Sneak Peak

If you hang on every word that I blog (and why wouldn't you?), then you might remember how I said Nathan was going to be Batman and Ashley was going to be a monkey for Halloween. Well, now neither of those things is true.

Nathan decided that he wanted to be Anakin Skywalker after he saw a kid wearing that costume to the Fall Carnival. Of course, they did not have any of those left at Wal-Mart, so he is going to be Darth Vader instead. Here's a sneak peak of the costume...light saber, sound effects, and all.

It is going to be too hot for Ashley to wear the monkey suit for any extended length of time. But I did take some pictures of her in it anyway...

I love the banana in the pocket. I have narrowed down the actual costume selection for her to either White-Haired Snow White or Princess Leia depending on how creative I'm feeling tomorrow. More pics to follow for sure.

Pumpkin Patch Bread

We bought pumpkins, picked pumpkins, and have been given even more pumpkins. So, what do you do with all those pumpkins? I figure you have 3 choices:

1. Throw them on the front porch with some mums and call it "fall decoration".

2. Carve and/or paint them for Halloween.

3. Clean it, cut it, scoop it, roast it, scoop it (again), mash it, and bake it into something edible.

Well, I'm sure you see where this is going. Since we have already done #1 and #2, we, um, I decided to do #3 and pretty much mess up my entire kitchen in the process. We made some pumpkin bread (which Ashley called "Pumpkin Patch Bread") for the Cake Walk at Nathan's Halloween carnival. It actually turned out really well, and I am exaggerating about the mess.

I have cooked a pumpkin the hard way before (peeling, cutting, boiling, mashing), and it was ridiculously hard and messy. I swore I would only use canned pumpkin in the future. This time, I just sliced a small pumpkin in 2 halves, scooped out the guts, and baked them for about an hour. The cooked pumpkin scooped out very easily, and there was hardly any waste. I actually froze some of it for making bread another time. Maybe Thanksgiving Eve?

School Picture Time

Nathan got his Kindergarten pictures back today. I know...he looks so grown up. It's ridiculous, really, that my baby boy is so big. Even though Nate's still a "momma's boy", he is becoming more independent every day. He has already made some really good friends at school. In the past, his friends have always been our friends' kids, but now he is the one initiating the friendships. So I hang out after school with the other moms while he and his new friends chase each other around the playground. It's a whole new phase of life we are entering.

I must also mention that he has 2 loose teeth and is very proud of them. We discovered them on Sunday, and though they are just barely loose, he can hardly wait for them to come out!

Love this...

Okay-
I usually hate those stupid forward email's, but this one is funny. My favorites are number 2 (of course) #7 and #10

Subject: Get to know you--very funny Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:05:42 +0000 THIS IS DIFFERENT - I'll be so disappointed if I don't hear back from everyone.

1. YOUR REAL NAME: Jessica Renee Johnson
2.. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (first 3 letters of real name plus -izzle.) Ren-izzle (fa-shizzle)
3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color and favorite animal) Red Dog
4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (your middle name and street you live on/or neighborhood if it's a number) Renee Sherman
5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name) Johje

6. YOUR SUPERHERO/CRIMINAL NAME: (Your 2nd favorite color, and favorite
drink) Blue coke one
7. YOUR IRAQI NAME: (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, 1st letter of your last name, 2nd letter of your moms maiden name, 3rd letter of your dads name, 1st letter of a siblings first name, and last letter of your moms first name). Ehjakre
8. YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (parents' middle names) Mike Lynn

9. YOUR GOTH NAME: (black, and the name of one of your pets). BLACK fish

10. YOUR HOOD NAME:....first 3 letters of your first name plus-iqua:
ren-iqua
Now copy, paste, and send on to all your crazy friends.

Snow flurries in the forecast tonight

No, this is no typo either. They are calling for snow flurries tonight in PA. Can you believe it? Aaron is so excited I'm so mad I can even say. Yeah they have two hour delays for school here if it is below 30 degrees. There could be no snow on the ground-just cold air they will delay school for two hours.

