Welcome to Sparkville: Home of the Golden Egg

New Year's in the Music City

2012-01-19T18:17:00.008-06:00

A lot has happened since we last posted, so this is going to be a quick post with a lot of pictures.

The whole Sparks clan came up to Starkville for Christmas. Dad took all the pictures, but I haven't gotten them yet.

While the women were cooking and playing with Reed, Pawpaw and I (and sometimes Dad) worked on a bench for the office. I love it.

Friday after Christmas, Jay, Claire, Carrie, Bekah, and I all loaded up and headed to Nashville for the Music City Bowl. Reed stayed with my folks in Jackson. We won. Barely. The second picture is of Vick Ballard squeezing in the corner of the endzone and scoring a touchdown.

Saturday night we went out for New Year's Eve. It was cold and the music note (New York has the ball drop, Nashville has the music note drop) only made it halfway down.

That's about it. Here are some pictures of Reed. Still no teeth, but he's got 4 big welps on his gums. We can't be too far away.

A Long Overdue Egg Bowl Recap

2011-12-24T06:56:00.006-06:00

It's almost Christmas, and we never put up anything about Thanksgiving and the Egg Bowl, so here's a recap.

It was a great Thanksgiving around the Sparks household. We went down to Brandon Wednesday afternoon, and as Bekah mentioned in the previous post, Reed got his first haircut! Special thanks goes out to the two people who commented on what "a nice-looking girl" we had, and the other three who weren't as bold and asked whether Reed was a boy or girl. I think each of their comments carried more weight than my day-to-day nagging.

We left Brandon early the Friday after Thanksgiving to get back and set up our tailgate tent for the next day.

I have been fixing up broken tents (left on campus after the games) and hoped to sell some Friday afternoon as people's tents broke. But despite finding 3 different people with broken tents, I had no luck Friday afternoon.

Saturday morning, Jay and I got out to campus around 9am and watched as a dozen people returned to their tents that were destroyed by the nightly wind and rain. I finally sold one tent around 11am, but that's all I could do.

Bekah brought Reed up to campus around 2pm, after his second nap. He did great before the game, and the weather was really nice until 4pm when it started to rain.

We went in the game around 5:30pm (kickoff at 6pm) and stayed under the stands for a little while. Shortly after we got in, it cleared up and We went to our seats just long enough to see the seniors get recognized at their last home game. Bekah took him down just before kickoff when it began to rain, and I stayed through the first drive - a touchdown by MSU.

After seeing us go up 7-0, I went down to check on Bekah & Reed. We found a spot to camp under the stands where we could see a TV, and hung out through the first quarter. It cleared up again at the beginning of the 2nd quarter, so Reed and I went back in and stayed for about 5 minutes of game time. When it started raining again, we headed back down.

Two minutes before halftime, I noticed it was clearing up, so Reed and I went back in quickly. Generally, the final 2 minutes of a half last FOREVER, but not this time. There were 7 seconds left when Reed and I sat down. Though the weather was clear, Reed and I did not support the decision to let ole miss's band play on our field, so we voluntarily went back under the stands.

MSU was leading 21-0 at halftime.

Early in the third quarter, Bekah handed Reed off to me and I felt a sudden warm gush on my right side. Yep, my 14-month streak of not getting peed on had just ended, and in the most public place, too - around 55,000 other people. So Bekah took Reed and our extra ticket (for re-entry) back to the tailgate to change his pants. Meanwhile, I went back to our seats, hoping the rain would clean my shirt a little bit.

Bekah & Reed got back at the end of the 3rd quarter and I went down to meet them in the concourse. By the 4th quarter, the game had been decided - MSU was up 28-3 - and the rain just kept coming. I wanted Reed in at the very end of the game when the clock hit zero, and I was preparing to tell Bekah that we were going to have to take him in while it was raining. But with 5 minutes left in the 4th, the rain stopped. So we all went in and the rain held out until the final buzzer.

Here is a video of the final play, as we denied a potential touchdown. ole miss was stopped inside the 5 yardline.

As MISSISSIPPI STATE was toting around the Golden Egg [for the third year in a row] and celebrating for the third straight year, it started to drizzle again. But Bekah let me keep him out there for a few minutes to see the fireworks and such. We got quick family pictures at his first Egg Bowl, and then Bekah and Reed took off for the house.

If you're looking for a game analysis, it's the same as the previous two years. ole miss just can't stop Chris Relf. It's not that he's doing anything special. He just runs all over them. And a team like ole miss didn't have anything to play for - their coach was on the way out and they weren't going bowling. So when we scored 14pts in the first quarter, I knew it was over - they basically laid down from that point forward.

After Bekah left, I went back to the tailgate to celebrate, and later Jay and I went on the field. We ran into Anthony Dixon (former MSU RB) and Chris Relf (senior MSU QB) as we were walking out, and we snagged a pic with Dixon.

