lottie sue hugs a vitamin, rowdy likes birthday cake & sterling cooper mowrer smith

lottie sue had "bring a friend to ballet" night last week, she said she either wanted jack or holly - so holly it was. jo and i watched, much to our delight. it was pretty funny. also cute but mostly funny.

 

holly waves to jo during warm-up

lottie helps holly put her tutu on

two happy ballerinas

holly gracefully sashays across the floor

lottie takes her turn showing what she's got

her tongue is always out when concentrating

tap time, she mostly likes to make noise with her tap shoes

nope, they weren't taking a break here

(guess lottie thought she needed a breather or was bored)

after ballet lottie sue and i needed to grab bread so we ran into the walgreen's - she saw this m&m and thought it was a vitamin. she told me she HAD to give him a hug. 

 

i was totally LOL-ing while snapping this shot

shon texted me this photo one super big vol fan, cj!

 

he makes this jersey look GOOD

here is a photo of rowdy before lunch one day this week, he loves food - very much. i liken him to a garbage disposal (in a loving way). 

gimme gimme gimme

last week we were bringing lunch over to grandma for her birthday and had a little time to kill, we went over the playground for a swinging session. 

rowdyman loves to swing, he laughs the whole time

here he is after lunch at grandma's - pooped

(AND he looks JUST LIKE MATT here)

and now on to a sorta big deal, rowdy turned 1-year-old on friday! he is basically grown. sniff sniff.

cuteness, i has it

we are having a shirley/grandaddy/rowdy birthday part next sunday but we did do a little celebration at home. here we have miss thang with his gift. 

so happy to help little brother open presents

rowdyman is enthralled with the ribbon

here he is with his caterpillar, but he
only really cares about his mommy

(this is how he looks at me ALL the time
and i ain't kidding - he loves his momma)

this is the stand-in cake we got

(at food city, the cakes there are pretty delicious)

here we are singing happy birthday, he was not sure of it - his face did not change. 

eh...

again, lottie being more than happy to help little brother out

the next few shots are a series of the birthday cake experience. he loved it and while i do not have a shot of him smiling with icing all over - trust me. he was in heaven. 

yummy yummy yummy

if you remember, lottie sue did NOT like her cake that she was served on her first birthday. here's a shot if you don't remember. 

me no likey

i had to go back and search for that photo. can you say water works? yikes, i cannot believe that lottie was that little and now rowdy is one and before i know it he'll be a senior in high school. i simply do not know where the time goes. i know that's cliche to say but it is the gosh-darn it TRUTH. my heart hurts a little to know our kids are growing up. poo.

here's another shot of lottie sue at her party, she's wearing the same shirt rowdy wore on his birthday. 

our little butterball with bb

here is lottie sue so super excited she-can't-stand-it she gets cake. the night before she saw the cake and said that if she couldn't have cake for dinner then she just wouldn't eat. so she didn't eat dinner (we tried to give her real food but she drew the line). 

the next morning she ate three waffles (she usually eats 1/2 of one).

smiling while eating

THEN the next day we got such a treat - shonnie bear and cj came over for a visit. we were SOOO happy to see them.

cj and his ladies

megan and cj, both cutie pies

rowdy and cj explore together

twinkies (or dorks) squared

shon brought lottie sue a special cupcake from

deweys and she is all smiles - wayyy happy

(they make the best cupcakes in the WORLD)

so. next saturday the mowers and smiths are participating in the KNOXVENTURE race. i can't tell you how excited we (we = megan & jen) are about this race. 

i guess you can say it's like amazing race but in knoxville and it's all about knoxville. we will cover 4-5 miles and will have to complete tasks along the way. we are in it to win it! 

 you have a few more days to sign up, btw...

this is from the website: 

The U.S. Cellular Big KnoxVenture Race is a one-of-a-kind race that combines brains  and brawn as teams explore downtown Knoxville – it’s road race, part scavenger hunt and a whole lotta fun!

our team name is "sterling cooper mowrer smith" - if you watch mad men then you get it. 

