FFF-Pajama Party!

It's a pajama party! Everyday is a pajama party at my house. Footy pajamas are a necessity to battle the frigid temperatures of our home. If I believed in reincarnation, I would say my husband was an Eskimo in another life. Since I don't believe in reincarnation, I'll say that he is a freak of nature with an internal body temperature similar to the temperature of molten lava. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little, but the thermostat is a topic of much debate at my house. John likes it to be 68 degrees; I'm all for 73. He's always hot, and I'm often cold. Sigh. I love you anyway, honey.

Colter really does hang out in his PJ's a lot though. If they can stay clean through breakfast, and if we're not going anywhere, I keep him in his pajamas until after lunch. With Colter's messy eating habits and the bi-nightly pee leakage, I do enough laundry without changing him out of a perfectly clean pair of pajamas!

I took these pajama pictures this morning--I couldn't get him to hold still, so I had to resort to caging him.

Here's my sweetie!

He wants to know why I put him in his crib when it's not nap time yet.
Gotta have a black and white!

Colter loves his lambie, but he also loves throwing him out of the crib. And he loves throwing food on the floor from the high chair. And he loves throwing his toys out of the bathtub. And he loves throwing anything from the coffee table on to the floor. And...(I could keep going for a long time, but I think you get the idea).

Tried to get a cool, weird angle shot...

OH, and it's hard to tell in these pictures, but just LOOK at what my boy has done to his crib! We feed him plenty, did he really have to chew on the railing? Doesn't he know about the hormonal, crazy pregnant lady tears that were shed over cribs when I was told there was delay in shipping, so we wouldn't get the one we ordered before my due date? Thankfully, the owner of the store reacted quickly to my bawling tirade and found me a crib I liked almost as well. Poor guy. I was a tad emotional.

To enjoy more Favorite Foto Friday, head on over to Sarah's place and adore her cute, little girl in her pink pjs!

Mystery Plant

Is it a weed? Or Celosia?

I have a flowerbed full of mystery plants. We had celosia planted in the flowerbed last summer, so when we noticed a ton of these little seedlings popping up, we decided to let them grow in the hopes that the celosia had planted itself this year. Well now, a month later, I still am not sure what this plant is! It looks kind of like celosia, but at the same time it doesn't! I may be growing weeds! If I'm letting weeds grow in my flowerbed, I would love to know about it, so I can pull them out and go buy some flowers. If any gardening guru out there in Bloggie Land can ID this plant, please let me know what it is. I will be ever so grateful!

Wordless Wednesday

Word-Filled Wednesday

Favorite Foto Friday--He Finally Got It!

Choose only one picture. That was my task for FFF this week. My camera has been clicking away like crazy, documenting several firsts this week, so choosing was hard! This week Colter went on his first zoo adventure, advanced to taking five or six unassisted steps at a time, had to say good-bye to the car that brought him home from the hospital (we sold it), stood up all by himself without pulling up on anything, was reunited with his best bud, Carter, who got to come home with good reports--whoo hoo!--amongst other photo opps. It was a busy picture week, but I decided on this one.

There are a few pictures that I like better (which I posted yesterday, if you're interested), but this was the best moment! Colter has been trying for months to stand up by himself--without using anything to pull up on. He always ended looking through his legs upside down, because he wasn't quite strong enough to get his upper body up while keeping his legs straight. His attempts were hilarious! While I was making dinner Tuesday, Colter suddenly stood up in the middle of the kitchen! The first time he did it, he was so excited he started clapping. He knew right then that he had finally accomplished what he'd been trying to do for months and he was proud of it! We clapped and celebrated with him. It was such a precious moment, and yipee! The camera was right on hand.

To see more FFF pictures go to Kiss the Frog 4 Me.

Decisions, Decisions

I'm having trouble. For Favorite Foto Friday tomorrow (which is only 20 minutes away), I'm supposed to pick ONLY ONE picture of my precious boy. How can I possibly choose only one? Too much went on this week!

I could post this super-cute picture...
Or this one...I just love those eyes.

Or I could post a picture of Colter's first zoo trip...

Or this one of Colter standing up on his own for the first time!


This picture of these whacked out birds amuses me as well, even though it's blurry...

I also absolutely LOVE the picture I posted yesterday, even though only a mean, mean mommy would take a picture of her crying baby instead of grabbing him and covering him with comforting kisses right away.

