Blue Field of Dreams

Before we got pounded with tons of gallons of rain this week, we had absolutely gorgeous weather. I love this time of the year when it rains in the morning and sunny in the afternoon. The wildflowers here in Texas are breathtaking. They make me unbelievably happy. Of course they are not quite as beautiful as they have been in the past, but at least we have some. We are so blessed to have neighbors down the street that in a sense raise bluebonnets. Their entire yard, which is about 3 acres, is full of delicate bluebonnets. I get to run past them everyday while I go running on my street. Lucky, I know. Well, one evening last week I got Leslie dressed in her favorite dress and walked down to the field of blue dreams. Nolan decided he wanted to be part of that, so he got himself dressed in his best "get up". I was thrilled! They were so cooperative and beautiful. I was literally on cloud nine taking these pictures. Once we were finished and walking back to our house Leslie looked up at me and asked, "Mommy, why are bluebonnets so special and why do you love them so much?" I smiled and replied, "Well, bluebonnets only come in Texas this time of the year and only live for a short time. They are so fragile and beautiful, just like you Leslie. They make me so happy, just like you do." She smiled and we walked hand in hand back to our house.

An Apology to All of My Orange Bleeding Friends

This is a deep felt apology to all of my orange bleeding friends, the Longhorns. I visited College Station this weekend for a concert for the first time and had to pose as an Aggie. Now, if anyone would have asked me face to face if I was an Aggie I would have said, "No way, Longhorn all the way!" But as a whole I was placed in the center of an Aggieland event and there was no way I was about to put up my horns. It was for my own safety, of course. Ok ok I must admit something else. The Texas A&M campus was really nice. As a matter of fact, the entire College Station was spotless clean and well kept. You can definitely tell that there is a lot of pride in that town. Maroon was splashed on all of the shops and awnings. A&M flags flew on every street corner. It looks like a nice place to be, to live, to enjoy. The school is like they are in their own big bubble, in a way. There is nothing around the town, just country. Yep, country. That is the very reason I was never interested in Texas A&M. I am not country. Yes, I was born country and live in the country, but I am not country. Ok ok, I am country, but not Texas A&M "country". Am I rambling? Now, if my children decide some day that they want to attend that university, I will actually be okay with it. breathe. sigh. I admit that I will be disappointed if they don't choose my Alma mater, The University of Texas, but in this day and time, I will be happy if they just go to college!

This was me, except I was not that brave!

A Start of a Great Fun Season!

Last night was our very first baseball game of the season and boy was it fun! This game was a rescheduled game from last weekend. Therefore, it was on a LATE week night. The game did not start until 8:00 pm, so I was dreading it. That is the time I normally put the kids down for bed, NOT PLAY A BASEBALL GAME. But, hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? We played a team that had the reputation for being really good (and they were) with nine year olds on their team. For some reason that town did not agree on the Coach Pitch age range (7-8) and decided to place some nine year olds on their teams. Not fair, I know!! So we had now two counts against us before the first pitch was even thrown! Oh, did I mention that our coach's truck broke down in Ft. Worth so was unable to make it? Yep, another count against us. Les was asked to pitch to the kids since they were already comfortable with him. Les was as nervous as I was starting the game. He did a wonderful job though. Everyone on our team had at least one hit in the game!

The boys started off really well with two runs. Once Nolan was up to bat he had two bases loaded. However, Les apparently got cold feet, or should I say arm, and struck Nolan out. I was a bit disappointed, but Nolan came back later and did great. Les said it is hard to pitch to your own son.

We are extremely happy to have such a great team and coaching staff. This is the first time Nolan has won a game since he has played in this town! You can imagine how happy he was in the last inning when he realized the score was 13-9! He jumped up with his arms in the air and biggest smile ever. Check it out:

We have another game tonight at 8:00 pm, but at least it is Friday. I just hope the boys aren't too tired from last night's game. I am revved up and ready! I was a bit hoarse this morning, however. Yes, I am one of those moms that don't seem to shut up in a game. But I am different, I mostly yell encouraging shouts and chants. So if you want a nice quiet game to attend, don't come sit by me! I am a sports mom that is SOMEWHAT competitive!

Here are some pre-game shots:

Nolan's Room

My very first roommate in college, Shellie, (in which I am so excited I found on Facebook) gave me motivation to paint more in Nolan's bedroom. We had changed his room from the Fishing theme to the baseball theme months ago, maybe even a year ago. But his room still lacked in decoration and looked bare on the walls. So when Shellie posted pictures of her daughter's room on Facebook I was amazed. She chose the softball theme and did a lot of hand painting on the walls. I loved what she did so much, I thought to myself, I can do that too and totally copied her. HOWEVER, once I started painted words on his walls, I remembered why I did not paint neat stuff on there before. Have you ever tried painting words on a HIGHLY textured wall? NOT EASY. My little projects ended up taking two days. Anyway here are the photos:

This is the very first thing you see when you walk into Nolan's room. His bedding is from Target years ago. I bought it because I knew one day he would want to do his room in baseball. It stayed in a Target bag for almost two years before we got to finally use it.

Here is the scoreboard I totally copied from Shellie. I didn't get a chance to put the numbers on the cardstock paper, yet. But Nolan will get to change the score each time he wins a game. That is what I loved about this. As you can also see Nolan has an old school desk with a baseball lamp his Grandma bought him.

This is a pennant I also copied from Shellie. I actually stenciled the letters. That was a whole lot easier!

