SIXTEEN????

My firstborn son is officially SIXTEEN years old!!   Hard to believe, indeed!

He decided he wanted to go to El Rancho Grande with a few family and friends, so that's what we did!

(The pictures and I are not getting along so I'm just going to tell the tale in the order that they are!)

This was taken on his actual birthday and was his token gift to open on the "real" day.   So, here's the deal .... I've wrapped everything I've gotten Alex in the last few weeks just so it would be done and out of sight.  I knew what gifts were for his birthday and which ones were for Christmas, but I wrapped them all in Christmas paper.  So when it came time for him to open his birthday present today, I got the box that I thought was the right one and as he tore into it, I immediately realized it wasn't the right one!!   Nice!!  I busted out laughing and grabbed the box back!!  :)  Here he is with the wrong box!!

Here's the birthday boy with his momma!!

And here he is with his good buddies .... Spencer and Reagan.  I so wish this had turned out better!  I was so surprised that they were all actually smiling at the same time, I rushed to get the pic!!

Here's the birthday cookie cake!!

And here's Alex with his favorite birthday card from Ryan, Katie, Meagan, and Lexie.   You can't really tell it from the picture, but Alex thought this card was really funny!  And if Alex hadn't just gotten a haircut, it would have looked just like him!! 

So it's been a great weekend of fun for Alex.   Here's hoping the next year is Alex's best one yet!!  Happy Birthday to a really great kid!! 

A nice break ....

It's been a great week off from the normal routine of life! Here's some of the fun we've had ....

Lots of football playing ....




Even more basketballing ...... this either shows Alex's great speed, or my amazing camera skills ... not sure which!!!

Shooting free throws ....

Reagan taking his turn at free throws .... 

Building forts in the living room ....

Having lunch with friends ....

More basketball ??   And brotherly love!!

And the guaranteed-to-be-entertaining event .... PING PONG!!! 

All in all, a very fun, relaxing week with some of my favorite peeps!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is always full of family, food, football watching, and just a bunch of fun!! Here's our day on pictures …

Thanksgiving just isn't Thanksgiving without a little basketball!!

Landry and BigPa playing a little ipad!

The Crittenden's ...... Edith, George, Ben, and George Earl

BigPa and Grandma facetiming with Justine .... Grandma's sister in Virginia that she hasn't seen in a really long time!  Isn't technology awesome?!  This was very cool!!

Alex teaching BigPa a few things about his new phone!

Whaaat??  Alex is old enough to want to take a nap on Thanksgiving???  What is this world coming to?!?

Landry spent a good part of his day building!

Let Thanksgiving 2012 be known as the year Mom decided to move away from the traditional path of turkey and dressing and explore uncharted waters such as pork loin!!   After the initial shock of it, I think it went swimmingly well!!   Thanks for hosting, Mom, and for a great feast, as always!! 

And .... I'm not sure why the pics are huge .... will work on that!!

6 months??!!

It appears that it's been 6 whole months since I've blogged!! That's pretty crazy!! I'm going to do better!! That's all!!! :)

Freshman Basketball

Alex had a great basketball season this year. It was capped off with a banquet last month where he was awarded the MVP of the Freshman team!! Good job, man!!!

Here's Alex with Reagan and Coach Chapman.

And here is Alex with the Varsity coach, Coach P.



It was a lot of fun watching Alex play ball this year! Keep up the good work!!

My how you've grown!!

Alex has had a huge growth spurt lately ..... 

See for yourself ..... here he is with BigPa ......

Being tall makes him smile so big!!!   :)

Hard to believe, you say???

Well ...... maybe!!

Ooook .... here's the real deal!!

Pretty funny though!!!  

Ewwww!!!

Someone in the family has just learned firsthand the benefits of wearing deodorant!!!  Yaaay!!

When this someone got in the car today, he reminded me that he had put on his deodorant that morning  and asked if he smelled bad.  Other than smelling like he'd been playing football outside, which he had been, there were no traces of the dreaded B.O.!!!!   Yaaay!!

He then says, "Does B.O. just come from your underarms ...... or does it come from other places too?  Like your underlegs??"

Ummm ... let's just go with underarms!!!   :)

What the heck happened here??!!

At the risk of copying my good friend, Deneise .......

how did we get from these cute little cowboys . . .

