Duck-ducks and Choo-choos

I quit the blog challenge. The daily topics have just been too boring. I find myself wanting to blog about my life and things I really care about! So, here's what I want to blog about today...

After a delicious dinner cooked by my wonderful husband, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go to the duck pond. Now, the duck pond here in Norman is no Theta Pond. As a matter of fact, it's quite ugly, but it has a lot of "duck-ducks" and geese, which is all that matters to Liam.

Am I the only person who is a bit scared of geese? I can't help it. I've been chased by geese too many times to count when I used to run around Boomer Lake. (Anyone else had that happen?) So, when these geese spotted the bread and came rushing toward us, I kind of freaked out.

So, we went to find some real ducks. Liam was so excited to see the ducks and yelled "duck-duck" over and over again.
I love this picture. Look at how Liam has his little hand sitting on my leg. Melt. My. Heart.
Liam found his first stick to play with. The teacher in me wanted to make him put it down immediately. But, the mommy in me tried to relax a little and let him play with it for a little bit. He's turning into such a little boy!!!
I eventually asked him to give the stick to Daddy. He did s0 without hesitation.
After we fed the ducks, we went to feed the fish and turtles. Man were they hungry! I'd throw a piece of bread in the water and it would be devoured by tiny fish in seconds. Occasionally, a big turtle or fish would bully the little fish out of the way and take the bread. I snapped this pic of David and Liam while we were watching the fish eat. I love these two!!!
After we fed the fish, a train rolled by. Liam was so excited to see the "choo-choo"!
This was one of those evenings that I wish would never end.....

Success!!!

If you ask me, I'd say that David and I were successful in finding the perfect cars for our needs and budget.....even though we spent hours upon hours in dealerships last week. Poor Liam was such a trooper. Of all the dealerships we went to, only one had a changing table. We had to come up with some pretty creative ways to change a diaper. Only two dealerships had play areas. Those two dealerships just happened to be the dealerships where we bought our cars. Coincidence? I doubt it!!!!!! The longer Liam was entertained, the longer we were able to stick around, and the longer the sales manager was able to work with the numbers and get the numbers where we wanted them.

As requested by many, here are some pics of our new cars.......

I think David needs his windows tinted for Christmas.
The inside of David's car....see the pic behind the gear shifter? That's the pic of Liam that David keeps in his car at all times. He's such a good daddy!!!
And here's my car....
I love it!!!
The inside is black leather. It's beautiful!
I know it might get hot during the summer, but it sure looks good!!!!
Now our only problem is whose car we'll take on our trip this weekend!!!

My week in great detail

So, I didn't post yesterday. I didn't feel like it. That's a good excuse, right?!?! When I looked at the blog challenge topic for yesterday and the topic for today, I chose to go with yesterday's topic. So, here's this week in great detail....

Sunday (yesterday) - Liam slept in until 8:30! Bliss!!! We woke up and did our grocery shopping as a family. (I usually do this on Saturday mornings alone, but since we spent ALL of Saturday car shopping, I had to make up for lost time.) After we shopped at Target and Wal-Mart, we came home and cleaned out the garage. After that, Liam napped while David and I got ready for his company picnic. After the picnic, we came home, played outside for a little bit, then David gave Liam his bath while I relaxed. After we put Liam down, we folded laundry while watching Grey's and Private Practice, then we crashed.

Monday - (The weekdays are going to be boring!) I worked, then I picked up Liam. On our way home, we stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of things for dinner. After we cooked out and ate dinner, we went outside to play for an hour or so. Liam is now sleeping while I type this and David is watching House. Soon, we'll head to bed!

Tuesday - Pretty much the same as Monday, except that hopefully we won't have to stop at Wal-Mart. One weekday trip a week is enough Wal-Mart for me!

Wednesday - Same! (I may do a little cleaning Wed. night.)

Thursday - More of the same, except that my mom and dad are coming into town Thursday evening!!!

Friday - My birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Before going to work, I am going to breakfast with my mom, dad and Liam. Then, they're going to take Liam to Texas with them. After David gets off of work, we will pack up and head to Texas and meet up with them at my brother's.

Saturday - We'll probably eat some great food and do some shopping before we go to the Ranger's game. I am SO excited about the game!!!!

Sunday - We'll pack up and head back home to do laundry and get ready for the work week.

