Oh No!

I knew it would happen someday, but I didn't think it would be so soon. You know, your kid comes to you and wants to do something just like their friends. Be just like them. "If Jimmy jumped off a bridge would you?" Then it happened. Nolan received a gift, from a very dear friend. Someone he loves, adores and trusts. It's only natural he would want to partake in the fun, even to his Momma & Daddy's horror. We feel very strongly about certain things, especially when they are going on under OUR roof. But we also believe Nolan should be allowed a certain amount of independence. What we could we do, but give in and let him accept the gift, even though in our hearts we were screaming, "NO! NO! NO! NEVER!!!" I hope this photo doesn't upset some of you too much. We feel in the long run, if we don't forbid this, he'll become mature and make the right decisions....

Hee hee! So here's our Rams fan, sporting the team that I avoided like the plague while we lived in Bronco's land, Cheyenne. Cheyna thought it only appropriate that since she is spending so much time in her home town of Colorado, she send Nolan a gift. It really did make our day to get a package, and I loved the card and especially cherish the picture Abby colored for Nolan. I will draw the line and not allow Nolan to wear this when the Bronco's are playing the Rams (or maybe not in public at all, ha ha). Tell ya what, Cheyna, when Andrew lets Abby wear Bronco's gear (instead of Packers) during football season, we'll see about Nolan wearing this! I'm kidding, thanks so much for thinking of us, we miss & love you guys so much!

It's official...We're Private!

Hopefully everyone was able to get onto the blog without any or too many issues. Please let me know if there is someone you know that wants access, I hate to lose anyone who even checks once in a while.

The main reason I decided to make it private is for my peace of mind. I always worry about sickos out there. Brian is now TDY for 3 weeks in Ohio. He'll be home for a couple of weeks and then he is deploying for 4 months. I'll write more about that in another post. I just think it'll be difficult to keep it a "secret" on the blog that he is away, and quite frankly we both feel it's not the safest to have it advertised for anyone to read that he's gone.

I have some fun pics from this weekend, I'll get to those soon! Here's a picture in the meantime of Nolan eating cherries last week. He LOVES them and he was very happy and GOOFY in this picture as you can see!

Playing with Food

As Brian mentioned in his debut post, I was gone most of the day Saturday for a women's retreat at our church. It was fantastic and extremely inspirational. Nadia was there, too and we spent the day together. We also dressed almost identically (not on purpose), I wish we would have had a camera, it was quite funny. So Nolan and Brian had lots of fun, too. Not only did Nolan get to feed the dogs at breakfast, but he learned to play with his food. I knew this day would come, as Brian made a monkey out of loaf of bread on probably our third date. Here's a Banana face. Pretty cute, huh? Later they did their favorite Dad/Son bonding time and went to Lowe's.

Nolan do it

Hi, this is Brian's first post. I thought I would see what all the hype is about this thing they call the blob, blop, blog, whatever! Anywhoo.......On Saturday it was just Nolan and I while Momma was off at the Women's Retreat in Niceville. Nolan saw me getting the dog food out to feed Haley and Tootsie. Being the little helper that he is, he wanted to do it. So I let him. I figured he would have a pretty good handle on feeding the dogs since he has watched Sam and I do it for 1 year 8 months and 5 days now. What could possibly go wrong? Another tid bit of info, if you're not in the know, Tootsie aka 'The Roll' is always hungry. When you put food in her bowl, she starts eating it immediately. Well not on Saturday! As you can see in this picture she's not really sure what to do. You can even see Haley behind Nolan is in shock as well. What happened you ask. Where did the food go? Not in the bowl as you can see very well on a white floor. In his defense he did manage to get 6 pieces in. That's got to count for something, right? Here he is very sad about what just happened. I know he's thinking: 'I don't understand, I held the cup of food directly over the bowl and dumped'. Needless to say he learned what a mess was that day. He kept saying "Mess......Mess" the entire time Daddy cleaned up the mess. Good times!

Gymanstics

Friday I went to a gymantstics place for their open gym. They have one every week for ages "walkers thru 5 years old." The parents get to play, too. It's been so rainy here and when it's not raining it's SOOOO hot & muggy, I just wanted him to be able to really stretch his legs and have some fun. That's an understatement. He bolted/ran around with a gigantic grin on his cute little face the entire time. He followed the bigger kids alot, but also did his own thing. They had this one thing that was like a trampoline runway. It was probably ten feet long and the kids were supposed to only go one way on it, but they go running/bouncing down, get to the end and the little ones (including Nolan) would turn around and run back. The mom's would all be yelling, "No! One way, you're gonna get..." CRASH! And the kids would collide into each other and there would be lots of laughter and it was all honkey dorey. I am seriously considering signing Nolan up for a class this fall. They work on shapes, colors, coordination and...LISTENING! Then we met daddy for lunch at the club...which is very yummy, with a great view!