$1.69 for gas in Washington,PA

No that's not a typo. Last week I bought gas at Get Go for $1.69 a gallon. Here is the catch (Rach you'll love this)....Our chain grocery store Giant Eagle had a special for $1.00 off per gallon of gas for every new Rx at their pharmacy. I had a new Rx for Micah. So with my points I earn for shopping there for groceries plus the special my price I paid was $1.69. We filled up the Trail Blazer for $38.00. We could not believe how good that felt. We had enough money left over from gas to go out for dinner!!

Virus Alert

If anyone got a weird e-mail from my old MSN account or saw a weird post on this blog, I apologize. I think I got some kind of Trojan virus or something that sent out a message titled "Good Website" to everyone in my address book including my mobile blog website.

Carnival Chaos

Tonight was the Fall Carnival at Nathan's school, and it was a major production! They had inflatables, pony rides, and every sort of carnival booth that you could imagine. Each class was responsible for a booth, and ours was the Duck Pond. I volunteered to man the booth for a 30 minute time slot which turned into an hour long commitment. The Duck Pond was one of the easiest games at the carnival, because every duck was a winner. It bothered me that it said "U Win" on the duck bottoms. After all, it was a school function. You would think they would use proper English.

I think the little girl in the black and white cheerleader costume played Duck Pond about a dozen times in a row. I'm thinking, "Girl, get back and give someone else a turn!"


Nathan and his friend Carter loved the big slide, but Ashley just wanted to sit and eat her candy! I love the look on her face in this picture. She really looks like she's getting away with something.

Pumpkin Patch - Finally!

Nathan's first Kindergarten field trip was scheduled for last Thursday. We woke up that morning to drizzling rain, so the trip was postponed until today. We nervously watched the weather reports last night, and they were grim: overnight storms and 60% chance of rain this morning. Nate was so disappointed last week, and I dreaded telling him that the trip might get postponed again.

Fortunately, the skies parted this morning, and we enjoyed a sunny (but muddy) trip to the Pumpkin Patch in Mayflower. It turned out to be a fantastic day (thank you, Lord!) with blue skies and perfect temperatures.

Nathan and Mom on the hay ride

Pumpkins galore!

Nathan with his teacher Mrs. Cooper

Nathan's first trip on the school bus - he wants to ride it every day now!

we are still alive down here

Hey, I just wanted reassure everyone (mom) that we have not fallen off into the ocean or any thing. I just am not so great at the whole "keeping in touch" thing but i promise to post some pictures soon.

Results Not Typical

Give me a freakin' break! I have seen a lot of false advertisement before on the web, but this is ridiculous...

One More Candle

Since Nathan's birthday was "officially" on Saturday, we had one more celebration. We got cupcakes from Gigi's in Nashville. Nathan had a Halloween one, and I had chocolate (of course)! We celebrated Tyler's birthday on Friday at an Italian place called Amerigo's. If your ever in Nashville, I would recommend them both!

"Two Little Monkeys...

Jumping on the bed...
One whacked the other in the head!"

Nathan got MANY light sabers for his birthday, so against my better judgement, I let him bring two of them on the trip. He and Will fought with them (in the dark, on the bed) most of the time we were in the hotel. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries.

Close One in Kentucky

Our streak of seeing the Hogs win on the road has ended. We made the trip to Lexington this weekend and saw our team lose 21-20 in a close one to Kentucky. By Tyler's recollection, the last time we saw the Hogs lose on the road was our trip to Georgia in 2001. (If you haven't heard the story about that one, ask Jeff sometime!)

On the positive side, the weather was perfect, and we had a good trip until the last 4 minutes of the 4th quarter. I guess we can't win them all, and we'll always have LSU 2007!

204!!

How have we made 204 blog entries this year? I know, I know Racheal has made 180, I have made 20 and Amanda has made 4, but I can't believe we have that much to say!!! It's fun to be able to keep in touch. I loved seeing the pics of Nathan's birthday party. Even though I wasn't there now I felt like I got to see everybody.

