1 year documentary photo

Every month this past year I have been taking a picture of Tripp on his month birthday. I wanted to give you a little behind the scenes this month.

This is typically the end result:

Or something like this where he is smiling but not looking:

But we always have a little of this in the out takes:

And in true boy fashion, a little of this:


So it isn't always easy but it is attainable! Have a great week everyone!

Tripp is ONE!!!

Tripp's party was a huge success! We didn't even have any meltdowns! Here he is in his gift from us.


My sister and Micah were there celebrating with us!

Me and the kids. I love my sweet babies!

Tripp cracked me up with this gift because the box was bigger than him and he kept leaning over the box to look inside. So sweet!

Here he is "reading" his card that Jonah Carlisle made him. This was at the beginning of opening gifts... he didn't last the whole time but we had great help and they enjoyed opening everything! I still remember having to open all of K's gifts on her first birthday all by myself. Not nearly as fun as having lots of helpers!

He completely devoured the cake. He dug right in. Squeezed the cake with his hand. It was everywhere. We had to strip him down and change his clothes outside. So much fun!

This is before he lost the hat. He was so much fun to watch. Great memories!

Here he is with Kate Turnbull. They are really close to the same age. So fun to see them side by side. She is walking up a storm and has been for a while. Tripp is close. Any day now!

Here he is at the beginning of the party. So cute!

The kids played at fishing for duckies game. It ended up being a wading pool. They had a good time and that is what it was there for! Check out Will's foot.

Another sweet picture of Rylie and Kaylen. They are such good friends!

My outdoor decor. I made the banner and found the lanterns on sale at HBLB! It ended up so cute and easy to do! Love summer birthdays!

Close up of my duckie cupcakes. These were fun to make.

The snacks table!

A great book!

A friend of mine gave me a book to read that I had been wanting to read for a while. I opened it up and haven't been able to put it down! It's called Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. It is soooo good! I can't tell you how deeply it has gripped me. My students are working on finishing up a project today so I opened it up during school. Totally cried in class! Couldn't help it. It is so heart moving. I highly recommend it.

Without giving anything away, it is about a homeless guy and an international art dealer and how their lives become forged together and the impact they had on each other. It is a great read.

sample video from new camera

Amazing Mother's Day Weekend!

I had a really fun weekend with my kids. My Mother's Day present came in on Saturday so I played with it all weekend. I got a new point and shoot camera! I love it! Kaylen and I went to a classmate's birthday party on Saturday and then Amber came over for a while. We hung out and played with my camera for a bit and then she left around 4:30 to take a nap and my kids wanted to do the same. So I put K and T down for a nap. Only K woke up that night. Tripp slept until 8 the next morning. He missed dinner and everything! This kid is absolutely ridiculous with his excessive sleeping. So I used the free time to get my house in order and work on a banner I am making for Tripp's birthday. Allen spent 5 hours working in the yard. He did an amazing job and suffered two horrendous blisters to boot.

Sunday started off so nice with breakfast in bed and some really sweet cards. We had Aunt Liz, Uncle Bob, Aunt Christy, Uncle Wayne, Mamaw, Papaw, Amber, Allen, the kids and me at the house. We had a nice lunch and homemade ice cream for dessert. We played corn hole (Amber beat me badly), basketball and went for a walk. It was so nice outside. I enjoyed every bit of the day and my kids were so adorable and both behaved wonderfully. It was good to be me yesterday. I am blessed.

Amber took these beginning ones of Tripp that turned out so great. In this first one he was dancing from side to side. Such a sweetie!

This one is obviously so funny but if you click on it and view it larger, you can totally see my sister using my new orange camera in his eyes! Too cool!



These last three were from Saturday. We enjoyed the mild yet beautiful weather all weekend.

Camp Out in the Backyard!

Kaylen has been asking us if we could go on a real camp out for quite some time now. She goes on pretend ones in the play room when she spends the night with her grandparents. So we finally had a really free weekend and decided to give it a try. We went and got a tent (we are such avid campers that we didn't even own one!) and I quickly learned that my husband didn't have that much practice with putting one of these up. Thankfully my dad always made me help out when we put tents up growing up as a kid. So between the two of us, we made it happen. Notice the big smile on Allen's face. This was a pretty funny endeavor.

Here it is all up and it was worth it because we had one excited little girl.

She is just like her daddy and she wants things to be a certain way. She had snacks that she went and got from the pantry. She had a baby for each of us. She had an agenda. We were to tell stories, have a pillow fight, wrestle and roast marshmallows. It was really fun. She even said that she prayed and asked God to keep it from raining on them. Her prayers were heard. The rain held off! She did forget to ask Him to keep the wind at bay but that made it an adventure!

This is a picture of our ominous sky. I was worried.


