Happy Belated Birthdays!!!

We didn't forget their birthdays, but we forgot to honor them on the blog! This week we celebrated the birthdays of three fine young men. Well, two fine young men and one old...um...Andy.

Tuesday was our nephew, Parker's, 17th birthday. That is truly hard to believe. I can still see him sitting in his "Nanny B's" lap when she would babysit him. His mother and aunts used to teach him to blow kisses and stuff until I rescued him and taught him to throw his arms up in the air and say "touchdown". He actually called me Touchdown for quite a while.

Another nephew, Justin, turned 13 on Thursday. Justin is a smart and very kind young gentleman. You can always count on him to give you a big hug and be genuinely happy to see you. I love to get him tickled because he just laughs all over himself and can't stop!

Andy, aka Chunch, turned 44 on Thursday. Wow! I can't believe my brother is SO OLD and yet I remain so young! Before he was Chunch, he was a great big brother.....well, when he wasn't punching me in the nose or knocking me off my bike with a basketball upside the head. We had a lot of fun back in the day playing ball every day we could and generally driving Mom and Dad crazy. Boy, was that a stunning success!

We'd like to wish all three a very happy belated birthday!!!

Raider of the Week!

McKenzie was picked as Raider of the Week on Tuesday! She was very excited when she got home and we are very proud of her. Here are a couple of pictures of her with her certificate in front of her new desk.


Speaking of the desk, below are a couple of pictures of Matt working on that desk.


Betty's getting close to getting all of her stuff put up and hung up, so more house pictures will be on the way soon.

Moving Day!

Moving day is finally here! Thankfully, I don't type with my feet or this blog post would not be happening. After two days of moving boxes, plants, furniture, and odds and ends, and painting, mine and Betty's legs and feet are worn out. We've had tremendous help from family and friends and we have almost everything in the new house! We still have a few things to gather up from the old house on Saturday and then we'll be done.

I brought Max (the cat) over to the new house tonight around 9:00 and he's been walking around sniffing everything ever since. Matt spent Thursday and Friday night at Nana and Grand's, which helped us out a lot. Matt has not missed us at all but we're ready to get him back home.

Here are some pictures of the new house so far. We'll add more pictures in the next few days as we get more stuff put where it needs to be.

Den

Kitchen

Our bedroom

McKenzie's room

Matt's room

Betty in action moving boxes

This is the Kirk's pet carrier. They and we have not been able to catch their cat since they moved. The cat is over 15 years old and belonged to the Nortons who lived at this house before the Kirks and he just stayed with the house. We don't plan on letting him stay with the house this time, but so far he's winning. We'll keep you posted on the battle.

Congrats

Congratulations to Jordan! We are so proud of you. Jordan placed first alternate in her sixth grade beauty review and she also won Most Photogenic in the pageant. Here she is with her two trophies. Marty and Jordan stopped by the house for us to see her in her dress since David and I were not able to go. We were packing and cleaning out the storage shed, getting ready for the move. I hate we missed it but McKenzie was able to go and really enjoyed herself. David ran in and got his camera and took a few pictures.

Playoff Baseball

The Memphis Redbirds (AAA minor league team of the St. Louis Cardinals) won their division this year and made the playoffs. McKenzie, Matt, Jordan, and I went to Game 3 of the first round of the playoffs. Memphis was up 2-0 in the best of 5 series and only had to win that game to advance to the Pacific Coast League Championship Series. I know, Memphis is nowhere near the Pacific, but this is baseball not geography.

Here are the kids - Matt didn't want to join in the photo. He was probably wanting ice cream at that moment.


This is in the plaza just outside the stadium.


About the 6th or 7th inning we headed out to the bluff and the kids played on the playground and then ran up and down the hill. I would've joined them, but somebody had to guard their shoes!

The Redbirds won that game 1-0 and went on to the PCL Championship.

This isn't from a game, but I wanted to include it. This was a Saturday at lunch at Spencer's - the boys enjoying some ice cream.

Matt, Caleb, Andy and I went to Game 1 of the PCL Championship Series. It had been raining most of the day and rained on us most of the way to Memphis but we were hoping it wouldn't rain the game out.

Matt has discovered the BBQ Nachos that Rendezvous sells at the Redbirds games. Check out that focus. The boy loves ball and food......I don't know where he gets that from!


We had a rainless rain delay of just over an hour. The weather report said rain was coming in at 7:15 and would blow out quickly. It never came and we sat and waited before they finally decided to start the game. Caleb, Matt and I decided to walk around the ballpark during the delay.

Andy decided to take a nap.

Matt and Caleb passed out on the way home. We stayed through the 5th inning since it was a school night. The game was scoreless when we left and we listened to the rest of it on the radio. David Freese hit a homerun in the bottom of the 7th and the Redbirds held on to win 1-0. They went on to win the series 3-0 and will play in a one game AAA championship game Tuesday night against the Durham Bulls on ESPN2.

Dance Class Begins

Late this afternoon McKenzie started her new dance year. She has been looking forward to this all summer. Another thing we were looking forward to is seeing the new dance studio. It is awesome! We couldn't wait to see it. Miss Reagan has been giving us updates on it all summer. She bought an old warehouse and turned it into a dance studio/gym. She put this super cute wallpaper in the room where you first come in to wait for class to begin. It is hot pink with black chandeliers on it. McKenzie's dance room is painted a robin's egg blue. The gymnastics room is purple. At the entrance she had the prettiest container gardens. Of course you know I notice all of these details! What a fun place to have dance! You could tell that Reagan and all of the instructers have worked so hard getting it ready.


Here is a picture of McKenzie after class. We found this dance outfit and another one at Target on our trip to Nashville. You can't have too many cute dance outfits!

Happy Birthday Betty!!!

It's finally here! The pinnacle of Betty's Birthday Month 2009!!! It's Betty's birthday! McKenzie, Matt and I would like to wish Betty a very happy ?9th birthday. You're the best mother and wife we could ask for!

Of course, we've been celebrating all month and will continue to celebrate the rest of the month, but we had a party at Betty's parent's house Saturday night (forgot to download the pics) and a party at Betty's grandmother's house Sunday afternoon.......

....and a birthday supper at Cosina Mexicana Sunday night.

Don't let the freakishly large head at the right of the pic scare you!

The Betty's Birthday Month 2009 festivities will continue today with a birthday lunch at Orleans. Then, we'll go out this Saturday for the promised Birthday Chick Flick and Birthday Supper Without The Kids.

We'd also like to wish Marty a very happy birthday today, too!!!!