The Elf on the Shelf

Mamaw and Papaw got Ashley an "Elf on the Shelf" for Christmas. For those of you who don't know, this seems to be all the rage this year -- it's an elf who sits around your house all during the Christmas season and zips to the North Pole each night to report to Santa on whether you've been good or bad that day. Each morning, you will usually find that he has moved to a new vantage point, or is missing altogether, which could mean that he is lying in wait at school, church, Grandma's house, etc. Unfortunately, Ashley informs me that a friend of hers at school had an elf on the shelf this year, and HER elf brought little presents each day that she was good. I have a feeling our elf will not be quite so generous. Anyway, here's a picture of me reading the Elf on the Shelf story to the kids, which explains how he works, and then there's a pic of Tyler that I just thought was too cute not to share.

Christmas Joy

We had our Christmas celebration on the morning of December 24 this year. As you can see, both kids were thrilled...the two big hits of the morning were Tyler's train set and Ashley's Barbie Girl MP3 player. What a wonderful day!

Basketball season

Ashley moved right from cheerleading to basketball, and Saturday was her first game. Basketball is really the only sport she has consistently enjoyed...we've tried soccer a number of times and t-ball once, but she really wasn't interested in either of those. I think this is going to be a great season for her...her shooting is so much better already, and she's one of the older and more experienced girls on her team, so she's getting to take the ball down the court, play point guard on occasion, and is one of the "go-to" girls when they are on offense. They unfortunately lost this game, 14-12 I think, but they still played great and I was very proud of her effort.

Fireman Tyler

Today is the first really rainy day we've had in a while, and I noticed in the closet when I was getting Ashley's rain jacket out that Tyler has one he has never even worn. And better than that, it's a fireman jacket, and it has matching boots! He has worn the boots around the house all morning (we are home because he's getting over some sort of virus that has had him down the past few days), but agreed to put on the coat so I could take pictures of him.

It's a ham for Thanksgiving!

Ashley has never been fond of having her picture taken. There are times when she is more amenable to the idea than others, but I often get a tongue sticking out or an arms-folded, frowny face pose (I know Aunt Helen can relate!). Tyler, on the other hand, seems to now love having his picture taken. If the camera is within reach, he will give it to me and tell me to take his picture...he'll smile beautifully, then immediately ask to "See TyTy" on the screen so he can see how it turned out. He also pointed to a picture of the Campbell's Soup boy and told his teacher, "That's TyTy!"...I think that first picture lets you see the resemblance. The final picture is with his friend Annalise, who is just one month younger than him...they've known each other since they were born and Annalise's mom used to keep Tyler for me when she was still a stay-at-home mom...I'd love it if they stayed friends so we can capture pictures of them as they grow!

Pee Wee Bears!

Ashley had her first cheerleading competition yesterday -- it was the year end "Cheer-Off". These girls were absolutely amazing...considering most of them had little or no cheerleading experience, they did a phenomenal routine. I was so proud of them! In case you can't tell, Ashley's in the back, fourth from the left. Their team won the award for "Most Original Routine". Several of the girls and their awesome coach will be back again next season, so I'm excited to see what they will be able to accomplish next year.

Picture download

Sorry for being a slacker! It may continue, as now I cannot locate the charger to the camera, and the battery is almost dead! And the pictures came in in the reverse order that I selected them, so you'll just have to figure out which description goes with which pic.

The first pic is of Ashley on Halloween...as you can tell, she was an artist, which was her idea. I was so proud of her for coming up with it...it's so much more fun to piece together a costume than spend $30 on some pre-made one. There are no pictures of Tyler, as he refused to wear any sort of costume. I don't think he quite got it this year, but he was adamant (for many weeks in a row) that he did not want to wear anything other than his normal clothes for any occasion, which honestly was fine with me. He and I stayed at home, while Ashley went trick-or-treating with her friend Paige. I thought he's get a kick out of seeing other kids come to the door in costumes, but since we had no trick or treaters this year, it was a pretty low-key holiday.

The other two pics are from our trip to Selma to visit Mallory's family last weekend. Ashley fell in LOVE with Mamaw's dogs, Trotter and Windsor, and spent every spare moment cuddling with them, walking them, etc. It was very cute, especially since she is not too familiar with dogs and we were all a little worried how the dogs and kids would get along. As you can see, Tyler made himself at home -- he would get in the kennel and shut the door and say "No, Puppy!" when one of the dogs would try to get in there with him. We had a great time...it was nice to get away, especially since we had not been to Selma since Christmas (and the kids had never been!).

Yikes!