We had fun in the tent playing steam roller and telling stories. (not ghost stories just stories)

Tripp was inside asleep and that is why I let Kaylen and Daddy spend the night without me. I stayed out there until about 11:30. We did have a tee-tee accident but most nights she gets up in the middle of the night and goes to the bathroom. A combination of staying up until midnight and being outside threw her off. Oh well.

Here is a sample of our play dough people.


Here is my new camera!!! Happy Mother's Day to me!!!!! I am so excited about it. My current point and shoot is on its last leg, as you can tell from the blurry images above. We also got it in orange. I can't wait for it to come in!

Country Music Half Marathon 2010

I have finished my second Country Music 1/2 Marathon. This was my third half because I also did the Mini-Indy. Each time has gotten better. The Mini-Indy was bad because I had meant to train but didn't quite get around to it. Nothing on Earth has ever hurt worse than that!

After I had Kaylen I decided to train for a half to lose the baby weight. It was pretty effective and I had a great race. The weather was awesome and it felt good. The blisters from not having great socks on KILLED! Other than that, it was a wonderful experience.

This time around I trained with Jessica South (my friend in the picture). She is a rock star! This is her third CMHM in a row. For all of our long runs she was the driving force for us to move faster and faster. I absolutely loved training with her (even though I wasn't that nice while we were going through it). She pushed me and I love that! We are about to start training for the wet dog. I always love training for the triathlon's so much more than the half marathons. I get tired of running so much.

Anyway, I had some IT band issues this year and it was on the painful side. At one time I really thought that was going to keep me from my goal of beating my 2007 time of 2:00. But it did not. I ended up finishing in 1:57. The rain held off just long enough for me to run and get back to my car and to my hotel. Thankfully I never had the first raindrop. It was humid but cloudy - so no bright sun beating down. My goal was to lose the baby weight from Tripp and I lost a pound per mile. So 13 lbs! I love running!

I did accidentally throw my gum in what I thought was a trash can but it was a vat of Cytomax that they were giving all the runners. oops. The winner of the marathon (26 miles) did it in 2:15. That is so amazing. I am in awe!

Interview with a 4 year old

I got this idea from a friends blog who interviewed her daughter. I thought that was such a great idea and I just knew that Kaylen would love it. I was right. She wanted me to keep asking her questions! So here is our conversation:

Mommy: What is your favorite toy?
K: my baby doll's in the crib

M: What is your favorite thing to do at school?
K: My jobs

M: What is something you like to say?
K: I love to say, "I love you."

M: What is your favorite food?
K: Strawberries

M: How do you treat your brother?
K: Um... I love him. I treat him happy.

M: Who is your best friend?
K: Alexis. She is at school. I play with her a lot. I really do. I am not kidding. Rylie is one too.

M: Where do you like to play?
K: I like to play at Rylie's house. That's my favorite place to play.

M: What is your favorite TV show?
K: Little Bear

M: What is your favorite book?
K: My books upstairs but sometimes I like to read the news like I did today.

M: What is your favorite color?
K: purple, pink and red. And I like green a lot.

M: Who loves you?
K: you do! My momma does. for these questions, I am not kidding. I am telling the truth. I am not lying.

M: What is your favorite thing to do after school?
K: play at Mamaw and Papaw's

M: What is your favorite sport?
K: That's easily. Soccer.

M: What do you like best about having a brother?
K: that I get to see him borned. M: Okay but you didn't get to see him "be" born. K: well, I know but I got to see him after he camed out of your belly.

M: What do you like best about Muggs?
K: Sometimes he follows me and does what I tell him. We go outside on sunshiny days like Easter.

M: What is your favorite thing about Daddy?
K: He knows how to take care of Tripp M: Oh really? K: And sometimes he wants to play with me outside.

M: What do you like best about being 4?
K: I get to do lots of stuff and now I'm not afraid of that genie guy in Jasmine.

T at 11 months and silly moments

Tripp is starting to slim down a lot these days. I think it is due to his increased activity. He did take his first step the other day. It was on his 11 month old birthday. He is still the happiest kid. No one makes him smile like Kaylen. He is a gut laugh-er. He really loves life and reminds the rest of us to lighten up and enjoy each other. I am so thankful for this little guy!




These pictures are from the other day. A friend of mine had a contest on her blog that encouraged moms to get in the pictures with their kids. Well, it didn't go all that swimmingly and I didn't turn anything in. I had my 50mm and had my camera set up on timer. We kept trying to get in the focused area and get all in the frame... doing that with these two little ones was so difficult! So they didn't turn out perfect but I am glad I did it. We were having such a good time playing in Tripp's room and there are some unique shots that came out of it. Definite memories!

This first one is of K dancing it up with a drumstick in her hand. I love to watch her dance. She can shake that booty better than anybody! :)


She looks so sweet in this shot.