Redneck Mecca

Have I mentioned that October is a crazy month for us. Seriously, it is busier than December for the Adams household. Last night we made our annual pilgrimage to redneck Mecca - the Arkansas State Fair. I will admit that it is nasty, crowded, and overpriced, but we all love it!

No trip to the fair is complete without...

(1) riding the Ferris wheel - unless you are like Jeff and scared of it. He will ride anything else at any theme park, but is terrified this one!

(2) Eating the biggest, greasiest corn dog you can find...

(3) Riding the Tilt-a-Whirl until you want to throw up your aforementioned corn dog...
and (4) finishing off the evening with a novel fair dessert. I looked unsuccessfully for the "Cheesecake on a Stick" trailer. (If you've never had it, you do not know what you are missing. It is a frozen slice of cheesecake, impaled with a skewer, and dipped in chocolate - truly a dessert-lover's paradise! And I can say that with authority.)

The kids wanted Dippin' Dots, but I wanted something that you can not find at the mall, so Jeff set off to find us some more appropriate fair fare. This is what he found:
I didn't even believe him when he told me about it, so I asked him to go back and take a picture. I didn't realize until I saw the picture that it was called "Pig Licker". That makes it infinitely more disgusting! I didn't go see it for myself because I was repulsed by the idea of chocolate-covered meat.

After that, I gave up on my quest for fair dessert and shared some of Ashley's Dippin' Dots. It was no Cheesecake on a Stick but surely better than the Chocolate Dipped Bacon!

Jump Zone!

Apparently, the place to be for a Kindergartner's birthday is Jump Zone. We were there for a party on Thursday afternoon, had Nathan's party there on Sunday, and then he had an invitation to another one in his backpack today! Other than the cake drama (see previous entry), it was lots of fun. I still think the Moomba Maze at LR Athletic Club is the best bang for your birthday buck. They do everything but the invitations, so you just have to show up!

Cake Drama - Part 2

Last year, we had a cake mishap at Nathan's birthday party. This time, I took Nathan with me to Kroger, and he picked out a cool Star Wars cake. I requested that it be ready by noon yesterday, but when Jeff showed up at 2:oo to pick it up, they couldn't find the cake. The couldn't find it because they didn't make it! I'm sure Jeff would add much more detail to the story, but in short, they pulled some random cake from the freezer and scrawled "Happy Birthday 6th Nathan" on it. The whole ordeal took about an hour, but at least they gave us the cake for free. This confirms to me that I should give up the whole pharmacy gig and open my own bakery!

Ugly cake with Star Wars figurines that we added

Honorable Mention

Ever since Nathan was born, Jeff's birthday has been overshadowed by the pomp and circumstance of Nate's celebration. Twice, we have had N's party on J's actual birthday. We did have a mini-celebration for Jeff yesterday at breakfast, and then our families came over last night for a combination Jeff/Nathan party. Happy 34th!

Racing for the Cure

Mom, Ashley, and I walked in the Family 2k of Race for the Cure this morning. You wouldn't think that a slow-paced 2k would be much of a workout, but it was. I decided not to bring the stroller into the crowd of nearly 50,000, so we carried Ashley most of the time. By the time you factor in walking to the car and back I estimate that we logged at least a couple of miles. This was Mom's first time to do it with me, and we had a good time. Wish you were here Renee & Amanda!

Dear Benton High...

I guess it's true that some things never change. We went to a Benton High School football game last night, and it was exactly like it was when I was in high school. Same uniforms, same field, and even some of the same coaches. The old Middle School is now UALR Benton campus, but everything else was just as I remembered it.

Really, I felt like the only thing that had changed in the last 15 years was me. Going to the game with my husband of 10 years and our 2 rowdy kids is quite different. I now tote a purse filled with snacks and baby wipes and spend most of the game trying to avoid a visit to the Saline Memorial ER due to a bleacher-related injury!

