One Picture

I'm a little sad that this is the final week of the You Challenge.  It has been a lot of fun and I've met a lot of really nice people.  Hopefully you all have gotten to know a little more about me through this challenge, especially if you're a new follower.  

This week's challenge is one picture (of yourself).  This actually was kind of a challenge for me because I am very rarely in pictures by myself.  I don't really like having my picture taken, but it's not so bad when other people are in the pic with me.  


This picture was taken a couple months ago over at a friend's house.  Technically I'm not alone in the pic, but that's about as close as it's going to get :).  I'm holding my friend Abby's sweet, sometimes crazy, kitten Molly :D  Isn't she a cutie?  

Seven Years Ago

Seven years ago today, Eric and I welcomed our first child into this world.  It's hard to believe it's been that long already.  People aren't kidding when they say that the years fly by and soon enough the kids will be grown and leaving to be out on their own.

I'm borrowing my friend Abby's idea and had Chris answer a bunch of questions about things he likes right now and things like that.  It's a really cute idea and it will be neat to look back later on and see how he was at this age.

Here are his answers:

Favorite color:  purple
Favorite restaurant:  CiCi's Pizza
Favorite book:  the Biscuit books, Llama Llama books, Little Critter books
Favorite movie:  The Avengers, Spiderman, and Alvin & The Chipmunks
Favorite holiday:  Halloween
Favorite tv show:  Jake and the Neverland Pirates
Favorite Wii game:  Mario Kart
Favorite DS game:  Super Mario Bros, Sonic Racing
Favorite toy:  Cyclops and Wolverine action figures
Favorite animal:  lion
Favorite food:  macaroni and cheese
Favorite drink:  chocolate milk
Favorite thing to do at home:  watch a movie
Favorite thing to do at school:  have inside recess (where they play in the gym because it's rainy or something outside)
Best friend outside of school:  Logan, Caleb, Brooke, and Katelyn
Best friend in school:  Keller and Hannah

What do you want to be when you grow up?  Firefighter
How many kids you do want when you're grown?  7  (oh my....lol)
What do you want to be for Halloween this year?   Darth Vader
What scares you?  Monsters (awww)
What makes you happy?  Cat in the Hat  (haha, that's pretty random)

*******************************************************


We had his birthday party on Saturday.

On Sunday we took the boys skating.  After we left the skating rink, we went by Toys R Us so Chris could get his birthday crown and balloon.  He thought that was pretty cool.  I don't know if this is what they usually do or not, but the lady at the customer service desk announced over the intercom that they had a special guest in the store, said that it was Chris' birthday, and if anyone saw him walking through the store he'd have on a balloon and a crown and to be sure to wish him a happy birthday.  That was really awesome.  As Chris was walking through the store to pick out what he wanted to use his gift card on, several people stopped to wish him a happy birthday.

Last night I blew up a bunch of balloons and put them in Chris' bed so he would wake up to a little surprise this morning.  He thought that was pretty cool.  

Today I went and had lunch with Chris at school.  When a child's parents come to eat lunch, they get their own table instead of sitting with everyone else.  Chris got to pick two friends to sit with us.  He chose his friends Zane and Arianna.  They seemed to feel pretty special about being the "chosen ones" ;).  I brought cupcakes for the kids to have after they finished eating so they were all pretty excited about that.  

I have one very happy little birthday boy right now and I wouldn't have it any other way.

at Toys R Us on Sunday
with his birthday balloon, crown, and toy he picked out

some of the balloons I put in his bed last night
he is all curled up in the corner lol

at lunch today

with his buddies, Arianna and Zane

Chris' 7th Birthday Party

Today was Chris' 7th birthday party.  His birthday is actually on the 16th but it's hard to schedule things during the week when school is in, so we decided to have it the Saturday before.  

He had a Batman themed party at one of the parks close to our house.  I was obsessing over the weather all week, hoping that it wasn't going to rain.  The weather was great except for it being windy!  That made setting things up a little difficult ;)  Just when I would finally get things situated, the wind would blow everything away and I was scrambling to get it put back together before the guests arrived.  

