Memorial Day Fun

On the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, Dave and I attended the Smiles For Habitat event at Adriatica. Here's a family picture before we left (it's kind of a rarity that we're all dressed, presentable and in the same place at the same time - with someone else to take the picture... ha!): The event was WAY bigger than I had expected it to be, and we were glad to be able to attend Dr. Buchanan's party and sit up on the big hill, otherwise I don't think we would have been able to see :) Little Big Town was great, the food was delicious and the company was fantastic :) We even got to see Jeni and Jackson there.

I think that the best part of the night was the fireworks... it was seriously the best show I've ever seen! It was non-stop for about 10 minutes and was incredible

Strawberries and Whipped Cream

Strawberries and whipped cream are my absolute favorite summertime dessert and I'm passing my obsession on to Luke. He loved the strawberries, but I think he liked the whipped cream a little bit more - but even more than the strawberries and whipped cream, he had fun playing with the bowl :) His favorite pastime right now is putting things in containers and then dumping them out:

Two pacis...

What's the only thing better than one paci??? Two pacis!!!

This isn't the greatest picture ever, but I thought it was too sweet not to share - Luke loves his Gibi and Grandpa and periodically throughout the day he'll toddle over to this picture and talk to and smile at it :)

Crazy Eights... You're Tagged!

Shay tagged me with the Crazy Eights Blog Game, and ya'll know I'm always up for a good game, so here it goes:

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To...
1) Finishing painting my house!!! (I've set a goal to finish a room a week this summer... I'll keep you posted)
2) Getting Luke up from his nap (he's sleeping right now)
3) Reading a few more pages in "World Without End"
4) Finally getting a tan this summer (cross your fingers)
5) Working with my student government kids in July
6) Hopefully going on a mission trip next spring
7) Strawberries and whipped cream for dessert (and possibly dinner, too) tonight
8) Taking Luke to swim lessons

8 Things I Did Yesterday...
1) Ate breakfast with my boys
2) Baked Amish friendship bread (I have 3 starters if anyone's interested)
3) Went to the Ft. Worth Zoo
4) Took about a zillion pictures
5) Rode the carousel with Luke for the first time
6) Ate a giant cone of BlueBell chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream
7) Worked on painting the family room
8) Watched my TiVo's episodes of The Bachelorette and Jon and Kate Plus 8

8 Things I Wish I Could Do...
1) Finish painting my family room tonight :) ha!
2) Have LOTS of free time to read and knit
3) Take better photographs
4) Teach from home (hehehe)
5) Live in a place where it doesn't get above 80 degrees
6) Eat Italian food every day
7) Keep Luke little forever
8) Sing :)

8 Shows I Watch
1) Lost
2) The Bachelorette (kind of ashamed to admit it, but oh well)
3) Any and all Law and Orders
4) All of the Real Housewives shows
5) The Office/Parks and Recreation (I lumped them into one show b/c they're on right after eachother... hehehe)
6) Grey's Anatomy
7) Brothers and Sisters
8) Amazing Race (I know it's not on right now, but I had to mention it b/c I'm determined to be on it one day) ha!

8 People I Tag...
1) Jeni
2) Rachel
3) Jessica
4) Laura
5) Kristen A.
6) Mandy
7) Lori
8) Loree

Summertime

Summer's here and we've been spending lots of time outside - now that I'm not having to grade papers and create review games in the evenings there's lots of times for long walks :)

The pictures below are of Luke trying to drink out of a water bottle. We always bring him his own sippy cup when we go out, but he's determined to drink out of our water bottles. He hasn't quite got the technique down yet, he keeps sticking his tongue into the bottle, but he's getting better:Although he's pretty content to sit in the wagon, we try to get him out and let him walk "on his own" as well:

I Almost Forgot!!!

I forgot to post these pictures with my last post, so here they are now.

Like father, like son - I'm not sure who enjoyed the swings more :)

Swing!

After Chick-Fil-A on Monday (see this post) we headed over to Towne Lake to walk around, look at the ducks and play on the swings. This was Luke's first time in a swing at a park (he's been in his swing in our backyard at home lots of times) and he loved it. He had his excited face on the whole time :) and didn't want to come out when it was time to go.