Other than the weather, Reed's first Egg Bowl was great - a team effort by the Sparks. Reed was fantastic, and didn't mind being held through the entire game. Bekah didn't mind me taking him in and out of the game as the weather permitted, and she didn't mind taking him out to change his pants. I willingly stayed under the bleachers and watched the game on TV, and I was only mildly annoyed after getting peed on. And we were all happy it cleared up so he could be in at the end of the game.

Of course, we'll be in attendance in Nashville for the Music City Bowl (Friday, Dec 30 at 5:40pm). Reed's official status for the game is doubtful. I doubt the weather will cooperate, but it did last year at the Gator Bowl, so you never know...

------
Two weekends ago (Dec 9), Kathie & Gary came up from Florida to see Bekah walk for her Master's Degree. That Saturday, we had all kinds of family and friends over for a surprise party. We neglected to take any pictures - I was too focused on the party itself - but it was a blast, and I think everyone (who didn't end up sick) had a good time. I got sick that night, as did my mom, and Bekah's sister's entire family.

To help accomodate the 20 or so guests at the party, I pulled my Wrigley seats into the living room, and - surprise! - we think they look great in there. We've been searching for something skinny to fit this wall (due to the hallway door), but we'd come up empty so far. Not only does it give us extra emergency seating, but they fold up and don't block the doorway.

Now I just need to find something to replace them in the office / MSU room... We've also got a new addition to the breakfast area. Kathie and Gary brought up some old antique metal furniture, and this past wekeend (Dec 17) I got down and dirty and sanded, cleaned, and painted the whole thing. We really think it turned out nicely. We also re-cushioned the seats.

I guess that's it. We're preparing for Christmas this week, so we'll try to post some pictures between Christmas and the bowl game.

Merry Christmas and Hail State!
Ryan

First Hair Cut

2011-12-02T10:39:00.012-06:00

Recently, I have been asked twice if Reed was a boy or a girl. This did not sit well with Ryan. After at least a month (probably longer) of hearing snide comments and snappy remarks from Ryan, I finally gave in and let Reed get a little hair cut. It was very traumatic. For me. I was not a happy camper and every time Ryan mentioned having Reed's hair cut, I snapped at him. I had already agreed to get it cut, but he kept saying how bad he needed a cut and blah blah blah. Reed had the cutest curls! They were really wild and when his hair was wet and brushed out, it was crazy long, but it didn't take much time for the long hairs to curl into the cutest little mess you have ever seen.

So, with only a few days to go before d-day, I grabbed the camera and snapped as many pictures of his curls as I could.

We took him to Mr. David (who has cut Ryan's hair since he was little, and also cuts Mr. Richard's hair) the day before Thanksgiving.

This is when I almost started crying

I guess it was a *little* long Snip, snip (tear, tear) All done

My sweet baby is no longer a baby

Well, it was fast and semi-painless. Reed did such a good job and pretty much let Mr. David do what he needed to do. At first Reed kept grabbing the comb Mr. David was using, but I think that is because I always give him Ryan's brush to play with while I am getting ready (Ryan -I told you that is where that long, blonde piece of hair came from. Reed brushes his hair with your brush, not me. I have my own brush thankyouverymuch). Between the comb Mr. David gave Reed and Toy Story playing - Reed did very well.

Catching up: Reed was a skeleton for Halloween aka he wore skeleton jammies for Halloween. He is still too young to really know what it is and to enjoy it, so we did not go out of the way to do anything for Halloween. We were going to carve pumpkins, but I waited too late to get them so we didn't even do that (Ryan was really disappointed). We will definitely carve pumpkins next year though.

We were going to go over to John and Liza's house and take Reed to a few houses with Nathan and Dillon, but Reed had some kind of reaction to tomatoes and was given benadryl at daycare. He had never had benadryl before and we didn't know how he would be when we picked him up, so we decided to stay home.

Since we stayed home, I had to run to the store to get candy. Have you ever tried to get candy at 5:30 pm on Halloween? I don't suggest it. There was NOTHING. I had to spend a fortune just to get two measly bags. We ran out pretty quick and in turn, had to spend the rest of the night in the dark. I felt really bad because a girl walked up right after a group of little boys that took the rest of our candy and I had to tell her we didn't have any more and she was not happy with us. I really thought our house would have been egged.

A few days later, we took Reed to meet Santa at the Greater Starkville Development Partnership for Cookies with Santa. As you can tell, he had a blast.

He gave Santa a high five as soon as I picked him up.

Reed gave me the shaft for about an entire week after this happened. Oh, and his picture made it into the new Town & Gown magazine. I have picked up several copies and plan to show this to his girlfriend one day :)

And lately, Reed has been climbing into any and every space he can get himself into:

This child really cracks me up. He does the funniest tricks ever! We are working on getting them on video, and when he does, Ryan will post them. A few of the tricks he can do:

*When you ask "Where is your nose?" he points to it.
*When you ask "Where is your belly?" he lifts his shirt up and points to it. He REALLY loves lifting up other people's shirts and grabbing their belly (not so good for my self-esteem).
*When you ask "Where are your shoes?" he grabs them if they are on his feet.
*There is a song that is played at all the football games and basketball games with a line it in that says "Everybody's hands go UP" - and when you say it, he raises his arms up as high as they can go - it is so funny!

