A "How To" Lesson

Ok, so I know that some of my "visitors" might be new to the "blogging world", so I wanted to give a little "how to" lesson on leaving comments. But first, I wonder how many more "quotations" I could get in that first sentence!! : )

Anyway, I LOVE to know that my friends and family are reading/looking at my blog and the best way for me to know that you visited me, is if you will leave me a comment on the post that you looked at.

To do this, all you need to do is go to the bottom of the particular post you have read. You will see the date/time stamp there and something that will say "x# comments". Click on that comments link and it will bring up a little box that will allow you to type a little note to me. That comment/note will get emailed to me (for approval--just in case someone writes me something that doesn't need to be published), then I will approve it to publish to my comments. It's as easy as that!

I really do love getting comments and knowing that you are looking at my blog, so take a minute to leave a me a note! THANKS!!

And we're off.........

no, not to see the wizard, but to start the "Year of School Projects". Yes, 4th grade is the year of many, many, many, did I say many? School Projects! I hated them when I was in school and I hate them now that my kids are in school. Hate is a very strong word I know....so maybe I should say I really, really, really dislike them. Are you getting my point?? You see they make them do these projects that they pretty much HAVE to have a parents help on. So then you have some kids whose parents WON'T or can't help them (and you can definitely tell by looking at them) and then you have the parents who DO the project for their kids (and you can DEFINITELY tell by looking at them!!) I want to find a happy medium in there someplace, but it is really hard. This particular project was on the Animal and Plant Cell. It is one that they could do on their own, but it is required to be 3-D, so maybe they would have to have a little bit of help with that one, but anyway, with Conner we had to choose one or the other Animal or Plant, but Mari Cate had to both---yee-ha!! (Hear the excitement in my voice??) With Conner's we did a stryofoam recreation of the Plant Cell....that stuff is messy, so I vowed not to do that again...oh and did I mention, many of the children in Mari Cate's grade, had brothers or sisters in Conner's grade and I have a sneaky suspicion that there were some projects at school this morning from days past!! Well, I thought I would try to do something to make it a little more fun/interesting for both Mari Cate and myself! So I (I will be honest) made two sugar cookies, a round one and a rectangle one, and I helped direct her decorating it. I thought they turned out beautiful and that she did a wonderful job!!

This is a little embarrassing!

Twice a year we have a big children's consignment sale here in town and I have been participating the since Mari Cate was a baby. It is a nice way to make a little extra money. Thankfully, my Mom always helps me get everything ready too. Somehow, I always seem to have an abundance of clothes...in EVERY size!! I even had baby girl clothes this time---what is up with that?? So anyway, two weeks ago, Mom and I worked for days to get everything on hangers, tagged/priced, ironed, and sorted into sizes. I am kind of embarrassed to show HOW MUCH stuff there was, and what is even worse is that these pictures don't even show what I brought up from the basement on 2-3 other occasions!! Of course the baby swing and the exersaucer weren't for sale!! : )

So the fruit of our hard work?????

Not too shabby huh???

Ball Games and Band

Thursday night was the first football game for Conner's Middle School. He is playing trumpet in the Advanced Band (way to go Conner!) this year and they get to play at the Football Games. Here are few pictures from the night. The pretty girl with the big smile in the second picture is my sweet niece. She plays percussion and is playing the cymbals for football games--she thought she would let the big tough guys carry those HUGE drumsets!!

An Unprofessional Photo Shoot

I took some pictures for Hayden's 6 months. We are going to go to Master Portraits in a couple of weeks to get professional ones done, were supposed to go today, but I ended up with strep throat!! Remember to click on the picture and you can see bigger versions of the pictures!

Some stats and a little talking

I took Hayden for his 6 month well check-up yesterday. He is doing awesome! He weighed 16 lbs. 9 oz., and was 26 1/4" long. He ranges in the 25-50% on all his measurements which is great.

Here is a little video of him gabbing, with Mari Cate in the background trying to encourage him! haha

Congratulations Mom and Dad

on your new home!!

I'm 6 months old!!

Yesterday we celebrated Hayden's 1/2 Year Birthday! I know---silly, silly...but whatever, it was fun! We had 1/2 a cake and 1/2 gallon of ice cream to celebrate. I couldn't figure out how to do 1/2 a candle or 1/2 a balloon, so we skipped the candle and got a whole balloon. I gave him a little bite of the icing (I know, I know bad Momma!) and he sure did like it! We even song the Birthday song (It's your birthday, It's your bithday) and sang it with 1/2 birthday. I videoed it on my camera, but it didn't come out...too bad!

Beco Giveaway----Hurry and Enter!

