1st day of school
time hop pic of cuteness
Jacob going in and out of the game
Lucy Kendall
Jacob and Beau
Jacob, Mav, and one of Jacob's friend's little sister. He had a dr appointment after school so she came home with me after school. #perks
Jacob's birthday: starting at bottom left- Teagan, PJ (can't see him), Alex, Julian, RJ, Jacob, Miles, Beau. Eating at Booya's
On the way home from the movies.
We walked from the restaurant to the movie theater. #smalltown
Jacob and his friend Alex went fishing and found a giant leaf. They also went much further than they were supposed to go. Instead of the small pond at the park down the street, they walked to the Wolf River. Not scary at all for a mom.
big boy bed
Hallie's friend cleans houses. I decided to get Hallie a "gift certificate" for a house cleaning for her birthday since her birthday is Nov 25 and Lucy wasn't due till Dec 5. Except Lucy came early on Nov 23, so the whole poem didn't really make sense. But, Hallie was thoroughly excited nonetheless.
During one of Jacob's games, a blimp flew overhead. THEY LOVED IT. Made them feel like they were in the NFL I think. #boys
At Huey's for Jacob's family birthday dinner.
Mom brought a cake with the bluest blue icing ever. I took Mav into the bathroom so he could see his tongue and he thought it was so hilarious.
I think I posted this before?? Jacob decided to paint something blue one day (without my knowledge) and left us this lovely hand print.
My cabinet at work. I was really excited about it.
Mav was Captain America for Halloween.
A friend's daughter (actually the sister that was in the earlier pic with Jacob and Mav) didn't have her name on her chair bag at school so I surprised her one morning by ironing on her name before she got to school.
He named his giant dragon "Charlie." When I told him to let me take a pic, Mav said, "smile Charlie!"
My good mama friend Shellie. She ropes me into all kinds of things. Namely working the concession stand at the Varsity football games bc she is convinced we moms have to network if our boys have any hope of starting in highschool. Whatever. Anyway, I somehow got stuck on nacho duty. She's here totally taking credit, but I was totally the one who really had nacho cheese all over me at the end of the night.
Mom will invite us to meet her for lunch, dinner, etc. and has just accepted now that Jacob will always have a friend with him. Usually this guy-Beau.
At our church the 6th grade and up go to Wednesday night "crew." They through a back to school party to welcome all the new 6th graders. Jacob is up there in the middle of all those girls...
He's the one standing the highest.
Shellie roped us all into it this particular night. No nachos this night because it was a big game and Corky's set up a tent for that. Thank goodness.
L to R bottom row: Amy, Sharon, Shellie
Top row starting after me: Rhonda, Melissa, Marion, Betsy
Top row starting after me: Rhonda, Melissa, Marion, Betsy
I got into the car one morning, looked back to back out of the drive way and saw this in the backseat window.
Just a Roo with his Abba.
The varsity team has a following of students called "The Collierville Crazies." They come to every game, don't wear shirts no matter what the weather, wave a giant dragon flag, and get the crowd going. On this particular night, Jacob's 6th grade team was actually playing and they showed up. It was pretty cool. The boys loved it.
Christmas pic out of order- Mom got Mav some Dinosaur magnets.
My neighbor gave Mav all the leftover dinosaurs from her two sons. He was in heaven.
And Papa was too.
I worked at the Donut Hutt this past summer. Our long time friends, Rick and Jennifer, own it. That's them at the far right. At the end of the summer the lady in the middle was moving out of town so we all got together to say goodbye.
Dragon Day: a day at the beginning of the season when it is 12 million degrees outside where ALL the players (all 3 grades in middle school, freshmen, JV, and Varsity teams) and their families gather at the field and wait for what feels like 10 hours while all the group and individual pics are taken first, then their names and positions are called out for them to run out onto the field. It's great, but it's not.
During spirit week, Jacob, who has always hated dressing up for these kinds of things, decided the MORNING OF "career dress up" day that he wanted to participate. I don't know what other parents and kids did, but I dug around the "old Halloween costume" tub and came up with this.
The team doing their chant
The elementary school has a sing-along on the last day before Christmas break. All the grade groups dress up as a theme. The assistants and I dressed up at gingerbread women. And that is the officer assigned to our school.
Gonzo sitting on his legs.
Jon took Jacob, Abby, and me to the firing range one day.
This little girl goes to CES and spells and pronounces her name the same as our Hallie. THAT NEVER HAPPENS. I told her I had to take a pic to show my stepdaughter (she's holding up her log in code to something we were doing on the computer that day).
We went to this giant place in Mississippi that had a ridiculous amount of things to do, including 3 different haunted things. Other than it took 45 minutes to get there, it was pretty awesome. This is Kristi my good friend and mom to Michael,one of Jacob's good friends, and her daughter Nikki.
