FF- Go Rough Riders!

Once again it is time for Flashback Friday! Woo Hoo!

My mother’s friend Connie has been posting some wonderful pictures from back-in-the-day. Last week, I was tickled when she posted this one:
This was our cheerleading picture from good ol’ Symsonia Elementary School. I believe that this might have been my only year in cheerleading. (Mom, did I cheer for more than one year?) Anyway, I had a very short lived cheerleading career, because I lack coordination and/or any athletic ability.

I think that I am the one on the back row, third from the right. Yep, that is me….the one that can’t hold her elbow out the correct way. I am uncoordinated even in the cheerleading picture.

I am pretty sure that I was in 5th grade for a few reasons:

First, this was before junior high, because anyone that wanted to be a cheerleader could be a cheerleader…..no matter how awful you were. Did I ever mention that I still cannot do a cartwheel? Plus, there is one girl in the picture that is older than me, so that means that I could not be in 6th grade, because junior high was considered to be 7th and 8th grades.

Second, I have that horrendous hair cut. Through 4th grade, I had awesome hair. But everyone was cutting their hair and getting perms. I remember begging my mother to get a perm and when I finally did……I hated it. My brother called me a poodle on the way home from the salon and I tried not to cry. I remember taking a yearbook to the hairdresser and pointing out a girls hair that I looooved. In the end, I looked NOTHING like her. I debated washing it out, but my mother had spent so much money on it that I didn’t have the heart to do it. When I went back to school in 5th grade, I remember a boy being shocked and asking me what I had done to my hair. (Within the year, I also got braces and glasses and I thought that my world was coming to an end.)

The pom-poms in front were the ‘good pom-poms’. They were HUGE and had clear plastic rings for the handles. I remember that you had to scrunch the plastic strips to make them bigger. I coveted those pom-poms. The ones that I had from Wal-mart were only one color, had white plastic stick handles and were about a quarter of the size of the perfect poms.

The picture was taken in the “little gym” which was the original gym in the school. There was a stage at one end where the guys in my class auctioned off their legs. A bigger gym was built on years later. The school is where my parents graduated from high school, but when the county high schools consolidated when I was in 5th grade, this became my junior high. This must have been the first year for Symsonia Jr. High School. The school was torn down a few years ago and it still looks strange driving by the new construction.

Oh, such fun memories! Goooooooooo Rough Riders! Go Big Red!

For more Flashback Friday Fun.....go HERE.

A Little Verklempt

My parents kidnapped my child and are holding him hostage in Kentucky for a few days. Okay, so maybe I told them that they could come get him. My brother sent these pictures to me this morning of EC and his Aunt Lauren. It makes me feel better just to see him.

He looks like he is having fun....which will make my day a little easier to bare. This is my first full day without seeing EC. Okay, now I am a little verklempt.....talk amongst yourselves...

First Drum Session - Video Edition

A couple of weeks ago, I posted these pictures. Birddog had been playing with his drums and EC simply could not get enough. EC was wide-eyed and so excited every time that Birddog would start playing. So, Birddog grabbed him and thought they would have their first lesson. Here is a little video of the action:

As you can tell, EC is still teething and is more interested in eating the drumstick than holding it.

None the less, I do think that he has his father’s music gene. He loves it when any music comes on the radio or television. He loves it when Birddog plays the guitar or sings to him. Birddog will sing a note and EC sings it back to him…..they can go back and forth like that for hours!

Since I have no rhythm and I am tone-deaf, I do hope that EC picks up Birddog's musical abilities, but Lord please be with me if I have another drummer on my hands!

WW - Blue Eyes

(Thanks to Tracy, the most awesome babysitter ever, for the pictures!)
For more Wordless Wednesday, go HERE.

Backseat Jesus

Last week passed so quickly that I didn’t even realize that I had not blogged! Crazy!

Birddog, EC and I have been passing around a cold that just doesn’t seem to want to leave. So, we called in the reinforcements. Grammy and Granddaddy (Linda and Eddie to some of you) were at our doorstep the next morning. With the help of Kyle’s mom, Nuna, we are still alive today! They wiped noses and rocked and made dinner and loved on all three of us. Needless to say, it is hard to live up to EC’s expectations after they went back to Kentucky.

