Life Is A Highway

At least that's what it felt like Friday and Saturday. Jack and I drove over to Nashville on Friday afternoon to pick up Kelly, Ryan and Abbott to head to Texas. We left Nashville about 4 pm with our final destination being Texarkana. We'd used Hotwire to book a room so we had to make it there or we'd lose our money. We should have arrived at 11:30 pm. We didn't make it until 2 am. Our first mistake was deciding to stop at Olive Garden and eat dinner. That set us back an hour and a half. We were doing ok until we got about 50 miles outside of Little Rock and came to a stand still for 45 minutes on I-40. We debated begging the hotel to change our reservation to Little Rock but decided driving time with sleeping boys was better than driving time with awake boys who didn't want to be in the car so we made it to Texarkana. We left Saturday morning at 8 am and drove to Dallas. We had lunch with our great Aunt Treville and then went to visit one of our best friends Jeremy and his family. Jeremy used to live down the street from us in Amarillo and we pretty much grew up together. We hadn't seen each other in 2 1/2 years so it was definitely time. It was so nice to see him and his wife, Jenny Lynn and their kids Peter, Isabelle, Daniel and Luci. Jack & Abbott had fun playing with them. We then headed onto Athens and arrived about 5 pm. It was a long 2 days and looking back it wasn't too bad. The boys did pretty good traveling and the adults were silly enough to make the time pass. Today we're celebrating our cousin Rebekah and her baby, who will arrive in August, with a baby shower on the hill. Here are a few pictures from our traveling days.

Ryan needed the peace monkey to help him drive.

Jack needed the peace monkey to help him stay sane.

Jack & Isabelle playing with the train set. Jack loved this train, more than he loves his remote control one at home.

Peter & Isabelle being silly.

Here's our group. Back row: Jenny Lynn, Luci, Jeremy, Me, Kelly & Ryan. Front Row: Daniel, Isabelle, Peter, Jack & Abbott.

Abbott having fun on the swing and slide.

Daniel helping Luci swing and patiently waiting for his turn.

Swinging with Isabelle.

Dads playing soccer with babies. I think this should be a new sport.

Swinging with Abbott.

Isabelle loved to be right near Abbott. She would hold his hands and help him walk around.

Jack & Uncle Jeremy.

Three tired boys.

2 crazy girls. Don't worry, we were sitting in traffic.

You Are My Sunshine

It is obvious Jack got his wonderful singing abilities from his Mommy!

Water Fun & Goats

Today was water fun day at Jack's school. I arrived a little early to pick him up so I stayed and took some pictures. He had so much fun!

Jack & all his friends at the water table.

Pouring water in the "spin thing" as Jack informed me.

Helping his friends paint the fence.

Silly boy!

Playing with a friend in the soapy water.

His teacher, Ms. Kelli, is helping his squirt paint onto paper.

The water hose was hanging over the fence and was a popular place to hang out.

We have some friends, Chris and Holly, who live on a farm and invited us to bring Jack out to see the cows and goats. We went out tonight and it's such a neat place. It's been in the family for over 200 years and Holly said that there's a dirt road that runs through the property and there are huge trees that form a tunnel over the road. She said she's heard that when Andrew Johnson was president he would travel that road to get to the White House. There were some really cool things on the farm, and I'm sure some even cooler stories to be told.

The goats.

Jack & the John Deere. Jarred told him to "come stand by this big wheel and let Mommy take your picture." and pointed to the front wheel. He said, "No, daddy, this is a big wheel." and pointed to the back wheel.

Driving the John Deere.

Jack & Emma the goat.

Sitting in the big wheel.

This was cool old Chrysler Windsor just rusting away, waiting to be restored. It may be beyond that but it was still really cool.

Jack loves being on farms! He had fun here and he has fun on the farm in Texas!

Motivated in May

This is going to be a quick post. Today, I am motivated to clean my house so I better do it while I actually am in the mood. It doesn't happen very often. I've been getting recipes from my friend, Dixie, with instructions to "make this puppy healthy". With the weight watchers online tool, you can play with recipes a little and see how the fare. The only question would be if they tasted good. So... if you have a really yummy recipe that's maybe a little high in calories or fat, has a lot of butter or something like that and you'd like me to try to "healthify" it, send it my way. My email is volgrad01@aol.com. I'll do the best I can and post it here for everyone to share.

