Memorable Misuses

Let's talk about Rhett. Hmmmmm....Rhett (insert head shaking). He's got to be the goofiest kid I've ever had. He makes me pull my hair out some days, has me asking myself, "Am I really having an argument with a five year old right now?" on more than one occasion each day, and EVERY day has me laughing.

His hair, as cute as it is, has become the thorn in my side. It's not actually the hair that's the thorn it's the attitude of the head that it's on. Just this past Sunday I told him we needed to get it brushed for church and he went on a mini rampage. "Hair! Who cares about HAIR??! YOU might but I don't. Why is it always about my hair. Can't my hair just have a BREAK???" I stood there dumbfounded. Then I laughed and answered, "No. It can't have a break on Sunday. And remember all the days this week you've worn a hat (which would be the other 6 days of the week)? Those were breaks".
I had done an installment on this blog before of some of the crazy words he comes up with. Click here to read the last Little Buddy Excerpt. He still hasn't exactly mastered the English language. I mean, really though, who has?
A few of my favorites over the past month or so have been "Ignoying" as in "MOMMY!! I've asked you a hundred times! Are you ignoying me? Uggghhh." I believe that's a improper mixture of "ignoring" and "annoying". And, yes, I'm ignoring because the question is annoying.
"End Structable"- "Listen, people. I've got two words for you: end structable."(insert pompous head bob). In reference to what I'm not sure but I believe that the correct word would have been "indestructible". He may have been referring to his own head because as you can see in these pictures he's about to fall right on it.
And the last one for today, "deathnately". As in, "I'm deathnately not going to land on Elaina when I jump off the couch right over her head! (insert any number of "duh mom" faces) I won't go into the details online but let's just say I deathnately made it clear that he deathnately WOULD NOT do that ever again.
He's such a crazy kid. And, he absolutely flipped completely over the swing on this run, clipped his head and landed flat on his back knocking the wind out of himself. It startled me and I quickly put my camera down to check on the lad. Before I could even get there he was up on his feet and with a slow head nod he said, "Now THAT was totally.awesome!" It was then I had wished I had continued with the pictures. Nothin' says "Mom of the Year" like a play by play pictage of your kid getting the wind knocked out of him. I'm sure it'll happen again if history has anything to say about it.

Outside

Elaina has a newfound love for being outside. She wants to be wherever her brothers are and if I don't head out with her she throws a back arching baby temper tantrum. There just aren't many places to put her down since she's not walking or crawling yet. Luckily for me, I've come up with another use for our winter time sleds:

A perfect little thingy for Lanie to sit in that solves her leaf eating tendencies!
Throw in a few small wiffle balls for entertainment and you've got a self-contained play area!
We've been spending quite a bit of time outside practicing our baseball skills. This guy finally has some self-motivation and has been asking to practice almost every day.
Rhett is pretty sure he's going to be the team MVP because self-confidence has never been a problem for this cat. He'll put in about seven solid minutes of practice then decides he's pretty much got it. I tried to break it to him easily that you can't be an MVP when you stink. Practice. More.
Grant puts in small increments of time as well. He needs lots of juice breaks.
Cade was practicing his hitting and I was just walking around with my camera in the field practicing some skillz of my own. Rhett was being Mr. Take My Picture Doing This and a pic of him holding Lanie was top on his list. Dear me. Rhett still hasn't mastered a safe way to be a baby holder.
He was bound and determined to get some pics with his sister. She was about over it though.
I looked over and saw this pile of kids and thought it was so cute. No wonder this gal is content most of the time. She's always got brothers to entertain her. I'm pretty sure she has her hand in a crawdad hole. Brothers are not always the best monitors.
In an unfortunate turn of events, this tender moment turned violent. I was by no means surprised.

Tenderness quickly turns to tackling at the Morgan's. It's just a fact of life.

Tenderness and testosterone. Antonyms. Elaina will probably be the first one year old that can apply a successful chokehold if her brothers' example sinks in. I'll make sure she's wearing a bow on the wrestling team. That you can be sure of.

Wilderness Weekend

This weekend we trekked up to East Tennessee for the Morgan Fam mini-vacay. We hit the Wilderness Lodge on Friday afternoon and headed straight for the indoor water park. The boys were so pumped about this weekend they could hardly stand it! Once we got there I rarely even saw these four. They were hitting the slides together and didn't slow down.

These two buddied up since they were just shy of the height requirement to ride the slides without an adult. Rhett's enthusiasm was uncontainable. If he screamed "OH YEAH, BABYYYY!!!" once, he screamed it a thousand times.
Someone had less than stellar enthusiasm about the water park:
She felt much more comfortable with someone holding her. In her defense, there were some sketchy people there. I was actually a little afraid myself at times:) After a couple hours she decided to warm up to the water a bit. I think she realized it was quite like her bathtime at home, only on a MUCH larger, louder, more public scale.....and she wasn't naked.
Then she saw her brother.....

