Football Fever

 So I planned on posting this before that embarrassing showing the Falcons displayed this afternoon, but as usual, I was late.  I am totally bummed because we all were wearing our Falcons gear (Eli was in black and red because his Falcons outfit is for 9 months), but the game started before I was able to snap a family shot and before the game was over Mark had already removed his jersey in disgust and in hopes that it somehow may be able to change their luck.  Unfortunately that was not the case and none of us were in the mood to snap the Falcon family shot after the game.  I was able to get a picture of Eli sleeping through the Pre-Game show so all was not lost.  So here is to hoping that the Falcons decide to show up next weekend and the Harper household will once again be happy. 

Now on to the post I wanted to post earlier...

Football fever has begun.  In my “Before Mark” days, I remember enjoying football.  I was never a HUGE fan but wouldn’t mind watching the game when it was on and I never missed a big game.  In my “Dating Mark” days, I dreaded football season.  Football season starts at the draft for Mark.  I still to this day do not understand the fascination with having to actually WATCH the draft.  I mean maybe the first couple picks but after that what is the point?  You will find out eventually who was picked for what teams and who was not.  But I will get off my soap box and simply leave it as something I will never understand.  While dating, I thought of football season as the thing that took my boyfriend away and distracted him enough that we were never able to do anything.  Not only would we have to watch Mark’s heart and soul the Falcons play but we would have to watch EVERY game so that he could cheer on all of his fantasy football players.  At the time that included every Sunday football game and Monday night football, not to mention the countless hours he would spend researching each player and making trades.

I am not sure when it began to change, probably shortly after we were married, but Mark began to realize how his obsession made me despise football all together and I began to realize that I was hating something that I actually used to enjoy (I am sure this had nothing to do with my stubborn attitude-ha).  Actually, looking back at it, I think things began to change when the Falcons picked up Matt Ryan.  I guess I could thank Matt Ryan for peace and enjoyment during football season in the Harper household...lol!  Mark still plays fantasy football but keeps the endless hours of research to a minimum and only requires us to watch the Falcons games, which I am totally stoked about because I have grown to love watching each and every game.  During the day I find myself looking up stats on the Falcons and doing research on their next opponent.  I even find myself watching sports center WITHOUT Mark and pride myself for finding out about something before he knows and being the one that tells him something about football.  Although Mark only requires the Falcon game be watched we usually end up watching every game we get televised, which means we end up spending 3 days a week watching football; hence the title of this post “Football Fever”. 

I am not ashamed to say that I am totally excited for football season, and even more excited to introduce Eli to the Falcons.  It goes without saying that Eli will undoubtfully be a Falcons fan.

On Saturday we had the college football games on and Eli say in his little Bumbo chair with FULL attention on the game!

So it appears it has already begun....it must be part of his genes!!

Wedding Weekend

What a wonderful, event filled Labor Day weekend we had! Mark and I took Friday off work in order to get up to Newnan at a decent time before the rehearsal dinner.  We pulled into the parking lot of the hotel at around 2:20p and I dropped Eli off with my grandparents and Mark took me to the nail salon to get my nails done with my aunt Kellee and Stacey.  Meanwhile, Mark grabbed some lunch and then the “check engine” light made its dreaded appearance.  Long story short…Mark and my dad had to take the car to 3 different places before it was determined by the Ford dealership that the alternator was bad and needed to be replaced.  May I remind you that all the while we are all running around like chicken’s with our heads cut off trying to get stuff in order for the wedding and make it to the venue by 5:30p.  Nothing like adding some more excitement stress to an already jam packed event.

I had no idea how I was going to juggle matron of honor duties along with taking care of Eli.  I just prayed that there would be enough hands around to be able to pass him off if I had to.  Who would have guessed that he would be so good that I would hardly have to pass him off at all.  Our morning started at around 8:30 am when all the bridesmaids made their appearance at our hotel room to start getting their hair done.  Eli was very content throughout the morning and by the time my hair appointment came around he was sleeping in his pack n’ play.  At 3pm we were stuffing Stacey’s car full of our dresses, shoes, and all of Eli’s belongings to rush to the wedding venue.  I set up Eli’s bed upstairs in the bridal suite and while all the other girls got their dresses on I fed Eli.  He immediately went down for a nap and continued napping throughout all of our pictures.  At about 5pm (an hour before the ceremony was to begin) I woke Eli up and fed him and carried him downstairs to my mom’s cousin, Tonja.  Surprisingly enough Eli sat in his little bouncer happy as a little lark for the entire ceremony and was even content for the pictures after the ceremony.

During dinner I decided to take the downtime to rush upstairs and feed Eli.  I figured that the DJ would allow at least an hour to eat dinner before any other major events would take place.  The unfortunate part about my dress and breastfeeding was that I had to completely remove my dress in order to feed Eli.  My mom followed me upstairs to unzip my dress and I put on a nursing bra and a pair of shorts to feed Eli.  I am sure I was a sight to see…heels, huge earrings, bra, shorts…yeah I was definitely looking hot! Haha  So I was about 15 minutes into feeding Eli when all of a sudden I could hear the DJ downstairs announcing the first dance!!!  WHAT?!!!??  I couldn’t miss the first dance…Stacey hadn’t told me the song they were going to dance to because she wanted everything to be a surprise and I was MISSING it!!  My mom was up in the room with me and I suddenly remembered there was a balcony upstairs that looked over the dance floor.  I told mom to go look, but I couldn’t stand missing it.  So I stood up and rushed over to the balcony and hid behind Mom in order to see the first dance.  I prayed everyone would be focused on the bride and groom and that no one would glance upwards to see me half naked hiding behind my mom on the balcony.  The first dance was so cute.  Stacey and JT had taken some dance lessons and learned a cute little swing dance number for their first dance…I was glad I didn’t miss it (half naked or not!).  For those of you at the wedding…if you start going through your pictures and happen to see me on the balcony, please please do not publish to facebook!!  In fact, could you crop me out completely and burn the remains? haha 

Note that I cannot be seen on the balcony

Once again...no half naked girl on balcony...THANK GOD

I then watched the father-daughter dance and then headed back to the room to finish feeding Eli.  He was just about done when the wedding coordinator called up to me and told me they would be doing the speeches for the toast shortly and I needed to be downstairs.  I threw on my dress, dropped Eli off with Mark and gave my speech.  It went much better than I anticipated….I was able to make it through the speech with minimal crying!  For those of you haven’t noticed…the wedding is at the toast and cake cutting parts and I have yet to be able to sit down and eat or drink anything!  I went straight from the cake cutting to my table to grab some food but was stopped by about 15 different people who I hadn’t seen in forever and wanted to chat.  By the time I made it back to the table, Chase came and got me to tell me that Eli was upstairs with Grandma and that she thought he needed some more to eat!  So I ran back upstairs to once again remove my dress and feed Eli.  I fed Eli until he passed out in my arms and laid him down in his bed at about 8:30p.  I put my dress back on and headed back downstairs.  All of the food from the buffet had been taken down and I was left with the few bites I had put on my plate at the beginning of the evening.  I inhaled the bites on my plate and then headed to the dance floor with Chase.  For those of you who don’t’ know Chase, he is a dancing MACHINE!!  ;-)  Eli slept in his bed for the rest of the wedding while Chase and I tore up the dance floor! 

The wedding went wonderfully and was absolutely beautiful.  I cannot wait to see the professional photographs!  For those friends with me on Facebook you have seen all the photos from the wedding already.  For those that are not here is a few of my favorites.

Stacey and JT's mom

ham

A $5 bib from Target was the perfect outfit for Eli