my brush with fame

what does an aspiring lawyer do on his birthday???

he studies for the bar exam.

HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY THOMAS!!!


and what does an aspiring lawyer's house look like on his birthday?

notice the culprit in the lower right hand corner. for such a small boy, he creates such widespread destruction. and yes, that is yet another picture of reagan with no pants on. we are too busy learning latin and being a loving family to waste time on details like pants!

this past weekend we went to thomas's brother sean's wedding in knoxville, tennessee(enemy territory).

this shot is outside the church. thomas and reagan are posing with aunt mindy and uncle justin. the odd thing is that i never took any pictures of the bride and groom. or anything else wedding related! i don't know what i was thinking.

thomas, reagan and mimi susu at the rehearsal dinner.

thomas and reagan outside the church. the neon green cards in thomas' right hand are bar flash cards.

on the way home from knoxville, we passed through fort payne, alabama, home of the legendary country music supergroup, ALABAMA!!! here is the signage outside of their fan club and museum. highlight of the trip, no doubt!

lying around on the job

reagan has this natural affinity to put his head on any blanket or pillow on the floor. sounds odd right? i think he gets it from me. i also like to rest anywhere i can.

the last hurrah of the triumvirate: kim, caroline and heidi

a week and a half ago, reagan and i went to caroline's house to see john evan and to play with sydney in her pool. kimmykimmykimkam and madison came too!

reagan enjoyed the water, but he really wanted to run around on the hot pavement.



madison and kim took turns holding john evan.

last friday, kim and madison came over for swimming and caroline and john evan and sydney joined us for lunch. we made homemade pizza and baked cookies. this was our final playdate together, as kim's family just moved to huntsville and our family is moving to montgomery.


not our best picture, but here we are all together for the last time: kim, heidi and caroline. madison took this photo for us. can you believe she is only 4 years old?

march of the vacuums

i hate to break it to all y'all, but my son is the cutest, funniest, most adorable thing ever.



these shots just crack me up. he is very adamant about his vacuum collection. i have had to take evasive action to hide the large vacuum in different closets when he is not looking so that he will play with other toys once in a while. it is an OBSESSION! sometimes he like to hold the two small ones at once. sometimes he likes to sit on his toy car and hold a vacuum while he is "driving". he has even brought me a small vacuum to hold on my lap at the dinner table.



a good sabbath activity, running around in our church clothes before church! aren't i a brave mother to allow him to do that?

thomas and i celebrated our fourth anniversary on sunday. i made a chocolate torte and reagan ate a bunch of it. as i was taking a picture of him, he decided he wanted the camera(electronics are #2 behind vacuums) and i snapped this photo as he was lunging for it. i laughed so hard, i cried!

nothing says "i love the usa" like large weaponry

today we visited the local veteran's memorial in order to commemorate the nation's birthday. all of the items at the memorial were actually used in combat.




does this scream "if i could turn back time" or what???

mcreagan's

this week playgroup was held at a local mcdonald's. it was very exciting as this mcdonald's is a brand new, top of the line mcdonald's with a huge indoor playroom. also, this is the site of the mcdonald's that ronald reagan visited way back in the 80's when he was campaigning for president. i thought it was only appropriate to take a picture in front of the ronald reagan shrine they had on display.


reagan wasn't nearly as excited about it as i was.

martha stewart didn't have small children in mind with some of her recipes

i consider myself to be capable cook. i also subscribe to martha stewart living. put these two ingredients together(ha ha, recipe play on words) and i have a fun evening planned. i have never been a griller, but the vivid images in this month's issue lit my coals of excitement. i thought that i would do something relatively easy; marinaded steak and carrots, green peppers,and corn. my first lesson was that nothing is easy with a 15 month old that likes to run into the street. secondly, marinades sizzle. thirdly, vegetables cook fast. i think a good description for this meal would be "well-done". another pun!!!

it's hard out there for a gimp

i hope someone out there familiar with pop culture gets that title.


reagan has had some interesting playtime requests now that his abilities are reduced. yesterday, i spent 20 minutes pulling him around the living room in his wagon. he wanted to be propped up by a pillow and needed a full sippy cup of milk to adequately enjoy his ride. thomas referred to it as his booze cruise around the living room.



please do not judge me by my yucky outfit(and my very messy, undecorated, completely boxed up house). and yes, i did take that shirt from the weight room at byu.




reagan, pleased as punch, on his booze cruise.




today we went to lake lurleen for joey bush's first birthday party. we had a GREAT time. i particularly enjoyed my hot dog and my birthday cake flavored ice cream. jessica was an excellent event planner.


reagan and joey spent some time being pulled around in the wagon together.




