call me crazy, BUT...

OK, here's the story. The other day, I was at my parents' house looking through old pictures to put on MSKS's birthday blog post. I came across some of my baby pictures and noticed quite a resemblance between MY baby pictures and my nephew, Henry's pictures. I showed my parents the pictures I had found and they both agreed. In fact, they said that they had thought it several times before. Kristen has told me on several occasions that Henry sometimes reminds her of me, and as much as I LOVE for her to tell me that, I haven't seen even the slightest resemblance between the 2 of us. Now, I realize that my baby pictures look like his PROBABLY because Kristen and I looked so much alike as babies, but I still like the idea of him looking like me! :) Here's one of my baby pictures and a recent picture of Henry (since I NEVER post pictures of him or anything!! haha!). My eyes are a little more "Tomlinson" (that means squinty) than his, but other than that what do YOU think? :) Is it just wishful thinking??

Daddy's girl...

me and my daddy last year

Since it's Father's Day, I figured there was no better time to talk (and brag a little too) about my daddy. I wish it were possible for me to keep track of how many times someone has come up to me and said things like, "your dad is one of the greatest guys I know!," or "your dad is awesome!," etc. etc. Hearing these things NEVER gets old. I have found it hard to just respond with a "thank you." I usually say "Oh, I know he is..." and then I will proceed to brag even more about my dad. I can't help it. What can I say? I'm proud to be his daughter and I want everyone to know that I think he's even MORE awesome than they think! :) Those of you who know my dad (or even if you've only met him once or twice or seen him around), know how amazing he is. It's no wonder he was voted "Friendliest Man" for 2 years in my hometown. Hahaha. Seriously, he's the best. I could write a novel about the things that he's taught me during my 26 years of life. Some of the most important things I've learned from him have been by his actions. He is a man of Christ, and that is evident in my dad's daily life. He and my mom have a marriage unlike any other I've ever seen and I emulate their relationship. He has truly set the ultimate example of a Godly husband, and I pray daily that if it is God's will for me to marry one day, I will be blessed with someone as amazing as my father. What a blessing that would be!!
I have always considered my dad to be extremely dedicated, hard working, loyal, loving, (and the list could go on and on), but it's really been over the past 3 years or so that I have become even more aware of the loyalty he has to his family. My grandfather (Dad's dad) battled Alzheimer's for nearly 3 years. I have never seen 2 men more willing to care for their father the way my dad and uncle were with Dada. They went above and beyond what anyone could have expected of them. Because of Daddy, my Uncle Bobby, Nana, and the incredible Hospice care that was provided, my sweet Dada was able to be cared for in the comfort of his own home during the last few years of his life. Whenever Nana encountered a problem, my dad would drop whatever he was doing, wherever he was, to be there for Dada. Eventually Dada got to the point where he could not communicate or do anything by himself, but there was a look that he would give my dad and uncle, letting us all know how thankful he was for having 2 terrific sons. I'm telling you, my dad is unbelievable. It was tough on my dad, uncle, and grandmother, and I know it would have been so easy to just give up on him and put him in a nursing home. But they wouldn't hear of it. In fact, when I would ask my dad about what it was like to care for Dada, he would simply reply with "It's a blessing. I'm glad to do it and wouldn't have it any other way," rather than, "oh it's so hard and tough, and I'm so busy with work, etc." He never once complained about it, even though I know it's one of the hardest things he's ever done (physically, mentally, and emotionally).

me and my sweet Dada last summer

This is my first father's day without Dada (he passed away in November of last year), and my dad's first father's day without his dad. It's been a tough past few months for me and the rest of my family without Dada, but I'm so grateful to have lived in the same town as he did. I was able to see him nearly everyday, and the times I spent just talking to him (with him being unable to talk back), holding his hand, telling him stories about my day, etc. are precious to me. I was much closer to my grandfather than most are to their grandparents and I'm thankful to have so many wonderful memories of him to hold on to. He was the biggest fighter I've ever known. He would be 90 this summer (wow), and I miss him every day, especially on a day like today...Father's Day.

