Saturday, September 29, 2007

Weekend Full of Pics

Badgers won. Big surprise there, huh?

Falcon Band.

Chase is on in the middle to the far left. Can you see him? (just kidding)

Sandy (my sister-in-law) and Lindsey (my niece) aka Winsey Woo.

Nieces Megan and Beth Fwanks. OK...it's actually Franks but Beth couldn't pronounce her R's when she was little. Do you see mischief in that smile and those eyes - because IT'S THERE!
Great Niece (yep GREAT) Allie Beth. A little girl with a very BIG vocabulary and what a MESS!
The Half-time show. How can I take better night-time pics? Help me, Tammy!
Chase back row on the left. Watching the cuz perform.

Lane Tucker Wood on the quads for the Beebe band.

The boy can play! The little nieces. Haley (another great niece) Megan and Beth and Allie Beth. Sweet girls....well...mostly! :)
Yeah, this is a sick looking picture. Just a close up of Chase and his Auntie Lisa getting a sugar.
Chase (somewhat sweaty after half-time) and the girlfriend. Allison. We LIKE her! And she's REALLY-REALLY smart! Please be nice to her and keep her around.
The Fwanks (ummm....Franks) family. Aunt Lisa, Uncle Scott, Meg and Bethy. So, yeah, you came, Lisa. Although climbing those bleachers really sucked - I'm glad you came. Chase was really excited and SO glad everyone was there! Need an oil-change or new tires? Call Uncle Scott at Liberty Tire in Jacksonville...(501)985-TIRE. Is that a shameless plug? Chase and Lane. How stinkin cute are they?
Carson and a blankie after a nap on the way home from Beebe. Sitting in Sonic's parking lot.
The forehead. The forehead where he put a sticker some time earlier in the day. Goober?!
Cutie's at Sonic.

On to the next day. Carson's football game.

This is Mike and Amelia Thomas. She drew this picture of Mike. Click on the pic and you can see a better picture of her drawing. It really looks like Mike. Her Daddy, Shelby, is on Mike's officiating crew. I nearly fell down the bleachers while as I was getting up just moments after I took this picture. It was pretty- NOT! Embarrasing-YES!

Carson

Chip with his BIG camera. Mike and Chip
Carson getting some encouragement from Dad. How cute do football pants make butts look?
Shelby.
Mike trying to teach him how to run the chains. He really didn't catch on very well. JUST KIDDING SHELBY! HA!!! The final score. Twisters win. Now sporting a record of 2-2.
Post game hand shake.
Carson going through the cheer tunnel after the game.
Post game pep-talk. They DO love each other. The big brother came to see the little brother play. Sweet!
He couldn't talk if you tied his hands behind his back. Talking to Tammy. Did you notice how clean shaven Kody is? He even got a haircut!
DORKS I tell you - DORKS!
Kody and Tammy...one of his "other mother's" Notice the flash photography on this pic. Thanks for helping me out on that one Tam! Need any photography done? Cally Tammy Blenden at (501) 993-8994. Another shameless plug!

So how's that for the week in pictures? I think I need new camera batteries. Where is that Energizer bunny when you need it?

He's going and going and going and going and...
~Shannon

Friday, September 28, 2007

Favorite Foto Friday

Carson at Lake Hamilton last summer. Fun trip with Tim and Stacy and our Sunday School class.
Tonight we head to Beebe. Falcons and Badgers. After last weeks game...the Badgers had best watch out! We hope, anyway! My nephew Lane , who is a Junior, plays the drums for Beebe. The visiting band, the Fabulous Fighting Falcon Marching Band, will get to perform. It'll be fun. We'll be sitting on the Badger side tonight. Lots of family will be there. Surely you'll be there Lisa, huh? Grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins, from both sides (hopefully both sides). We're excited, although Mike is at Oak Grove tonight.
Band, Football and Family,
~Shannon

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Mom-sense

This is pretty funny. I saw it on Good Morning America this morning.




