47 Weeks

 47 Weeks Old

Not really feeling this photo session



 Rhett cut his right front tooth this week.  Before I knew it had poked through I kept hearing this grinding sound.  I knew it was coming from him, but I had no idea how he was grinding his 2 bottom teeth.  Then I checked his mouth and that tooth was barely, barely poking through.  I still didn't understand how he could be grinding them, but he did.  Oh, he did!  All.day.long!  I shiver just thinking about it!  I would tell him "oh, no, Rhett please don't" and he would made this sad face, whimper, and grind them again.  I guess it felt good to him, but it almost drove me nuts!

Plenty of bedhead, eating turkey and cheese like a big boy

Pleeease, make it...

STOP!

It was "C" week so we made cotton candy cupcakes.

Wouldn't this be cute with a tuft of cotton candy on top?

"C" is for caterpillar

We already had the ginormous caterpillar thanks to Ranjo and Lindsay (a present for ME's first Christmas), but we had to make a trip to Barnes and Noble for The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  ME got introduced to two classics this week, that and The Cat in the Hat.  She loves them both!

And I found this in my arts and crafts closet upstairs.  It's a book that I used to put in centers when I taught.  You can walk the caterpillar through the book and make him eat a hole in one apple, two pears, etc.  She colored each piece and helped glue them on.  And she wrote her name all by herself!!!  Oh, how I wish I had access to all my teaching stuff, but it is stacked up in tubs to the ceiling in the closet of our garage. When I was packing up my classroom, I didn't know when I would teach again.  So, I kept out some stuff and a lot of books, but ME would have a ball with all of my math manipulatives and fun center activities from first grade.  Maybe one day I will have the energy to go through it and take some stuff out.  It's a bit sad that it's not getting any use.

And "C" is for cat!  She painted a little pumpkin black, and we made it look like a cat.  I saw this on a cover of a magazine at the grocery store.  I'm still fighting the Pinterest urge.  I know I could find all kinds of cute ideas, but I feel like I spend enough time on the computer blogging and checking Facebook.  I really don't think I need another black hole of wasted time.  So, for now I'm just going with whatever comes to mind for activities each week.

 

I think it's super cute stacked on top of the white and orange pumpkin.  I picked up some items at HL this week to make a Halloween decoration for my mantel.  I'll show you the whole thing when it's finished.

And "C" is for, no "B" is for booty!  Ha!  I couldn't resist posting a pic of "the" booty.

I have never seen a longer crack or a bigger, more wrinkly, hammered tush on a kid than what Rhett's got going on.  That is some junk in the trunk fo sho!  And can you even see the saddle bags?  You would think it would be hard to get pants up over the booty, but the saddle bags are the tough spot.  Ha!  I love you and your booty, Rhett!

Friday night we went out to eat at PF, and I tried to get a pic of me and my man.

It didn't go so well.

We went outside and all was well!

We spent quite a bit of time in this place over the weekend...our new church building!  It is FINALLY under construction, and we are scheduled to be in it by Thanksgiving.  It will be 7 years in November since we started this journey.  How exciting!  Saturday there was a work day on the property.  There wasn't a lot I could do with 2 kids in tow (it was the end of the year close-out for the VA, so Brad had to work all weekend), but I did take cupcakes for the workers!  And I also loaded up and delivered supplies in preparation for our fellowship meal out there on Sunday.  The Mullises and Harrimans (ahem, Jessica and her 2 kids since Daddy was working) were in charge of the fellowship meal this very 5th Sunday.  The elders asked us to pick a meal that would be easy to clean up, so we could all head out to the new church building afterward for a devo.  I was thinking of going with a tailgate theme since it was football season, so we thought "why not have a tailgate party at the new church building?"  And we did, and it was fun!  After we ate lunch, the elders asked us to write our favorite scriptures on the walls, so they would always be there under the paint.  Mary Ella wrote her name on the wall, and Susan traced her hands with Braydon's and Carson's.  Pretty special stuff!

There she is!

