Mt Hood

Joe has been on the road touring a lot these days. Saturday, he flew in to Porland OR, and he captured this AMAZING picture of Mt Hood. The same day, the 3 climbers and their dog that you've probably been hearing about in the news, reached the summit of Mt Hood, and on their decent, they were caught in some horrible weather and stuck. Rescuers helped them out today, thank God.

I wouldn't want to get caught up there in ANY kind of weather. Geeeessshhhh.....

Peanut Drool

My mom was here for about 11 or 12 days just recently and she captured this shot of our little Joey Peanut. Not much to say but .....awwwwww :)

Sock fetish??

I couldn't figure out why, today, my socks kept following me around. Sounds odd, I know.....imagine how I felt!

I'm not talking about the socks on my feet. haha! I just realized that you all might think i'm nuts. But this truly happened.....

As I've gone about my day today, every now and again, I've noticed my little below-the-ankle socks have been popping up in the wierdest places throughout my home. I really didn't think much about it until just a few moments ago. I just figured maybe I dropped a few out of the laundry basket sometime between last night, and this afternoon.

The first time I actually turned my head about it was just a few moments ago, when I was walking out of my bathroom. I had gone in to fix my hair, and when I turned around, Happy (our big bassett hound) was RIGHT behind me. (I didn't think this was out of the ordinary, as he's slightly "clingy" and likes to go where ever a warm body is.... in fact, he's laying on my feet right now.) I bent over and patted his head and said "hey baby Happy, what are you doing?", tugged on his ears, and then stepped backwards so I could regain my footing to step over him (as he is longer than he is tall). At that moment, I stepped on something, and before I knew what it was, I jumped off of it, thinking it was Happy's toe. Then I realized that he didn't cry out, so i looked down, and there was my sock.

"That's funny.....that wasn't there a moment ago," I thought to myself. But at that moment, I recalled that wasn't the first time I had seen a randomly displaced sock.

Normally an anal "pick everything up off the floor that doesn't belong" kind of person, I didn't think twice about shrugging it off, thinking that I'd grab it later....I've become a little lazy on the weekends. I walked back out into our bedroom towards my side of the bed to check my phone. Realizing that my phone was elsewhere inthe room instead of where I was heading, I whirled around, and again.....there was Happy...RIGHT behind me, clingy as ever. But.....what was with him.......my sock.

I picked it up, and it was all wet. (EWW...Happy slobber!!)

That's when I realized he had grabbed a couple of socks out of my laundry basket throughout the day, and has been following me around the house with them.

I picked it up, and put it back in the laundry basket. He reached in with his long face, and grabbed it out, along with one of Joey's socks.

I called Joe to tell him the funny story, and he said that every time he comes home off the road, Happy has pulled down every one of his socks off his shelf and lays them on the floor next to the bed. I've never noticed!!!! What a crazy dog!!! I think he just wants to play a crazy game of "pull your teeth out" tug-o-war. :)

Big Burps

Burp...burp. He's up to 8 oz in his bottle now. Slept ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE NIGHT last night. WOW!!!! It only took one night of screaming to get him to sleep all night. Good job, Joey! Now mom and dad can be functional all day for you. :)

He's the best baby in the world....so far. :)

Da Bearsss

Joey was all suited up for the big Super Bowl game last night. He was cheering loud for the Bears. Ah well. I suppose it was time for Peyton Manning to win something big. He deserves it. We were really cheering for both teams. We have friends that are former Bears players (Tom Thayer, Jim McMahon) as well as a guy named Lil' Z who helps Tom Thayer (who is now the voice of the Bears) on the field. So we were pulling pretty hard for them. But then there's Peyton Manning of the Colts, of which, all of Tennessee was pulling for him. He's kind of the "pride" of the state, i'm learning.

I don't know. I'm just up for a good game. I wasn't impressed with the Half Time show though. I'm not that big of a Prince fan. He's ok...and I know he's considered legendary, but he's another one of those artists that I just don't "get," along with U2 and the Rolling Stones. Maybe I'll get it someday....or maybe not.

Anyway....Joey's pretty darn cute, huh. ;)

Growing...

Joey is growing more and more each day. He had his two month check up the other day and he is about 12.5 lbs already! He was a big boy, and had 3 shots and an oral vaccine. Eeesh. Needless to say, he hasn't felt himself for the last few days. I think he is just now coming out of it.