Click here to Win a Beco Butterfly Baby Carrier and Beco Toy Carrier from Along for the Ride.

Biter Biscuits and Jumpy Jumpy

Here are two short little videos (again from my camera--so not the best quality) of Hayden eating "Rice Rusks" and jumping in his Jumper Thingy, which he has finally figured out. Watch the funny faces he makes while eating the biscuits. Like I said I know these are not the best quality, but mostly I just wanted you all (especially my family out west that hasn't gotten to meet him!!) to see what his personality is like. Oh, and you can just ignore my silly sounding and very southern sounding voice!!

Swimming at Skull Island

This is just a short little video from my camera (not camcorder), so the quality is not real great, but Hayden got so tickled at Mari Cate singing to him (and Conner is in the background too), that I just had to share. He absolutely adores them both!!!

Oh and by the way the "Baby's got the brains" that Mari Cate is singing to him, came from the old school cheer (Boys got the muscles, Teachers got the brains, Girls got the pretty legs, we won the game), except they were making up their own version....you gotta love kids!!

The latest GNO....with kids!

For those of you not up on the lingo (hehehe), GNO stands for Girls Night Out. Actually this one was for lunch though. Two of our friends that live out of town and don't get to come much actually got to come this time though and it was so great to see them! Some of us also had our kids and Conner got to be the only boy (he was upset at first then changed his mind as the day progressed!!)

It really amazes me that all of are able to take time from our busy schedules and get together, but I really enjoy it and the friendships that have lasted for SOOOO many years!! Thanks again girls!!

Here is one of all of us, minus Kim who had to leave early!!

Be sure to read all the "catch up posts" below!!

Hayden Updates....

Hayden is changing, growing and doing so many new things everyday! Those of you that live far away, I just hate that you can't be around this precious little boy!


He has said Mama and Dada a couple of times. Mama is actually more distinquishable than Dada. The first time he said it, we all just looked at each other in astonishment!


He rolls all over the place and attempts to scoot or move himself toward what he wants(although he gets held so much, I am afraid he might never learn to crawl or walk--hahaha!!)


He loves his cereal and eats so well for being 5 1/2 months I think. He was DEFINITELY ready for something else. I have added some baby fruit to the menu also and he seems to enjoy it also. We actually started out with bananas, not baby food bananas and just mashed them up and he LOVED them.


He absolutely adores both Conner and Mari Cate. And they (especially Mari Cate) have fallen in love with this little boy for sure!!

Be sure to read all the "catch up posts" below!!

My oh my do I need to get caught up!!

I have so many things to write about and still not enough time! Hayden is down for a nap, so I will try to catch up on a few.

The kids went back to school on Tuesday. Both were ready to go back I think. We enjoy school. We (all of us) do better on the routine of school I think. Conner is in 7th grade this year. Last year in Band (he plays the trumpet) they named students for the Advanced Band (the others would go to Intermediate Band. Conner didn't make the cut for the Advanced Band (there were like 20 trumpet players so we weren't counting on it really). Well during the summer they offer Summer Band and apparantly he and one of his friends were the only Itermediate Band trumpet players to make the effort to attend. Well, that effort paid off. They were moved to Advanced Band!! Yay!! However, that is going to mean he needs to kick it in gear practicing to make sure he can get to that level of playing! His teacher offers FREE lessons after school, so I am sure we are going to try to take advantage of that! Mari Cate is in 4th grade this year. She loves her new teacher and is excited about this year. In 4th grade they begin to "grow them up" a little bit to begin to prepare them for middle school (although nothing except actually going to middle school can prepare you for it!!).

Here is a picture of them their first day. They are growing up so much!!

Conner and Mari Cate are going to be in a wedding in December. Conner is going to be junior groomsmen and Mari Cate will be the flower girl. We went to try on the dresses Sunday, and I just had to share how pretty my girl looked! The dress had red trim, but the one we will be getting will have a "pool blue" color trim for the Winter Wonderland theme the bride is going with. Please ignore the silly face she made!!

And this is not a good scanned picture, but it shows the color and what the back of the dress looks like. Obviously we will be doing her hair up to show off the pretty back on it! The blue color looks so pretty against her skin!
I will post some pics of Conner with his tux when we get some and of course will have lots from the wedding!

Apples

Just had to share a quick funny picture! (And I know I have so much catching up to---lots of pictures to posts, and new things to share. I promise to get it all on here in the next couple of days---'cause you know the kids did start school today---read a hint of excitement in those words!)

Anyway, Hayden is interested in EVERYTHING we put in our mouths and I was eating an apple today and he thought he needed to share it with me. Obviously he can't eat it, but he sure did like licking the juice off of it and you will notice what happened when I took it away too. We don't see those faces too often!