this is one of the few pictures I have of my Papaw holding me (I'm the baby on the right, and the girl on the left is my cousin, Adelia). I have this picture framed in my house. :)

I was also fortunate to have had another amazing grandfather (mom's dad), who unfortunately passed away 20 years ago. I didn't have a chance to get to know him as I wish I could have, but I DO know that he was also an incredible man of God. He, too, loved his family so much and was a wonderful example to all who knew him. I think of him often, too, and it was only appropriate that I give him the recognition he so much deserves today.

Happy Father's Day to all of you dads out there! :)

It's MSKS's birthday!

My intentions were to create this little slideshow tonight, and then wait and post it in the morning for Mary Straton's birthday. BUT, I'm noticing that it's well past midnight, so it's technically already June 16th! So, MSKS, I hope you have a fantabulous birthday....enjoy this: (it was fun to make!) Be sure to head on over to MSKS's blog and wish her a happy birthday! :)

Click to play Make your own Smilebox

*Thanks, Jenny, for introducing me to Smilebox...I always get my blogging ideas from you! :)

cute little boy...

My cousin's little boy, Cooper, was in the Meridian Star this morning and I had to share this picture (thanks for emailing it to me Adelia!). Cooper's mom, April, is the director of the State Games which are held in Meridian (that's what the newspaper article is about).

Isn't he cute?

Oh, how I wish I were there...

So, I'm a little jealous of all of the lucky state fans who got to head up to Omaha for the World Series. How very fun would it be to be there?
I will, however, be watching the game (vs. North Carolina) on TV tonight at 6:00 and I'll be cheering on my dawgs!! (Click here to see the bracket).

Question: What time is Ole Miss playing?? Oh yeah, that's right, THEY AREN'T THERE!! HAHA...

WHAT? Am I 6 years old?

You know how people always say that when you're married for a long time, you start to look and act like your spouse? Well, I've decided that I may indeed be sharing similarities with my students. I've come to the realization that the amount of time I spend with children is contributing to my new favorite treat: Pop-Ice popsicles. Heather, I'm sure you recall how we used to eat these incessantly as kids, but I must say, it's been quite some time since I've had one...until just the other night. My friends Matthew and Sarah had them at their house the other night and they offered me one. I thought I might as well eat one since THEY'RE eating one (I don't want to be rude right?? :) ). Fortunately, the one I had was banana (banana and grape are a tie for my favorites). I immediately became re-obsessed with them. So, during my next Wal-Mart trip they had a huge display of them and they are SUPER cheap (seriously like 100 for $3), which really makes me smile. I got the tropical flavors and they are fabulous. I'm embarrassed to admit how many I had yesterday. Of course I justify it by saying, "well, it's healthier than ice cream!" hmmm....

They're perfect when you come inside from being miserably hot. Go buy some. If you have kids, you can say that you're buying them for them, even if you don't actually share them with your kids.

SUBJECT CHANGE: Nana had a dr. appointment in Jackson today and I volunteered to drive her there. Lucky for us, her appointment didn't last long at all, and we had time to scoot over to see little Henry before his 6 month portrait picture appointment. :) I know, I know, I JUST posted pictures of him a few days ago, and he hasn't really changed much since then :), BUT these pictures are just oh so cute and I had to share them.

Innocent? I think not...

Here is what my cell phone looks like right now: Notice anything WRONG with my fairly new, not really cheap cell phone??? Let me assure you that the antenna doesn't look like that because I needed a snack while watching Seinfeld reruns.

One word for you: MAX.

Now, I've always been one who takes good care of my things and I tend to get a little bent out of shape (to say the least) when my belongings get messed up. I've been driving the same car for over 3 years now and it still looks brand new. I bought new furniture last year, and plan on having it until I die (thankfully my little one KNOWS better than to chew on the furniture!). You get the idea...I like for my things to look nice.

