Are you ready for some football?

Because, I'm not.

It's that time of year and the football mayhem has begun. Now don't get me wrong, I do enjoy watching football and when given the chance, going to a game.... but what I don't "get" is Fantasy football. It seems really silly to me, not to mention a lot of work. Thankfully Tim has never really been interested ...that is until NOW!

Saturday afternoon, he took part in a "draft" with a bunch of buddies.

So, since all the guys were going to be tied up picking their imaginary teams, we ladies decided to get together and let the kiddos wear each other out. 4 moms, 7 kids and all mobile except one...we were completely outnumbered. But we managed to survive and had a good time exchanging war stories!

Ms. Susan taking a spin

Susan's "mini me", Caroline

Preston & Tanner

Rylee Jane

John and his pink cupcake

What I love most in the world....

...this smile....

Is it fall yet?

I have a major case of fall fever!!! I'm SOOOO over 100+ temperatures with 100% humidity!



Now living in the Houston area, we get maybe a good solid week of perfect fall weather and those days don't usually get here until late November! So when we get those days, we savour them!



Here's a list of my fall favorites:

• crisp mornings
• leaves changing colors
• football on Sundays while eating a hot bowl of something
• jeans, sweaters & boots
• visits to the pumpkin patch
• decorating with fall colors
• being able to open the house windows
• flannel pajamas
• lighting the fireplace for the 1st time
• getting ready for Halloween and Thanksgiving
• hunting season
• snuggling with Johnny on the couch

1st day of Pre-K

Today is John's 1st day of Pre-k. Now, it's at the same school and most of the same kids are in his class but it's a new classroom with a new teacher and all kinds of things are different....like NO naptime!

I'm a little weary of this but I spoke to one of the teachers about it this morning and she informed that they've been working on it at school all summer. LIGHTBULB!!!! This explains why he's been sooooo cranky latley. Naptime has been intentionally getting shorter and shorter in hopes of preparing them for NO naptime! I'm so glad I knew this!!! I guess it's my fault for not being more aware and assuming that the school would communicate. We all know what assuming does...

ANYWAY, I'm super anxious to see how he does. He was very excited this morning to see his new class and bring all his school supplies. He brought what he could fit into his rolling backpack, aka his "holder" and I brought the rest.

He didn't want to cooperate when it came to pictures, so here's the best we could get!

A walk down memory lane

So Saturday, John and I drove to Austin to visit one of my very dear friends Mariellen and her family. She has a little boy, Jackson, who just turned two in July. We thought it would be fun to get the boys together. They entertained themselves while we got to catch up and reminisce.

Speaking of ....I thought it would be amusing to bring along some of the old drill team videos. I forewarned Mel so she could dust off the old VHS player(that's how old these things are). After the kids went to sleep, we popped in a couple and WOW....I'm still laughing at how cool we thought we were!!!! I gotta give props to my mom for video taping everything...literally EVERYTHING! She even went so far to video someone she thought was me! A whole halftime routine showcasing Melanie Tyler...not me! Oh well! I have to say the best part of the evening was the video of Mariellen and Brooke's duet Junior year. That was an interesting routine put to interesting music!!! Mariellen's husband, Perry, was brave enough to watch a couple of minutes but he was "over it" pretty quick! hahahaha!

The weekend was fun and I was sad to go home! I wish we were closer and I wish the other girls could have been there!!!

August updates & happenings

I'm sitting here at work with a lot on my mind.... where do I begin!!!! I'll just start off with an update on John & his alter ego Johnny Rotten...

• Bedtime is still a struggle but he DID sleep through the night twice this week, I'd say that's progress!
• Dinner time has been a success...cleaned his plate every night!
• Temper tantrums are slowing down. We did have an incident Tuesday, that involved a book and my head but I nipped that in the bud REAL quick...if ya know what I mean!
• He's using his manners more, i.e saying please, thank you and may I.
• He did have 2 accidents at school again but promised he would try really hard to not have any more "assidents" heehee!!!
• Not destroying AS much but still harassing the cats...Miss Kitty will retaliate by pooping right outside his bedroom door, thanks Miss Kitty!

On a side note, Tuesday was my Mom's 59th birthday. John and I went to get her a card and he picked out one that plays music when you open it...it was $9.99! HOLY crap! I HAD to get it b/c HE picked it out for "Ganny". So my mom celebrated by going to the Paul McCartney concert in Dallas last night. He only made 10 stops in the U.S. She and I had been to one years ago when I was living in Dallas and it was a great concert! Wish I could have made this one but it's okay...Happy Birthday Mom!!

John's school starts back up in a week. Even though he's not in official "big" school, he will be in a new class and learning all kinds of new things. I'm more excited than he is...I had to explain to him that all his friends would be moving into the new class with him, which made him happier. So we have to go school supply shopping next week, fun times!

