30-Day Blog Challenge: Day 6

Day 6: A picture of something that makes you happy

There are so many pictures I could put up here.  Any picture involving my family, my friends, or my pets would do because all of those things make me happy.  But I chose the below because it's especially hilarious.  He thought this up all on his own.  Once again, he is a funny kid.

The next time you need some exercise motivation, consider stretching with Iron Man! :)

300

300 days without Dr. Pepper! 

30-Day Blog Challenge: Day 5

Day 5: Siblings

I have two brothers, Jeremiah and Jeb.  Jeremiah is three years older than me, and Jeb is seven years younger.

Jeremiah has always marched to the beat of his own drummer.  He is an introvert who doesn't talk to outsiders much.  Do not let this fool you into thinking he's not opinionated because holy moly is he.  He's very into music - music that I am woefully uncool to know most of the time.  Though we are very different, we do share some common ground in liking Harry Potter, the Michael Scott Nicholas Flamel book series, and The Office.  (Jeb also shares our love of Harry Potter and The Office.)  He is an accountant/controller for a cattle company and is a cattle farmer also.  He is extremely tight with money, and his net worth reflects it.  He is married to a school teacher and has two beautiful daughters.  He loves the Braves, and he is still a good athlete too.

My younger brother shocked us all when he declared in the 10th grade - out of nowhere - that he wanted to attend college at the military academy in New York.  Say what??  And once that dude puts his mind to something...yeah, well he graduated from there last summer.  He's now learning to fly Blackhawk helicopters and is engaged to a Japanese woman that he met in Africa.  So I guess it's pretty safe to say they both march to the beat of their own drummers.  Oh yeah, and he too is a tight-wad.  I have no idea what happened to me in the middle.

 

I love my brothers tremendously.  And even though we are "day-to-day" different, I definitely consider us close.  No, we are not the type to talk on the phone to each other every day.  But we have a solid bond and we like each other.  Not all siblings can say that.  

30-Day Blog Challenge: Day 4

Day 4: The parents 

My parents...how do I begin?  Normal, average citizens, and then again not.  I warn you, this post may be long.

My dad was born and raised (and will live his entire life and die) in Clay County.  He is the 2nd of four boys.  He was born into a legacy of J's: Jack and Jackie had Jack Jr., John, Jim and Joe.  Grandsons would follow tradition for awhile - Jeremiah, Jason, Joshua, Jack III, Jeb, Justice - and would be broken by me and AJ and the other boys - William, Daniel, Augustine.  The stories from his childhood are FRIGHTENING.  He and his older brother used to torture toys.  We like to imagine them like Sid from Toy Story.  In his teenage years, he was a hippie, and a hitchhiker at that.  All of this is insane when you consider the Big John you may know today.  He has worked at the Co-op since he was 18 years old.  That is hard to imagine for our generation.  He has been a landowner for nearly that long and a beef cattle producer.  He is a stereotypical male who has lived his entire life in the south.  He loves OHA and MSU athletics, and he secretly hates that he missed out on the college experience.  He is an extremely hard worker, a good provider, and a believer in the school of hard knocks...with love.  Oh yeah, and he lives for our annual beach trips to PCB.

My mom was born in Illinois, the 4th of 8 children (the 2nd of 5 girls).  She graduated high school early to marry my dad.  He decided he wanted to date her after seeing her candy-striper picture in the paper.  But I digress.  Faith and family are core for her.  She has been a jack of all trades since my little brother entered school.  We were lucky that she was able to stay home with us when we were little.  She most recently worked as a part-time bookkeeper for a small construction company, but she has worked as a butcher's assistant, a carpenter's assistant, a cafeteria worker, and a daycare worker at different times in her life.  She has always been willing to do whatever needed to be done.  She is my unofficial personal assistant, and she is now a professional grandmommy.  How lucky are we that she picks the kids up every day after school and keeps them at my house until we all get home from work?!
       

Both of my parents are strong-willed and competitive people.  Both have impressive tempers, though my dad's is quick and hot but dies fairly quickly (flash fire) while my mom's is stone cold and long lasting (ice age).  A little glimpse into me...

30-Day Blog Challenge: Day 3

Day 3: Your first love

I am both amused and feeling awkward about this post.  I consider my first "love" to be my first boyfriend, who I dated for 2 years in high school (freshman through junior years).  His beautiful wife and mother of his 4 children is a friend of mine and reads this blog. :)

I love that as grown ups we can look back on the past and laugh and appreciate.  And I love that I am friends with one of Doug's ex-girlfriends as well.  How very mature of me ;)

30-Day Blog Challenge: Day 2

I'm playing catch up!

