Six Years

I cannot believe it has been six years since we welcomed my sweet boy into this world. Six years of love and fun and precious memories.

We went from this

to this

in six short years. People have tried to tell me many times that it goes by too fast. Of course, those words meant nothing to me. But they were true, it does go by too fast. I went from holding you in my arms for the first time, to taking you to school tomorrow (yes, first day of elementary school) in the blink of an eye. And while I have loved every single minute of it (ok, not including the few weeks of colic, that wasn't so lovely), I wish those minutes could have lasted a little longer.

I was going to write something mushy about how much I love you, Nicholas, but I cant put it in to words, I just don't have the talent to express an emotion so pure, so true and so strong. I just want you to know... just know.

Your are so smart, so quick witted and such a thinker. Your favorite thing to say right now is "that's hilarious". You love to eat Hawaiian pizza and Cap'n Crunch. You are a great big brother, so patient and so kind. You have your Daddy's attitude, your Mommy's smile and your Poppy's eyes. You love to play sports, all sports. You have beat your Mommy at bowling, both on Wii (I don't even stand a chance) and in "real bowling", as you like to say. You are quite the little golfer and have recently discovered a love of tennis (I am loving this). You can really "jack" a t-ball and are one cool soccer player. You love to build...anything. And your imagination...well...words cannot adequately describe how incredible it is. You are, to use overused but appropriate phrase, quite simply amazing.

Happy Birthday, dear big boy. I love you to the moon and back and then some more.

Your very proud Mommy.

Who needs ya...

cute little blue backpack. Not us. Not Greyson.

We're glad to see you go, or rather not go, anywhere with us. Cause we don't need what is lurking inside...

Anymore.

Nope, we don't need this...

or this.

So...so long. See you never!!!!!!

Rest assured, no backpacks were hurt during this ceremony.

Sorry to keep posting about this but we are so darned excited around here. It's been almost 3 long years of constant worry. I know there are many people who spend their whole life with this worry and God Bless them, it must be a tough road. But one we no longer have to travel and I am thankful, extremely thankful. I don't think I can adequately explain how happy I am that I can send my sweet boy to school without worry that someone in his class didn't properly wash his hands or a parent might have accidentally included an item that was processed in a facility with peanuts. I used to belong to a Mommy website and one of the mothers made a hurtful comment to me. She said "if you were really that concerned about him dying then why would you send him away to school". It was hurtful on many levels, and I soon realized that this person had a lot more issues than my parenting skills. However I still felt this incredible guilt about letting him attend school two days a week when he had a life threatening allergy. I wanted things to be as normal as possible, after all this was not a debilitating illness. Not really. Just an over reaction of his immune system. Yet it was still life threatening and there was still the constant worry. Well, at least that is one guilt and worry I can wave farewell too, now on to the many more, lol.

Bring on the Butter...Peanut Butter that is

Peanut Butter, we like peanut butter. Peanut Butter, thats what we like best.

How do I eat this? Am I supposed to use a fork? Actually the fork was for the watermelon. He was a pro at eating the sandwich.

This morning, when asked what he wanted for breakfast, Greyson said without hesitation "peanut butter sandwich". So he ate his very first peanut butter sandwich. And while I am still a bit nervous, he surely wasn't and he woofed it down!

For those of you that have not seen my facebook and twitter posts, we took Grey back to the pedi allergist yesterday for his annual appointment. He tested negative for all food allergies, including peanuts. Just to be safe, they retested him again and again a negative! So we are now peanut allergy free!!!!!! We did the oral test, to test his tolerance, all afternoon and evening and he responded perfectly, so...we will probably become quite tired of all things peanut butter over the next few months. And we couldn't be happier.