In other news...we're supposed to be going to Illinois in October for GiGi's birthday. Well I've been checking flights since I found out about this trip and wow...I don't know if we'll fly! Tickets from Houston to St. Louis are running about $250 round trip. That, of course, doesn't include the luggage fees that Continental JUST raised to $30 per bag(which I think is ridiculous, but that's another post). So we're looking at almost $1000 for a weekend trip! UUUHHH, I'm thinking driving sounds WAY better! Tim's parents offered to pay for our tickets but I really don't like the idea. I would much rather drive 13 hours & pay our way than fly 2 hours and make someone else pay for it. I've even checked Southwest & it would still cost us $850 plus we'd have to drive to Hobby. So I'm praying to the airline god's that the prices will magically drop to $100 round trip! Wouldn't that be awesome!!!!

Feeling old!

This will be a quick one...

In an attempt to meet one of my many goals for the year, I cleaned my closet (Tim's too) last night with the intent to take most of the items to resale or a donation box. I took what I thought would sell easliy to Plato's Closet....WELL it did not go as planned!!!!

The teeny-bopper behind the counter started going through my stuff, she made a pile for keepers and a pile for returns. When she was done, she hands me a huge return pile of shoes, pants, dresses, etc. She then proceeds to tell me that this stuff is "TOO MATURE" for their store! OMG! hahahaha!

In the end they took one pair of shoes and 5 pairs of jeans and I got $55. That's better than nothing.
Guess I'm gonna try the resale in Conroe, where they take "more mature" apparel!

Terrible 2's & horrible 3's????

Is it possible to go through terrible 2's AND 3's? I don't know what's going on with John these days...

His early two's were rough mainly because he couldn't communicate, so he would get frustrated b/c he couldn't tell me what he wanted and I would get frustrated b/c I didn't know what he wanted. It was a vicious circle! But once he really started to talk things got sooooooo much better and we've been doing really well....that is until NOW!

In the past week, he's been a terror! We're talking Jekyl and Hyde! Refusing to eat, refusing to sleep, waking up 3 times a night, arguing with everything I say, destroying everything he comes in contact with, and had two accidents at school on Monday. His teacher even made a comment about how he seemed "out of sorts". Grrreeaaat, never good if the teacher notices it!!!

Oh and the best...the other morning, he wanted doughnuts for breakfast, to which I promptly told him no. He threw the worst tantrum I have ever seen and then told me I wasn't his friend anymore!!! I giggled(under my breath, of course) but just responded, "that's okay, mommy still loves you." What do you say to that?!

I've been pondering all the possible reasons for this out of character behavior and the only thing I can come up with is that he got off his schedule while we were in Mexico. It's the only explanation or at least I hope that's the only explanation! He's such a creature of habit! If we do anything that's not in his regular routine, he needs to know why, what, when and how.

So what do I do now? I guess just let this behavior run it's course and hope he gets back to the sweet little Johnny I adore?? Any suggestions???

Mexico 2009

We're back from Mexico and WOW....what a trip!!! We really had an awesome time! The wedding was beautiful! Thank you Fowler/Raverty Family for allowing us to tag along!!

Let me start off with Operation "John Drop-off". I was a total mess all day! After work, I picked John up at school and we headed north to meet my my in Madisonville. Once we got to the drop -off location, I tired to focus on the task at hand.... load my mom's car with all John's stuff and get out of there as quickly as possible before I changed my mind and took him with us to Mexico. I did pretty good, I hugged and kissed him and made sure he was okay with leaving me(ha! he was already in mom's car before I had the trunk shut)! I got back in my car to head home and lost it....I could not stop crying! I did eventually stop but I think that's because my eyes were swelling shut!

The flight to Mexico went smoothly, thank god! It was packed which was kinda surprising for a 7:45am flight. Our seats were literally on the last row of the plane, right by the bathrooms. Just a side note....never sit by the bathrooms!!!! I think everyone on the plane used the bathroom at some point! But we made it in one piece and I was so grateful to get there!

The resort had a very "tropical" feel and by tropical I mean no A/C except in your room. There was a nice breeze the closer you got to the beach but everywhere else on the property just had ceiling fans. I'm sure the staff thought we were a bunch of babies but we come from Houston...where the a/c runs 24/7/365!

The property was inundated with wildlife! Flamingos, iguanas, and even monkeys! YES monkeys! I only saw them once and that was the last day but you could hear them all the time. I thought that was pretty neat!

We spent pretty much everyday by the pool and beach. Every night, the resort and "Star Friends" put on a show. I have to tell you these "Star Friends" were amazing. Not only did they entertain at night, they also worked all day doing various things. They work 16 hour days, 6 days a week yet somehow always have a smile on their face! You can tell they really enjoy their jobs!

After the show, we'd head over to the Disco tech. That was my favorite part! I love love love to dance so needless to say I danced my butt off!

The night before we left was Josh and Alicia's wedding and it was beautiful! Alicia was a gorgeous bride! Their pictures are going to be amazing! If I was getting married, I would definitely do a destination wedding! I asked Tim if he would be up to it...he rolled his eyes! ha!!

It was a great trip and I'm already looking forward to the next one! Here are some pictures!