Better Late than Never...

I hijacked Renee's phone when she was here last week and forwarded this picture to myself:



Since Renee has given up on blogging, I guess I will start posting pictures of her kids. She took a picture of JJ with this same sign when he started Kindergarten two years ago. It made the blog, but I guess kid #2 didn't get so lucky. Poor Lily probably won't even get her picture taken when she starts. (Have I made you feel sufficiently guilty, Renee?)

Doughnuts with Dad

Ashley's PreK class is studying the letter "Dd" this week. In celebration of the letter, they had "Doughnuts with Dad" on Friday. I sent in this picture (secretly) for the "Dad and Me" slideshow.

Frogurt Yogurt

Nathan, Jenna P., and Ashley (peeking from behind)

Since it has been a few days since I blogged about food, I thought I would post about our new favorite treat: self-serve frozen yogurt. Or as Ashley calls it "frogurt yogurt". It is all the rage in this area with stores popping-up everywhere. Our nearest and most frequented stop is OrangeLeaf on Hwy. 10, but since we are equal opportunity dessert eaters, we have visited a few others as well. We've been to 3 Flamingos in Cabot with the Stanisors (twice, actually), and last night we tried out Key West in Maumelle with the Krebs. I would give them all a thumbs up.

Two things that I like about the self-serve set-up is that you can get just a little bit if that's all you want and then pay by the ounce. Also, it has been a good way to lure the kids to the car when it's time to leave our friends' houses. "Let's go get some frogurt yogurt on the way home!"

Our Crazy Dog!

Lucy with her favorite toy

I'm going to try to load a video from my phone of our crazy dog! She is about 7 months old now and, at last measurement, she was up to 42 lbs. She LOVES to play fetch and to jump off of any elevated platform that she can find (the deck railing, the swing set platform, etc.) I would love to get her trained for those retrieving competitions. She is bred for it! I'm afraid she's going to get hurt jumping so far. At least the water would provide a softer landing!

Open House Pics

Boy, has it been a busy week for the Adams Family...and it's only Wednesday! On Monday, Nathan started Cub Scouts in a new pack/den at our church, we had a PTA meeting and Open House at school last night, and tonight I had my small group at church while Jeff took the kids to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. (I definitely got the better end of that deal!) The rest of the week continues to look pretty busy plus I'm on call! I did manage to take a few pictures at school last night of some things that I had not seen before:

The gym was not quite finished when school first started, but it's up and a running now. Here's a picture of my monkeys on the rock climbing wall.

There are some really nice murals in the school. This one is in the library:

Here the kids are showing us how to use the SmartBoard. Actually, Jeff already knew, but I was behind on the technology. (Insert old person voice here) "Back in my day, we used chalk!"

Both of my kids really like their teachers. I think Ashley would go home with hers, and Nathan is actually going home with his next week for a play date with his teacher's little boy. One thing I like about his class is that they get all of their homework assignments for the week on Monday and then turn it all in on Friday. I am a little worried about the "trail" spelling test on Thursday, though. ; )

Whew Pig Sooie

While the Hogs' offense might not have been so hot yesterday, the same cannot be said for the weather. It was a hot one at War Memorial! The rain held off, but the heat and humidity were relentless.

Even with a parking pass, there's still a lot of pressure to get to the stadium early enough to get the best place. Jeff had a classic case of "Spot Anxiety" yesterday morning. We got there with the kids around 10:45 a.m. and set up our tailgating spot.




We had lots of folks stop by yesterday and lots of food to go around. On the menu was classic BBQ fare: ribs, chicken, potato salad, beans, rolls, and lots of yummy desserts including the debut of my festive red velvet cake balls from the Bakerella.

After we were all stuffed, we made our way to the stadium and sweated profusely through the first quarter. Gross, but true. Will and Nate had to be two of the sweatiest 7-year-old boys at the game. They played hard all day and wore their helmets most of the time. Nathan was determined to get on the big screen during the game. He thinks that he saw himself once though it wasn't verified by anyone else.