Every day he becomes more and more active. I read to him every day, no matter if its from a kids book, or the newspaper. I talk to him all the time, and tell him what i'm doing, whether its "Now we are walking down the stairs" or "Here's the refrigerator." I introduce his stuffed animals to him everyday too. He seems to like elephants. He fixates on them whenever he's around anything having to do with elephants.

He is in his cooing stage now, and its a very neat time..... he talks all the time. :)

Joe is on the road alot these days, touring, as he's opening for Bob Seger. This is a great time for our little company, but its sad that he has to be gone in this growing time for Joey. We'd rather him be gone now, rather than later, because when Joey gets older, then he'll notice more when he's gone. But what is so sweet is......when Joe calls, Joey likes to talk to him, and is fully aware when its his daddy's voice coming across the phone. He could be awake, but quiet....but once I put Joe on speaker phone, Joey instantly becomes excited, flailing his little arms and cooing into the phone. I say "Joey, tell daddy Hi. Tell him you love him," and he instantly coos sweetly to Joe. Its the sweetest thing I've ever seen in my life!

Everyday, i am so thankful for our little family. Joe, Joey, Rudy, Happy..... I don't know where I would be without them all. There is nothing sweeter. Life is good. :)

Joey!

Our beautiful Joey was born NOvember 29th, 2006.

As you can guess, I've been a bit overwhelmed by new motherhood, that i'm a little bit behind on my blogging. Recently, i was blessed with a brand new laptop, which is going to be very helpful to me, as I can carry it around the house with me anytime i want, and be everywhere that Joey is. So I don't have to go all the way down to my office at midnight when i'm ready to crawl in bed, after Joey is sleeping, and I can finish up my "day," close my computer, and go to sleep. Can you say "blessing?"

ANYWAY...back to Joey.

Wow. He's amazing. Joseph Spero Azar III was born at 11:53am. He was 6 pounds, 14 ounces, and 21 inches long. Healthy and beautiful! The labor was quite short, in consideration of the average "labor" for first time pregnancies. In fact, the nurses and doctors were asking me if this was truly my first pregnancy/labor. I guess I was just blessed. I thank God it all went well. It wasn't easy, by any means. I got the hospital at 1:00am with some significant contractions, but nothing to cause major alarm...just enough to notify me that it was "time." So by 1:30am, i was hooked up to all the machines. I figured it wasn't time to order up an epidural, and that i'd wait for the contractions to get a little more intense. Next time, I'll know better!!! By 2am, I was howling. My luck, there were 14 other women on the floor pushing out babies that morning, so it took 2 and a 1/2 hours to get the epidural. Note to future mothers: DON'T TRY TO DO IT WITHOUT DRUGS.

So I finally received the pain killer at 4:30ish, and then all was right with the world. At 5am, they broke my water. We were a little nervous because at that point, they discovered JOey had already had a bowel movement, so the docs ordered up a neonatal team to be on standby for the delivery. I slept for a few hours, and by 8:30ish, i was pushing. I pushed on every contraction for the next few hours. (EXHAUSTING!!!!). Finally, 11:53am was the magic moment....and out he came. I'll never forget it.

My labor nurse was amazing. Her name was Rebecca. I swear, she was an angel. She was so knowledgable about everything, and so soothing. Very sweet spirit. She kept Joe, mom and me very calm through the whole thing, and she was an amazing encourager. I couldn't have done it without her.

Here are a few photos of him while we were inthe hospital! We can't wait for you all to meet him in person! He's pretty cool.

31 weeks.....10 left and counting

Hey everyone....sorry its been a while. I can't keep promises anymore, obviously. :)

Back in June, we found out we are having a little baby boy.....little Joey III. After tossing around what we should "call" him, as there are 50 Joseph's in the Azar family, we landed on Joey. Easy enough, huh? We can't wait! As of right now, I've just entered my 31st week. I have about 10 more weeks to go. And this pregnancy has gone by so fast, I can't even begin to tell you! I'm anxious to start our new family, but I think the reason why it HAS gone by so fast is because i'm nervous about the birth, and when I'm nervous about something, that moment that is approaching, approaches more rapidly than I'd like. I have a feeling a c-section is in store as my pelvic structure just isn't made for birthin' babies, but who knows...the Lord may part me like the Red Sea. We'll see. No cameras in the delivery room, please. Only still shots afterwards. :) I'll cuss any visiting camera hounds.

I'm due November 30th, but who knows.....this birth may come sooner than planned, as Joey likes to kick me low. I don't know how i'm going to notice him "dropping" is he's already positioned so low. Everyday i'm watching for the signs of contractions.....as I have no idea what a contraction feels like, but our doctor said "Oh....you'll know!" That's scary!