That's this week in semi-great detail. I'm really looking forward to this weekend! I absolutely love the food at Ranger's games!!! Is it sad that I go to games for the food?!?!?

My day in detail

I'm guessing that I'm supposed to describe today in detail, but I don't want to. We spent the entire day shopping for cars, which was totally boring. We started in Ardmore (we went there to see a friend and gave their Honda dealership a try) and finished the day at Eskridge Honda, where I ended up driving away from in my new Honda CR-V!!!! I love it! I'll post pics tomorrow!

Anywho...I'd rather describe a regular day in detail, so here goes!!!

6:20 David gets out of the shower and wakes me up to start getting ready.

7:15ish Liam wakes up and I am most of the way ready, so we hang out for a bit and get him ready for the day.

7:45 Liam "helps" me make his breakfast (which is most usually the Eggo's mini pancakes).

8:00 We load up in the car and head out for the day.

8:20 I stop at Sonic for a vanilla Diet Coke.

8:25 I drop Liam off at "Mimi's", his sitter.

8:35 I arrive at school.

4:10 I leave school to get Liam. I love walking into his sitter's and seeing his precious face! He is always SO happy to see me! He quickly runs over to me, gives me a quick hug, and then he wants down to play some more.

4:50 We arrive at home. I attempt to get the house straightened up before I start cooking dinner...if I cook dinner!

5:20 David is home!!!!

5:45 We sit down to dinner.

6:15-7:30 Play time...This is my favorite time of the day!!!

7:30 Liam's bedtime routine begins. Bath, lotion, dress, brush teeth, cuddles with me while David reads, and Pedisure.

8:00 Say good night to Liam

8:00 - 9:00 Clean and get ready for the next day

9:00 - 10:00 Relax with my man

10:00 Time for bed!!!!!!!!

I finished this at the perfect time. David had gone out for dog food and just now walked in with the dog food and some Rusty's frozen custard for me! Yummo!

Car shopping

We have spent the last three nights at car dealerships. Car buying is so exhausting. Throw a 21-month old in the mix and it's even worse! I'm happy to report that we finally had some success tonight. David is the proud new owner of a beautiful, red Volvo S40. He got his first real paycheck this week, and was rewarded with a Volvo!

We ended up trading my Escape (yes, the one I got 7 months ago) for David's car. I am back to driving the Civic...temporarily. I'm hoping to trade it in within the next 24 hours (or 8 months...whatever) for a Honda CRV. It's hard to explain, but by trading in my Escape, which I liked, but was never totally happy with, for David's car and eventually trading his car for my new car, we are going to actually save money each month. Who doesn't love two new cars and an opportunity to save money on car payments?!?!

Hopefully I'll be posting a pic of me and my new car soon! Haha!!!

A YouTube video

Liam loves fish. So, I started searching on YouTube one day and found this video. Liam loved it! He would run over to the laptop and yell, "Ish! Ish!" We have watched it so many times that it has moved from the 4th most viewed video when searching for "fish tank" to second!

Seriously, give it a chance. This aquarium is amazing!

Websites

I've read a couple of blogs today of others who are doing the challenge, and several of you have mentioned Google Reader. Could someone please explain to me the purpose of Google Reader? How does it work? How is it any different than blogger's dashboard?

Some sites I frequent are...

Facebook...I'm sure you can figure this one out.

Blogger...This one too.

Mid-del...To check my school e-mail and update my website.

Old Navy...I love to check out the Item of the Week and any other deals.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm tired! Hope you've had a happy Hump Day!!!

Recipe...

I'm an awful cook. I avoid it as much as possible, so we eat out far too often. There are a few recipes that I can pull off and actually taste great. One of my favorites was given to me from my co-worker and friend, Amy. I'm not sure what this meal is really called, but we call it the Crescent Chicken Bake Thing.

You'll need:

1 lb. boiled chicken, shredded

2 pkg. crescent rolls

1 can cream of celery

1 can cream of chicken

1 small container sour cream

1 cup chicken broth

Unroll the crescent rolls and divide the chicken among the rolls. Wrap. Place rolls in a greased baking pan and begin baking at 350 until the rolls are slightly brown. Mix remaining ingredients while the rolls are baking. Pour over the slightly brown rolls and bake until the sauce is hot. (It's kind of hard to make sure the rolls are cooked thoroughly, so make sure they are almost completely cooked before you pour the sauce over the rolls!)