here we have megan and matt disagreeing on our team logo. 

but don't worry, we have a final team-approved comp.

be afraid, be very afraid 

while tommy slaved away at the logo and t-shirt design matt threw rowdy in the air.

despite the look on his face, he liked it

(he is rowdy for pete's sake)

we have to have a camera for the race, so we should have lots of photos to share. i know you can't wait.

here are a few items of interest:

• carrie, becce, tri-cera-tops and kitty kat, this is for YOU: please make it so, kristen
• here's five questions with david sedaris
• this has been cracking us up, i hope a million people come
• i want to make these, this is right up my alley: secret storage books
• here's a link to the C25K program, if you want to start running (and are a couch po.ta.to. then follow this - it works (BTW, our group pulled a 4-miler on saturday and it was great - i did well!)
• here's another article for you read (it's mentioned as one of the best magazine article EVER written): mother earth, mother board: wiring the planet (on laying trans-oceanic fiber optic cable)
• here's a running blog i just found (there are a million out there but a small few are actually worth the trouble) - this lady CRACKS me up: shut up and run

i will end with this. it is a brilliant idea, we swear (cross our hearts) it was all lottie.

dora, we can't thank you enough

alrighty, gotta go. tomorrow is monday - yay for another week! 

hi, friend!, music to run to or from with & other effects

i really did mean to blog many days ago but the stomach virus hit our house (it was four for four) and lemmetellya - today is the first day i feel ok. BLEH. i won't bore you with the details.

ok...here we go! ut played martin (and won!) a few weeks ago and we went over to a game-watching party at the hussars and it was a lot of fun. lots of adults enjoying each other's company and lots of kids running around having a blast. lottie sue made fast friends with jill (even if she cheers for clemson, hahahaha). at first she didn't know her name and amy kept hearing her run around the yard saying, "wait, friend! come this way, friend!" - hilarious. but don't worry, by the end of the night she was referring to jill as jill.

hi, friend

there was a wagon train that was a big hit, we need to get one of these things.

chugga chugga

here we have fashion-forward emery
(she ALWAYS wears something yellow. ALWAYS.)

rowdy spent his time eating w & e's toys (sorry, amy)

lottie sue locking will outside of his own home (how rude)
(and why YES, that is a tv outside - that's how we roll)

this photos is so cute, dinner time for all the kiddos! they love hot dogs.

how civilized

then on labor day we went up to the lake to see cera, we saw her last on christmas. i wish i had taken more photos. but i didn't. matt and i are going out to los angeles in november and i promise to take a ton there.

proof of life

rowdyman with his bb

lottie sue SHOVING all of rowdy's cherrios in her mouth. at once.

alrighty, now on to the music portion of the post. as you may or may not know, i joined a running team/group and we just finished week #2. the first week went very well but this week i had to skip out on the group run due to my illness. i did make it on saturday to the 3-miler and it was hard for me, i had to dig deep.

i started "wogging" (my take on walk/jog) in march of this year and have improved a lot. i actually enjoy it and i am training for a 10K that takes place on thanksgiving morning (brilliant, i know). i am WAY excited about it! i am happy to be on the team with friends (shout out to amy h., JOANNA, lori, sherry, amy d. and new friend amy m.) as well. misery loves company, and if anyone else wants to join the group come on down! the more the merrier!

amy and i are somewhat obsessed about our running playlists. i am always looking for a good song that is peppy with a good tempo. i am not much for the techno music they play in most of the classes i take but i sometimes find great songs that way. anywho, here is a list of songs that continually make my playlists (i have about 10 lists that i choose from).

these are pretty much just awesome songs that you should have, btw. and i do not care if you laugh that i have a jonas brothers song on here, it's a good song and i know it to be true! it's not like i have justin bieber (WHAT is up with his hair...it is just wrong) on here for pete's sake. some of them you may think are slow for running but i put slow ones at the beginning and end, helps kept my tempo slow for split negatives and then the cool down. anywho, here are some of the songs i like to exercise to, enjoy!

some slow (warm up/cool down) ones...