  . . .  to boys that are DRIVING???

Time is flying faster than it's ever flown!!

Love these guys!!

The Golfer

Alex decided to play golf this year and managed to get a spot on the Varsity team.  He played in the Fall, switched to basketball during the Winter, and picked golf back up in the Spring.  There were definitely some ups and downs along the way, but overall, it was a good experience for him.  These were all taken with my phone so the quality is not so good!

At one of the tournaments, their team came in 2nd place (maybe) and Alex came home with a  trophy.  Here's our special boy with his little trophy!!

DORK!!!

Way to go, Alex!!

A couple more ......

 I was looking through my pictures and came across these.  I couldn't forget this guy . . . he is DA BOMB!!!

Soo sweet, kind, funny, and a big hugger!!



He was sick on the day of the actual competition, but he played hard in our qualifiying event!! 

Great kids!!

Upward 2012

The 2012 Upward Season was an awesome success and LOTS of fun!!  The pictures were few but here's what I got!

Landry at the end of the season party!



Luke's fun team!




The 3 Stooges - Luke, Will, and Ryan

Good times!! :)


The Special-est Olympics!

Last winter, I had the awesome opportunity to help coach our district's Special Olympic basketball team! I jumped at the chance and am so glad I did!!

Several of these amazing kiddos are in my building every day, working hard in our Transition Center.  The boys and I had so much fun practicing with these guys every week and then, after many weeks, we got to go to the competition in March.  Here's our crew, minus one sick boy. 

These three made up our 3-on-3 team and they won 2nd place!!  Way to go!!!

This guy got so excited when he made a basket or rebounded the ball, he would squeal with excitement!!  It really worked to our team's advantage at times!!  :)

Practicing the self-portrait .... can't get too much practice with that!!

Proud Winner!!!

Sweet girl ..... makes me laugh every time I see her!!!

 

The team and their medals!!

Their teacher, Mrs. Jenkins, does and AMAZING job with these kiddos.  I have been so impressed with her and with these incredible kids!!   Gooooo Jets!!

All in a day's work

Anyone who has spend any time around me at all knows that I have an amazing job that I really love!! It really is the best job in the district and I am very, very thankful for it!!

Along with getting to get to know some really neat kids and teaching them some really crazy stuff (Transformations of Square Root Functions is my current nemesis!!), I get to be out "in the real world" everyday and see some really interesting things. At the beginning of this school year, I started taking pictures of things that I found cool, weird, or downright head-scratchers!! Here's a small collection:

Let's start with the sweet and innocent ......

A mama and her babies!! Awwww!! Yes, I'm assuming she had twins ..... probably not reality, but let's just go with it!!

Beautiful horses ...... I get to drive past these beauties everyday.

There's a ton of road construction being done around the high schoool and it has cut into the land that these guys used to roam. One day, as I was pulling into the high school, I noticed this lone horse on top of a huge pile of dirt! It totally cracked me up!! I wish I'd witnessed the King of the Hill game he/she won to have that privilege!!! :)


This fella lives in a field close to my house so we get to see him almost every day as well! He's been around a while now, but when he first appeared in a field of horses, it was a bit of a shock!! The day that I took this picture, I slowed way down and he stopped eating and stared right at me. The second I took the picture, he immediately started screaming at me ......I saw his teeth and everything!! Totally cracked me up again!!!

Now for the weird ones ....

This car caught my eye a few months ago. First off, who puts magnetic flowers all over their car?? Second, as this car sped past me, I noticed that it was a Lexus!! A Lexus covered in brightly colored magnetic flowers ...... you don't see that everyday!!

This fun car was parked next to me one day ...... it had a nice zebra paint job but even better than that was this fun sign on the window! Well darn ...... I guess I'll have to find another car that DOES have some drugs!

This last one goes in the Serious Head-Scratcher category. This sign was one of two or three in a normal, suburban neighborhood!!

Ummmm ........ ok??!! I guess we all need to have something we can be proud of!!?? Thanks for feeding the birds?? I wish I knew the story behind this sign!!

So, not only do I have a great job, I get the added bonus of seeing fun stuff like this!! And if it weren't for some very strict privacy laws, I'd have lots of fun stories to tell too!!