Are you ready?

It's time for some FOOTBALL!!!

I think I am on Football Frenzy overload.  Jim and I spent last night flipping back and forth between the Houston Texans vs Minnesota Vikings and the SEC opener between South Carolina and Vanderbilt.  (Vandy was robbed!!!  and Jim was a little upset at me for cheering Jarius Wright in for the touchdown against Houston...but, hey, I love to watch former Razorbacks in the NFL.)

After the games, we switched to the DVR so that I could watch the Hogs on College Football Confidential: Arkansas.  I had missed it the night before.

Today I'm dressed for College Colors Day with Razorbacks adorning my neck, my wrist and even my ears.

I hung the Cardinal Red and White from the flagpole at our front gate this morning.  (Woo Pig, Soiee!  I'm so excited for the coming year.)

I'll be heading home in a little over an hour to change into Bulldog maroon and white for Will's first Varsity game tonight in El Campo.  There is a possibility that the whole family will be in attendance to watch #63 play tonight.  (Let's Go, Dawgs!)

Tomorrow morning we will be holding our annual Fantasy Football draft party.  Once again the boys will be getting upset with me for drafting some of my favorite Razorbacks that have moved on to the Big League.

And tomorrow night, I think I might just have to cough up the funds to watch my Hogs play live on Pay Per View.  I really want to see Knile Davis make his return from injury with a big touchdown run for myself.

It's a good thing there will be no football on Sunday this week.  I may need the break.

Carrying On The Goode Family Name

I love these guys.  They make me laugh, make me think and make me want to scream at least once every day.

Brian, Will and Bri with Davin on the boat.
Why is it that my grandchildren cover their faces with their hands when you are trying to take a picture of them. But then they sneak into frame when you are taking pictures of everyone else?  Am I alone on this one?

As much as I miss my girls (and boy, do I ever miss having someone to have a REAL conversation with), I love having these two around.

Goofy brothers self portrait.

As most of you know, I did not grow up around boys.  They are strange and confusing creatures to this momma who grew up with a sister and mostly female cousins.  When they were young, I read Dr. James Dobson's book (Bringing Up Boys) in hopes of finding a key to the inner workings of their minds.  It helped a little...as did Wild At Heart by John Eldredge.  But they are still a complete mystery to me.

Take this one right here as a case in point.

Brian looks so much like pictures of my dad when he was the same age that you could swap out their Junior year photographs.  If it weren't for the hairstyles, it would be very difficult to tell them apart.  And yet, he is so much like Jim Goode that I just shake my head and walk out of the room when they are 'debating'. 

He has taught himself how to play guitar...and has a keen eye of observation.  We tell him all of the time that he should be a lawyer.  He is that smart, and that stubborn.  He could argue that the sky is purple and eventually win.

Instead he is majoring in Secondary Education.  He wants to teach high school History and coach basketball or tennis.  He has an artists heart and eye.  He has painted pictures and made pencil drawings that amaze me. 

We call him the Hipster, though he denies it ferociously.  Not because he has anything against Hipsters, he just doesn't like being labeled AT. ALL.


Then there is this fellow.

William definitely has some Jenkins genes.  But as pertains to looks, he is more a mixture of his dad and several of my male cousins.  The hair?  Totally his dad's.

Yet his personality is much like my dad's...mostly laid back and accommodating.  If you need anything done around the house, this boy will do it.  He has been using power tools for years and can drive the tractor ALMOST as well as his dad. 

However, neither of us know where he got his aversion to shirts in the summer.  I don't know if anyone notices but us.  (And we tell him constantly to put a shirt on!)

He is an outdoor enthusiast for sure.  When he was about four years old, he announced to Jim and I that when he grew up he wanted to have a hunting and fishing show on Outdoor Network with his dad as his partner.  He is also quite tenderhearted when it comes to animals...especially our pug, Pib.

As for arguing with him, only his brother and sisters can do that.  For the rest of us he refuses to give an opinion to argue with.  Just the other day we were out back-to-school shopping, just the two of us, and I had to threaten to just drive until he told me where he wanted to have lunch.  His answer is always, "what do you want?"

