Cash's Stats

Well I have been really bad about taking pictures here lately. We've just been on the go a lot lately. But anyway, here's Cash's stats from his "6 month" check-up (he'll be 7 months next week).... weight - 19 lbs 3 oz (75%) height - 25 1/4" (5%) head circumference - 44 cm (50%) he did drop from 95% to 75% on weight so his constant moving must be helping him slim down.

Cash Man

Parkes has given Cash a new nickname...Cash Man is what he likes to call him these days. So I hear all day long most days, "Mom (or Katie depending on his mood) can I hold Cash Man." He moved away from calling me mommy sometime ago and it is now just mom most of the time occasionally I'll get a mommy. Below is the new back door, it has always been the main complaint I've had with our house is it didn't have a good connection to the backyard without going right through the laundry room so we are still in the process of reworking that, but getting closer. The laundry room was not added on very well by whoever did it so there are a few things we have to fix with that like the horrible roof they put on it. But since Brandon does the work our house projects are slow since the other houses he has going on come first. The boys have been having fun playing on the floor together now that Cash is more into playing with toys. He does have a huge shoe fetish and can spot any shoes in the room and immediately scoots over to them. Parkes is all into joking these days and constantly telling us we are silly and just joking which doesn't work out too well when I tell him to clean his room and he tells me I'm just joking. And finally yesterday we decided to pull out the ice cream cone trick we used when Parkes was little (my mom had seen a lady giving her child a ice cream cone with no ice cream while at a restaurant and it entertained the child while she ate and it dissolves in your mouth so good for small kids). Well we thought Cash was probably a little young but he had been grabbing at our food anytime we ate so we gave him one and within the first 5 seconds it was gone. This is the second one he got so I could get a picture because I wasn't quick enough on the first. Don't think this is going to work to let us eat a meal, but at least he enjoyed it.

Yoga Poses

Isn't this downward facing dog or something? This is how Cash "crawls"...he gets in this pose and then thrusts himself forward to then do it again until he gets were he wants to go. He is getting faster at it. His cousin Draper crawled on her hands and feet so he might be taking after her. At least we know he definitely has good balance.

Not much to Post

Well really not too much to post about us...really just no pictures, we have cut a hole in the back of the house and added a door with a small deck landing and stairs, and reworked the laundry room to add cubbies to contain all of the stuff that gets dropped at the door, gone to the pool and played outside, and the most exciting found out we are going to have another little boy around soon to play with (no not us, but our friends Keri and Matt). And for all those mommies that want to get a photobook of their kiddos this week at cvs the kodak photobooks are $7.99 and you get $7.99 back for your next purchase if you have a cvs card. So I will get pictures of the boys this weekend so I will have something exciting for y'all....have a great week.

Brandon's VIP Night

Well last night was Brandon's big night to go see Poison and meet the band. There's not a lot that excites him like some 80's hair bands and Poison is his all time favorite....he's seen them now 16 times. The above picture was just way too fun not to share, however, he might disagree. From the time he got in at 2 am last night to this morning I have gotten to hear all the minute by minute details. This is a girl from Rock of Love 2. I haven't seen any of this season after the couple episodes I saw from last season were pretty scary, but I will say from seeing this picture she's pretty manly looking.

4th Festivities and 6 Month Old

Brandon's parents were back in town for the fourth to celebrate with us and because Brandon grew up with some of our close friends we had a small get together to celebrate. Here's Cash with his grandparents...which he turned 6 months today and although not crawling on his hands and knees he does have using his arms to pull himself where he wants to be down and can get anywhere he wants to go. We won't go to the doctor for his check-up until later on in the month to keep his shots in line for being late last check-up. Parkes, Jay and Abby James had fun playing together. A rare picture of just me and Brandon. Draper decided to drive the Hummer after Parkes got off of it...none of the kids wanted to get on with Parkes behind the wheel. Parkes watched the fireworks from the same spot he did last year, but at least this year he was joined by Jay. The fireworks were more for the big kids...Brandon and our neighbor Scott did the fireworks for our entertainment, but they definitely got outshone by some people down the street with much bigger ones. Brandon never ceased to entertain though with his hushing of the crowd for what we thought would be a big one and turned out to be very wimpy. And he got lots of laughs for his snakes which don't really do anything, but those were for Parkes since they don't make noise. The adults and their sparklers. Poor Brandon at the end of the night...he had scratched his eye earlier in the day and the smoke must of irritated it. He, also, burned his finger pretty good. He took it easy on Saturday so he could heal.

