Hello cutie!

Sweet, sweet baby.

Pumpkin Time 2008

Time to carve a pumpkin for our front porch for Halloween. Usually, we would have done this two weeks ago. This year I'm a little slow. Colby and Big John did a really, really great job with it! I love it!

Buddy (aka nasty dog) spent the entire time trying to sneak in and eat pieces of the pumpkin.
He doesn't even like pumpkin. Doesn't matter when you're a nasty dog.
This is the face Colby drew out that she wanted on her pumpkin. Then she apparently felt the need to demonstrate.

And the final result. It looks really great! We're too busy tonight, but tomorrow night we'll light it up
and take some pictures of it! I love it!

Yep, that's scary. Very scary. Who's kid is that anyway? Auntie K's?

Fire Chief Christian

His school had a little fire-man thing. Not real sure what the babies did during it. I'm pretty sure Christian just rolled on the floor like a beached whale and leaving a pile of drool where ever he rolled. But the picutres are cute. lol.

I french braided!!!

I have always wanted to be able to do this! I just sat her down and did what I thought might work - and it did!
It actually looked really great! Woooooo Hooooo!

By all means, make yourself comfortable.

Are you comfortable?

No?

Well, please, stretch out on the couch that's made for people.

Where ever makes you the most comfortable.

No, no problem at all.

By all means, make yourself comfortable.

Don't even ask.

All I can say is, free. I don't think they'll be here long. . . yep. There are two of them.
I'm pretty sure they're not as fun as she thinks they are. . . but I want her to have the opportunity to find that out for herself.
So she is.
Yep.
Ok.

McKinley is gone. Forever.

We are taking the large animal trap back today. Caught nothing. Correction - caught nothing stupid enough to stay in the crate. Caught something big, tore up inside of crate getting out. There hasn't been a sign of her for several days now. I was so stressed about it, that a few days ago, I just let it go. I hope someone finds her and feeds her. I hope she is ok. If she's not hungry or hurt, then I'm sure she's probably happy just roaming. She doesn't like people anyway. I miss her. I really tried to help her.

Surprise! You're going on a Disney Cruise!

Mom and Dad called Colby on Skype the night before the cruise. She didn't know anything about it. When they told her, I think she was a little bit in shock. She was very quiet, until a couple of hours later when it sunk in.

"I'm going to scream so loud inside my head! I'm not going to scream out loud, because the baby". lol.

Dad came and got her from the Nashville Airport and took her to Atlanta where they picked up Mimi and went to Florida.

She was so excited every time I spoke to her on the phone.



Five days later, I picked her up from Papa at the airport again. The stories haven't stopped coming. At least three times now, she's started crying saying that she just wants to be back on the cruise with Mimi and Papa. I've tried not to laugh to much. I told her that every vacation she'll ever go on, when she gets home, she'll wish she were still there. lol.

What an amazing gift they gave my kid. Memories with them that she'll have forever.

Little Man

Right now he's little. Very little.
I know one day he'll be big. Very big.
I like him being little.

I can not believe we're doing this.

This is insanity. We can't catch our rescue dog, Mckinley. We see her every day up in a field next to our house. It's about 70 acres with patches of thick woods. I just found out today, from the land owners, that there is a large pack of coyote living on the land, too. Great. So I've spent the last 5 days calling rescues, humane societies and animal control offices all around Tennessee looking for a live trap. Several very nice people, with years and years of rescue experience wrote to me and called me with advice. Turns out that no one's had very much luck with these things, and I should just shoot her with a tranquilizer gun. I'm pretty sure that's the point when I realized that this was out of control. lol. I've never trapped anything in my life. . . what the heck are we going to do if we catch a coyote? Don't they all have rabies as a general rule!? lol. Well, I just don't know what else to do - and all my friends already loaned their tranquilizer guns out for the week. lol. Wish us luck. We'll keep you posted - as this will probably get good.

Station Camp Elementary Carnival

Well, having kids means you do a lot of crap that you don't really want to. lol. Take this little carnival, for instance. Boring! But she loved it. . . as you can see. She got her hair painted red and green, ate lots of cotton candy, and rode some kind of ride where you sit in a sphere and go upside down several times. I can't believe she didn't puke. She looked a kind of greenish color when the ride stopped, and wobbled a bit walking away. Then she said she felt sick, and I could see sweat forming on her face. I sat her down and in a few, she was fine. Must have been the ice cream Big John got her. lol.