I can hardly believe my "baby" is now a Senior.  These days he talks more of opening a restaurant than of being on television.   Where that came from I may never know, because he hardly ever talks.  He always asks me how my day was as he gets in the car, but after that it is one word responses from him all the way home.

Boys!  I don't know what to do with them.  Nor do I know what to do without them.  I guess I'll just keep them around a little while longer.

This post is longer than I intended, but I rarely ever get pictures of the boys like this.  They seem to disappear when the cameras come out.  I thought I would take adavntage of it while I had the chance.

The Allens

Today's blog post is dedicated to the newlyweds, Mr. and Mrs. Allen.  Rita commented on another post about our family growing so much in 2012...and while this is technically true as it pertains to Josh, in reality he has been an unofficial part of this family for years.

Here's to our baby girl and her man!

Bri and Josh

The newlyweds

I thought he was really going to push her into the lake,
but I think the 'big eyes' stopped him.

 

The only one missing from this picture is
their four-legged baby, Blue.

The newest 'Goode Family' spin-off.

The Ham Family

And now for Kelli's family...pre-Elliot.

Maddux, Matt, Kelli and Brooke enjoying some time in the pool.

The Hams on the stairs leading up to the dock.

Waving the colors of Old Glory on the back lawn.

Brooke-y Bear

Mad Dog

The Rodgers Family

Where to begin with the family pictures? I guess from the beginning...with our eldest...Princess Meagan.

Derrick, Meagan and Davin from the dock house.

Under the arbor

Like father, like son.

The Rodgers family in front of Lake Conroe

Derrick and Meagan (and Delayne)

We Are Family

While at the lake house back in July, we took a morning to snap a few family pictures. These haven't been retouched.  Just fresh from the camera.  We hope you enjoy them!

The Goode 7: Will, Brian, Bri, Kelli, Meagan, Fonda and Jim

A professional photographer would have put us in order of height...but this momma thinks in birth order.  LOL!  This is still one of my favorites though.

The son-in-loves: Josh, Derrick and Matt
I am so glad that our family truly loves each other...including the in laws.  It makes for a wonderful family time.

Just the guys: Josh, Maddux, Derrick, Davin, Matt, Brian, Jim and Will

All because two people fell in love.  And, man, do I ever love this guy!

I will post pictures of each family in the days to come. Thanks for stopping by!

Weight Loss Wednesday...Better Late Than Never

There I was, in a groove with posting like a champ...and then?  Crickets!  Silence!  Life!

Actually I set up several auto posts last week and that is why you heard from me for days in a row.  Now you know my secrets.

Anywho, I did weigh in yesterday morning and was excited to be down .8 pounds.  My in laws were in town this past weekend to help celebrate Jim's Big 5-0 and boy, did we eat!  Cookies.  Carrot Cake. Mexican. Barbecue. Big breakfasts.  And then we topped it all off with a huge Sunday dinner with the family.

So, that .8 was a relief to see.

That makes me 8 pounds down from my beginning weight and leaves me 4 pounds away from my lowest weight since this journey began.

I will try to be back before the weekend is over to post a few pictures from our Fourth of July vacation...and from Will's scrimmage tomorrow night.

Enjoy your last few days of summer!

A Wild Day On The Farm

Things have been going a little crazy on the farm lately.  We have a two year old heifer named Daddy's Girl that Jim bought from the Waller County Fair Junior Auction last October.  She is growing rounder by the day and we wake each morning counting heads in the field to see if she has given birth yet.  Jim and I both have been expecting it daily for the past month or more...but each day she just gets a little bigger.

On the other hand, Tuesday evening, August 7 had us worried about the heifer that I purchased at the same auction.  Wild Child suddenly began to drop a lot of weight.  She went from rather plump one day to showing her hip bones the next.  She earned her name by being a bit rambunctious in the pasture and because you never knew how she was going to react when you walked up to her.  Yet on that Tuesday night as they grazed in the garden spot, Jim and I both noticed that she seemed lethargic and that she was weaving as she stood to graze.  We discussed that we might need to load her up and take her in to see the vet if this didn't turn around before the weekend.

