Is it Spring? and Thursday? Then there must be a tornado coming....

A few years ago, my friend Julie and I decided that if a tornado is going to come, it'll happen on a Thursday night and mess up our TV enjoyment.  :)

And true to our theory, the first came through Arkansas this Thursday night. 

We hang out in our pantry-no windows and it's in the middle of the house. 

Before Samuel this was no big deal. Samuel's first year-still no big deal.  Even the 2nd.  But this year...

Oh man! Is it ever hard to keep a little guy entertained while locked in a pantry.  We brought some of the fridge magnets in, made a little snack "table," read LOTS of books and acted downright silly. 

We never thought we'd have to put a child proof doorknob on the inside of the panty, but we're pretty sure we'll do that this tornado season. 



I'm a Big Boy

Tonight, Samuel decided he wanted to eat in his chair-like Mommy and Daddy.  Don't judge, but we don't eat at the table.  We're the bad family that eats in our living room and watches TV. 

Awful.  I know.

Get over it.  I did. 

Well, on this particular night, we were having Manicotti(a friend's recipe) that was VERY saucy.  His little chair isn't sauce colored.  :) So I covered it with one of our black throw blankets and then sat beside him to make sure we didn't get tomato sauce EVERYwhere. 

Great Grandpa's Birthday

 Saturday evening, we went to Greers Ferry to celebrate my Grandpa's birthday.  He'll be 80.  He's my only living grandparent.  My two Grandmothers passed away in '08 and '09.  Samuel loves his PawPaw. 

And his Pop(my dad.)

I wasn't able to get many good pictures of my cousins, it was so crazy and we had kids running everywhere.  But here are a few. 

This is Toby messing with his wife, Jennifer. 

These are their kids, Tanner and Logan.  And my Aunt Sharon-their grandmother.

This is Valerie and Chris.

Little Uriah--he's 3 months older than Samuel.  Such a cutie! He belongs to Flan and Delite.

Titus-Uriah's little brother. 

Grandpa blowing out his candles. 

This picture cracks me up. Sandra and Stephanie were put in charge of cutting the cake. When we were little, they were in charge of passing out Christmas presents.  

Grandpa had lots of helpers with his gifts.

Titus got to really enjoy some yummy icing from Grandpa's cake. 

It's sort of hard to tell, but Samuel is wearing Uncle Mike's hat. 

On the way home, I sat with Samuel in the back seat.  He held my hand the entire way home.  I felt so special. 

Fun with Cousins

Friday night and Saturday, MawMaw, Aunt Jess, Uncle Nick, and Kensley came to spend some time with us.  They came for the semi-annual Rhea Lana shopping extravaganza. 

Samuel and Kensley had so much fun playing together.  Samuel was a bit of a bully and Kensley was SO good to not get upset with him. 



They LOVE each other. 

When we went to get Samuel up from his nap, this greeted us. Look closely.  Did you see?  Yep, that's a bare behind. The diaper was on the floor beside his crib.  Little Stinker!

Gran and Aunt Val

Friday night, we met Gran and Aunt Val at PF Chang's for dinner.  Samuel LOVED it.  He ate most of the rice and almost all of my Candied shrimp.  Then he moved to his own plate of chicken. 

Boys will be Boys

Tuesday evening, I looked into the living room to see this.  Look closely at the room.  There's a game opened and pieces scattered, a four wheeler, and the ball pit turned on its side with most of the balls out in the room. 

Now, look at the ball pit.  Do you see that big leg in khaki pants?  Yep, that's Casey in the ball pit with Samuel. 

He couldn't even sit up all the way!  They were having so much fun!  I must confess, if there'd been room, I might have gotten in with them. 

Valentine's Day 2011

My two Valentines. I love them so much!

Casey disobeyed me and got me flowers.  I got him.....nothing.  He said, "I'm not a girl. Don't waste money on me for Valentines Day." So I didn't.

This is the cute frog Pop and Gran got Samuel for Valentines' Day. This is the best picture I could get.  No, seriously it was. 

Casey decided to replace a few of the tiles in our game room(they've gotten some water damage from us coming in and out from the pool and snow.)  Samuel was so helpful.  He got this little tool set out and started banging away. 

My Handsome Little Man

In his Sunday best. 



Aunt Lena's Birthday Lunch

We met all of my mom's sisters and their husbands at Texas Roadhouse for a late lunch to celebrate Aunt Lena's birthday.  Samuel got to see Pop and Gran.  I'm not sure who had more fun.  

Here are the Dollar girls and their husbands. 
L-R: Uncle Carl, Aunt Lena, Uncle Bill, Aunt Earlene, Uncle JW, Aunt Gin, Mom, Dad, Samuel

Snow-mageddon Day 2 (Thurs, Feb 10)

All bundled up!



Snow is SO fun!

I want to take some pictures, too!

I'm so tired! 

Snow-mageddon aka. Wed, Feb 9

My friend, Shannah, came down Tuesday night before the great Snow-mageddon hit us.  She brought this pizza for us to eat Wednesday at lunch. 

Did you notice how my first picture was of food.   We had enough food for 10 people to be snowed in for a month.  I didn't take pictures of the cookies, muffins, chips, dips, cokes, etc... :-)



Shannah went out and took a bunch of pictures of the snow.  Look at these!  It looks like we live in CO!  I can't get over them! 

This is looking down Markham toward Park Plaza.  In the 6 years we've lived here, there's never been a moment where there wasn't at least ONE car.  It was absolutely deserted. 

Darn it!  I can't get these pictures to turn the right way, but this is what Shannah and I did during Samuel's nap time.  Scrapbooking!  I am making a small scrapbook/color book for Samuel and I needed to finish Samuel's 2nd year scrapbook I started. 

When Samuel woke up from his nap, he insisted on me letting him eat his snack in his high chair.  He was very insistent!

When the snow finally slowed down, I took this pic of the side of the pool. We think we got about 7 inches. 

We didn't go play outside during this first snow day.  It was just too darn cold and the snow blowing around would have been hard on Samuel.  AND we had finally gotten his nose to stop running. 

For dinner, I fried pork chops.  I'm a pretty darn good fryer, if I do say so myself. 

While I cooked, Samuel and Casey played.  Look at Samuel's pants.  We've had to move him up to 2T pants, so they'll be long enough.  However, he's so stinkin skinny, they fall down all the time.  We've got a few pair with the adjustable waist, but not many. 

Right before bedtime, he was just hanging out with us.