We started out by having the kids do a superhero craft.  They could either make a mask, an armband, or a ring.  They seemed to really like doing that.  Most of the kids chose to make a mask, so there were masked superheros all over the playground at the park when they were finished.  ;)  

With the help of a friend, I decided to have a "capture the villan" game.  I had my husband made up as the Joker and got a whole bunch of water balloons for the kids to throw at him.  I spray painted his hair green and applied his makeup as soon as we got to the park to set up, before everyone arrived.  When I was finished I had him hide out in our van so the kids wouldn't see him and it would be a surprise.  After the kids had played for a little while, I motioned for Eric to get out of the van, then called the kids over to me.  I said, "I heard that there is a bad guy coming to ruin Chris' party.  Are we going to let him do that?"  All of the kids gave an enthusiastic, loud "NO!!!!!!!" and I think a couple of them even growled!  Eric had on a hoodie but had just enough of his face showing that the kids could tell who he was.  Once they identified him as the Joker, they really got into it and started throwing the water balloons at him.  It was hilarious!  

coming out from hiding

revealing his identity

attack!!!!

birthday boy taking a shot at the villan

is he creepy looking or what?  ;)

After that, the kids played for a little while longer then it was time for pizza, cake, and presents.  

the cake

Batman and Joker

getting ready to "battle"

Batman attacking Joker ;)

my wonderful friends who came out to help us celebrate Chris' birthday

my little family :)

make a wish, sweet boy

Two Songs

Linking up with Lauren and Tiffany again today for another week of the YOU challenge.  This has been so much fun.  I can't believe next week is the last one.  

This week's challenge is 2 songs.  Definitely another challenge for me.  There are so many songs I could put here for many different reasons, but in the end, I came up with these two:  

{one}  A Moment Like This - Kelly Clarkson
My friend Tabetha sang this song at mine and Eric's wedding while we had our first dance.





{two}  Country Girl - Luke Bryan
Like I said in my last post, this is my new favorite song.  



Honorable mentions: 
Boyfriend - Justin Bieber (yes, I know I'm a woman in my late twenties listing a JB song.  It's fun to dance to! :P)
Amazed - Lonestar (mine and Eric's "song")  
Our God - Chris Tomlin 
Your Love Never Fails - Jesus Culture
The Climb - Miley Cyrus

Weekend in Review

I hope you all had a great weekend!


Friday evening we took Chris to his soccer game.  My parents are always there to watch him, but this time Eric got to go, too.  They only have a couple games left for this season and Eric wanted to see one before it was over, so he took the night off to come along with us.  Chris is getting better and better at playing.  He really enjoys it now.  

For some reason, only 3 players on the Hurricanes (Chris' team) showed up, one of them being Chris.  We still don't know what happened to everyone else.  Thankfully the coach on the opposing team had one of his daughters with him that isn't on a team this season and she agreed to play on Chris' team for that game, so that gave them 4 players.  The opposing team had 8 players, so their coach let 4 of the kids play the first half, and switched to the other 4 for the second half, so it ended up working out pretty well.  

At one point during the game, the ball was out in the middle of the field.  None of Chris' team members went for it, so all of a sudden Chris just starts charging down the line toward the ball.  All of the kids on the opposing team saw Chris coming full speed ahead toward the ball and instead of trying to get ball before he did, they split right down the middle -  half ran to the left, half ran to the right, leaving Chris with an open shot to get the ball and kick it.  Everyone thought that was hilarious.  After that, Chris' coach said he wanted to put him as goalie since the other team was apparently afraid of him.  

Chris on goalie

That night, Eric and I dropped the kids off at my parents house and we went out to a local country music bar to see my friend's husband play in his band.  One of our other friends, Erika, was there also.  I've never been to a bar so I wasn't sure what to expect.  It was a pretty interesting night.  Things were pretty calm at first and then all of a sudden a loud "WOOOOOOOOO" came from a guy at the table next to ours.  And he wasn't even drunk yet ;)  You can just imagine how much louder and more often he "woooo'd" after having a bunch of drinks in him.  There was a creepy stalker lady but I won't go into details about that.  There was this one lady who kept trying to get us to get up and dance.  When we finally did, she gave us all a high-five, haha.  I got the courage to get up and slow dance with Eric.  Anyone who knows me knows that is a big deal.  I can't don't dance.  I haven't danced with Eric since our wedding day so he was pretty happy that I actually got out there and danced with him.  I tried my first Long Island Iced Tea.  I didn't think I'd like it but it was pretty good.

Eric and I

me, Abby, and Erika.  BFF's.  Just missing Joanne :(

the band, Full Circle

The band was awesome!!  I recognized a few of the songs they did but most of them were new to me.  I think my new favorite song is "Country Girl" by Luke Bryan ;)  I've been jamming to it all weekend.  

Saturday was pretty laid back.  That afternoon we took the boys to the playground at Logan's school so they could run off some energy.  There is a house directly across from the school that is decorated for Halloween.  There is this inflatable black cat in the front yard, it's literally as big as the house is.  Logan calls it the "creepy cat".  It does look kind of mean and its head tilts back and forth.  While we were there, Logan kept running up to the fence and saying "I'm going to look at the creepy cat!"  