Imagine my surprise when Jim called me the next evening to let me know that we had a new baby calf.  But not from Daddy's Girl.  Oh no, it was Wild Child's calf.

Of course, I rushed home, grabbed the camera and trekked out to the pasture to get some pictures.

He was such a cutie.  I just love his sweet white face...but something about those black eyes looked a little freakish.

His daddy paid him no never mind.  All he wanted was for dinner to be served.

Jim moved the new baby and his mother to a separate pasture so that we could feed her without her having to fight for her food.  We were afraid the baby might get stomped on during the nightly feeding time frenzy.

As the sun went down, we started to really notice this little fellows dark facial markings.  Especially that mouth.

It was a little later that night, as he shined a flashlight into the pasture so that Will could get a look at him that Jim noticed the mouth had a striking resemblence to Heath Ledger's character, the Joker, from The Dark Knight.

Source

And thus, our new bull was dubbed Jokers Wild.

He had a rough go of it for the first couple of days.  His momma is young and she didn't drop her milk as easily as the other heifers have.  I always said that the cows are Jim's and Bri's and I wanted nothing to do with them...but this little one has really melted my heart.  We tried supplemental feeding but he wanted nothing to do with it. 

Finally, after the third or fourth day, he started walking a little steadier and by last Friday morning he had added a few pounds.   This past weekend he was bucking and kicking across the field.   I think he will be fine. 

And the best part, he lets me rub his ears!  Oh, and his momma is coming around to seeing me as an ally too.  She even lets me put my hands on her.  I think she knows I love her baby almost as much as she does.

We are still counting heads every morning, waiting on that other calf to make an entrance.  I just know it will be soon!

Remembering Desi

On August 2, the Rodgers and Goode families gathered to commemorate our sweet Desi with a butterfly release.   It was a bittersweet day, to say the least.  Enjoy the pictures.

Meagan, Derrick and Davin

The box of butterflies warming in the sunshine.

Meagan and Davin examining the butterfly that lit on his hand.

I managed to capture a quick picture of this one in the grass before it flew away.

The Rodgers family

The Goodes

Meagan, Bri and I.  I love this picture.
I just wish that Kelli had been able to make it.
But at 39 weeks...we totally understood why she wasn't in the heat with us.

May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun
And find your shoulder to light on,
To bring you luck, happiness and riches
Today, tomorrow and beyond.
~Irish Blessing

Thanks to Kay and Dylan for giving us all something to look forward to on Desi's 1 Year Heavenly Birthday.

A "Fully Charged" Birthday

Okay, so you think posting pictures of my newborn granddaughter a week later is bad? Just wait until you get a load of this post!

On Friday, July 27 there was a special little boy who was turning 5.   His Nonna went to pick him up EARLY in the morning for a very special day of celebration...

...but he was just getting out of bed.  So, she had to wait a little while for him to get dressed.  It was so worth it to be greeted by this big smile.

Once he was dressed, we loaded up in the car and headed out to grab some breakfast at the McDonald's drive through. 

As you can see, he liked the idea of McDonald's for breakfast.  We then headed off to make our way into the big city because we had a very special day ahead of us.

A day at the circus!!!

Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey's Fully Charged Circus to be exact.  They had a great program where you could get in early to see the animals and meet with the performers. 

The birthday boy saw the elephants, the tigers and the horses.  He then rode a zebra.  (Electric...but still a zebra.)

We then made our way into the big top.

Pictures with a pretty clown.
He couldn't get his nose to stay on though!

Ringmaster Davin
This cape weighed as much as he did!

After stopping to buy one of every toy on the table (not really, but almost), we headed back upstairs and gathered our snacks and drinks for the show.

Meagan and I knew that we had good, front row seats for the circus...but they were even better than we had expected.  (I love when that happens!)

Here is our Circus Celebrity very excited about his 5th birthday trip.

Meagan and I both thought that he would enjoy seeing the animals perform the most.  But no.  He L.O.V.E.D. the clowns!

This is a picture that I took from our front row seats with my phone.
Talk about close!

Quite surprisingly, they took us out of our seats and led us onto the big top floor to watch the first half of the show.  Talk about right in the middle of the action.  Davin could have reached out and just about touched the elephant.  (Since I had no idea what we were doing, I didn't even take my camera for that part.)

