Fratty Friday Easter Edition

With baby #3 coming I am always looking for ways to make my life easier.  I think I have determined one way to accomplish that is to combine Fratty Friday and Southern Belle Sunday.  It is easier to take pictures of the kids at once and do one post.  I don't want to rob any one child of the spotlight, but they get plenty of spotlight.  So rest assured.  Now, I just need a catchy combo name for the blog each week (that would include all 3 children).  2 Fratty Boys and 1 Southern Belle might be too long?  I'll ask Uncle Buster.  He is the one that came up with Fratty Friday and Southern Belle Sunday.

So here are Franny and Jackson ready for their Easter egg hunt at school.  They were so excited and really racked up!  My Southern Belle liked dressing up the most and my Frat Star liked the candy the best!

She is all about the camera and some pictures these days.  She has also started saying "bye y'all" when we are leaving places.  It's hysterical.  My true Southern Belle.

He wanted to wear his "cowboy" shirt as he calls it.  Stinker!  Explaining Easter to him has proven to be more difficult than I had anticipated.  Christmas was easy, he has a birthday and Jesus has a birthday.  No problem, but dying and rising again is a different story.  He doesn't comprehend death yet so raising from the dead is really a stretch.  I just keep reading him 2 Easter books every night and repeating dying, rising again because he loves us.  Maybe he'll catch on.

I am just so determined to ensure he is not THAT child in Sunday school that tells his teacher it's about candy and the Easter Bunny.  I'm sure he will any way, but one can hope.  I feel like the younger he understands the easier it will be.  Even as an adult I find myself gaining a new perspective each year so I guess you never stop learning.

Especially now as a parent.  If my son had to die to save the human race y'all would be out of luck.  I would kill everyone that came near him first.  So I am so thankful for Mary.  She obviously is a better woman than me.  And on that topic, have you watched any of The Bible?  After watching the scene where Abraham almost sacrifices Issac, Matt and I agreed that Issac must have had trust issues the rest of his life.  Reading about it is one thing, but to see it played out, especially now that we have kids is another.  I would have left Matt if he would have done that.  Again, another biblical woman that's much better than me.  I would have been like Lot's wife and said, "we're outta here."  Although, that didn't work out too well huh?  But I digress.  It's Easter and y'all just want to see my adorable children.

J-Man was posing for the camera and Mrs. Karen.

Please notice the top of his mud kickers.  They are worn out and he acted excited when his new shoes for Easter came in this week.  Without prompting he said, "I'll wear this on Easter to church!"  We'll see how that goes.  He may be wearing seersucker pants with mud kickers. I also have big plans of a good family picture of the 4.5 of us on Easter.  We'll see how that goes too.....

I hope everyone has a great Easter and remembers it's about Jesus dying for us (even for people like me who would have left Abraham in the middle of the desert as I was yelling at him that he was a crazy man who heard voices that were not God's) because he loves us.  And if anyone has any good recommendations for explaining Easter to children or new blog names I am all about it.

Fratty Friday (March Madness Edition)

Franny crashed Fratty Friday today and I gladly let her since I didn't do a Southern Belle Sunday post last Sunday since we were in Baton Rouge AND because Jackson was being less than cooperative as you can tell by his picture directly below.

Jackson and Mary Frances are wearing their Ole Miss attire today since it's a big day for the Rebels!  We finally made it to the NCAA basketball tournament and play Wisconsin today!  AND we start the baseball series against Texas A&M in Oxford today!  Hotty Toddy!

Mary Frances was more than cooperative during our photo shoot!  She was saying 'CHEESE' and then running towards me so she could see the picture.  She would then rush back to the chair to do it all over again!  This girl has it figured out!!

Look at that model pose!

I mean, check this chick out!  She is ready to cheer on the Rebels.  Too bad the basketball game is during hers and Jackson's nap time!

Now, on to the star of Fratty Friday.  He came around after Mary Frances was getting all the attention!  Imagine that.

His shirt says "New Day, New Attitude."  And how appropriate is that for the Rebels right now?  We get rid of Pete Boone and have a top 5 recruiting class in football, win a SEC championship in basketball, and are currently ranked number 6 in the nation in baseball.  Oh and we cured AIDS.  Well, not really, but we did cure one baby of HIV.  And hopefully that will lead to many many more cures.  And is it a coincidence this is all after Pete Boone left?  I think not.  And we just extended Ross Bjork's contract!  Well done Rebels, well done!

I hope Pete Boone Google's his name and finds this blog and uncovers how bad I think he was at his job :)!  Matt and I both worked for him and can attest to his terribleness.  But, I digress, back to my adorable children and how great the Rebels are doing lately!

This is his effort at starting to smile!

And we are getting there....

A little more....

TA DA!!  There it is!  His adorably sweet smile that can fool you into believing he is sweet.  HA HA!

