My Scenic City Top Fives - A Blog Mini Series!

Welcome to a new "mini series" on my blog!  I've never done a series before but I thought it'd be fun to do.  It'll be a weekly post, probably running three or four weeks but we'll see how it goes... it may be shorter or longer.  It's all about Chattanooga and my favorite places in the city.  I know that most of the people who read my blog live in the greater Chattanooga area but hopefully everyone will enjoy it.  If you don't live in Chattanooga and plan on visiting sometime soon, definitely hit up these spots if you can!  I kept my list to places that are unique to our city, no chains.  I would also imagine that most of these spots are just known to locals, not tourists, which makes them even better!

I've lived in the Chattanooga area my whole life and absolutely love it.  I couldn't imagine living anywhere else.  It has the nickname of "The Scenic City" and that describes it perfectly!  It's just enough of a city to get the whole "downtown, city life" feel but not too big where you get overwhelmed and have a hard time getting around due to traffic (even though traffic can be BAD at times).  The downtown area is right on the Tennessee River and it is breathtaking.  It's a very active, "green" city with lots of free attractions and is wonderful for raising children.  It seems like they are always working to make the riverfront more beautiful and eco-friendly and always have tons of fun events going on that are great for families.  I also know that it's making a lot of lists for best vacations spots and best places to live and I would have to agree!  It's just an all around wonderful place to settle down.

My first post of this mini series is on my five favorite restaurants in Chattanooga.  It was hard to narrow it down to five because there are so many delicious, unique places to eat in the area but here is my opinion!

*Excuse the photos that follow- I was going to go to each place and do my own photos but that wasn't really feasible with two babies in tow.

Top 5 Places to Eat

1.  The best place to eat in Chattanooga, hands down, is the City Cafe Diner.  The menu is like a book, honestly, and you can satisfy your cravings with anything from American, Mexican, Greek, Italian, and breakfast foods, plus more!  If you can think of it, it's on the menu.  The portions are HUGE and their desert is to DIE for!  For the size of the entrees the prices are great.  A slice of cake is about the size of your head and is just delicious.  My favorite cheesecake used to be from the Cheesecake Factory but City Cafe beats them by a mile.  Their desert selection is also out of this world, any kind of cake or pastry you could want!  It's located downtown but not in the busiest part of the city.  It has it's own parking (it's a part of a Best Western hotel) and it's open 24 hours!  I would choose to eat here every time we go out if it were up to me.

2.  My second favorite place to eat in Chattanooga is Mr. T's Pizza & Ice Cream.  It's been around forever and you can't beat the prices.  It has the best homemade pizza, cheese bread, and milkshakes in the area!  They have a wide variety of ice cream/milkshake flavors and, from what I've heard (I don't eat them), the best banana splits in town.  It's located right at the base of Lookout Mountain, across the street from the Incline, and is rather small.  It fills up fast, especially on Sunday nights after church.  Mr. T himself is there most of the time and always makes sure you're happy with your food.  It's great!

3.  My third favorite place in Chattanooga to eat is Merv's.  It's located in Red Bank and is your classic hole-in-the-wall, dive bar that has the best greasy food around!  It has a wonderful hamburger and their fries are out of this world.  It was right down the road from where we lived when we got married and we were there quite often.  You can play pool and watch any sporting event that's on TV while you wait for your food.  You may even get to watch a good bar fight.  It's not the best environment for children (so I haven't been recently) but it's definitely worth it!

4.  My forth favorite place to eat is an eclectic little joint called The Pickle Barrel.  Andy always says he doesn't know how in the world they pass their health inspection but the food always hits the spot!  We probably look out of place because we don't have dreadlocks and shower but, once again, the food is worth it!  It's located downtown, kind of in a rough neighborhood, but it's in a beautiful building close to UTC's campus.  You can eat on the roof and it has a gorgeous view.  Any time I can talk Andy into going I love to hit this spot up!

5.  It was hard to pick a fifth place because I had several that were serious contenders.  I finally settled on the Northshore Grille.  It's located on the busy Frazier Avenue on Chattanooga's beautiful North Shore.  It's very close to the river and because of it's setting, menu, and location it almost feels like a beach restaurant.  It has a great covered patio to eat on and in the spring and summer they have huge roll up windows (almost like a garage door) that open up to the front.  It has seafood, and normal food, on the menu.  It's close to the Walnut Street Bridge, Market Street Bridge, the shops on Frazier, and Coolidge Park so it's in the perfect location.  You can't beat the atmosphere and location of this favorite of mine!