The pregnancy has been easy up until recent. It has just felt like normal....maybe even a little better....but with a growing abdomen that seems to consistenly get in the way. I remember the first time I noticed my growing belly (you know, besides in the mirror) when I was at the grocery store back in May, and I was carrying a large package of toilet paper against my body, and it wouldn't fit flat on my stomach. Very awkward. But cool. I was ready. In the beginning I had the typical morning sickness pangs for about 8 weeks, and then after wards, all I felt was exhausted. Once the 2nd trimester started, I was on a roll. Pretty easy. Now i'm deep into the 3rd tri, and things are really starting to get tough, but I'm going for it (as if I have a choice!). Climbing up stairs is my main source of exercise and it winds me. I tried to take Rudy for a walk the other day, and (a) he got tired right away because he's chunky, and (b) I got tired right away because i'm "chunky." We were quite the pair, trying to make it up the path in the park. He stopped cold on me, and laid down. I had to carry him all the way down. I tried to tell him that his chunkiness was fat and he needed to walk it off, and mommy's "chunkiness" wasn't considered "fat" and that no matter how much I walked, it wasn't coming off....but that didnt' seem to motivate him. So I carried him down the hill (as if I had a choice....i really didn't. He wouldn't budge.) I should have taken Happy...he doesn't know that if he stops and lays down in protest that he would be the boss as i wouldn't be able to carry HIM!

Joe and I have been going to these birthing classes lately. Very interesting.

Work has been "the same" lately. Ups and downs....excitings, and let downs, but that comes with the what the brochure said. We keep plugging along with prayer and hope. Hopefully something will come out of it. I'm not worried.

I've been doing some work around the house....mostly painting. I've been covering the trim lately to make it look a little cleaner. We're changing our locks today and putting on new deadbolts. Its just "time" to do it, so we are.

The baby room is taking shape, but it still has a long way to go. We finally moved all the furniture down to the "old office" to make that a very cozy temporary guest room (until we turn it into a sitting room/pull-out-couch guest room). It looks good. The baby room is a pastel green. We haven't gotten the crib yet (had a spare crib but it wouldn't fit up the stairs and around the corner...so our permanent crib is on the way, and thank God its in pieces right now so we can put it together IN THE ROOM!! haha!) , or most of the big stuff. We only have a dresser and two little bookcases.We have a little toy chest and some toys. As soon as we get the bigger furniture we'll be ready to put it all together. Soon, i think! :)

Ahh...so we have Titans football tickets this year, but (a) they AGAIN aren't doing so good, and (b) I have to walk my butt allllll the way to the top of the stadium to see a game. I dont' mind that....its good exercise, but at this point, its a tough climb. I can make it though.

We have a Predators hockey pre-season game tonight. YAY! I'm excited. Hockey is my new favorite sport. Helps to have GREAT seats too. We don't mind spending a little money on our tickets (we have a partner to help with them too), because its our occasional "date" night. :)

A couple of weeks ago, one of my best friends, Addie, came to visit for the weekend. We had a GREAT time just spending quality time together...soemthing we REALLY haven't been able to do since about 5 years ago. I enjoyed it so much! She was a doll and helped me get registered at Target...somehow she knows all about the different baby stuff, as I am absolutely clueless (for the time being! ha!). I couldn't have done the registering by myself!!! I would have tried, but not done well, I promise! We also hit the Wild Horse Saloon to watch jeffrey Steele play. He's great. He's the hottest songwriter in town.....he played all the songs he's had cut on different artists around town, and man....if he didn't play 25 #1 hits in a row, I don't know.....he's doing really great! So that was a lot of fun. I welcome weekend visitors these days. :) Joe's gone an awful lot on the road and it gets lonely around here, even though I do have the boys here with me....but they are no fun because they mope around waiting for Joe to come home. At least all 3 of us can mope together, huh. In a about 2 weeks, my mom is heading to town for a weekend which will be great, and then the weekend after that, my dear friend Angela is coming to keep me company for that weekend. i can't wait! I'm excited. And its just starting to be "fall" here and its beautiful.......I love this time of year in Tennessee!

Well...i've touched on a lot of things in a nutshell on this post. I'll try to post more later (no promises though! haha!). I hope you all are well! Please keep in touch!

Doin' some work around the house

Since we found out about our new highly anticipated blessing, we've been making some plans to change around the layout of our home to make room for the baby. At first it was hardly imaginable how we were going to fit everything into our house, and still have a place for our guests to sleep, as we don't like to send anyone to a hotel when they come to be with us.