Decisions, decisions. Hey! I know what I'll do! I'll post some of my favorite pictures right now, so everyone can see them anyway! I bet that's totally cheating. Oh well. I'm a cheater. Now you know. :)

Wordless Wednesday--Why Did You Do That To My Hair, Mom???

Banish the Junk Counter!

I like to start things. I am the world's best project starter. Finishing projects that I start is another story however. Eventually, most things get finished, but there are always numerous projects in the works at my house, besides just the everyday stuff. My current projects include, but are not limited to, a garden renovation, an extremely thorough cleaning of the laundry room, a baby afghan (that was supposed to be for Colter), numerous books, organizing photographs, etc. etc. I do not finish things before I move on to the next thing. I don't know why--maybe it's my love of variety.

Today when I visited Ree, the pioneer woman's blog, I read about her latest project, cleaning off her junk depository, and she inspired me to clean off the junk spot in our kitchen. Everybody has a junk spot--it's not just me and Ree, right? There's a spot in your house, that no matter what you do, collects junk. Junk mail, bills, cell phones, keys, random things that just don't have a place or things that no one bothered to put away migrate to that spot. Here's our junk spot. Believe it or not, I cleaned it off just a few days before.

It's ridiculous! The junk is driving me mad! How does all this stuff accumulate on the counter so quickly? WHY didn't I put my lovely pink bag in the closet where it goes? Why is the dust rag and furniture polish on the counter instead of in the cabinet where it belongs? What about my camera lens? Why is it on the counter? And two flashlights??? What??? Has the electricity been out and I didn't notice? Why are there two bottles of water there as well? Oh brother.

When the pioneer woman cleaned off her counter, she had an accidental vignette of interesting things she found in her junk spot. There's no vignette at my house. Only a mostly cleaned off junk counter that will be covered with odds and ends again tomorrow. I say mostly cleaned off because, really, I have to leave the bills there or I'll forget to pay them. And I don't know where else to put our keys and cell phones. And we have to have quick access to pacifiers, and for some reason, the counter has been dubbed the home of the pacifier collection. So basically I have a counter that's still junky, but it looks a little better. Someday I'll start a banish the junk counter forever project. But I probably won't finish it.

Favorite Foto Friday

This week's FFF theme is Fun in the Sun! It's a lot easier to have fun in the sun, if there's actually sun, which we haven't had much of, so my theme is Fun with my SON. :) Or Fun with Fisher-Price Lion. Or Fun in the Living Room. Take your pick. Have a great day!

We tried to make it look like we were in the sun...To see more of FFF go visit Sarah!

Word-Filled and Wordless Wednesday

Word-Filled Wednesday

To see more of Word-Filled Wednesday go to

Wordless Wednesday

(I know this is supposed to be wordless, but I just have to say rain is great, but if it doesn't stop raining everyday, my tomato plants are going to have to live on my deck all summer!)

A Random Memory

Panda Bears are CUTE!

When I was in the first grade, my darling daddy dearest dragged me around to all the neighbors' houses to sell Girl Scout cookies. Because of my father's dedication and willingness to take me door to door, I sold the most cookies in my troop. I was a cookie-selling queen, and I sold around 250 boxes of cookies. That was back when they were $2.00 a box instead of $17.50 like they are now (don't quote me on that--I just know Girl Scout cookies aren't cheap). I know what you're thinking. What do Girl Scout cookies have to do with panda bears? Well, that year some of the prizes for selling certain amounts of cookies were panda related. I won two really cute stuffed pandas with pink bows. I also won a pink bag with purple stars on it that I think my mom still uses for make-up (Do you still use that make-up bag, mom? And why did you take my bag anyway?). There was also a canvas bag with a panda bear on it amongst other prizes that I don't remember. I will forever associate panda bears with Girl Scout cookies.

I came across this picture of a panda when I was searching the Internet for pictures of lightening to use tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday. I don't know what panda bears have to do with lightening. As much as they have to do with cookies, I guess. Just thought you'd like to know the cause of my randomness.

A Mother's Day Surprise

Meet my new dance partner, U.G.

Being that my son is only eleven months old, I didn't expect any macaroni necklaces or paintings for the fridge on Sunday, my first Mother's Day. I didn't know what to expect, but I thought I might get to sleep in while my husband took charge of breakfast, and I suspected that I might get some flowers or a book or something. I was very surprised Sunday morning, when I was presented with a Dance Dance Revolution video game!

