Busy would be an understatement

Beauty in the Common Things: rain. Some began developing in our area and then it made a complete circle around our neighborhood, literally. No rain. 106 degrees. Relief...please!

Listen In: Minute to Win It. I'd like to try these games they play on here. However I wouldn't do them in low cut shirts like these women on here. Goodness...

Dinner Plans: I'm trying to wait until the weekend to grocery shop, so we are pulling out all the freezer favorites like chicken nuggets!

View from the Kitchen Window: No rain. Looks like rain, but again...you guessed it....no rain.

August is almost over and has gone by very fast. Like the previous post says, Daniel was gone for a week. As soon as he gets back, we completed Grant's new room transformation. New paint, new carpet, and a new bunk bed that took forever to put together. However, the results were great for Grant's new 'cowboy' room!

He was SO excited!

I modified the valances that came with the comforters, refurbished the end table, and repurposed some decorations and organizers. The bed has built in drawers so we didn't have to purchase separate storage.

A week later, my family and friends gathered to celebrate my Masters degree graduation. All the events were supposed to be a surprise...but...a glance of a text and too many clues later, I figured some of it out. Either way I was appreciative of everyone's efforts and excited to celebrate. I also give Daniel props for planning this event on the ONE day in August that wasn't over 100 degrees.

We ate dinner and enjoyed some custom cookies Daniel had made.

From there, we went to one of those go-cart/arcade/mini golf entertainment places. Grant and Corbin LOVED mini golf, the 3 year old version. In this version, you grab any ball you see and throw it and try to make it into the hole. You do this as fast as you can by any means necessary. That even includes stealing stranger's balls as they about to make their shot!
Grant and Corbin also enjoyed air hockey and the other arcade games. Corbin won the jackpot (over 1100 tickets) on one game. I hit 900 on another. We were able to get the most JUNK out of everyone because of our winnings.

That next week we started back to school. Meeting after meeting, then here comes the kids the next Monday. We are on day 4 of the first week of school and I forget how exhausting it can be. Our feet hurt, our heads hurt, and we are living off take out and items from the back of the freezer. We are ready for the weekend!

Rodeo Time!

It was "Rodeo Day" at Grant's school and he had been looking forward to it all week. Of course the day of the rodeo, he woke up with the highest fever he had ever had, 103, and a cough. I was pretty sure it was allergies. Daniel and I had been battling it all week.

Anywho, by 10am Grant was back to his normal self with no coughing. I decided to take him on for the actual rodeo. I mean, does he look sick to you??

Thanks to Amber for the adorble Levi Jeans and to Uncle Artie for the fun cowboy hat!


It was a little too big at times...it kept falling down on his head.


But that didn't keep him from winning the 'bucking bronco' contest!

Post Break-Looking for more breaks

Beauty in the Common Things: Wind. It seems to go unnoticed most of the time until there is too much of it or you are in need of it. I once met a woman who told me she tried to teach her grandson to 'take in' everything from the world around him. Including 'feeling' the wind. On pretty days, I try to do the same. Then when we got to working hard raking all our leaves this morning, I was looking for it!

Dinner Plans: The local elementary school had a spaghetti dinner fundraiser. I knew what I was going to eat tonight almost a month in advance. Thats my kind of dinner planning!

Listen In: Clothes washer and dish washer running. I'm behind on housework.

View from the Kitchen Window: Less leaves! 6 truckbed loads of leaves have been banished from our yard after 5 hours of work, 2 blisters, and 2 nasal cavities of pollen.

Sunday evening was the first time all Spring Break that we had with just the 3 of us. With that, we took Grant to the local park to feed the ducks. It was a pretty evening and we just happened to have some 'butts of bread'.

It was a long week after Spring Break...a very busy one. We had something do about every night until about 9pm it seemed. Grant had 50s day at school earlier this week. Of course, I was excited for him to dress the part:

This picture took forever to take. He cried about me putting gel in his hair to slick it back (which it didn't do much slicking at all!) and then he insisted on sliding on his playset after running around the yard like the toddler he is. I finally forced him to stand there and I told him he BETTER smile for me. Phew, he listened to me and it turned out so cute! On that same subject, I told him earlier today, "You should always listen to Mommy." He replied, "No, thats dangerous!" He's been saying that to several things lately for some reason, but that one really made my giggle. Even though it is very wrong!

