730...

...days you've been in this world. Time flies. A little 8 pound baby you came and a growing, running, talking, playing, learning, sweet, big tot you are today. You make my heart smile, my mouth giggle, and you fill our home with such a passion for life at such a young age. I love all the many adventures we've been on and look forward to the ones to come!

Happy, Happy 2nd Birthday Ollie boy...we love you to the moon and back!

Not me...Twilight Edition!

I'm joining in MckMama's blog carnival once again this week, this one's been a long time coming. I just finished the 4th book in the Twilight series last night. For the past 8 weeks or so I've been spending almost every "free" moment with Bella, Edward, Charlie, Jacob, Esme, Carlisle, Nessie and the other passel of people from Forks and beyond. I hereby would like to confess all the things I did not do while reading these books:

I did not in the beginning consider if vampires really did exist, nope not me!

I did not dream of these people more than once...the night I read about the wedding I did not dream that I was an attendant at said wedding, no not me, that would be silly.

I did not look to my student teacher last week and say, " I wish you were a vampire, because you could just read my mind." No not me...hey it would save a lot of time!

Speaking of said student teacher, I absolutely did not read any of the books for a few minutes at the end of the day when she was wrapping everything up, nope not me!

When on a field trip last week to Old Salem, listening to the Gunsmith talk about things hunted with guns a few hundred years ago, I did not look at my friend who introduced me to Twilight and say, " or mountain lions." Nope not me...although I'm not sure she got it.

When on a field trip to Floyd, Va with my Valentine last weekend, I did not find a magazine called "Bella" take the magazine back to GSO then make my two sweet friends at school who are fans, "Bella Girl" posters with the words from the magazine.

I absolutely do not recommend reading these books because you won't enjoy them one bit, I sure did not!

Thanks so much KC for letting me borrow your books, thanks to my peeps at home for letting me escape from life to read, read, read!

Whew, all better now!

Saturday Snaps...

I love Saturdays! We were looking for something fun and free to do. Our little man has become quite a fan of trains these days. Matt read online that there is a collector train club that meets at the downtown train depot on Saturday. It was free and it was fun, they even had a model of the town of Sodor (Thomas fans know of this place well.) You should check it out!

We want to grow a vegetable garden this summer in our backyard, but our yard is quite shady. So what do you do when you want a garden but have a shady yard...you bring home your bucket van and clip the tree limbs of course. Ollie even got to go up 40 feet for a ride, man that was a big smile.

It's a big week for us this week...some body's turning 2 on Wednesday, hmm, wonder who?!

Let's Barter Baby!!!

So I'm sure most of you know that we own our own business. That's right my sweetie holds it down every day working to put goldfish on the table at Bravo Signs. With the craziness of the economy we have been fortunate in the past few weeks to barter or trade if you will for signs or signage as we say in the biz.

You may or may not have noticed from previous bathtub posts but our 60 year old tub was needing some good ole tlc. Well Matt talked to Todd over at Get A Grip resurfacing and he came last week and re-glazed our bathtub for us, it looks so good and the paint doesn't even come off when our child takes a bath, nice huh? What did we pay you ask, nada, just traded some signs.

Then there is my sweet friend Melissa who is oh so crafty, she and her husband own a business, Rekoncile Design. He does mega crafty things to your house, like re-tiling your kitchen floor and she sells things like this totally hip market tote. We traded a sign for this little hot item, and I've been toting ever since.

Do you own a business? Do you need some signage...let's barter baby!

Wordless Wednesday

Ok...one word: D-SKUST-ING!

No, this is not our new family pet. Yes, he was eating our present family pet's food last night on the back porch. Yes, he did stay there long enough for me to walk from the kitchen, turn on the light, go get my camera, find the sd card and then come back and snap this shot. Yes, he didn't go away until I had opened the door after already kicking the door...he did not budge! Fun times, and no there weren't any bb guns or bow and arrows pulled out of closets. Yes, I need to review the rules of wordless Wednesday.