Dining Room Tour

One of my very favorite blogs is Kelly's Korner and even though we moved in to this house only about 2 months ago and it's not nearly finished and even though I gave a tour of the house on this post about a month ago, I've decided to join in the "Show Us Where You Live Friday" fun and show ya'll my "dining room". We're not extremely formal and have turned our dining room into a play area for our little boy, so I've decided to show my kitchen eating area - it's original purpose was to be the family room, but again, we're not that formal, so it's been "repurposed" to an oversized eating area. Here's the view looking in:

(You'll have to excuse Cadence - the kitchen is where she lives and she's not allowed to cross the wood/tile line) The piece on the right is new within the last couple of weeks and although I don't like what's on it right now I really like it alot. I think it will really stand out once I paint the walls the gold color I've picked out and hang the six big frames I just picked out above it:

I absolutely LOVE having a fireplace in the kitchen and can't wait for the fall/winter/christmas :) Window treatments for the naked fixtures are on my summer to-do list, but I definitley want to get the room painted first - one thing at a time. ha!

Here's another one of my favorite things - the brick wall looking into the kitchen. For more pics of the kitchen and a few other rooms check out my previous tour here.

As far as the old dining room space goes... here it is :) Much more functional for our family right now. hehehe Anyway, hope you enjoyed the short tour - I can't wait to be able to post pictures of it once it's painted and a little more put together. Check back soon!

Time of Your Life

So I JUST got back from graduation and I thought I'd share a picture with ya'll... our school has a cool tradition where all the Upper School (Junior High and High School) Faculty have to wear robes and hoods as part of the ceremony - it all feels very official and academic :) Thank goodness that we don't have to wear the hats!!!

(From left to right this is our Journalism teacher, HS Spanish teacher and me)

Anyway, I always love going to our graduations because coming from a high school class of like 800+ it's such a refreshing contrast to our graduation for this year's class of 24. There's a Senior video where they all get to share special memories and shout outs and a time of meditation and prayer for the graduates and their parents - it's just really personal and special. I thought it was super funny though that during their Senior video, the last song that was played (while baby pictures and senior pictures were being shown) was Good Riddance by Green Day (you know... "I've hope you had the time of your life...") and it cracked me up because that was my classes Senior song :) I guess that now it's a "classic". haha! I know that this is going to seem super sentimental and sappy, but I got a little bit choked up watching all the baby pictures come up and then turn into their current pics - I couldn't help but think about Luke and how all the parents tonight were telling me to cherish him while he's little b/c before I know it he'll be graduation high school - I really hope it doesn't go by as fast as everyone says it will!

Anyway, I can't believe that another school year has gone by and that it's already summer. Tomorrow I have to go in for a staff meeting and to complete my summer check-out, but hopefully I'll be done before lunch and can begin my fun summer vacation (aka painting my house) a little bit early. Wish me luck!

Random Sidenote: I thought it should be noted that I didn't let my boring scholarly robe mask my style too much - I wore these awesome black and white and polka dot espadrilles with red laces that showed underneath my robe - very un-math teachery :) hehehe

Chick-Fil-A

On Monday I only had to give one exam, and so Dave, Luke and I were able to spend a fun afternoon together, starting off with lunch at Chick-Fil-A:

Luke was absolutely loving his chicken and fries (but that was to be expected, as Luke has yet to encounter a food he doesn't like - except bananas) but I think even more than the food he loved watching the big kids play. He wasn't paying any attention to us, and he was hardly paying any attention to his food, it was all about the big kids. :)

Magnets with Mark

On Sunday night my family came over for dinner and while Dave and Dad were grilling burgers and mom and I were getting everything else ready to go, Mark entertained Luke (or maybe it was the other way around) by playing with his magnets...

I think that they've scratched our dishwasher :( , but at this point, what can I do... now that it's scratched I might as well just let him play! (I don't think that the magnets would typically scratch, but Luke likes to slam them onto the dishwasher and then press on them really hard while dragging them down the surface... ha! Little boys!!!

And, He's Off!

Luke is working hard every day at walking, and he's taking more and more steps on his own... but his favorite thing to do right now is walk up and down our sidewalk with his the assistance of his hippo :)

As you can tell from the pictures below (along with bunches of other pictures from previous posts), when Luke is excited and/or happy he goes straight into his mouth wide open pose: Daddy was never far away (as you can tell from the arms in the pictures below), helping him keep his balance and preventing a few wipe outs:

The picture on the left below I love... too cute. :)

The picture on the top right is very typical Luke - stopping to point and yell at something. hahaha!