7 Wonderful Years

...since Brandon and I had our first date after meeting two weeks prior out at the Bound'ry celebrating my friend's birthday (he was friends with her boyfriend). Within the first two days of dating Brandon had asked me back to a hot tub (which did not happen), introduced me to his parents, took me to a Slipknot concert (I'll just say not the music I listen too), took me to a random party out in the middle of the woods where the entertainment was people jumping a fire pit on motorcycles, and fixed my car that had broken down. I tell him that he's lucky the last event happened otherwise he should of definitely scared me off. We did spend every day together from our first date on, but didn't go on a date just the two of us until three months later when we went to Waffle House...how romantic.

Brandon's Bama Boys

We headed out to the last Dragon Music Sunday this weekend and here are the hats that Parkes' picked out for him and Cash to wear....of course this made Brandon very happy. We've been busy with Brandon's parents in town which these are the only pictures I've gotten because of the camera battery, but I'll get more when they come back through Nashville next weekend. But been out and about around town enjoying the sunshine. I highly recommend going out to Blue Moon for Sunday brunch for anyone looking to enjoy good food and lots of entertainment for kids with the boats and ducks going by the dock. And Cash finally got his first tooth in...he's been drooling for a few months now, and it looks like he has several that will be following soon. Have a great week and 4th.

Fun Sunday Yard Work

As we were heading out of the house Saturday evening to take the boys to my parents and enjoy a night out to celebrate a girl I went to high school's birthday, I see this coming down on our windows. I let out a huge scream which brought Brandon running thinking something happen to the boys. He then told me not to scare him like that again because by the time he got in there he didn't see anything until I told him to look out side. Now in my defense I thought the whole tree was coming down and not just one limb of it, but it is a big limb. It rolled off the house, but luckily did no damage and just missed the neighbors car by a couple inches. So needless to say this was Brandon's fun day of yard work for Sunday, but we do have lots of firewood for next year. Cash tried something besides cereal the other day...swiss chard from our CSA. As you can tell he wasn't so sure about it. Here's Parkes eating the cake batter from the cake we took over to the grandparents on Saturday. He always wants to have parties and bake cakes so I let him get his wish on Saturday and bake the cake with promises that we will have a "party" when his Texas granny and Texas Grandpa come in town (yes that is what he calls them, it is really funny to listen to him talk to them calling them that). Parkes was sick a little last week which sickness for him is not slowing down at all and last about two hours, but keeping him away from Cash and others is the worse. So we spent lots of time with nonstop questions coming from Parkes..."where was I when you were in Grammy's belly?", "where was I when you and Daddy got married?", "did you get married at my school or my church?", "where does Abby James go to school?" and much, much more. Finally, I changed out the music in honor of Brandon who will be going backstage at Bret Michaels concert in the beginning of July. He has made some good connections with his new company that wanted to help him out too so they got him and his friend backstage passes. The only two famous people Brandon would like to meet are Bret Michaels (which he has been working on for awhile since they go to the same diabetes doctor) and Bon Jovi which one of his clients knows him too so I'm sure he'll work on that one as well.

Father's Day at the Park

For Father's Day we spent the weekend spending time together (for the most part, Brandon did have to work some, but just part of building a company). He is such a wonderful dad to Parkes and Cash, and always makes a point to spend as much time as he can with them. I'm so lucky to have a husband that is going to pass such wonderful, caring qualities unto his sons. So we started out the weekend going to a neighborhood yard sale at the neighborhood next to ours...it usually is a great yard sale and Brandon loves to yard sale (he gets really excited when he starts to see the signs go up in the spring). This year maybe it was the rain, but there really wasn't much good stuff. Parkes did really well bringing home a lot of toys that he bought with his change, but that was about it. So then Sunday we went to Dragon Park for Dragon Music Sundays. It was a wonderful afternoon of relaxing and playing and listening to music. Here's Parkes showing off his soccer skills...he'll get to play this fall so he is excited.

Drugstore Programs

For those that have asked about how to save money while getting tons of stuff for free, here's a great link that explains the drugstore programs. It does take a little practice to not be overwhelmed with all the stuff that is marked and picking the best deals for you.

Brandon will probably get mad about this post, but I'm sure his mom will be happy to see since school was never really his thing (he's really smart just didn't like school).....He passed his Residential and Small Commercial Contractor's Test!!!! Parkes was so excited it was funny. He keep asking me "What did Daddy win for passing his test?" So we made him a sign to come home to so he would win something. If I had made the picture bigger you would see that Parkes has no pants on...this is his new thing, the minute we get home the pants go off. I did figure out it was because I keep Cash in a onesie most days so he wants to wear no pants like his brother. Below is Cash in his crawl stance trying to figure out how to get his legs to move.