We all still have the remnants of a cold, but we are recuperating quickly. So, I promise that there will be more blog posts soon! Wordless Wednesday is coming again tomorrow!

One thing that I have been meaning to blog about for a while is a new series that is starting this weekend at Cross Point. The series is called Back Seat Jesus and it explores the different ways that we have put Jesus in the backseat of our lives.

It should be AWESOME and I would love for you to go with me! I have been going to the nine o’clock service, because I am teaching the three-year-olds in KidzWorld at eleven o’clock. (Dude, I know what you are thinking! Ladybird? A Sunday school teacher???…..Who’da thunk it???) Anyway, if you want to come please let me know! We can go together!

Check out the promo below and let me know what you think!

Back Seat Jesus_Promo from Cross Point Church on Vimeo.

Great-Grandma Betty

EC loves spending time with his Great-Grandma Betty!

FF - Boys of Summer

Another week has passed and it is time for FLASHBACK FRIDAY! YEAH!

Growing up, my neighborhood was filled with boys. Boys outnumbered the girls by at least 3 to 1. Plus, all the girls were several years younger than me. So I didn't have that many girl friends to play with. (No offence Jenna and Lindsay!) My brother, on the other hand, had tons of friends that were gender appropriate. Namely, these guys:

This picture was taken in the back of Raye Ann’s back yard. You can see my Uncle Ronnie’s house back over the hill. I do remember playing on that swing-set and I have no clue why there is a garden hose on the clothesline pole.

This must have been before a tee-ball game, because they are all wearing their tee-ball shirts. I am guessing that it is BEFORE the tee-ball game, because they are all relatively clean. The goal of many of these games was not to see if you could win, but to see how many bases you could slide into.

Anyway, from left to right these precious little boys are Austin, Clay, Connor and Jay.

Austin was not a kid from our “country block” but he was one of the kiddos on the tee-ball team. I am not quite sure what he is doing now. His mom was a teacher too, like all of our moms, so it is no surprise that he is hanging out before a tee-ball game.

The curly haired mass that looks like he is waiting for the starting whistle is my sweet baby brother, also known as Cosmo’s Crazy. I can name numerous pictures in which he took this pose. I am not sure why. There is a good chance that those shoes are Velcro, because he couldn’t tie a shoe for years. Anyway, Clay has grown up to be a pretty good looking guy……and he snagged himself a gorgeous wife too!

Let me now skip to the far right. Jay is striking a pretty good batting pose. His knees are bent and his tube socks are both pulled up to maximum height. The cool sunglasses totally distract you from his skinny little legs. I love how the color stripes on his tube socks pull his whole outfit together. Today, Jay is also a very handsome guy. He has a beautiful wife named Emily and a sweet baby boy named Kash.

Now, the kid with the baseball hat is Connor. Connor is showing how the short-stop should stand and be ready for the ball to come their way. Either that or he is ducking, because it looks like Jay is going to take head off with the baseball bat. His tube socks are also at maximum height, probably to protect his legs from all that sliding. Well, Connor must have eaten his brussel sprouts, because today he looks like this…

This is a little snapshot from his spread in Self Magazine.

Austin, Jay, Clay – If you are reading this, you should have eaten your brussel sprouts, but I still love ya!

Flashback Friday is the brainchild of Anne Glamore at My Tiny Kingdom. For more time-warping posts go HERE.

Honest Scrap

I have gotten an Honest Scrap award from A Little Crazy & A Lot Of Love!!!! Wild, huh? I feel like I have earned my first Girl Scout Badge or something! Here we go….

The rules for this award:

Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Show the winners names and links on your blog, and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with “Honest Scrap.” There’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.

List at least 10 honest things about yourself:

1. I want a Snuggie and I not ashamed to admit it. Birddog thinks Snuggies are ridiculous, but the person who created it is a genius.

2. Every night I count my blessings, pray to God about my worries and then I go take a post-partum depression pill. I have started a couple of posts about this and they never seem to make it to the blog. The bottom line is these little pills make me a better person right now. This is something that I really struggled with, but now I totally believe in. Girls – if you think you need help, please don’t be ashamed to ask. Talk to me, talk to your doctor, just talk to someone.

