soft drink?
DIET COKE!!!!! I wish it came in IV form, so I could always have it!

36. Favorite Restaurant?
So many, I can’t pick a favorite! I usually have expensive taste and enjoy “Fine Dining”, except for my guilty pleasure, Shoney’s!

37. Real Hair Color?
As it is, brown

38. What was your favorite toy as a child?
Barbies and a “Heart-to-Heart” Bear (when you hugged it you could feel it’s heart beat, I slept with it every night until I moved to Colorado)

39. Summer or winter?
Summer, but right now I am so looking forward to fall!

40. Hugs or kisses?
Kisses

41. Chocolate or vanilla?
Chocolate…except birthday cake and then it’s white on white, all the way!

42. Coffee or tea?
Coffee with cream

43. When was the last time you cried?
Monday, after talking to Alison and hearing about the new baby!

44. What is under your bed?
NOTHING! We actually have storage in the new house and no need to shove stuff under the bed

45. What did you do last night?
Watched the VP debate with Jason and Nathan

46. What are you afraid of?
Spiders, I don’t even like talking about it!

47. Salty or sweet?
Sweet…no contest, but I have been known to dabble in the salt!

48. How many keys on your key ring?
5 and a kroger plus card, library card, and YMCA card (we had to give up our membership last month but I haven’t let go yet!)

49. How many years at your current job?
2 months

50. Favorite day of the week?
Any day that Jason gets to be home with us for more than 20 mins…rare these days!

51. How many places have you lived in?
A lot! Oak Ridge, Texas, Gallatin, Kingston Springs, Nashville (5 separate homes/times), Colorado, West Africa, Virgina, Murfreesboro, Antioch, Smyrna

52. Do you make friends easy?
Usually

I am fortunate enough to have a week off between my last day at my old job and fist, official, day at my new job. So, this week Hank and I have been hanging out, living a life of leisure. We have spent two of the three days this week at the pool! It has been so nice and a bit crazy because Hank is into this awesome new “fit throwing” phase. He is such a good kid so I am a little thrown off by this. It seems to be triggered by a need for independence. He now gets upset when I try to hold him or confine him in some way when he wants to walk around, like, per say, around a pool! He wants to run, dive, fall all over the cement, fall over the side of the pool, and doesn’t understand why this can NOT happen. The Songers joined us at the pool today and Hank showed off his new talent for demanding independence and making his mother a nervous wreck! Did I mention that Katie has 2, yes TWO, children under the age of 3! SO, it was quite a day!

On our way to the pool.

Hank in his float (didn’t last long…to restricting!)

Hank screaming to get out of his float

Lunch at the pool (told you, a life of leisure!)

Hank and Corbin

Bennett in the “Baby Tent”.

All in all it was a very fun and eventful day! Thanks for putting up with us today Songer Family! Hope you’ll come back soon!

…Dress like Daddy.

…Laugh out loud.

…Pull up to a stand all by himself while in his play pen (This is actually 2 points due to the fact that he needs to be in “Baby Jail” because he crawls all over the place!).

…Hold his own bottle.

…Enjoy Sunday afternoon Maggie Moos.

…Eat ice cream without making as big a mess as Brad.

…Flirt with pretty girls.

I can’t believe how fast he is growing up!

On Sunday, we were honored to have our friends and family, and church family join us as we dedicated our precious boy to the God. Our church, the Journey Ecclesia, has meant so much to us since we became members two and half years ago, and we were so excited to have Pastor Tim pray for us as parents and for Hank. Since the day we realized that we were going to be parents we have been praying that Hank would grow to know and love Jesus and that he would be a strong force for God. So, the baby dedication, is a way to publicly promise and partner with our church family to do our best to lead Hank to Jesus.

Aunt Alison is always so faithful with her camera and took some beautiful pictures to preserve this special day.

We were asked to choose a few verses of scripture to for Tim to read for Hank and we chose:

Ephesians 3:16-19.
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

…And Hank was really interested in the microphone!

Pastor Tim said a very sweet prayer of blessing for our family.

Jason created a beautiful slide show of Hank’s birth and first few months, but unfortunately they couldn’t play it, but were able to pull one picture off to put up on the screen. So, Stay tuned for Jason to put the video up!

Then everyone headed over to Stoveworks in The Factory for lunch.