There are several others, but you will just have to wait for the video. Me telling you about them does not do these tricks justice.

Other updates for our little monster man:

* Talking up a storm! Words Reed can say include: Mama :) Dada, dog, juice, up, bath, night night, uh-oh... I think there are more, but I can't think of them right now

*When he is hungry, he will go to his high chair and pat it.

*He gives the best kisses and hugs.

*He is walking and running EVERY where - this child is always on the move.

*He loves to play in the cabinets. We find random objects in random cabinets. I found some socks and some cardboard on top of the dvd player in our media console. I have found Gatorade bottles, juice cups, blocks, and a book in one of our kitchen cabinets. We lock most of the cabinets (the ones that he can break dishes in or get into cleaning supplies), but I saw him taking the lock off on one of them the other day, so we may have a problem on our hands....

*He LOVES to read! He will get a book and bring it to you, then climb in your lap and let you read it. But if you aren't quick, he will turn the page before you are finished.

* I think we are going to have two teeth really soon (finally). His top two will most likely come in before the bottom ones because he already has whelps on the top and they are so puffy! He has started drooling like mad again and puts EVERYTHING in his mouth to gnaw on.

I guess that is about it. I will let Ryan do the updating when it comes to the bowl game. I will leave you with a glimpse of that post to come:

Unfinished.

2011-11-01T21:11:00.008-05:00

If you've been reading the blog - or even just looking at the pretty pictures - you probably know that we've put a lot of effort into redecorating our house this year. Or maybe that should be "decorating," since "re-" would imply that it was decorated to begin with, instead of some smorgasbord of mismatched free hand-me-downs.

Anyway, at the beginning we had this big list of stuff we wanted to do, so we prioritized it and tackled each item based on importance. Seems logical, right? I mean, if I have to choose between a china cabinet or a new couch - all due respect to the old green couch we had (may she rest in peace) - I'm buying a new couch all day long. Well, what it left us with is a bunch of half-finished rooms. For example...

- In the dining room, we added some pictures on the wall, a shelf, and a table setting, but we've still got 3 empty half-walls and a big vacant spot in the corner.

- In the living room, we bought a couch, two new chairs, and paintings, but we still haven't found a replacement for the DVD tower or put new pictures around the TV.

- And in my office, we added a new computer desk, some wall art, and a chair, but we haven't bought a bigger bookshelf or a bigscreen TV. :)

Every room is like this. We hadn't crossed off one room as "complete" in seven months. But now we have. The foyer is finished.

During our trip down to Jackson 2 weekends ago, we found the final piece. Bekah spotted this long painting that reminded us of our time in the Netherlands. And it fits great over our table.

Here's a rundown of everything we did in the foyer:

WHERE IT STARTED: Empty. There was nothing there. Nothing on the walls. No table. No shades on the front doors. Absolutely bare.

WHAT WE ADDED:
- 6' somewhat-shaky table highlighted by old bleacher wood from the football stadium
- lamps
- windmills painting
- front door shades
- pictures on the wall with our MSU friends, including Dan Mullen, Jack Cristil, Charles Rhodes, and Fred Smoot

RYAN'S FAVORITE THING: The table. Shoddy craftsmanship by an inexperienced carpenter causes the table to wobble a bit, but I love everything else about it. Special thanks to Charles & Nell for the bleacher wood.

BEKAH'S FAVORITE THING: The windmills painting. It fit the spot perfectly and brings back memories of our time in Europe.

RYAN'S LEAST FAVORITE THING: The shades. They're okay. They may look better once we paint the walls.

BEKAH'S LEAST FAVORITE THING: The silver "bucket" under the foyer table. It doesn't fit nicely under the table. I'd rather have a basket.

That's the foyer. Done. Though sometime I do hope to disassemble and repair the table to improve its sturdiness. But I've got other projects going on right now.

The garage has been unparkable recently as I painted Jay's beanbag tosses. I think they turned out nice. I see a pair of these for the Sparks's in the future...

As soon as those were done, I refinished some patio furniture we picked up from Aunt Ruth and Uncle Jerry. I still have a few small touch-ups left, but here's the finished part of the set. In total, there are 4 chairs and the coffee table. Sorry, these were the best in-the-dark photos I could get.

Last week, Bekah nagged me enough to finally hang some pictures in the guest room...

Here's something else we picked up in Jackson - a chalkboard made from an old shutter.

That's about it. Here are a few pictures of Reed over the past month. The first picture is with former MSU football star Fred Smoot, fresh off a successful 10 year NFL career.

And here's a video of the most-recent thing Reed's learned. Make sure your volume is turned up. :)

One last thing. Tonight was the Nick Bell memorial 3.6 mile fun run around campus. I ran, while Bekah and Reed walked with Auntie Carrie. We left from The Junction, headed down Fraternity and Sorority Row, zigzagged aroud and ran up Engineering Row, over towards the BSU, down to Zacharias Village, around the big lake behind the Sanderson Center, up by the Dudy-Noble and The Hump, and finished running by the football stadium. 36 minutes, 45 seconds. Not too bad for me, since I hadn't run in at least 6 weeks, and we decided to do it about 3hrs prior to the start (I ate a big lunch, and paid for it during the run).