Just some weekend fun

We went to the Smith family reunion on Sunday. For those of you not related to Bryant, I am sure you are going "huh?" Bryant's grandmother is a Smith. And every year they have a reunion at Cumberland Mountain State Park in East Tennessee. It's a great park with lots to do. Long and short hiking trails, tennis, basketball, volleyball, horseshoes (although I never saw the horseshoe pits I am told they have nice ones, lol), a lake where you can fish, feed the ducks, or rent paddle boats and canoes, and numerous playgrounds, some new, some old. The have a lot of cabins that you cant rent, some big, some small. The food was great and plentiful. And we are so happy that we had the opportunity to meet so many distant cousins. What a great family. I sadly didn't get many pics from the event because I hurt my foot and left Bryant in charge of the camera. I think I am lucky to get any photos, so am not going to complain, sigh.

The boys loved playing tennis. Nicholas is bugging me already to take him to play this week. A boy after my own heart. And speaking of hearts, bless Uncle Jimmy's, he must have the patience of a saint, he played tennis with those boys half the afternoon.

This has nothing to do with the reunion, but wouldn't you love to have that skin? My Mom says mine used to be like that and I vaguely remember getting that tan before I found out it caused (horror!!!!) wrinkles. If only it was still like that, sigh.

Sweaty boy!

The next couple of pics are of the boys playing Doctor. Poor Mimi, she always has to be the patient. Poor me, because she was hanging up the laundry before they admitted her to their hospital.

Not sure if I want him performing surgery on me, but he sure is cute. And here's a picture of the entire medical staff.

"Doctor" "Doctor"

Things to do in Nashville when you're hot? And bored?

So the summer excitement has ended and the boredom has set in. It happens every summer. I remember it from when I was a kid. Summer starts off like gangbusters and then fizzles down to sparkler level.


There's a few things to do: movies, indoor playgrounds, waterslide and pool (of course they are outdoors however the water keeps us cool), having classroom an hour every day where we work on our summer workbooks. But seriously, I am struggling to keep them from becoming bored. And when they get bored, they get into trouble. A lot. So if you have some suggestions, pass 'em on.


Lunch is even an issue. Fixing lunch for the boys and keeping it interesting enough for them to eat has become a challenge. I think we have had a picnic in just about every room of the house and every spot outdoors (ok I admit it was fun having a picnic lunch with my fellas in the top of their clubhouse).

I try to do muffin tin meals about once every couple of weeks (and muffin tin snacks a bit more often). The boys really like this. I like using the disposable muffin tins instead of the ones I cook with. This way they can eat outside and I can just toss them in the big trash can when they are done. Yesterday, each boy had their own tin of sugar snap peas, carrots, celery, grapes, pinwheels and apples. Sometimes I add goldfish or cheese, but they had a goldfish snack earlier (they woke up way too early yesterday) and there was plenty of cheese in the pinwheels, so I skipped it. The pinwheels were whole wheat tortillas, Boar's Head maple glazed turkey breast, Boar's Head Butterkase cheese and cream cheese to hold it together. Sometimes I use mayo or hummus instead of cream cheese. Anyway, I made them ahead of time and let them chill in the fridge about an hour so they were easy to slice. They were yummy.


I forgot to take a picture but I normally use the clear plastic lids that come with the muffin tins as sauce holders. They are a lot more shallow than the tins and perfect for suauces and dips. The boys like to dip, so we had ranch dressing, yogurt (for the apple slices), honey mustard, ketchup, hummus and spicy brown mustard to dip our fruits and veggies in.

Tomorrow we will be making pizza for lunch. Hawaiian pizza with fresh pineapple, thin slices of ham, and cilantro. If it looks halfway decent I will take a picture of it. I use this recipe.

Uncork the Whine Wine

Two sick cranky kids, a husband working 4+ hours late, and no uncorked wine means no fun blog post today. Ugh! My poor babies are sick with some type of summer cold or sinus issue. Both running slight fevers, Greyson has a bad cough and Nicholas is starting to sniffle. No runny noses but I am sure that is own its way. Which reminds me, I wish B was on his way. Home that is. This single parenting, even if it is only for a day, is tough, especially when I think I am catching whatever bug the boys have.

