Erin Akin Carroll

I’m so happy to be back home with my boy after being gone for a few days. But we’re back to the grind of keeping our house clean for possible home lookers and today there was actually an agents’ open house at our house at lunch time. I had to get Hudson and the dogs out of the house for two hours.

I needed to run some errands and don’t like to leave the dogs in the car, so I called our wonderful vet and asked if I could drop off Boudreaux and Fiona for a couple of hours this afternoon. Hudson and I went to the grocery store and to meet Todd at his office for a few minutes. When I picked the dogs up the vet told me that the day boarding was “on the house.” I can’t even express how wonderful that is and how much it means to me to have people in our lives, helping to take care of the canines in our family, that truly care about us.

We also had Hudson’s class at The Little Gym today. He absolutely loves it. He loves seeing his friends every week and smiling, clapping, and bouncing to the music. He does the wheelbarrow move and when put in a handstand position he always tucks his head to roll. He’s a natural! And I’m biased.

playing with the bells at the beginning of class

doing his shoulder stretches

doing a little stair climbing

totally the stair master

At the end of class, his teacher always gets out the balls and then the bubbles. Hudson is more fascinated with the bubble blowing contraption (not the old school bubbles we had as kids) than the actual bubbles and he tries to get in his teacher’s face to inspect the device. Today he pulled up on her legs and let go and stood for a minute or so. Then…. wait for it…. he took a step. Then another!

I’m so happy I saw it and got to see him reach such a big milestone. Earlier tonight, after Todd got home, we tried it again and he took one or two steps before sitting back down and going back to his easiest form of mobility: crawling.

Todd and I are going to be out of town for a few days to celebrate our anniversary next week and Hudson’s grandparents will be keeping him. I’ve been praying that he’ll either walk before we leave town or he’ll wait to walk when we get back from our trip. He’s just been on the verge of walking for a few weeks now, so I knew it would be soon. It just thrills me that Todd and I were able to see him do something so big before we left.

After sharing all of my deepest insecurities with all of you, I went to Atlanta to see Beth Moore and to face them head on. I also got to spend lots of time with some wonderful women that I’ve grown to love over the past couple of years, but had not met yet.

The Lord spoke to me about a lot of things through Beth Moore and there are a few situations in my life that I’m ready to remedy. But for right now, I’m going to keep all of these things to myself and process them. I can’t change overnight, but I’m trying to take some big steps to changing the way I think about myself and stop obsessing over me. I think the biggest lesson Beth Moore taught me is that insecurity is NOT humility. Insecurity and narcissism are very close to being one and the same. So it’s time to stop obsessing over my flaws and start focusing on the woman that God created me to be and thanking Him for the many blessings in my life. It’s time to recognize that I am exceptional in my Creator’s eyes and I am clothed in strength and dignity. It’s time to stop putting myself down.

If you haven’t read the book, my new friend from Lauren from Adventures of Southern Newlywed is giving away her copy of the book on her blog. (I met her this weekend along with her mom and sister and they were so nice. I’ve been reading Adventures of Southern Newlywed since I got married and I was so excited when she came up to introduce herself. She doesn’t live too far away, so I really hope that we can get together again soon!)

I thought I’d share a recap of my weekend with all of you.

On Friday morning, I left Columbia and headed to Atlanta to pick up my good friend, Megan from Tales of the Trees. Megan has such a great, honest, hilarious blog. She’s so much fun to be around and she is one of the most real people I’ve ever met. The weekend would not have been the same without her. We totally “get” each other and have similar styles of dealing with things. I’m so happy that I got to spend so much time with her this weekend.

I picked up Megan from the airport and while I was there I met Caroline, Jenna, and Faith. The five of us went to kill some time before our next airport pick ups at a nearby Chick-fil-A.

Then, after a fun visit, we left to go back to the airport to pick up two more good friends, Mrs. NCF and Rachel from In No Simple Language. I had met NCF and Megan before, so I was so excited to finally meet Rachel. The best part is being with people and not feeling at all like you haven’t known each other for years. Everything was so easy and fun! NCF and Rachel are so much fun to be around. They’re carefree and love to laugh. Rachel is so sweet and easy to talk to. She’s so go with the flow and always points out the positive side of things. NCF  is one of the kindest, most gentle, loving people I’ve ever been around. Both times I’ve hung out with her have been so easy and felt like I’ve been with an old friend. We even cried together a few times during the conference and worship.

The four of us headed to our hotel and then hopped back in the car to go meet Amy, Lianna, and Becca for dinner at a cute pizza place in Kennesaw, Georgia called Zucca.

I have been reading Amy’s blog since I started blogging and always feel like I learn something every time I read one of her posts. She is a great writer and a teacher (not to mention gorgeous!) when she probably doesn’t even realize it. I was thrilled to finally get to meet her.

After dinner, we hung out in our room for a while and I met Trina, Jenna, and Jennifer. We stayed up way too late and getting up on Saturday wasn’t easy, but we were going to see Beth Moore!