Since Nolan just learned to "jump jump" he loved the trampolines!

He went down the slide like 1,000 times!Super Handsome Da-da & Super Cute Son!View right out the window at lunch:Here's a short clip of Nolan on the "runway trampoline." The quality isn't excellent, it was just my camera, but you'll get the idea of the colliding toddlers (they are supposed to WALK back on one of the yellow strips on either side, but only the older kids seemed to grasp that):

Welcome Donovon Robert!!!

I'm a little behind on posting this, as Donovan was born July 17th! He joined Momma & Daddy at 3:05 PM, weighing 7 lbs, 14 oz, 19 inches long! He's absolutely gorgeous. We had the privelege of meeting him Sunday and he's sooooo beautiful! Jake & Jamie are doing well and look fantastic! Congrats you guys! Here's a picture of the new fam!

#1 Helper

Nolan is getting to be such a good helper. He really plays well by himself, even for long periods of time, but when I NEED him to play by himself, he doesn't always do it. So I have enlisted his help and we've had a great time. It takes me much longer to get things done, but it's way more fun. He helps me empty the dishwasher and a couple nights ago he helped me cook! He loved it!!! This is him before I even added the casserole ingredients, "mixing." He felt like a king on his "helper chair" especially when I put the actual ingerdients in there. He mixed VERY well and didn't spill anything .Which makes me wonder...is he really MY child, ha ha ha..he has to be...look at that wild hair, a mind of it's own. It's sooo time for a haircut!

A date with my Sweetheart

Saturday morning Brian and I were talking about how nice it would be to have a dinner date. Nolan has no doubt entered the infamous "terrible two's" (more about that in another post) and we thought a meal where we could actually converse would be lovely. Our (aka Cheyna's) babysitter agreed to come over and so we went out for a late bite to eat at an Italian restaurant on the water. It was very romantic, the food was amazing and the service...well, I guess we've had worse (the service was pretty bad). After a yummy and wonderful dinner, we were heading home when we passed the bar Nadine was at, celebrating her birthday. Brian and Nadine worked together at FE Warren, and I have yet to see her since we've lived here! We stopped in for a drink and chatted, then headed home. It wasn't a long night, but it was so great to have some one on one time with the love of my life!

Here we are at dinner:

Roxanne (L) & Nadine...HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Going Private--URGENT--PLEASE READ!!!!

So, it's with a heavy heart that I do this, but for reasons most of you know, I am going to make this blog an invite-only deal. It's really for my peace of mind and my family's safety. I am always amazed when a friend I haven't seen in a long time or a friend of a friend or a cousin, etc. tells me they love our blog. It makes me so happy. I adore this blog and it's a huge part of our family. So that said, PLEASE POST YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS FOR ME in the comments section if you don't think I have it and would like to continue checking my blog. It will take a few weeks as I want to make sure I get everyone's email. Unfortunately it will take on extra step when checking the blog...you'll have to "sign in." But it's not difficult, I promise...I hate to lose any of you! Thanks for understanding and PLEASE PLEASE...post your emails in the comment section if we don't email each other on a regular basis!

Indoor Picnic

Wow, let me just say that my tan is disappearing fast. Why? Because it has rained and/or stormed almost every single day for the past few weeks. It's insane! Friday we decided to cozy up and be extra lazy. I went out for take out and tried the new chicken place in town. I brought home some fried chicken, mashed taters & gravy, bisquits, corn on the cob and a gallon of their sweet tea. We popped Elmo in the DVD player and ate dinner while watching TV. Nolan loved every second of it and we had fun, too. The chicken was really good. After we put Nolan to bed Brian and I watched a movie. It was such a low key, relaxing night...just what we needed!

Trouble times Two!

Last week I sliced up a banana for Nolan and gave him about half of it, which he wasn't very interested in. I had the other half sitting on the edge of the counter and I was going to eat it. I went in the other room for a MERE SECOND and when I returned there were Tootsie and Nolan. Nolan was watching Tootsie and petting her as she swallowed the last bit of banana down...with most of the peel! I put them both in time out, but only one of them took me seriously. These two are TROUBLE!!!!

Here's Tootsie, looking VERY GUILTY(at least someone is)!

Here's Nolan in time out telling me in detail a good excuse, and of course he kept saying "I'm Sorry (I SAWY)!"Here are the pair of them, all chummy after time out.

Out of Towners

While we were hanging out at Brian's 30th Bday bash talking with friends, we discovered that Kevin would be visiting our area with his wife and her family for vacation. So Kevin called us and we met up with them for dinner last week. It was the first time we were able to meet his beautiful wife Cami and we love her to pieces! They are expecting their first baby in September and Nolan may have scared them a bit at dinner. They would only give us a booster seat and he was a handful, to say the very least. But it was great to see them and we hope to meet up with them again when we come to St. Louis!