Notice Grant has colorful handful of snakes. He's been getting them (as well as Matchbox cars and DumDums) out of his grab jar for doing good on potty training. We've been doing this for about a month or so. We are S-L-O-W-L-Y progressing, however I know he'll have it down by the end of summer!
Don't expect much from this blog for a while, we have from now until mid-May full. I'll just cross my fingers now for some down time. For some good news, tomorrow I finish my last class before my masters internship and then you can call me 'the cool chick with the masters degree'. Awesome!

All You Need Is Love

Beauty in the Common Things: Time. I have none as of late. I am behind at home, at school, and I feel behind in sleep. Daniel has been a great help with easing some of it though :)

Dinner Plans: breakfast for dinner

View From the Kitchen Window: He's not out there now, but the other morning I had fun watching a woodpecker go after our telephone pole. I just kept wondering how that doesn't hurt him! I want to get a big birdhouse this spring like my grandmother had. I remember finding eggs underneath it one time and taking the eggs home. I tried to hatch them by putting them in a left-over Jack In the Box egg roll container and having Smurfette sit on it. I now find it odd no one mentioned how Smurfette just doesn't have that kind of heating capacity.

Listen In: Go, Diego, Go!

Last week I spent 4 days in Austin at the Texas Computer Educators Association Convention. This was my first year to attend. I was excited to go, but nervous about leaving my boys.

I'm glad I went because I had a great time. I learned some things, had a few laughs, and met a new man:
Ok, its just a dude in a robot costume, but I thought it was funny! I got to room with one of my best friends, saw my brother and his family, got a bunch of free junk, and won a $3500 piece of educational hardware. Good week all in all.

When I got back, I came home to a house full of Valentines Day surprises from Daniel. I also saw he and my son made it just fine without me. :) But then again, I already knew that. Skype was our friend!

Speaking of Valentines Day, I spent the evening with my 2 Valentines. Below is the picture I sent to family for this holiday. Red hair and dimples? Seriously...cupid who?

Cowboys, Clownfish, & Christmas

Beauty in the Common Things: My husband taking on some extra 'chores'. Due to my recent injury...see below...Daniel has to do all the dishes, which he hates. So shout out to him, thanks!

Listen In: Watching "The Office" from Thursday for the second time. So good. "She's one sassy black lady!" Buhahahha!

View from the Kitchen Window: Christmas lights twinkling. I heart the holidays.

Dinner Plans: left overs from lunch with friends. Good times!

Fletcher came in a for a weekend visit (anticipation of this can be seen in the previous post). We visited the Dallas Children's Aquarium which recently got a makeover. It is small, but interesting.

They have a covered outdoor area where you can pet small sting-rays.

Awesome eel.

The stingrays were quite hungry.

Watching the anticpation of the stingrays was the best.

The lady in the background fed the sharks and stingrays while we watched. I decided it'd be a great job for Daniel. Fletcher and I liked it, too.

Fletcher loved this sea turtle. You can't see it, but it was handicapped. So sad!

Two cousins who had a good day!

The week before Thanksgiving, the stomach virus hit our house. It was a busy week that did not have a slot for the virus!

That Thursday, Daniel and I were to take my Sports and Entertainment Marketing class on a field trip to Cowboys Stadium for a tour. It had been in the works for months and I had 20 kids counting on going...Daniel and I could NOT get the virus! We had a great day with my students. All were well behaved and enjoyed the tour. Thursday evening is when Daniel got the virus. We were supposed to go on vacation that weekend, but we canceled in anticipation of the virus finally getting to me. I ended up being safe and we went on with our Thanksgiving plans as usual. We went to visit Daniel's family and had a good few days.

