Erin Akin Carroll

We had a wonderful weekend surrounded by our family. Hayes’s baby dedication at church was on Sunday, so my mom and dad came into town for the occasion.

We picked up my mom from the airport on Friday morning and then my dad came in on Saturday afternoon. I helped a sweet friend with her son’s birthday party on Saturday. (Really, she did all the amazing creative stuff and I just helped her set up and take pictures. It was so cute!)

We watched lots of football and hung out at home. After church on Sunday morning, we came home and started cooking for post-baby dedication.

Our church does two big baby dedication ceremonies every year. This allows for all the families to come and older siblings and toddlers are able to be in a service that is “child-friendly.” Hudson was sitting on the pew between both of his grandmothers and he was going down the pew naming each of us. I kept joking that all of his “people” were sitting on the pew together.

Hayes fell asleep about ten minutes into the ceremony, which was great because it took place in the middle of his nap. So I just swayed back and forth until he dozed off. When it was our turn to come forward, Hayes was out cold.

Hudson came up with us, too, and did great until it was time to get down from the platform. Our children’s minister said he was either going to be President or a rock star because he loves the stage. We’ll see!

It was a beautiful service with a great message. We committed to raising Hayes in a Christian home with our primary goal being to help bring him to the Lord. We committed to loving each other. And we committed to rely on our church family to help us fulfill our parental duties. We committed to use all of the resources available to us to lead Hayes to experience a personal relationship with Jesus Christ to be like Christ.

We are so fortunate to have a loving church family that we can call on when we need them. Our kids are so fortunate to be growing up with a church home full of people that love them. I pray every day that both of my boys will grow to have a full relationship with Christ and be bold in their faith.

We visited with some friends after the ceremony and then came home. My mom had fixed a delicious pork tenderloin and I made this amazing tomato pie that I saw on Pinterest. I ended up making two of them because one just wasn’t enough for our crowd.

The recipe is from Clockwork Lemon and I “borrowed” her photo for the blog because I completely forgot to take a photo.

photo via Clockwork Lemon

Click here for the full recipe. It was absolutely scrumptious and I am looking forward to eating some for lunch today!

We are so thankful for our families for all they do for us in helping us to raise our boys. And we are so thankful that sweet Hayes is with us. What a precious gift he is to us and I thank God for blessing us with him every day. And I pray that He can help us and guide us as we raise him. What a responsibility and what a blessing!

*Zulily is hosting an Erin Condren event today. For $25 get $50 to ErinCondren.com. Click here to join Zulily if you aren’t already a member.

I am so excited to announce the winner of the Oreck DualMax Air Purifier!

Congratulations to comment number 158!

Congratulations to Molly! Just email me at eeakin11{at}gmail{dot}com!

I missed blogging on Thursday. I very rarely go a weekday without blogging. But I just didn’t have it in me yesterday. I was tired, overwhelmed with schedule stuff, not feeling well and busy taking care of the precious members of my family.

I did want to use Friday’s post to talk about what I’m loving this week!

New TV Shows

So I completely missed premiere week. I was distracted and busy, but I had a lot of down time during the day this week because both boys took epic naps because they weren’t feeling well. And because I wasn’t feeling well, I used nap time to catch up on the DVR. And I did a lot of catching up!

I’m officially addicted to Homeland, Pan Am and Revenge.

Homeland is this incredible drama/thriller on Showtime about a CIA agent who is investigating a POW who was found alive and returned home. She suspects that he has “turned” to the other side and is now on a mission to threaten the United States. I’m hooked! It’s awesome!

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Pan Am is based on flight attendants and pilots in the 1960s and it explores different political and historical topics each week. It’s really fun, entertaining and the 1960s fashion is pretty great.

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Revenge is my newest guilty pleasure. The people are beautiful. The scenery is beautiful. And the story is scandalous. But I love it!

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Getting Acquainted With My Camera

I have had my DSLR camera for almost three years now and I have only ever taken it off of automatic mode a handful of times. I know this is shameful. But this week I’ve changed all of that! My friend, Crist, and I are taking a photography class (called Hop, Skip, Snap)  for the next few weeks with the wonderful Brooke Turner of Brooke Turner Photography. She’s a photographer and a mom and she wants to help us learn to use our cameras so we can get the most out of it. I’m so excited! I had a great night learning things about my camera that I never knew and now I have a wish list of new lenses that I want. Hello, Christmas list!

