Take You For a Ride on my Little Green Tractor

Here are some photos I snapped at the ranch the other morning while I was feeding the dogs. I can`t wait to wake up & it feel cool! The photos make you feel like it would be cool outside....not just yet!

Get ready for a Parker over load! This boy is growing  & growing & I love watching it!

This is how I feel today. He is going to stay the weekend with Matt's Mother. We set it up with her for him to come one weekend a month. She lives an hour away so she doesn`t get to see him that often. This way she gets a lot of time with him & Matt & I have a weekend with just us two. I`m happy to have time with my husband, but I will feel like the picture above when we leave him!

This is how I will feel Sunday when we pick him up!

My 3rd sister Ambrey just finished her Doctorate in Business. There is more to her title but I can`t remember it exactly & I don`t want to be wrong! But we are so happy for her! We had a little graduation party for her last weekend.

Parker is moving into the world of baby food! Chunky is drinking formula like crazy so we have started baby cereal at night. He was doing good with it but this week we started on bananas. He now doesn`t care for the baby cereal haha. We do a little bit of bananas in the morning and a little bit of baby cereal at night. He is just a big boy & was needing more then just formula. It is going really well, next week we are going to try a veggie. The doctor said try one thing at a time to see if they are allergic to it, hopefully we won`t run across that problem!

Big boy LOVES sitting up, so we tried out his to go highchair. He actually liked it but is not totally ready to sit in it on his own. He would start to lean every now & then haha but I just had to take some photos of him! He looks so grown up!

Matt has went back to school to finish his degree. He got his AA then joined the Army. The college we met at has an adult program at night to work towards your B.A. He does one class a month, going Thursday nights & one Saturday a month. He had to do a power point presentation on John Deere. So we threw this picture of Parker in at the end of his Power Point......I think some one should get extra credit haha He said the class loved it!

Alabama

My Mom, Parker & I took a short trip to our family home in Alabama. My Mom had been working really hard at work so she wanted to take a trip. We usually go to every 4th of July, but I had not been to the house in 2 years. The first year I was in Kentucky & the second year I had just had Parker. So I invited myself!

The temperature in the morning when we would wake up. It was so nice to sit on the porch & drink our coffee.

This was the temperaturein the evening. I really didn`t want to leave that to come home to 90 plus....ugh.

The house is actually my great-great-grandparents, the Brannan's. But my great-grandmother (Granny Blackburn), Irene Blackburn, ending up getting it and raising my papaw & his siblings. I didn`t know her, I think she died when I was a couple months old.

The house is over 100 years old. We come up here every summer, the past two years were the first times I have ever missed. It is located in a small town in south-west Alabama.

The potato house, we don`t go in there. It is scary, dark, & pretty sure there are snakes in there!

This is the shed, which has been turned into sleeping quarters. So many of us stay there now when we come that we had to branch out from the house!

The house is sometimes called the "4th of July" house. The reason we go every summer is for the Blackburn Family Reunion (My Mother's Father's Family). It is always the weekend following the 4th of July. My family always goes up a week before and gets the house ready and sets up for the reunion. The theme is always America! haha My mom had us paint these one year when I was in highschool, they are old church pews. I have actually spent more 4th of Julys in Alabama then in my hometown.

The dirt road leading toward the main road.

The dirt road leading to our family graveyard, Brannan Cemetery. Many of my "great" relatives are buried there. My mother's mother, Mamaw, is also buried there. We walked down there & put some flowers on her grave. When I was little it scared me soooo much that there was a graveyard down the road. Some of the headstones are very old. My 2nd oldest sister's name is Brannan. Some of the headstones have Brannan really big across it, kind of creepy!

View of our neighbor's horses in the morning

A HUGE Pecan tree in our yard. Pecan trees are my favorite trees!

Where we sat every morning & evening

I snapped this one as the local school bus drove by. I just liked the photo.

Parker did great the whole trip! I didn`t feel like hauling his baby bath so we just stuck him in the kitchen sink come bath time!

Family Ties

This is what my dining room table looks like all the time now. I have been scrapebooking like crazy. I want to make sure I really keep up with it now that I have a baby. So this is a big reason why I have been behind on my blogging. When he is asleep I`m doing that instead of this & sometimes cleaning : )

Now that are home we get to experience Sunday night dinners at my parents again. It is loud & crazy but I love the time with my family. Even though we live in the same town, we actually don`t all get to see each other a lot. So these nights are great for us to come together.

Grady is CRAZY about Mario & Luigi right now. So for Halloween he asked to be Luigi. My sister found the outfit at Toys-r-us. He lives in this thing!

Matt with Miss Finley, she still likes him more then me!

Parker with his Daddy. He is such a big boy!

Parker & Matt and NeNe & Maysen on the front porch. We all always some how end up out there.

I told you she was our entertainment! She was breaking it down. Do you like her big hoop earrings too?!

I mean she was really into it!

And then she stole Luigi's mustache!

Parker & Poppy. Everyone says that Parker looks like my Dad.

Maysen in Finley's doll stroller.

Parker is 2 months & Maysen is 5 months. She is all girl & he is all boy. It is going to be so much fun watching them grow up together.

She is always concerned with Parker. She couldn`t take her eyes off him! I`m so happy we are home to have these times!

One last random photo I had to throw in of Parker just hanging out on Labor Day.

2 Month Photo Shoot

Parker............

is eating 7 oz every 2 - 3 hours! He is a BIG BOY!
is sleeping through the night! Praise the LORD!
is making all sorts of sounds
is wearing 3 months & 3-6m. He is just so long!
laughed for the first time! He smiles all the time!

weighed 11 lbs 3 oz. & was 23 1/4 inches at his 6 week check up. When I weighed him at my parents about a week ago he was at 15 lbs!

Miss Finley's Birthday

First off, check out a post  my old boss did about My Mom's chairs. She did such a great job on them! I miss working there so much!

Second, Finley's (my niece) birthday was in August. She turned 2 years old. My sister just had a low key party at my parents house. She is a crazy little lady & I love her sooo stinking much. I could sit and watch her forever, she is always our entertainment!

Her Mom, Nene, & Aunts telling her, "Do this pose. Now do this" haha She is a ham!

Her Mom got her some "big girl panties". She had to put them on right then!

Finley is CRAZY about May May & Park, as she calls them. She is always all in our diaper bags & playing with the carseats. So Matt & I got her a carseat & bottles.

She walks around shaking her bottle for the baby, and asks for a burp cloth!

I moved away when she was 7 months old. I missed her first birthday. I`m so glad that we are back home to be able to be here for these kind of things!

Fin & Park! She was very happy, Parker not so much! ACTUALLY he is crying because what he is wearing, poor thing!