I also get email from Nickelodeon and they have a website called ParentsConnect. If you go to the website, at the top is a list of subjects. If you click on food, you can get "Good Eats". It's a weekly list of recipes plus a shopping list of what you'll need. They don't give nutritional information, but it looks pretty healthy.

I'm on week one of my hundred push ups and so far I'm doing good. I might try to incorporate the 200 sit ups, listed on the hundred push ups page, next week. I don't know if anyone who reads my blog also watches the Biggest Loser, but I have to say if you need motivation, watch that show! It blows me away how good they all look at the end of the season. The season finale was this past Tuesday and they announced they were doing a continuation of their "pound for pound challenge". What you do it is pledge how much weight you'll lose during the time frame and at the end you report how much you actually lost. For every pound you lose and report, General Mills is donating one pound of food to local food banks. This past season they announced they will donate over 3 million pounds of food. AMAZING! You can still pledge to lose weight over the summer and they'll do it again. Go here to pledge. If you plan to lose some weight over the summer, why not help out people in need, too. I pledged 10 pounds. You have until May 31 to pledge so do it quick!

Ok, I gotta get back to cleaning before the motivation leaves me!

Haircut

Jack got a haircut today. He's got a condition called Loose Anagen Syndrome and his hair comes out more easily than it should. He twirls his hair, too which makes the hair come out in big clumps. Right now he's got 2 big bald spots on his head from where he twirled his hair. Several people, including the dermatologist, suggested we buzz cut it so he can't get ahold of it. I was hesitant because I didn't want him to look like he had no hair at all. After going back and forth, I went for it today and got Jack's hair buzz cut. The hope is that it will grow back more evenly and maybe he'll forget about twirling it, since he can't get ahold of it. We'll see.

Future Model??

Yesterday I found Jack a pair of PJs at Dillard's for $4.99. Now, for $4.99 PJs, I don't care what they have on them (to a certain extent, anyway) but these happened to be Calvin Klein PJs. Oh yeah, you know Calvin Klein... Marty McFly, underwear ads. I'm pumped about $4.99 Calvin Kelin PJs. These even have the elastic waistband with Calvin Klein printed on it, just like in all the sexy underwear ads. When Jack put them on last night, I couldn't resist the model shoot. I had to know if he had the talent to be a Calvin Klein "mini model". I don't know if they have those but they should, especially after seeing these pictures.

Gotta stick your hips out.

Try it on the other side.

Show off your rock hard abs by lifting your shirt in a sexy way, and the Calvin Klein waistband.

Give us your best sexy, pouty face. I think he's nailed it.

Happy Mother's Day Weekend!

We had a great weekend. Plain and simple. We were going to go to the strawberry patch Saturday morning and pick our own strawberries for Mother's Day strawberry shortcakes. We had just one problem~ RAIN. It was in the forecast all weekend. Just as we were about ready to head out, Dad looked at the radar and it wasn't pretty. Two big storms were headed our way. We decided to stay put since there was even another one that was supposed to arrive in the afternoon. Guess what, no storms! We did get steady rain but not all day and definitely not the nasty storms we thought were going to get. We didn't make it to the strawberry patch but Jack and Abbott had a great time playing outside together. Abbott was walking wearily on Friday but by the time they left today, he was cruisin'! There's no better way to learn than to keep up with your older cousin! We had a great weekend. Plain and simple.

First, Jack helped Popo clean the leaves off the porch.

Yep, that's a little curl! It was a little damp in the air so his hair curled a little.

Giving Moma Jo some love.

Laughing and chasing after Jack!

Don't they look like they're up to no good?

He's a good older cousin, when he wants to be.

"I don't know"

Jack is an excellent helper. Really, he loves to help you do anything you're doing. He's helping Moma Jo get the corn to Popo.

Popo's getting the potatoes ready for the grill.

I know, he's just not that cute is he?

It did sprinkle on us while we ate... outside. It's ok, we had a sign that we were going to have a great Mother's Day. We couldn't have asked for better weather today.

It's a good thing we're not silly in this family. Nothing but serious.

I asked dad to take a picture of me, Mom and Kelly "real fast". He took the camera and started snapping.

Then he took a good one!

Abbott got his first taste of chocolate pie. I think he likes it.

He looks good in chocolate.

Jack helped Popo in the garden this afternoon.

He might like his Popo a little. Maybe Popo likes him a little, too.

Hope you had a great Mother's Day, too!