Wednesday, September 30, 2009

USS Alabama

This past weekend we took Ryleigh and Tanner to the Battleship. It's something we've always wanted to take them to do but something we didn't want to fork over $50 bucks for. September 26th was National Museum Day so if you printed a coupon offline then you could go for free. I was a little worried it would be packed but luckily not many people got the memo on it being free!

They enjoyed it but not as much as I thought they would. I think because they were tired and it was so hot! Tanner loved the airplanes though so going just so he could see those was worth it.


Ryleigh looks very happy to be there in this picture. Gill's brother Michael met us over there with his little boy Austin who is 5. Ryleigh loves Austin! Also take note at how short Tanner's shorts are on him. Ryan packed their bag for moms Friday night and then mom dressed him. Could neither of them tell that these shorts where too short...I looked at the tag later and they were 12 months! That goes to show how tall and skinny he is.




Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Weekend Rewind


We had a pretty busy weekend this past weekend. Friday night I had a junior high girls slumber party. 25 jr high girls in a room together for 12 hours=DRAMA! Seriously though they did much better than I thought they would and we really did have a lot of fun. I'll have to get the pictures from Lindsay and put them on here because some of them were hilarious! They made outfits out of aluminum foil and the most creative won. I think we may have some future fashion designers. I wonder if they'll give me a cut of their fortune when they do become one since I'm the one who inspired their first design...or maybe not.

Ryleigh and Tanner stayed with mom on Friday night because she hasn't seen them a lot lately and she wanted them to. So that freed Ryan up to go on a man date with Gill. They went to the Bass Pro shop and ate dinner there...I know how romantic!

Saturday we went to the Battleship I have a separate post and pictures for that. Saturday afternoon we went to our friends Sarah and Chris's house to watch the Alabama game. I like watching games over there because they have a 2 year old and the 3 of them just play and destroy Sarah's house and then afterwards we clean it all up. I was so tired by then. The girls didn't go to bed until 4 am on Saturday morning and I was back up at 7 when the first of them started to leave. I fell asleep on Sarah's couch during halftime. Alabama won 35-7! RollTide!

After the game we were on our way home when Gill called and wanted us to go to the lawnmower races. I was exhausted so I told Ryan if they wanted to go thats fine but take me home first. He said "Are you sure? It'll be fun." I said "Yes, I'm sure." "Ok Well you'll be missing out!"...Note to Ryan: The lawnmower races are not fun, not even a little, the idea of going home and watching a movie by myself in the peace and quiet sounds like fun. So believe me I'm not missing out! : )

We hope everyone else had a great weekend!!

Friday, September 25, 2009

63.

That’s how old my dad would be today. Man how time flies. It seems like just yesterday he was here but then it also seems like a lifetime ago he was here. I know that doesn’t make any sense but I guess since my dad left this world at a major transitioning part of my life it then makes it seem like two separate lives.

He passed away not to long after I had gotten married and exactly the day after I found out I was pregnant with Ryeligh. Oh what I would give to have him back. For him to see Ryleigh and Tanner; to let him see their faces and hear their laughs; to let him see how much Tanner looks like him and Ryleigh acts like him. I think he would be so proud of us. I think he would love them more than anything.

I’ll always remember the things that seemed so little then but are huge to me now. Like our last fathers day…we have Ryan’s family reunion ever year and Fathers Day fell on the day after that. Ryan and his family wanted to stay gone in New Orleans and not come home until Monday. Normally I would have but for some reason I told them no. I’m so thankful I did since it was my last one with my dad.

I remember wanting to go to Jamaica to get married and now I’m so thankful I didn’t. I wouldn’t change having my dad walk me down the aisle for anything.

I’ll always remember his funeral and how Tammy was strong enough to get up and speak. I’m sure he was so proud of her then, she’s always been the strong one. I remember the story Brother Mike told at his funeral about him making me cut grass with scissors and everyone laughing so hard. But more importantly I’ll always remember the story he told that day of how my dad found salvation before it was to late. I am most thankful to have this story to tell. His death would have been much harder had we not had the reassurance of where he was. This just goes to show that God’s love is everlasting and his grace is never ending.

I miss you so much Dad but I’m sure God throws the best birthday parties in heaven and I hope you have a great one!!

I love you.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Maid of Honor!

Guess Who's getting married! I've been meaning to post this for a while now a keep forgetting. Brandon finally proposed to Lindsey!
I say finally like they have been dating for 10 years, but we were just so ready to plan a wedding it made it seem like forever!
Lindsey FINALLY got a job in Mobile and was able to move back home. They have set the date for October 9, 2010. This happens to be the only Saturday Alabama is off during the 2010 football season. It's sad when you live in the south and want a fall wedding that you have to plan your wedding around college football. Sad but true!
And guess who is her maid of honor...drumroll please......ME!! I am so excited about being maid of honor. I'm also so excited about helping her plan the wedding. When you have your own wedding it's like everything is happening so fast you don't have time to enjoy it but when it's someone else you can slow down and enjoy the process. I made these save the date cards for her. I'm not sure if she's going to use them or not but if she does we are planning on changing the picture.
I also love these bridesmaids dress colors. These are the colors she is planning on using. She is also going to add in a few fall colors for the accent pieces throughout the wedding, like orange and dark red.
I also love this cake! Isn't it beautiful!! I'm not sure what kind of cake she wants but if it was my wedding this is the one I would pick! She had a great idea for doing a cheesecake for the grooms cake with all different kind of toppings to pick from. I am super excited about that! We all know my love for cheesecake!

