Dad & Ann's Wedding!

I am slowly catching up on the blog...and I made it to LAST October...which means I finally get to blog about my Dad & Ann's wedding! Isn't this such a beautiful photo of the bride & groom? (Most of these images were taken by Trish at Imaging Studios.) We had such a wonderful time celebrating their wedding weekend. I got to attend the beautiful bridal luncheon on Friday at Ouisie's Table. Then Friday evening we attended the rehearsal, followed by an amazing rehearsal dinner (really a party) at Armadillo Palace. It was such a wonderful weekend full of priceless memories.

I LOVE this this one!

Another beautiful one!

This is too hilarious. Our failed attempt at getting all 5 grandkids with PaPaw. Andi screaming, Holden needing to go to the bathroom & Papaw holding Andi's doll. Ha!

Me, Dad, Joel & Brett

Gorgeous ceremony at St. Paul's Methodist Church

First kiss

Dad & Ann with our side of the family

My family with Dad & Ann

The unbelievable first dance! The two of them had kept this dance top secret from everyone & had secretly been practicing for weeks...not a dry eye in the room.
Here is a video of the first dance from someones cell phone. Not the best quality, but you still get to enjoy the awesome moment!

Cake time

Dawson posing with Papaw's 'Groom Banana Pudding' and Papaw's cake topper. There is a cute story behind the cake topper. Two years before this, we took Dawson to the dollar store at Christmastime so that he could pick out his own gifts for everyone. As soon as he walked into the store, he saw that cake topper & exclaimed 'THIS WILL BE PERFECT FOR PAPAW!' As you can imagine, this present was the hit of Christmas that year. After Dad & Ann got engaged, my Dad said he would now be able to use his cake topper gift from Dawson. I, of course, thought he was kidding. Apparently not!

Cute shot of my kiddos dancing

Dad, me & Andi groovin'

And, I LOVE this one. Priceless.

How cute are they? This was right after he took off the garter.

Leaving in their sea of rose petals.

I was so honored to be a part of such a special day. I love you both!

School pizza night

Dawson's Elementary school has a really fun fundraiser each fall. The teachers, staff & PTO pair up with Papa John's pizza for one evening. Every pizza that gets ordered is delivered personally by a teacher or staff member, while the PTO volunteer drives them around. Dawson talked about it all week & was super pumped when we placed our order that evening. The suspence of who was going to deliver the pizza was killing him. Finally, we hear a knock at the door & Dawson runs to peek through the window to see who it is. He looks over at me & whispers excitedly 'IT'S MY PENCIL-ABLE.' LOVE that adorable boy.

Allergy scare

One day when Dawson was out of school, I took the kiddos to visit G.G. (My grandma, who the kids call G.G. which is short for Great Grandma.) She has a cat that the kids love to play with while they are there visiting. We had been there about 15 minutes when Andi started complaining that her eye hurt. She kept rubbing & rubbing it, and it started getting a little red. I just kept telling her that she had probably gotten a cat hair in her eye & that in a few minutes her tears would help it fall out. She sat in my lap for about 5 more minutes while I was visiting with Grandma and then turned around to complain that her eye still hurt really bad. WHOA! This time, her eye looked like it does in this first picture. I scooped up both kiddos & rushed down the road to Walgreen's to buy some benadryl thinking she was having an allergic reaction to the cat...even though she has NEVER been allergic to cats before. I gave her the meds & began to head towards her pediatrician office in case it got worse.

Here is another shot of her eye. Those little spots were actually blisters and there were even little blisters all over her actual eyeball!

Luckily, the benadryl stopped all the swelling & her eye was back to normal the next morning. But, the medicine completely knocked her out for the evening. At least I got to snuggle her while she slept again, it had been years since I had gotten to do that! We spent a few days trying to figure out what had happened. She is around cats all the time, so why would this happen? Finally, my Grandma figured it out. She had forgotten that they exterminators had come just a few hours before our visit. My Grandma had asked the exterminators to spray a whole lot under her bed to get rid of fleas since that is where the cat likes to sleep. And, that was where my kids were playing that day...to pet the cat. So, poor Andi had actually rubbed bug poisoning in her eye! Ahhh, glad that is over and that it ended well.

The day of tooth loss

On September 15th, Dawson got off the school bus with a mischevious little smile. I asked him, 'What are you up to????' He held out his hand to reveal a tiny little tooth! WHAT???? I was completely unprepared for this! Most of the kids I know lost their first tooth around the age of 7 or 8...maybe as early as 6...but not 5! I was in shock. And, I realized that I had never even told Dawson about baby teeth, and that they would one day start falling out. Poor kid could have really started freaking out, thinking he was just falling apart or something. At least he had the kids on the bus to show him the ropes. They told him all about how your teeth fall out & the tooth fairy comes to take the tooth & leaves money.

Another shot of the first missing tooth.

This was so cute. He wanted to write the tooth fairy a note.

With his tooth & the note he wrote the tooth fairy

Can you tell he is just a tad excited about putting it all under his pillow. He was also very concerned that the Tooth Fairy didn't know how to get to his house. He kept asking me over & over how she would know. I finally just told him that I had emailed her directions! The funniest part of the whole day though was what he said when he got off the bus. Since I had never talked to him about it before, he really didn't know the proper way to say it...like 'I lost my first tooth!' Instead, when he held the tooth out to me he said 'I had tooth loss.' Ha! But, that might just be the cutest way to say it anyway.