"Jerry's World"

Each student got a picture of themselves on the prestegious blue star. The photographer figured out that Daniel and I were married and made us pose like this. It was kind of embarassing to do in front of my students. Daniel is a huge Cowboys fan. I even looked into getting married at Texas Stadium when we looked into wedding venues. Yea, it was way too expensive and I'm not sure I would have anyway. All bathrooms in that place were scary!

View of the Ballpark in Arlington, home of the Texas Rangers. A possible field trip location for next semester? If I get brave enough again!

After tour, we took them to CiCi's Pizza. Some student told me the food was the best part of the field trip. Well, I was glad to spend 3 months planning this trip just so you could enjoy some pizza!! Anywho, most of the students were male...so guess what they did after eating.

You can tell Daniel was ready to go. So bored, he tried to ride the 'quarter' horse.

Back to school we went and prepared for a long week ahead of us. D and I sponsor a club at our high school called Interact which is a community service club affiliated with Rotary. Our fundraiser this year was "Breakfast with Santa". All week we prepared for the Saturday morning event. More members came to help out than expected, even parents showed up lend a hand (which is actually rare).

To advertise the event, we collaborated with FFA for float in our town's annual Christmas Parade of Lights.

Here is Corbin and Grant waiting for the parade to start. Haven't I seen this before???

Our float wasn't as decorated as some in the parade, but we got our point across. We handed out invitations and candy to the children for "Breakfast with Santa".

Here is Amber and I with our little ones. We kept them bundled during the parade as they yelled "Merry Christmas!" Grant enjoyed it so much. He didn't care about his hands freezing!

Halloween Weekend

Beauty in the Common Things: A good doctor. As a kid, I had to wait almost an hour just to get to the little room, then wait again to see the doctor. Now I get in the doctor, have time to flip through the front part of a People magazine and I'm in! Then I sit in a comfy room and see the doctor pretty quickly.

Listen In: My boys are playing hide and seek this early Saturday morning.

View from Kitchen Window: We are finally getting our new fence today. Looking forward to getting that done.

Last weekend we went back to our old stomping ground for SFA's homecoming. First stop was the big bonfire.

The next morning, we met friends for the annual homecoming parade. This is the first one I've actually been a spectator at. I've been in a few back in the day, but it was fun to watch and see Grant enjoy it. Here is the Yellow House's (the Church of Christ Student Union where Daniel and I met) float. The theme was "Lights, Camera, Axe'Em!", a Hollywood theme. The float is along the lines of Jurassic Park.

Here is Grant's favorite part, the Lumberjack band.

Daniel's sister, Erica, is now a freshman at SFA. She met us at the parade.

That afternoon, Grant and I had a great nap while Daniel and his Dad, and sister Erica went to the football game. We saw many friends that we miss and their kiddos. That night Erica showed me her dorm, where is actually where I lived, and is actually named after a relative of mine. This sign was on the wall of the dorm, and I thought it was pretty appropriate!

I learned many lessons while in college, some good, some not so good, and some just plain stupid, but I bet I'm not alone. In the end, I got my degree hanging on my wall, met life long friends, and met the man God made for me. Ok, enough of the reflecting...lets get back to the subject!

That evening we went to one of my favorite restaurants, one that I crave quite often, Szechuans Chinese Restaurant. Thanks to my in-laws for going with us, even though they aren't big Chinese food fans. In college, my friend Matt and I used to hit this place up about once a week and definatley before going to look at Christmas lights (an annual event for us). In this picture, Daniel is eating what the call the PooPoo Platter. Its basically some meat items with fire in the middle. Fun to say and fun to eat!

My sister went to SFA as well and we have mutual friends at the Yellow House. We were able to spend some time with them as well. Here is Vivian and Daniel hanging out. I love how they both have a little smirk on their face.

Speaking of Vivian, my mom sent me these pictures of her and Grant playing one day. Aren't these the sweetest. I'm confident that Grant will be a great big brother one day.


Ok, back to the weekend, we left SFA early to be back for Halloween festivities. First stop, Trunk or Treat. Mimi went with us while we left the men at home to watch the World Series. Grant wanted to wear his rooster costume, but it was covered in pizza sauce from children's day out. I found a train whistle for him to use with this conductor costume, so he then got easily excited to wear that.

