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!

why i DO declare! eating our way through charleston & running at the zoo

matt and i spent a fabulous long weekend in charleston last week. we try to take one trip alone together each year and we look forward to it very much.

we had a GREAT time.

here we are in front of our inn, it was so cute and quaint.

here we are outside before we went to the
courtyard for wine and cheese (nom nom nom)

over the weekend we ate at fig, blossom and s.n.o.b. (slightly north of broad) for our evening meals and had southern fare at jestine's and another local cafe (the name escapes me at the moment) - we seriously ate our way through charleston. it. was. awesome.

we stayed at the fulton lane inn, a very small and charming inn right in the heart of of it all. the location was perfect, just perfect (right on king street)! here's a link to their site, if you are going to charleston it's a neat place to stay. very private and very accommodating.

matt had a meeting on friday so i went out on a run down through the battery - it was an awesome run, for real - one of my best. i am sure it had something to do with it being so flat there. you know i love me some flat terrain. i took a few photos of my morning...

down by the water

i usually don't run on brick roads, but did here

friday afternoon we went down to the water to watch the practice for the air show. those dudes are CRAZY. i loved it. we once went to the show in chicago but i think it was super sunny and we had to leave before the blue angels came out due to an impending sunburn. so this was my first time seeing them and they really bah-lew my mind. i took one photo, they are super tiny though.

these guys have a license to fly like
bats out of H-E-double hockey sticks

we were walking back to prepare ourselves for dinner and went by the mill house hotel. this is where matt was staying the night we had the house fire. ah, memories.

mill house hotel

here i am at our hotel's wine and cheese hour. matt and i went there every night - good wine and yummy cheese. we are wine and cheese connoisseurs if you didn't know...

to me!

the cute hubby

can i say that we looked in about 10 different stores for a cool shirt for lottie sue. none of them were anywhere near cool but we finally found one that would work.

not this one

but oh yeah, i did find giant flip flops to fit my giant feet - finally!

just like cinderella

we also went on a carriage ride, the kind that gives you the history of the city. i know i may look like a dork in there but i go on them wherever i go - you learn so much and get to see all of the big stuff. so next time you travel somewhere just go on it, you'll be glad you did.

here we are waiting on our buggy to go out, i'm chatting with lottie sue

this was our GIANT horse, larry
(ashton kutcher told us he could pull 9 carriages
and not blink, he's that strong of a horse)

this is our guide, ashton kutcher - i mean COME ON, he's a dead ringer

here are a few shots i took on the way...

that afternoon we walked over to the aiken-rhett house for a tour. it's a preserved home in charleston, not restored - so everything there was old old old. it was cool - and this really tells you how much matt loves me...ha. i don't have many photos, they don't allow photography. poo.

a photo from the internet

here matt is outside wearing his headphones for the walking tour.

nerd alert

this is what he was looking at...

the back of the home

so after the tour that day we went back and got ready for dinner. here i am outside our hotel.

happy for happy hour

ooh, and here i am with wine and cheese - i'm about to gobble it all up. yummers!

pre-dinner fun

this photo is of the wall in the courtyard

now we move on to our dinner at s.n.o.b. - my favorite of the trip. and here is a photo of the best martini i've ever had - so smooth. i ordered it upon the recommendation of maureen - so thank you, maureen!

seriously, so smooth and delicious

we ate at s.n.o.b. years ago with the linkers - LOOK! we are babies here! i think matt and i were recently married.

i really like my hair here

here are a few other photos of the time we went to charleston with the linkers - good times!

jamie and john on the battery

a squinting me and mowmow

here we are playing games
(matt's thumb is bandaged up, he sliced it cooking a few days
prior at home in chicago and we had to run through a rain
storm to get to the hospital - he was pretty much blue when
we got there and i almost passed out when they stitched him up)

another cute photo of us, i know - it's too much

we really missed the kids but enjoyed out time together. bb and granddaddy sent a few photos of lottie sue (gramma and papaw had little rowdyman - said he was the perfect gentleman)...

she loves to mess around in the water, very
helpful with your gardening as well

now on to another topic, my running - whee! so far i have completed two races, the first almost killed me but the second one was way better. i am getting better as i go along and while i'm slow (like a turtle, not kidding) i will get faster as i drop weight and get in shape. i am quite proud of myself. i pretty much rock. i have a 5K this saturday and then a 4-miler next saturday (somewhat nervous about this one but it's supposed to be flat flat flat so i think i can do it).

oh yeah, and i know i posted about meeting the pink mom from biggest loser - the other day i saw that the pink daughter works out at my gym. i am two for two! i spoke to her for a minute and she was super nice, she said she has a few more weeks until they go back and she was working out like crazy (spinning is her fave). go pink daughter, hope ya win! ok, back to the zoo...

me, hilary, amy and megan before the run at the zoo
(we also saw lindsay but didn't get her photo, boo)

matt came down with the kiddos and got this great action shot of me

after the race we stayed and did the zoo with the kids. it was our family and the hussar clan. lottie sue was in a funk that morning and wanted to hog emery's car the whole time. to amy and chris, our apologies. but here are some photos!

amy and emery pick out the perfect animal for the carousel

this was the only shot i got of matt and lottie sue, that thing goes fast

lottie sue surveys the goats, who needs
a brushing the most she wonders

tail action

this is what rowdy thought of it all

more proof that lottie sue will talk to a wall or any person
(i rescued the college student, she told me lottie
was asking her questions about mopping (???))

and here i am with amy, my running buddy - whee!

oh yeah, look at me - i followed through with my monthly chair-photo-taking promise. i will NOT let you down!

early april 2010

early march 2010

i leave you with a few random photos of baby boy, he is 7 months old - GASP. for real, you say? real, i say.

what a big boy

alrighty, gotta go - i hear a lottie sue calling me. i leave you with this quote. i read it and liked it so i thought i would share...

"this is the true joy in life...the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap..."

-george bernard shaw

until next time!