Tara's New Rambling Place

Riley's Reading!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Way overdue

No more of those tired excuses about being so terribly busy that I can't post.  Though they're true, I'm sick of writing them so I'm sure you're sick of reading them.

Riley and all of our family & friends had fun at her sixth birthday party.

 

Time to carve pumpkins!  Excuse the poor exposure.  Maybe I should leave that manual setting on my camera alone!

 

Couldn't resist taking a picture of the girls in their "footie pajamas."  Soon enough I'll miss these ratty things!

        

 

Crazy hair day at Brookland Elementary!

 

Maddie looking super cool!

The Halloween festivities were at our house this year.  Maddie wanted to dress up the same as last year, a witch.  Riley was a cat!

    

   

Happy Birthday Riley!

Today my little sweetie turns six.  All of the "baby" has left her cheeks, her arms, her legs, and her previously pudgy little tummy.  In it's place are a few little freckles, two crooked permanent teeth and painted fingernails.  

She is, unbeknownst to her, the proud owner of a hermit crab.  She's a kindergartner who is now more interested in Hannah Montana than Dora the Explorer. 

The more I want to hang on to Riley the baby, the faster she slips away.  Somedays I'm not sure I'm ready for Riley the little girl, but that little girl never ceases to amaze me.

I think I'll keep her.

 

 

More pics of my newest nephew, Andy.

 

Being cuddled by his cousins. 

 

The girls' friend Kelcie celebrated her fourth birthday last weekend.  The girls had a great time and really enjoyed the pony rides.

 

 

Pictures of the aforementioned hermit crabs.  The one with the rhinestones is Riley's and the teddy bear one is Maddie's.

 

Aren't they ugly???

Aunt M is old.

What a title, huh?

The girls' Aunt M had a birthday earlier in the month and we sent her a birthday message via e-mail.

You see, she's obsessed with dead people.  Seriously.....Including but not limited to Audrey Hepburn. 

China Glaze nail polish has a color called "for Audrey."  It's reminiscent of "Tiffany" blue.  (Am I over using quotation marks?)  She wanted a bottle but we couldn't find any around town.  I found a bottle on e-bay and ordered it, without telling her.  It came just in time for her birthday and this is what she received via e-mail on the 19th.

Yes, I had two bird-egg blue fingernails for a while!

Newest addition to our family

This is our seventh nephew, Anderson (Andy).  He was born Tuesday, September 23. 

 

Tooth #2, Goodbye!

 

Boy, I wish she'd at least try to show the camera how excited she is.

 

Silly Faces

  

Pics from the game

 

Dressed and ready to go!

 

At the game....notice Maddie's red cheeks.  It was hot & sticky!

 

Sydney, Maddie & Riley howling

 

Maddie cheesing it up, as always.

   

I'm a blog slacker, I know.

I just can't get back into a regular habit of posting.  I feel like I'm running around constantly with a million things to do, but not much to say.  That probably makes no sense.

 

Here's what I've been doing for the last hour or so.  The girls needed hairbows (or some kind of head accessory!) to wear to the ASU Red Wolves football game tomorrow night.  I had only intended to make the corker hairbow/headband, but they are SO time consuming.  It takes forever to wrap all that ribbon, bake it, let it cool, trim it and then get it arranged.  Oh, and you have to give it a haircut" after you place it on the headband so that it lays right.  I also had never wrapped a headband, so that was an adventure.

Back to the first picture, though.  Riley's school mascot is the bearcat, and I found this cute paw print ribbon at Hobby Lobby.  I bought a whole roll.  It needed some red to go with it, so instead of wrapping another headband, I just put it on a red one.  I think the paw print will also be appropriate to wear to the red wolves game.  And if not, it at least matches.

 

Last weekend, Maddie was sitting on the deck watching her Daddy mow the lawn (in preparation for our virus-spreading cookout...more on that later.)

This was a great chance to play with my zoom lens.  I love this thing, I just don't get many good opportunities to use it.  I love how it makes the background all blurry and professional looking.

She started giggling once she saw me.

So I told her to turn back around and watch her Daddy and to pretend she didn't know I was taking her picture.  This is her, "Huh?" face.  She makes it alot and she says it even more.

I'm sure she was saying something sassy here.  It looks like a sassy comment face.

 

 

Last Sunday we had a group of people from church over for a potluck/cookout.  Jeremy grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and the rest was a potluck.  We've had several new families start coming to our church lately and we invited over four new families along with the five families that are part of the "old gang" for lack of a better way to say it. 

 

All of the kids having a picnic on the porch.

 

I was inside visiting when my friend Kelly came to tell me that Jeremy needed me.  When I walked into the garage I saw a FIRE!  It was the 30 candles blazing on a birthday cake that my friend Christina had brought for me.  She's so thoughtful!  She also brought me the wreath that you see behind me in the picture.