Thank you all so much for being a part of this special day! You have meant so much to us and to Hank, and it wouldn’t have been the same without you!

We spent Sunday afternoon with the Fananapizar family to celebrate Jameh’s 2nd birthday. Katrina, Jameh’s mom, and I were in nursing school together throughout her pregnancy, Jameh’s birth, his first year, and now it is his second birthday! We are so blessed to know this sweet family and can’t believe how fast this this little guy is growing up!

The newest member of the Fananapizar family, Taleh, was born 10 days after Hank, on September 15th. Now considering that Taleh is a petite little girl, much like her Momma, and Hank is sort of a giant, take a look at these two!

Taleh was interested in Hank and tried a few times to touch him. Hank, however, was a little more interested in the Bigger Kids running around than the pretty girl trying to get his attention.

Eventually, I think Taleh, may have regretted catching his eye because once she did, he proceeded to steam roll over her, leaving her shocked and in tears. I didn’t get a picture of this because I busy trying to wrestle my son into his place on the blanket. We are sorry Taleh and promise that Hank will try to be a little more gentle next time you decide that you are brave enough to play with us!
Happy Birthday Jameh! Thank you letting us be a part of your special day!

Our dear friends Josh and Stephanie Carroll (you may remember Josh as the Best man in our wedding) welcomed their beautiful daughter into the world on December 26th at 4:54pm EST. Eden Truth Carroll was 6lbs (we can’t remember the oz), 18 inches long, and absolutely perfect!
I stole these pictures from Facebook:
The Carroll Family

Eden Truth Carroll

Baby Eden

Congratulations Carroll Family! We are praying for you guys and can’t wait to meet Sweet Little Eden!

Tonight, Hank and I made a trip to East Nashville to have dinner at the Rosepepper Cantina and Mexican Grille. We met up with Jennie and Lauren (and left Daddy at home to fend for himself) for an adventure and some great food! None of us had really spent much time in East Nashville and we all really enjoyed it! It definitely gets the stamp of approval from us…and we recommend the cheese dip!

Hope we can do a night out again soon!

Hank’s First Halloween was a hit! Even though he is still too small for trick-or-treating, he got a great taste of Halloween fun!

Our day started with a morning jog (expect a post about jogging soon), then we had the bravery to tackle Wal-Mart…we will NEVER do that again on a holiday. It was packed with people doing last minute Halloween shopping and to top it off, the whole store was being transformed for Christmas. I would think that the Wal-Mart master minds would wait and do that the day AFTER Halloween, so as to avoid the 2,000 Halloween procrastinators with carts containing screaming children navigating around huge boxes of display items causing the largest Wal-Mart traffic jam that one could ever imagine! But, they don’t pay me the big bucks to organize the store events (which apparently they don’t pay anyone, cause if they did this atrocious scene would not have occured)! So, after about 4 grueling hours of Wal-Mart madness we headed home to get ready for the big night! Chris, Katie, & Corbin came over along with Natalie (Chris and Jason’s work friend), Diddy, and Aunt Kelley for some chili and pumpkin pie. We had a great time and actully had 3 whole trick-or-treaters come to our apartment!

Hank was a very Fierce Dragon…

…and Corbin was a Groovy Chicken! He even had a very Groovy Chicken dance to perform for us.
The kids lasted all of 10 mins in their costumes before the melt-downs started, but they were so cute that it was totally worth all the effort! We had a great time and I think we should make this a halloween tradition (minus the Wal-Mart extravaganza)!

On Sunday afternoon Jason and Hank had a “Daddy & Son Day” while Mom got to go out. My wonderful Best Friend, Shannon, and her gracious parents, invited me to go to the Titans game with them. We had a Blast!!!

While Shannon and I were cheering on the Titans from the stands (Club Level, to be exact…not too shabby!), the boys were cheering them on from home.

Is that the cutest little Titans Fan or what?!?! Of course Jason did a Great job taking care of Hank, but just in case he needed some help, “Uncle” Diddy and “Uncle” Brad came over for support. And I think it’s safe to say that the Boy’s Day would not have been complete without them! Even with lots of help, caring for an infant is hard work and by the time I got home, both the boys were worn out!

It was so great to have some fun with Shannon, but I missed my family, so I was glad when we got home! Shannon got to meet little Hank for the first time and I think it was love at first sight, for both of them!

What a fun day and to top it all off, the Titans won the game!!!