Seeing with "poet's eyes"

On Friday a magical thing thing happened in Trailer 28...our poetry coffee house. I always celebrate all that my kids have learned in our poetry unit by hanging the twinkly lights, getting the school's sound system, serving cookies and lemonade and allowing my 2nd graders to feel like stars...if only for a few minutes.

Here are some family shots of all our "specials guests." We had brothers and sisters travel our way from pre-K all the way to 5th grade, as well as one very little brother to visit who was only 2 weeks old. We also had a handful of moms and dads visit, look at all those smiling faces.

They all chose their favorite poem to read. They were all very special, but the one that Henry read stood out to me. When he stood in front of the class he said, "My poem is called: Inside my heart and I dedicate it to my best friend, Diego."

Inside My Heart
By: Henry R.

Inside my heart lives
one friend
he's kind of shy
when he speaks to teachers
he speaks low
but when he talks to me
he speaks loud
and he plays
with me
all the time
he is my very best friend
i met him in 1st grade
and sometimes he doesn't talk
very much
you're awesome, Diego!


I'd like to give a shout our to my un-believable student teacher, who taught this whole unit herself. It's a hard one for me to hand over since it is so special to my heart. You know there are many moments in my days that make me question my "calling" in life, and then I run into some of these moments and think I could do this forever!

Busted!

This snacking moment is brought to you by the left over Starbucks Mocha sitting on the coffee table! Sometimes you grab the camera just in time!! Hey, at least he's got good taste!

Saturday Salutations!

Happy Saturday, people!

Our Saturday started off like most Saturdays, breakfast at Waffle House (so yum) and then we headed off to the lake for a little hike, it was so nice. We saw ducks, airplanes, other kiddos, threw rocks in the water, and let the wind blow our hair, it was even somewhat springy outside!

Then we came home and decided it was time for Olls to get a big boy hair cut...yeppers it was a family affair involving a sucker, a cup of water, a cell phone (for distraction purposes) and tears...I totally cried as we cut away all those lovely locks.

Ta Da!! As if he didn't look 7 already, it's handsome, it's the 2 year old Ollie!

2 words

Triple Coupons!!!!

the plan

Here are John and Ollie eating "salad" at Country Park the other day. Actually Ollie really is taking a bite, gross Olls! These two have become big buds lately. Just last week I told Ollie when I was picking him up from school that we were going to have pizza with John that night, he burst into tears when we pulled in our driveway and not Johns because he was ready to eat pizza then, with John. Ollie cried on Sunday when we had to leave John and the church playground. And everyday this week when we have gotten in the car, Ollie says, "go John's house." Even though these guys are 14 months apart they play pretty well, John teaches Ollie how to share and communicate and apparently make salad (something he doesn't know that much about.)

We met John's parents about 8 years ago, long before John or Ollie were ever a twinkle in either of our eyes. We became friends fast, we were going through the same life stages as we got married only a week apart. We went on a fall trip together every year, brought in many a new year, shared many young life trips and then they headed off to Florida for a while and we missed them. About two years later they came back to Greensboro with John in tow. It's honestly hard for old friends to jump back into friendships, but little did we know that about a year later we would have an Ollie and that would help change things. It's been amazing to me over the past year how our kid's friendship could strengthen our friendship, but it has. I guess that's just it...not just being a part of the plan for our lives but living in God's plan.


On a photography side note, if you use Picasa 3 you can go to effects and turn up the saturation of color in your photos, like I did with this one and it turn from dull to razzle dazzle.

I survived...

my very first Chuck E. Cheese birthday party. We celebrated the 1st and 3rd birthday's of our friends Evalyn and Lauren on Saturday morning. Whew, I seriously feel like need a t-shirt that states: I survived Chuck E. Cheese! It was pure chaotic fun, I'm pretty sure Ollie had a blast, he mostly just rode the Bob the Builder "tractor" the whole time, for real like 15 times, by the end he knew how to put the token in all by himself, while 300 (or so it seemed) of his closest friends from Greensboro ran around the room. I've had many experiences as a parent in my 1.11 months of experience, but this was by far the one experience I wished that I had one of those animal back pack leash type things, whoa, what an hour!

When we got home Olls said, "I play Chucky, fun!"