 

In the several days that followed our get-together, pretty much everyone has had a stomach bug.  We must've really passed it around because it seems to be an epidemic!

 

I forgot to take a picture of the cake until after we cut into it, but here it is anyway.

Yes, I turned 30.  Don't say a word.

I got several cute cards, but the funniest is the one that Maddie picked out.  Jeremy took her to the store and let her pick out any card she wanted. 

On the front it has a picture of an older lady in curlers and a hair net, smoking a cigarette.  It reads, "There are some people who actually don't celebrate birthdays."

Inside it reads, "These people are dead."  She signed it and was SO proud that she picked it out.  I tried to not laugh because she really gets her feelings hurt about those things. 

 

Cute pic of the girls from this week!

 

Riley is JUST about to lose another tooth.  I really wanted it out before today because it's picture day, but it just didn't go my way.

 

She decided it was time to wiggle Daddy's tooth.

 

 

Have a great weekend! 

Lazy Sunday afternoon (update at end)

I'm all alone today.  No kids and no husband.  When I have days like this, I often make a list in my head of all the things that I could accomplish.  The list grows long and then I begin to argue with myself over which things I should do first.  By the time the argument gets settled, half of my free day is over and then I feel aggravated at myself.  Hmfph.

 

We had a great time in St. Louis last weekend with our friends, Georgia & Kerry.  We had great seats for the Cardinals game and got to see a win on Sunday.  The trip wouldn't be complete if there wasn't some sort of drama.  When Jeremy & I got to the hotel to check in, they asked if we'd be interested in a complimentary upgrade.  Uh...yeah?  You see, when we booked, there were only rooms available with two queen beds.  So they offered us a king, and we accepted. 

We got up to our room to find that it wasn't a king bed.  It was just a queen.  Not a problem, though.  That's what we sleep on at home.  A few minutes later, we realized we had some drainage problems with both the bathtub and the toilet.  The straw that broke the camel's back (with Jeremy, anyway) was that the TV remote wouldn't work!

After a call downstairs, we were moving again.  On to another room up on the 16th floor.  We wondered what we had in store this time.  Here's what we found.

 

It was a corner suite with an awesome view!  Too bad we were only staying one night.  I can always stand a $500 room for $80!

 

A few pictures from the games

 

The view from our seats on Saturday

 

Kerry & Georgia

 

Pujols warming up

 

First Pitch

 

Travis & Lesley were there also.  Waaaayyyy over in the cheap seats.  Can you find them?  Lesley is wearing pink & a cap and Travis has on a red shirt (duh). 

 

Pujols again

 

Ludwick chasing a ball that came off the wall.  This one's for Mom!

 

And then the rain came.  We didn't mind.  We were HOT!

 

Kerry listening to Jeremy tell something.  Probably a dumb joke or a story.

 

 

I've been busy this weekend with a baby shower that I threw for my sister-in-law, Amy.  She's expecting her second child, Andy, at the end of September.  Showers are hard work.  This was the first time I'd done one by myself.  Whew!

Amy & Brenda (my mother-in-law)

 

Maddie re-gifting

 

Now for a declaration.  Maybe if I tell this here, I'll be forcing myself into some sort of accountability.  I'm going to start running.  Today.  I've been meaning to all week, but I was sick (seriously, it wasn't an excuse).  I'm over it and it's time to kick this into gear.  I bought an ipod, got some new running shoes, and now it's time to get down to business.

I've been debating how to go about this.  I've had a couple of people tell me to try to jog through one song on my ipod and add a song every week.  I also found this program online and it looks like a good one.  No matter which I pick, I intend to DO THIS!  I want to run a 5k this year, since I'll be turning 30 and all.  Ick.   

***Update

I did it.  I walked for 6 minutes (2 songs) and ran for almost a whole one.  Boy, am I OUT. OF. SHAPE.!  Then I walked for another 3 minutes or so. 

School day #4

Well, my little sweetie got on a school bus this morning.  It wasn't her first ride (she got to go on a field trip last year with her Pre-K class), but it was the first time for her to go to school on it.  She was so excited!  I just haven't been able to stand the thought of putting her on the one that comes through our neighborhood.  She wouldn't know a single soul!  But someone saved the day.

Mr. Jerry (a friend from church) is a driver for one of the routes.  He told me how close he comes to our neighborhood and offered to let me meet him and put Riley on his bus with Wyatt, his son who is in her kindergarten class. 

And so we did.  We parked and waited, both of us peering down the road for a glimpse of anything orange.

 

She never looked back.

 

I just HAD to follow it.

 

Well, follow maybe isn't the best word since I was going the same direction.  Yes, I took these pictures while I was driving.  That's why they're out of focus.  Yeah, that's it.