a quick message from rowdy, a breakfast and then a festival, the lake & race bibs

first, a message from rowdy...

he pretty much jabbers all day long

it cracks me up because he growls a lot as well (and does at the end of this clip). lottie sue growled A LOT and people would look at me weird at stores and i am pretty sure it disturbed the nursery teachers at church. ha!

lottie sue's classroom held a mother's day breakfast for all the mommies last week - it was lovely! check out the door, i thought it was sooooooo cute.

lottie holds the letter "a"

this is lottie before school, she was very excited that i was eating breakfast with her.

our fashionista

here were are eating the food, there was chocolate chip bread and then blueberry muffins. i prepared a plate and we decided to share everything. once lottie took a bite of the chocolate chip bread she told me that it was hers and that i should eat the muffin. nice.

greedy much?

a shot of the table, that is irie on the left in the green jacket - he's her BF.


yeah, this is what rowdy did the whole time. he had a lot of entertainment with a room of 2 year-olds running around.

yes. i am cute.

THEN later in the week school had a festival to end the year right, we had a great time. this is lottie sue's class, the "gentle goldfish."

little fishies

lottie loved loved loved the carousel

rowdy looked super cool in matt's new sunglasses. side note about the sunglasses: matt saw these when he had his exam months ago and has been talking about them ever since. he finally bought them two weeks ago and he treats them like they are made of sand. do not touch them! or look at them the wrong way for that matter! they are perfect and can do no wrong! so to see that matt put them on rowdy was quite surprising...

matt's right, the sunglasses are cool

lottie in the jumpy bouncy thing

they had cotton candy for sale (50 cents, what a deal!) and we splurged for lottie sue.

true love, she was so happy

i could not believe she shared
(since i was denied the chocolate chip bread, hmph)

rowdy had lots to look at

here's lottie sue at her name

lottie sue trying to get the ball in the hole

matt trying to get another ball in another hole

this is lottie sue running away from me with a sucker in tow
(she won it at a game but we told her
it was for later. we are SO mean.)

drumming away

bb and rowdy make sweet music together

PHEW! the cotton candy was enough to put her on a sugar high. we came home and she literally ran circles around the den talking super fast and laughing at herself. we just watched her go...

we also took a trip out to visit granbunny one day this week, johnny and judy came over to plant flowers (granbunny's mother's day gift) and lottie sue helped.

judy and her assistant

lots of frogs live in the pond and we always
try to find them, but they hide from us :(

the weekend took us up to the lake for some r&r. it was awesome and we are looking forward to lake fun up at norris, yo! lucky for us rowdy loves the water as much as lottie sue. here are a few photos...

rowdy is clapping here

a mid-air shot

lottie with her protective eyewear

after pooltime we settled down for dinner and hanging out. glenda from next door came over with her pup. when glenda left lottie told me, "i sure wish i could have a doggie like that."

nice doggy

that's matt in the distance, he was on burger (and wine patrol)

rowdy had to pet the doggy as well

after dinner we settled outside, lottie sue grabbed her "knockers" to get a better view.

she will only look through them at the wrong end

we found a slug crawling about and lottie sue had to investigate.

then takes a closer look with the knockers of course.

on saturday lottie sue went to selene's birthday party. it was at one of those inflatable places and was awesome - but lottie sue would not go in the bouncy things. she only wanted to play air hockey.

a group shot of the kiddos

at cake time, i looked over and she had the piece of cake in both
hands cramming it in her mouth. real attractive - but cute.

and the next section is going to be my new thing - i'm going to keep all of my race bibs and write down my time, date, interesting things about the race, place and etc.

my first 5K, yuck - it was so hard

second race at the zoo, megan saw a zebra's butt - i was jipped!

you will notice i am getting faster

came in last in this one, but the bagels we ate
afterward were yummy yummy in my tummy

here's a random photo of lottie sue on the couch with one of her babies and her dora watch.

i am pretty sure we are watching reba

a few interesting reads for you...

