October.....is it almost over?

October is always so busy! There is always the leaves changing, pumpkin patches, football, halloween, haunted trails, and planning Emma's birthday!!!

I can't believe Halloween is Friday! I have to go get a ghost costume for the haunted trail. My neighbors have been planning a haunted trail......in my backyard! So fun.. I haven't done anything to help. I think it starts in their garage and goes through our trail. It is going to be so cool. The kids can't stop talking about it. John Connor said tonight that Friday was going to be his best day ever! He's so funny!

Emma's birthday is Saturday. We are having a scrapbooking birthday party at the store, of course! It is going to be so cute. I have been working on a little scrapbook for them to make and we've made some buttons....our own flair! She will be 9! How do I have a 9 year old? I tear up everytime I look at pictures of her when she was little.

We were at my Mom's in Tennesse this weekend and our cousin was there. She is 11 months old and looks so much like Emma did at that age. I just wanted to keep her! They wouldn't let me. how did I not get a pic of her? You can take a peek at her. We love going to Tennessee in the Fall. The leaves were just turning and it the weather was fabulous! We celebrated Emma's birthday. She got lots of money......she wants to save for an ipod. Mimi gave her clothes, the perfect gift for a 9year old!

We were only in Tennessee for a short time, but we packed it in. We got to eat at Memories, Ruru's restaurant. She and Uncle Bill cook a fabulous breakfast buffet on Saturday mornings. She always has a really cute saying on her marquee out front. Of course, she welcomed us.....but had to support her team! Connor and I went to the AL vs. TN game. We went with my brother and sis-n-law, Charlie and Dana. We got to hang out with some friends from B'ham. Got seats in the AL section.....at the TOP of the stadium! Rammer Jammer!

I went with John Connor's class to the pumpkin patch, also known as, Baker Farm. Lots of fun with first graders! We got to pet lots of animals, hay maze, cotton picking, a hay ride, lunch in the barn and picking a pumpkin from the patch! It was a beautiful day. The kids all had on an orange tie-dyed shirt and we stamped jack-o-lantern faces on them! too cute. I love getting to go on field trips! They seem to be cutting them out, though. I feel bad for the kids. They LOVE them!

man, one more thing! John Connor has been playing fall ball......fall baseball. It is low key and fun for the kids to play and get ready for Spring......when it gets serious!! We had the end of the season party after the last game. The boys played at the park, ate cupcakes and most importantly, got TROPHIES! It's amazing what a trophy can do for a kid. They love those tacky things!

Have a fantastic Halloween and be safe! Come over for the haunted trail if you dare! BTW, there will be a karoake machine......enticing, huh?

An adventure.......to say the least!

Those of you who do not know Daphney will think this story is unbelievable. Those of you who know her a little, well, you will think, haha that is so funny! Those of you who know her very well.....you know that this is just another day.

She came to pick me up Thursday morning. Karen met us at my house and we headed out on our long weekend to the beach. We have a tennis tournament to play in in Sandestin! yay! There is a welcome party on Thursday night and we will play on Friday at 7:30am. We wanted to get a little beach time in before the tournament. We were driving along, laughing and laughing and wishing we were already there. All of a sudden the road got very bumpy! uh-oh! Daphney asked if we thought we had a flat tire. This is a VERY common occurence for Daphney. She has had her car for a little over a year and has had 6 flats!! Seriously. So, we pull over....I get out and walk around. Yes, the right front tire is flat. OH NO. We are 8 miles from the next exit. The last exit is only 1/2 mile back.....yes, we cross over the median and go back to the last exit. We were almost flattened by an 18 wheeler and then again by a dump truck. yikes! We get to the gas station and call the Volvo roadside assistance. Did I mention that her car doesn't have a spare? It doesn't come with one. Seriously! We are in Letohatchee. There are no teeth in the mouths of the people that are hanging out at the gas station. Seriously. Little worried. It will be ok. The wrecker that is coming is coming from Montgomery. 30 minutes back. We call around to see if we can find a tire closer. They will have to bring it to us and change it. No one had the tire. The wrecker gets there and we are loaded into his cab and the car is loaded onto the back. We are on our way back to Montgomery to the Volvo dealership. UGH! It's cloudy so we hope that it's cloudy at the beach, too.
When we get to the dealership they do not sell tires. ha! While they are trying to figure out what to do with us, we get some coffee. It saved the day. We felt so much better after our coffee!
They decide that Ken, the wrecker, can take us to the tire place.