It's been a while since I've posted, hasn't it! Never fear -- I have lots of cute pics on my camera from Halloween, our trip to Alabama to visit Mallory's family, and other various occasions, but it will probably be this weekend before I get a chance to download. So check back over the weekend!

A few other odds and ends...

Can you believe it? Three posts in one day??? You can tell I finally had time to download the camera tonight! These are just some other random pics I wanted to share...the one of me and the kids in the little train was at the Pink Palace Crafts Fair a couple weekends ago. The PPCF is a family tradition in my family, and I was so excited to be able to share it with Mallory and the kids this year. Obviously, Tyler's favorite part was this choo-choo train (they also had a petting zoo that he thought was pretty cool, though he was hesitant to actually touch anything, or even get out of the stroller for that matter.

The tent that Ashley got from Gramma a few years ago has now taken up permanent residence in a corner of the playroom. She usually sleeps in it on one of the weekend nights that she's home, and Tyler also likes getting in there occasionally.

The third one just made me laugh...Tyler was walking around "talking" to Grampa on the phone (most of his pretend phone conversations involve Grampa). He just looked so serious and grown-up pacing back and forth, having this important phone conversation.

The last picture is entitled "Portrait of a Grouchy Cheerleader"...she hates when I take pictures of her in front of her friends and was just in quite a mood this particular morning, but it was the last regular-season game, so I wanted to get a picture.

Mmm...we all scream for ice cream!

Or in this case, frozen yogurt! Since it's Ashley's fall break, I decided we'd take a quick detour when I picked the kids up after work and get some TCBY. Tyler insisted on "pink ice cream"...not sure where he got that, but luckily they had some cotton candy-flavored yogurt (Ashley's favorite) that was pink and blue, so he was happy with that. He sat there like such a big boy and was so neat with his spoon...he was actually neater than Ashley until his got all melted and drippy!

Home Improvement

Well, Sunday afternoon Mallory and I went to the Vesta Home Show. For those of you who don't know, it's where you get to tour 7 houses that have just been built/decorated...these homes have state-of-the-art everything...all the latest home gadgets/appliances/decor ideas.

We were so inspired when we came home to our somewhat aged house, we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon/evening painting our dark brick fireplace. I've always wanted to do it...our den is kind of cave-like due to the trees outside, but I think painting the fireplace is a huge improvement. Next up is the walls, as I've never cared for the dingy blah taupe that currently graces them...stay tuned! :-)

Rock on!

In anticipation of an upcoming party we are having, we bought Guitar Hero III for our Wii. We just unpacked it and are still in "training" mode, but it's already really fun and Ashley is loving every minute of it, as you can see above.

Sunday School Picnic

Last weekend, our Sunday School class planned a potluck picnic at a neighborhood park, which was ideal -- the kids were totally happy to run around and play with each other, and allow the adults to do some socializing! Our friend Brian has an awesome digital camera, and he managed to capture these cute pics of Ashley and Tyler.

The last "real" Mid-South Fair

As usual, I forgot to take my camera to yet another fun family outing, so I took this picture with my phone...I am amazed I even got them in the frame, as the cars were moving pretty fast and there's quite a delay between the time you push the button and the time it actually snaps the picture! At first Tyler was not interested in riding any rides and was content to sit in the stroller and watch Ashley have all the fun, but once we talked him into riding this with Ashley, he was hooked and cried every time a ride was over and he had to get out. And this picture makes me smile because I know my parents have a similar picture of me when I was little riding a ride just like this.

I so wish I'd had my camera, because seeing Tyler's face at the petting zoo was priceless. I don't think he's ever been up close to real animals like that...he loved petting the bunny rabbits and also enjoyed the baby chicks who were chirping very loudly and the sheep who tried to climb out of his pen to get more of the food Ashley was feeding them. There were also two little baby goats who were playing and butting heads with each other, which was very cute. Grandma works at the Fair office, and so she went with us to the pony rides...I thought Tyler might do it when Grandma agreed to walk with him, but he chickened out. He was fine with watching Sister do it.

We also enjoyed all the yummy fair food, though the funnel cake was overcooked. And I totally forgot to introduce Mallory to the joy of a deep fried candy bar! We had a really wonderful day, though, and I'm so glad Mallory got to experience the Mid-South Fair the way it's been since I was little (minus Libertyland, of course)...next year it moves to Tunica, MS, and while I'm sure it will still be fun (and we'll probably still go), it just won't be the same. Kind of like the Enchanted Forest...I'm so glad they still have it, but it will never be as magical as it was down in the basement at Lowenstein's downtown.

Here we go again...