We ran into Christine and Eric while we were there. Their little monkey kept trying to eat the Play-Do.

From there, we headed to another church's festival. Here is Grant checking out his finds.

Oh, those dimples!
The church had many games for the kids to play.

We were glad to see Corbin who invited us to come. They are so cute together!

Grant patiently waited for his turn to ride the horses. He kept turning around to me and saying, "It's my turn, Mommy."


Grant finally got his turn and he seemed like a natural. Of course, I had to pull him off as he was screaming for more.

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend. Nothing better than friends, family, and candy!!!

Fall on the Horizon, Bye Bye September

Beauty in the Common Things: Seeing family. Went to my first family reunion today on my Dad's father's side. It was nice to finally put faces with names that I've heard for 20 some odd years. Wish I could have had more time to get to know them.

Listen In: Grant reading to his giraffe and elephant. Grant and I read his favorite books every night now before bed time, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and "ABC with Dr. Suess". Cloudy was one of my personal favorites that I bought for his first Christmas, so I'm excited he's taking a liking to it. The ABC one (which we somehow have 3 copies of!), we both have basically memorized by now, so that's what he's reading to them. Smarty pants!

View from Kitchen Window: A dogless backyard. Honey and Rowdy have escaped for the last time...they are camping out at MiMi and PawPaw's until we get a new fence. It is frustrating all the way around!

September seemed to go by so fast. Daniel and I have been busy with school, getting the Interact club back in full swing, getting Grant back into children's day out, and just life in general. Right now, there is no free weekend for quite awhile! I guess I should have plenty to blog about!

Of course, the weather has began to get cooler and therefore nicer, so we've been spending more time outside. Grant got a sandbox for his birthday in April, but we finally got to fill it and and let him have at it. I think there are almost as many toys as there is sand in the box, but thats ok!

I'm continuing to work on my masters and will finish in 8 months! I now have a few friends that are in the same program, so we've been working hard together. I was cracking up at Christine and I in these heaphone/mics that I borrowed from school for a project. "Welcome to Wendy's, can I take your order?"

One Saturday morning, we made an impromtu visit to the Dallas Zoo. We recently became members, so its all free to us....this is a good thing since it poured down rain once we came into Dallas County! We decided to get some ponchos and brave it anyway.

This is Dallas Zoo's new exhibit that I had yet to see.
Some of the animals were hiding from the rain, but not the lions. We walked up to the glass and there was about 5 of them hanging around. I noticed a small lion looking like he was ready to pounce, and he was glaring at my son. I punched my husband and told him to take a look, and as soon as I did, that lion took off running toward Grant. Now of course we are on the other side of this thick glass, but I grabbed Grant up and Daniel stepped in front of us. Gran just laughed. This lion turned fast and then began trying to dig to get to Grant. The large female lion slapped this one on the behind to make him stop, there was roaring back and forth. Grant was just laughing. Then this lion, as you can see by the picture, began pawing at Grant on the glass. At that point, I thought, "OH! Good, this thing is just playing, not trying to eat my son. Phew!" The zoo keeper was standing there and said the lion was 2 years old...haha just like Grant (but much bigger!)


The male lion of the pride just enjoyed the rain, I guess. I thought this was a cool shot.

Like I said earlier, we got some ponchos with our gift shop discount and I laughed most of the time at Grant with that poncho on. It was way too big and to me he looked like E.T. in the scene where he is dressed as a ghost for Halloween.
The rain wasn't letting up, so we decided to go eat lunch somewhere and head home. But of course we had to hit the merry-go-round first! Check out those dimples on Grant and the chest on the gorilla (haha!)

Oh no, someone caught me making that same face my mother does! EEK! Grant didn't want me holding him....

Another afternoon, we took a visit to my friend Vanessa's house. She has several horses and let Grant 'play' with them. He loved sitting on Faux Pas. She's about 8 times older than Grant!

He also got to brush Penny and make her coat shiny! Thanks Vanessa for letting us come over! We'll have to do it again soon!