That's all! Enjoy the rest of the week.
-R&B

No Sign

2011-10-28T16:14:00.002-05:00

Reed still has no teeth. Not. A. Single. One.

He will be 13 months on Tuesday.

That is all.

1 year old Reed

2011-10-08T12:30:00.011-05:00

Believe it or not, but my little baby is a one year old now. 1.years.old. I really am at a loss for words and I don't know where to begin. First, let me apologize for the lack of posting. I have been real busy at work and when I come home it is feed, bathe and play with Reed before I put him down. Once he is down, Ryan and I usually eat and then I pass smooth out.

Now, I guess I should start back 4 or so weeks ago when we had Reed's family birthday party. We decided just to have family over at the house on September 17th for some food, cake and play time with Reed. However, there wasn't much playtime. Reed started getting sick the Tuesday before and he just was not himself (he had bronchitis). So he was asleep when people arrived and asleep before they left. We woke him up to open presents (thank you notes are coming!!) and to eat cake. The cake had so much frosting on it that I don't know if he actually ate any cake. I started to get worried that all the sugar might upset his stomach so I took the cake away after he played in it for a while, gave him a quick rinse, and then fed him some chicken.

After he ate we started putting some of his gifts together so he could play with them. Ashley's boyfriend, Phillip, started putting together Reed's Cozy Coup that Mrs. Pam and Mr. Richard gave him. While Phillip was working on that, Reed was playing with the Thomas the Train walker that Ashley and Phillip gave him. The rest of the men were outside moving the swing Ryan and his grandfather built.

Some of the other things Reed received: A CARS 4-wheeler (given by Wayne and Hope), a V-Tech Walker (given by Ryan's Aunt Ruth and Uncle Jerry), a no-spill bowl, U.S. coin collection, and money for savings account from Ryan's grandparents, and we gave Reed blue jeans, shoes, bubble bath, sippy cup, and bath toys. Oh, and Momma and Gary bought Reed a white MSU football jersey.

The following weekend we had a tailgate birthday party for Reed, if you can call it that. There was cupcakes but Reed was still sick and was just so fussy (probably because he did not sleep AT ALL). We had funfetti cupcakes and several people stopped by to see him, but he was either fussy, fussy, fussy or asleep (for the .00010 seconds he did sleep). I ended up leaving the game early (we aren't that good this year, so it is not like we missed much) and Reed ended up sleeping at the tent. It took him a while to go to sleep, but since most everyone was in the game, it was more calm and he finally just passed out. Cathy and Kristin stopped by, Ms. Theressia, Monty and Robbye, and Brooke, Justin and Brayden. Ashley spent most of the day at the tailgate waiting for Phillip to get there and of course Uncle Jay, Aunt Claire, Auntie Carrie, and all of our tailgate friends were there. We enjoyed it, but Reed kind of stressed me out on Saturday and Sunday. It wasn't his fault, he was sick and sleepy, but I just won't keep him at the tailgate for as long as he was out there again. Lesson learned. The next day, Sunday, Ryan rode down to Jackson with Jay and Claire and flew out to Seattle for the week.

During the week, Reed and I just kept close to the house. I was called to pick him up at daycare Monday afternoon and then I took him to the doctor to get looked at again. He was STILL sick so the nurse perscribed an antibiotic to help him get over the mess once and for all. On Friday, Carrie, Reed and I loaded up in the truck and took off for Brandon to pick up Jay and Claire before heading to Georgia (Shout out to the Hillyers for watching Humpy for us. I know she had a better time at y'alls house than she does at ours).

We (Ryan) wanted to take Reed to the Georgia game since it was on his actual birthday. Ryan flew into Atlanta Friday afternoon and Ms. Theressia picked him up from the airport. The rest of us left a whole lot later than we anticipated so we did not get to the hotel until about 2:45 or so. Ryan told me when he got settled in earlier that he was in room 306. When we got there we called Ryan and went straight to the elevator (after unloading the van) and knocked on the door. Ryan did not answer so we thought maybe we passed him; he went down while we went up. Ummmm....that does not happen in real life so we should have realized that maybe we were in the wrong hotel. So Reed and I went back down to the front desk because I thought surely Ryan had given us the wrong room number. I asked the lady if there was a Ryan Sparks checked in. No, there was not. I asked if there was a Theressia McAlpin checked in. Once again, no. She asked if we were at the right hotel. I said we were supposed to be at the Hyatt. How many Hyatt's are in the area? Surely not that many. Ummmmmm......how about 3. Three Hyatt's in Norcross and we were at the wrong one, knocking on some poor stranger's door at 3 am. While I was downstairs Carrie received a call from Ryan and he was mad because he was standing outside barefoot in the cold and didn't see us. When she told him what was going on, he started laughing hysterically.

