Piggyback

The scrapbook page below cracks me up:

We were out for a walk after dinner a few weeks ago and Dave put Luke up his shoulders and immediately Luke started poking Dave in his eyes, ears, nose, etc., etc., etc. It was TOO funny. The best part was that the harder Dave tried to get Luke to stop, the more Luke kept "poking" :) ha!

NOTE: what is it actually called when you let your kid ride on your shoulders??? Is it a piggyback ride?!?!?! I couldn't think of it. ha!

Dinner Date

Luke and Cadence have always loved each other, but now that Luke has figured out how to use a fork on a regular basis, their relationship has gone to a whole new level:

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I've had the opportunity to go on a mission trip, and not that you have to go far to do mission work, but there's something exciting and convicting about leaving your comfort zone and immersing yourself in God's work. Which is why I'm super excited that I'm going to be chaperoning MCA's high school mission trip to Jamaica this coming March. It's all still fairly tentative, but I'm too excited (and nervous!) not to share.

Groups have gone the last 2 years and I totally stole the pictures above from one of my former student's facebook page (ha!). So... pray that my passport renewal goes quickly! :)

Cupcakes

Last week I made cupcakes and thought it woudl be a fun project for Luke to help me decorate them with Halloween sprinkles. He precisely placed EACH INDIVIDUAL SPRINKLE and then licked his finger after placing each one. :) Boyfriend loves him some icing. hahaha!

This project didn't go quite as well as I had planned, so hopefully by the time I'm ready for help with Christmas baking he'll be a little bit more efficient with the sprinkles.

Innovative

We were at Half Price books a few weeks ago and Luke really wanted to sit in this little chair... but he couldn't manage to get onto it the right way so he hopped on frontways and looked at books like this for about 10 minutes. So funny! :)

Goofball

I struggled with what to title the following scrapbook page and this post, but after a lot of contemplation settled on "goofball" because, well, that's a large portion of Luke's personality :)

He LOVES to be silly and make us laugh and so it's no surprise that he thought it was hilarious to walk around with an empty drum on his head various times throughout the afternoon:

As a teacher I am immediatley thinking "class clown", and am hoping that he can balance this part of his personality with good manners and academic focus :)

Reality Check - Pumpkin Patch Edition

Even before having Luke one of my "when I have kids" daydreams involved taking my cutely-dressed child to the picturesque pumpkin patch and spending a wonderful fall afternoon as a family taking pictures among the pumpkins... HAHAHA!

We decided to head to the Big Orange Pumpkin Patch in Celina and I guess I was expecting something a little more patchy and less muddy. :) Granted, it HAD been raining for about 10 days straight before we decided to go (smart, right?!?!). We arrived and were immediately greeted by about 400 goats... it totally creeped me out. Ever since Luke almost had his finger bit off by a Clydesdale in the West End I've been a little hesitant about letting him pet farm animals... and this was no exception. We looked at the goats from a safe distance and then proceeded to try to take a cute picture of him on the tractor - not happening:

(Note: I have officially become my mother... in the bottom picture of the scrapbook page above, Dave caught me licking my hand and fixing his hair - my mom did this to my brother CONSTANTLY growing up!)

This is where my photographic frustration began - I'm not sure why I expected Luke to sit in front of the pumpkins and smile at me, but I did... and he definitely didn't want to. In fact, he pretty much wanted to do anything EXCEPT sit with the pumpkins:

Okay people, this is where things started to really go downhill. We ventured over to the little pumpkin patch where kids can "pick" their own tiny pumpkin. Too bad Luke made a bee-line for the freshly tread tractor tracks and was ankle deep in mud by the time Dave got to him:

His shoes weighed about three and a half pounds and he went all "limp noodle" and wouldn't let us hold him because he wanted to sit on the ground and try to wipe the mud off of his shoes: We had planned on taking a hayride, but there was no way either Dave or I was going to let our mud-caked son sit on our lap for 20 minutes, so we made one more attempt to get a good picture of Luke with the pumpkins:

Foiled again! This time he was busy watching the DOZENS of other kids run around and ride the little barrel train thingie.

The silver-lining on the whole episode was that this sweet man offered to take our picture together before we left and the single shot that he snapped turned out fairly good (if you don't count the fact that Luke looks like he wants to be anywhere but with us. ha!) Although our trip wasn't how I had always pictured it, it was an absolute blast (and probably WAY more memorable than it would have been otherwise). We ended up having to strip Luke's shoes and pants off in the parking lot and he had to ride home without pants, but seriously, it wouldn't be a great trip to the pumpkin patch unless your pants had to ride home in the trunk, right?!?!? Next year we'll definitely put him in boots!


Here are a few pics that didn't make "the cut" for my scrapbook pages, but that I still thought were cute...

This is pretty much what he did the entire time - run!

Trying to get mud or dirt or hay off of his hands:
His reaction to being stripped down in public and having to ride home sans pants:

What's the best part of not wearing shoes?!?! Counting your toes, of course!

I wish...

I wish that I had awesome photography equipment.

I wish I had an eye for photography.

I wish I could take great pictures myself, but I can't :)

I wish that I had found these pictures that our professional photographer had taken at Prom earlier so I could have shown them to you instead of the sub-par pictures I showed you here.

So for your viewing pleasure, some actually good pictures of Prom last year:

P.S. - I realize that this is an extremely random and misplaced post, but I JUST came across these pics and HAD to share a few... so fun!