The picture on the bottom right is what daddy did after Luke got tired of walking, it didn't go over very well. And here's a video of the little man taking off down the sidewalk:

I have a feeling that it won't be long before he's walking without the assistance of the hippo... I'll keep ya'll posted :)

Mailman

I think that we may have a future postal worker on our hands... ... Luke loves to take our junk mail, spread it all over the floor and then put it all into his "mailbox" (that's what we call the purple basket). So far it's been endlessly entertaining and a good use for otherwise useless mail :)

Prom 2009

As Student Government sponsor, one of the most fun and simultaneously most stressful parts of my job is planning the high school Prom. It's intimidating becuase year after year I'm challenged with making it fun, "cool", etc., etc. This year we had planned to have Prom at GlenEagles Country Club in west Plano, but at the last minute the students informed me that they didn't want to have a "country clubby" prom :) So... I set off on the task to find something (as they described it) "urban" and "upscale" (they watch WAY too much The Hills). I found a place by Fair Park called Three Three Three First Avenue, which is a really cool loft space - the only trouble was that it was a completely blank canvas, and although I tout myself to be a pretty involved sponsor, I simply didn't have the time to rent chairs, linens, sound equipment, lighting, etc., etc., etc. so I called in the professionals at Cymbidium and let Robin there take over. She came out to MCA and met with the kids a couple of times and they decided on a "neon" theme (I guess that's as "un-country clubby" as you can get, right?). It was AWESOME for me, because I didn't have to do ANYTHING (except get the school to write the big check) which is quite a departure from what I've done in the past (making flower arrangements, picking up a "prom cake"...). Anyway, it was the highest attended Prom EVER (117! YAY!) and we met our goal of making it a Prom that would make their public school friends jealous :) I was going to wait until I got my pics from Cymbidium (b/c they're going to be MUCH better than mine), but I figured I'd go ahead and post these in the mean time:

The above pictures show our Vitamin Water bar, the location and one of the orchid centerpieces with our tie-dyed linens

For the first 45 minutes or so we held the kids downstairs for "mocktail hour" (no, we never officially called it that... I would have had 85 parent emails) where the kids walked the pink carpet, had their pics taken in front of our logo sign (Cymbidium designed our custom logo for us... see the Dallas skyline in the back???), got to drink passed vitamin water drinks, and hopefully get all the awkward "hellos", "I love your dress", "you look so pretty" out of the way so that when we let them upstairs they would be ready to dance... The students spent the entire time dancing like private christian school kids and I only had to remind a couple of them to "leave room for Jesus" :) Our event designer Robyn and her staff (you can see Robyn with the neon shoelaces in the picture below) led the kids in the Cupid Shuffle and after a little "talking-to" by me, the DJ ended up doing a really good job (as the students were coming upstairs he wanted to play the Chicago Bulls entrance???? What the heck is that?!?!). He was a close-talker which was a little bit awkward, but his name was Luke so I had to give him points for that:

As kids were leaving we had a GIANT candy/frappuccino/flavored popcorn station set up so that they could grab a bunch of sugar for the ride home, but as you can see from the picture on the right they didn't take enough and I ended up hauling an entire trunkload of candy and popcorn (and our giant logo sign) home with me. Judging by the facebook status updates: "so and so just got home from the BEST Prom ever", "My prom was WAY better than your prom", etc. I'd say that everyone had a great time. I'm just glad that it's over and that I made it home in one piece (I took a wrong turn getting back to the highway and ended up in the part of Fair Park you don't want to be in at 1:00 a.m).

It's going to be hard to top next year, but I already have some ideas floating around. Hope you enjoyed this flashback to high school as much as I did (becuase my Proms were NEVER this cool!!!)

Aw, MOM!!!

I don't even want to think about Luke ever having a serious girlfriend, but I couldn't help but think about it this week when I snapped these pictures: I'm hoping that whoever he decides to "bring home to mom" has a sense of humor and a soft spot for cute baby hineys because I have every intention of having these out on display. hehehehe!