This is on Nolan's bed looking at the opposite wall. We had the Texas pennant and clock already, but the little sign to the right is from Target again. They now have a bunch of baseball and other sports stuff for your room in the "Dollar Spot". I was especially excited to find these there:

That's right, baseball knobs! I unfortunately only found two packages at the time I shopped, but luckily my mom is good to me. On her way to Dallas last week, she and my dad stopped at every single Target they saw looking for more knobs. Bless their hearts they found three more! Now I only need one more package to make the furniture complete! Aren't they the cutest?!

Where is Leslie during all of this you ask? Well, she was right behind me telling me she wants rainbow colors in her room. She kept asking, "Mommy, when are we going to work on my room?"

Bike Rally Party

The Dollar Tree is my friend, people! I did an entire party on a budget and I don't think anyone could tell or really cared (to be honest). We hosted a Bike Rally at our house in lieu of a bowling alley party. I literally only spent maybe $100, including the cake! Like I said in the previous post, I got this idea in the Family Fun magazine from years ago, but they luckily still have it on their website. We sent our invitations (see previous post) that my wonderful friend, Cheri made for us on Photoshop (I think is what it is called) FOR FREE so that all I had to do was print them and hand them out. We had everyone bring their bikes and helmets for some party fun. When the guests arrived we had a table set up for them to make name plates for their bikes (plastic plates $1 and foam letters$2).

While they worked on those I placed noise makers on their wheels out of plastic plates (cut in a rectangle, of course) so that they would have a "motor". Once they were all done, I stated the rules and off they went down the painted driveway and under the pool noodle arch we had made. I purchased sidewalk paint by Crayola ($9) and painted a yellow line down our road (which happens to be a quiet little county road with not much traffic) along with a u-turn arrow and red line for boundaries.

Can you see the words. Oh, I also had cones for weaving in and out, but the wind kept blowing them away!

I had also made road signs for them to follow. The kids seemed to really enjoy riding up and down the road many many times. My nephew said he road 7 miles that day. He has an odometer on his bike (I gotta get one of those!).

After some serious riding, I split the kids up in ages and played the game "Stop and Go" with more signs I had made. For snacks, I made a traditional trail mix ($5) and served Gatorade ($10). The paper goods all came from, yep you guessed it, THE DOLLAR TREE! The cake was a doosey I should say. I totally copied Family Fun's idea, but my cake stuck to the bottom of the pan (not enough grease!) so I had to serve it out of the pan. I was not a happy party planner from that point on, but it all worked out okay. The bike was interesting to make as well. FYI, black Twizzlers (for the tires) are not easy to keep in a circle! I tried everything! Anyway, Nolan loved it and that is all that mattered.

We had a really great time and appreciated all of our guests coming. Nolan had many friends and even Grandma from Mississippi along with Cheri and her family. We were super excited!
After opening up a ton of gifts Nolan passed out his party favors. I bought some cute sports water bottles from Walmart (.97 cents each) and filled them with candy from the dollar store. I also found, again at the dollar store, some die cut gold trophies out of cardstock to tape to the bottle that stated "You are a Winner!" They turned out really neat to give away.

Yes that is our garage. We were very lucky it didn't rain, but the wind was gusty!

Party favors.

We had a lot of fun, any really it was not that much work. Really.

A Birthday Proposal

I am so sorry this post has taken extremely long to publish. For some reason I kept putting it off. I guess maybe I was overwhelmed by all that has been going on. I don't mean anything bad has been going on, just too much. Anyway, this is what we did for Nolan's 7th birthday. On Saturday morning we made plans to go bowling and out to eat. You see, Nolan really wanted his birthday party at the bowling alley, but to be really honest, it was way too expensive. I tried to explain to Nolan that if we scratched the party, we would take that money and buy him a big present. Well, he was not for that. He wanted his cake and eat it too, like us all. So we compromised with our argumentative son. I created a great little proposal to take to our future lawyer, aka Nolan, to try to convince him to have a little party (on a budget) so that he can receive a nice present from his parents. I did some research and brain storming. I remembered reading about a bicycle party in the Family Fun magazine I used to subscribe to. I thought Nolan would go for this for sure. The time came when he arrived home from a long day at school (in other words, he maybe too tired to argue) to give my proposal. I told him that we could go out to eat and bowl with just family on his actual birthday, Saturday and have a party (little did he know, on a budget) and get a nice gift as well. Yep, you guessed it, he was all for the idea. Therefore we went bowling and had a blast. We were all sore the next day, though. Oh, and don't be surprised, bowling was still pretty pricey! The kids and adults had fun. Later we ate at yummy Mexican restaurant where the birthday boy had to wear a sombrero. Yippey!

Lucky Number Seven!!

Today is my boy's seventh birthday! Wow, where in the world has the time gone? I remember his birth like it was yesterday. My mom was visiting/taking care of me while Les was traveling. She was out on the patio deck working on some projects for my third grade class when I came home from teaching. We had just taken the TAAS test and I was exhausted. I went to the bathroom and could not stop urinating, so I thought. Sorry for so much info, but my water had broken. It was around 5:00 traffic time and my hospital was downtown Austin. My mom drove us there and was surprisingly calm. I was just surprised since Nolan was not due for three more weeks. My contractions started quickly and four hours later I was in full labor. At 10:30 pm I met my precious first born child. Sadly I don't have any pictures of him as a newborn on my computer since he was before we had a digital camera. So here are pictures of him from 1 year to seven years. My boy is growing so quickly!

One-year old: Easter egg hunting party

Two-years old: Thomas the Tank Engine Party

Three-years old: Circus Party

Four-years old: Dora/Nemo Party at a Castle Park

Five-years old: Party at the Round Rock Express Game

Six-years old: Rodeo Party

Seven-years old (wow that was hard to type!): this pic is on Easter last weekend since we have not had his party yet. Tomorrow is the big party day, check out his cute invitation that Cheri made for me:

Yep, we are having a bike party! Fun fun.