Yes I'm still around

I'm still around, but I'm having computer issues! So I'm hoping Santa Claus will bring me a new computer for Christmas. So hopefully in the near future I will be able to catch up.

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

This summer went by so fast! and now I cant keep up with Fall!

After we got into our school routine Cottonboll started Dance class again and is now also playing indoor soccer. It seems like we are always so busy.

Cottonboll and I have finally adjusted to a 5 day a week school. (It was much easier for Cottonboll ), but we, ok I have adjusted. We treasure our time together from 3:15 till 5:00. Eating a snack and just chatting. She really is very funny. I love to see the world through her eyes.

Every Tuesday night she has homework. We cut out pictures from a magazine beginning with the letter of the week. Remember doing that, I do! She is learning so much, such a little sponge. Everyday she comes home and tells me about her day and what she learned. So amazing how the little things we thought we just knew was once taught to us in kindergarten. One day last week she came and home and explained the past, present and future to me. Then there are days when we are riding in the car and she starts singing a new song about pennies, nickles and dimes. She is so amazing and I'm a proud Mom.

Cottonboll turns 5

A Little catching up to do!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY LITTLE TINKER BELL

On August 5th Cottonboll turned 5

We had a Tinkerbell in Space birthday party! It was at the Science Spectrum, friends dressed up as Tinkerbell and friends. We also crawled inside a space bubble and looked a the stars and constellations. Then after the party the kiddos played at the Science Spectrum.

The party was fun, the kiddos had a great time and for the the 1st time it was not a my house. So great, for the stress factor and I did not have to clean my house twice. Before the party and after the party. So great !

I took many pictures but I cant post a lot of them because of the other children but I do have some I can post.

I love the pictures, of my niece Lily and Cottonboll. Lily is tying Cottonboll's ribbon back in her hair

First Week of School

Of course Cottonboll had a great first day and week! She is and was so excited to go back each and every day. The only issue she has had is with lunch! The first day of school, was enchilada day. It didn't go over so well. She said it looked so yucky and didn't taste it, but she did try the rice and said "The rice had a pepper in it and IT did not taste like my Nana's rice"Luckily the next day was cheese pizza day and that was great! She came home and said lunch was great I got to eat pizza!

Lunch has really been the only issue. She loves the structure and rules of school. Cottonboll talks non stop of her day, "first we do this, then clean up and we go to P.E. we have to wear tennis shoes, no flip flops or sandals, so if I wear my sandals I have to take tennis shoes in my back pack! She talks just like that and forgets to take a breath, I love it!

So I guess we are surviving school, even though it is 5 Days a week and all day long. But I still think 5 days a week is a bit much maybe 3days?

First Day Of School

I am going to try to catch you up on everything that happened this summer, eventually!
I think, I hope but anyway I will start with the here and know.

First Day of School KindergartenSo excited!
Last Monday was the first day of Kindergarten for our baby girl! What a day it was! Cottondust and I walked her to school, to her room, got her all setup and gave her good luck hugs and kisses. She was okay until she realized it was time for Daddy and Mommy to leave and the tears started.

Seriously who could walk away from that face? It was hard but I did and I kept it together until she couldn't see me and then let a few tears escaped. On the walk home my tough old hubby kept saying she is okay, she will be fine she is just spoiled. So after Cottondust finally left for work, I could cry in peace! My baby is growing up so fast!

Working in the yard

We have been working on/in the yard. I use the word we loosely. I have really bad allergies. (I do!) So when the lawn mower starts I take a Zyrtec-D and hide.

This particular day in June the lawn mower was not working. Cottondust had the lawn mower in the back of his pickup and was working on it. Cottonboll ran in the house and said "I need my tools! Daddy needs help fixing the lawn mower". All I could see was a bright orange and green blurr, then back out the door she goes with her tool box in hand. Every girl needs a tool box and tools.

This is Cottonboll' s tool box. Please notice the stolen napkin rings!

In the above picture, she is trying to convince Cottondust the lawn mower needs the stolen napkin ring.

Cottonboll is such a good helper! Asking lots of questions.

My Computer has been taken over

My computer has been taken over !

As I was looking through my summer pictures I remember another reason why I have not been posting on my blog. Any time I have time or try to make time to use the computer. Cottonboll asks, request, begs, any or all the above, "Please can I play a game, work on letters or go playhousedisney.com

Baseball

We hit the summer running and we haven't stop yet. Baseball in June! Cottonboll and I went to my beautiful and talent nieces tee ball and baseball game.

This is my niece Lily and Cottonboll watching Emma play ball.