Jesus must like baseball

One day the kiddos & I were playing baseball in the backyard. Andi & I were pitching to Dawson and he was smashing them really good that day. At one point, Dawson hit the ball really hard & it disappeared right over the roof. From where Andi & I were standing though, we couldn't see that. We just saw the ball go up...and then it never came back down. Andi's eyes opened really wide, she gasped, and then said 'I think Jesus took our ball!'

Fall Ball

Cutie Patootie! This is my favorite image from fall t-ball. His team was the River Bandits, although the majority of the season Dawson mistakenly called them the Rubber Bandits!










Dawson & Derek: Dawson making it to first base & Derek was first base Coach. (And that is Chris Jones in the background, coaching for Cam's team!)




















Dawson with Andi & buddy Easton enjoying a snow cone after a game.

Flowers for Mom

Shortly after Dawson started kindergarten, he shyly asked me if he could pick some roses out of our backyard to take to his teacher the next day. Since it was already dark outside, I told him that I would wake him up a few minutes early the next morning so that he would have time to pick some out for her. The next morning I helped him pick out a few really pretty ones that passed his 'smell good' test. When we started walking back to the house, I got a really big lump in my throat because it suddenly occurred to me that was the first time he was taking flowers to someone other than me. This was such a minor thing, but it was still something I was already having to share. It was as though Dawson could read my thoughts, because right at that moment he slipped his little hand in mine. He looked up at me & said "Don't worry Mom, I can still pick flowers for you too when I get home from school." I smiled at him, leaned down and kissed all over his face. We call them 'eternal kisses' that way he can't ever wipe them off. A funny thing occurred though when he said that to me. 10 seconds earlier I was feeling sorry for myself for having to share him, but as I walked him to the bus stop I couldn't stop smiling. I just kept thinking about how blessed I was to be the one who gets to share this wonderful little boy with others.

One of my favorite photos, a much younger Dawson bringing me flowers.

New living room

In July we got our new living room furniture! After our furniture came in, I finally ordered the canvas prints I wanted to hang on our 'great' wall. The images are panoramic pictures I took of Queensboro Lake from upstate New York in the fall. Derek & I took a trip there during the peak of fall a few years back & I had been wanting to print these since then...but, we moved across the country & it got delayed awhile. Part of this image was even featured on Oprah's website a few years back, click here if you want to see that. Click here if you want to see a few more fall New York pics from my previous post.

As soon as I hung them, I knew I wasn't totally happy...the wall definitely needed to be darker to make the images 'pop' more.

So, we painted the 'great' wall the same accent rust color that is in our kitchen. Much better.

Then, in August, we finally got rid of all the carpet & put gorgeous tile down! I LOVE having tile with kiddos. No more scrubbing stains out of light beige carpet!

Another shot of the finished living room.

Andi's first ballet/ tap class

The same day Dawson started kindergarten, Andi started dance! It was kind of nice to have such a fun distraction from worrying about my boy all day. And, Andi was SUPER excited!

Here she is about to leave, showing off her new dance bag.

Stretching at the start of class. She takes dance at Chara Christian Dance, so they start each class with a prayer. So sweet.

Sweet girl.

Twirl!

Learning to skip.

Starting tap...look how much taller she is!

tap & maracas

I took all these pics through the two way mirror, and being right up against the glass Andi could see me & she knew I was right there watching. She LOVED every minute of class & at one point, she turned & looked right at me through the window/mirror. Her expression was priceless. In one wide-eyed look it said 'WOW, this is amazing!' and 'WHY HAVE YOU NEVER BROUGHT ME HERE BEFORE???' I am so glad she loves it & enjoys the same things I do. I am sure we are in for many years of recital fun!

My baby boy starts kindergarten

Well, I don't know how 'normal' this is, but I cried off & on about Dawson starting kindergarten...for about 2 years. Totally serious. And, I am not a big crier...so that was a pretty big deal for me to be THAT emotional for so long. I think it was about two years anyway. So, since I had already had that much crying out of the way, I did pretty well his first day of school. I made it safely home before I totally fell apart...again

This was orientation night, standing by his chair.

About to leave the first morning, Derek & I both took him the first day.

A nervous Dawson with Mom...holding it together.

Dawson & Dada

I even snapped a shot of his bus bringing him home!

And...getting off the bus. I know I am a dork. Yay for a great first day!
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Dawson's 5 year pics

Last summer, I tried multiple times to photograph Dawson for his birthday. However, he has officially reached that phase where it is IMPOSSIBLE for Mom to get a decent smile out of him. All the pictures I took of him looked like he was in pain. So, for the first time ever, I wanted someone else to take his pics. When I found out Trish was doing a 'back to school' set, I jumped on board. It was perfect timing to document him turning 5 years old & starting kindergarten. I could not be happier with the pics...they turned out so adorable! My little flirt had no trouble smiling for her! I am about to cry again looking at these. Photos are so priceless.

Well, hello there!

Long time, no blog. I will spare you all of my pathetic excuses for not blogging for the last year, but I now have some MAJOR catching up to do. Since my plan is to print this blog out for my kiddos some day, I have an entire year of blogs to get on here: 63 to be exact. So, today I did a quick makeover to the blog & layed out a blog catching up gameplan. Hopefully, if I can put 1-3 posts on here per day, I will be caught up by the time school starts! Here we go!