So we ended up getting there really late, slept for a few hours, then had to get up and ready for the game (Shout out – Ms. Theressia gave Reed the cutest book ever. It is called Mad About Maroon and every little Bulldog fan should have one). What can I say about the game? I didn't see much of it because I was in and out of my seat with Reed. Athens is really pretty, the weather was perfect, the game -- not so much. However, the fans were not obnoxious or mean in anyway, so even though we lost, we still had a good time. After we left (the beginning of the 4th quarter), we went back to the hotel to freshen up and went to Hooter's to watch the rest of the football games. I knew Reed and I wouldn't stay long, because he and I both were exhausted. And I could care less about catching up on the other games.

Yes, I am the mom who took her son to Hooter's on his first birthday. I am a little embarrassed by that, but it is not like we planned on doing that. It was the closest place where we (everyone else) could watch football all night - the nearest Buffalo Wild Wings was 30min away, and with Reed, Claire, and me planning on cutting out early, someone (Auntie Carrie) would have to take us back to the hotel then come back out, so we needed something close. The girls sang for Reed and we took pictures and he got a Hooter's bib signed by the waitress. Shortly after, Reed and I were ready to go and Claire decided she wanted to go back to the hotel too. Auntie Carrie went with us so she could bring the van back and watch the games with Jay and Ryan. I know I was asleep before the Ole Miss game started, and I am sure Claire was not far behind. I have no idea what time everyone else got back - probably around 1 or so. The next morning we loaded the van up and headed back to Brandon and then on to Starkville. It took us (me) a really long time to recover from the trip.

That is about all I can remember for the past few weeks. Now I will let everyone know what all Reed is doing, if you are interested. He is walking. A lot. All over the place. He is sleeping through the night, in his own room, anywhere from 9 - 12 hours, although I don't want to say that out loud because I am afraid that he will stop. In the past few days he has started waking up crazy early again...He is also off of all bottles and formula, hallelujah, and eats anything and everything, although it seems like he is starting to get tired of his baby snack food. He still has no teeth at all, but that has not stopped him from biting an animal cracker and a pickle in half. He drinks whole milk (sometimes I put Ovaltine in it) and juice - all from sippy cups. He hears the word NO an awful lot, sometimes it makes him laugh and other times he freaks out and throws his head back and starts crying. He has started giving fits a lot, and I tell you what, they drive me crazy and I have no patience for them. He always throws his big ol head back and starts crying and sometimes he loses his balance (because of his big ol head) and falls down. It scares me when he does that because he can hit his head really hard and he never knows if anything is behind him. He also throws his toys sometimes when you tell him no. I will NOT put up with that, so hopefully he will be out of that habit soon... He also knows Ma- Ma, Da-da, Uh-oh and Ball, although he just says Ba--, but he knows what they mean. His favorite toys are balls and he is a huge HUGE HUUUUUUUUGE momma's boy, although I'm not complaining. He loves to be in Ryan's office and he also loves getting into everything and anything he is not supposed to be in. Reed loves attention and if he is not getting any, he will speak (yell) really loudly until someone looks at him and acknowledge his presence. He loves bath time and the other night we had a nasty surprise during bath time which I am still a little too horrified to talk about. Let's just say...well, I can't talk about it. It was gross.

Here's a video of Reed walking.

I think that is about it. Reed is doing great, we are doing great and we all are just staying busy. Reed loves daycare, which is good because he is usually the first one there and the last one to leave. Work is pretty busy for both Ryan and I, which is a good thing. I was just approved to go through a certification program through the University of Wisconsin at Madison, so once the funding gets put in the right place, I can start that year-long program. I am still undecided about which degree to pursue next, but once I know and get accepted (hopefully) I will fill everyone in. Sorry this was really long, and I know I have left some stuff out, but Ryan will have to fill what I left out.

Starkville Pickers

2011-09-28T21:49:00.010-05:00

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. MSU football has me unimpressed and things have been a little hectic around the house - Reed's had a birthday party and I'm in Seattle this week... It's just busy around here. I'm going to get up a post with some pictures from Reed's birthday later since I don't have access to those pictures now. But I do have pictures from my and Jay's shennanigans last weekend. So you're stuck with seeing what junk we found.

Flash back to September 24th - the Saturday morning prior to the LA Tech @ Mississippi State game when Jay and I did our best impression of Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz from American Pickers.

We woke up real early that morning to go hit up a local estate sale. No, we're not old women (at least I'm not; Jay's just old) and this wasn't some random estate sale - it was the sale for Dr. Longest, a former MSU football team physician for 40 years and whose name is featured on MSU's Longest Student Health Center.

I stumbled across the estate sale info and saw some old Miss. State stuff featured in the preview pictures. Jay and I both collect old MSU stuff, and considering Dr. Longest's history with The People's University, we thought there might be some good MSU stuff to be had.

So we showed up at 7:15am and were 6th in line 45min prior to the doors opening. And we - well I (Jay's over 30) - were at least half the age of the other 5 people there. By the time the doors opened, there were approximately 45 people in line and we were easily the youngest two there. And there was only one other who looked to be under the age of 40.