And on that note, a quick update for my record keeping purposes.  Every day I pick the kids up from school I ask if they were good.  About 30% of the time I get a good report on Jackson, but I can always count on my Franny Bean for a good report, until this week.  She has started to bite.  Jackson was never a biter so I am really not sure what to do with this.  And then yesterday her teacher informed me she bite another child and told me the entire story.  Mary Frances and her BFF Bailey (even though she is a LSU fan) were playing great together with the kitchen set and a little boy kept bothering them.  The teacher moved him away, but when he came back and started bothering them again Mary France bit him.  Am I supposed to be mad at that?  I mean, please tell me if I should, but the kid was messing with her.  Is she supposed to take it?  I wouldn't and didn't as a child or adult for that matter.  Besides, the kid was a boy.  I REALLY don't want her thinking boys can take advantage of her.  If she beats up every boy she comes in contact with from now until she is 30 I will support that!  Any way, her teacher was very nice about it and said she had been sweet all day except for that.  I don't think she expected me to spank Mary Frances or anything, but all I could think was well, maybe now that little boy will leave her alone.  I know Big R and Gaga will be with me on this one!

Happy Friday everyone and GO REBELS!!  

Keeping It Real Wednesday

Pinterest vs. Reality.

I laugh to myself as I walk through our house and already see dings and peanut butter hand prints on the walls.  At first the laugh was a crazy lady, I am out of my mind laugh and now it is the laugh of a lady who has given up.  That's right, after 6 weeks I have thrown my hands in the air and given up!  These pictures you see on Pinterest are FAKE!  They are houses that have been staged, the people that live in them don't have children, and a professional photographer has taken these pictures.  Having said all of this I would like to take you through my pinned dreams pictured right next to my reality.  But before we start I would like to add a disclaimer, I don't want you to think I am complaining.  I could not love my home any more and I could not be more proud to call it my home.  Life is a lot easier since having moved in and I am extremely blessed, I just want a good laugh and these pictures will make you chuckle at the very least.

We'll start in the dining room.  I will start by pointing out what you cannot see in this picture.  It's the dog urine stain on my new chair at the end of the table!  That's right, Knox marked his territory as soon as he could.  This chair now sits coverless because the cover is still sitting in my laundry room to be ironed since being washed.  The curtains are on order, Gran and Gaga will help me hang pictures, and the table and buffet will be stained at some point.  It will get there one day, but there still might be a urine stain on one of the chairs.

On to the master....  This room needs the MOST help.  Curtains are on order, I'll find some lamps eventually and getting some pictures hung and a throw pillow or two should help!  It just might be 5 years from now.  At least we have nice furniture!

The loving room...  Overall I am pretty pleased here.  The coffee table will be recovered by my husband by Christmas, but other than that I think we are good.  And the main reason this space is as put together as it is, is because we don't spend any time in there.  By the time I get the kids fed, clean, and in bed I go straight to bed myself!  And the kids are always in their playroom.  So I guess when they get older we will spend more time in there and it will look 'lived in' like the rest of the house.  Dang it.

This might be my favorite picture.  The sheet really puts it over the top!  My shutters are on order, but what is the deal with EVERYTHING taking 4-6 weeks?  Come on people!

This one is a good one too.  Who keeps fresh flowers in their laundry room?  I should as much time as I spend in there!

This is not that much of a stark contrast and to be honest I like my cubbies better.  My picture was just taken with my phone, not a professional photographer.  Oh and it's not staged.  The bag of fresh herbs vs the Kroger sack of extra clothes for day care.

Then there is the pantry.  The picture above is the one I showed our cabinet maker and he hit it pretty dead on, minus the chandelier.  But I do have an automatic light that comes on when you open the door.  Although, Matt and I have found it to be useless.  As 1st world humans we are trained to turn a light on when we walk in a room and off when we leave.  So we still find ourselves looking for the light switch.  The pantry is my third favorite room in the house right behind the laundry and mudroom.  But again, our food doesn't look as neat as the Pinterest pics.  More first world problems = having more food than you know what to do with and then you have to buy containers and baskets to store it in so it looks pretty.

A child's play area.  Jackson and Mary Frances' play area does look really cute.  I mean let's face it, they have the nicest stuff we own.

And this is my personal picture (if you couldn't already tell).  My cousin Suzanne said it couldn't be done, but I found these chairs for $200 and they are fabulous!  Just what I wanted and the Target pillows are the bomb!  But the picture below is what they look like a majority of the time.  I can't have the kids or dogs messing up my expensive stuff!  So this is what I have resorted to.

Just a little keeping it real on this Wednesday for everyone.  Sometimes I wonder if I will ever have a Pinterest house even after the kids are gone.  Probably not, but a girl can dream can't she.

Fratty Friday

So, I am going to be honest, I forgot to take Fratty Friday pictures.  I realized it after I dropped him off at school in his super fratty attire.  So, these pictures I took about 2 weeks ago will have to do.

Playing football in your PJ's in the frat house is pretty fratty though.

He loves to play football with Matt in the house.  It's fine for now, but when he gets much bigger I think we are going to have to put a stop to it.  Not to mention it will be warm soon and they will want to go outside any way!

 This little dude is my wild man!

Happy Friday everyone!  Keep it fratty!