Maybe I will uncorck a bottle of wine afterall. Right after I put them to bed for the night. Soon. Real soon.

Fun on the 4th

We had so much fun this past 4th of July weekend. It started Friday night, we went to the club and spread a blanket on one of the fairways (have no idea what #, that is B's area), enjoyed a nice cooling breeze coming in off of the lake and we watched an amazing show of fireworks. The boys were equally fascinated with all the boats on the lake (they were so many there to watch the fireworks). We watched more Saturday, on the same blanket at a park. The city put this display on and Mimi joined us.

On Sunday, B and the boys decided to buy their own fireworks so they bought some sparklers and a few odd things. Grey had a tank that had sparklers on the front and rolled when you lit them. Well, it was supposed to roll anyway. Nicholas had an airplane full of firecrackers that went straight into the air when lit. This one worked a bit better than the tank. Then both boys had these weird chicken things. B lit the fuse in the chickens mouth, it made a whistling sound and then blew a balloon up out of its rear end. Odd to say the least. I will include a picture 'cause really words are not capable of describing it.

Asking Daddy about 560 questions on how fireworks work.

The chicken Before

Come on Daddy, why is it taking so long.

And the chicken After. There is just something wrong with a chicken that blows stuff out of its a$$, unless it is an egg. And still I don't want to actually witness it.

However, for the not so discerning, it was a ton of fun!

On Sunday afternoon we went over to the boys' great grandmother's house. There was a rumor that there was supposed to be a waterslide there but sadly, we were unable to get it there. So I got to play hero and packed up the boys' waterslide (and I am proud that I remembered the blower) and brought it down there. Huge hit, the boys and their cousins were on it most of the afternoon.

And there was a whole lot of eating going on.

All kinds of great food, like Ribs, BBQ, Corn on the cob, burgers, Cornish hens and all kinds of great homemade side items. Yet my kids ate corn dogs from a box. Go figure.

And ice cream.

Lots of ice cream (please no pics when I am trying to eat)

And it was good enough to put a smile on our face!

For a long time.

Greyson and his cousin, who is just a few months older, were big buddies, as usual.

They went everywhere together. Don't worry, they didn't actually drive those cars.

But they did drive this one.

A lot.

Even through the yard. At night.

But this was before the "grand finale" as Nicholas has said about 7000 times in the past few days. The "grand finale" was Daddy and cousin Tim shooting some really great fireworks down by the lake while we watched from a safe distance away. Thank you Papa for buying such terrific fireworks!

And before the night was over, we had some cuddle time with our GreatAunt and cousins.

Superheros to the Rescue (a pictoral)

It's a lovely day here. All is well. Just a couple of guys playing in their fort early in the morning.

It's a steep climb but nothing too big for Superheros and their action figures.

We made it to the top of Fort Gothamtropolis.

Hey, Batman, don't play too close to the edge, it could be dangerous.

Uh oh.

Whew. Saved by the ledge. And look, he found Woody hanging out down there.

We're running out of time, we need a plan. Hold on Batman and Woody, we'll save you.

Super Hero Nick to the rescue.

Along with his trusty sidekick, Grey (the Derek Zoolander Blue Steel look)

I'm on my way down.

Got him! You're my hero Nick.

On my way back up. But wait...Oh no, Superman got a little too close to the edge and is faaaaaaaaalllllliiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnng.

I've got him too. This Superhero stuff is hard work.

No, stop. You need some help from your trusty sidekick.

Here I come, look out below.

Heading back up now. Follow me.

One handed climbing. Do not try this at home, it is only for Superheros.

Poor Superman, it looks like he might have lost a bit of paint...errrr...hair on the way down.

Back to the summit of Mount Gothamtropolis. Safe and sound and...

contemplating doing it again. A Superhero's work is never done.