• i am SOOOOO making a super cool duvet cover for lottie sue's bed - and you can, too!
• here's how the pentagon makes brownies, the recipe is 26 pages - nothankyou!
• i just finished asterios polyp and loved it! here's a review from the times: read it here.
• i (and amy) have found a few really good running blogs, so i thought i would share with you. one is endurance isn't only physical and racing with babes. these ladies are pretty much obsessed with running and living a healthy lifestyle, it's something good to read to keep you motivated if you are a runner.
• and here's something to crack you up: a website named stuff my kids ruined - you will see i changed the first word to be less crude but the site is worth it.

okee dokee everyone, i hope you have a super duper day - blog to ya later!

silhouettes (the good and then ours) & nice girls finish dead last

i hope all the mommies out there are having a great day so far, i sure have. it started with a wonderful breakfast in bed with my family - lottie sue and rowdy gave me a very lovely pair of earrings and i LOVE them. thank you my sweet babes (and matt)!

here's the card they gave to me...it cracked me up.

"best blogger ever" is RIGHT

this post is comprised of a major photo dump, i have photos from several things i'm thowing on here.

i'm going to lead with the silhouette section. this should be entertaining for you.

a lottie sue and rowdyman, april 2010

here is mr. harlan's right side

for mother's day we are giving all the mommies/grandmommies silhouettes of the kids. we had them cut by clay rice at smart toys and books in early april. the guy is pretty amazing, you sit your kid down and he looks at them while cutting out their profile with tiny scissors. i assumed he was going to trace their profile with a light and a wall but no - he cuts them out. i found this photo on his website so you can see what i mean.

he could be tim burton's brother

last night the smiths came over to hang out and i was explaining how he did this then of course we get idea that WE can do just as good a job as clay rice and decide to draw each other's profile. we talked about cutting them out like he does, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. anyway, overall they were pretty terrible but made for many laughs. there were a few good ones in there here and there. the name on top is the object and the names below the drawings are the "artist."

we voted that mine was best (but still not very good)

tommy wins this round although matt's is pretty good

it is a shame but i can't find tommy's drawing of matt, i
am pretty sure it was good (i will continue the search)

megan thinks i look like jimmy durante i guess

last week lottie sue's school put on a program for the end of the year. her class performed three songs, lottie participated in about 30% of the performance and the rest of the time she stood up there and smiled at the audience. you never know what you will get. here is a shot of her during a moment when she was actually performing.

center stage

this is what rowdy did the whole time.

nom nom nom nom nom

i stand corrected, he also did this with his pops.

my two favorite boys

later that day i had lunch with carrie, patterson and cassady at one of our regular spots, TOT (taste of thai). good food, good times.

carrie and rowdy

rowdy and cassady play together. rowdy was reaching for cassady's pacifier here, you can see in the next picture cassady has it under tight wraps.

rowdy reaches for the pacifier

cassady thinks not

carrie invited us to join her at the pool on friday and we gladly took her up on that offer. it was FUN FUN FUN but sorta busy with two little kids, hence only one photo. rowdy is a chick magnet, when they left to do something else he started crying. he likes the ladies, what can i say?

hi girls, how YOU doin?

that saturday i ran in yet another race, the tennessee school for the deaf holds a race each year. it starts on their campus then runs through the gorgeous island home community.

it was awesome. i beat my prior race time by a whole minute plus the route was so so so pretty and so so so flat (my heart is a flutter). you can view their photos here, i found this one of me. i have my running friend ava behind me there (she's completed three (or four but it could be six, i can't remember but i know it's a lot) half marathons in the past year) and we stayed together the whole race. i think we were about to round the corner and hit the first mile mark. anywho, look how happy we are!

it's just one foot in front of the other

after the race we met the smiths downtown for breakfast and to pick up our first delivery from colvin family farms. again, here i am being super happy (along with megan, she's super happy, too).

our first loot

we joined a csa and are very excited about it. here is a link to the family that grows our produce for us. they are super nice people and do a good good thing. to quote them:

At Colvin Family Farm we proudly raise the freshest, best tasting produce, grown without the use of synthetic chemical fertilizers, insecticides or herbicides. We don't use seeds that have been Genetically Engineered (GE), or that are of Genetically Modified Origin (GMO). We raise our produce right from the ground up using natural and sustainable farming methods with the goal of protecting our community's health and environment.

we really try to buy local if possible, we get a lot of items from horn o'plenty. please note that the horn serves breakfast and lunch, plus they have way better prices than lowe's on plants, flowers and herbs (although not a big selection like lowe's). anywho, back to the post...