While we stood in line outside, there were several large items on the patio. We gave a glance at some of the stuff but nothing looked too interesting. Spoiler alert: this was a MISTAKE. Instead, we focused on some banners we could see laying over a chair just inside the door.

About 10 minutes prior to the doors opening, a woman just a few spots behind us in line picked up a poster out of one of the boxes and I caught a glimpse of it as she was rolling it back up. I could tell it was old, and it looked like it had something to do with Mississippi State. She put the poster back in the box, and I went and asked what it was. My immediate interest seemed to spike her moderate-interest, and she made it clear that she wanted it and had first dibs. As she opened the poster, my heart sank. We had been standing here for 30 minutes and didn't bother to even look at this. It was just a simple posterboard you'd get at WalMart for your kids to do a science project on, but it was clearly from the 60s or 70s, handdrawn, and had a huge MSU logo (similar to the one here) in the middle - a logo we used in the late 60's. At the top it said "WELCOME", and the bulldog logo was holding a sign that said "Awards Banquet."

I tried to keep my cool while asking her if she could part with it, but she wasn't budging.

As the doors opened, Jay went right after some stuff we saw online - a few 1970s trashcans that I wanted - while I looked at the banners. There were 5 mid-1990s banners of SEC teams, but no Miss. State banner. Instead, I picked up a university of mississippi banner for $5 that included a picture of colonel reb. Since he's been absent for the past 10 years, I thought there might be some money to be made on resale. If I can't resell it, we'll burn it for heat at the Egg Bowl this year. I'm intentionally not including a picture of it, and I feel dirty just having it in my house. It's in my room face-down so Reed doesn't see it and get confused...

Meanwhile, Jay was downstairs grabbing the trashcans. One was rusted at the bottom and had holes, but the other one wasn't so bad. I bought both for $7.50 each.

In the same room as the trashcans, we grabbed a mid-1980s program and a few alumni magazines from the 1980s, too. Jay also found an old M-Club ballcap.

We then went through the rest of the house, but didn't find anything else MSU except some late-50s/early-60s yearbooks. Somewhere along the way, I ran into that woman with the poster. She still wouldn't give it up.

A little bummed, we headed outside to look at the two shops (I'd be more than happy with just one...). On an old couch, I saw an old laminated aerial picture of campus peeking from behind some pictures, and I snagged it. While trying to date the picture, Jay noticed there was a basketball roster with headshots on the other side. Turns out it was from 1975-76, and was the first group of players that played at The Hump - that's probably why the aerial photo was on the obverse, to show MSU fans where the new stadium was. The Hump was still in its final construction stage when the picture was taken. While outside, Jay snagged some old milk bottles and a few other things.

That wrapped up our initial overview of the house, but I was sure there was more MSU stuff somewhere in that house. So we went back to the downstairs room where we found the trashcans. Peeping out the side of a closed up cardboard box, I saw a newspaper clipping that just said A&M. Considering we used to be Mississippi A&M (prior to Miss. State), I wisely opened the box to find many early 1960s Miss. State-related newspaper articles and clippings, along with some other old stuff that had sentimental value to the Longests. Towards the bottom of that box, we found some mid-1960s programs, (1964 @ Tennessee, 1963 vs Tulane, and a 1963 Battle for the Golden Egg vs mississippi), 12 1960s basketball tickets, several baseball and basketball roster sheets, an old Miss. State brochure, and a bulletin for a 1964 Awards Banquet - this put a little context around the poster we saw earlier.

Meanwhile, Jay went through the box next to this one and turned up two 1964 programs (vs Florida), and a few 1960s alumni magazines.

Finding this stuff amped us up and while Jay went around the rest of the house, I zeroed in on 3 garbage bags full of VHS tapes, hoping to find some old MSU games. After 20 minutes of searching and creating a HUGE mess, I came out with two videos labeled "MSU football."

The next 10 minutes I spent looking inside and outside for Jay, and I ran into that woman with the poster again. Shy of stealing it from her, I didn't think I'd be taking it home.

I finally found Jay, who was toting an old tattered t-shirt that looked like a jersey. On the back it said PACKER. That's Walter Packer, a mid-1970s running back at State. We eventually determined this was possibly game-worn, but more likely (since it was a t-shirt) practice-worn. If it hadn't originally been Walter Packer's, Dr. Longest would have no reason to keep a tattered shirt for 40 years, and we figured the game jerseys from the 1970s wouldn't have been made out of cotton. Anyway, it was awesome to see. Jay apparently saw it at the top of a closet, and either found a ladder or had someone lift him up so he could reach it...

About an hour and a half had passed since we began our search, and comfortable with our findings, we decided to check out. And who do we run into at checkout? Why of course, the knife-in-my-back all day, the lady with that poster. I asked her one last time if I could buy the poster off her, and Jay said "forty dollars" to show her we were very interested. After some persuading from her daughter, she reluctantly sold the poster for a $40 profit (it was priced at $4 originally).