3. I do not “text” therefore I do not “tweet” either. Part of the reason is that my phone is too old to do any of that high-falutant-fancy-scmancy stuff. The other reason is that I just don’t understand the appeal. I just don't understand it.

4. I have over 300 friends on Facebook. This amazes me, because I am surprised that people actually remember me. Sometimes I do not ask someone to be my friend because I think, “Naaa, they wouldn’t remember who I am.” Then they end up asking me to be their friend. I guess that I don’t think of myself as an impressionable person.

5. I joined a women's small group at CrossPoint. I partially did it to meet more people, but I am learning so much about myself and I am growing so much more in my faith. Plus, I get to spend every Tuesday night with an awesome group of gals! (Sometimes there are brownies too!)

6. I am really excited that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is FINALLY being released this summer. The Queen Pins and I are headed to see it at the big IMAX theatre at OpryMills. I am so looking forward to this girl’s night. Queen Pins and Harry Potter ….who could ask for more!?!

7. My brother and I used to follow the blue light cart around K-Mart and then run to tell my mom were the next Blue Light Special was going to be. We took this very seriously. You had to get there fast or you missed the special price!

8. Both of my favorite pizza parlors are in Murray, KY. I remember begging my parents to go to Pagliagi’s pizza when I was young. That is back when it was on the court square. I loved their pizza with tiny shrimp on it. I wonder if they still have that? Matt B’s Main Street Pizza opened when I was in college. I lived within walking distance and I think that I could have eaten their veggie pizza every night….but I was on more of a Ramen noodles budget.

9. I want a Wii and a Wii Fit really, really, really bad.

10. My birthday is January 3rd. This is always the day that you return to school from Christmas break. Everyone talked about what they did over the break and what they got for Christmas……and never remembered my birthday. Therefore, I am really glad that EC’s birthday is in September. He can celebrate when he is in school and there are no major holidays to contend with.

My seven blog recommendations are.....

ShortyMom
Paralegal Diva
Itty Bitty Bits Of Me
Full Of Boys
Cosmos’s Crazy
Sweet Caroline
Lissa Town

I can’t wait to see your lists! Thanks again to A Little Crazy & A Lot Of Love for the wonderful award! Her photography is AWESOME…go check it out!

WW - First Drum Session

For more Wordless Wednesday, go HERE.

Month Five

Dear EC,

Yesterday you turned five months old. What an awesome month! You have hit so many milestones in one short month that I now expect you to get your masters degree from Harvard. You are growing like a weed and your personality is shining!

This is the month that you have learned to YYYYEEEELLLLL! You yell in several different ways, all of which are hilarious. You have a deep yell and then sometimes it is really high pitched like an opera singer. I think you are going to have your Daddy's singing voice. To make sure that you are getting maximum decibels, you throw your hands down to your side and stiffen your legs, putting your whole body into it. After each yell, you look at me and smile. Then you giggle, because, well you know, yelling is fun! You think that it is hilarious when we make yelling sounds back to you and then you smile and say, “Oh yeah? Well, whadaya think about THIS?? AAAAAHHHHHGGGG!”

You are giggling much more now, especially when someone is going to GETCHA! I love to getcha! Now, I don’t even have to touch you, I can just say, “I am gonna getcha” and you go into convulsions of laughter. Daddy says that I scare you into laughing, because when I do my ‘getcha voice’ I sound like an old, scary witch. I told him to shut up and go wash the bottles, because we were playing GETCHA!

You have decided that you don't like pants, so you kick open the bottom of your outfits when you wake up.

On Thursdays you spend the day with your Nuna. I love Thursdays. By the end of the day, you are so worn out that you usually go to bed early. Nuna’s house is usually so overflowing with your cousins that you have someone to play with all the time. January 22nd was a rare day in which Nuna only had you to baby-sit….so she took you to work. She and her co-workers didn’t get much done though, because they kept watching you try to roll over. You would throw your legs up in the air and swing them to the side. You would roll on your side, but never quite make it all the way over. She said that you were just teasing her.

When I got you home that night, I practiced with you, but you didn’t seem that interested. When I finally gave up and went to sit on the couch……..there you went! All the way over! Then you got TOTALLY TICKED-OFF THAT YOU WERE ON YOUR STOMACH! If you had known the result, you would have never rolled over! So I rolled you back to your backside……..and you proceeded to roll over two more times!!! You got mad every time, but we were so excited!