A Big Pile of Rocks

Friday morning a dump truck dropped off a big pile of rocks. And off course once Parkes got home from school he could not wait to climb it. It wasn't long before he grabbed his shovel to help spread out the gravel... luckily we didn't have to depend on just Parkes spreading it with his shovel, but we got our neighbor's bobcat that Brandon now has the key to since we borrow it so much. Parkes loves to ride in it helping daddy. I, however, do not like how much Brandon lets him ride it and make them stop so I can get Parkes out when they start doing the heavy lifting. And here is our driveway. It will be nice to use the back door. Of course there is some edging to do, but it is usable. The dirt patch on the right is going to be a flower bed, but I didn't want to plant anything until after the dump truck came so he wouldn't kill any plants...I will do that on my own with my black, black thumb. And here is what Cash did while we were racking out the dirt piles left from the bobcat. He loves to be outside and watch his big brother. He turned 5 months today, and had his 4 month doctor's appt on friday...yes a little on the late side, but we wanted to wait for his rider to be lifted off insurance and the doctor said it would be fine. I say this because his weight was 16 lbs 14 oz, 85 percentile (he had an extra month to gain from the other kids in the percentiles). This method of thinking though does not help his height which was 23 1/2", 5th percentile. His doctor was very impressed with his movement for being such a big boy. And he got 4 shots which like Parkes he took them like a champ.

Spring Program

Well this was a couple weeks ago now and I'm just getting the pictures (which are not the best quality) posted, but Parkes had his Spring Program at school. From the Fall Program Parkes was more vocal this time around (or at least he moved his mouth). He did, like last time, sway the whole time that they sang. It was very cute and he had lots of family that were able to be there to see him...one and a half sets of grandparents and and two aunts and uncle. He will stay in school all summer without even a day off so I am very excited about that. He is not at this moment excited because his best friend is at a different school now, but we are going to try to keep getting together so they can stay friends since they have become such great friends. And he is upset about school because they are making a new playground and he does not like change, but today was his first day with new friends in his class so I am hopeful he'll have fun and not be "depressed" as the teacher said he was the first day his friend was gone. He did tell me he was planning on drawing lots of "Holden's" to play with. Here's his class...he's on the far left. He is so short for his class which he is the youngest, but he'll always be towards the shorter side in school. Here's when the whole school went up to sing "I am a Promise" Cash was held by Grammy during the program Here's the boys in their matching outfits...Grammy has bought them several matching clothes lately and Parkes has really taken to them and gets mad if they are not matching so I at least have to make sure they have the same colors on. We are now official Y members, so we have taken advantage by meeting friends at the pool. Cash loved the nursery or at least took a nice three hour nap after getting home from the nursery and Parkes enjoyed swimming....he warmed up slowly but once he got in he was back to the little fish he was last year and swimming small distances on his own. Cash and I went again today thanks to my friend, Laura, for pushing me to start working out...I have never been to a gym much less gotten on a machine before so I told Laura she would have to be hard on me and make me go which I didn't expect would be the day after I told her that, but I'm glad she made me go...thanks! I need to get in shape to keep up with another active boy. Cash's latest move is to crawl over his boppy...yes I know crazy. He rolls over from his back and uses his arms to get over the boppy to the other side. So no more using the boppy to keep him still...no boppy, no carseat, he hates the swing, I'm running out of places to keep him still so I can change laundry and stuff and he's only a week shy of 5 months.

Wonderful Friday

This morning was just one of those great mornings where everything worked out perfectly. It made me finally feel after the last four and a half months that I am adjusting to two kids and can get things accomplished. Cash and Parkes both slept until 8 which gave me time to get everything ready for the day. Feed Cash, got Parkes feed and dressed and ready for school. Left the house at 8:55, dropped off Parkes, ran by a friend's and visited for 30 some odd minutes, went to the bank, went to Walgreens, Target and CVS, spent $0.67 total and got $60 worth of stuff and $21 back in gifts cards or coupons towards my next purchase, and home by 11:30 to feed Cash and myself. With this kind of good luck I need to head down to Tunica!!!

Happy Memorial Day

Hope y'all all enjoyed the long weekend. We worked really hard around the house Saturday and Sunday so we could enjoy some family time Monday....and of course it rained, but we still had a good day eating bar-b-que and playing a little corn hole (I think that is the right name). Parkes has a hidden talent for it. One of the projects of the weekend was to get Parkes' room and playroom cleaned out. In his playroom we had a lot of empty walls and a lot of artwork from the past three years so Parkes now has his own art gallery so he can admire his work. And finally Cash has become a belly sleeper. He decided to start rolling over to sleep and it is really what has made all the difference in his sleeping.

