Titans vs Colts

Chip and I got tickets at the last minute for the Titans/Colts game in Nashville a few weeks ago. It hasn't quite been worth talking about until now...since we've been somewhat MIA in the blog world and need something to keep the wolves at bay who are loyal blog readers (all 6 or so of you). While the Titans were, like, 97-0 for the season (and remain that way still) we decided to go anyway. Luckily one of the girls at work, Tonya and her husband Jeremy were able to go with us. It didn't really matter that they are die-hard Colts fans, we pretty much knew there wasn't much to argue about with this game!

Smiling, before the game (obviously)

Tonya and Summer and the downtown Nashville lights...kinda.

It was cold. It was a night game so we got home (on a Monday morning) at 3:00AM. We had, naturally, the biggest glass-half-empty Titans fans EVER sitting directly behind us. I'm pretty sure their season tickets get addressed to "Mr. Billy Bad Mood" every year. To make matters worse, the Titans managed to cause about a dozen turn0vers but not a single touchdown the entire night. I can't remember the score, but the Titans lost. Big. So, it's always fun to go to a professional game of any sort, but this one wasn't quite as fun as it could have been. Like the Vols, before the Georgia game anyway, it's been a tough season for Titans fans.

And still smiling after the game. I think it was more of a delirious smile, part boredom, part glass-half-full to make the guy behind us angry, the rest was just us trying to keep warm. Yes, those are bunny ears.

This was as close as I could get to apologize to Peyton for all the horrible things I said, to his face, in college. Even though he didn't win a National Championship like he was supposed to (and Tee did, but whatever), I finally admit he was a great college player and is, quite obviously, a superb athelete still today. However, I still maintain that he surely has no recollection of my brief, but brutal confession of my true feelings for him back in 1997.

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Foothills Fall Festival

The annual Foothills Fall Festival is a 3-day event and is traditionally a gorgeous weekend. Since we've been enjoying the festival, I mostly remember the sun shining brightly, shedding our light jackets early in the day and in every picture the subjects are squinting in the bright, warm fall sunshine.

This year was very, very different.

First, there were antique cars. So, naturally we began telling Cooper about these cars and the festival a couple of days before we planned to go. We always go on Friday so to avoid the massive crowd on Saturday and Sunday. However, this particular Friday, about the only event going on was Noah and his animals counting two by two. Poor Cooper asked aaa-lll-lll day "when are we going to the ball bestibal?" We avoided the answer by providing an impromptu pronunciation lesson each of those times. We eventually had suffered from enough Cabin Fever and decided to RUN to the car dressed in our winter coats and armed with umbrellas at the first break in the rain around 5PM. We park at Grammy's house and hike through the wind and sprinkles, all while Kendall chants "We're going on a bear hunt, we're gonna find a big one, it's a beautiful day. We're not scared!" We finally reach the top of the hill at Broadway to find the state's biggest pumpkin sitting atop the back of an antique, cherry-red pick-up truck. Then we look left. We look right. We look back left. If we shielded our eyes from the on-again raindrops, we could see what resembled a white, antique car. That was it. One car. Oh, and the pumpkin pick-up. According to Drew's Grammy, the owners of the other cars had given up and headed home hours before. To say Coop was disappointed was the understatement of the century. So, we marched back to Grammy's house, played a little human Frogger at Highway 321, and alas, caught no bears, to Kendall's dismay.

Day 2. More rain. VERY, very cold. Late afternoon, we had all watched quite enough cartoons, eaten enough snacks and bickered enough for an episode of I Love Lucy. We decided to try again.

If we thought Day 1 was windy, we were quite surprised to get out into the blistery, wintery air of Saturday. But by-goodness, we were gonna find some CARS! So, back down Court Street, back to play more human Frogger at Highway 321, back down the stairs and up the big hill. According to the temperature, it's warmer than the day before and the sun was trying, trying, trying to peak out from behind the clouds. We had great faith that the cars would be lining Broadway. Actually, that's wrong. We never actually believed that at 4PM on Saturday of a major festival, the cars would be gone. Enough foreshadowing for you? Well, they weren't gone. There were 4. Oh, and of course the pumpkin truck, so I suppose that makes 5? Cooper was slightly impressed with the cars, but we moved past them quickly. We perused the crafts and visited a small section of the chidlren's area before Kendall broke out into full, Princess tears, shouting "it's too windy, it's too windy. Take me hoooooooome!"

"Oh, sunny, warm Foothills Fall Festival, where art thou? Please come back next year, we've missed you so!"

Pumpkins

While October is one of my least favorite months (I love the leaves changing colors, the height of college football and Halloween, but can't stand what the end of fall brings ), I do love decorating pumpkins with my kids. It hasn't happened a lot, since they're still young, but so far it's one of my favorite activities. Chip isn't the artist in the family (although, hopefully some people who have had fillings done by him would call him one!!) and isn't the biggest fan of painting in general. I am not a fan of long, sharp carving instruments around small children... so, add these two things together and you get some serious mommy-and-me pumpkin painting fun! Unfortunately, just as we were finishing up, the rain came pouring down. The kids weren't much help and basically ran to the front porch with exactly zero (0) pumpkins or art supplies in their hands. So, as I was running through the rain, holding two pumpkins at a time, trying to keep the freshly painted pumpkins from turning into a bad horror film prop, the kids were cheering me on, telling me which pumpkins to pick first to save. It didn't work that well and we might just have a fun time this weekend re-painting these pumpkins!

We haven't made it to the official pumpkin patch yet this year, but gave quite a bit of money to the missions at Fairview United Methodist Church's pumpkin "patch."