The next night, I was going to take some pictures of you rolling over….and you refused to cooperate. You knew the result of rolling over was being on your stomach and you just weren’t having it! YOU HAVEN’T ROLLED OVER SINCE AND THIS IS DRIVING ME CRAZY! Your daddy says that rolling over is overrated and that at least we know that you can roll over, so we shouldn't be worried.. When I try to practice with you, you just giggle and roll back onto your back again. At least you are having fun!

Grammy and Granddaddy were planning on coming to see you this month. They hadn’t seen you since Christmas and they were starting to have EC-withdraws. Then they got hit by a major ice-storm in Kentucky and were out of power for eight whole days. As soon as the power was back on, I loaded up and you and I went to visit.

You have always been a good traveling baby. You usually sleep the entire two and a half hour trip to Kentucky. I left Friday night around your bedtime, hoping that when we got to your grandparents, I could transfer you from the car-seat to the crib and you would continue sleeping. Man, was I wrong! As soon as you opened your eyes and saw Grammy and Granddaddy, you were WIDE AWAKE! You knew that days of milk and honey were upon you! You were so happy to see Grammy and Granddaddy that you didn’t go to sleep for over an hour. It didn't help that they yanked you out of the car seat and loved all over you. So much for my genius plan.

That Saturday (2/7/09), you were a little fussy. When you started to gnaw on my finger, I knew exactly why…….YOU HAD GOTTEN YOUR FIRST TOOTH! That little sucker is sharp too! I really should not have been surprised, because you have been chewing on everything in sight for over a month. The second tooth followed on Wednesday. You have already left teeth marks on Daddy several times and it is funny to watch the vigor that you put into biting on Mortimer’s moose antlers.

Speaking of teeth, you LOVE LOVE LOVE eating baby food. I can’t shovel it in fast enough. You are pretty good about keeping it in your mouth, but you were really spraying me with it when we were in Kentucky. Carrots are still your favorite, but so far you have eaten green beans, sweet peas, sweet potatoes and squash. You tried bananas for the first time this weekend and you really liked them. I can’t wait to try more fruit!

You loved eating bananas! Now if only we can keep Daddy from eating the banana baby food!

By that Sunday, the fussiness was over and you were back to my normal, happy baby. We went to church with your grandparents and everyone at Symsonia Baptist was excited to see you. The nursery was closed because of some power problems in the building, so you went with us into the regular church service. I was so nervous, but you were good the entire time. There was one tee-tiny fussy bout, but a bottle satisfied you quickly. Just as I was thinking that we were going to get out of church without an incident, you let out a HUGE burp during the closing prayer. People in the pews in front of us were giggling and I know that my face was bright red!

Not all of your milestones are quite as monumental as new teeth or rolling over. You had your first “being a boy” moment this month. You tooted in the bath tub and the bubbles caught you off-guard. Then you laughed so hard! A true boy…..farting is funny. The actual funny part was that you were trying to do it again. You would thrust your pelvis forward and make a funny grunting noise while scrunching your face. The toot never happened again…….and I am thankful that nothing else happened because you were trying so hard.

Oh, EC, I love the way that you have flipped our world upside-down. You have a magic smile and infectious giggle that just seem to wash all of the day’s frustrations away. I look forward to running home to you and Daddy every night.

You are my Tiny Valentine!

I love you!
Mommy

FF - Love, Look At The Two Of Us

This week was my first week to participate in Wordless Wednesday. It was so much fun, that I am jumping on the bandwagon and doing Flashback Friday! I know! It is like I am going CrAzy!

The thing is, I am not “flashing back” too many years on my first post. Part of this is because I don’t have a scanner and I only have access to so many digital pictures of past couple of years.

The other part is because this week is Valentine’s Day and the theme for Flashback Friday is Love, Look At The Two Of Us. What a better way to love on my hubby than to show a “flashback” picture of us in loooooove.

This picture was taken the day that we got engaged, May 1st, 2004. Actually, it was taken minutes after we got engaged. I think that he had just gotten off his knee. Notice that my face is pale white and his face is beet-red. I think we were both a little nervous!