It looks pretty simple, but it clearly was part of an athletics recognition ceremony a long time ago, and since we had gotten such a good deal on everything else, I didn't mind throwing down a little more to get it. After it's framed, it will be a nice addition to my office.

Our wallets $110 lighter, we headed out to tailgate with 2 trashcans full of Mississippi State history.

After a frustrating overtime victory against LA Tech, we headed home to evaluate and split up our earlier purchases.

We quickly split any duplicates and left the big ticket items to each of us that found them (Jay got the Walter Packer shirt, and I got the poster, the trash cans, and the '63 Egg Bowl program).

We then laid out all the rest of the stuff and had a draft. Considering I had an extra big-ticket item, Jay got the first 3 picks of the draft, then I got 2, then Jay got 2, etc. It went smoothly, and we were both really excited about what we left with.

I ended up with the old poster, a 1963 MSU vs mississippi program, two trash cans, a 1964 MSU vs Florida program, 1964-65 basketball rosters for games against Tulane, Auburn, and mississippi, an old baseball roster from a game against mississippi, some of those old basketball tickets, the 1975-76 basketball team promo laminate, and several old newspapers including our 1963 Liberty Bowl win over NC State, a tie in the 1963 Battle for the Golden Egg, and a 1959 win when we were still referred to as the MAROONS.

And that was about it. There were only two MSU items that I wanted but didn't take home - a 1990 College World Series banner and a 1959 jar of dirt from the baseball infield after a big win against Florida, apparently. Someone beat us to both items.

There may be more stuff at the house - I did this all off memory while in Seattle - but that was most of it, anyway.

I'm flying back into Atlanta and meeting Bekah and Reed, Jay and Claire, Carrie, and Theressia and some of her friends to go to the MSU @ Georgia game this Saturday. I don't have high hopes, but it should be a nice weekend with friends after being away for the week. Hopefully next week we can get back on the blog train and post an update from Reed's birthday and his encounter with Fred SMOOT!

Until then, Hail State!

-Ryan

11 Months Old

2011-09-01T13:30:00.017-05:00

I can. not. believe. Reed is 11 months old today. 11. months. It makes me really sad that my baby is not really a baby any more. My cuddly bug does not want to cuddle any more. Sure, he still wants me to hold him all of the time, which I will happily do until he no longer wants to be held, but it makes me sad that he is over cuddling. He wants to explore and crawl and play with Humphrey and go a million miles a minute until he just crashes.

Reed is so funny. He seems to blow raspberries with perfect timing that makes you think, does he really understand what I am saying? Reed is such a happy baby, with the biggest and heartiest appetite I have ever seen. He eats anything and everything, including bugs and Humphrey's food. I am constantly scooping either or both of those items out of his mouth on a semi-daily basis. He also does this crazy thing when he crawls. He will just be crawling around and then stop and put his mouth on the floor. I don't know if he wants to lick it or try to chew it??? I'm baffled by this, but it is quite comical, to me at least. He also stands up on his own, but he isn't taking steps yet. I really need to get him some shoes though, especially since he will probably try to start walking soon. Oh, and he has the biggest, juiciest cheeks you can imagine and last night he put a flash light in his mouth while it was turned on, and it lit up his cheeks. Ryan and I died out laughing! I tried to get a picture of it, but you can't really tell anything when the camera flashes.

It really was funny, I wish the picture would have turned out.

Reed moved rooms at daycare on August 1 and let me tell you, I love the room and his new teachers. They are just so nice and Reed seems to have a good time there, but he is always excited to see me when I pick him up too. It makes me happy knowing that he doesn't mind going to daycare (they have a ton of toys - a whole lot more than we do at our house) but, he is also excited when I pick him up. He is probably just ready to get home and play with Humphrey. She is Reed's BFF at the moment. Poor thing. She puts up with Reed a whole lot better than I ever thought she would. I mean, he is loud - REALLY LOUD - and he likes to pull himself up on her, give her mouth kisses (gross, I know), pet (hit) her, watch her outside, and chase her. And Humphrey pretty much lets him do it. Sometimes she will try to run away.

Those eyes!!!

Reed loves his cowbell!!

He is trying to pull the clanger out...

And one last update on the Reedster - he is sleeping in his room, by himself, all through the night!! Again, makes me a little sad he doesn't like to cuddle with me, but my back is very thankful now that I can sleep however I want, instead of laying on my side with him laying on my arm. I am getting better sleep now, and, well, I would say Ryan is too, but frankly, I think there are only a handful of nights that he might actually remember Reed being in the bed with us. So, for about a month now, Reed has been on his own (sleeping). The one down side, he wakes up at 5 am every morning. There are a few mornings where he will sleep longer, but not many. So what that means for me is, I am getting to work a whole lot earlier, which is allowing me to leave earlier so I can go to the gym before I have to pick Reed up. That also means that I go to bed a whole lot earlier. Seriously. Like 8 pm early. Don't judge. We have finally settled down into a routine that I think works for everybody. It will probably get shaken up some when tailgating starts, but we are always up for a challenge. Aren't we? ..... Things should get fun around the Sparks' household.