On Saturday morning, we woke up and went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel where we met a few more bloggers and Twitter friends. All the girls from Friday night except Becca joined us for breakfast and then we added Lyndsey, Natalie, Kim, Jennifer (Natalie’s twin sister), Rachel (their friend), and Kelly. I was so excited to finally meet Natalie. We’ve been Twitter friends for a while now and her family is so precious.

Natalie and me

Lyndsey and I have been “friends” for a long time. We started Weight Watchers Wednesdays together with Mojito Maven back when the three of us were struggling with gaining the “happy weight” after getting married. Then we were pregnant at the same time and emailed a lot about what we were experiencing during our pregnancies. Now we both have happy and healthy babies and I can’t wait for our chunky kiddos to meet each other soon. Lyndsey is also one of the most hilarious people I have ever met. Her voice, her expressions, her stories. She’s great!

Lyndsey and me

everyone at breakfast

Trina met up with us before we left for the conference and we were off to see Mrs. Moore! The conference was incredible and we even got to see Beth make an appearance in the “overflow room” when she came during lunch to do a question and answer session. The praise and worship during the conference was a great experience. There’s nothing like worshiping with 300,00 other women nationwide and standing next to some of your newest, most wonderful friends and singing to the Lord.

After the conference, we headed to a fantastic restaurant called the West Egg Cafe (Amy had some great dinner recommendations) and met up with PinkSass. It’s a great restaurant where all of the food is grown locally and served fresh. I had a delicious fried egg sandwich! (Disclaimer: we’d all just been rained on and our hair was a mess. Just wanted to put that out there before showing what we looked like after walking/standing in the rain.)

Megan got to try grits for the first time.

We all had delicious cupcakes and cookies.

On Sunday morning, I got up early and headed home. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but I know that we’ll see each other again. I missed my boys so much and was so happy to get home to see Hudson smiling at me after church. I feel completely refreshed and ready to go. If you ever get the opportunity to take a girls weekend away, you should definitely do it.

1. Wasn’t the Glee Madonna episode pure genius? I absolutely loved it. My favorite quote of the week was “When I pulled my hamstring I went to a misogynist.” Gotta love a ditzy cheerleader. I’m a huge Madonna fan– the old stuff, the new stuff, I love it all. I used to listen to “Borderline” in my room as a child. I’d listen to “Material Girl” in the car with my older cousin and babysitters. I’d skate to “Like a Prayer” at the skating rink. And I’d dance to “Hung Up” when I’d go out with my friends.

So pairing Madonna and Glee is absolutely perfect and the entire episode found great ways to pay tribute to the Material Girl.

If you don’t watch Glee and you just want to see the incredible rendition of “Like a Prayer,” click here: {Thanks to Ryan Seacrest for posting it on his blog when my DVR failed me after Idol ran over}

Watch the Final Scene from Glee’s Madonna Episode {or watch the entire episode}

2. Crystal Bowersox is so talented. She continues to prove to me that she is the one to win American Idol. Who’s your favorite to win?

3. I cut 3 inches of my hair off. Or I didn’t do it, my hairstylist did. It probably doesn’t look much different to anyone else, and that’s fine with me. But I am already missing those three inches of hair!

4. We’ve gotten a lot of traffic coming through our house. We’ve had at least one showing every day so far and I hope that continues. The whole process is a little exhausting, but fortunately, I’m home all day so I can grab Hudson and the dogs and we can go kill some time in the car while the house is being shown.

5. I’m on a mission to find a solid green or solid orange dress to wear to Hudson’s first birthday party. I’ll post the details of his party later, but I want my outfit to coordinate with the decorations. Some Twitter pals helped me out a little yesterday. I’m excited about getting an orange dress because I never ever wear orange any other time of the year. Between the Clemson, Auburn, and Tennessee conflicts, I’m just better off not wearing orange. But this time I’ll have an occasion and it will be fun to wear orange for the first time in a very long time. Any suggestions for orange dresses?

My friend, Anne Says So, showed me these two from Anthropologie. The orange one isn’t solid. But I love it anyway.

Then Nina sent me some adorable patterns where I could very inexpensively have a dress or tunic dress made in the exact fabric and pattern I want. I like this idea a lot and I have a fantastic tailor in town.

So if any of you see any affordable and adorable green or orange dresses around let me know!

6. I’m off to Atlanta for the weekend! Can’t wait to catch up when I get back!

My blog got another makeover.

I’m really happy with this new look and plan to make it the one that stays with me for a long time. The very talented Penny Lane Designs did the header for me. She designed my old blog when I used blogspot and I knew she’d do a great job again. I just had no idea I’d love it this much! She is unbelievably talented and so many of my favorite blogs were designed by Penny Lane Designs. Plus she’s  a new mommy just like me, so we always have lots to chat about.

I wanted the home page to feel like you were stepping into my world. So welcome to my world!

And once again, the talented Mojito Maven helped me get everything installed and got all of the colors changed to match my new header. Thank you, friend!