About Last Weekend

Jordan and I had decided that we would like to have some neighborhood friends over one last time before football season begins and we all become football widows.  Little did I know that football season started this weekend, so we had to make it last weekend.  We are so blessed to have so many of our friends from church right in our own neighborhood and just one neighborhood away. 

I keep thinking, I wish we had a bigger house, or I wish I had a dining room with a table so that we could fit more people.  But, we don't and I'm happy with what we have.  We are so blessed with sweet friendships and a beautiful home that is just right for our season of life. 

I decided to make slow cooker boston butt since we don't have a grill - that's a long story too.  Maybe we'll have one by next summer and we can have people over for actual BBQs!  I put a HUGE boston butt in the crockpot on Friday morning and let it cook all day long.  I put salt, pepper, water, and just a little BBQ sauce so I wouldn't overwhelm the meat flavor.  I think it turned out great.

I tried to clean all Friday, but as my post from a while back showed, I got little done with Matthew hanging around the house!  My sweet, sweet husband packed up the boys and took of on Saturday morning to let me have a good shot at cleaning without interruption!

Even though Alabama football didn't start for a week, both my boys were ready!  They've both got their Roll Tide gear on!

 

 I made my BBQ the day before so I would have a lot less to do the day of.  It worked out great.  I shredded it really well and rehydrated it with some beef bouillion and BBQ sauce.  I then put it in pans and heated it in oven until we were ready to eat.  I made BBQ beans and we had fruit, potato salad, and macaroni salad and tons of soft drinks, lemonade, and lemon water (a personal favorite!)

Does it look like we had enough?!  Everyone brought something yummy and we ended up with THREE chocolate desserts!

 All of our neighbors have boys and so it's so fun when they all get together and play!  The bigger kids ate at the picnic table.

 Bless sweet Kaitlyn's heart, she's the only girl out of 8 boys! 

 The dads all played football with the little guys.  They had a really good time!

 And the little ones....

 scooted and cruised around the grass.

JM was ready to catch the football!

 We had such a fun time eating, visiting, and talking with everyone.  It was kind of sad to say good-bye to summer, but now we're saying hello to fall with all of its glorious drops in temperature! 

It was so nice to have friends over and I'm looking forward to doing it more often with more people.  There's something nice about filling your house with great food, friends, and conversation!

Verse O' the Day:

Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.

Joshua 1:9

A-A-Apple & C-C-Consign

Last night I hit up our local Rhea Lana consignment event.  And "event" is the term for it.  It keeps getting bigger every year and I LOVE it!  I have no problems buying nice, barely worn clothes for my children.  I got a few things with tags on them and that made me happy.  It took me a long time and I really had to get my game plan together and dig, dig, dig, but I was happy with what I came out of there with!  I could have stayed longer, I'm sure!

Most of the longalls that I got are reversible!

Some of my favorites are all the dressy longalls that I got for Matthew.  I'm hoping he will be this size throughout the winter.  I planned this so that perhaps with some of the shopping we've already done, we won't have to buy any clothes for the boys until Spring.  Oh yeah, except shoes and some shirts.  That is my goal and I'm going to try to stick to it! Luckily, because Matthew is so big, he will be wearing John Michael's clothes from last fall.  He got his own clothes last night too, but I will definitely be supplementing his wardrobe with what JM wore last fall!  I got some really great things last night!  JM got his first rain coat and some winter coats too.

Since it was rainy today and we stayed in to let Matthew have a really good morning nap, I decided it would be a great morning to start my new "mom curriculum"!  I'm just going to start with the letter "A" and go from there!  We worked on painting an A and John Michael pretty much pitched a fit over some of it.  I helped him and we got it done.  We've had a fun day of block building, books, playing with dump trucks in a pan of rice, and play-doh. 

 

After lunch we used sesamestreet.org to learn about things that start with A, but not before we watched the "C is for Cookie" song.  I have to admit, it's so cute and catchy!

Of course we learned about apples, alligators, and other A words.  I like how he picked up his letter A and held it while we watched and talked about some of the videos.  We also played a few of the games, which I think is great for helping him use the mouse and use his pointer finger.

Matthew liked it a lot too!  He wanted to be in on the action so he sat in his high chair and watched and laughed and laughed!

That's a pretty big smile!

Our kids are learning things so differently than we did growing up.  They're so used to the laptop and computers!  I'm sure it's going to be a different world they grow up in.  What a fun day!

Friday Night Fun at the Fair!

A few Fridays ago we decided to go to our local County Fair.  I haven't been to many so I was really excited to go and take the boys to their first fair!  Also, Gaga and Gamps (which JM had taken to calling him Bump, and now it's officially Bop) were in town so we all went and had a really good time! 

We ate dinner there and had lemonade too.  We saw all kinds of livestock.  Unfortunately, my camera decided not to work when we first got there so I don't have pictures of that!  Don't even get me started on my camera, it's a mess right now!