Happy Fall Ya'll

Pumpkins from Triple B Farm. I was busy filling out birthday party invitations and ask Aaron to help the boys carve their pumpkins. He said he had never carved a pumpkin before!!!! Can you believe someone has lived for 32 years and never carved a pumpkin? They turned out pretty good.

Kindergarten Field Trip Day

I went as an adult sponsor on J's kindergarten outing. It was really fun. I really enjoyed speding the day with J and his class. We went to Triple B's Farm. It was an interesting place. They have this huge field filled with Disney Characters and Nursery Rhyme characters. They are made with pumpkins, hay or other fall decorations. They have a big pumpkin patch where you get to "pick you own pumpkin." (pics to follow)

Happy Birthday Micah!

If you ask Micah he will tell you that he is 5, but really he is four. He just doesn't get the age/birthday thing. On his birthday I told him he was four now and he said "no I'm not four yet because I'm not bigger today"

Lily is big into washing her hair in the bathtub these days. Today she decided to wash her hair with icing when I wasn't looking.

Must See TV?

With the exception of the Olympics, we haven't watched much TV at all this summer. Now that fall has rolled around, my DVR is filling up with new episodes of some of my favorite shows. Since I have a case of Duggarmania, I had to watch the new TLC series featuring the Duggars: 17 Kids and Counting. There were 2 episodes tonight (following Jon and Kate Plus 8) where the oldest Duggar gets engaged. It was absolutely excruciating to watch! But it's kind of like the train wreck phenomenon where you just can't help but look. It's that bad.

Halloween Decor

I like to decorate for fall, but nothing I have is Halloween-ish. This apparently irritates Nathan. He wants spiders and skeletons and such. I compromised with him, and we painted the pumpkins on one side to be Halloween-ish, and then we can turn them around for Thanksgiving. I also told him that I would let him buy a big skeleton or spider to put on his bedroom door.

He is going to be Batman for Halloween, and if the weather's cool enough, Ashley is going to be a monkey. The monkey costume is rather warm but very cute.

Hard Times

In preparation for the downward spiral of our economy, we have started sleeping in cardboard boxes : ) Actually, Nathan brought these boxes home from my mom's house to play with and then asked if he could sleep in one of them. Against my advice, he did it, and surprisingly he slept there all night. He did concede the next day that it wasn't comfortable, and he hasn't asked to do it again!

Foreshadowing

I took this picture a couple of weeks ago while Nathan was playing with the little football helmets at Jennifer and Tyler's condo. Unfortunately, the Hogs did look a little bit like rubber duckies compared to the Gators in the 4th quarter today.

If you don't hear much from me in October, I apologize in advance. It is always our busiest month of the year, and this one is shaping up to be crazier than ever. I will try to keep up the blogging, but I can't make any promises.

Ten Mile Flashback

(If you did not grow up going to church with me, I know this will not make any sense.)

We have a patient on service with the last name “Allison”. As I’m typing it today, I caught myself saying “Hay-Hell-Hell-Hi-Hes-Ho-Hen" : )

We're not really "cat" people

Ever since Jake died, Nathan has been asking if we could get a cat. Jeff and I have both tried to talk him our of it, but he really wanted one.

Long story short: We got a cat.

Long story long: Melissa, another pharmacist that I work with, found a cat that was abandoned at a gas station by some hurricane evacuees. She rescued it, took it to the vet, had it neutered, and then had to get rid of it because she was afraid that her other animals wouldn't get along with it. She's been trying to convince me to take it for over a week. Though Jeff denies it now, he talked me into it. (Direct quote: "Why don't you just get it. The kids would love it.") So, last night, I came home with the cat.

We cannot have any furry pets in the house because of our allergies, so we put him in the backyard. I had to warn Nathan that you don't really pick your cat; they pick you. But I guess he likes it here. He was still here this morning and again when we got home from school this afternoon.

Here's a picture of our newest addition. He's white with a black tail and random black spots. We're thinking of calling him "Ike" since he supposedly was left by hurricane evacuees.

Nathan drew these for me to "thank" me for the cat.