A trip through the car wash....

As you can tell, Luke wasn't totally thrilled with it!

We have had one of THOSE WEEKS...parent night at school, trying to get progress reports out, and a 330 plate steak dinner fundraiser. After this week, I was not just "beat", I was whooped!

Have enjoyed a pretty relaxing day today, and even squeezed in a nap. Perfect since it was a rainy afternoon. Praise the Lord for the rain!!!!!

Hope the rest of your weekend is great!

A Night with "Royalty"

This weekend, Tracy and I took a little belated anniversary trip. We headed to Birmingham on Friday to see Queen Reba and King George, aka Reba McEntire and George Strait, in concert. We have seen Reba in concert twice before, but this was our first time to see George. We had tickets to one of his concerts a few years ago, but Matthew and I both caught the flu that week and we had to sell our tickets.

My cousins Tricia and Wanda are big country music fans, and they met us in Birmingham to go to the show. It was kind of a surprise trip for Wanda; Tricia just told her about it a week ago, and she was estatic! She is an absolute HOOT, so it was treat for us too! We started out with dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, and then headed for the concert. This was our first time to eat at Cheesecake Factory and all I can say is YUUU-UUUMMM! Delish! When we go out of town, we try to eat at places we don't have at home!

LeeAnn Womack opened the show

Can you believe the heels on these shoes? There is no way I could perform in them!

Next up was Reba!

The red "Fancy" dress...she always wears a red dress to perform "Fancy", and yes, she came to the stage in the yellow taxicab! And don't you love these shoes?

Would you take a look at the size of the rock she's wearing?

King George!

No flashy stage set, no flying around the arena , he just picks his guitar and sings....now THAT'S talent!

Goodnight, George...

After the show, we headed back to The Cheesecake Factory for dessert!

I had a peanut butter, Butterfinger, Reese's Cup cheesecake.



Strawberry cheesecake



Red velvet cheesecake


And finally, the best dessert of the evening (and it wasn't even cheesecake)...
Lemoncello Creme TorteFrom the CF menu: Layers of Vanilla Cake and Lemon Mascarpone Cream Topped with Streuseland Served with Strawberries and Whipped Cream

We closed them down at 12:30 a.m., and said our goodbyes to Tricia and Wanda. I can't begin to tell you how long it's been since I was out that late!!! I am sooo not a night owl! In fact, I'm usually asleep on the couch by 8:30! The next morning, we slept in, then did a little shopping before heading home. It was the perfect weekend....a fantastic concert, hanging out with relatives we don't get to see nearly often enough, and yet some alone time for Tracy and me.
If there is one thing I learned this weekend, it is that now I am truly a camera snob. On the Ticketmaster web site when I bought the tickets, there was a notice that said "No professional cameras". Well, at a previous event, I was told that if the camera had a detachable lens, they considered it "professional". So, I didn't even attempt to take my good camera; I took my mom's point and shoot instead. I didn't get any concert photos worth anything. All these are from Tricia's camera, still a point and shoot, but a nicer one than Mama's. It has a good zoom on it, but you can tell the photos get pretty grainy when you're really zoomed in. I found myself getting really frustrated with my inability to get any good shots, and even on those close-ups in the restaurant, getting frustrated with the inability to control the flash, etc. However, I'm glad I at least have access to some photos, and I have a ton of memories in my mind!

Busy week this week....open house/family night tomorrow at school, then a steak dinner fundraiser on Friday night. Hope your week is great!

Impromptu

Wow! I can't believe it's been nearly two weeks since I blogged. What on earth have I been doing in that time? I feel like I've been super busy, but don't have much to show for it!

Thank you for your prayers for Matthew when he was having teeth pulled. I KNOW they worked, because he was much calmer and got along so well with the whole ordeal! We did have a really rough patch when the anesthesia started wearing off, but once his pain medicine took effect, he was doing fine. He has also adjusted his eating without much trouble. About the only thing he can't eat is a hamburger, and I'm not so sure that he couldn't do it if he tried hard enough! He has two permanent teeth already coming in, so hopefully that big gap will be filled before too long!

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We had a wonderfully relaxing Labor Day weekend. We didn't plan too much since we didn't know how Matthew would be feeling. So, on a whim, we invited a couple of his friends over to play, and then all the kids wound up being invited over to some cousins' house to swim in their new pool. We went over for a couple of hours and had a great time. Luke would only sit on the steps and splash, but at least he wasn't hanging on my neck, as has been the case the rest of the summer! Later that night, we, along with Matthew's friends and their parents (our new pastor's family), went to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant. It was a time of great food and even better fellowship! We so rarely go out with other families, so this was a treat!

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Last Saturday was another impromptu gathering. Tracy's aunt has been raising catfish in a cage to release into another pond. Well, they had gotten large enough that it was time to transfer them. So the plan was that Tracy and his daddy were going to help with the transfer, and they had lined up some help for cleaning the ones that were large enough to go ahead and eat. We have a big fish fry at church coming up in about a month, so they were trying to get some fish ready for that. WELL...they wound up cleaning almost 300 fish! So the decision was made that we definitely needed to go ahead and cook some that day, and an impromptu fish fry was planned. It started off as just family, and then it was decided to invite so and so, and then somebody else said, "Well let's invite so and so too!" So we wound up with about 30 people, and it was a really fun time. I'm normally a planner, but I'm learning that these impromptu gatherings can be so much fun. The cousins played, and I took in this gorgeous scenery. Tracy's grandmother has three large ponds, one of which backs up to his aunt's house (where we had the fish fry), so I decided to pull out my camera and get some good shots of the pond. It is huge, and is absolutely beautiful!