My treat for gameday, a Mississippi mudslide (and that is a roasted marshmallow with whip cream on top)! Oh, gameday, you are not so exciting anymore.  I really hated losing to Texas A&M!  Growing up in Texas, you're either an A&M fan or a Texas fan.  But you can't be both, and I was a Texas fan...still am unless they're playing the Razorbacks.  I would have loved to have gone to school there, but I didn't even apply.  First of all, you basically have to have a 36 on your ACT to get a scholarship, and Arkansas was happy to pay me for my 27.  Secondly, Texas is huge!  I've heard that one dorm alone has it's own zip code.  I didn't figure a shy small town girl like me would do so well thrown onto a campus of 60,000.  My hometown barely had 1,000 people.  So, Arkansas was the best choice for me.  I loooved the campus when I visited, and Fayetteville just gets in your blood.  Plus, I never would have met Brad in Austin.  Just wanted to be clear that I've never looked back on that decision.  Go Hogs!  So, coming from Texas and going to Arkansas...it just hurts to get beat by the Aggies.  Especially in such an embarrassing way.  Thanks, Bobby Petrino!  I wish we had never met you!  And that's putting it EXTREMELY nicely! 

On a brighter note, this week was the first week of fall-ish weather, even though it got hot later in the days.  We had another picnic at the park and are slowing moving into our fall wardrobe.  A change in seasons is always fun!  It was also our first week in four months without our houseguests.  Lauren and Nathan moved into their house last week.  I think we had a little bit of empty nest going on.  ME was asking where they went.  And eating dinner without them was strange.  We're taking a little break, but Hotel Harriman will be back open for business soon! ;)

And another fun part of changing seasons, trying new recipes and cooking old favorites, like taco soup.  I get tired of doing the same things, so when I try something new and it turns out good, sometimes I talk about it on here.  Well, let me just be fair and talk about the big, fat FAIL of the week.  I love Hammontree in Fayetteville.  They specialize in grilled cheese sandwiches, and my favorite one has brie and grilled pears and preserves.  I've almost perfected it at home, but this week I tried a different spin on the brie grilled cheese that I found in SL.  It had turkey and brie and apples, and you make a bacon marmalade to go on it.  That was the part that got me interested.  I mean, who doesn't like bacon?  It called for sorghum syrup, but Kroger didn't have it when we went to the store on Monday.  I meant to go to a fresh produce store during the week, but I never made it.  And Thursday night rolled around and I didn't have sorghum, but the sandwich was still on the menu.  So, I asked Brad to check at Fresh Market on the way home, no sorghum.  So, I looked up the difference between sorghum and karo syrup (which I had), and it didn't seem like too much.  Dark karo probably would have been closer, but all I had was light.  I cooked my bacon and decided to give it a try.  First you pour in the sorghum (karo), and it looked all bubbly and yummy.  Then you add cidar vinegar, a lot of it, and the smell about killed Brad.  The vinegar is supposed to cook down, and thicken up.  Well, it wasn't thickening until I added the last ingredients, chicken broth, kosher salt, and bay leaf (I didn't have that either, oops).  Ha!  No wonder this recipe was doomed.  Anyway, it was thickening up, and I was beginning to think it might actually work.  I took it off the stove and poured it into a bowl to cool.  You were supposed to let it cool for 30 minutes.  The first sign that there was going to be a problem was when I put the pan and spoon under water in the sink, and what was on the spoon turned into sugar, I mean like hard, not coming off.  Hmmm...I decided to taste the marmalade before it cooled and it immediately stuck to my teeth like nothing ever has.  It was really yummy, but definitely not right.  Not right at all.  I ditched that idea and made my sandwiches without out it.  Oh well.  But Brad was interested.  He had been complaining about the smell of vinegar, but his interest was piqued when he saw the bowl with the bacon in brown stuff.  I mean, it looked right until you touched it and saw that it was turning rock solid.  I warned him it would stick to your teeth.  But he picked out a piece to eat anyway, and started doing the funny chew.  It was hilarious!  He couldn't quit eating it.  He said it tasted like bacon brittle, that I just needed to work on the recipe and sell it.  After dinner I asked him to try to get it out of the bowl...I was thinking that bowl might be toast.  He heated it up in the microwave and started eating it again, and then he burned himself.  Ha!  So, that was our experience with bacon marmalade.  Hey, it was tasty, but it was more like a bacon sucker.  Now that might sell! ;)