Now sit back and put your seat belt on. This is gonna be a long ride. I got this e-mail a while ago but I just really read it today. Grab a box of tissue.


Being A Mom

If not for the photographs, I might have a hard time believing they ever existed. The pensive infant with the swipe of dark bangs and the black button eyes of a Raggedy Ann doll. The placid baby with the yellow ringlets and the high piping voice. The sturdy toddler with the lower lip curled into an apostrophe above her chin.


All my babies are gone now. I say that not in sorrow, but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost adults, two taller than I am, and one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernable except through the unreliable haze of the past.


Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. T. Berry Brazelton, Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnite Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages, dust would rise like memories.


What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations-what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all. Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then it becomes multiple-choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be manged only with a stern voice and a timeout.


One boy is toilet trained at 3, his brother at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told not to put baby to bed on his back so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put on their backs because of research on sudden-infant-death syndrome. To a new parent, this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18 month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. he can talk just fine. He can walk, too.


Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the 'Remember-When-Mom-Did' Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pick-up. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, "What did you get wrong?" (She insisted I included that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-thru speaker and then drove away not picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I included that). I did not allow them to watch the Simpson's for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?


But the biggest mistake I made is the one most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swingset on a summer day, ages 4, 6 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the 'doing' a little more and the 'getting it done' a little less. Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done.


Now I suspect they grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.


A last quote.... "Being a mother means that your heart is no longer yours; it wanders wherever your children do."


Ahhh...motherhood,
~Shannon

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Do Brunettes Have Fun, Too?

Brunette for the fall and winter. You like? I'll be getting hi-lites on top of it soon. My 'hair lady' didn't have time today because she forgot to book me for it. Carson hates it, Mike doesn't like it and I'm sure my Mom doesn't either. I like the change. Although, when spring rolls around again I'll be totally ready for blonde-ness.
Carson on the way to school this morning. He looked exactly like this going to football practice tonight, also.
A sudden shower right at the beginning of practice. This is over Sylvan Hills Middle School.
God's promise.
Sanders out,
~Shannon

Monday, September 24, 2007

FALCONS WIN!

I KNOW...CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? Nobody else can. They DID actually win. I think it was like 39-14 or something like that. Not only a win but a butt-whoopin'. You would have thought they won the state championship. It may be the only high school football win some of those kids will ever experience. Sad. It's the first win in 30 something games for NP...yeah, that's like 3 years. Sad. BUT - Chase got to wear his uniform...even with the plume on the hat. Did I have my camera....NOOOOOO! We had the video camera but I have no idea how to put that on here. I'll have to learn that some other day. NP plays at Beebe this Friday. My nephew Lane plays in the band at Beebe. He plays percussion and he's REALLY good. Chase will get to perform, too. Kind of exciting for our family.


There was a softball clinic up at our park this weekend. Jennie Finch put it on. Most men that know anything about sports knows who Jennie Finch is. She is a former USA olympic softball player. A pitcher. She is good and she is hot. Just google Jennie Finch. Kody begged me to go take pictures of her because he was at the other side of the park umping fall baseball. We drove by and saw her but we had been at football all morning and it was waayyy too hot. I tell you that to tell you this...it was announced on the radio (sports talk)a couple weeks ago that she was coming.
Our preacher Bro. Steven calls Mike. He left a message. He knows how much time Mike (we) spends at the ball park. He told Mike he heard that Jennie Finch was coming to town. He said he was concerned about him. That as his pastor he just wanted to know where his heart was. Cracked us up. This is Steven. Funny, huh. He doesn't look very pastoral.
That picture was taken the summer of '06 when I went on the choir tour with Chase and our youth choir. He was playing cards in the back of the bus with a bunch of kids. That's actually a pretzel stick...not a stogey. Steven was the youth pastor at the time. I am so thankful that I got to tag along on that trip. I got to know him a little better. He is now our Senior pastor and he's our age. Mike and I love him. What a great guy - even though he is a Tennessee Volunteer fan.