Yes, it's me again...the blog slacker. And no, I still don't have any pictures to post this time, since I'm technically supposed to be "working" right now instead of blogging. I feel guilty about my lack of blogging lately, but I just haven't had that much to blog about! OK, that's not entirely true, but given the fact that this is a public blog and I don't always know who my audience is, I don't feel like I can always be completely straightforward!

So yes, the IRS audit is over. I will not go into details except to say that regardless of my "positive thinking" beforehand, it turned out exactly the opposite of how I had hoped that it would. So now our attorneys can add this to the pissing contest that is about to begin. But that's okay, because that was a very small battle compared to the potential upcoming war that I have tried and tried to avoid.

I've had two solid weeks of sick children at home. The week of 8/24, it was Tyler with pneumonia/bronchitis/something like that. Then the week of 8/31, it was Ashley, and she missed the entire week with fever and sore throat (negative for strep, though). This week is our first "normal" week in a while, and of course I'm now getting sick, just in time for my weekend "off" from the kids. Oh well.

Mallory had hair transplant surgery on 8/29 in Nashville, which went very well...he got his stitches out yesterday and we are so pleased with the results so far. It will be a while before we really know what a full head of hair looks like, as the transplanted follicles will go dormant for a few months from the "trauma" of being moved around, but you can already see that it's going to be very successful.

Can't think of anything else, but I'll try to get some new pics of the kids soon, I promise (I know that's why 98% of you even look at this blog!) :)

Hypocrite...

After accusing Kelly of being a blog slacker earlier this summer, I just looked at the date of my last post and realized that I, too, could now join the club! No pictures today, just a few family updates...

Ashley started second grade a couple of weeks ago. Her teacher, who we had specifically requested, ended up getting transferred to another school after the first week, but luckily Ashley was moved into a class with her three closest friends, plus many other kids she knows. Her new teacher is fairly young but seems quite capable and energetic, and Ashley already really likes her, so we are hoping for another great year at Germantown Elementary. On the cheerleading front, Jamboree was last Saturday (her first official game) and the girls did really well. Her first regular season game is next Wednesday night, so I'll try to post some pictures.

Tyler moved to a new class at his preschool. We are still dealing with tears every morning, but that is no surprise to me, since it took nearly all summer for him to stop crying at drop off in his "summer camp" class. The teachers assure me that he calms down very quickly and he always seems happy when I pick him up. He is talking so much now, which we all still get so tickled over. On the way to school the other morning, he was in the backseat doing his hearty fake laugh, which he would follow with "I so funny!" over and over again.

I get the pleasure of being audited by the IRS in a couple weeks, on my 2006 tax return (the last one I had to final jointly with Donald). I'll let you know how it goes, in case any of you get the dreaded letter in your mailbox one day! Nothing else new with me and Mallory -- we were up late last night trying to assemble our new basketball goal...for two intelligent people, we sure went through a lot of agony and still only got the thing half-assembled. Hopefully we can finish tonight, as Ashley has been so looking forward to having her very own basketball goal.

Go Bears!

Ashley started Pee Wee cheerleading yesterday! Her team is the Bears, and she's on a squad with 9 other 2nd and 3rd grade girls. She's already learning that, finally, being the smallest girl on the team is a good thing (she's always been the smallest girl on her basketball team, which puts her at a bit of a disadvantage)...she's already been designated as a "top" girl, which means she gets to be on the top for pyramids and stunts and such! This is going to be a major time commitment for the next 3 or 4 months, but I'm excited for her!

Pink Palace

We were so excited that our friends Carrie, Edie, and Gus are back on our "weekend schedule" so that we could plan an outing today! We went to the Pink Palace, which is a natural history/local history museum here. The kids had great fun in the Treasure exhibit, where they panned for "gold" and used metal detectors to find treasure. Ashley found out that if she was solid gold, she would be worth $565,000! But of course, in her present form, she is priceless :)

Redbirds game

Tuesday night our firm sponsored a Redbirds night for our office (which, for those of you who don't know, is our local professional baseball team affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals). Thank goodness it cooled off a little (the day before, I think it was 97 or 98). We all had a great time!

Girls Gone Wild!

What a fun weekend! Carrie and Heather were two of my best friends in high school...we kind of lost touch with Heather but reconnected over lunch a few weeks ago and set up a wonderful girls getaway weekend to Heather's lake house at Sardis. She had an absolutely wonderful house on the lake that they built about three years ago, and a fabulous boat...Carrie planned all our meals and blessed us with her super cooking...and I was lucky enough to get to show up with a bottle of rum and my sparkling personality (ha!) and enjoy a really wonderful weekend with two very special friends. Perhaps if I get ambitious I'll scan a picture I have of the three of us from some high school dance so you can see that we haven't changed a bit in 17 years! :)

July 4th Fun!

