Slowly but surely...

(I was chided when I went to Montgomery a few weeks ago for not updating my blog often.  I have done some research and after thinking of moving my blog to another place altogether, I decided to give this one more chance.  So this is my test entry to see if I'm staying! Haha!)

...I'm catching up!  Let's see...it was about 5 months ago since I posted. YIKES! What has happened since then?  Well, we had Christmas, Hampton and I went to Disney World in January, and we all did a lot of traveling in March.  We accompanied Clint on a business trip to Jacksonville, spent a long weekend in DeFuniak Springs, FL visiting the Ushers, and then surprised my dad on his 60th birthday with a visit and party for him.  We were gone for almost 2 weeks.  Getting adjusted when we returned was hard, but now we're back in the swing of things.

Clint's job still holds a certain amount of uncertainty.  The stress of that is something we struggle with daily.  We covet your prayers as he is still seeking a permanent position - a transfer within his company.  Our hope is in the Lord, though!  For He alone is in control of this situation.

Here are a few pictures from the last few months.  I will do some more detailed posts on these later.  Promise!

Hampton at his first dental visit. He did GREAT! No cavities!

Hampton in his first Christmas play at church. He was a cow that was part of the animals at the manger .

Hampton hanging out with his Pop

The big surprise! Hampton knocked on the door and greeted Dad with a "Happy Birthday, PawPaw!" As you can see, PawPaw was overwhelmed with emotion!

Hampton and me at Downtown Disney posing with Buzz Lightyear

Lots of updates...

I posted three new blog entries below (playing catch up!), so be sure to scroll down to see them all.

Company Picnic and Halloween

Merrill Lynch hosted a family company picnic on Saturday, October 30th. It was a lot of fun! They had some awesome bounce houses which Hampton loved playing in, lots of food, balloon-making clowns, lots of fun music, etc. We wore matching T-shirts that day, so we had a friend take a family picture of us. It was a very fun day!

Of course, the next day was Halloween. After church Sunday evening, we went to a friend's house (the Nunezes) and took the kids out trick-or-treating. Hampton was a "Surfer Dude." There were lots of kids there, but I only posted one picture of Hampton with his buddy Eli. It was a lot of fun!

Hampton is THREEEEEE!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! Hampton had a great birthday this year! He had a "Star Wars" birthday party at the park, and it was a blast. So many of his friends from church came. They had a great time playing at the playground and enjoying some cake and snacks afterwards. Of course, I made things interesting by forgetting the forks!! Lots of kids were covered in blue cake icing, as you can imagine! Oh well...

When Hampton woke up, I took his picture, and tried to get him to hold up 3 fingers, but he couldn't understand what to do. The picture resulted in his holding up his fists! Too cute!
His big present from Mommy and Daddy was a bicycle! It has training wheels on it, and it's perfect for him. He was a little afraid the first day to ride it, but once he rode it the first time, he was hooked!! I had to buy him a new helmet because he had already outgrown his other one (big head!). Of course, he got tons of other presents - so many that we spread them out for about 3 days of opening! He has great friends. Now, we are going to sort through his older toys and have a lesson in donating.

Anyway, on to the pictures...

Wannado City...

...where a kid can do what they wanna do!

A couple of weeks ago, I took Hampton to Wannado City. This was our second trip. We LOVE Wannado City! We invited Hampton's friend Gavin, his mommy Ms. Abby, and his baby brother Blake to come along with us. They had never been and loved it too! Wannado City is really something that you have to experience...it's hard to explain, but it's awesome! Kids can participate in different career fields and earn "wongas" (money). It's literally like a real city built especially for children. There is a fire station, dentist, bank, courthouse, beauty salon, bakery, carnival, city bus system, circus, archaelogical dig site, airport, etc. The kids can "work" and play at all of these places. Anyway, here are some pictures from our day.

Hampton and Gavin waiting to be an airline pilot for Spirit Airlines.

Hampton and Gavin waiting to be a baker and bake their own chocolate chip cookie!

The carousel!

Hampton shopping in Publix. He always shops strictly for produce!

Hampton and Gavin on the Ferris Wheel (they're in the top right car).

Potty Trained!!