Luckily, the cell phone still works fine, but can we say "TACKY?!" I just don't want to walk around talking on a phone that looks like that. I went to Cellular South just to see if by some chance they could just simply replace the antenna. Of course they can't, but I'm not giving up. I'm calling the Nokia people and I'm going to see what I can do. I know, I know, I probably should just break down and get one of those really good phones that don't even HAVE antennae. I refuse to buy a new phone (mainly because I can't afford to!), but I would really like it if it didn't look like it has been in my garbage disposal. Oh well. I really shouldn't complain too much because I know it could be a lot worse. Max very rarely chews on anything besides his toys (although he does love to get his paws on a paper towel or dryer sheet!) and I must say that's highly unusual for a puppy. I can't stay mad at his little face for too long! :)

I took a few pictures of my innocent dog while he was playing with his bone...don't you love the one of him on his back? haha....

I love that dog.

Oprah knows best...

Oprah says that you should always have fresh flowers in your home because they can brighten any room and they simply just make you feel better. She's so right.

I spent the afternoon with my wonderful Nana. We went to TCBY and then I just went with her to run a few errands. She then says, "I think you need to let me buy you a pretty bouquet of flowers." I don't always have 10 extra dollars to spend on flowers, so I wasn't going to turn down the offer. We were pleased with the selection of bouquets at Kroger, and I think we chose one of the prettiest ones there. I separated them into 2 different bouquets, and I must say, my house looks better than it did this morning! My Nana is the best! :)

Aren't they pretty?

It's a good life.

So, I feel like I've been on a vacation for the past 5 days. I've been at Heather's since Wednesday night, and I just got home a few hours ago. It was fabulous. Trey has been out of town, so Heather needed me to babysit her while he was away. :) She had to work Thursday and Friday, so I was home all day with the pups, but do you think it bothered me? Absolutely not. Here's a tentative schedule of my daily activities while Heather was at work:
-sleep in until whenever (not much past 8:30 or so since there were a couple of out of control dogs in the house)

-drink coffee, eat breakfast, lay around

-go jogging

-shower

-watch a movie (Thursday I watched "Waiting for Guffman" for about the 164th time. If you've never seen it, please do yourself a favor and watch it. I can almost quote it from beginning to end and I hysterically laugh out loud every single time I watch it!)

-eat lunch with Heather

-drink a little diet coke

-take a snooze with the pups

-watch Dr. Phil and Oprah and start thinking about putting on REAL clothes and make up.
*please note that I am NOT a lazy person, so laying around like this is very unusual for me (but kinda nice for a change!).

By this time, it was about time for Heather to come home (tough life isn't it??). I did that all day Thursday and half a day on Friday. That afternoon I went to work with Heather and got to experience an afternoon in the exciting life of Heather Skaggs. She's important at work. She has an office and 2 computers. Not 1...TWO.

When Heather was NOT at work, here's a summary of what we did:

-shop

-bake cookies (and why would you assume we ate some of the cookie dough???) :)

-watch "The Holiday" (yes, it was my 2nd time, but she had never seen it, so I was happy to watch it again!)

-watch "The Devil Wears Prada"--I LOVED it! Meryl Streep is fantastic in that movie. I know, I know, I SHOULD have read the book first, but now that I've watched it, I'm definitely going to go back and read it.

-cook

-go out to eat (Mexican one night, Sushi another night...does it get any better???)

Saturday, we spent the day at Kristen's. I gave her the scrapbook that I'd been working on and she loved it! I'm wondering what I've gotten myself into though, because now she thinks that I need to make her a scrapbook for every HOLIDAY. Yes, I have a lot of free time now, but I'm not sure I'll ever have enough free time to make a scrapbook for every single event of his life! haha....I guess I'll do what I can though! :)
Henry changes so much everytime I see him. We think he's teething now, so he wasn't as happy as he normally is, but I did manage to capture some more adorable pictures of him as well as a little video of him trying hard to crawl (creep, scoot, whatever you want to call it!). I love watching his face while he's doing it. He's so determined and he gets really frustrated! (You can hear me, Kristen, and Heather talking and totally hovering over him in the video....poor Henry!!).

