Anniversary Trip 10/4/12-10/6/12

We went to the Mountains on our anniversary this year.  We stayed in Pigeon Forge.  We ate lots of good food and did a little bit of shopping.  We ate at 2 new places that were new to us.  Mama's Kitchen on the first night and Big Daddy's Brick Oven Pizzeria on the 2nd night.  We tried to shop for boots at about 4 different shops but could not find the right pair.  It was a short trip but it was nice to get away and unwind a bit.  Juli and Sherry kept Hunter for us :)  Here are a few pics from the Trip.

Montgomery Zoo

We took the kids to the Montgomery Zoo.  It had been about 5 years since we had been with Heidi and Lacey.  We had fun watching the kids reactions to all the animals.  At times I think that they had more fun chasing each other and pushing the stroller!

April Fool's Wedding!

So this weekend was not only packed with Hunter's First Birthday but we also went to a wedding in Selma on Sunday on the river. It was Mandy's brother Jimbo that got married at Duck's house. We went down on Saturday night after the birthday party and hung out at Mandy's house. The wedding was beautiful. It was a little hot but the breeze on the river and the shade made it bearable. We did not get a pic of the couple or the food but I can steal some of facebook when they get posted later :) Here a couple pics of us where the ceremony took place:

Happy First Birthday Hunter!!!!

I can not believe that it has been a year since Hunter was born. We celebrated today with friends and family with good food and good times! Ell made a slideshow with the best pictures and music. One of the songs was sang by a friend of ours so that made it even more special. Maybe I can figure out how to put a part of the slideshow on this blog at some point. It was almost 30 minutes long so I don't think that I can use the whole thing. I made too much food (as usual) and the cakes were beautiful. Here are a few pics of the day:

Here is my toast: Happy Birthday to my sweet boy. You have brought so many smiles to my face over the first year of your life and I can not wait to see what the next year holds!!!

Back on the Wagon

Ok so I am back on the blogging wagon as well as the weight loss wagon. I love it when title Blogs can mean more than one thing. Anyhoo, I have not blogged in 3.5 years and if I decide to back track it will be a huge success if I can fill the gap with not only blogs but pictures as well. But I want to try to start documenting all things family for our childrens' sake. I hate that I have not done more.

I am going to give a Cliff Notes version of what all has happened in the last 3.5 years so maybe it will help create a timeline if I need to go back and play catch up! If you will remember we bought a house in 2008 and that was about all except for the Halloween post.

• In November 2008, we bought a camper so we actually bought 2 houses in one year!

• In February 2009, we started "trying" to start a family.
• On May 31, 2009, our besties Heidi and Lacey Robinson had their daughter Jayden (they are pregnant with their second now!)

• On August 20, 2009, Amy (Ell's sister) went in to labor at 7 months and had Sarah Kayte. She was 3lb 9oz and had to stay in the hospital for several weeks. It was scary but with a happy ending!

• On October 14, 2009, Carrie and Michele had their son Owen.
• March 2010, Ell took me to the mountains for my 30th Bday and then surprised me with a party when we got back!

• June 2010, my dad took the whole family to Disney World. My step-brother and his family stayed in my dads camper and we took ours too. We took Baxley (nephew) with us!
• July 2010, after 18 months of trying we got pregnant via IVF. I have PCOS which means no ovulation. I will explain more later in a more detailed post.

• August 20, 2010 We learned that the company that we had worked for for almost 10 years each was closing our facility. I was 6 weeks pregnant and we were both devastated. It was to close on October 28th but we were able to get temp jobs with different departments in other facilities. It lasted until May 31, 2011 for both of us.
• March 31, 2011, Hunter Pickett Cooley arrived 3 weeks early weighing in at 6lb 4oz and 19.5 inches!!!
• May 30-June 2, 2011, we went to PCB with Ell's family for a few days. It was nice to go on vacation with the family!
• June 6, 2011, Ell started her new job at PHS.
• October 8-10, 2011, Ell and I went to Atlanta for an anniversary trip.
• December 31, 2011, We went to Gulf Shores for the night with Heidi and Lacey to ring in the new year at The Hangout. Kristy Lee was there and we had a blast.
• January 7-10, 2012, We took mom to the beach with my aunt to celebrate her 60th Bday!
• January 11, 2012, my dad had open heart surgery where he had 5 bypasses.

I believe that is all the big highlights. I will have to list all the camping trips that we have taken (outside of Disney) with the camper. I will make a separate blog about that one! I have a journal in the camper so I will have to get that in order to list all the details!

If you read my other posts then you would know that I use to make a toast at the end of every blog as my blogger name was Riesling Girl before we started a family. Well I had to change that for 2 reasons. One being it did not feel right writing about the fam with that name and the most important reason is that I like Moscato better now ;-)~ Since it was a "tradition" why change it? I mean I changed the name so it is still ok to do the toast right?!?!?

So here is my toast for this blog: Here is to my new (old) blog and I hope to keep it current and even to back date and to losing all the excess weight that I have put on - prolly since my last post :)

War Eagle!!!

Ok, so this new exciting idea that I had to start blogging lasted for 1 blog. I have a hard time sticking with projects (you should see my unfinished hobby closet!) And what I mean by unfinished it that the hobbies and the closet are both unfinished. Are you seeing a pattern here?!?

Anyhoo, on to my War Eagle blog. In this installment of blogging, I will talk more about our lovely home, Halloweening, and about Auburn (hence the title of the blog!) Where to start? I guess that I will talk about all things good first and then move on to all things bad (Auburn!)

The house....oh we have done so much and yet there is much more to do. Most recently we tore down the wallpaper in the guest bath. It was the most hideous wallpaper I have ever seen and I have see a lot of wallpaper. We still have to scrape the glue off and prime the walls before the new paint goes up that matches the shower curtain. I can not wait. I have been wanting to do that bathroom since we moved in back in May. We have also added a table, mirror and 2 sconces to our entry way (Thanks to Ell's mom) that I love as well. Oh the fireplace....love it! It got cold a little while ago and we had beautiful fires. I love watching and reaping the warmth of a fire. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

10/31/08 - Boo!!! Ok so I had the best Halloween of my adult life ever this year. Those who know me and my past know that I was not into a lot of the smaller holidays in my previous years due to reasons beyond my control. Well there were in my control, but I chose not to control them. I finally got in control of them and here I am having a great Halloween. Now that I have come full circle, let me talk about how great it was. We go to an annual Halloween party every year (2 years running.) It was on Saturday, November 1st instead of 10/31 which was great. Our nephews came over to our new house on 10/31 and ate with us and then went Trick or Treating. The neighborhood was packed with kids. It was just like the movies. I had the best time giving out candy and toting the boys around in their wagon to get candy.

Ok, on to the bad. Why is it that Auburn and Alabama can not both be good teams at the same time? Does it have something to do with the waxing and waning of the tides, the Earth's gravitational pull, or simply a butterfly flapping its wings half way across the world? Alabama has had several bad seasons recently and good ole Saban has turned it around. At the same time (waxing and waning here) Auburn has gone to, well for a lack of a better word, the pisser! I mean we can not seem to get things together. If it was not for the defense we would be even more terrible than we are now. We are going to the Homecoming game this Saturday and hopefully we can win at least that one. If not, there should be enough alcohol to get me through the sadness and despair.

I think that is all for now...and here is my toast: "To Auburn. May we win the rest of the games in the season so that we can say that we had a decent season."