Close Knit

It's starting to get chilly and I am super excited becasue that means it's SCARF WEATHER!!! Ya'll may know that I have a bit of a "creative bent" and I LOVE making fun and unique scarves. My favorites are what my mom and I call "multis" - they're just a big, fun mish-mash of LOTS of funky yarns (some are even handmade by me!). Typically I've just sold these to friends, but would most definitley love to spread some flair around this fall, so if you're interested in having your very own "multi scarf" (for all my creativeness you'd think I could come up with a better name!) just shoot me an email (dave-and-andrea@hotmail.com). They're $30/each and shipping would just be whatever it cost to get it to ya.

Please know that when I remembered this post (about an hour ago) I realized I didn't have any pics... so we headed outside and I had DAve snap these of me (so awkward)... I am not a fan of having my picture taken and couldn't have felt more wierd about these, but hopefully they show off the scarf:
P.S. - these are completely customizable - if you love pink it could be all different pinks, if you're super tall it can be super long, if you want it in just fall colors consider it done - just let me know.

P.S.S. - check out www.slightlyaskewdesigns.com for my other creative venture.

Hope ya'll enjoy as much as I do!

P.P.S.S. - I forgot to mention my very favorite multi-scarf story... last Christmas I was at the mall and the check-out guy (yes, guy) at American Eagle told me that my scarf was "bitchin' " Pardon my language, but I thought it was too funny not to share. So if you want a bitchin' scarf, you've come to the right place (wow, now there's a slogan!)

Undeniable

So I used to be under the impression that Luke kinda-sorta-maybe looked like me just a little bit. But the older he gets the more undeniable it gets that he is his father's son :)

This boy L.O.V.E.S. his daddy!

Reunited

When I started showing flu symptoms last Saturday, my family immediatley quarantined me to the master bedroom. I spent the better part of the next 5 days isolated (oh, except for Monday where I went to work - not smart!). On Thursday morning I had been fever free for about 12 hours and since Luke was up early he and I had a chance to play for a few minutes before I ventured out to school. We cuddled and snuggled and then he drove a car on my face and fishhooked me :) P.S. - I'm wearing scrubs in these pics because it was "Old School TV" day at school and I was from "old school E.R." hahaha

Nothing Better - Part Deux

If you read my earlier post about having nothing else going on this week, then you'll understand why I felt the urge to whip up 12 Conkerr cancer pillowcases over the course of the last few days :)

I am in LOVE with this concept! Getting to make a bright, cheerful, fun pillowcase for a child in the hospital - getting to pray over each one and the child who will receive it - and getting to write a note full of encouragement (and stickers!) to hopefully brighten their day. So fun!

I'm attempting to work on this project with my girls in Craft Club, but due to A LOT of schedule interruptions, lack of sewing equipment, etc. it's looking like I may be taking the material for 30+ pillowcases and whipping them up here at home. ha!

Nothing better to do...

Since it's not like I was out for a couple of days this week and have TONS of grading to do or anything like that.

Since it's definitely not the last week of the school quarter which lends itself to LOTS of last minute assignments, grades and catching up.

Since it's not Homecoming week and therefore an INSANE time to try to get work done in the classroom.

Since I have NOTHING better to do (ha!) I made this for Luke last night: Tomorrow night I'm planning on taking him with me to the Homecoming football game(s) and I realized that he'd outgrown both his MCA onesie and hoodie that he wore last year. This is by no means perfect, but I think that's kind of the charm (at least that's what I'm telling myself to avoid freaking out about the flaws... hehehe)

HOPE

Last Friday was MCA's first community outreach day of the school year and I had the privledge of taking 11 fantastic young ladies to HOPE Resource Center. HOPE had just moved into a new location and the girls were able to sort, organize and store about 35 boxes of baby and maternity clothes, clean, move furniture and put out a mailing (all before 1:00). ha!

Here are a few of the girls working on sorting: It was a GORGEOUS day and we sat outside to eat lunch:

One of the girls was turning 15 :) We turned a carrot spice muffin into an impromptu bday celebration:

The girs got a TON accomplished, had a fantastic time and were really inspired. They're even planning a diaper drive for next quarter. :)

Brownie Points

Last week I thought I'd try to earn some brownie points with my 22 craft club girls by making them a cake (actually it was cakes... since there are so many girls I had to make two). The other one (which I never got a picture of) said "We Heart Craft Club"

This is what was left after 20 minutes of our club time... I guess it was good...

Then last Wednesday night I decided to earn some brownie points with my family and I baked this strawberry pie - complete with pumpkin cut-out crust (kind of - ha!)

One of my students sure knows how to rack up the brownie points :)... I let one of the studnets bring in a snack for the class on a test day and Madi showed up with this on Monday: Needless to say, she made an A on her test :)

Homecoming Week

Didn't you hate it when you were little and you got sick on the day of your friends bday party or field day at school?!?!?! Well, that's how I'm feeling this week. It's Homecoming Week and I've been sick since Saturday. :( ALL of my classes were supposed to take a test on Monday, so I got out of bed for the first time in 3 days, put on my athletic attire (it was ESPN day) and headed out. I'd only been at school for about an hour when I realized what a big mistake it had been to go, but stuck it out anyway. Here's a picture of Luke and I before I left for school on Monday...Yes, the chair that his high chair sits on IS covered in an old beach towel becasue Luke has taken a liking to crushing and then wiping his food all over it.

Luke went to Acute Care for Kids on Sunday night because he had been acting super puney for a couple of days and had actually lost his voice - turns out that he had a double ear infection and upper respiratory infection among other things.

I LOVE taking tons of pictures of my students during these spirit weeks and then posting them up in my room - but this is the only picture that I managed to take on Monday:

Yesterday was nerd day (my favorite) and I hated to miss it, but today is mismatch day and I'll be sure to take lots of pictures to take up for missing yesterday.

P.S. - Can I just take a second to say how relieved I am that I'm not in charge of Homecoming this year.