reagan loves LOVES loves animals. especially dogs. he is not one bit afraid of them and he makes a funny closed mouth squeal whenever he sees one. he likes petting them and pulling their ears. lately he has taken up chasing meatball down the hall. quite the sight with his big cast throwing off his balance.




our cute boy running to his mama.

we love the hospital

reagan has never been sick in his whole 15 months of life. no ear infections, colds, colic or anything. he was, however, born 1 month early and spent 8 days in the neonatal intensive care unit. plus, since january, he has had 2 surgeries and 1 visit to the emergency room. the visit to the emergency room was today. reagan rolled off the edge of the bed and landed on his arm. both the bones were fractured in his left forearm. reagan is a champ; while i was running around hysterically, he was calm. he even stopped crying on the way to the hospital. i wish that i could say the same for myself. even while he was being examined, he was in good spirits. after some painkillers, he even wanted to play on the floor while we were waiting for the doctor. i don't know where he gets it. not from me. i was a basketcase for all 4 1/2 hours at the hospital. despite my shortcomings(i never thought my life would parallel britney spears), he will be fine. he keeps staring at his cast though, wondering why it is so heavy.

everything has to be an ordeal.

so, where to begin...reagan and i took a trip to utah for the williams family reunion. i have come to believe that there is no such thing as a simple trip to the airport for us. first, we had to drive 3 hours to the atlanta airport. then while i was circling the parking lot, poor reagan barfed his guts out. not just baby barf, but heaving, lurching, gut wrenching adult barf. everywhere. i was hysterical and behind the wheel. what a combo. by some miracle thomas and i get reagan cleaned up and we check into our flight at the airport. but, the story does not end there. en route to our concourse, we get to spend about 352 minutes in line for the screening process. so no matter how much time we alotted, there was no way we were going to make it to the plane. at this point i am running down the concourse like a crazy person,(in flip flops no less) pushing a baby with a queasy stomach that smells like vomit and stomach acid in a stroller . i make it to the gate just as they shut the doors. i am then informed that there is nothing that i can do at this point and that i need to reschedule my flight. superific. unfortunately, this is the last flight of the day and i have to call thomas, who is driving back to tuscaloosa, to come and get me and reagan. i am put on standby for the 6:30am flight the next day. but, lucky for me, my luggage and reagan's carseat made it on the flight and were well on their way to salt lake. hurray. ulitimately, the airline paid for half our hotel and lent us a bottom of the line, 20 lbs and under weight limit, rickety, broken, car seat. i got up at 3am and made the 6:30am flight, all fresh and chipper as can be. some old woman gave me half of her burger king breakfast sandwich. it was very weird and i was wondering just how homeless i looked at that point that i garned a free meal from a stranger. anyway, once we got to utah, we had a great time and here are some pictures to prove it. also, i was randomly at the univesity mall with my mom before we left for bear lake and who did i run into??? jessica creer!!! what a great surprise! her adorable kids were with her and we were able to chat for a few minutes! i wish i had more time to see them, but i what a pleasant event!



barf baby and me at the atlanta airport.


my beautiful cousin angie. notice poor reagan's sunburn. it was only like 65 degrees outside and he was pretty well covered, but he still was roasted. i felt like the WORST mother in the world. i had been away from utah too long. all that altitude and thin air did things to my mind.


the view from our cabin.














i'm not really sure what this picture is of, but it is funny to look at. it looks like reagan is highstepping with our cousin janelle and david is smelling his armpit. go figure.













reagan has discovered thomas's belly button and likes to put things in it. usually it is his thumb. today, it was his bottle brush.

sometimes he also likes to blow zerberts on thomas's stomach.

i think in this shot reagan is heading for meatball. notice the alarm in meatball's eyes.




our cute baby. this is the smile he makes when he eats bananas.

mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be lawyers

this past week we went to waycross to visit family. there are many, many animals at river ridge farm, where thomas' mom and step dad live. one morning we were enjoying breakfast and we noticed an extra visitor out the front window with the front yard cats. a cow was looking in the window while we were looking out. i ran outside to scare the cow back into the fence. i was feeling all high and mighty after i accomplished this task when i looked out the window again and saw about 6 cows roaming around the front yard. thomas was able to answer his true calling as a cow traffic controller and wrangled all the cows back into the pasture. a very exciting day indeed as thomas went from doctor thomas to cowboy thomas.


by the way, all these photos were taken with reagan balancing on my hip. well, balancing is a stretch. more like clinging for dear life. mama wasn't going to miss this blog moment for any little "safety" concern.


our cowboy in action.

mimi susu bought reagan a little pool to play in since it was about 650 degrees outside with 342 percent humidity all weekend.

reagan after enjoying some spaghetti. something tells me that we won't be getting our deposit back on that portion of wall behind his high chair.