it was a very pleasant morning, here's a shot of the boys. matt has a weird joker smile and tommy is too cool for school. rowdy chews on his finger.

this kinda cracks me up

all lottie wanted was a balloon, it was her number one objective. look at the joy.

she picked out an orange one

here's a shot of our half of the produce. it's early in the season and our pickings are on the small side, once it gets going we should have more than we can eat. and we only get what they grow and what is in season. one week we could get a ton of beets or okra so that is what we will eat all week. it's going to be fun. the hussars, cases and matt's parents are doing this as well. check out megan's blog, she did one on the csa and it's entertaining.

yummy eats

here's a random photo of lottie sue that night, she is covered in ice cream.

she calls it chockey cream

and on friday we drove out to rockford (my town of residence until the 6th grade) to attend john and amanda's wedding shower. their wedding day is next month and we are looking forward to seeing them get hitched. megan is making amanda's wedding dress and i must tell you how pretty it is - i have seen photos and it looks so beautiful on mander!

love is in the air

kristina, megan, candace (one of the hostesses,
it was her home), mander and moi

there was even live music, for reals - such a neat party!

pickin and a grinnin

the next morning i ran in a FOUR MILE RACE (yeah, you read that right) in oak ridge with amy, hilary, tara and manissa. the moment i walked in to get my packet i knew this race was different. for one, it was pretty small and b - there were some serious-type runners. and i guess they are there for every race but you notice them more when the race is small.

we came. we ran.

anywho...i totally came in LAST PLACE.

i ate everyone's dust

it really didn't bother me that much until i saw them pulling up the road cones ahead of me. they thought everyone finished and were about to really break it down. but they saw me coming and quickly put them back and i had lots of people cheering me on at the end. i shook it of just fine.

even though i came in last it's still great, i did it at least and i really am getting better/faster each week. next year i am going to run this race and i will not come in last. i hope!

we took grandma out for lunch for mother's day, afterwards we visited for a while. lottie sue found suckers there and was so so so so so happy.

here she is telling the sucker she loved it

grandma and rowdy hang out

i thought i would jot down more lottie sueisms for you. she is a firecracker and i really mean it.

* she LOVES reba (the tv show) and only likes the scenes with reba in them
* she tells us every morning that she only wants to wear BIG dresses (flowing, fancy ones), she also wants them pink
* she is somewhat obsessed with mermaids and will pretend to be one, she calls herself lottie sue mermaid
* she loves it when i make up stories about lottie sue mermaid or lottie sue princess, her face LIGHTS up - it's awesome
* she asks for the same lunch most days: peanut butter and jelly sandwich (cut in sticks), pretzels, raisins and milk
* she loves for me to play "lisztomania" so she can dance to it - she says it's her favorite song
* she loves to play "chutes & ladders" but doesn't play it right at all, she calls the blond gril piece "lottie"
* she also calls any blond barbie doll "lottie" and has named two of her baby dolls "carrie" and "olivia"
* one day she gave me her barbie dolls to play with then came over to get them, telling me i made them bored
* ernie is now her best friend, kevin is out
* she was playing cornhole with matt and he made one in the hole, she ran over there and said "wow, that's incredible!"

let me mention a few rowdyisms, he is just past the seven-month mark and is doing very well. he is one easy baby, lemmetellya.

* he loves bananas, they are his favorite but he doesn't discriminate much overall
* he cried the first time i gave him peas
* he rolls over quite well and is starting to his behind in the air so maybe crawling or scooting in next
* he loves bath time, he is MOST happy in the water - he loves to kick his legs and splash around
* he will try to grab anything near him, he loves his book - it's his favorite toy
* he is really into lottie sue, he smiles so big when he sees her and he loves to watch her play

and since it is mother's day i wanted to post a photo i came across of my mom. she is three here - lottie sue's age now.

little miss connie sue

it is hard to believe it has been seven years, but it has (sigh). this is my favorite photo of all time of her.

miss connie sue

ok, time to sign off...i'm leaving you with this photo, it was taken a while back - i think last september. i know i was working on a sewing project and matt came up with lottie sue to the bonus room to hang out with me. matt was on lottie detail while i finished up but i looked over and took this shot.

i call it "parenting 101 - what NOT to do."

yes, that's a plastic bag

alrighty, that's all i have for now. let's all have a great week and meet back here in a few days for more from the mowrers. until then!