Happy Valentine’s Day, Punkin’!
I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck!

Flashback Friday is the brainchild of Anne Glamore at My Tiny Kingdom. For more lovey posts go HERE.

A Little Nutty

Usually in the mornings, EC and I plop down in the recliner for his morning bottle. Since he extremely interested in the bottle, I flip on the morning news and proceed to flip between the four Nashville stations. I try to catch the weather and a snippet of what the news is for the day.

This is about the only news that I get during the day. I hate hate hate watching the news. It does nothing but depress me. So a while back, I started watching mainly the morning shows. They are a little more upbeat. Birddog rarely watches the news at all. If it doesn’t have anything to do with airplanes or music, he flips the channel quickly.

Yesterday morning was the normal routine. We watched the news and, after EC’s bottle, I put him down to play with Mortimer while I got ready for work. Birddog groggily made his way into the living room and was watching the station on which I had left the television. He has been sick and hasn’t been sleeping well, so he hasn’t been a happy-camper in the mornings lately.

They were showing a news story about the current peanut butter salmonella outbreak. The story told of the multiple deaths that had happened and that yet another company was being investigated for their safety testing habits. They told the story of a young boy that was being treated that was on his 6th day in the hospital. He couldn’t stand to be touched and his mother stated that she couldn’t even stroke her son’s hair, because he was in so much pain. My heart poured out to that family.

(I could see this next part coming from a mile away.)

BD: Maybe I have Salmonella. That is why I haven’t been feeling well.

LB: But you haven’t eaten any peanut butter.

BD: Yes, I have! I have been eating peanut butter and crackers almost every day.

LB: But you have been eating the peanut butter out of the jar here, right? That is not the peanut butter that they are talking about.

BD: No! No! I have gotten a package of peanut butter and crackers at the store almost every time that I go out.

LB: Well, they have pulled the contaminated peanut butter products off the shelf, so I think that you will be okay.

BD: BUT MY HAIR HURTS!!!!

LB: (After I stopped laughing) You know I am going to have to blog about this, right?

BD: I am glad my death by salmonella amuses you.


For more of Birddog’s hypochondriac tendenceys go HERE and check out a humorous story about his hair HERE.

Wordless Wednesday - Green Bean Edition

For more Wordless Wednesday, go HERE.

Ice Palace

Here are some pictures of my parent's house in Western Kentucky. Their power was restored yesterday afternoon after eight days. Remember that you can click on each picture to make it larger.

You can see pictures of my brother's house HERE.

Good Times, Good Times

One of my neighbors growing up has been posting a lot of pictures on her Facebook page. There are lots of pics of kids from the neighborhood and I have laughed at all the wonderful pictures that she has posted. Here are a few of Clay and me.

This picture is of Lindsay’s birthday party and I guess that everyone is helping her unwrap her gifts. Notice my Kentucky Horse Park t-shirt. I think that I might have worn this shirt to shreds. I LOVED horses and never understood why my parents would never let me get one. We had plenty of room in our backyard and we just needed to put up a fence. A horse could easily sleep in our garage. Anyway, I had to settle for My Little Ponies instead.

This picture is of Clay and his friend Joe. I am not sure who the kid in the middle is….the face paint is throwing me off. I am not sure what they were doing, but it had to be a party of some sort, because face paint only came out for special occasions. I am not sure why Clay looks so smug…….I am sure that he was planning something sinister. Check out those curls.....I think EC is going to have Uncle Clay's hair.

Ahhh….Symsonia homecoming in the “big gym”. Clay looks so cute in his tux. That is when we went all out for homecoming. I do believe that this year’s theme was “Up Where We Belong” and there were a lot of balloons involved. I don’t remember the girls name standing with Clay. Was it Courtney? Anyway, the other guy in the tux is Ryan Reid and I think that I babysat him a few times. The girl in the green dress is Kelly Allred Hiles and I was tee-totally-head-over-heals in love with her brother, Kevin. I am sure that Kelly’s mom probably made her dress……she was a great seamstress. I still have a teddy bear that Kevin’s mom made me in the 4th grade when we were “going out”.

I am tickled that Raye Ann posted these pictures……and I am glad that she doesn’t have any pictures of me in those ‘tween’ years when I permed my hair!

Good times, good times.