Honorable Mentions:  Like I said, it was hard to choose just five so I thought I'd add a few more as honorable mentions.  I'd suggest any of these places as well!

-Hill City Pizza:  It's located a couple of doors down from the Northshore Grille and has great, unique pizza.

-La Altena:  This little gem is located in the back of a Hispanic grocery store in the Southside.  It's small, hot, and loud but has wonderful Mexican food for a great price!

-Rembrandt's Coffee House:  This coffee house has a beautiful location in the Bluff View Art district, close to the river.  The building it's in and the scenery is gorgeous.  It's a little pricy but the deserts are great!

Happy 7 Months to Mr. Clark!

It feels like it's been forever since I wrote Clark's 6 month post but I like that time seems to have slowed down a little over the past month.  He's really come alive over the past month in terms of trying to play and just being a busy baby.  He has a walker that he cruises all over the house in and he loves it!  If he's in the right mood it can keep him entertained for about an hour (on a very good day).  He flies all over the place in it and Andy and I have said that the three of us (Andy, Coop, and myself) need to invest in shin guards because he runs into our legs as fast as he possibly can... and he thinks it's hilarious.  If you're trying to cook anything while he's in it he blocks you into the corner of the cabinets.  Also, if I'm doing anything in Cooper's room at the end of the hall way and he's in his walker, you can hear him coming as fast as his little feet will carry him.  As soon as he rounds the corner and sees me he gets the biggest smile on his face like he just climbed Mt. Everest, it's so sweet!  He's also trying his best to crawl.  He can easily get up on all fours now and rocks back and forth.  He can figure out what to do with his legs but he can't seem to get his arms going.  He is a pro at getting up in the "pushup" position as well but then he just falls back down.  He can get to where he wants though rather easily just by rolling.  He's also getting much better at sitting up.  He's still not quite an independent sitter but he's come a long way.  He can hold himself up for several seconds without toppling over... we've just got to work on it some more!

On the eating front he's still a 100% breastfed baby... no formula ever!  He's still breastfeeding 5 times a day, about 3-5 minutes per side.  He's super efficient now!  He's taking three jars of stage two baby food a day, two fruits (with cereal) and a vegetable.  Up until the other day he refused peas but now he takes them willingly!  The only two "real" foods we've tried, mashed potatoes and banana, he hated.  I think it was the texture... he was the same way with baby food at first.  Andy did slip him some of a milkshake a few weeks ago and he LOVED that!  I was against that though.  We've also introduced a sippy cup with water.  He's crazy about that, even though the water ends up all over him instead of his mouth.

On the sleeping front... all that little boy seems to want to do lately is sleep!  He's taking 3 to 4 naps a day.  If he's up for more than an hour or so at a time he just can't stand it.  On a normal day he wakes up between 6:45am and 7:00 but here lately he's been getting up around 6am... we're not sure what's up with that but it's been rough!  His naps last anywhere from an hour to three (at the most) so he's sleeping most of the day away!  He gets in bed between 8:30 and 9pm but some nights this past week he's been in bed by 8pm.  He lives a hard life, let me tell you!  He'll only let us rock him if he's desperate which makes us sad!  He had a week or two where we thought his colic was back because he was crying so much in the evenings but now we think that was from either teething (still no teeth) or exhaustion.  Hopefully he'll stay happy!

A few other side notes- He loves to howl and holler all day long, just for fun.  He's the loudest little human I've ever met.  He loves bath time with his brother and he's obsessed with his daddy's beard!  He feels my face all the time like he's expecting to feel one on me, too!  He's such a sweet little boy and we've been so blessed these past seven months!  I'll leave you with some of my favorite pictures over the last month of my sweet boy!

His first piece of artwork! 

His "official" 7 month pictures!

Cooper's Speech Progression

As I've mentioned before in a few blog posts, Cooper isn't much of a talker.  I think I've given the wrong impression before though, making some people think that he doesn't talk at all.  He does talk, his vocabulary was just limited to about 10-15 words he'd use on a regular basis.  He has said many words over his 27 month lifetime, but he only has a handful that he uses on a daily basis.  If you don't know Cooper's history, which I'm sure most who read my blog do, he was 6 weeks premature.  He was an itty bitty little thing and we knew from the get-go that he would more than likely have some developmental delays due to being born so early.  For the most part he's hit the vast majority of his milestones on the "normal" timeframe, just at the tail end of it.  He was a late walker, a late sitter, but nothing out of the ordinary even for full term babies.  He started babbling and saying single words at the "normal" time he should have and made slow progression as he went along.  He seemed to revert a bit with his talking once his brother was born, something I've heard was completely normal.  I didn't start getting concerned about his small vocabulary, or lack of speech progression, until around the time of his second birthday.  He was still just sticking to his small vocabulary, wasn't really adding any new words, and not saying phrases.  Our pediatrician wasn't concerned but said he if he wasn't adding more phrases by two and a half to bring him back in.  He said a lot of it was the fact that he was premature and that he was just stubborn (which we knew).  That's kind of when I went into worry mode though even though his doctor reassured my worries.  I'm also awful about comparing him to other 2 year olds and I knew he wasn't talking near as much as them (I know comparing is a HORRIBLE mommy habit I need to break!).