Date Nights with My Mom

The past two weekends my mom and I have left Luke with Grandpa and have headed out on some seriously crazy date nights (haha!). Last weekend we went and watched some of my Junior High students perform "Meet Me In St. Louis" (their whining about memorizing a couple of formulas will forever fall on deaf ears after watching them flawlessly recite about an hour and a half worth of lines).
The weekend before last we were at MCA again, this time for the Opening Night Auction supporting the Student Life Center. I won a Sid Dickens memory block in the silent auction (actually, I gave my bidder number to the student on the far left in the photo below and she won it for me - by the end of the night she knew all the other women who were bidding and she actually "snuck" into the room at the very end to write my winning bid - she later told me that it was one of the most exciting and fun things she'd ever done). I'll take a picture of the tile later - it's the Limited Edition Jesus tile (I know, that sounds really cliche) and it's not my absolute favorite, but the colors will work well and it is a good memory of a fun night.
I was really glad that I got to take my mom back to MCA for these events, as this would have been her 10th year there (for those of you who don't know, my mom graciously quit her job so that she could watch Luke and I could continue teaching). This Student Life Center has been a dream and vision of many of the founding families of MCA and my mom was part of that from almost the very beginning. I did have to keep reminding people that she was "mine" now and that she couldn't come back - but I can definitley see why they miss her! :)

Mother's Day

This past Sunday was my second Mother's Day and was absolutely perfect. I got the most adorable bouquet of paper flowers made out of Luke's handprints and a sweet homemade card. Dave had to run the Mother's Day brunch at the Country Club and so it was just me and my little man for the most of the day. We played at the playroom windows... ... and then I tried to take his picture on the front steps in his cute "Mommy's Main Squeeze" shirt, but he as more interested in the flowers:

After our photo session we made a Wal-Mart run and then while Luke was napping I made lasagna which we got to enjoy with Dave, Gibi, Grandpa and Uncle Mark. I think the below photos speak for themselves, but in case they don't Luke LOVED it!

I know some of you are probably cringing at the site of my child covered head to toe (literally) in meat sauce, but he had so much fun, it was totally worth it!

He went straight from the high chair to the bath tub where the fun continued...

After his bath he got to give Gibi one of her Mother's Day gifts (the On The Go Cart he and Gibi had so much fun with at Lowes... see my previous post). She LOVED it (almost as much as Luke does) and was surprised by her other gifts as well: It was a perfect Mother's Day :)

Why We Love Gibi

There are lots of reasons that we love Gibi (as a matter of fact, I've started a whole post about this, but haven't gotten it all together yet), but today I'm writing about just one - she's super fun :) Gibi can make anything fun, even a routine trip to Lowes. We were there a few weeks ago and when I came around the corner this is what I saw:

Gibi had discovered a fun new toy and was toting Luke around in the "On The Go Garden Cart". As you can see from the pictures below, Luke got a HUGE kick out of it...

When it was time to get back in the regular cart, Luke and Gibi continued their antics... I LOVE the relationship that Luke and Gibi have and I can't wait to see their special bond grow even more.

But, Who's Counting???

As a math teacher, I deal with numbers everyday. So I thought I'd share some numbers that have been on my mind lately...

- 7 - The number of days left of school (and 4 of those are 1/2 days!)

- 9 - The number of weeks of summer I get to spend with my sweet boy hanging out at the beach club and relaxing at home

- 4,488 - the number of "little projects" I have on my to-do list for the summer months

- 3 - the number of days Luke has gone without pooping (I know, I know - too much information, but face it - I'm a mom - I talk about poop)... I'm crossing my fingers today will be the day! ha!

- 5 - The number of posts I've started over the past week and never had time to finish, hopefully I'll have a little bit of time this weekend

- 2 - The number of strawberry pies I've baked this week - my signal that summer is officially on it's way

- 4- the number of adorable kiddos on my couch last night during small group (I'm not sure why Luke decided to lean on Jackson... I guess that maybe Jackson looked sturdy enough to be leaned on hehehe)

I apologize for the randomness of this post, but that's what you get at 7:00 on a Wednesday morning. 'Til next time!

Future David Beckham???

I think that we may have a future soccer star on our hands. Uncle Mark is home for a couple of weeks before heading back to Lubbock to start a Summermester (is that what they're called?!?!) and in anticipation of his arrival Luke has been brushing up on his soccer skills...