That brings me to my next subject. Houston Nutt. Sorry coaching. Nuff said.

Carson's team also lost. But he played really well.

I have a picture just like this of Kody.

Team captain on the right....#6.
Brittney and JJ's wedding. It was the most beautiful wedding and reception that I have ever been to. WOW! And once again did I have my camera? NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Mike and I had fun. We got to see some old friends and some kids Kody used to run with.

I'll leave you with Pete and Re-Pete.
That's the weekend in a nutshell.
Not looking forward to Monday,
~Shannon

Friday, September 21, 2007

Favorite Foto Friday

Another picture of a picture. This is Carson from his 'high-steppin' touchdown. Tammy made this poster-sized and will be using it as a display. She said that she tried to put 'Sanders' down the side of it but it didn't work out. I like the black & white and how it seems to be outlined. Good work Tammy! She also gave me some buttons...one for me and the other two will go to the Grandma's. Looks like I'll be cleaning her house to pay her off! Thanks Tammy!
Another weekend filled with football. NPHS has Homecoming tonight and the band gets to actually wear their uniform's. Chase is pumped! Mike took the night off to watch Chase. Missing some good football $ from CAC, although Chase will be glad he's there. Carson has a game tomorrow morning and the Hogs take on Ketucky tomorrow evening. We'll have to DVR that one as we have a wedding to attend at 6:00. (ooohhh...I still haven't gotten a gift!) I also have to make dinner for Mike and Christy Garner and fam tomorrow afternoon. Christy had an emergency appendectomy Monday night. Mike is our Sunday School teacher and I just LOVE those 2. They are THE sweetest people. I'll be cooking it in my NEW-fangled Crock-Pot that Mike went out and bought last weekend. He got a wild hair and HE EVEN COOKED IN IT!!! Yeah, for real...you read it right....HE EVEN COOKED IN IT!!!! A big-ol huge pork roast. And he didn't even have to call Little Ceasars. (Usually when I leave supper up to him it's Little Ceasars...and half the time I'm the one that even has to make the phone call!) It was really Yum! I'll be making Chicken and Rice for them. Christina Hamilton is helping out with me also. Did you hear that Ted Danson called her the other day? yeah...THE Ted Danson. 'Where everybody knows your name-Ted Danson'. His mother-in-law (you know, Mary Steemburgen's mom) lives in NLR and the two of them are wanting a nurse to care for her. Chris (Christina's husband) was telling me about it last weekend. He said that she was siting at football practice and her cell phone rings. 'This is Ted Danson...I'm not sure if you're familiar with me'. Duhhhh....Sam from Cheers. I thought that was pretty cool and worth a little mention in blogland. Gosh, I went all the way from football to weddings, to dinner, to Cheers. Just a little look into how my mind works.
Rambling on,
~Shannon

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Baby Blankies

I finally finished my latest crochet project.
It's a baby blanket for Bobby &

Ginger Lester's baby Logan. This is the only picture I have of him.

Yes, he was born over 3 months ago. So, I'm a little late getting it to them. I started it out way too big so it may fit his regular bed by the time he grows out of his baby bed. Everybody at work dogged me about it being so big and the fact that he might be in college by the time I finished it. Well here it is all you smarty britches. It's nothing fancy and it's really cuter than the pictures show. I absolutely LOVE to crochet and I love to give my things away. I really need to learn how to do harder stuff and learn to follow patterns better. This blanket was my own creation. My next project is a throw for my living room which I'll do on the side because I need to do a baby blanket for my preacher's soon-to-be baby boy. I believe he's due this winter. Surely that'll give me enough time, huh?
Enjoy your blankie baby Logan.

Carson and I stopped by my mom and dad's last night. We went to church and then to the mall for a little shopping excursion. We went to Chik-Fil-A and Carson got a kid's meal. It had some type of model airplane in it and my dad got down on the floor with Carson and they put it together.
OK...well Carson wasn't much help.

Now to decide what color to do my next blankie in. Blue, yellow...hmmm.

Decisions,
~Shannon