Whew

This is the "note" Brian put on the fridge shortly after the storm. So true. But all is well now, everything is fixed (except the ice maker in the fridge). We later found out 7 houses were struck by lightening that night in our small town alone. Two burned down. We're so lucky and SOOO blessed. And extra good news...insurance didn't fight us on a thing and put our money in our account the same day we filed the claim. USAA is awesome! Thanks again for the prayers and well wishes!

4th of July Visitors

Amid the craziness of having our house struck by lightening, Lisa and Eric were on their way to stay with us for the week. Eric thought we were making it up that our house was struck as an excuse. But because Cheyna and Andrew are as AWESOME as they are, they also opened up their home to our friends for a couple nights until we were back in our own house. So...like we said before, it was one of the craziest weeks ever. We were able to take a break from all the stress and enjoy our friends company for the 4th (partly because no electricians or plumbers work on holidays). We headed to Baytown Wharf and shopped a bit, ate on the water and watched the fireworks. It was interesting blend of crowds...lots of families, but lots of young 20-somethings out partying. It was lots of fun, though and Nolan loved the fireworks! Eric & Lisa, we promise not to have a catastrophe next time you visit!

Eric & Lisa at Baytown Wharf with "their boat" (ha ha):

Eric & Brian at dinner:Me, Nolan & Lisa:Here's Nolan & Bri last year watching the fireworks. Here they are this year!Nolan & I (he's awake, but the flash is SO bright when it's pitch black, we didn't get any with his eyes open):Here is the gang on Friday right before they left...it finally stopped storming the day they were heading home!(I love that Brian wears a SEMO shirt...whoo hoo baby!)

More St. Louis Pictures

Nolan helps Uncle Nathan wash his car:

Brian, Great Grandma M and Nolan:Nolan & Maddie posing for a picture (CHEEEEEEESE!):Maddie coming down the slide at Planet Fun: Nolan at Planet Fun, driving a rocket:Maddie & Nolan help Uncle Nathan blow out the candles on his Bday cake:Nolan on "his" bike at G&G M's house. He would scream "BIIIIKE!" "BIIIKE" until someone would take him outside to ride around...he went up and down the street on this thing!Grampie & Nolan:

Brian's 30th Birthday!

June 29th Brian turned the big 30! Whoo hoo, I am dating an "old" guy (but only for like 10 more months, then I'll be "old" too). Somehow we managed to actually surprise him with a party at my friend Andi & Mark's house. It was so much fun and Andi & Mark went way above and beyond the call of friendship duty! They have the best basement ever, with a full bar which has beer & margarita's on tap (watch out for the margarita's though, Mark makes them himself and he doesn't kid around with the tequila). Thank you soooo much Andi & Mark (and Mark's neighbor who was the second bartender). And thank you to all of our friends and family who came to celebrate Brian's birthday!

Brian & his parents:

Nolan, right before bed, riding the roller coaster one more time (with Mousey). You can see the "track" in the backround, he rolled all that way! I am sooo bummed, I don't have any pictures of Caleb, Andi & Mark's adorable 2 year old. But he was very sweet and shared his toys like a champ! We kept forgetting Nolan was there because he was loving all of Caleb's toys and was being extra good so he could stay up late and play. Of course, when I put him down to sleep he CRASHED!Look who was in town!!!! Sally!Our bartenders, Mark & Bill (I hope I have the name right, I think I asked him like 3 times...I'm great with faces, horrible with names, always have been probably always will be).

Brian and his blood brothers, Nathan (left) & Kurt (R):Brian and his fraternity brother/friend, Jake:Andi (our fabulous and sexy hostess), Meghan & I:Beth, Brian, me & Dave. I went to high school with Beth, then to college with her and we both joined Alpha Xi Delta. Dave lived next door at the Lambda Chi house. Those were some good times! Me, Kim, Samuel (7 months already!), Brian and Steve. Kim and I were in the same pledge class and became instant friends when we met. They visited us in Cheyenne shortly after Nolan was born and right before they got preggers! Here's Eric and Mike (and part of Miranda)...why don't we have a shot of all of us together, dangit? Meghan and I (can you believe we've been friends for 24 years? If that doesn't make me feel old, then turning 30 certainly won't!): And last but not least the shot of our "old" gang. These are all people who went to Rolla & were Sig Nu or Sigma Nu groupies. Kevin, who I also went to HS with, then he was a Sigma Nu, invited me to a party and that's where I met Brian. Next is Jake, also a Sigma Nu, but he was in Explorer's with me and we went to summer camp with the same group for years before I met Brian. Small world, isn't i? Then there's Sally, Brian, myself and in front Shari! There were also some folks at the party whose picture I didn't get. Brian's Grandma, my parents, my brother Jack & his beautiful wife Tish (why don't we ever remember to take pictures of us???), Lisa and Miranda, and as mentioned before Caleb. So...if anyone has any pictures of any of these people send them my way!!!