NOTE: Mark is in Austin this weekend and therefore I couldn't consult him on the name of a cool, professional soccer player - and with my pitiful knowledge of anything sports related, David Beckham was the only player I could come up with - and not for his soccer notoriety either, but for his lackluster appearance on Ellen last year :) hehehe

Can Gibi Come Out and Play???

One of our very favorite things about our new house is how close it is to Gibi and Grandpas. We try to go on a walk every night and we often stop at Gibi and Grandpa's house to see if they want to come out and "play". :) Last week, while the weather wasn't ungodly sticky, hot and humid was still nice we headed out on an extra long walk with Gibi (grandpa was on a business trip) and here are some pictures:

Luke and Gibi holding hands... they have a special bond :)

Let me explain the rocks - Luke has 4 rocks that he keeps in his wagon. He likes to hold onto them and hold them over the side of the wagon like he's going to drop them... but he never does. Gibi says that on her walks with Luke during the day he "never" tries to put the rocks in his mouth, but EVERY time that Dave and/or I take him out in the wagon we turn around and he's licking the rocks. We figure at this point he's licked all the dirt off, so what the heck :)

This series of pictures shows him thinking about licking the rocks, almost licking the rocks, licking the rocks and then contemplating the taste of dirty rocks:
On our way back home we decided to walk along the golf course instead of through the neighborhood and stopped on one of the tee boxes to let Luke crawl around in the grass. Can someone please tell me when my baby turned into a toddler?!?! Anyone???

I guess he got all big and "toddler-like" while I blinked - I'll try to refrain from blinking in the future :)

As you can see from the picture below, Luke was very excited to be playing in the grass. His daddy said he was excited to be on the golf course :) the first picture is kind of blurry because he was "hulking out" (that's what we call it when he squezes his little hands together and grunts a lot) so much...

Public again

I've made the decision to take my blog public again - after being scorned earlier in the year I vowed never to put myself in that vulnerable position again, but since getting to the bottom of the harassment situation and finding out that it was merely a couple of pathetic, disgruntled, sad, miserable, lowly people (one of whom we used to call a friend) I don't feel quite so creeped out anymore. I'm not sure why, but knowing it wasn't a stranger, but someone who apparently didn't like my family is strangely comforting. Anyway, it's not that I feel like I have anything extremely important to say, but I know that in my own personal experience I've gotten a lot of great advice and information (like using Lotramin on diaper rash) from other people's blogs and if someone can glean something from mine I'd like them to be able to. So, with that said, I'm asking that, as my loyal readers, you comply with the following rules (haha!)

1. Do not leave mean or derogatory comments (if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all - or just say it out loud to yourself, don't take the time to write and post it - that's just pathetic)
2. If I delete your comment, please don't repeatedly email it to me or post it about 45 times in the span of 22 minutes (again, pathetic)
3. If something I've posted offends you (or, my family for some reason just offends you), stop looking at my blog.
4. Take note now that all pictures on this blog are copyrighted and therefore you may not cut and paste them for any purpose (like creating a hateful "anti-blog" - because that would just be sad)
5. Please do not harass my friends via their blogs
6. Please do not hunt me down on facebook and start harassing my friends via facebook messaging

Hopefully the rules will be easy to follow and I'll be able to keep this blog public and easily accessible for a long time to come. Blog hop/stalk away :)

In case you were wondering

In case you were wondering, here's what we've been up to the past week or so:

We're officially in trouble - Luke can pull up to a table and get himself into logs of mischeif (like pulling keys, cell phones, etc. off) Luke has been thoroughly enjoying his "playroom" - he especially like to take his toys and bang them on the windows
As always - we've been visiting the fish at WalMart and as always - Luke gets SUPER enthusiastic!

We've been spending LOTS of time snuggling (and practicing our new trick - closing our eyes while daddy takes pictures)

We've been going on lots of walks and have taken quite the interest in the neighbor's cat (not the one that lives in the storm drain by our mailbox, but the one with no hair on it's back... haha)

We've been spending some time exploring "outdoorsy" things like sticks, leaves and rocks

We've been playing in the tunnel that Gibi and Grandpa got Luke for his birthday

We've been playing with our bathtoys (even when it's not bathtime)

And we've been making lots of calls on our very own cell phone (thanks, Lilly!!!)