What a nice holiday weekend so far! Yesterday we grilled out and had my parents and my aunt and uncle over, which was a lot of fun. My aunt and uncle live in Hernando, which isn't that far, btu we almost never see them and they had never met Mallory, so we all had a good time catching up. Today poor Mallory had to go back to work, but I am thoroughly enjoying having one whole day to myself (the kids are at their dad's) to clean the house, do some blogging, and maybe do a little shopping, all completely uninterrupted.

The first pic is of Ashley introducing Tyler to the joys of bubble wrap. After they sat here and popped individual bubbles for a while, Ashley laid it out on the floor and they had big fun stomping all over it...it was like indoor firecrackers! The second pic is obviously of Tyler and Mallory swinging...for lunch on the 4th, we got some Wendy's and went to the playground for a little picnic. Due to a storm that was about to blow in, we were the only people there, but we managed to get in a little bit of play (in the sprinkles) before Tyler got attacked by some ants and we decided it was about time to head home for a nap anyway. The third picture is of the kids playing in the sprinkler that Ashley was dying to play in. Tyler was not a fan and stayed mostly on the outskirts of the water. Ashley quickly discovered that sprinklers aren't nearly as fun as the commercials make them out to be...don't think I'll have to hear about that sprinkler again for a while!

Ashley from A to Z

Ashley saw this on the blog and decided she wanted to answer it, too! Oh, and by the way, she took the picture of me pushing Tyler on the swing...a budding photographer!

A: Attached or single? Single, of course! I'm 7!

B: Best friends? Kaiya, Paige, Edie

C: Cake or Pie? Definitely cake, preferably white

D: Day of choice: Monday

E: Essential Items: friends, love, care, family

F: Favorite color? blue

G: Gummy Bears or worms? bears

H: Hometown: Memphis

I: Favorite indulgence: donuts

J: January or July: January

K: Kids: I am a kid!

L: Life isn't complete without...? my brother and my mom

M: Marriage Date: Mom says not until at least 2030

N: Number of brothers and sisters: one brother

O: Oranges or apples: Apples (without skin)

P: Phobia: when I am in the dark alone, tornadoes, earthquakes, bad storms

Q: Quotes: none

R: Reason to smile? when someone does something funny

S: Season? winter

T: Tag 5 people: I don't know anyone else who will do this!

U: Unknown fact: that my favorite color is blue, not pink anymore

V: Veggie: cooked broccoli

W: Worst habit: picking at scabs

X: X-ray or ultrasound: what does that even mean? X-ray

Y: Your favorite food? my stepdad's spaghetti

Z: Zinc or sunscreen: sunscreen

A perfect Saturday morning

What a perfect morning! Overcast and a little cool, with a nice breeze. We got up and the kids got haircuts first thing this morning, then we stopped for yummy, messy, sticky donuts! We drove around Germantown for a little while to find some of the horses...if you don't know, Germantown commissioned 10-12 beautiful horse statues painted by various artists and positioned them around town (Kelly has a great slideshow of all of them on her blog). Then we decided to stop by a park near our house and spent a good long while there...the weather was absolutely perfect and the kids had great fun on the playground. Ashley has become quite adept at climbing up and down the VERY tall fireman's pole they have there, and Tyler, who has never enjoyed swinging at all, had so much fun swinging that Ashley and I were worn out from taking turns pushing him. We must have pushed him for at least half an hour, and he still wasn't ready to get out! Then it was time to head home for lunch and a nap for Tyler (which is the only reason I have enough free time to post this!).

Stephanie from A to Z

This came from Alethea's blog, and everyone knows I'm a sucker for random question surveys, especially when I am trying to avoid working!

A: Attached or single? Attached to Mallory, for almost 9 months now

B: Best friends? Mallory, Carrie, Kelly, Alethea, Jennifer

C: Cake or Pie? Cake, and I'm pretty particular. I don't really love those super-sweet, lard-and-sugar frosted masterpieces from the supermarket bakery (though I will say Costco makes a delicious cake, and at a super bargain price! But it's not every day you need a cake that serves 48!). Yellow cake with chocolate frosting is a favorite, as is fresh strawberry cake from Miss Muff'n. Carrot cake is yummy too!

D: Day of choice: Saturday

E: Essential Items: my cell phone, Diet Dr. Pepper, chocolate, Krispy Kreme donuts

F: Favorite color? probably pink

G: Gummy Bears or worms? not a fan of either -- too chewy. Definitely Sour Patch Kids!