Cottonboll, Lily and Emma

Mema, Lily and Cottonboll playing Ring Around the Roses


Papa and the girls being silly. I have told you before that my Dad is a mess. Right?

Emma. Isn't she beautiful?

Where has the summer gone?

I will try and catch you up on all of our summer fun. Stay tuned.

P.S. I started writing the the last post about the Dance Recital in June. Just finished it. See below.

Recital Weekend

We survived our very first dance recital. I have to tell to you, at one point Saturday Morning I wonder if we could or would survive!

We had two performance's. The first was at 10:00 Saturday morning. Cottonboll and I got up early to prepare for the first show.

Extra Curls for her hair.

I survive the bright red lipstick, blue eyeshadow and pink blush ordeal. Yes, Cottonboll had to wear makeup on stage, so we could see her face with all the lights. Yes, I had a very hard time with this. I have very strong feelings about makeup, nail polish, reveling clothing or anything that is not age appropriate for or on children. After rehearsal Friday night, I decided, the makeup does help to see the girls faces on stage and would be appropriate for this occasion. But it was still very hard to put makeup on my child. Cottonboll and I have had many conversion about makeup, age, dance recitals and will probably have many more.

We had a dressing room back stage to get the dancers ready(band hall). The dancers could only wear their costumes back stage and on stage, not in the audience ( not to ruin the surprise). So Saturday morning Cottonboll had to be ready and in line at 11:15. I went back stage at 10:15, I thought that should give us enough time to put on her costume, fluff her hair and apply make -up. Way, Way to much time! Girls from the age range of 3 to 6 all running wild with all types of costumes on and all of us moms saying stop that, come here, sit down, don't suck your thumb, don't touch your lips you will get red lipstick every were! (Moms way more stressed out then the dancers)

Finally after a very long hour, time to line up, but guess what? Cottonboll had lost one of her shoe bows. Here we go looking all over this band hall, with young girls running wild, in all types and colors of costumes looking for a stray yellow shoe bow. Found it, put it back on, made sure everything else was right then stood Cottonboll in line with her group.

Whew! After all that I was hot, tired, and thirsty, but no time to rest. I ran outside, back in to the auditorium, found a spot along the wall and waited once again. But this wait was much more pleasant, it was cool and I got to watch some of the other dance routines.

The Sunshine Dancing Kids entered the stage, Cottonboll did a great job! So cute, she remember her dance and sang her song. I was so proud and excited I forgot to breath! Cheered, cried almost past out (due to lack of breathing) as the group exited the stage, remembered I needed to breath, ran back around the building, back stage and showed an officer my badge, collected Cottonboll, showered her with praise, returned to the dreaded hot band hall, change her cloths and finally back around to the auditorium. So hot and thirsty at this point and very ready for lunch and a nap.

I did finally have lunch and a short nap before the next performance at 7 that night.


It was Cottonboll's day she loves to dance and she loves to perform. I am so proud of her and she is so brave!. She loved it and so did we. Daddy gave her roses and I gave her ballerina teddy bear for working so hard and doing a great job. Due to all the craziness the picture below was taken Sunday morning. Mommy was a bit tired! but Cottonboll was still very excited!

Dance Recital weekend.

Crashed Emma's field trip

Cottonboll and I arrived at the Science Spectrum with Chick-fil-A, in hand for lunch. We planned to have lunch then enjoy the afternoon exploring and playing. When we pulled up and I noticed a school bus from the small town by brother and his family live. I wonder if Lily or Emma here? HMM Probably just a coincidence, could be any class from there.

We sat down had our lunch and no sign of my nieces, my sister in law or anyone else I might recognize. Then we walked up to the counter and I said we have a membership under my Mom's name. (part of the grand kiddos Christmas) Told them my Mom's name and she replied the membership has been used today already. Ok, I said but she has enough for all her grand kids. Yes there is a father here on field trip, from the small town my brother lives in and he used them. HMMM. My brother no dought. So I flipped out my phone,call my brother and heard my brother's cheerful hello. Hi I said can you come to the front of the Science Spectrum. He asked are your here and need 2 tickets?, yes please. He appeared with 2 tickets.

So I got to visit with my brother and watch my niece Emma in action. She is growing up so fast. I still see her, as though she is 1, walking and shaking her hips as fast as she can around the park with a pacifier in her mouth and giggles spilling out. I tell ya, times goes by so fast.

That is how Cottonboll and I crashed Emma's field trip today.

Memorial Day

Memorial day fun!!! Swimming

My little fish!

Papa~ and Cottonboll playing!

Cottondust manning the grill and Nana helping

Dakota chilling.
More swimming and water play.

Hamburgers, hot dogs and of course watermelon.