So Congratulations Lindsey and Brandon! We all are very excited for you guys!
Now you just need to have kids so Ryleigh and Tanner will have some cousins!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

When did this happen??

Someone please tell me when we went from this...
Cute little chubby baby
Who was dependent on me and needed me to do everything for her...
To this beautiful, slender little girl 
Who has recently informed me that she doesn't need us for anything anymore! 

Someone please tell me where my baby has gone!




Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Roll Tide Roll!!

This past Saturday Ryan and I went to Tuscaloosa for the Alabama game. I love watching college football from the comfort of my couch but there is NOTHING like watching it with 92,000 fans!
Our tickets were in the endzone which I didn't think we would like but they ended up being great seats. We were 7 rows from the field. 
We actually got to go all the way down to field level which was pretty cool. We got to meet Big Al!
We ate at Rammer Jammers before the game. They have the best hamburgers!

Alabama won 53-7! They play Arkansas this week @ 2:30 so that'll be a scary game!

After the game we were headed back to Mobile and out of nowhere decide to go to Birmingham and eat at P F Changs and the Cheesecake factory! It was SO good!! I love, love, love the cheesecake factory!! It was such a fun day to spend with Ryan I feel like we have been going 90 to nothing the past few weeks and haven't seen each other much. 

Friday, September 18, 2009

Marathon

I can't believe I am about to type these words but I feel like if I actually tell people I'm doing it then I'll be more likely to actually do it...I'm running a marathon...well it's really a 1/2 marathon but that doesn't sound as good. My friend Lindsay and I just out of nowhere decided to do this. Well more out of nowhere for me since I don't exercise AT ALL. She on the other hand does all the time and already runs a lot. We were suppose to start training last Saturday but then it stormed all day so now we officially start on Sunday. I'm actually kind of excited. That'll probably last until I actually start. Our first race is October 24th and its an 8k which is equivalent to 4.96 miles. (I use the term "race" loosely as I will just be happy to finish and could care less about winning.)We then have the Senior Bowl 10k which is 6.2 miles in November. December we have a 5k "race" (by then maybe I might win!) which is only 3.1 miles. I can't believe I used the term "only" and "3.1 miles" in the same sentence! I also can't believe the amount of quotation marks and parenthesis I've used in this post...my word! Anyway though our final race (I use the word final because that will surely be the death of me) is in January and it is 13.1 miles.
So wish me luck hopefully I can walk on Monday after we start training. The goal is to run 1 mile straight on Sunday and then walk/jog for 2 more. I haven't ran an entire mile since the 7th grade so we'll see how it goes!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Grandparents Day

Did everyone know that this past Sunday was Grandparents Day? Honestly I didn't until I was in Wal Mart and saw an advertisement for it. I decided to cook for mom and Larry and Nana and Paw Paw. Most people automatically assume that I can't cook...It's not that I can't it's that I don't like to. But contrary to popular belief I do cook almost every night. Well except Wednesdays because we have church and of course not on the weekends and well last night we ate at moms and tonight I'm ordering pizza...So it looks like I cook once a week. But still the point is I can cook. 
They all came over Sunday after church and I made chicken spaghetti, corn and rice casserole, bread and cheesecake! 
We are so thankful for all of them and we just wanted to do something to let them know that. (Dawn was out of town with Amy and Dale which is why she wasn't there.)


Happy Grandparents day and thank you for EVERYTHING you guys do for us! We really appreciate it!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Time out

Ryleigh's school is having a book fair today and every child is required to purchase one book. It's for fundraising purposes and at Christmas time when they draw names they will give the book they purchased as a gift to the girl/boy whose name they drew. Of course you can purchase more books (as if they don't get enough of my money already!) So this morning I go to Ryleigh's school to buy her book. They told us you could get them out of class or just go in and buy it yourself. I decided to go get her just so I could see her class and thought she might like to see me in the middle of the day. I walk to her room and look through the window and I didn't see her in her seat. I looked to her teacher and we made eye contact through the window on the door and she busted out laughing. I was so confused until I looked over in the corner only to see Miss Priss in timeout!
Her teacher came to the door and said the reason she was laughing was because Ryleigh never has been in timeout before and is usually so good and she couldn't believe the one time she goes is the time I show up.
I have a hard time believing that she doesn't spend over half her day in the corner but whatever you say Mrs. Parden!
She was in timeout because Mrs. Parden had left the room to get a book from the book closet and when she came back everyone was in their seats and Ryleigh was screaming, loudly! She wasn't hurt or crying she was just screaming for fun. She was using "her outside voice inside."