"creepy cat".  You can't tell because of the tree but it's tail curls all the way up to the top of the house

my little daredevil

While we were at the park the boys kept asking Eric to play hide and seek with them.  They aren't very good at hiding (some part of their body is sticking out or they start giggling) but they always have so much fun.  

Eric looking for the boys

Logan running toward me from his hiding spot

hiding on the ground under the bench I was sitting on

Chris running toward me from behind the tree

That night we all watched Avengers together.  It was a pretty good movie.  The boys loved it.  They are big into superheros right now.  

On Sunday we just hung out around the house until that afternoon when we took Chris and Logan to Skateland.  We didn't end up staying very long because it looked like Chris wasn't feeling well.  He ended up at the ER that night.  Turns out he has his very first ear infection :(   

What did you do this weekend?

What Do They Know, Anyway?

My son Chris was diagnosed as developmentally delayed when he was around 3 years old.  I was told he would always be behind, would always struggle, would always need help, etc etc.  

He started out wonderfully.  He was developing normally, had good language skills, then around 15-18 months old, his language regressed immensely.  I strongly believe that has everything to do with the vaccines he had at that time, but that's a whole other issue.

His speech didn't improve any after that so we started to look into speech therapy.  After many specialists and evaluations, Chris was given a 'play' therapist when he was 3.  She would come over twice a week for an hour and play with him, trying to get him to talk.  After his vocabulary grew, he was given a speech therapist to work on articulation.  

He went through several speech therapists before he finally was paired with one that stuck.  One of them was fired, one couldn't work with our schedule, one quit, and then another one worked with him for several months and then was transferred to another county.  That's when he got Christy.  She is amazing.  Chris started to see her in preschool at the beginning of the school year.  He did so well that just before Christmas break she told me that he didn't need her anymore so she would phase him out when they returned to school after the winter break.  

Talking with Chris today, you'd never know that speech had ever been an issue for him.  

He currently receives OT for handwriting and fine motor control and sees an EC teacher twice a week because he's still labeled developmentally delayed.  

This afternoon I had a meeting with Chris' teacher.  She spent maybe 5 minutes on paperwork and 30 minutes praising him.  She actually had a doctors appointment to get to so the meeting was supposed to be quick, but she just couldn't stop saying how wonderful he was doing and how proud of him she was.  He is one of the hardest working and best behaved children she has in her class.  Chris, at the beginning of this school year (first grade) when they test to see where each child is, was reading at a end-of-first-grade level and is now well into a second grade level.  

Now, what was that about struggling?  Always needing help?  Placing out of speech and reading above his grade level sounds pretty successful to me, but what do I know, right?  :)  

Chris has some struggles, but you know what?  He takes them on with everything he has.  

He may not do everything on this or that experts timetable, or the AAP's timetable, or some other know-it-all's timetable, but when he's "got" something down, he's got it!  

They can label him delayed all they want to.  Chris is proving them wrong more and more every day and I couldn't be more proud of him!  

Three Films

Linking up today with Lauren and Tiffany for week 8 of the YOU challenge!  Woohoo!

This week's challenge is 3 films.  

This was definitely a challenge.  There are so many movies that I enjoy and that could have made this list, but here are 3 movies that I absolutely LOVE and watch over and over again.

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

This is one of my favorite movies of all time.  I *love* Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey together, wonderful chemistry!  My husband Eric is not usually a fan of "chick flicks" but even he loves this one :)  

Andie: Unattached? 
Ben: Currently. 
Andie: Likewise. 
Ben: Surprising. 
Andie: Psycho? 
Ben: Rarely, Interested? 
Andie: Perhaps. 
Ben: Hungry? 
Andie: Starving. 
Ben: Leaving? 
Andie: Now? 

Sweet Home Alabama

Another one of my top favorites.  I looooove this movie, even though Melanie ends up leaving McDreamy Andrew :(.  

Young Melanie: What do you want to be married to me for, anyhow? 
Young Jake: So I can kiss you anytime I want. 

Melanie: The truth is I gave my heart away a long time ago, my whole heart, and I never really got it back.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

My Best Friend's Wedding

Who doesn't enjoy watching a good love triangle?  ;)  

George: Michael's chasing Kimmy? 
Julianne: Yes! 
George: You're chasing Michael? 
Julianne: YES! 
George: Who's chasing you... nobody, get it? There's your answer. It's Kimmy. 

What are some of your favorite movies?