I think his first Circus experience was a good one.

Happy birthday, Davin! 

Meet Miss Elliot

Last Thursday, just after noon, Jim and I met our newest granddaughter.

Miss Elliot Grace made her way into the world weighing a solid 8 lbs., 6 oz. and measured a whopping 19" long.  She is beautiful and looks (to me at least) like her mom. 

Nonna's girl!  She was smiling at me.

Brooke and Pappaw had to listen to her scream.

I intend to cherish that last picture most of all, because as soon as they start walking they change their alliance from Nonna to Pappaw.

Welcome to the family, Elliot!  Know that your Nonna and Pappaw love you with all our hearts.

(I apologize for taking so long to post.  I can't load the pictures from my laptop and I kept leaving my camera at home.)

The Dog Days Of Summer Are Upon Us

It is August in Texas...the heat has been pressing down on us for months now. Due to the rains in July, we didn't have as severe of temperatures as in summers past, but it has still been hot...and the humidity makes it feel even worse.

I find myself daydreaming of fall.  A lot.  I have been envisioning days where cool breezes cause you to pull your jacket in a little closer.  Football games where you need your stadium blanket and a cup of hot chocolate to keep you cozy.  Sitting in a deer stand watching your breath fill the air.

I know these atmospheric conditions will not come any where near us until late November...maybe not even then.  But a girl can dream can't she?

It was with these thoughts running through my head that I went to see my hair stylist on Tuesday evening for a color touch up.  Diandra is a miracle worker when it comes to my hair.  Since I have no clue what to do with my hair, I just walk in and put my head in her hands.  After all, if I don't look good, she doesn't look good either, right? 

(My feeble attempts at styling my hair and my procrastination of sitting still for a color withstanding.)

Can you imagine my delight when she suggested that we get ready for fall by bringing down the blonde highlights and adding more brown lowlights?  She was reading my Fall Loving mind!  Even my hair stylist knows it really is just around the corner. 

And when I arrived home last night, guess what I found in my mailbox?

The September issue of Real Simple Magazine

My heart just swelled at the thought of wearing this trench coat and those wonderful leopard print heels.  And that Pumpkin colored dress?  Oh, how I love it too! 

One thing led to another, and late last night I ended up on the Zappos website looking for a pair of brown riding boots.  That is when I stumbled upon these beauties.

Frye "Paige" Tall Riding Boot at Zappos

Don't they just scream fall? 

Then, I looked at the price tag and plummeted back down to earth.

Though I think I may have found a temporary insanity plea in which I could blame it on the heat.

"These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after."  From the Prologue of Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

Think Jim would buy it?

Weight Loss Wednesday: Rewind

Not a good day!  Not a good day at all!

I stepped on the scales this morning ONLY because I knew it was time to face it.  I was not looking for any loss and was just hoping that I had not found all 12 pounds that I had lost during the course of this journey.

Well, I didn't find all twelve, but I got a pretty good start with another 1.8 since last week.  With a total of 4.8 from my lowest weight, that is over one third of my weight loss that has reclaimed it's space around my midsection.

I can blame the steroids for a few of those pounds...but the majority of them are all me.  I haven't exercised since vacation.  I have only journaled my food intake once or twice since then.  And I have enjoyed more than one dessert over the past few weeks.

So, what now?

It is time to rewind this tape and get motivated again.

R = Recommit to my weight loss goal

E = Exercise five days a week for 15 minutes

W = Write down everything that I eat

I = Include more vegetables and fruits in my diet

N = Notice the negative self-talk that promotes feelings of defeat

D = Dress for success  (taking better care of my personal appearance always gives me more energy)

Wow!  I didn't even plan that acrostic.

Grand Plans

Jim and I just L.O.V.E. these guys.  Nonna and Pappaw are wrapped around their little fingers and they all three know it.

By this time tomorrow, we should be tightly wrapped around the tiny, newborn little finger of Miss Elliott too! 

Please say a prayer for Kelli, Matt and the kids as they anticipate her grand arrival tomorrow.  I know it will be a long night for them!