New Year's Resolutions

So I am making New Year's Resolutions, but since I am sooo generous and loving some of these Resolutions are for some of YOU!

1. I resolve to convince my friends Kristy and Polly and cousin Emily to start a blog. If you travel, have kids, are funny or I don't get to see you often, I expect you to start one this year. Afterall, I can't look at Facebook at work so I need something to occupy my lunch break.
I would have added one more friend, Melissa, but she already made one-yeah for her.

2. I resolve to NOT vacuum or sweep my kitchen floor every day, I think every other day will be just fine.

3. I resolve to not complain about my commute to work and daycare since I am the one who chose to move my child to a far away daycare.

4. I resolve to convince my brother in law to babysit for free at least twice a month for the next year and a half in exchange for room and board.

5. I resolve to convince Darrell that he is an excellent cook and that he should really share that gift by cooking for us once a week (aren't I generous?)

Any others I am missing?
How 'bout you?

Favorites from Christmas

Here is the obligatory Christmas post, but unfortunately I only took about 10 pictures.

Every Christmas someone has to get sick, it is a rule and this year was no different except that BOTH kids got sick.

Christmas Eve we made a trip to our regular doctor for Linley-I will not discuss this one any farther (it was a little disgusting even for me:) Oh, but I will say that it was quite humorous to try and collect urine from a 2 year old GIRL.
The Sunday after Christmas we visited the walk-in clinic for Jackson. Apparently everyone else was sick too since there was a line at the door before it even opened. Once again Jackson was breathing like Darth Vader and had low Blood Oxygen levels.

So we packed up both sick kids with a bag full of meds and instructions and shipped them to Memphis! Thanks Gee and Grandaddy-hope Granny camp this week is fun.
here are some pics from the week:

Linley checking out Santa's cookie plate

Getting ready to walk down to the lake bed

Darrell climbing up the icy boat ramp
Oh and Darrell called and left me a message wanting everyone to know that this is his every day hat that he loves and adores and he can make one for you too;)

After he sunk knee deep into the lake mud-ewww.

Country Top Ten

This past weekend one of my best friends, Amanda, invited us to the Cotton Gin in Somerville. This is the cotton gin that her loooonnnnnnng time boyfriend, Winn, partially owns. We loved the tour and since I love Top Ten Lists I will give mine for our little trip.

Top Ten(or 8) Reasons I Love Going to the Country and the Cotton Gin.

8. By the time you get there you have been in the car so long you must take a bathroom break except there are no places to stop.

7. When you do finally arrive at your destination you find a bathroom that has this on the back of the toilet:
6. We were the ONLY one that pulled up without a BAT (Big #@$ Truck)


5. Getting to play with unseeded cotton, which will also double as our next show and tell.

4. Seeing Darrell in a non business setting, loving all the details of cotton ginning(is it possible to make anything into a verb?) Win, what is the verb of cleaning cotton?

3. Freezing our butts off while looking at bales and bales of cotton and trying to not get knocked down by Juan driving the forklift thingy.

2. Being able to know exactly what every piece of machinery does, because they don't have sophisticated names:

And the Number One reason I loved the Sommerville, TN is because someday my friend will live there too.

The Coolest Neighbors

I have the coolest neighbor on one side of us. Ms. Rhonda invited my kids over to decorate cookies a week ago. She started off the afternoon with these adorable chef outfits.


She then put them to work decorating. I don't know why on earth it makes me crazy to let kids do this, but since it wasn't my house that had to be cleaned up afterward, I just shut my mouth and let the sprinkles flow.
...and flow they did. LInley had so many sprinkles that you couldn't even see the cookie when she was done.


I particularly love this picture, not so much because of what Jackson is rolling into a ball, but more because that same round shape is protruding from his left cheek:)




The final product was adorable and fun to eat and we loved our time with our very giving neighbor. Thanks Ms. Rhonda!

Holiday Cheer

A little holiday cheer from Linley!

Obsessed?

Any one else have kids who are obsessed with these?



...Cause I have two that are



I had never heard of these rubberband thingys until recently. The kids in the neighborhood and a coworker had told me about them, but I didn't give it much thought because Jackson didn't really care. Then, Jackson came home from school and in a very non chalant voice just told me that has been trading his 1 silly band for different ones everyday.

I asked him if he wanted more and he said yes.
Me: Then you should ask for Santa to bring them to you
Jackson: No, Santa can't make them, you have to buy them
Me: Then ask for mommy and daddy to get them for your christmas present
Jackson: (very frustrated) NO, I don't want to know what I am getting for Christmas
Me: Then are you going to pay for them
Jackson: Yes, I have money in my piggy bank

So I went yesterday and bought a pack of 24 and got them for free with a coupon I had.

Aren't I a great mom? I got my kids something cheap and fun and didn't even break the piggy bank:) I will be accepting mom of the year awards until the New Year;)

"Camping"

Jackson has been begging to go camping. So Darrell decided this past weekend was a perfect time for a trial run in the backyard, nevermind the fact that the low was in the 20's. I kept waking up all night expecting the two boys to come in to warm up, but they never did. Jackson had so much fun that he was ready to camp again the next night.