Jordan rode the carousel with John Michael.  He had his pick of this or the ponies and he chose the carousel!  Let me just say that it was SO expensive.  We could have gone to Branson for what we paid that night.  Ugh.

Matthew patiently waited while JM rode the carousel.  He got some extra special attention from Gaga and Bop too!

All 4 of us, sweating like there was no tomorrow!  Even though it was way hot, there was a really nice breeze so it felt nice the whole time we were there!

Now, what we did next was way fun and exciting!  John Michael was tall enough to ride his very first real roller coaster.  I'm usually against these things because they look like they could collapse at any minute, but he pointed it out and it's the one he wanted!

So I rode with him and I tucked him in nice and tight beside me.  It was really fun and we went around quite a few times.  He kept saying "weeeee" because all the people around us were yelling "weee!"  He had a really good time on that roller coaster and it's something I won't ever forget.  I was so glad I was able to ride with him for his very first big boy roller coaster ride!  We would have let him ride it again, but we wanted to have some money when we left, so we didn't ride anymore!

Sweet Matthew riding in the wagon!

We saw some live music too.

It was so hot and the boys drank a lot of water while we were there!

I

We were so excited when the John Deere man told us John Michael could sit on the tractors.  He loves tractors and diggers and anything farm-related!  He was so excited!

Biiiiig tractor!  E I E I O!

He could have driven that tractor all night!

And Matthew got to drive a little tractor too!

 

We had a really good time.  We spent too much money, it was way hot, and it kind of smelled bad at times but it was really a fun memory to make with our family.  Plus, we were glad Gaga and Bop got to come and make some memories with the boys too!  I'm sure we'll go back next year!

Verse O' the Day:

The LORD of hosts has sworn: “As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.”

Isaiah 14:24

 

Mother's Day Out - So I Don't Forget!

I'm so tired but I really need to make sure I make this post tonight so I won't forget all the little things from John Michael's first day of "school"!  He's going to be going to his very first Mother's Day out on Fridays, and it's our first time to be separated for any length of time. I'm a little sad about it because it just means that time is flying on by and he's just not so little anymore.  Sadness...

Jordan went to work a little late this morning so we could go as a family and drop JM off.

It made me feel so much better because he was so excited to go to "chuch" to go to school. 

For once in our lives we were EARLY!  I couldn't believe we got there before the doors opened.  This will not happen again; mark my words.

Oh my, this picture is just bad in so many ways, but the main way that screams out to me is "honey, those bags and dark circles under your eyes aren't going away anytime soon."  It's no surprise I don't get a lot of sleep these days!  Anyway, John Michael ran right into his room and started playing with the cars.  He said "bye, Nana!" and so I said Bye! and off I went!

Sooo....while brother's away, Matthew will play!  After we dropped JM off Matthew and I headed home for some breakfast and tea.  My big hope was that I was going to put Matthew down for a long morning nap and I was going to clean, clean and clean some more.  Basically, that didn't happen.

Matthew played pretty hard and made a general mess of things....

He spilled a TON of water out of Jack's bowl.  That took two towels to clean up!

He creates general mayhem wherever he goes.  He's awesome!

"Who, me?!"

John Michael did great today!  I wanted to make sure I wrote down the things he told us because I know that tomorrow I won't remember:

-We asked him all about his day and even though he can't really tell me tons of details in sentences, he did tell me he went "night night".  He also kept saying "shhhh" after he said that and I finally figured out that the teachers were probably telling them to shhhhh at naptime!  Tonight, he kept getting on the floor and laying down and saying, night, night...shhhhh!

-He told me "eat" and that he had ketchup; which he did!

-We asked him what friends were there and of course, he said Sarah Kate.  I was so glad to see her in his room this morning.  He also kept saying "night night Sarah Kate!"

-JM also told us he played today!

-They said he ate great and he also colored a picture that they sent home with him.  He is becoming a little artist lately!

I think in this picture below he's thinking about his day at school!

I'm so glad he did well, it's a load off my shoulders.  I'm going to have to come up with another way to get my house clean, but I'm just thinking it's not really going to happen on Fridays with Matthew around.

Slide, Slide, Slide!

All summer long John Michael has been pointing to the slide at our pool.  I usually have my hands too full to let him go down AND go catch him so I never have let him try.  Well, this time around we had back-up...grandparents!  Gamps held Matthew and Gaga took pictures so that Jordan and I could help him with the slide.   He loved it!

We had to wait for the bigger kids to clear out, but he was oh-so excited to try!

A lot of anticipation going up the slide for his big shot!

Jordan helped him up the slide and I caught him!

The look on his face was so funny as he came flying down the slide.  Just in the last few weeks he's gotten a lot more adventurous as far as trying new things and not being afraid.  He's growing up so fast!

A big family hug of congratulations (minus Matthew!) and to comfort him just a little bit too!

Matthew looks very uncertain of all of this!

A few times he would cry when we got to the top of the stairs, but he loved it when he went down!

This picture says it all:  He had a blast!  It's so fun watching him explore and learn new things!