Even though this picture showcases my least favorite characteristic (my little teeth), I love Tripp's face. He was not having the confinement being forced on him for this shot. Hilarious!

This is how most of them turned out - me looking at the camera and the kids doing their own thing. I love to see them interact though.

This is one of K trying to force T to look at me. She is kind of bossy but I think he will begin to put her in her place sooner than I am ready for.


Both of my kids are at great stages right now. K has gotten out of the tons-of-unanswerable-question-asking phase and T is beginning to interact like a toddler more than an infant. They are both so sweet and I am honored to be their mom.

One short K story. The other day I put some PJ pants on and she told me they were divine. I asked her what that meant and she said it meant they were beautiful. She then got excited that there was a v in the word because it was v week at school and she needed to tell Ms Denise about it. Anyway, her vocabulary cracks me up. She is a very precocious little thing.

Just Another Sunday

Allen was out of town this weekend on a golf trip with friends. So it was just me and the kids. We had so much fun on Sunday just playing together. Tripp is standing on his own for prolonged amounts of time. You can kind of tell that for some of the video by the door he is not holding on to anything. He is also waving and saying bye-bye. So sweet! I can't believe how big he is getting! Kaylen is playing with him more and more these days. He laughs harder at her than anyone else. And I finally got a video where she doesn't bang his head in to anything. She is good at that. It sounds like he is crying but if you look, he is laughing really hard. I love to see them play together.

And on a side note... I am in desperate need of a new point and shoot. Mine is biting the dust. So my actual pictures are horrible!!! I am super frustrated. Anyway, enjoy the videos instead. :)

Happy Easter

We had a wonderful Easter this year. It was nice to be able to read Kaylen the Easter story and begin explaining what it is that we are celebrating. Kaylen had a great little Easter program at school on Thursday that Mamaw, Papaw, Allen and Amber got to attend. I had testing at school and have no vacation days due to taking last semester off, so I had to miss. She tripped outside the day before the program so she had scabs down her nose for all the festivities. (I photoshoped them out)

On Saturday we went to the Click's Easter Eggs-travaganza. It was really sweet. They had live animals, 3 moon bounces, 3000 eggs for the egg hunt, egg toss, sack races, the Easter bunny.... it was quite the event! A few notable things took place.

1. Kaylen kept petting the Easter bunny right below the pink belly... (That would be Mike Click in that suit). I think I may have to apologize for her forward ways. :) (see picture below)

2. I gave Tripp a plastic egg to play with and he found the scotch tape on it, ate it, got choked and projectile vomited (thankfully on the ground). Lovely. Side note here: He is my kid that eats everything! List of things he has eaten to date: a band-aide, a chewed up toothpick (that he chewed), piece of scotch tape, handful of dirt, leaves (his personal favorite), any type of paper he can find, and I am sure many more things I don't know about. He is just like Laci (the boston terrier that my in-laws so graciously took off our hands) he eats everything! and

3. Allen won $20 by winning the adult egg toss! Yahoo!


After church on Easter, Allen's parents and my sister came over for lunch. We then dyed Easter eggs and took them over to my in-laws house. My yard is getting a face lift. It has to get worse before it gets better so we are in the middle of our new sprinkler system and yard leveling. We do have a small leak that we have to get taken care of. (more money, more money, more money) This is all really needed and so it will be worth it in the end. Also, I got my hair done... guess I better mention that since you will notice in the pictures. Also, I thought the kids looked so cute. Allen said it was the last year that Tripp could wear pink. I think it is a tie and therefore looks manly no matter what the color. Might I also add that Allen is wearing pink. :)

Oh, and I got the hair-brained idea to blow out my Easter eggs this year. I thought Allen would kill me but it was fun to do something different and they will last forever that way... :) After we hunted them a few times, Amber and I played some badminton and then went out for a few holes of golf with Allen. I have decided that this summer I am going to start taking some lessons. I really do enjoy playing with him. I don't want to be great or anything. I just want to be able to play. It is really ugly right now. It is hard to get that crazy club to connect with that tiny ball. Why is that so difficult?!?! Allen was surprisingly patient with me and the weather was amazing!







One more story... I promised Kaylen that I would paint her nails for Easter. It never happened so I figured I would do it real quick on the way to church. BAD IDEA! I got one hand done and she got an itch while I was working on the other hand. I didn't even notice her scratch her face and get three lines of dark pink fingernail polish down her cheek. I was furious!!!! And I had nothing to get it off with. I had to take a wet wipe and scrub. She looked like someone had slapped her so hard on the cheek. It was all pink and puffy from me trying to feverishly get the polish off. Poor baby. She also had the scabs on her nose I mentioned earlier. I felt just awful! I will never attempt that again.