Yesterday was a bittersweet anniversary for us as we remembered the events of 9/11/01. So many lives were lost that day, and we are forever thankful that Tyler's was spared. I wanted to post this picture from our road trip to Georgia in 2001 (just a couple of weeks after 9/11) as a reminder.

Double Birthday

September 6th was always a special day in our house growing up. It was both my Dad's and my Granny Taylor's birthday. I got to have supper with my Dad tonight. (Don't mistakenly call it dinner in front of him. He will be quick to point out to you that in the South, we eat supper!)

Dinner is what we sometimes call lunch. Especially if it's the midday meal on a holiday or pretty much any given Sunday. After church, we used to have Sunday dinner at my Granny's house. I've mentioned time and time again what a great cook she was. She was well-known in the community for her dressing. When she died in 2005, the only thing that I really wanted from her house was the roasting pan that she made her famous dressing in. I already had the "recipe", if you want to call it that. I don't think she ever used any written recipes. If you wanted to learn to cook like Granny, you learned side-by-side in the kitchen. She was such a special woman and is missed by many. My mom is the youngest of 7 children, which makes me one of too many grandchildren to count! One thing about my Granny is that she had a special ability to make each of us feel like we were her favorite.

I've been trying to scan a lot of my old pictures lately. Here's a few that I've come across with my Granny in them:

On our trip to California (c. 1980)

Making the dressing (1990)

With Renee, me, Mom, and Amanda at our "triple" Baby Shower (2002)

Lest you think that Dad was left out of the old picture posting, there's more to come. Mom just got a new scanner/printer, and we are going to try to convert a lot of her old pics to digital. I'm going to help her so I can make sure all of the terrible pictures of me (there's a good decade of them!) somehow won't scan. ; )

Kid-Friendly Apps (a.k.a. Portable Babysitters)

I'm always looking for some apps to download for the kids. Where else can you buy something that costs a buck or two that will entertain for hours? The latest ones I've downloaded are "Talking Tom" for Ashley (I got the free version first then upgraded so it wouldn't have weird ads on the screen) and the "Oregon Trail" for Nathan. Karen had told me about the computer game version of this one, and then I found the app.

Other games that I consider must-haves for us are "Colorama" and of course "Phineas and Ferb" (see previous post regarding P&F obsession!) Any other suggestions?

What's Been Going On?

Not much. Mostly, we've just been trying to get back into the school day routine. Our new school still has an early start time (7:40 tardy bell!). Even though my kids are generally early risers, it's still tough to get up, fed, dressed, and ready to roll by 7:20. The traffic situation is not as bad as I had anticipated. Jeff usually does the dropping-off, and I do the picking-up. Most days, I let them play for while after school to expend some of the boundless energy while I hang out with the other "Playground Moms".

Pre-K is going great! They had Cowboy/Cowgirl day on Thursday.

Ashley was the "Star of the Week" which meant she got to be the line leader all week, bring some of her favorite toys from home to share with the class, and have pictures of her put up on the bulletin board. We had to send a healthy snack for the entire class that started with the first letter of her name and that did not contain any milk, egg, or peanut products. We were lucky because we could chose applesauce, but some of the other letters are going to be tough!

Other than that, the only "blog-worthy" event of our week was probably these homemade rolls that I baked on Monday. I'm not even kidding. They were delicious! After we had them with dinner on Monday night, Jeff had them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner the next day!!

I don't know why I like to take pictures of food. It only makes me want more of them! Hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend. I'm on call, but Jeff and Nathan will be headed to NWA tomorrow. Go Hogs!

Brandon's Big News

In his own words:
"I don't really know what to say, I just wanted to let everybody know I just got saved!"- Brandon

Amanda and I are understandably thrilled about his decision to trust Christ. He called all of his grandparents and even Mamaw and Papaw (his great-grandparents) and he wanted to let all of his cousins and aunts and uncles know that "he got saved". So y'all can expect a call over the next couple of days. Praise be to God!

Josh