We get there and Ronnie is going to help us out.
He informes us that the wheel is cracked and will need to be welded together. They can't do that. Someone else will have to! Great! We are starving. They have chicken. We eat it. Ronnie can't get over us. We are laughing and being a little loud. Karen, the third amigo, is loud.....and funny! 2 hours later......we have a car to drive. Ronnie makes us coffee for the road. We tried to get him to trade cars with us for the weekend. He wouldn't do it. Actually, we asked several people to trade, no takers. So, here we go on our way again. We pass a restaurant called Rock Bottom. Have we been there? We thought so! ;-)

Passing Letohatchee! woo hoo! We are ready for a pick me up after we go through Georgiana. We stop at C&H store to get a Dt. Mtn Dew and snicker. After the bathroom break and our sugar fix, we go out to the car. The doors are LOCKED and the keys are INSIDE! bwahhaaaahaahhhaa. All you can do is laugh! We do. The ladies inside all come out to help us. They have a "local" that can get the keys out for us. Fabulous! We call roadside assistance, again, and tell them the situation. The wrecker that is coming to help us is........are you ready? Ken, the same wrecker that took us back to Montgomery. So, here we are in a town they call Kokomo. We are meeting everyone who lives there. Tony, the local ladies man comes by and tells us that he will drive us to the beach. He asked if we were on TV! We think it's because we have all of our teeth. He also offers his house for us to spend the night if we need to! thanks, tony! Luckily the "local" showed up and had a suitcase with tools to open a car! He puts a bloodpressure cuff between the front and back windows and pumps it up. He has a stick that has a little crook on the end. Tries to push the button on the door, can't get it to work. Next he gets the key out of the ignition, pulls it up to the window........and drops it into the seat! Seriously. There are like 8 people standing around the car. We are all telling the guy how to push the unlock button on the key. Once he finally does it, we all jump up and SCREAM! We call Ken and tell him not to bother. WE are on our way......AGAIN.

Can you believe 10 minutes later.....we were pulled over for speeding? Ha! Daphney had been pulled over 3 weeks ago in the same spot by the same cop and had gotten a ticket. He walked back to his car and we were just waiting for the ticket. How could she not get one? As he was coming back to our car....we notice he has no ticket. Either Daphney is going to jail or we're not getting one! Shut the front door! He asks us why he shouldn't give us a ticket. We all just start talking at the same time. Trying to tell him our story and he finally just stops us. He didn't give us a ticket. Do you think we can make it the rest of the way? We did. Got to the house at 6:30pm. 10 hours. We took showers and raced over to Graffiti's for the welcome party. No one was there! They had all left. So, we went to Bluepoint Fishclub and ate dinner. The food was not so good. The martini was fabulous! Jacob was playing the guitar. We had a great ending to a crazy day!

Rules to live by

I picked up a Skirt! magazine the other day. Have you seen this? It is a really fun read. It is visually stimulating and has some pretty interesting articles, too! The particular issue I have is the "Rules" issue, from September. It has lots of good rules to live by. As I am perusing the pages, I am thinking about these rules as they pertain to my life. Most of them, I already know. Then I realize, I have Emma, an 8-soon-to-be-9-year-old-in-24-days, who should be learning these "rules". So, I think I will make her a scrapbook with the "rules" in it! I'm sure there are a lot more rules than in this magazine. I be able to add to it as I go.

One very important one is Always as WhY! Gosh, how important is this? I was very shy growing up. (shut up! I know I'm not now!) So, I never asked WHY?. I was a very good listener so I figured out why.....eventually. Just think about how much faster I could've learned things! Just ask.

Another one is (hopefully, this will be a few years from now), but Play Hard to Get. Don't you think this applies to a lot of areas of your life? ....not just boys! Be confident and make them think they have to have YOU! Why is it so hard to figure that out. Self-confidence is something that I want my Emma to have. I want her to know that she is so perfect in every way. God made her and that in it's self is why she should know how wonderful she is. This may be the deepest post I have ever done? I almost feel now, that it is too much. (it's that shyness coming out!)

So, go pick up a Skirt! Mag and enjoy. I hope it brings you fun and laughter.

I am loving anything that celebrates Birmingham and Alabama. We have several magazines that are all about Birmingham! There are so many cool things here. We get stuck in our routines and miss out on a lot of them. I don't know how many of you saw our segment on Fox 6 or the one on ABC 33/40...Talk of Alabama. I love that they cover local stories! There are so many things to do here and I hope we all learn how to enjoy them. I guess I'm one to talk. Always heading down to Destin every chance I get. Hmmm...maybe I'll stay home.....next weekend!

This is Alabama Football!

We took John Connor to the Alabama game on Saturday! It was a pretty fun time for everyone. We stopped at Tony and Michael's house to tailgate. Susu, Grandaddy, Brandy, Katie and Cooper were all there. They brought chicken and ribs and lots of yummy stuff from Jim n Nick's. Cheese biscuits are the bomb! We brought some cupcakes and cookies. It was fun seeing Michael before the game. One of his fellow football player friends came over, Hampton. They were getting ready to walk over to the practice field to get on the buses to go to the stadium. They had a bite to eat and Susu drove them over. Shouldn't wear out those legs before the game even starts! The kids had fun playing outside. It was a gorgeous day!

