Cutest Nephew Ever!

A few weeks ago Justin and I made the trip to Rayville to visiting John Hayden. I know I am a litte obsessed but I am not going to apologize for it.

This was the first time we have seen John Hayden since at the hospital when he was born. When he was born I couldn't really tell if he looked more like Abe or Lindsay, but now I definitely see some of Abe in his face.

John Hayden loves reading!

I just want everyone to know that this was my mom's idea. She got this handprint kit for JH. It has three tins for you to make handprints of your baby during their first year of life. JH did a great job and Lindsay was able to get a good handprint.

Making faces at the camera.

John Hayden is growing so fast. Be watching for another post about John Hayden's first trip to Aunt Sally and Uncle Justin's!!

2012 Reading list - January & February

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I love reading. A while back, I even wrote few book reviews but after only two reviews I realized that I love reading books more than I do writing about them.

Still wanting to share the books I have read, I thought instead of writing a review of all the books I read I would post every two months and share all the books I have read during that time. This would not only allow me to share what I'm reading but it will also hold me accountable to read at least 24 books this year.

So this is how it's going to work: Every two months (hopefully) I will post all the books I have read and a few thoughts I had about each book. My goal is only to share what I have been reading, not to sway anyone into or out of reading any book. I know that everyone has different tastes in books so I don't expect everyone to agree with my choice in books.

Here are the four books I have read so far:

Irreplaceable

I got this book a few years ago at the MC Book Bazaar. Click here for see the full list of books I purchased at that book sale. I liked this book for the most part. There was a part in it that I could have done with out, but for the most part it was a good book.

The Graduate

I got this book while on vacation last year. I had been wanting to read it ever since I saw the movie "Rumor Has It." In the movie they referenced the book and many of the characters so I thought it would be a good read. It was an easy read and would be perfect to take to the beach this summer.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
This book has been on the best sellers list for a while. It has been on my list for about a year but with over 20 books on my bookshelf I kept putting it off. I finally checked this book out and decided it was time to read it. First, I have to say that this book is a little graphic (not sure I'm going to watch the movie) but has so many twists and turns. Most books I read are very predictable but this one kept me guessing.

The Christmas Wedding
This was a cute book. I checked this out at the library on a Saturday and finished it the next day. I'm not a fast reader but this book kept me interested. It's about a women who lost her husband three years before and is now ready to get married. She has been asked by three different men to marry them. She decides that she will not tell anyone who she is marrying until she walks down the aisle. I guess I kept reading to find out who she would end up marrying. It was a fun book.

I hope you've enjoyed this post. I'm always open for recommendations. If you have read or are reading a book that you can't put down please let me know.

He has ARRIVED!!!

Let me introduce the world to the cutest baby boy, John Hayden Hodges!!!

This was taken just about an hour after he was born.

He arrived on Friday, January 27th at 3:19 p.m. He weighed 8 lbs. 12 oz. and was 20 inches long. Let me back up just a little. John Hayden was scheduled to arrive on Monday but he just wasn't quite ready to make his grand appearance, so we all waited...and waited...and waited. Thursday morning my brother and sister-in-law put in a call to their doctor to schedule an induction. When the doctor called them back much later in the afternoon she told them to come to the hospital around 12 that night. They didn't expect this response, but began getting ready.

Around 6:00 Friday morning Abe texted me and said we should start getting ready and head their way. Thinking we had lots of time we got up and leisurely got ready. Around 8:00-ish he texted me back and told us that the nurse was thinking that Hayden would arrive around 12:00. Then, we got a another text just shortly after saying it might be 10:30. We went right into super speed mode and got ready in record time. I think we got to the hospital around 10:30 and ran to the room because we thought Hayden was already here. If we would have known he was still not ready to come and meet all of us, we would have taken our time getting ready!

Lindsay was a champ. She was uncomfortable, but she never complained. About an hour before Hayden was born we were told it was time for us to head to the waiting room to do just a little more waiting. We settled in thinking it would be another few hours before we would be formally introduced to Hayden. Well, those few hours really ended up being only one hour. During that one hour, I made many trips to the gift shop and cafeteria, trying to make the time go by faster. During one of my trips I found this awesome button.


Thinking we would have lots of time Justin and I went back to the gift shop to get Abe a bubble gum cigar. As I was paying, I got a text from my mom saying Hayden had arrived. Justin and I ran back to the waiting room. I could have hit myself for not being there, but at least we got Abe a bubble gum cigar.




This is the proud Daddy coming to tell us that we could come back to the room to meet Hayden. When Abe walked into the waiting room he had the biggest smile on his face. He was most definitely a new proud daddy.


Here my parents are meeting Hayden for the first time. Look at the smile on Lindsay's face. I don't think I would be smiling after almost 15 hours of labor but like I said, Lindsay is a champ.

We had to wait forever for them to bring Hayden back to the room. I think I spent most of that time waiting by the nursery window trying to catch glimpses of Hayden. They had to give him shots, run tests, give him a bath, and whatever else they do in the nursery.

FINALLY!!! I got to hold Hayden!! I think he is just the cutest and best baby ever!!

Here are few pictures of Hayden's nursery. Lindsay did a great job putting everything together. I know Hayden is going to love his room.

I think we are planning on going to visit Hayden this weekend , so stay tuned for a lot more pictures of him.

The Hodges/Garcia Christmas

I, like most people, love Christmas. Who doesn't love spending time with family, eating lots of good food, getting some time off work, decorating your house with lots of red and green, and driving around looking at Christmas lights? This year for Christmas my whole family was able to get together for a few days at my parent's house. We had lots of fun hanging out, seeing family, and just relaxing. One thing my mom always does is decorate the house for Christmas. Here are some of her decorations.