For anyone out there that doesn't know, Dance Dance Revolution is a video game played with a pad with arrows on it. Arrows fly up the TV screen, and players have to step on the corresponding arrows on the pad at just the right moment in an attempt to perform various dances. There's lots of different versions out there, but the one I got is played with a Nintendo Wii. With the Wii's version, there's also hand motions that players perform by waving a couple of remotes around. It's hilarious to watch people play. They look like they're trying to stomp ants while having some sort of seizure that results in arms flying up above their heads. It's quite a work-out.

Several years ago at an arcade, I played a dancing game for the first time, and I was hooked. At the time, the games weren't really available for home use and a used arcade game system was well over $3000 (I liked it so much I looked!), so I only got to play a few times a year at the arcade. It's such a fun game, and when you play, you're exercising and you don't even realize it! I really wanted one if there was ever a version that was practical for us to get (well...not practical...video games are never very practical I guess).

Anyway, my husband knew how much I liked the game, so he and Colter schemed together and got me one! I'm so excited! Now I can play games and exercise at the same time! Yippee! Maybe I'll dance away 20 pounds and not even realize that I'm sweating.

I'm going to have trouble on Father's Day helping Colter find a gift for his Daddy as awesome as the one I got. Any ideas?

FFF Mommy and Me

In honor of Mother's Day, this Favorite Foto Friday theme is Mommy and Me! I really don't have very many pictures of Colter and I together--I'm always the one taking the pictures!

This is when Colter and I first met! Please excuse the nightgown. I just stayed up all night having a baby.

Here we are on Thanksgiving.

I set up my trusty tripod and took these this morning. Hey, my shirt matches the wall.

I was trying to convince Colter to smile for the camera. This is what I got. He was too interested in the timer beeping.

I love my boy!

To see more Mommies with their kiddos go to Kiss the Frog 4 Me.

The Haunted House

The two-story farmhouse stands alone in a naked yard. Giant trees that used to hide its cracked paint and faded shingles have been butchered for their valuable, tall, straight trunks. Beds of daffodils, no doubt the pride and joy of some long deceased woman, surround the abandoned residence in early spring. Just after the yellow flowers whither, beautiful pink lilies start to reach for the sun but are cruelly hacked to pieces by Daddy’s hay mower. Heaps of leftovers from former white-trash renters ooze out of collapsing storage sheds. The ancient dwelling has been uninhabited for years (besides a few messy coons and mice) but the second-story curtains sometimes rustle and though there is no electricity, a yard light seems to glimmer across the pasture. The crumbling house should have fallen down long ago, but the spirits of those who have lived, and died, seem to be keeping it alive. We call the shell of a former home, the haunted house.


Okay—so a hole in the side of the house makes the curtains move (it looks eerily like a white lady gazing out the window), and the yard light that sometimes mysteriously appears is a reflection on the window from the light in our barn lot. As far as I know, the only person that has died there was a deer hunter that was brutally murdered in the attic leaving a bloodstain on the hardwood floor as evidence, and that was a story my morbid friend Barbara made up. I was furious when I found out Barbara had made up the story about the deer hunter. The deer hunter was the main part of the legend behind the haunted house.


Barbara was three years older than me and three years taller. Her twisted imagination laid the foundation for the haunted house. Before Barbara and I went exploring it, there was no haunted house, only an old, empty farmhouse. The tour of the empty home was kind of interesting because of the amount of junk people left behind, but it didn’t get exciting until Barbara looked in the attic. There were no stairs to the attic, so we designed a teetering ladder out of an old coffee table, mouse-eaten couch cushions, and a milk crate. Barbara climbed up the makeshift ladder and was able to peek into the square hole in the ceiling. Clinging to the edge of the opening, she was barely able to get high enough to see anything. She struggled to get a good look and suddenly; she let out a shocked gasp.


“What?” I asked. (curious).


“There’s something up here!” she answered in a frightened voice (Barbara was very good at frightened voices).


“What is it?” (worried).


“I don’t know…It’s on the wood floor…It’s reddish brown…It’s shaped weird…like a…a…” she replied (making full use of dramatic pauses).


“Like a what?!” What?! (anxious).


“An AXE!” Barbara explained. “It’s a bloodstain in the shape of an axe! (very original).


“A bloodstain in the shape of an axe!” (thrillingly, horrifyingly, excited). “Why would there be an axe-shaped bloodstain on the attic floor?” I asked shuddering with the expectation of the spine-tingling tale I knew Barbara would tell.


