This Girl? Totally Rules!!!

Love her!!!

Happy 10th Anniversary to Me!

So 10 years ago on October 16, 1999 Brad and I were married. I had to scan this picture in because they didn't have digital cameras then! HA - The horror!!!


We sent the kiddies to my in-laws and spent the weekend in Savannah, Ga. We had a lot of fun, despite the very cold temperature! 10 degrees colder than normal - yuck!

Here we are at the Isiah Davenport House.


OK, I love Paula, but no way am I standing in line to be told what time to come back to eat! There were people in line at 9.30 in the morning! Craziness - this picture will have to do... I looked in the windows though - didn't see her or either son!


River Street at 9:30am - no one is there which is great, but oddly, only stores open are candy stores! Brad rediscovered his love of peanut brittle and I attempted to buy the kids caramel apples, but they did NOT travel well!


Yes, I spent my anniversary weekend at a Train Museum - do not ask me why!



This was my favorite part of the weekend - a horse drawn carriage ride around the city! Thankfully, we had wine and blankets!!


We've had a great 10 years!!

New Teeth & Blue Tongues

We've had a very busy week here... Henry FINALLY lost his very first tooth! He already has 2 adult teeth growing in on the bottom and just a week or so ago, the baby teeth in front were not loose AT ALL! I actually made an appointment with the dentist to pull the baby teeth because the adult teeth had grown in so far. Guess I'll be canceling that appointment.

This tooth seemed like it became loose over night & then stayed loose FOREVER! He would not let anyone near it... which is kind of good because the thought of pulling it out made me want to hurl. I tried to bribe a few teachers at school to do it, but he wouldn't hear of it.


On Wednesday (October 7) he was fiddling with it at After School - using his tongue - and it just fell out. He was BEYOND excited!!! I think I'll always remember this because I was stuck at work until 9pm that night. I had to hear all about the tooth over the phone and it broke my heart. The tooth fairy was pretty generous though - $3... likely due to guilt!


On Saturday, Kyra and I had a total girl day. I raced to get her to gymnastics at 10am, only to discover that it ended last week... so we went and had our toes & nails painted... she chose orange as you can see below.


Then we met Kyra's best bud Sydney & her mom for lunch before heading to Disney on Ice. I was not prepared for the total chill in the arena due to the ice and if that wasn't enough, could not understand the fascination with the Snow Cone... I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the $15 Tinkerbell mug it came in! The girls rather enjoyed the color it turned their tongues too!


Here's a few pics from the show...




In other news - Henry had his first flag football game and sadly lost by a touch down. I'm told that all the boys took the defeat well EXCEPT for Henry! The kid has a serious competitive streak!!! No idea where he gets that from...

Spirit Week

This week is Spirit Week at Kyra's school. On Tuesday, it was Sports Day. On Wednesday it was Pajama Day. And yesterday? 80s Day! Check out the outfit I was able to piece together - complete with the side pony tail and fishnet stockings under a tutu!


Brad tried to teach her "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" but she kept asking "What about boys?" Also? She was the only child who had 80s spirit that day!

Here's another little man who has lots of spirit - the Spikesters!!

Are You Ready for More Football??

Brad and Henry are about to OD on Football. Two weeks ago it was a Panthers pre season game (which the Panthers lost)... this past weekend, they went up to Boone for their first of 3 ASU home games.

They were ready to go! All decked out in Black, White & Gold to include the car!!



Sadly, ASU lost...

Then the next day, my friend offered up his season opener Panther's tickets to Henry and Brad once again... sadly, the Panthers lost again. BUT - Henry positively LOVED getting his entire face painted!



So what did Kyra and I do while the men were watching all of this football? Well we shopped of course, got our nails done, and last Saturday, attended Sydney's birthday party. Kyra chose to paint a squirrel and she painted the entire thing RED!


The ice cream cake was a hit...



I really tried to get a good pic of these two, but didn't have my camera out when they were hugging, so sadly, this is the best I could do!

No football this weekend though - thank goodness - I miss my son! Oh wait and Brad too!!

Are You Ready for Some Football??

Henry sure was! He insisted on staying until the very end for last night's pre season game!!



Oh and he talked Brad into some face painting!!


In totally unrelated news, how cute are these two dogs????