My mom came down from Iowa to see us in June and helped us brainstorm a way to make it all work. She's an absolute GENIUS. :) And we figured we needed to move fast.....I'm due in November, and that's literally right around the corner if you think about it. And Joe is going to be on the road A LOT working this new song with Steve, PLUS the new album in September...there is just simply no time between now and the time the baby is born to make these changes, unless we do it NOW. So "now" is the plan.

While mom was still here, we cleaned out the entire garage (a project that has been ongoing since before we got married, but constantly interrupted by life, as we all understand!). Mom helped us put the project into full motion. Once we cleaned it out, the next weekend, Joe moved about 1/2 of his weight room equipment into the garage for a mini-gym feel. It looks great. A little cramped, but hey, it will work, most definitely.

After that, the following weekend, we had the carpet throughout our whole house steam cleaned. Then Joe and I decided on a whim that if we are goign to move the office down to the first level from the second (of 3 levels), we just had to "do it" or forget about it. So that same weekend, we threw everything in a pile, and started taking apart the office furniture. The only way to get all the furniture downstairs was to disassemble, unfortunately. Wow...what a project. We disassembled fine, but the time that Joe almost lost his life during this whole process was moving our gigantic sized black industrial filing cabinet down the stairs. Ummm...i'm pregnant so I couldn't do anything except navigate. And Joe had too much pride to call Slava, our very eager-to-help and wonderful next door neighbor. Trust me, when the filing cabinet started sliding out of control on the wet stairs, aiming for the aluminum door with glass windows, surrounded by a brick entry way, all I could do was let out a blood curdling scream. I thought for sure we were going to have to stay in a hotel that night, for the lack of a front door...or camp out on the front lawn with a gun to ward off any intruders. But Joe did finally get ahold of the cabinet just in time, and was able to stop it from detroying the front of our home. After my scream, I yelled viciously at him for not calling Slava. Men and their pride....hmph! :)

Sooo..we moved all the "big" stuff down stairs, wired all the phones (which was so much fun...i've never done that before, and NOW I know how...kind of....) and moved all the electronics down. We werent' able to be a functional office by Monday, but we did most of our "work" by phone, as our computers weren't up and running yet. But by Tuesday we could at least check email. And since we missed Monday, we spent the resto f the week playing catch up,....which meant the "pile" of little office things were there all week, with Joe leaving town for 10 days (of which he returns from this trip in about 2 hours from now....) and ME to pull everything together.

With that said, I've been doing some work around the house since Joe's been out! I finished moving all the little things to the office, and organized/filed everything. Our office bathroom was compariable to your roadside Amaco station's bathroom....so I cleaned that baby up, and painted it...gave it a "girly" touch (what can i say?? ). Since I had completely cleared out the "old" office upstairs, I went out and got the paint to touch up the room, and spent an evening doing that. (Looks good too.....all that's left in that room is to clean the carpet where the furniture was).

Check out the pictures of the work....I really should have taken some "before" pictures so I could show the difference but I'm a moron and didn't do it.

We moved our doggy kennels down stairs with the office so that our boys could have a place to snuggle while they hang with us during the day. They didn't like this move at first...in fact Rudy was so upset, he got sick....but now they are LOVING all the room they have to play!

So what are we goig to put in our dining room, you might ask? Well....if we used it for an actual "dining" room, it just would be a waste of space, since we would never use it. The upstairs guest room is going to be the "baby" room, so we are going to get a "hide a way" couch and put it in the dining room to make it a "sitting room/guest bedroom." All our housing problems are solved!!! :)

Check out the pics......Joe's going to be a shocked man when he gets home! He knows I've done all this, but has no idea what to expect. :) I hope he likes it!

Baby on Board!

(sheepishly....) ...sorry I haven't blogged in a while. Wow, i'm bad. But now.....as if we didn't have a million things to talk about already, we now have a BAAAAAAYYY BEEEEE to talk about!!

For those who did and didn't know, we are infact PREGO with a little baby boy....Joe 3. :) We are SOOO unbelievably excited, we can hardly stand it!

Its so late right now, but i wanted to get this news up (as if 20 weeks haven't gone by already, i just had to do it NOW, right?) check out our little one in the ultra sound photo. Iddn't he cute?? :) He's going to be a big one.... The doc says all the measurements are just right for a "standard baby size" of 20 weeks (which, i'm not sure what classifies as "standard" but hey, I'll take that as a "healthy" signal). Can you see his little profile?? :) weeeeeee!!!!