Barbara claimed a deer-hunting friend of her father’s had been killed around the area. She hadn’t known exactly where, but we must have found the grisly crime scene. As we looked around for further evidence, we found a letter written in German, which we assumed was a love letter, and a hunting knife. Using the bloodstain and the mysterious white lady I sometimes saw looking out the attic window as inspiration, we were able to compose a fantastic story of romance, betrayal, and death. It was great slumber party entertainment to bring groups of giggling girls for a midnight tour of the haunted house.


When I grew tall enough to look into the attic myself, I discovered to my amazement, there was no bloodstain. There wasn’t even a floor! The attic had never been finished and was just installation. The only stains on that were bird droppings. My sister, Jessica and I had lied to all the girls we terrified with stories of the deer hunter’s murder and white lady’s suicide! How dare Barbara deceive me? Oh, well. I loved being scared, and it wasn’t like I didn’t add plenty of my own embellishments to the story. Finding out that the whole thing was a fake didn’t stop me from using the haunted house to scare my friends whenever I got the opportunity. The older I got, the more horrifying the legend became. I even started rigging the door so it got stuck, trapping my victims inside, before my obsession with scary stories, graveyards, and horror movies passed.



I still go there in the spring to pick daffodils. The white lady watches from the attic window.



If you made it this far, this is another selection from the memoir class that I took in college. There may be a little hyperbole here and there--afterall, a memoir is how you remember your life, and memory can be a tricky thing. Hence the blog subtitle.

Word-Filled and Wordless Wednesday

Word-Filled Wednesday

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13

I wanted to use this verse today, because it jumped out at me as I was reading the Bible and thinking of Carter (who still needs lots of prayers by the way--check out his blog and leave his mother some encouraging words). I wasn't sure what picture to put with it at first, but I decided to go with flowers. Flowers make me think of spring which I associate with hope. Then this dogwood picture jumped out at me. Dogwoods flowers are in the shape of the cross! The cross represents Jesus who is the ultimate hope! If you don't know the story of the dogwood, go here.

To see more Word-Filled Wednesday take a walk in the

Wordless Wednesday

Having a Ball

Obviously, I never did get around to posting pictures of Colter having a ball on Friday. Oops. Life has been crazy busy! My friend Gina's life has been much crazier lately. Her son Carter, Colter's buddy, still needs your prayers! He is having surgery tomorrow to remove a tumor in his chest. It's hard to believe that only last Wednesday, everything was fine. Gina and I went to the park with our boys, and now Gina's families' lives are turned upside down. Pray that after the surgery, everything goes back to normal soon, and that's the end of this whole ordeal.

On top of worrying about Carter, we bought a car on Friday (quite a process), and went out of town to visit Colter's Grandma and Grandad for the weekend. Busy! Here's Colter having a ball for Favorite Foto Friday Monday.

My boy loves this exercise ball! He uses it a lot more than I have recently. He likes to have us bounce him up and down on it. I try to hide it from him, because, well, a 10-month old could probably get hurt trying to climb on a giant ball, but he tracks it down. If he sees it, he's ready to play! Not that he's not always ready to play.
No, you don't need to visit the optometrist--this picture is blurry. Someday I'll learn how to zap away blur with Photoshop. He was bouncing up and down and having a ball! See his dimple! I just discovered my passion for dimples about ten months ago. I love this kid's dimple!

FFF-Prayer Request

Colter's Buddy, Carter

Instead of following the theme today, I have a pray request. My son's friend, Carter, needs your prayers! Carter was admitted to the hospital yesterday with pneumonia. When they did an chest x-ray to check out the gunk in his lungs, they saw a mass in his chest. The doctors can't tell Carter's parents what the mass is until they do some tests. They don't know if it's a cyst (which is kind of a big deal it itself, because it will probably require surgery) or if it's a tumor. A cat-scan was supposed to be done today to find out more, but they're having trouble finding an anesthesiologist who is comfortable sedating Carter because of the mass in his chest. I don't know HOW they're supposed to find out what it is if no one will run the tests, but hopefully this will be resolved quickly.

Please pray that the mass is nothing to worry about. Pray that the test results will come back quickly. Pray that it doesn't require surgery. Pray that it's not cancerous. Pray for Carter's poor mommy, Gina, who is, understandably, majorly stressed out. Just PRAY for Carter. Thank you so much.

Things are crazy around here today, so I'm going to hold off on posting pictures of Colter. I love the theme for today though (Having a Ball), so I'll try to post later. To see more photos today go to Sarah's blog.