chocolate milk, pease.

james loves chocolate milk. he wants it before bed, in the morning and all day long. unfortunately, we don't always give into his requests but he gets his fair share. this guy isn't getting shorted.

do you ever have those small moments when you know you're child is a genius? yes, yes, yes - i know we all think that often but really? like, james will do something and i think his brain is clicking. he is getting it. he'll be smarter than me. is he like me when i was little? did i think so in-depth about chocolate milk?

james always asks for chocolate milk followed by a pease. this trick worked for a while but now we're professionals. so, when we do decide to adhere his request he now says thank you. followed by his new genius moment -  he looks for chocolate at the bottom of his cup. yep. as soon as we give it to him. he needs to see it to believe it. we used to get away with telling him it was chocolate and he never said a word. now, as soon as we make him a drink, he lifts it up and searches for the chocolate evidence. if he doesn't see chocolate at the bottom of the cup, he's going to let you know about it.

i obviously passed the test. a nice cup and some mickey mouse equals one happy boy. you know, truth be told, i love chocolate milk too. maybe we do have this in common.

tunnel vision? chocolate induced coma?

i don't care.

10 minutes of silence. 

joy. pure joy. i think i hear birds outside. they've never sounded so wonderful.

medusa.

i was going to link up to saturday morning scene again but the host didn't post one today. is it over and i missed it? i have been so caught up in moving and my recent life changes, i have missed blogs and posts and current events. maybe selfish, maybe just busy. priorities. either way, i'll do my own little saturday morning scene. today i wanted to introduce you to medusa.

someone thoughtfully chose this light fixture for the master bedroom. lucky me. cough, cough. at first, i thought it was just an eye sore. i'd much rather have a ceiling fan. hands down. any day of the week. but still, i thought it might grow on me. 

i thought wrong. 

i wake up to this sight every morning.

yep, that is my actual view. it probably has a zoom on it though.

the bottom two look a little lower to me most of the time. i'm sure it is just from where i sleep and the angle i look up and see this beauty. but still, they remind me of medusa even more. 

here is a glimpse into my new home. and yes, this might be my biggest complaint so far. and if that is it, i really am happy. remember - i did not see this house until moving day. so, we all knew i'd find something that i didn't like. i just didn't know it would be the "chandy" in the master. hopefully medusa and i will make friends. she better be nice or i'll just have mr. h replace her with the old, trusty fan. i suppose this could be her official warning. 

put the scissors down.

so, before the move mr. h and i decided to have a garage sale. i've never hosted a garage sale but i knew that we had some good stuff that we don't use but didn't want to haul to texas. i went through james' things and clothes. then i went through my stuff. mr. h did the same. we were set. kind of. having a bi-state marriage and a two year old made it nearly impossible to be 100% prepared. 

the days leading up to the garage sale were filled with clouds and rain. great! now it might not even happen. i'm mentally prepared to part with our junk. i was trying to take the "no stress" approach that mr. h insisted. he said this would be a fun garage sale, not a stressful one. on the designated morning it was rainy. this allowed us to get around slow but once the clouds parted, we finally decided to call over the grandparents to watch james while we put the advertisement signs out around the hood and tend to the mass crowd that wanted to buy our gently used or pre-owned possessions. ha.

all was fine and dandy. well, the lack of people for the first hour was concerning but things were fine and dandy until....i walked inside to get something. i don't even remember what because i was greeted to this scene - grandma standing behind james, holding scissors and cutting his bangs. yes, you read that right. grandma blindly cutting my son's hair. i was speechless. i couldn't even concentrate on what to say. put the scissors down was all that came out. then i yelled to mr. h that his mom was cutting james' hair. (now, i know she meant no harm so i am not trying to portray her that way.) i just want you to know that besides a little baby frizz trim, we have not cut james' hair. on purpose. this was shocking. and heartbreaking. and fine but definitely unexpected. mr. h explains to her that she does not have authority to make those kind of decisions. she stopped but once i explained that we hadn't cut his hair she handed me this:

a sweet lock of baby hair. 

who knows where it came from. 

somewhere in the front-ish area.