This is a super yummy, super easy meal!!!

A hobby...

I'm going to make this short and sweet. My hobby is reading. I love, love, love to read. My favorite authors are Nicholas Sparks and Janet Evanovich. That's all I have to say today!!!

I hope you've all had a happy Monday!

Day 19...A talent

Hmmmm....I have put a lot of thought into this one. Do I have a talent?

David says I'm talented at spending large amounts of money, but I don't consider that a talent. That's just something I do.

My sweet friend, Amanda, said that I'm talented because I'm a teacher. She said that working with children is a talent. I guess she's right. I should consider that a talent. It definitely takes a ton of patience. Patience should be considered a talent also, right?

The only talent that I could personally come up with is my ability to multi-task. I had never thought about the fact that I multi-task all the time until a conversation I had with my doctor recently. He started asking me random questions, one of them being whether or not I'm a multi-tasker. Like, do I usually have more than one project going at once. I answered with a quick, "Heck yeah I do!" (He then told me that he thought I was most likely ADHD...that's a story for another day!)

Since that day, I've thought a lot about the fact that I'm a multi-tasker. For example, on my planning period at school, I never leave my room to walk my students to gym or music without going through my plans to see if I need to drop something off at the office, stop by to talk to someone, copy something, or pick up something for a lesson. After all, I'd have less time to myself if I had to make several trips to the front of the school, when I could have done it all at once.

I always have a list of projects that are yet to be completed going through my mind. For example at this very moment, I am doing laundry, dishes, boiling chicken for tomorrow's dinner, talking to a friend via text and typing this.

So, yep...I'm a multi-tasker. I'm proud of my talent....even if my crazy doctor thinks it means I'm ADHD. Ha!!!

A crazy busy Saturday

Phew! Today was non-stop. Our day started bright and early when we got out of bed to go to MWC for the 5k I registered for. I met up with some of my favorite ladies, and co-workers, for the race. Here we are pre-race...

Liam and David came along to cheer me on. I had the cutest cheerleaders at the race!!!
Liam was so good for David while I ran. David said he just hung out in his stroller and smiled at everyone who walked by.
After the race was over, we rushed home to get ready for....and I'm embarrassed to say this...the OU vs. Air Force game. I wore a dark gray button up with an orange tank underneath it, so that I was still supporting my team, I just wasn't too obvious about it. ;) And, I cheered for the Air Force of course!

After the game, we rushed home to pick up Liam and go over to a friend's house for game night. There wasn't a lot of game playing going on, but we had a great time catching up with some great friends.

We are all exhausted now. Liam was asleep before we got home and never made a sound when we transferred him from the car to his bed. Now, David and I are laying in bed watching some football. I hope everyone had a wonderful Saturday!!!

A work of art...

I'm putting a little twist on this whole "work of art" thing and am going to show off two of Liam's drawings. This first one was drawn about three weeks ago. Liam drew the outline of the bird and David added in the eye, beak, and feet. Not bad considering he wasn't even looking as he was drawing. David was so proud of this work of art that he displayed it on our entertainment center until last week.

This "fish" was drawn a couple of months ago. At this time, Liam was obsessed with fish. Any time he would see a pen or paper, he would say, "ish". David and I drew no less than a thousand fish before Liam moved on to asking us to draw something other than fish. Every time we drew a fish, Liam watched intently and eventually started drawing some pretty good fish!
I think he's pretty talented. Maybe I'm partial! Ha!!!

A song that makes me cry...

David and I had been married for 3 months when we got the word that he might be deployed to California for 4 months or Iraq for 18 months. Yes, you read right...18 months. We waited for the official word, like you do with the military, for several weeks.

One morning while I was getting ready for work and David was getting ready for class, the call came. David was NOT on the list to be deployed! Talk about the best news ever! We celebrated that evening with a wonderful dinner at Johnny Carino's and did some shopping.

When we got home, another call came. There had been a mistake. David was on the list to be deployed to Iraq. (I may have gone ballistic on his sergeant at this point. I may have called him a heartless son of a b*t*h. I may have grabbed the phone from David at one point and asked how I could count on my husband being safe if the men leading him weren't even able to read a list correctly.) I was heartbroken.

11 days later, David was off to train up for his deployment, and my mom was left to dry my tears.