Luckily, Linley and I got to stay inside the warm house and sleep. She did get to help with the breakdown of the equipment.

Who Needs An Almanac

There is one thing that we can always count on; the fact that it will be FREEZING cold the day of the Candlelighting.

It obviously didn't stop the kids from having a good time in the daylight, but when the sun set they headed off to play in the car.

It was pretty as always:) (I am talking about the candles of course and not the flowers, because I had a minor meltdown when I picked them up and they put RED:((( flowers in the arrangement. I of course got over it after my mini tantrum. sigh.)

What Am I Doing Wrong Here?

I stuck Linley in the bath the other day and it was time to get out to eat dinner. She refused to get out so I gave her the 2 minute warning. When the time was up I started to drain the water and this happened:
A screaming mess. She laid in the bathtub until all the water was gone, refusing to leave. I finally went to get a towel to cover her and let her finish her tantrum. After a few minutes I decided it was time to document it. Darrell walked in as I was grabbing the camera, he heard the screaming and asked what I was doing. "Just taking a picture of our daughter, wet and naked, screaming in the bathtub."

I mean isn't that what everyone does after bathtime?

She finally stopped screaming long enough to see the picture I took of her.

Really? Anyone else have a spirited young daughter with advice? If I can teach her to channel that passion towards something productive we will be golden.

Love her even with that messy, swollen, red face:)

Top Ten

Here is my Thanksgiving Day Top Ten:

10. Kids old enough to play games without adult help.

9. Opening a Christmas present early, just because Aunt Cake wants to see how cute they are:)


She loved her shiny shoes!
8. A Family where the Men cook the turkey and the Uncle carves it! (on a side note: in a very unthanksgiving way, we all started to eat while Jim was still carving)


7. Pulling on the wishbone with my son all the while hoping that he got the bigger half-and he did!

6. Going to ANY restaurant that wraps up your leftovers like this:

5. Random nakedness from many little children. I especially loved it when they would escape from a grandparent only half dressed and run through the house.

4. Black Friday Shopping

3. Nieces and Nephews that I don't see near enough.

2. My children loving on their new cousin Mary Martin, pretty much constantly.


...AND THE NUMBER 1. THING I LOVED ABOUT THANKSGIVING

My Parents Being So Willing To Help Out More Than One Can Truly Imagine (really, think all the baths, clothing changes, bottles, nighttime wake ups, etc, etc, etc) so we could have

DATE NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blogger Mood

I am a woman and because of that I have the right to change my mood at a moments notice. Sometimes I can control it and sometimes I can't. Contain yourselves with that shocking bit of news. So lately I haven't been in a blogging mood. Maybe it's because I am not feeling witty or because we haven't done anything very fun or maybe b/c I believe that ALL blogs should have pictures and well, my camera sucks and it hasn't been out of my purse in quite sometime.

It would be funny to show you a picture of my cracked phone that went flying through the air when I was ripping my hand out of my pocket to wave to a neighbor (that's just how neighborly I am). It might also be funny to show you a picture of my phone floating in the bathtub(yes, they float) because it fell out of my pocket while I was giving Linley a bath, but no, I didn't take pictures of those. I did laugh at them and then nearly cry when I thought of the "I told you so's" that I was going to get.

So instead of something witty and funny we will think about our favorite side dishes at Thanksgiving: mine is crockpot dressing and Darrell's is a spicy cajun corn maque choux. Care to share?

I'll leave you with this and the hope that I will indeed photograph some major Family Funny this week.

Jackson's last soccer game ( I really can't believe how big he is or how old I am)


And 2 of LInley at her fall program.

Fear of the Unknown

Darrell and I hauled the kids to Memphis this weekend to celebrate Grandaddy's Birthday!
About 30 minutes from our exit it dawned on me: 'I forgot Linley's boopies (aka pacifier).'
We have had good intentions on taking aways those horrible things, but we have been to chicken to do it. Ever since Linley's first birthday we have wanted to give them the heave ho, but both of us were afraid of the weeks of nighttime crying and getting out of bed again so we have conveniently put off that horrible task.

So I had a decision to make: go buy one or just deal with it while I had grandparent backup. So we dealt with it and it was a piece of cake. What were we so afraid of again? Why did we not remember that our daughter loves sleep more than anything besides food? Really, she cried for about 1 minute and it was pretty much over.

We proceeded to have fun the rest of the weekend. Here was the super fun Memphis Botanical Gardens:

Jackson and I built this fort and chair. He thought the chair looked like a toilet and hence there is a funny face on him:)


The spider web:



An attempt to get a cute picture for all of the free photo card, ornament and photo calendar deals here, here and here. That obviously didn't turn out like I had hoped.


But aren't they just adorable anyway?

And these two: Words just can't express...