While we've had impromptu gatherings the last two weeks, I have big plans for this weekend! Will be back soon with details and pictures!

Would you pray...

...for this little guy?

He has to have SEVEN, yes SEVEN, baby teeth pulled this morning, and to say he's nervous is an understatement. It's more like scared to death!

The oral surgeon says it's going to be a breeze....5 minutes and he'll have them all out. (Not sure I would have told how easy it is going to be considering how much he's charging us! Ha!) Anyway, it's something most adults would dread, but to an 8-year-old, he is just terrified. For adults, we can reason through things and realize that yes, there's going to be some pain, but it won't last forever, etc. To Matthew, who has never had any dental work other than routine cleanings and x-rays, he just can't really imagine what it's going to be like, and is therefore, rather afraid! He was actually physically sick this morning, and I know it was his nerves.

We had a special prayer for him last night at church, so hopefully that will help calm him. If you happen to read this in time, would you whisper a little prayer for him too? This mama sure would be grateful!

Now You See It....

....now you don't!

Matthew finally lost his first tooth today! I'm so glad he got the chance to pull one on his own, since he's scheduled to have 7 more removed by the oral surgeon next week! Looks like the Tooth Fairy will be visiting us tonight. I wonder how much she pays these days....

I have a picture, but it's on my phone, and I can't figure out how to get it into Photoshop on my computer so that I can edit it. It has my mother's truck tag visible in it. Don't really want to put that out on the Internet...for the whole six people who read my blog. Ha ha!

In other news, school has gotten off to a pretty good start so far. Matthew is adjusting to a substitute teacher while his regular teacher is on maternity leave for a few more weeks. I'm trying to get things going in my classes. We're still having lots of schedule changes, so I am gaining and losing kids left and right. Hopefully by Friday I'll know who I'm going to have on a permanent basis!

Here are some photos from the first day. You can see how swollen Matthew is from the accident at Water Day. He also had to try his hand at photography by taking a picture of me standing by my new door sign. (Yes, it does have my last name on it; I just erased it for the purpose of posting on the Web.) A sweet student painted this sign for my office door as a gift for me. I have the best students in the world! I would've liked to have taken more photos, especially one of the two of us together, but as you can imagine, he wasn't feeling up to it!

Water Day

Yesterday we had an End-Of-Summer/Back-to-School Luau at church...aka "Water Day". We rented a couple of inflatable water slides and let the kids play for while, then had a hot dog lunch. It was sooooo much fun! I am so glad that Matthew enjoys things like this. I say that because when I was his age, I probably would have been too scared to climb to the top of that big ole slide.

I remember the first time we did this, about three years ago, when Matthew was five. He started out on the smaller slide, but then one of the older kids convinced him to get on the big slide. That year, as long as one of the big kids would go down with him, he would play on the big slide and absolutely loved it! Obviously now, he's not afraid at all!

Luke didn't know too much about it though. He wanted to play in the water on the smaller slide, but wouldn't let me put him in. He was pretty content to just play around outside and watch everybody else though. He loved it when I would go down the slide! Another lady would hold him up so he could watch, and he'd just giggle! And honestly, I can't believe that at 35 years old, I went down that thing, but it was SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!

However, the fun ended abruptly for us after lunch when Matthew's nose collided with another boy's knee. It started pouring blood and swelling. We were afraid that it might be broken so we headed off to the urgent care clinic for x-rays. Thankfully, it wasn't. The doctor said he'd probably have black eyes today, but he doesn't. He is just swollen and sore and feels generally kind of rotten. Ironically, the boy he collided with is the same one who was so sweet and took him down the big slide three years ago!

The accident also loosened up a couple of teeth, but that's actually a good thing. Because he hasn't lost any baby teeth, and the permanent teeth are in there ready to come in, he has to have EIGHT teeth pulled in two weeks! Four on top, four on bottom. He had one that was already loose, and this just helped things along, as well as loosened up one that wasn't loose. I'm hoping he can manage to pull those himself. I really want him to have the experience of pulling a tooth himself, rather than just having the oral surgeon do it! (Not to mention it will be cheaper on us, since they charge by the tooth!)

Here are some photos of all the fun....

Luke trying to climb in!

Luke finally decided to just play basketball!

Not sure what he was doing here!

Water Day ROCKS!

A Little Project

Morning, y'all! Just a quick post this morning, because I have a couple of things I just couldn't wait to share with you! First, the situation at school has been resolved, and I think everything is going to be okay! Thank you so much for your kind words and prayers concerning that!

I'm working like crazy in my classroom this week, trying to get software installed, lesson plans, decorations, etc. Yesterday, I tackled a little project. I have a chair/stool that I sit in at the front of the class sometimes, and it was this AWFUL baby poop yellow color. For some reason, the "before" picture I took won't upload. Take my word for it, it was awful. It was from the 70s, at least, because I remember MY business teacher using it when I was a student in the 90s! Anyway, it got a little makeover yesterday....

What do you think?