tear.

grandma said that when she turned on the fan, james said his hair was blowin'. so, she thought his bangs were in his way. i don't get that interpretation though. truth be told, i had been thinking about cutting some of the front myself. i hate when parents intentionally style their child's hair where it looks cool but hangs in their eyes. that is like child cruelty. well, maybe not but close. or just mean. or selfish. or vane. or something stupid. so, as you can tell, i did not want to be one of those parents. the thing is, i probably would have turned on his favorite show and put him in his highchair or done it while he was sleeping - not standing behind him. oh, because i forgot to add, there was no mirror in front of him. he was blissfully unaware watching tv.

all i know is that james already had a semi-mullet. now he still has one but we're just not quite ready to cut his baby curls. the day is coming. this just bumped it up a bit. 

new school {again}.

back in september james started his new, two year old class at victory kids care.  on his first day, i took some cell snaps to send to mr. h and the grandparents.

i tried to get him to wear his backpack but no deal. so, i just propped him up for a picture. this lasted about three seconds before he was off to play with the new toys.

i wasn't really worried about the transition but the airplanes were a nice touch. james definitely approved. this class would only last a month but i'm sure it was a good month.

today was james' first day at a new school. i enrolled him in a two day a week mother's day out program at a local catholic church. today he is a little saint. cute name, right? so, i had to document the moment. via cell phone again. urg. this is how the drop off played out.

mom, you're taking me to daycare? me??

you're going to let the sweet face go?

okay, fine. let's do this!

follow me, please.

mom, i can't smile for you. i'm too busy watching all the other little saints go inside.

okay, mom. seriously, this backpack is loaded down and heavy. let's roll.

james p. sunshine was perfect. he gave me several big hugs but i didn't hear any cries or screams when i walked out of the room. truth be told, i miss him at home with me. i just need some time to unpack, run errands, complete employment stuff, you know - adult mommy things. i thought sending him for a couple of hours twice a week would give him some time to make friends and play. i hope he enjoys it. i'm about to go pick him up. i pray he gets a good report.

documenting life challenge: mess

my sweet friend, jen, is a talented photographer in the tulsa area. she also teaches the mamarazzi workshop, a class to teach moms how to use their dslr cameras. i took this class and highly recommend it. she has been hosting a weekly photo challenge. i've been taking a few pictures here and there with the chaos but not as much as i would like. i'm working on it now. per grandparent request, i will keep the blog up to date.  i've even taken some pictures to do the challenges but never blogged them. so, i won't be able to link up with the current challenge, but i'll still blog them. i'd like to complete them all so here we go.

this week the challenge was to take a picture of the messes our kids my - well, the mess my kid makes. since we just moved, this was definitely an easy "challenge" for me. ha. here is how i see things right now, i'm at home with james (just until i find a job) and so i let him have some fun. these are snaps taken yesterday during james' naptime and during the football game. this is real life.

yep, those legos are a hit. but there are so many miscellaneous toys thrown in the mix. james just keeps doing this. all day long.

until the living room looks like this:

melissa & doug puzzles are great. so are colors and his new big boy cup.

oh, and then there is the "helicocker" and "airpane". these go everywhere with us. james loves real ones even more but this is the best the local grocery store had to offer. james has no complaints.

the kid still loves horses and this book. they're around everyday too.

and in honor of game day, of course daddy and james were playing football. it really is funny. james throws a lot with his left hand. we does with his right too but i'm thinking he might be a south paw. 

so, here was a snapshot into my life yesterday. one day, once i get a job, we'll get a new tv stand, rug and coffee table. we'll move the living room furniture into a more recognizable arrangement. until then, it's james own playground. and we wouldn't have it any other way. i mean, can you think of a better way to introduce a two year old to a new house? he loves it! 

i wonder why.

goodbye vkc.