• blue ridge mountains (fleet foxes)
• another place to fall (kt tunstall)
• bad reputation (freddy johnston)
• notion (kings of leon)
• stolen car (beth orton - this is one of my all time favorite songs)
• these apples (barenaked ladies)

faster tempos...

• tenderness (general public - i love this song so much)
• touch the sky (kanye - this is my powersong)
• the seed (the roots)
  
• burnin' up (jonas brothers - they are talented!)
• machinehead (bush)
• i was wrong (social distortion)
  
• long day (matchbox 20 - for tommy!)
• feel good, inc. (gorillaz)
  
• miss me blind (boy george and the culture club)
  
• teenage dreams, hot n cold (katy perry)
• telephone (lady gaga)
• marching bands of manhattan (death cab for cutie)
• 21st century life (sam sparro - this song will make you pick it UP)
• u + ur hand (pink)
• pump it, imma be, i gotta feeling (black eyed peas - you cannot escape them, they are everywhere)
• sunday morning (no doubt)
  
• walking on a dream (empire of the sun)
• right round (flo rida)
• falling for the first time (barenaked ladies)
• giving up the gun (vampire weekend)
• kickstart my heart (motley crue)
• escape (enrique inglesias - AH YEAH, AMY!!!)
• empire state of mind (jay z - i LOVE him)
• makes me wonder (maroon 5)
• toxic (britney spears - her best song, hands down)
• pictures (sneaky sound system)
• paper planes (m.i.a.)
• boyfriend (ashlee simpson)
• malibu (hole)
• there is a light that never goes out, girlfriend in a coma, stop me if you think you've heard this before (the smiths)
• suedehead (morrissey)
• take if from me (the weepeis)
• tiK toK (ke$ha)
  
• american boy (estelle)
• the con (tegan and sara)
• concrete bed, always love, do it again (nada surf)
• everything is everything, fences, girlfriend, too young, 1901, lasso, lisztomania (phoenix)
• i could never take the place of your man (prince)
• misery business (paramore)
• our lips are sealed (the go-go's)
• desperately wanting (better than ezra)

i hope that gives you a new song of two, i am always interested in what people listen to for motivation. during our group runs i don't listen to music and get along fine but if i am alone then i do enjoy the tunes. if you have a good one send it my way, please!

here is the random portion of my blog post:

dipsey (sam venable) is working on a new project. you can go here to read more about it: neyland neighbors, but basically he is looking for stories about people that developed relationships (met, married, traveled together, switched churches and etc.) with others just by sitting next to them at UT football games. if you have a good story let him know about it!

speaking of football, here is a photo of beth, myself and amy at last week's game. we lost.

but at least we looked cute

and now a few items of interest:

• if you think you can spin a good yarn, you should enter the three-minute fiction contest sponsored by npr
• hall & oats are AWESOME (even better than the jonas brothers) - here is a story about life at home with daryl hall
• i can get behind this, pennsylvania university bans facebook for a week
  
• this article is pretty interesting i thought: a kitchen revolution aimed at freeing women
• they found the spot where your brain figures out what it DOESN'T know
• becce sent these online magazine links to me (thanks, love em!): rue (design) & small magazine (cool kid stuff)
  
• casey affleck has admitted his film about joaquin phoenix is a fake, well poo on that
• vanity fair has a nice little story on martha plimpton

if you like natural lamb and/or sheep's milk cheese then take a look here, we bought a lamb with the smiths - here we are divvying it out.

one for the mowrers, one for the smiths...

we stayed home and watched the game with gramma and papaw - it was a good time even though we lost. again. i just really hate florida.

our tailgating crew made it on national tv
(you can see tommy and beth in the back)

rowdyman on the loose

before the game lottie sue got some swing-set time in, here she is swinging and sliding.

ok, for real i am out. we bought the nfl sunday ticket and it is all football all the time. the colts are about to play the giants, the manning boys are going to battle it out. whee!