Best Friends

Mattie started to daycare at 3 months old. When she was 8 months old, I put her in a different daycare. That's when Mattie met Mykal. At 12 months old Mattie and Mykal changed daycare centers together. They recently graduated from Pre-Kindergarten together.


Although they do not go to the same school now, I hear Mykal's name at least several times a week. She either asks me what he is doing or tells me a funny story about when they played together. It must be hard to go from seeing your best buddy everyday for 5 years @ 9 hours a day to never seeing them. I had planned to take Mattie to watch Mykal's football game on Saturday, but it was cancelled. So, I got with his mother and scheduled a play date at Chuck E Cheese. They had so much fun seeing each other.

Fall Festival 2008

There's nothing like getting 2 kids dressed in their Halloween costumes while in a car. That's what we had to do last Thursday night. Nathan's school had it's fall festival and with Mattie being in big girl school it was an ordeal as usual. Nathan and I waited in town while Matt got off work and picked Mattie up. We met for dinner and headed to the festival. It was rather chilly so instead of the kids getting dressed in the parking lot, I opted for the car. Not really a good idea on my part but we managed. I thought the kids were so cute I just had to take a couple of photos in our dressing room (AKA the car) This is how that went:

Here they are inside the school being made to pose for yet another picture......they should be used to this by now.....

Stop, say cheese....again.

Here are a few pictures of my precious niece who had a great time at the festival too!

Look at that sweet face!!!

Kindergarten Sock Hop

Yesterday, the Kindergarten classes celebrated their 50th day of school. The girls wore poodle skirts and the boys wore jeans and white t-shirts to commemorate this occasion.

Hula hooping can really turn a hair-do into a hair-don't

On your mark, get set, go..... She stopped long enough for a pose
I don't think her daddy was too happy with this situation.....
or this one.....
Not a fan of root beer floats...
Happier because I told her she didn't have to drink it......
Oh the joys of growing up. I just wished it didn't have to happen so fast......

~vikki~

Roll Tide!

We made the trip to Tuscaloosa for the game on Saturday. We had a great time and of course Mattie had a blast.

until she got tired of walking.....
but "Big Al" made it all better.....

Mattie said she couldn't believe there were 104 people there.....

The first take of this picture, I accidentally cut off the "G", so we had to do a re-take.
Mattie slept through the second quarter, when she woke up she asked me, "how did I sleep with all this noise?"
Mattie got some "A" earrings as her souvenir. The next morning was Sunday and she wore her houndstooth outfit with accompanying "Alabama" accessories. She really wanted me to get a picture of her new earrings. The first try, she looked at the picture and was disappointed you couldn't really see them, so we made a second attempt. By the third attempt she was determined I was going to get a good shot of the earrings. See how the photo shoot went:

Tate Farms...again....

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE LOVE LOVE Tate Farms! Mattie just had her Kindergarten Field Trip there last week and we felt like Nathan should get to go too. And since Alabama had an off day, we were able to go, So, Saturday morning we headed out to Tate Farms. We were supposed to meet up with some friends (which we never found each other). Note to self - don't dress your children in orange next year, it's a very popular color! It was difficult to keep up with my kiddos especially because they would run in different directions with all the other kids dressed in orange.
We spent tons of cash....(that's the part I don't like) But as usual, we had a blast.
Here are a few pictures to prove it!

Family Fun Day at the Zoo

Since it's fall break, Matt and I decided to try to plan something fun for the kids to do. We planned to drive to Birmingham Tuesday night and spend the night and get up the next day and go to the Birmingham Zoo. The plan was perfect in theory....
We left town when Matt got off work and headed south. I knew we were in for a long ride when Mattie kept asking about the distance and how long it would take us to get there. And, the kids had already finished looking at the books and playing with the toys I brought after the first 5 minutes of the drive. We get to Birmingham, finally, and we stop to eat at Johnny Rocket's. Nathan was his normal, awful, terrible 2 self. Then we checked into our hotel and the first thing Mattie wanted to do was swim in the indoor/outdoor pool. Matt was not interested in swimming at all. So Mattie and I head down to the pool and hot tub. With it being an indoor/outdoor pool the outdoor water comes into the indoor part, therefore, the water was freezing. So Mattie and I opted for the hot tub, and it was enough to satisity the princess. We relaxed in the hot tub for all of about 10 minutes and she was ready to get out. We headed back to our "condo" as Mattie kept calling it, which it was just a short walk down the hall to our room. Mattie and I got changed and she reminded me that the lady at the front desk said they had free popcorn and cokes in the lobby until 10:00, so Mattie, Nathan and I headed to the lobby. The hotel lobby staff had just made fresh baked cookies, this is what family fun is all about!
So, we get tucked in and off to sleep we go. The next morning we wake up to HEAVY rainfall. The poor kids just looked out the window hoping and praying for it to stop.

Trying to entertain 2 kids in a hotel room is not for the weak. The phonebook was a big hit....I just hope the next person that stays there does not need to look anything up. Finally, we had had enough in the room, so, we get in the car and head to the mall. We were able to pass the time away until the rain stopped and we headed to the zoo.....


**note to self, do not let husband be in charge of the camera, or you will get a gorrila butt shot.
He redeemed himself with this photo.....(my favorite on of the whole trip)

**took back the redemption..... beautiful animals, but all Mattie would say is, "it stinks out here, can we ride the train now?"






Anyhoo...that was the zoo. Who knows what next fall break has in store.

One last thought that sums up the whole trip:

$103 for hotel stay

$50 for zoo tickets and train ride

and a ton of $ on all kinds of other stuff.....

and this is the thanks we get......PRICELESS