We finally went over to the quad and guess who we ran into? Brittney in her Mayfield icecream tent! She was scooping up some icecream for all the HOT people! John Connor had 2 scoops! I guess it pays to know somebody! ha!! You should try that icecream. It's really good. It has fudge footballs in it. I think it's called Tide Rush? maybe?

So, we are walking around looking for tickets. We need 3 together. Not the easiest thing to find! Most people have 2 or 4. We did finally find some. whew! We thought they were on the 20 yard line! ha! We need to get a map of the seats so we know what we are buying. We were in the endzone by the student section! Really the seats weren't bad. We were sitting on row 54 with chairbacks. We thought we were GREAT. Then the season ticket holders show up and move us up 2 rows! Oh well, at least John Connor is little. He didn't take up too much room. It's fun to watch all the people around you. Some are obnoxious. There were 2 that were yelling at the refs and John Connor kept looking at them and then at me....like, "do they not know that those guys on the field can't hear them?" funny. He finally had enough after the 3rd quarter. We got up and went to the bathroom and got some cotton candy. He did make it to the end. After the game, we got to go to the area where the football players come out to meet their families. That was fun to see them coming out of the locker room. They were signing autographs and eating Popeye's chicken. We went over to one of the camper lots and hung out with John Parker, Corey Reemer, Michael and a few other football players from Hoover. That was fun! They had Jubilee Joe's cater and the food was great! If you live in Hoover, you should go by and check it out. Poor guys didn't really get to eat. Lots of people wanting autographs and pictures.

I wore cowboy boots thinking it would be good for the feet. Usually, I would wear heels. My feet never did hurt, but, boy, were they HOT! I knew it would be a hot day. I wore a skirt.....and the boots. I looked really cute. Just ask me! I was glad when the sun went behind the stadium. I finally cooled off. I guess you learn something each time you go. John Connor will not be going back until next year and I won't wear cowboy boots unless it is going to be cooler!

Oh and Emma? She had a birthday party on Friday night and hung out with Maggie on Saturday! She did NOT want to go to a football game!

Fall Fundraiser

Wow, we had the best fundraiser at school this past week! A group of guys comes to the school and rallies all the kids to raise money. The kids are going to have a fun run and raise an amount of money per lap that they run. So, every afternoon the kids come home and want to call every family member we have to ask for a dollar for each lap they run. We got them to $10 each! The funny thing is, we think Emma will run around 30 laps and John Connor will run....uh, maybe 20! The average is 25 laps. So, everyone is getting prizes each day at school and it keeps them calling each night! One little boy in John Connor's class raised enough money to win the grand prize.....an Ipod! Wow! That was a lot of money! The parents all agree that this is so much better than buying wrapping paper!

So, on Thursday is the big RUN. The kids are so excited! I get there at 8:30 for Emma's run and they are playing the National Anthem. After that, they play the Rocky song. I'm talking pump you up music! There are 2 tracks 1/16th of a mile and the 2nd graders are on one and the 3rd graders on the other. The kids take off and are smiling the whole time! They play different songs and the kids might fly like an airplane or gallop like a horse around the track. They are sweating and running and some are walking! Emma is taking her time and hanging out with her friends. They are all smiling and hugging. It's so cute! There is a victory lap for the parents to walk with the kids. Emma made it around 34 times! WHOA! Awesome!

At 10:00 John Connor comes out. His class is first. Ms. Bishop is like fundraising champion. She loves a good fundraiser! She does the Relay For Life for OMES and always finishes great. There are tunnels for the kids to run through as they go to their tracks. Susu and Cooper are there to see John Connor come through. He was so proud to see them! The 1st graders take off like they are in a race and I'm not sure if they will make it around very many times. Some are crying after 2 laps! Yikes! John Connor is doing his thing. Most of you are thinking, just taking his time. Mr. Laid Back personality, right? Wrong! He is flying! He takes one water break and keeps going! I had asked him what his goal was before he started and he decided 33 would be fine. After he got to 33.....he stopped. He was finished! I told him he could keep going. He still had plenty of time to run. So, he took off. I guess he ended up with around 40 laps. It was crazy! I was so proud of him. I think he may have a little competitiveness in him afterall!

It was such a fun day. I love seeing all the kids in the class and the teachers. They are all so good with the kids. We are so lucky to have such a great school. Now, we've got to collect all that money! I'll let you know how much the school gets. It's supposed to be one of the most successful fundraisers. We'll see!