Beach 2009

So I am finally uploading a few pics from our Beach Trip and since it is 7:30 in the morning, they are all in chronilogically reverse order, but that is OK. We had great weather and a great trip.

The best part?? Thursday - Henry removed his arm floaties and proceeded to swim around the pool completely unaided by any floatation devices!! I can not even begin to tell you how excited he was! I think he's been able to do it for some time, but just too scared. Every 4 seconds was "Mommy, watch this!" and "Mommy, did you see that?" I was so proud of him!!

We went to the Aquarium...



And this overly expensive "amusement park" right by the condo...


Miniature golf at least 3 times... both kids actually got a hole in one!


And of course, the ocean...


We also went to Freestyle Amusement Park, which had this neat water park area... lots of fun that day, despite the fact that I got sick on one ride and had to ride the kiddie roller coaster about 7 times! I should note that the ride I got sick on? This spinning scramble thing? Both of my kids rode 2 times!!!






I heart the Beach!!

First Grade

Well, we did it. Henry and I survived the first day of first grade. If I knew how to do this, I would somehow link a word in this sentence that would automatically take you to the post I did one year ago regarding his first day of KDG... so you could read how excited he was to go and how extremely happy he was when I picked him up. I did not get the same reaction for 1st grade.

He was up at 5:45am with an upset stomach - poor guy was so full of nerves. When I picked him up he said, "First grade is really hard. You can't even talk or you'll get in trouble." On the ride home, he was clearly searching for words so I said, "First grade is a lot different than Kindergarten, huh?" He said, "Yeah... I miss Kindergarten."

He then informed me, that per his friend Matthew, he can't wear crocs anymore. I assume this is because Matthew was wearing a new pair of sneakers & despite the fact that I did buy Henry sneakers, he prefers crocs... yet I got the feeling that he felt left out because he wasn't wearing new shoes. I could be totally blowing this out of proportion and spent the next 1/2 hour talking to him about peer pressure and doing & wearing what HE wanted, not what his friends wanted... when I asked him what he would do if his friends had drugs, he said, "I'm just talking about shoes here."

I didn't cry this morning at all... but now, reflecting on all the things he said (some good like how funny his teacher was and some not so good as noted above), I feel sad... is the excitement for school gone? Was he unhappy today? Maybe it is just first day jitters? Maybe by next week, he'll love first grade more than Kindergarten?

So many questions for the first grade...

First Day of School

I can't believe tomorrow is the first day of school... Henry hasn't really even focused on it until today. Sure we've talked about it a bit, but he was having so much fun in summer camp, we didn't discuss it much. Then we went to the Beach last week (pics to come soon) and he didn't really want to discuss it then.

So today, partly because I had no childcare and partly because I wanted some Mommy & Boy time, I took the afternoon off and we went bowling. My loyalest of reader(s) might remember that I did this exact same thing with him last year before kindergarten started. We bowled two games and then spent some time in the arcade - playing this driving game and he sat on my lap and we laughed so hard because he kept driving in to mini vans and sidewalks... and each time he did, the seat we were on would jerk and move... in an effort to simulate his driving skills.

Then after dinner, he had a melt down... total melt down. He started crying - hard - and saying how scared he was for first grade. I know he is just tired... maybe a little scared too - who wouldn't be? So I'll walk him in tomorrow, just like I did last year, partly so I can meet his teacher and partly because he begged me to... and even though this isn't as big of a deal as the first day of school EVER, I'll still cherish the memory of today & tomorrow. Because I know before long, it wont be cool to spend time with your mom and hold your mom's hand, and have your mom walk you in to school.... before long it'll just be the first day of school.

Proudly Introducing...

... the newest addition to the James Family:

SPIKE
Born roughly 8 weeks ago
Currently weighing 8lb

We adopted him from the Greenville Humane Society... long story on why we drove 1.5 hours away when there is a Mecklenburg Humane Society about 20 minutes from us, but let me say this - if you receive an email from Animal Control showing pictures of puppies and their Date For Euthanization - do NOT open the email!!!

Henry fell IN LOVE with this puppy at first sight and even chose his name. Poor Brad REALLY wanted to name him Indiana (and call him Indy)... Kyra wanted to name him "Pink Pinkalicious" and no, I did not type 'pink' two times by accident.

Since Kyra's name was not an option, I was the deciding vote. Is it any surpise what name I chose?