Candy Corn and Peanuts

Need I say more? Really. I mean, this is just the greatest snack. I’m so thankful for a sweet friend who delivered a little bag of this snack and a Starbucks latte to my door this morning. What a great pick-me-up on a dreary Thursday morning!

Halloween Party Planning

I have been having such a great time making plans for our Halloween party. I have a ton of props and things saved from past parties that I can use. And I already blogged about a successful trip to Hobby Lobby. I got all of my printables from Sweet Birdie’s Nest and I’m just so excited! Have you ordered yours?

A Slow Week

Yes. That’s right. I’m not happy we were sick. But it really did end up being a great week. We had lots of time to just hang out and be together at home. It wasn’t easy to feel refreshed because we just didn’t feel well, but I think we did come out feeling a little refreshed.

Hudson memorizes a scripture verse every month at school and this month they learned John 15:14 “Jesus says, ‘You are my friends.'”

He will say the whole thing and it’s just the sweetest little sound. I’m so thankful for my family.

During a week where every member of this family is extremely under the weather, I have to think back. When was the last time I was sick? When was the last time TC was sick? I go into a big, “I want my mommy” phase every single morning when I think about how difficult it is to get out of bed when your sinuses are swollen so badly that you just slept 10 hours with your mouth wide open and how badly you need the tiniest sip of water to try to remedy the resulting dry mouth situation.

I begged TC to stay home from work so we could take turns taking naps throughout the day while the other played with the kids. But he just went off to work like a responsible adult. How could he leave me like that? (I’m sure my hideous physical state didn’t make him want to stay home with me!)

When I was in the hospital having Hudson, I had a pretty serious recovery. I had fainted after Hudson was born and then I fainted once more when trying to get up to go to the restroom. I could barely walk and every time I stood up, the blood rushed away from my head and the fainting happened. I needed some serious help.

So there we were, on our first night in the hospital. We had sent Hudson to the nursery so we could get some sleep and they were bringing him in every three hours so I could feed him. The nurses would come in and turn on the lights, hand me my precious baby, and TC would just continue to snooze. A couple of hours later, I had to get up to use the restroom. So I started saying TC’s name.

“Hey, Todd?”

Nothing.

A little louder. “Todd? Can you wake up?”

Nothing.

Much louder. “Todd! Help me!”

Nothing.

I reached behind me and grabbed one of my pillows and aimed at his legs. I’d throw the pillow at him to wake him up.

Nothing.

So I paged the nurses’ station. “Hi. Can someone help me get up so I can go to the restroom?” I’m surprised I hadn’t just wet the bed at this point!

The nurse comes in, turns on the light and starts talking to me. TC pops up and says, “Erin, I would have helped you!” Ha!

TC got the best sleep of his life in that hospital room. And I probably would have, too, if I hadn’t been in extreme pain and I hadn’t been interrupted every 1.5 hours by someone coming to check on me or bring me our precious baby.

When Hayes was born, I decided to have TC come on home and spend the night at home with Hudson to make sure Hudson had a normal bed time routine and to make sure that TC continued to get his sleep. My mom came to the hospital and spent the night with me, which was very helpful because she’d had a c-section before and kind of knew what was going on.

But, you know? Nothing phases TC. In the whole time I’ve known him, he’s only gotten a stomach bug once. And we’re pretty convinced that was the result of a bad night of McAllister’s potato salad, which used to be one of TC’s favorite foods and has no been banished to the “do not serve” list.

In the winter of 2009 he was helping make our bed, and raised up quickly, hitting his head on our sloped ceiling. He kept talking about how hard he’d hit his head, but nothing really came of it.

Weeks went by and he was complaining more and more about headaches and having this dizzy feeling and a sense of being disoriented. So he walked over to the emergency room from his office and had some tests done.

He had a concussion. From when he slammed his head into the ceiling. And he’d been walking around and going to work every day with this concussion for three weeks!

Oh, and by the way. He also had Swine Flu! But, it was too late because the Swine Flu had pretty much run its course and it was too late to do anything to treat it.

Sometimes I think it’s because he just loves his job so much that nothing can keep him away. Sometimes I think he’s like one of those people who can’t experience any pain and he can tolerate anything. (kidding)

But man! His ability to tough it out puts me and my whiney self to shame!