I love this one of him. He's on the floor and Kristen is sitting in a chair next to him. She was talking to me and Heather and this is Henry looking up at her while she's talking. SO CUTE!






Henry attempting to crawl... from Laura Tomlinson on Vimeo

Last but definitely NOT least: GO DAWGS!! World Series Bound!!!

in the mood for a little change...

I'm becoming a little more familiar with blogging, and I'm having fun playing around with the different templates and colors (uh oh, am I a blog nerd now??). Plus, everybody else seems to be changing the look of their blogs, so I decided to give mine a small makeover. I'm not really in love with it yet, so we'll see how long it lasts. I may go back to the original... :)

P.S. you should definitely wander over to Candy's blog and check out her new look too...so cute!

warning: I am NOT a professional!

So, I've been working on a little "happy" to give Kristen. She works SO hard ALL of the time, and she often feels guilty about not having the time to do little things, like organizing picture albums with pictures of Henry, filling out baby books for him, etc. She's in her 2nd year of residency, so as you could imagine, most of her time is spent at the hospital. The little free time she does have is obviously spent playing with Henry. I, on the other hand, am enjoying my summer...no commitments, jobs, etc. (it's a fantasy life really), and I love having "projects" to do. I've also really wanted to get into scrapbooking, but I haven't really had anything to "scrapbook" about. I've always said that as soon as I get married, have kids, etc., I would start making them. Then it hit me. I have lots of free time, want to scrapbook, and my sister would LOVE to have a scrapbook of Henry. Bingo. So, I headed to Wal-Mart, Target, and Hobby Lobby, and loaded up on scrapbook supplies. Being a beginner, I was quite overwhelmed with all of the possibilities for scrapbooks. Wow. I was glad to have Candy there as a "guide." She's been working on a scrapbook for Landon, so she was kinda able to tell me what to buy to get me started. So I got to work, trying to include all of the important events of Henry's first 6 months of life. Of course you know how I am about taking pictures, so not having enough pictures was not an issue. Anyway, after working on it for hours and hours at a time this week (it's so fun and addictive!), I finally completed the scrapbook today, and I plan on giving it to her this weekend when Heather and I go and visit them this weekend (Kristen is not a blog reader-remember, her free time is limited-, so she won't find out about the scrapbook until she receives it Friday). I wanted to show off my first scrapbook ever (don't judge...hopefully my skills will improve over time), so I took pictures of each page, so you could see! :) It's hard to see every detail of each page, but you can at least get the idea. I'm actually quite proud of my first work of art. :) (if you place the cursor on each individual scrapbook page as it's "sliding," you can read the caption/title for each page). Let me know what you think! :)
note: the last page that says "I'm six months old today" really was taken June 1-six months to the day of his birthday! :)

I may now be obsessed with scrapbooking! :)

don't you want to eat him up???

Gosh, I love this boy. I had to show off this recent picture that Kristen took of him. It's most definitely one of my favorites now (I guess this means I better go out and buy another picture frame! It's getting so out of control). I'm going to visit Heather today, and she and I are hopefully going to venture over to Kristen and Rob's at some point this weekend so I can see this little face. It's been way too long!

Sweet boy...

Don't you think he looks like his Aunt Laura? :)

P.S.

I got a little tired of my playlist at the bottom. I didn't want to delete the songs, so I just changed the settings so that if you still want to listen to a specific song, you have to scroll down and click play. :)

good times, good food...