29 days after that, David was sick. Really sick....and sent home! Bittersweet. I hated that he was sick, but I was soooooo glad to have him home!

While he was gone, I listened to this song and cried, like curled up in a ball on the floor...cried. This song helped me get through a really tough time.

A boy who loves his bed

Today's blog challenge is a fanfic. What?!?! I googled it and am still clueless as to what in the world a fanfic is. So, I checked out the blogs of a couple of other girls who are doing the challenge and they had the great idea of posting about blogs they love to follow. All day I figured I'd follow along and write about my favorite blogs. But then my precious boy did something that I thought was too cute and I just had to write about it.

Every night after bath time, Liam runs around the house with the towel on his head. Tonight as he started to take off, he caught sight of his bed and just couldn't help himself. He ripped the towel right off of his head and jumped into his bed.

He hopped on his knees....

He clapped with excitement....
And he laid on his pillow....for a millisecond...just long enough for me to snap a quick pic.
Can you tell he loves his bed???

A Non-Fiction book

This is the non-fiction book that I am currently reading. I'm hoping that I'll gain some knowledge that will magically change my precious monster into the perfect toddler! Ha!!!

A fiction book

So tonight's blog challenge is "fiction book". I'm not too sure what that means, so I'm posting about the fiction book that is popular in my home right now. Liam loves pretty much any and every Dr. Seuss book and has since he was about 3 months old. I remember David and Liam laying on the floor, David reading and Liam just starting at the book in awe of the pictures and the rhythm of David's voice. Awwww....sweet memories!!!!

He's growing up...

...and I'm not ready for it! There have been several times in the last few days that I have been brought to tears by something Liam has done. From his singing with me in the car, to eating a crispy taco, to climbing out of his crib over and over again, to moving into a "big boy" bed today. I'm so not ready for all of these changes!

In between football games yesterday we rearranged Liam's furniture and made sure that his room was 100% baby proof so that we know he's 100% safe if he escapes his bed at night. Here's the view when you walk in the door...

And his bookshelf and bat collection...
These pictures are signed by some of our favorite players... Ryne Sandberg, Josh Hamilton and Chipper Jones.
And now to the "big boy" bed. Liam was so excited about his bed that he climbed up and down no less than 25 times before it was bath time!

This is "Arf Arf" and "Blankie". Two staples for bedtime at our house.
We were really stressing about how Liam would do in his new bed tonight. Apparently, we stressed for no reason at all! He crashed just like normal as soon as we put him down. We just went in and checked on him and he's snoozin'! Such a big boy!!!

Cruisin'

Nana and Papa bought Liam a motorized quad for Christmas. Well, they just couldn't wait to give it to him, so they brought it down a couple of weeks ago. Liam was so scared of the noise that the motor made, that he wanted nothing to do with it. Until Aspen came last weekend. She hopped right on and took off. Liam suddenly became un-afraid. Now he rides it everyday.

Today Nana and Papa came down to give David and I an early Christmas present. (An upright freezer.....so excited! I can actually see what's in my freezer now!) After a quick downpour, we took Liam outside to ride his quad. He had so much fun!

I love this picture of Liam. We've been meaning to take him in for a haircut for weeks, but haven't made it yet. I have to say that even though I like my boys to have clean cut hair, I'm falling for Liam's curls!!!!
He hasn't figured out how to steer really well yet. Nana had to do a lot of guiding to keep him on the sidewalk. At one point, a car came flying into our cul-de-sac at the same time that Liam lost control and was going straight into the road. I jumped in front of the car like any mother would do and waved my hands at the driver to stop. Liam never made it into the street, but I swear my heart stopped in that instant that I thought my baby was in danger!

I love that smile! After riding on the quad, we headed to lunch for Grandparent's Day at Cane's. It's one of the few restaurants on this side of Norman that is peanut free. Thankfully my parents love it!!!!!
Happy Grandparent's Day to the best Nana and Papa and the best Grandma and Grandpa!!!!

A recent picture...

I had big plans of taking a wonderful picture today for this post. No such luck. It's almost 7:30 and I'm sitting here in my pj's as I type. It has been a great day. We've gotten a lot of laundry done, made the necessary changes to Liam's room and watched a ton of football. I love days like this!