I am pleased to announce that Hampton is potty trained! (Can you hear "The Hallelujah Chorus" in the background? Or at least "I'm So Excited" by the Pointer Sisters? I can!)

We followed a method called 3-Day Potty Training. Three Days?! Well...you know. I think he started understanding the concept at the end of the third day. But he wasn't fully potty trained in 3 days. More like five. But I'll take five days over two weeks or more any day! In the past year, I've tried to begin potty training him a few times, but he just wasn't getting it. Now, I know that I wasn't being as drastic as I needed to. You see, this method requires that on day one, you throw away all your diapers and pullups. Throw them away! No more diapers. Period. Not even at night. YIKES. Gutsy. But throughout this process I learned that DRASTIC was what we needed. If Hampton was given one opportunity to wear a diaper again, he would go back to his old ways!

Anyway, to spare you all the details, I'll sum it up by saying the first 2 days were horrible, he started seeing the light on day 3, and by day 5, I'd say we were 95% there. The last 3 days have been COMPLETELY accident-free (we're on day 11 now!), and if he has one, it's usually at naptime when he might have fallen asleep without using the bathroom. And now, he just goes to the bathroom himself. No fanfare. Just pottying like a big boy. We love it.

Now, I just have to get used to finding all the bathrooms while I'm out somewhere so when he tells me he has to go, I can quickly find one!

That's the big news in the Usher House. Nothing else interesting is going on. When something interesting comes up, I'll let you know.

Thanks for reading.

Trip to Alabama/Trip to Illinois/Father's Day

We have been busy since my last post! We have done a lot of traveling, and it's good to be HOME! So here's the quick run-down...

The last week of May, Clint flew to Peoria, IL to interview for a management position there with Merrill Lynch. Hampton and I flew to Alabama the next week, and Clint flew down to meet us in Birmingham. There, we stayed one night with Clint's great aunt and uncle, Doris & Marion Cruce. Their daughter Kathy took Hampton to see her horses. He loved feeding them carrots! This was Clint's week to volunteer at Boys State, so he drove on to Tuscaloosa and we drove to Montgomery for the next week.














When we got to Montgomery, we immediately began playing at MawMaw and PawPaw's house!! Hampton has his own bedroom there now, so he LOVED paying in his room and showing it off to anyone who came over. He has his own bed, toys, play table, chairs, lamp, everything! Hampton helped his PawPaw cut grass and enjoyed playing in their backyard. We went to the children's museum (ArtWorks), which is always a hit! Of course, we had to make a stop or two by Dairy Queen, the mall to ride the carousel, etc. We also made a road trip to Tuscaloosa to hear Daddy speak at Boys State, where we also saw Hampton's Nana and Pop (Clint's parents).

Later in the week, Hampton and I had more family visit us! Uncle Wes, Aunt Nenny (Jennifer), Justin, Griffin, and Graysen came to Montgomery. We loved going to the zoo with them, back to ArtWorks, the mall, and then Hampton's FIRST FISHING TRIP! He reeled in a nice one (a "big one," according to him!) pretty quickly! He caught a cute little bass. He was SO happy! We sure didn't like saying goodbye as we drove back up to Birmingham to spend one more night with Aunt Doris and Uncle Marion before flying out the next morning.

Week three was back to Peoria, Illinois as a family. Clint wanted us to go with him for his second week there, so Hampton and I stayed busy while Daddy worked. We had lunch with him one day, we explored the Peoria Zoo, went to the Lakeview Museum of Arts and Science to see a very cool LEGO exhibit by artist Nathan Sawaya. We all caught a cold at the end of the week, so we spent a couple of days in the hotel room that ended up looking like a "cave" with all the blinds closed and no room service for a while!

But we survived. It was questionable for me for a while because the plane ride home was absolute torture for me...my sinuses protested the airplane pressure! OUCH! So now, we're back home. We have received word this week that we will not be moving to Peoria. We were initially disappointed, but we know that this is God's way of closing a door on something that is "not for us." We are looking forward to whatever BETTER thing He has in store for us!

Father's Day was great! I was able to snag a couple of pictures of the guys before we left for church that morning. They both looked sharp (or "shark" as Hampton says)!

Love to all!

Adrienne (for the whole fam)