Actual Halloween. L to R: Beau the baseball player, Jacob the random mask/black hoodie guy, Miles as poop emoji, and a kid whose name I can't remember. Miles' mom found a poop emoji bean bag at Walmart, cut holes for the head and arms, then sewed them so the bean things wouldn't fall out. It was pretty hilarious.
Hallie was somewhere one day with this kid when he saw this hat and freaked out. Funny thing is, he has never expressed any interest in Star Wars or seen any of the movies. HE WEARS IT EVERYWHERE.
This is actually Jacob's hat he confiscated.
Ahh, there it is.
Jacob got his hover board for Christmas. I drove up after work one day and he and Beau were coming from Beau's house on these things.
Holding Lucy for the first time.
These pants are called "joggers" and are very trendy among Jacob's age group. Just had to document.
Jacob's locker.
First church lock in.
Mav & Lucy stockings!
Mav's other uncle (what?) got him several masks and capes for Christmas.
Halfway through the first quarter, Jacob was failing math. We started with a tutor, a male 5th grade math teacher from another school. He brought the grade up to an 82 by the end of the quarter, and made a 92 for the 2nd quarter. Pretty amazing. We made this pic into a Christmas card and sent it to the tutor. Jacob loves this guy. When he gets a good grade on a test, he'll tell me, "send a pic of this to Neil!"
Mav's 2nd birthday.
He was pretty tickled at everyone singing to him.
Mav opening gifts
Mother's Day
Church stickers, from being in class to helping me teach 3rd grade.
We went to Nashville for a weekend before school started. That's Jacob and Beau playing video games
Jon likes watching American Pickers on tv so we visited their shop in Nashville.
At Rainforest Cafe
Jacob got me a new coat for Christmas. It was his idea because I have a puffy vest I wear a lot, so he wanted to get me a puffy coat. I love it because it isn't super puffy, and it's navy blue, my favorite color.
Jacob was out on the porch, on the swing, talking on the phone. Sigh.
Michael became friends with the people who own the paintball park in Lakeland and they give them a big discount. A huge group of guys have been going about once a month.
At the town Christmas Parade with Shellie and Kristi.
One of Abby's friends dated a U of M football player who is now the quarterback for Denver - Paxton Lynch. She happened to mention this to Jacob one day, along with the fact that he had left a shirt at the girls apartment. Jacob flipped out. Abby managed to get the girl to give her the shirt and she gave it to Jacob for his birthday. I put it in a frame.
Jacob's first PE uniform.
Playing with Roo after practice one day.
For about a month during the summer (yes the hottest time of the year), Jacob and his friends were obsessed with Pokemon Go. People all over the world were playing...and getting hit by cars because they weren't paying attention to where they were walking. I just thought it was slightly ridiculous that the app had to add this disclaimer...
They had me take them to a park, in the HEAT, to catch Pokemon. Ugh.
Practice...in the heat and in the rain.
Practicing opening a combination lock before school started.
Either Father's day or Dad's birthday at the Rendevouz.
One of the moms of a 4th grader made this awesome photo booth thing. That's me and one of the 4th grade teachers- Mrs. Plambeck.
At one of Jacob's basketball game.
Jacob's class collected gifts for a kid off the angel tree.
Sonic Christmas party
Shark houseshoes
Jacob's football game
Crazy sock day at school. Me & Mrs. Baker
Signing the Thankful tablecloth at Thanksgiving
I sort of taught a class for about 3 weeks before Christmas break. A 5th grade math teacher had a miscarriage at 7 months - horrible. It actually happened before Thanksgiving, but they couldn't find a sub who a) was good enough at math to actually teach or b) could speak English. Apparently all the subs with those qualifications get snapped up pretty quickly. So they asked me to stay in the room with the sub and basically teach math. I actually had a lot of fun, but it didn't make me want to do it again. Most of the class is actually missing here.
Jacob had a couple friends over and they wanted to do something...can't remember what but I told them Jacob had not finished his chores so he couldn't do it. So they helped. This is Teagan taking care of all the small trashcans.
One of Hallie's neighbors put this up for the neighborhood kids to play in.
This is the homemade fort I made at my house...
Mav was wearing one of the capes his other uncle gave him when he opened the gift Abba (Jacob) gave him, which was a Ninja Turtle shell and mask. He started ripping the cape off. It was so cute.
We got pedicures on the first day of Fall Break.
Waiting on Lucy
Michael texted one day and asked if Jacob wanted to go rock wall climbing. Sure I said. What I didn't know that it was going to be a full on rock climbing class that included teaching them how to tie the knots and everything. Then the teacher made Jacob and Morgan tie EACH OTHER'S KNOTS and be each other's partners.
Michael asked me to take Morgan shopping for winter clothes. The first thing she bought herself was a watch. She was pretty proud of it. Not sure it will keep her warm, but whatever.
First of all, the hat. Second, Mav loves superheroes so I got him 3 big ones, including "Wolvacream."
Tried taking pics of them the first day of school, this was as good as I could get.