H: Hometown: Memphis

I: Favorite indulgence: most any kind of baked goods, especially donuts and brownies

J: January or July: January...July in Memphis is just unpleasant.

K: Kids: Ashley and Tyler

L: Life isn't complete without...? my family

M: Marriage Date: April 20, 2008

N: Number of brothers and sisters: none

O: Oranges or apples: Apples

P: Phobia: large bugs, burglars/kidnappers/bad guys

Q: Quotes: Not sure who to attribute it to, but I hear it and say it often "Everything happens for a reason"

R: Reason to smile? When Tyler or Ashley hug me for no reason other than they felt like it.

S: Season? Fall

T: Tag 5 people: well, I don't know many people who keep blogs, and I'm not really sure who reads mine except for Kelly and Alethea!

U: Unknown fact: in elementary school, I used to love to be in plays.

V: Veggie: broccoli

W: Worst habit: laziness

X: X-ray or ultrasound: what kind of question is that? Sounds like the question author was getting tired and couldn't think of anything else!

Y: Your favorite food? Desserts

Z: Zinc or sunscreen: see X :)

Esther-ordinary Faith

Ashley participated in MAD Camp (music, art, drama) this week at our church. This group of about 40 1st-6th graders put on an amazing 45 minute musical, called "Esther-ordinary Faith", after just four days of rehearsals. In addition to being one of the queen's court, Ashley was in a special number for the 1st and 2nd grade girls called "While You Sleep", which is why she is in her pajamas for part of the show. We are so proud of her! And also very proud of Tyler, who managed to sit through the entire show Thursday night. He was very attentive when Ashley performed, and spent most of the rest of the time snuggled up in my lap or flirting with various females in the rows behind us. After every song, he said "mommy's house?", which was his way of asking if it was time to go home yet, but he hung in there for the whole show, which was very unexpected and a blessing!

Saturday

Today the Germantown Community Library had a really neat event called "Touch a Truck". They had a fire truck, an ambulance, a police car, a garbage truck, a street sweeper, a bulldozer, a crane, and some other cool vehicles that kids could get in and climb around on. I thought Tyler would love it, as he is always pointing out vehicles like those, and it seems like all boys are born loving that kind of stuff, so we went over after lunch. However, I didn't take into account that all of those vehicles would be occupied by kids honking the horns and blaring the sirens, all in one small parking lot. Tyler was clutched onto my hip and wouldn't let go...he spent much of the time saying "no no" or hiding his face on my shoulder. However, they did have a cool old fire truck which had been painted Tiger Blue and was all decked out to support the Tigers, so I did manage to get Ashley's picture, as I groaned under the 30 lbs of sticky sweaty boy attached to my hip and shoulder.

Tyler's picture is in his favorite place...Mallory's car. He loves cars of all types and points them out often...he also knows the Ford (Daddy), Jeep (Mommy), VW (Mallory), and Mazda (Grandma) logos and points them out whenever he sees them. But he loves Mallory's car and Grandma's car the most because they unknowingly opened a door that cannot be closed...they allowed him to sit in the driver's seat and play around one day, and now he is obsessed. He wakes up in the morning saying "car? car?" which we all know means "can we go out to Mallory's car now?" If Mallory, heaven forbid, leaves the house in his car, Tyler cries because now there is no chance of getting in it until Mallory returns. He never tires of playing in the car...we have all waited as long as we possibly could, thinking that surely today would be the day when 45 minutes is long enough, but we have to finally pull him screaming and crying out of the car so we can go inside and cool off.

Memorial Day

Hi everyone! Nothing much going on here...Mallory has been working hard in the front yard, and has torn out pretty much everything in the front flowerbeds (it was all half-dead, if not totally dead!). Looking much better already, even with nothing in them! Mallory is going to grill out some hamburgers for us later on the new Weber grill he won at work (which I put together all by myself, thank you very much!). Here are some random pics I took this morning. Tyler was very glad to see us after 4 days with his dad, as evidenced by his chilling out with Mallory shortly after the kids got home. Ashley, as you can see, spent most of the weekend swimming and is feeling the effects of too little sunscreen today. And Tyler climbed up on the couch and got comfy himself while watching Elmo right before naptime.

New Decor

Of course, I love Mallory infinitely and would have been happy to marry him even if he had nothing, but the fact that he has such wonderful furnishings and art work was a fabulous bonus! He nearly killed himself getting it all moved in on a yucky, rainy day, but now we are settled in nicely and it really feels like home, for both of us. Sorry I don't have any good "before" pics, but hopefully most of you remember what it looked like! The TV is now on the wall where the love seat was (as evidenced by Tyler staring in that direction).