Day 2: Meaning behind your blog name

Elliott is a really funny kid.  Really funny.  I wish he would show his personality to more people because it hurts my heart that people can only go by my stories.  Anyhoo, when I decided to start my blog, I was feeling really icky about using real names.  It could be because not long before that our adoption agency had taken down the web-board, the most amazing resource I had during his adoption (related to Hague accreditation regulations).  Anyhoo, that was around the same time that he started referring to himself as Chicken, which stemmed from me saying to him when he was impatient, "Hold up, chicken!"

So there you go.

30-Day Blog Challenge: Day 1

I've hit a bit of a dry spell with my blogging, as you can see.  No worries, it happens cyclically.  When it swings back around, I usually have too many things to blog about.  So apparently there is this 30-day blog challenge going around.  I only found out about it by stalking other people's blogs.  But it sounded fun, so now I have 30 days worth of things to write about!

Day 1: Introduce yourself, include a recent picture, and tell 15 facts about yourself.

So I still have a thing about not using full names on the blog.  I'm Emily.  I'm sure all of you know that...unless I have some secret readers, and the thought of that thrills me!  You can see my recent work pic in the below post.  Christmas card pics coming soon, so you'll see updated family pics then.

Wow, 15 facts about myself.  Here goes, in no particular order:

1. I am a middle child, book ended by two brothers.
2. I work at MSU.
3. I've been married for over 10 years - do the math, I was 20 when I got married.  Crazy, huh?
4. I've worked at MSU full-time for 8 years now.
5. I have two degrees from MSU - a bachelor's degree in Agricultural Information Science and Education and a master's degree in (Educational) Technology.
6. My son is my world, and I am enamored of the fact that God chose us to parent him.
7. My husband and I are nearly complete opposites.  That makes life interesting :)
8. I am a unique combination of a Type A personality (as it applies to school) and a messy, cluttered person.
9. I am still athletic, even up under all this blubber.
10. I love food.  All food - healthy food, fattening food, all of it.
11. I love drinks even more than I love food.  Usually the non-alcoholic kind.
12. I have ~27 first cousins.  Did I mention I'm Catholic ;)
13. I grew up on a cattle farm, and I bottle raised calves to save money for college.
14. I am lucky enough to have never had student loans thanks to the above and scholarships.
15. I was Salutatorian, Class President, Outstanding Girl, in the Hall of Fame, and the Academic Athlete my senior year in high school.  And just look where that got me ;)

What a Difference Three Years Makes

I only want to talk to the new me.

Cards of Christmases Past

We have only managed to get a good family shot one year (our first family year) for our Christmas cards.  The three years since then have featured Elliott solo.

November 2006

(Ignore quality of this uploaded shot)

 

November 2008

(Rejected shot - too "weak" looking)

 (Selected shot)

November 2009

(Rejected shot - for many obvious reasons)

But we got lots of good options for this year!  Stay tuned!

A Milestone Day

Yesterday was Elliott's 47th day of school.  In that time, he has had a smiley face every day, he has visited the treasure chest 3 times, and he has been absent 3 times.  But yesterday was super important for 2 reasons:

1. It was the first morning he ate breakfast at home before school.  His nerves have not allowed him to do that at all since starting big school.  He repeated this feat this morning.
   
2. It was the first time - since day 3 when things went awry - that he ate his entire sandwich (or both dinosaurs as he says) at lunchtime in the cafeteria.  He has been eating one half/one dinosaur, then eating the other one in the car when my mom picks him up.

Wow.  Much like daycare, it took him ~8 weeks to get his grip.  I guess this means 8 weeks is now a constant, not an outlier.  Sigh.

Game On!

After 3 weeks of practice, tonight is the first soccer game of the season!  Elliott and Corgan are on the Alligators, and Kitty is on the Green Machine.  They actually have matching jerseys, which should mean some excellent shots of the three of them.  Then again, this summer Elliott and Kitty had the same jerseys, and I never once managed to get a picture of the two of them.

I'm excited about seeing how these moves translate to the game!

 

 

I Feel a Cavity Coming On

Seriously, how sweet is this picture?
(other than Doug's gimpy eye)

Once Upon a Time, On a Very Windy Day