The kids loved being able to sort through all the pumpkins and pick two each.

So, I'm a Jason Mraz fan. I have a few of his songs on a cd in my car, one of which is his remake of "Summer Breeze." I often don't think the kids even hear the radio. Sometimes they must, because I turn it up to tune out the screaming they are producing from the back seat. Other times, they apparently hear it just fine. And remember the words. I'm not sure why Cooper chose to sing it in quite the fashion he did, but it's hysterical nonetheless. We were walking back to our car after loading pumpkins and all of a sudden he breaks out in his Louis Armstrong impression of Jason Mraz's version of the Seals and Croft classic. Go figure.

Congratulations to our dear friends Kevin and Amanda who welcome Lila Katherine to the world on Tuesday! She's absolutely precious and we're excited to welcome a new little princess to our world!

Another Post About Ducks

I wonder if any of our loyal blog readers get tired of how often we visit the ducks? I also wonder which is sadder, the fact that we have little more to blog about other than feeding ducks OR the fact that we have that much leftover bread that we don't eat? Well, regardless, feeding ducks is always super fun and the kids are ultimately sad 100% of the time when our bread runs out. And while feeding ducks is always a good time for us all, it's a super fabulous time when we do it with friends.

This was taken just after we were trying to get a picture of the 3 kids and the boys would not cooperate. Kendall said "I'll take a picture!! CHEESE!"

This was the best picture I got of Drew all day. It's safe to say, he just wouldn't stand still. Why is it that I took several photography classes and I still get results like this?

And this? To say I am frustrated that this, of all photos, didn't turn out, would be a great understatement.

Cooper chasing Kendall and Drew while they hold hands and run away. Is this forshadowing for the Big Brother?If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Drew accidentally drug Kendall across the bridge as she fell, hurting her hands and knees. She made poor Drew kiss both knees and her hands and he, like a gentleman, obliged.

21 Deer, 4 turkey, No Bears...

...And let me not leave out...the smell of one skunk. I've been a little over-the-top with keeping my kids away from any potential germs lately. As most of you know, we've been a little under the weather the past several weeks. With 6 bouts of Strep, 2 of us with the flu, and an ear infection (not to mention seasonable allergies that are wreaking havoc on Chip and Kendall) all within the past 6 weeks, Mommy has become even more OCD than before. Any indoor facility that isn't required to have the presence of my children, does not, in fact, have the presence of my children. So, last weekend we packed up and headed to the open air of Cades Cove with nothing to do all day but sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Loop and explore cabins and churches. We tried to leave early, but fortunately (I can't make myself say "unfortunately"), Kendall slept until nearly 9AM and Cooper played quietly by himself so Chip and I did not really make it out of bed until well after 8AM. I feel certain that if we had gotten up at our regular hour and left the house, I would have seen a bear up close and personal. However, I was still confident we would see one since the temperature was in the high fifties when we arrived at Cades Cove and the skies were overcast. We saw plenty of deer, but alas, no black bears. I'm holding out hope that I'll catch a glimpse of one before the winter months arrive!

Court Time

I am devastated that the recent bad economy has taken the life of my favorite tennis facility, Centre Court Racquet Club. Coach Lenny has been coaching me since I was 11 years old (with a small break from late high school until about 2 years after college) and it was a dream come true for me to have him open a facility in Blount County. However, he has been forced to take some time off and re-evaluate the business (that's my hopeful way of saying that he's working on a way to get Centre Court up and running again soon). I took the kids to get pictures taken at CCRC before they closed. Coach Lenny and Ms. Jennifer had gotten the kids t-shirts at the US Open in New York in August, which made for a perfect uniform for the photos.

A September of Birthdays!

We are very, very blessed with a lot of friends. Our friends have a lot of babies and therefore, our children are very, very blessed by the children of our friends. It seems that many of these friends happen to have birthdays in September! It was a whirlwind of weekends in September but oh, OH SO FUN! Benji (in the stripes) had a super-fun birthday party at Smart Toys and Books! The kids got to dance, choo like a train and play instruments. Most importantly, they got to play under and around a parachute!

Next up was our Cowboy friend Ty's party. This ropin', wranglin' party was complete with a wagon ride, bandits, pony rides, pinatas and much more.

Our cowgirl. It shouldn't come to a surprise that her new favorite shoes are her hot pink cowboy boots and a cowboy hat with a hot pink "K."

The only time they took their hats off.

Our next party was a gymnastics party for Danica's third birthday! Kendall was right in her comfort zone.

Cooper LOVES the tumbling trampoline. Actually, all the kids love it. It makes for some of the funniest photos!
The next party was Abram's, but it was at Chuck E Cheese's and it was too chaotic to take pictures (we actually LOST Cooper at one point, if that tells you exactly how chaotic). SO- the next party with photos was BABY SAM'S! Our sweet cousin/nephew is ONE now!!! And just as exciting, Nene makes her Wild Webb Blog debut (at least I think).
Even though Kendall had a positive flu test the day before, we allowed her to come (fever free for 18 hours) to Sam's outdoor party and stay away from all the other guests. She was perfectly understanding and stayed away most of the time...at least until Sam started opening gifts!
I borrowed this photo from Katie Stinnett, Sam's Birthday Photographer, because I didn't get close enough to Sam (b/c I had a little girl attached to my hip) to get my own. Sam decided he wanted to be more like cousin Cooper than cousin Kendall. Let's just say, he doesn't quite have a sweet tooth yet!

Whew! Happy Birthday to all our September friends and family!