for me, the most stressful part about moving has been the changes that james will have to make. new home, new daycare, new park, new friends, new etc. i really (really!!!) loved james daycare in tulsa. i haven't found the daycare for james down in texas but i can assure you, they have some high standards to live up too. his last day of daycare was last friday. this would also be one of our last mornings together so we wanted to live it up. you know, don't set the alarm. wild! i tell ya, wild. luckily we have an alarm clock that always wakes up before 7:30. so, we slept in, went to brunch, went to get cupcakes for james' class to celebrate his last day, and then took him on to daycare so we could pick up the moving truck and meet the movers. i get exhausted just thinking back to that day actually.

so, as we're dropping james off, i started to cry. i knew i would but it just different when it is actually happening. i wouldn't be taking him there anymore. he would have the same "friends" in his class anymore. he's had the same three boys that were in his first class, at 7 weeks, in his class until now. until i'm making him move. it got me thinking back to his first day. i cried when i dropped him off then too. (i sound like an emotional basketcase. dang!)

let's compare some historic snaps. 

here we are before class:

7 weeks old! his hair almost looks red. and look at his little boat shoes, courtesy of auntie beebs. we still have those. i can't let them go.

wow! look at that big boy! he did not want to pose. or smile. he wanted to jump. 

who doesn't need three spit rags handy? with those cheeks, we used a lot of those rags. life savers. when we got a ton for presents i thought there was no way we needed that many. boy, was i wrong!

look at that adorable belly? and no, no split rags these days. i do use an incredible amount of paper towels and wet wipes though. a trade off? not sure. i do still have some of those spit rags though. i could be a little more green, i suppose.

thud! my heart just exploded. look at that little, sleeping nugget!!

now look at him! i'm not sure why the scowl but i think it's kind of funny.

there were my first and last day photos. i cannot believe how quickly time flies. i know it is so cliche but it is true. i want to hit pause. bottle it up. hit replay at times. but i can't. and i know that i'll cherish each first and last as much as i did the one before. i mean, i can't even imagine the last day of high school. no, no, no. i can't even think like that. 

on james' first day of school, mr. h had to carry my tiny baby inside and pray i didn't make a scene filled with tears before we left. on james' last day, he cheerfully led daddy inside. we are so blessed that we had such a wonderful daycare the past two years.  mr. h promises me that texas has good daycares too. he better be right. wink, wink.

howdy.

howdy ya'll!!!

this is my first time to report from the great state of texas. well, no it isn't. i blogged when i came down to run the austin marathon but i mean, this is my first blog since i've been living in texas. yee haw! about two months ago mr. h received an unexpected job opportunity in the dallas area. he fell in love and so we decided to pack up the family and move south of the red river.

here we are minutes before driving away from our first home:

we're all smiles. i'm smiling bc we're actually not running too far behind schedule, mr. h is smiling bc he has been down in texas for 6 weeks without his two best friends and james is smiling bc grandma gave him a new toy for the ride. have you seen toy story 3? there is a part when ken says, "new toys" and james mimics that line. it truly is funny.

i knew we had a lot of stuff but seriously, i had no idea how much junk stuff we've accumulated over the past five years. it took a small army to get us down here.

this is how we roll:

mr. h's parents were kind enough to caravan down here with us. mr. h drove the 24 foot, big truck, obviously. i drove my jeep with the babe, grandma drove the two dogs and grandpa had a bunch of miscellaneous stuff griswold style in his suv. yes, he called us the griswold's. i was thinking along the lines of beverly halebillies. ha. regardless, we all made it down here. james did great and we watched cars. twice. i gave him his lightening mcqueen toy and he was set. 

as soon as we crossed the red river, i wanted to stop for a family photo. unfortunately, we were pressed for time. we knew we were going to squeak in town just in time to meet the movers. and let me tell you, we were not going to miss those guys. talk about a marriage saver, i mean life saver. so, we stopped and ran to the big texas star. grandma didn't want to get out and then have to mess with getting the dogs all settled back in so this left grandpa to take our picture. i'm not sure if grandpa has ever held a dslr but he was a sport and did what i asked - please take a family picture of us in the star.

well, there we are. in the star. and since we were pressed for time, i laughed and knew i'd have to crop it down. 

here we are. newly texans.

hello texas. meet bonner.

and family.

we're glad to be here and look forward to the great opportunities you have waiting for us.