I lost her!!

I let her get out of our fence. She's too afraid of people to come to them. We're looking for a huge trap to trap her in. Called several rescue agencies and left messages. Called several humane societies and left message. We'll probable find one and trap a freaking coyote.

Rainforest, here we come!

It's time for the highchair purchase. After lots of research - which one's recline, lower, you can take the tray off with one hand, baby can't take the tray off by themselves, straps come off to be washed, removable inner tray, ect.. . . . .

We ended up with the one I liked a lot anyway. He looks so small in it right now. He's so cute!

Colby's first tooth

This is a picture of Colby's tooth. The first one she's ever lost. Wow. That little guy had been hanging on by just a little string since last night. She didn't want anyone to pull it or touch it. Of course. Then I made up this story about Auntie K calling me and telling me that she used to tie a string around her loose teeth and just pull the string a little bit at a time until it came out. Colby thinks Auntie K's cool - so after dinner she decided to do what K did. We all sat in the floor of my bedroom and John tied a little string around that loose tooth. She pulled very gently for a minute and then decided that she just wanted the string off. Plan enters my head. I tell her I'm going to get the string off of her tooth. While I'm trying - I pulled. There it came. She thinks it just fell out when I was getting the string off. Cool. Never seen her so excited.

She said I could take a picture and then she started naming off all of the people I could show it to. Mimi and Papa, Lala and Auntie K, Big John and Ms. Susanne. Ok. lol.

There's the little floss string used to pull her first tooth.

Of course she had to immediately get on the phone and tell everyone!

I took her up to bed. I was asking her something about school when she said, "I don't know. I can't remember anything about what happened today. You know why? Because of this baby right here"! She was pointing with her thumbs to her tooth. lol. lol. lol.

Then she tells me that she wants me to do the same thing to her 3 other loose teeth. I told her that I didn't want to do it. She put her hand on my face and said so sincerely - "why? It's part of growing up". WHAT THE HECK?! SHE'S SIX - NOT 36!!!! lol.

Now I've just got to find out what the going rate for a tooth is these days. When I was little - it was a solid 50 cents. lol.

Just for Lala

Taco Bells drive through

"I'd like a large diet Pepsi, please"

"I already have a large regular Pepsi made up. Do you want it"?

"Uh, no".

and then

"I'd like a number 3"

"unless you already have a number 9 made up".

A gift from Auntie K

How cute is this bib? We love it! It was really so thoughtful of her. My kids are so lucky to have my sisters!!

Big Bella and Big John

We love our Bella Boo! She's such a good girl. Goes to the door when she has to go to the bathroom. Amazing since we heard she has been an out-door dog her whole life. She moves slowly most of the time. . . practices the common pyrenees trait of selective deafness . . . and slobbers when she eats. It's a lot like John. lol. So we let her move at her own pace, go up to her when we really want her to do something, and feed her outside. lol. With all the love she gets here, she's retired in style! I'm so glad that we have her! She's protective of our home, but doesn't get upset if people come near us or the baby. . . . just gets protective when in the yard. She's a show stopper anytime we take her anywhere. She lets anyone pet her and love on her. . . especially little kids. She's just a sweet, sweet girl.

Mimi and Papa visit!

Mimi and Papa brought Colby back to Nashville from Atlanta this weekend. Colby loves it when they do that! Could be partly because Mimi has told her that whenever they get to pick her up from her dad's - they will bring her a bag of goodies and take her to the outlet mall that's on the way up to Nashville. Uh. . . why did that never happen when I was Colby's age? Mom was never taking me to the outlet mall just for the heck of it. lol. Colby loves them so much, and it makes me so, so, so, so happy.

While she was here, Mom managed to do an entire house clean for us. Washed ALL of our clothes, all of our dishes, swept all of our floors, moped our floor WITH HER FEET AND A WET TOWEL!!!! lol. When she left, John and I looked around and John asked me how mom could get all of that done in 4 hours and we couldn't get it all done in 3 weeks?! Tried to post a photo of how shiny our floors are now. lol.