We have a speech therapist at school who I'm sure I've driven crazy in the last 3 months with questions.  Everything she told me to do to work with him we already did (verbally label things, read a lot, talk to him a ton, get him to watch how we form sounds and words...) and said that he was completely normal for his age, adjusted preemie age, and sex.  Boys are just naturally much later talkers than girls, especially firstborn boys.  We also knew that he understood everything we said because he can follow difficult directions, point out a ton of pictures in books, grab any specific thing was ask for, and so on.  She said that was a wonderful sign.  We kept working with him faithfully but didn't see a ton of progress until the last two weeks or so.

First, we noticed his "babbling" had increased tenfold.  He would come up to us and babble off the longest string of nonsense we've ever heard.  And, he'd get so frustrated that we couldn't understand him so he'd just throw his hands up and walk off.  We were also noticing very specific sounds or "Cooper words" for specific things.  He has a very specific sound, almost correct word, for chair and many other things.  Since past Friday he's really come alive, adding a new word or phrase each day!  On Thursday he said the words "moo" and cow while looking at his cow lamp!  Sunday he said bird while working a puzzle at church and half of my brother's name, Justin (I'm still counting it).  Yesterday my sister asked him where a bug was on his pajamas and he pointed to one and said "right here!"  Last night when we were getting him to pick up his toys he would throw them in the basket (we use any method we can to get him to pick up) and I kept saying "good shot!"  After a few times of me saying that he repeated it perfectly and kept saying it anytime he threw one in!  And today he said daddy!  We thought he had been saying that the last few days but today it was much clearer!  I know it may not sound like much to most parents but we are absolutely thrilled!  We can tell a big difference and we couldn't be happier!  We're hoping he'll keep up this pace and be talking much more in a few months.  Sorry this was so lengthy but I had to give due credit to my sweet guy!

Prom Dress for Sale!

I'm selling the dress I wore to my senior prom... 8 years ago!  I think it's about time to let go of it, especially since it's just been hanging in the closest of my parents' spare room, in a garment bag, since I wore it.  It's a beautiful dress that I loved and I think it could make some other girl really happy!  If you know of anyone looking for a really pretty dress at not a super high price send them my way!  It's a size 6 and I'm asking $250 or best offer.  I've put it on every social media site I use, plus Craigslist and my school-wide email so I'm hoping I'll have some luck.  I'd love to put that little chunk of change towards our vacation this summer!

Photo Friday

We've made it to the weekend!  We don't have any set plans this weekend so hopefully I can catch up on some stuff around the house and relax a bit.  Here are my photos for the week... enjoy!

Andy was going through his scrapbook his mom made him the other day and came across the gem.  It was too funny not to share.

Both boys were working on some new skills.  Cooper was playing with play dough for the first time and Clark was trying out a sippy.  He loves that cup but most of the water ends up all over him, not in his mouth.

Most of the time these two play pretty well together, sometimes they like to fight.  Max starting potty training this week and I'm hoping Cooper will think it's cool and give it a try sometime.

This was my first ever attempt at a pie, of any kind (I'm not a pie eater).  I made the pie crust myself (still not sure if it was right) and I messed up one of the key ingredients of the pie.  It's a cream pie that called for evaporated milk and I used sweetened condensed milk.  Andy said it tasted the same as the one his mom makes, just sweeter.  It was fine until he put it in the fridge and it caramelized.  

This was this kiddo's first sink bath.  He wasn't too sure about it at first and then ended up liking it.  It would have been so much easier if he was an independent sitter... we're working on that.

 This is his sweet morning face... I have a hard time leaving him (and his big brother) every morning!

 We hit up the Dollar Store yesterday and bought this boy some new animals.  He loves these little animal figurines (they are scattered ALL over our house) and can find any specific one we ask for.  He was pretty excited about his new friends and kept them separate from the pack all night.

 He even let Clark have a little fun with his new friends.