Happy Memorial Day

My daughter the Belle of the Ball

Yesterday Cottonboll went to a princess birthday party. She chose to dress up like Cinderella. Since I was sleeping beauty or maybe just the beast (i worked Friday and Saturday night). I asked Cottondust to please take her to your mother to fix her hair and take pictures, more than one picture, please and to take her to the party. He agreed and promised to take a least 2 pictures for me. such a funny man!

Yes, but of course she still had the dress, shoes and crown on when I got up at 3:30 and when I went to work at 6:30. I think Cottondust had to make some deals to get her to take off her Cinderella outfit for bed.

Don't you just love it the whole outfit! dress, shoes, purse and crown. Did I mention that the dress lights up. (i didn't know it when I bought it, I ran in to Target and grabbed the first Cinderella dress I could find.) The dress lights up blue. I will take a picture and post it. She truly thought she was the belle of the ball.

Our Anniversary

Our Anniversary was May 18th. 13 years. Yes we got married young, so in love. This was our engagement picture. It was taken in October of 95. We were so young!!! I was so in love in I could not wait till May to get married. I tried, so hard to convince Cottondust to elope. I wanted to get married in Las Vegas. My Mom knew I wanted to elope and she had him promise to have a wedding. He kept the promise and to this day he stills says "You will love the memories of our wedding". Yes I love the memories, but I still would have like to go to Vegas. So "I'm trying to convince him to renew our vows in Vegas for our 15 or 20th wedding anniversary. Guess what he says about that. " He loves me, but he will not marry me again". I have a couple of years to work on him. Las Vegas and Elvis here we come!

I do treasure the memories of our wedding. It was May 18th 1996. I wanted an outdoor wedding in May with real flowers. It was hot, but I didn't care I was getting married! The wedding was at County Line on the patio, the flowers were so pretty and the trees so green. There were peacocks everywhere ( they made the worst sound every time the sound system came on. A loud caw)We talk all during the wedding! I don't remember talking or what we said but you can see us just chatting, smiling and laughing through out the ceremony on the video. We would pay attention to the preacher when we needed, said our vows on cue but during the music we started talking again.

Cottondust was so handsome, my heart still flutters thinking about how handsome he looked! So i guess i do love the memories. Happy anniversary. Here's to many more years.

Last Day at PDO

Last night when I should have gone to bed. I started digging for pictures. I love looking through old photographs. So you are going to have to bare with me as I make a trip down memory lane. But not today I don't have the time.

Yesterday was Cottonboll last day at her PDO preschool. It was a happy and sad day. As I mention before she started going there when she was 1. I will miss the faculty, staff and loving environment. Miss Lisa was and is such a great teacher and we will miss her also. We plan to stay in touch via this blog. We will miss you and good luck with your move Ms. Lisa.

Mother's Day/Happy B-day MOM

Here I go again playing catch up.

Mother's Day was good. We hosted a cook out for our Mothers and me. I am the main photographer ( i use that title loosely) I m the one who always has the camera out and snapping shots. Sorry, between enjoying Mother's day and being a hostess, not many pictures were taken. Even though there are no pictures to see it was still a great day. The weather was cool, the food was good and family here to enjoy the day. Cottondust and Cottonboll gave me a cake, a lovely plant and let me sleep in on Saturday. (i love to sleep in.)

Happy Mother's Day

May 14th was my Mother's Birthday.

Happy Birthday Mom/Mema

My Mom is the quiet serious type, but she is always watching and is aware of your outside and inside feelings. She is a very smart MOM. (It only took me growing and being a mom myself to realize how smart she was and is) She is always there for me when I need her. With kind words, good advice and loving hug. I can't thank her enough for all that she has done. She is a Great! Mema, always full of stories and fun activities for the grand kiddos. Cottonboll can't wait for there summer fun together. We love you Mom/Mema. Happy Birthday!

Yes, still playing Catch up

OK yes I'm still playing catch up. Like I said we have been busy and I was preoccupied reading.

Due to Cottondust and my crazy schedule Cottonboll had to go to work with Cottondust one morning for a couple of hours. He was due in a field to do what ever he does. I think he had to monitor the the farmer who was planting. Cottondust was so excited. She loves to go to work with Daddy and when she works with Daddy she has to wear her pink cap.

Cottonboll dressed for work with Daddy

Thursday was Mom's and Muffins day.

Below are pictures of Cottonboll's and my typically day. This was Friday and we had a wonderful day together at home.

We watered our flowers, with Dakota's approval

Put puzzles together, read and played baby's.

And rode bikes. Don't you just love the pink and red stripped socks!