I'm sorry to tell you Mrs. Parden but we are a loud family and almost always use our "outside voices inside!"

I made Ryleigh apologize to Mrs. Parden and she will also be in trouble tonight when she gets home. Nothing major but she'll probably not get a snack after dinner or not get to watch a movie...I haven't decided yet.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Knee Boarding

When I did the post from labor day I forgot to mention that Ryleigh and Tanner knee boarded...Seriously. Completely all on their own board. I was AMAZED!! Tanner had went with the guys when the went wakeboarding. All the girls decided to ride out on the water in Traveis's boat to see if we could find them. When we did they said "You just missed Tanner knee boarding!" I didn't believe them. The few times we have tried to get him to ride on a tube he cried like a baby. I thought there is no way he is going to knee board all by himself. So I made them let him do it again, and he did it!! I was astonished! 
I was already emotional that day because it was the start of college football and not many things in this world make me happier than college football. 
No lie, when I turned on College game day at 9am and saw Kirk Herbstreit smiling back at me tears came to my eyes. Seriously. Real tears.
So when I saw Tanner knee boarding by himself I also started crying. (This is so not like me!)
Well not to let Tanner out do her Ryleigh also did it and did an excellent job also.  
Here are some pictures of them. We took them with Traveis's iPhone so there wasn't a zoom. 


I know I say this ALL THE TIME, but they are getting SO big!! Between them growing up and the start of college football I might need a few boxes of Kleenex!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Night Terrors

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to a horrible scream and running in your kids room to see them sitting straight up in their bed screaming, crying, shaking, sweating, just completely upset. Well that's what has happened to us for the past week. Tanner has been doing this every night for the past week in the middle of the night. Usually around 1am. It scared me to death the first night. When he does it its like he is in a trance of some kind. It's really weird! I called the doctor on Monday and she said that it sounded like he is experiencing night terrors. The thing that concerns her the most is that night terrors generally only last a few minutes and they normally don't happen every night. Tanners last for a good hour and have happened every night for the past week except Tuesday. We've done some research online and with talking to the doctor she said you can normally pinpoint what is causing them and get them to stop. In Tanner's case I think we have it narrowed down to lack of sleep. One of the common times kids have night terrors is when they are overly tired. Well Tanner started having them when we were on vacation and he wasn't getting in the bed until 10 or 11. The only night he didn't have them was Tuesday night when he and Ryleigh went to bed at 8. Last night they resumed because we had church and he didn't go to bed until 10. Hopefully we can get his sleeping schedule set and get this under control. If they don't stop after a week of cutting out all cartoons that involve bad guys (spiderman, bolt, batman..) and going to bed early then we will be referred to a child psychologist or psychiatrist, I can't remember which one she said...which one can't write prescriptions? Anyway so hopefully we can get this fixed. Keep him in your prayers or actually keep me in your prayers. He doesn't even remember that they happened and I'm the one scared out of my mind at 1 am!!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Labor Day Weekend

This first picture pretty much sums up how I felt last night when we got home...EXHAUSTED!
For labor day weekend I took off Friday and we left for the beach Thursday afternoon. We had a lot of fun and stayed through Monday night. We played in the sand...




The Hulk and The little Mermaid!
We also got airbrushed tattoo's...Ry got a butterfly and Tanner got Batman!

We played in the water fountain. We were suppose to go to Waterville on Sunday but we woke up that morning and it was STORMING! so we went and got doughnuts then came back and took a nap. Once we got up it had stopped raining so we went to the outlets and they played on the playground and in the fountain and rode the carousel. 

Saturday all of our friends were down so we went to Lindsay's beach house and hung out there all day. The guys wakeboarded and we hung out on the pier and the boat. Saturday afternoon we had a Bama at the Beach party! It was so much fun. We grilled out at a gazebo in Orange Beach and watched the game on our big tv with all of our friends! Ryleigh and Tanner were so good the whole time!
When we got there Thursday night we went down to the beach and caught sand crabs, flew kites and let them run around. We did the same thing Friday night to but we also went fishing then. 
Tanner loved all the jellyfish that washed up on the beach!
Ryleigh loved drawing in the sand!






Friday afternoon we went and ate lunch at Lu Lu's and then had cheesecake at Hope's cheesecake. It was so GOOD!! I love cheesecake!!



I love this picture of her. It looks like she is saying "Oh my Word!" I also didn't tell her to sit like that. It's her new thing! 
This week starts back to our routine. Ryleigh missed school on Friday and they were out on Monday so she's ready to get back. She also starts dance on Thursday and is very excited about that!! Tanner man starts potty training today so keep us in your prayers as I lose my mind!! It's funny that we just went through this with Ryleigh not to long ago and I already don't remember a thing from it!