Andy got to stay with the boys today when I worked, which makes me jealous!  They always have fun when I'm away.

The Kentucky Knockout

For Valentine's Day I bought Andy tickets to the Kentucky - Tennessee basketball game in Knoxville.  I was born and raised a Kentucky fan and Andy has been one since he was in middle school.  Needless to say we were excited to get away for a few hours and enjoy the game.

The morning we went up we dropped the boys off, and half the house, with Andy's mom.  We headed up to Knoxville and found a parking spot 10 minutes before tip off.  We ran to the arena and got to our seats about a minute after tip off.  We were literally 5 rows from the ceiling but we were going to enjoy the game regardless... or so we thought.

From the the first minute of the game it was ugly.  Kentucky's best player tore his ACL the game before so we knew they wouldn't play as well as normal but we never expected it to be this bad.  Everything Tennessee threw up went in and everything Kentucky did was awful.  I couldn't figure out what was going on, that was so terrible, every time Kentucky had the ball and Andy said they weren't running any offensive plays.  I'm sure they were trying but it was just bad.  If anyone keeps up with basketball you know that most of the time white people are the minority on the court, that's just how it goes.  It was so bad that Kentucky played 3 white players the whole game... it was that bad.  At half time the score was 50-26 and Tennessee was 100% on their 3 pointers.  We were hoping for a turn around and still having a good time, even though we were in the midst of a ton of Tennessee fans.

The second half didn't get any better.  Kentucky was getting frustrated, understandably, so several players fouled out and got technicals.  With 5 minutes left we made our way down the arena to head back to the car.  We just couldn't handle it anymore.  The final score was 88-58.  We were shocked they got to 58 points.  We were part of history though... that was the worst loss in Kentucky's history.  We'll always have that memory at least!  Oh well, we did get about 7 uninterrupted hours together and we had a ton of fun so that's all that mattered!  I'll leave you some pictures of the massacre!

Seeing God in the Little Things

I think I've always been upfront about my obsessive worrying.  I've been that way my whole life and it seems to have gotten worse since I've had children.  Most of the time I worry about silly things that really don't matter but I throw in some worry time over bigger issues, too.  I'm not proud of all my worrying, I really hate it.  It's exhausting, obsessive, and brings me down a lot.  My moods shift quickly due to a worry that'll pop in my head.  I pray about it daily and it helps, but I need to pray about it constantly.

Anyways, this week I had some big worries, many of which were valid (if it were "valid" to worry in the first place).  This week during some of my prayers I randomly, almost jokingly, asked God for two things that would help lessen my worries for the week.  I won't go into details but I'll tell you, the things I prayed for wouldn't just randomly appear on their own.  That's why I kind of felt like I was joking, just trying to make myself feel better, when I prayed for them.  Don't get me wrong, I knew God could provide them, I just didn't foresee it happening.  Well, on Sunday the first request was answered.  It kind of amazed me.  I had just prayed for that the night before and here I was the next day with my prayer answered.  Yesterday, the request that was most far-fetched, was answered.  That one really amazed me.  It made me sit back and realize that God was telling me that He would always take care of me and provide for my needs and my family's needs.  It was almost as if He was shouting that at me from the top of His lungs by the way He answered my prayers.  It was as if He was also telling me to turn my worrying over to Him because He can handle it, I can't.  It was a very humbling and eye opening experience.  He also used people I would've least expected to help answer those prayers.  I know my worrying won't stop over night and I know I still need to turn it over to Him daily, multiple times a day, but I do know that I need to start trusting Him more because He won't let me down.  I would love to be able to control things but it's even better knowing I have God on my side controlling things in the most perfect way for my life and my family's lives.

Here are my favorite two "little things" that I see God in daily.

Photo Friday - President's Day Edition

We are on the last day of our 3 day weekend... how sad!  I've tried to soak some time up with all three of my boys this weekend so I didn't post this on the regular day.  Here are my photos from last week, plus some... enjoy!

This little boy has turned into one of the most destructive 2 year olds I know!

Snuggles after a bath!

He wants to crawl so badly and is getting so close!

Nursery snack time!

Valentine's Day montage!  

Valentine's Day baking.

Zoo time!

My Valentine's roses!

And dinner!

 The Kentucky - Tennessee game... an ugly one!  More on that later though.

He's on a napping strike so by late afternoon it gets rough.  This is what happens the minute he hits his car seat. 

 The boys waiting for mommy to get ready for church.

 Snuggs with Coop!

 His sleep fighting skills are off the chain!

A cool Curious George puzzle!