Last night I went to a cookout at my friend, Heather, and her husband Tom's house. It was a great hanging out time with her and a couple other "teacher friends" of ours (not to mention the fantastic hamburgers Tom grilled!!! mmmmm....). Heather and I have just become good friends over the past few months and she's just fabulous. I'm so glad to have another friend here!! :)

me and Heather

I baked cookies to take over there, and without tooting my own horn, I must say they were pretty yummy. :) (OK, so I didn't exactly have one last night, but I've had them numerous times before, and I was told last night that they were quite good...). I'm not very talented in the kitchen, but apparently these cookies are my specialty. I found a really good oatmeal cookie recipe from "Bully's Best Bites" and just added the chocolate/peanut butter swirl chips to it. Jot down this recipe so you can make them sometime (but be sure to call them LT's famous cookies...I need to get credit here! :) ).

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

1 cup veg. shortening

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. soda

2 1/4 cups oatmeal

1 bag chocolate chip/pb swirl chips (optional of course, but why would you want to leave them out?)

Directions:

1. Combine sugars and shortening.

2. Add eggs lightly beaten with vanilla.

3. Add flour, salt, and soda and mix well.

4. Stir in oatmeal and chips.

5. Spoon on cookie sheet and bake at 325 degrees for 8-10 min. (I like to take mine out a little early, so they'll be nice and chewy. SO GOOD!).

Enjoy! :)

2 fabulous flicks...

I rarely go to the movies. It's nearly $8 just to SEE a movie these days, and of course I can't watch a movie with out my $3.50 Diet Coke (even though I have been known to smuggle in a Diet Sam's a time or two...). I hardly ever have that kind of dough just lying around, so I usually just wait to watch the movie when it comes to rent ( I also like watching them in the luxury of my home in my pj pants as opposed to a theater where people talk, clap, etc. and the floors are sticky...no thanks...). Well, the other day when Claire was here, we hit up Movie Gallery b/c they were having a fantastic sale on DVD's: Buy 2, get 2 free. I'm trying to increase my DVD collection, and it's been quite sometime since I've actually bought a movie, so I thought, "why not?" So, I got 2 and Claire got 2, each of us only paying the price of one, (get it, Heather??). I must say, with my own good taste in movies and a little help from Claire, I made 2 very good choices. Allow me to make a couple of recommendations for you:

• "For Your Consideration" - Any Christopher Guest fans out there? If you like "Waiting for Guffman"(my personal favorite), "Best in Show," or "Mighty Wind," then we should most definitely be friends. If you've never seen any of the above selections, then do yourself a favor and watch them. You can thank me later. Anyway, "For Your Consideration" was hilarious. Not as good as "Guffman," but definitely another one in which I'll be watching (and probably quoting soon) over and over again.

• "The Holiday" - I'm a sucker for romantic comedies. 9 times out of 10, if it's a romantic comedy, I'm going to like it. I'm a female...what can I say?? :) Claire convinced me that I would like this one, so I went ahead and bought it. I watched it last night and LOOOOOVED it. Usually you associate romantic comedies with cheesiness, but surprisingly, this one wasn't all that cheesy. (Of course there were cheesy, slightly unrealistic scenes, but it definitely wasn't over-the-line-cheesy). I plan to take this with me to Heather's tomorrow and force her to watch it with me. Fabulous. (side note: Jude Law looks mighty good in this...even if you don't care for the movie, it's worth it just to watch him in it...).

just killing a little time!

American Cities That Best Fit You:

75% Austin 65% Denver 60% Atlanta 60% Honolulu 55% San Diego

Which American Cities Best Fit You?

anniversaries...

2 of my favorite couples celebrate anniversaries this week. Today is Heather and Trey's 1 year anniversary, and Kristen and Rob celebrate their 4 year anniversary on June 7th. Happy Anniversary to you!! I love you all! :)Kris and Rob's engagement picture-2003

Kris, me, and Heather on Kris' wedding day-2003

Heather and Trey-2006

The 3 of us again at Heather's wedding-2006