and decided she really DID like it!
Yea!! Fear: conquered!
I happened to see Cade come off the yellow slide once and was able to snap a quick pic. He should have been in boy heaven this weekend being that there was a cheerleading competition going on with more 7-12 year old girls than I could count. Thankfully, however, he's still pretty clueless about the female species and probably had no idea. I personally think it should remain that way until college. Don't get me wrong.....I definitely want him to like girls....just not too much :) And, despite what you may think after seeing this picture, the child really does eat.
I made the observation that at least 80% of the water park attendees were sporting one or more tattoos. Some had tats from the neck to the ankles with no pink skin between. I'm glad that I had inked Rhett a few days before leaving so he didn't feel left out.
Rhett loved going in the wave pool. Me? I loathed it. Here he is trying to convince me that I really WOULD love it if I'd just get out there. I personally didn't like the idea of trying to keep myself from being forced under water by either a) a huge wave of water or b) some bafoon on a float with no regards to a woman trying to maintain her child's safety.
After flopping around in the waves Rhett headed back to make sure Elaina remembered that he really loves her a whole bunch. It had been an entire 7 minutes since he had kissed her.
I hope she relishes this time in her bikini. It will be the only time in her life that a tiny pot belly, rolly polly thighs, and a bikini can come together in total cuteness!
Bobby took her out in the waves for a while and just to make myself feel better I needed to yell out, "make sure you don't drop her!". It's the mom in me. So, Mr. Smart Aleck did this:
Of course, even after that she loved him. Even cupped his chest in love. That cracked me up for some reason.
Brothers in the pool:
And, some sweet pics of my baby girl's smile:

I know Bobby's mom enjoyed getting some QT with LanieBugs.
We finished off the weekend with a meal at Old Mill or what I like to call Cracker Barrel on steroids. Every portion was at least doubled and automatically came with fritters. I always avoid anything with the word "fritter". You should too unless you like the idea of a very rapid and painful colon cleanse.
We had a great time spending the weekend with cousins. We'll be looking forward to the next Wilderness Weekend!

H2O With BP

When Bobby heard that Brad Paisley was coming back to Nashville to finish out his H2O tour he knew that I'd want to be there. I don't know if anyone knows this, but I REALLY love a BP concert and my ultimate goal in life is to one day be friends with Brad and Kim. I'm pushing for racial diversity in their play group and I really feel that no play group is complete until it has a Hondurican.......just so happens I can help them with that :)

We started out our 2011 Tour of Concerts with our good friends Jeremy and Ashlee. I think they got more than they bargained for at this concert. No one is the same after they've watched a 19 year old and a 45ish year old meeting and making out all during one concert set. Blek.

Look closely here and you'll see my friend Christine standing RIGHT NEXT to the stage after winning front row tickets on a radio station. I personally think any REAL friend would've handed over those tickets to a true BP fan especially knowing my goal and knowing she also had the backstage passes that totally could've given me the "in" that I needed. I tried to slip her my family bio with my number but the pass off just didn't happen.
The first opener was Jarrod Neiman. I had never heard of him but had heard a couple of his songs. "Whaddaya want, whaddaya want, whaddaya want from me?" was one that I liked quite a bit. I'm sure that's not the original title but I never claimed to know it all. Most of the other songs were different versions of being overly intoxicated.....with the exception of the other song I liked "lover, lover, loverrrr you don't treat me no good no more". I probably wouldn't treat my lover very nicely either if he used such bad grammar. Moving on.

The next act was Darius Rucker and I was entertained from beginning to end with him. He toured with BP at another concert we attended but was even better this time.
He brought back some Hootie favorites and it was spectacular. I really could listen to his smokey voice for longer than just an opening act. Well done, Hootie. Well done. For me he finished off with "Family Tradition" and it was quite a treat. The rest of the crowd heard him finish off with Prince's Purple Rain and I'm sure it was fabulous but my dinner water got to me and I was in the bathroom during that ditty.
As usual, our self portrait concert shot:
Let's get to the main show. Brad Paisley. Did I mention my friend Kelly saw him the other day? It seems that I can't get any closer than one degree of Brad Paisley. I'll be honest though. I was glad I wasn't with Kelly. According to her he was sporting a bona fide jogging suit and frankly I don't need that image polluting the cowboy hat and jeans Brad Paisley of my mind.
I'm always awestruck at the amount of people cheering and screaming at the concerts we've attended. Can you imagine having all of those people paying money and going crazy just to see YOU?? I can't fathom what that must feel like.
There's always one (times a thousand) crazy kookoo in a crowd this large (and several bad hair do's, i.e. the reverse mullet on a woman and and total 80's hot roll) and lucky for us one was in our line of sight. It was Sultry Dancing Girl. She's below under the white arrow in the red hooker-esqe dress. Her sensual dancing was a little much for me but the topper was when she removed her underwear and, oh, I'm sorry? Yes. Yes, you heard correctly. I'll continue. She removed her underwear and placed them on the FOOT of the fiddler guy. His foot. On it. There he is doing his little solo ditty and there are her nappy thong panties. Ick.
I wish I had a picture of her friend wearing the backless jean jumper. Let me step out and say that if you currently own anything that combines the words "jean" and "jumper" please, for the love of mankind, take it to the Goodwill immediately. Back to Brad. Stellar guitar playing makes up for the utmost of fashion faux pas.
This is what happens when you accidentally have a shutter speed that's too slow. Work of art.
The last concert we attended (Carrie Underwood) was full of outfit changes. This time around it was guitar changes. I bet there were at least 10 different ones.
Brad announced that he was welcoming a great friend to the stage for a song and I just knew that my favorite Aussie guitar playing country star was stopping in for a "Start a Band" duet. Much to my dismay it was his bud John Jorgasomethingorother who was indeed a grand guitar player but not nearly as exciting as Keith Urban would've been.
Well isn't this a cool silhouette?!
Many lucky people in the crowd were given guitar picks. I was not one of them. I'm sure Christine was. Durn her.
It was another night filled with spectacular songs, good laughs, dear friends, and shocking moments. Concert dates are always my favorite.
Brad Paisley kept the bar high for concert standards for us. Good Lord willing we'll be there the next time he shows up in Nashville. If anyone runs into him before then, let him know you know someone that has a Hondurican baby that is looking for a playgroup.
Hats off to BP and his phenomenal concert!