So instead of taking a pic for today's post, I chose one of my most favorite pictures of Liam and I to date. This was taken in July by The Pirtle's. I love this picture!!!

Oh yeah...I had a question about whether or not I'm in the pic I posted yesterday. Yep, I'm there! I am the one in the front with the black strap across my body. :)

An old picture

This picture was taken on a choir mission trip the summer between my junior and senior years. My most favorite high school memories are from this trip. We flew to Seattle, where we stayed. We sang the National Anthem at a Mariner's game, ate at some fun restaurants, sang at a juvenile detention center, served food to the homeless and had some great times. But, what I remember the most from this trip are the children at the Children's Hospital. I remember the feeling of sadness I had when the children came in pale, weak and rail thin from their battles with cancer. I remember the hope I felt when the children began to clap and sing along with us when we sang Garth Brooks', The River, and I remember the tears we all cried when the children left the room where we performed. It was at that moment that I stepped out of my selfish teenage mind and realized how blessed I was to be a healthy kid, living a normal life.

By the Grace of God.........

These girls were some of my favorite high school friends...Julia, Casey, Michelle and Laura. Now, we all live in the metro and never get together. Girls, that needs to change!

It counts twice!!!

It's Teacher Idea Thursday again, and I'm starting to really struggle with creative ideas. I'm really not creative at all...just good at stealing ideas from others!

This picture is counting double for me today...as my teacher idea AND a picture I snapped for my blog challenge. Since my classroom theme is Hollywood, I paired up my students and had them interview one another. They then wrote "Star bios" about one another, and I took a fab pic of each of them. The bulletin board turned out SO cute and was perfect for Open House!

(This class may or may not have been my favorite class ever!!!!!!)
I'm so thankful tomorrow is Friday! I love short weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Picture that makes me angry or sad...

Sometimes when I look at pictures of Liam's first days with us I get so sad. I hate thinking about everything he went through during his NICU stay and I hate that he spent his first Christmas hooked up to machines. (Yes, I realize that it could have been much worse and that we were truly lucky that we were just there for 17 nights and that he had nothing significant wrong.)

Sometimes I even get angry when I look through these pics. I know I shouldn't, but I can't help but blame myself. I have been told over and over again that there was nothing I could have done differently to prevent the umbilical cord issues, but I still think back to every sip of caffeine I took while pregnant, every time I accidentally stood in front of a microwave while pregnant and the time I bumped my stomach really hard right after I found out I was pregnant.

With all that said, when I look at these pics, I also think about how truly blessed we are to have Liam here with us...and healthy! He is our tiny miracle!!!!

Day 7...Happy Picture

This picture makes me happy for the following reasons....

-Just look at that face! Liam looks so happy!!!

-It reminds me of my favorite time of the year.

-It reminds me of the best Christmas I've ever had.

-It reminds me of how blessed I am!!!!!!!!

Labor Day Weekend Fun

We had the busiest, most fun weekend we've had in a long time. I'm pretty sure Liam was excited about our weekend!

For some reason Saturday night when I would ask him to say cheese, he would drop whatever he was doing, jump up, throw his arms in the air and scream, "Eese!" Crack. Me. Up.
Saturday afternoon my good friend, Devin, came to visit with her two girls. Devin and her family live in D.C. right now, but her husband is deployed. So, for the next few months Devin has relocated back to Oklahoma! I'm sad that her husband is deployed, but so happy to get to see her and her girls more often. Liam and Aspen played together really well.
While they played, Ayla sat quietly in the Bumbo and watched. Is she not precious!?!?!
These two danced, and danced, and danced! This picture is a total action shot. Look at sweet, innocent Aspen....droppin' it like it's hot!!!!!!!!!!!!
Before our sweet friends left, we got a pic of Devin and I with our babies. I love these girls!!!
Then, Nana and Papa came to visit. Look at the excitement in Liam's face. He loves these two so much!!! As soon as I told him they were coming he started running to the front door and knocking on it over and over again. He just couldn't wait to see them!
After Nana and Papa left, David had to get busy mowing the lawn. When he finished Liam helped him spray down the mower. (He's soaked from playing in the water table.)
And then he had to help "push" the lawn mower. (No, it was not on!)
I'm already looking forward to next weekend....I think we're going to do some work on Liam's room. Since he can officially crawl out of his crib, it's time to change his bed to a toddler bed. I'm so not ready for that!!!!!