Update on Daisy

Just wanted to update those that had asked about Daisy. She is still no where to be found. Just went over to the Humane Society this morning to do another look around and a very nice man and women let me go back into the area where the new dogs were just coming in and getting cleaned to check there. I told them if they got a call about a dog that seemed scared and wouldn't let people near her it could be her. Brandon thinks she was snatched because another dog in our area disappeared that same day and it is just like Daisy...no sign of it anywhere, but I don't like to think about that so instead I think that some nice person without young kids has taken her in and she is happy and not as anxious as she was with us. I am not sold on her being snatched because I don't see her letting anyone take her....if you have meet her you would know she's not real open to new people, super loving and sweet once she decided she liked you, but we had to give her tranquilizers just to get her to the vet because of her anxiety problems so I feel if someone was taking her while we were outside we would of known about it. Parkes is okay about it, he just keeps waiting for her to come home. He, however, still asks when Bama's going to come back from visiting God to see us again. On a happy note Cash slept until 8 this morning!!!!!!!!!! For about the past month and a half he felt that 4 AM was a good time to wake up. Wasn't ideal but at least he was going to bed a 10:30 to 11 so there was no complaining well at least not after I got out of bed. Now if we could only get Parkes to go to bed before 11 to midnight we would be doing well.

Poor Daisy

Yes I've used this picture before, but it seems to be the only one I have of Daisy. Saturday she went missing while we were all outside playing and we thought she had gone back inside something she often does so she isn't being chased by Parkes. We have had the fence taken out to put in a new one for a few months now but she was always so good about staying around our house, she had anxiety problems and was scared to leave. Luckily we have wonderful neighbors who would let her in and out when we were gone so she wouldn't have to leave the house, but even that was very traumatic for her and she had gotten really mad at us about leaving mother's day weekend and wouldn't even go out for our neighbor. She has also had a rough time this past year after our other dog, Bama, passed away and then with bringing Cash home (she had finally gotten used to Parkes and wasn't thrilled about another baby). It's a little strange though that there is no sign of her at all from any of the neighbors and we walked the whole greenway near our house if she had followed the creek from our house down she would of ended up there. No sign of her, but I did find out with a quick mile and a half walk I can be at Target. And we have an animal hospital right down the street and they haven't seen her and we've been down to the humane society and she's not there. So hopefully she'll find her way home otherwise I hope some nice person has picked her up and is taking good care of her and she's not lost and scared. Parkes keeps yelling out the window for her hoping she'll come home.

Who is Who??

Well I finally got two picture of the boys from the same age on the same computer, might seem easy, but not how we have it all hooked up and that's a big long confusing story so anyway here they are.... I just need to get a picture of Brandon at 4 months too and it's really scary. Keri and my sister both said they thought they saw a little me in him at first, but wednesday when I saw my sister she said it was gone and today when we stopped by Keri's she said the same thing. I have always seen almost all Parkes and Brandon from the beginning.

Mother's Day weekend

Cash is trying to sit by himself. He still has a ways to go as far as being able to balance out his body, but he definitely has the strength. This morning I set him in his carseat so I could make his bottle and I can't do this for very long or out of site because he has been able to wiggle himself out of the carseat for a couple months now (way too early if you ask me to be doing that kind of moving...I'm having scary thoughts of an earlier crawler, Parkes was 10 months and it was very nice). Anyway, so I turn around to put in the formula and turn back around because he starts crying and find him belly side down in his carseat. And Parkes has started to try to hold Cash so every time I turn around I find them like this. It's hard to explain to Parkes not to hug him all the time. This weekend we went to Brandon's parents house in west Tennessee. They got a trampoline for Brandon's sister for Christmas and of course that's all Parkes wanted to do. He had a blast jumping around and even learned to do a forwards roll. Cash got on for a second but quickly spit up so had to go back in. And we had a great and relaxing Mother's Day with them as I got a break from being the bad parent and always saying no. Parkes was so sweet...he's been telling me all week "happy mother's day" because they were talking about it at school, and gave me a present when I picked him up on Friday where he written why he loved me. His answer, "Because mom brought Cash home and changes his diaper." And Brandon actually went out at midnight Saturday night to get some flowers for me which I didn't expect anything since we were out of town and he had already told me he was getting some flowers to go in what will be a flower bed in the backyard once the driveway goes down so it was sweet of him to sacrifice his sleep especially since he then got up with Cash at 3 when he woke up. Cash seems to be two good nights then one bad so not too bad...Parkes did spoil us, but we are learning not to expect anything close to the same except for looks. One day I'll put a side by side picture of them at the same age (Parkes' are on another computer), but it really does scare me sometimes looking at Cash because I feel like I am looking at Parkes 3 years ago. And finally some funny moments from the week...Parkes usually goes to children's worshop at church well at Happy's (Brandon's dad...Parkes named him) church there is none because it is small so when communion came out Parkes decided it was a good time to say the pray and proceeded to sing loudly throughout the whole communion, "God, our Father, God, our Father, God, our Father..." he never made it to the second verse. And last night when he went to bed he decided it was a good idea to hide from us, but indeed up falling asleep before we came to find him so when I went to check on him before I went to bed I couldn't find him...after a moment of panic I saw a small foot sticking out of a pile of pillows. Hope all the moms and moms-to-be had a great day yesterday!!!!!