These are my baby shoes on her tree. She also has a pair of Stan's and Abe's baby shoes.

When I was little my mom made everything special and over the top. We had a wreath that had huge jingle bells on it that would hang on the back door. Any time you touched the wreath (or even the door for that matter) you would hear the bells. Some, how every Christmas Eve, Santa would come to the house to make sure we were being good and would take the bells and hide them somewhere around our house. Who ever found them the next day would win a prize (candy). When I was really little I loved this. When I got a little older this terrified me. I never let on that I was scared but inside I would cringe with I saw the wreath gone. You might be asking yourself why I was so scared. Well, wouldn't you be terrified that Santa could come into your house without anyone seeing him in the middle of the day. By the 4th grade I grew out of the scared stage, just in time to find out the truth about Santa. I have to give my mom credit for coming up with wonderful ideas for making every holiday special and memorable .

But back to this Christmas: We all spent most of our time in the kitchen. Stan, the chef in our family, made four wonderful meals. When I say four, I mean he made two dishes with shrimp and made me and Lindsay our own meals since we don't eat shrimp. Not only did he make four meals but everything was from scratch. I hope one day I can cook as good as Stan.

While Stan and Justin slaved over dinner we made sugar cookies. Well, Lindsay made them and I just helped to decorate them. We had so much fun and the cookies were delicious.



For as long as I can remember our family has had a contest to see who could be the first person to say "Christmas Eve gift" to my Mom on Christmas Eve. If you happened to be the first to say it to mom, you got the Christmas Eve gift. This year I won!!!! It has been a long time since I have won. Needless to say I was very happy. I set my alarm for 12:00 but thought my mom would not like it if I woke her up. So I waited until 6:30. The best part of winning is when your brother or dad thinks he beat you to it and you are able to hold up to gift and say "I already won!!"

While driving to my grandparents house on Christmas Eve we had to entertain Justin with bubbles.

This is my cousins sweet baby!!! He was so fun to play with and watch open gifts.

This year we went a less traditional route with our Christmas dinner and had steak and chicken. Again, this was another meal that Stan with the help us Justin made. It was wonderful!!!!


Christmas morning was fun, like always!!! We all still get excited to see what Santa has brought us. This year I was the first one up and ran around the house waking everyone up. Since we have gotten older we no longer open our presents right away. Now we all drink some coffee, start making breakfast (monkey bread), and then divide up the gifts. Once breakfast is in the oven we all head into the living room and see what Santa has brought us. Here is some of the loot Justin and I got this year.



We had a great time with our family and are looking forward to celebrating Christmas next year with John Hayden, who is expected to make his appearance on January 23rd. For those who don't know my older bother and his wife are having a baby in less than 3 weeks!

Celebrating 5 years with Mr. Right!!

On December 16, 2011 Justin and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. About a month before our anniversary, I started thinking about surprising Justin with a weekend trip to Point Clear, Alabama. The reason I wanted to surprise Justin with this trip was not only becuase it was our anniversary (that was the main reason) but also to congratulate Justin with the launch of the new MC website. You might be wondering why I chose Point Clear. Well, we stayed at the Grand Marriott in Point Clear the first night of our honeymoon 5 years before. At the time we lived in Marietta, Georgia but got married in Ocean Springs and didn't want to drive back to Atlanta on our wedding day, so Justin planned for us to stay at the Grand Marriott. We both loved our room and the few parts of the hotel we were able to see. Unfortunately, we were only at the hotel for about 12 hours.


My plan was to get Justin to take off a half day on Friday (our anniversary) by telling him that I planned for us to do some things around Jackson for his birthday, which was the day before. He had agreed to take the time off earlier in the week. So my plan was coming along very nicely...until a few days before our anniversary. Here is how the conversation went.

J: So I thought about surprising you with something for our anniversary but I thought we should talk about instead.
S: What are you talking about?? (Trying to play it cool)
J: I was thinking we could do one of three things; stay the night in a hotel in Jackson, do what we had planned just dinner and maybe a movie, or go to Point Clear for the weekend.

Well, I couldn't hide my smile and I did think about telling him we should just stay home a just do dinner and still try and surprise him, but I decided I should tell him that I was already planning a weekend trip to Point Clear. I still got to see the surprise on his face it just wasn't quite the way I wanted to tell him!

I was able to book the same room we stayed in the first time we went. About five minutes after we got to our room, there was a knock at the door. When Justin opened the door the person gave Justin a gift for our anniversary. We both thought it was a special touch and we have a great keepsake from the hotel.


While in Point Clear, we rested, walked around the hotel grounds, shopped the cute town of Fairhope, made our way to the outlets in Foley to do some shopping, ate at some good restaurants, and went to Bellingrath Gardens to see the Christmas lights. It was a great anniversary weekend I hope one day we will be able to visit the hotel again. Maybe when we are celebrating our 10th anniversary.

Here are some pictures of our weekend. While waiting almost an hour in the car at Bellingrath Gardens, Justin and I got creative or...well lets face it...bored!


These are just a few of my favorite pictures from Bellingrath Gardens. This 65 acre garden transforms into a beautiful light exhibit during Christmas. If you ever find yourself in the Mobile, Alabama area during the holidays you should make a point to visit Bellingrath Gardens.



Here a some pictures from the hotel. We loved how everything was decorated for Christmas. We even got to see Santa getting our of his...van?