Annnnnnnnnnd when I got home from work yesterday, this was waiting for me at my front door:

So a few more updates before I go: Last Saturday was fan day and then afterwards we had a pre-tailgate/football kickoff par-tay at the house and it was so much fun! Well, Reed and myself did not really enjoy fan day seeing how it was during Reed's nap time. He was cranky; I was miserable; Ryan will have to do the updating on that. We stood in line, got some stuff signed....I was basically running to the car with Reed when we got finished. He fell asleep in .2 seconds & I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The party we had was lots of fun! We had a TON of great food and lots of good hang time with our friends. My friend Amy (who I do not have a picture of) brought a birthday cake for me! She is super sweet, and the cake was soooo good!

This picture does not do the cake justice! Ryan should have taken the picture.

You can also see the candles and candle sticks Amy gave me for my birthday! And the redneck wine glasses!! Amy has her own candle company and I am obsessed with everything she does!!

This was the only other picture that was taken at the party. How sad.

So, that is about it for me. I am sure Ryan will talk about the game (Bulldogs won!!), fan day and some other things. As for me, I am going to go cry while I plan the menu for Reed's FIRST birthday party.

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OCD Ryan vs Engineer Ryan

2011-08-22T20:05:00.008-05:00

Another weekend, another shopping-spree, and another Ryan-made DIY addition to the house. What else is new?

We drove down to Brandon Friday night, but all the action happened on Saturday. We started out at Target, picking up some things for the house.

First we grabbed a new guest bathroom shower curtain. That bathroom doesn't have great lighting, and the maroon shower curtain we had was just drowning out what little light there was.

So we got a lighter curtain that doesn't make it seem so dark and gloomy.

We also picked up some placemats to lighten up the dining room. Back at home, Bekah put out some plates to make it look like we don't ALWAYS eat in the living room. Book it - those plates will need to be dusted before the next time we eat in the dining room.

And we got a new guest bedroom suit. Our old one was long and draped to the floor, and when Humphrey went to hide on the other side of the bed, she would get it dirty. So we opted for a new comforter that didn't go all the way to the floor.

After Target, we stopped by Pier One and got a new cushion for our papasan chair. Our old one was cream-colored - predictable, since we [well, mostly me] tend to lean towards neutral colors in our house. Thinking we needed some more color in there, we replaced the cushion and got a matching pillow.

This freed up the cream cushion to go in Bekah's old papasan chair (her 2005 b-day gift from ME), which we put in our bedroom.

And we also got this centerpiece from Pier One. It's not supposed to be bent like that, but we like the oddity *and it reduced the price.* Now we just need to find something to put in it...

So those were the new Saturday additions. After shopping, we had a good lunch with my family and celebrated Bekah's birthday (she's 26 on Wednesday).

When we got back to Starkville, I headed over to Charles & Nell's house to grab another piece of bleacher wood - I needed one more piece for the computer desk I was planning to build. Charles is currently using all the wood on a big shelving unit, and has graciously allowed me to pull planks off the shelf to use for my tables. After 40 minutes (but what seemed to be 2hrs, thanks to the heat), of hammering and reorganizing his shelf, I finally pulled down a 10-foot piece of wood, then prompty replaced it with another 2x6 so there wouldn't be a big gaping hole in the center of the shelf. Charles insisted that I get another piece (no complaints here - that wood is AWESOME), so I yanked another one off the top shelf. After an hour my shirt had soaked up all the sweat it could hold, so I called it a night.

I started on the table Sunday at 12:30. By the time Mom showed up (5:00?), the frame was built, stained, and I was putting on the first coat of paint. I would've finished around 8pm, but I wanted to have some system to collect/organize the cords, so there wasn't an ugly, messy, knot of cables hanging under the table. Some might say this is where "OCD Ryan" (passed down from my mother) meets "Engineer Ryan" (don't know where he came from).

So after the worlds collided, I modified a piece of wire-shelving I got from Lowes and ended up with a pretty swanky way to hide my wires.

At 10:00, the cable-caddy was complete, the top was on, and Bekah and I were carrying this guy to my office.

And here are the results of the "OCD Ryan" vs "Engineer Ryan" battle.

I liked it so much that I did the same to the foyer table. There were only two lamp cords in there, but hiding them was well worth the effort.

Here are some more updates to the foyer table.
- a transistor radio I built for a class at MSU
- a glass full of bolts that were used to hold the wooden bleachers into the stadium. Charles pulled these up with the boards and still had a bucket-full. They were REAL rusty to begin with, but with some TLC, they clean up nice.
- two "M Book of Athletics" from 1930 and 1947, detailing the history of athletic (football, baseball, basketball, track & field, etc) statistics at Mississippi A&M / Mississippi State College (later to be changed to Miss. State University).

I guess that's it. We're hosting a football party this Saturday night, so we'll be busy all week getting the house cleaned and presentable.

-Ryan

Reed's Florida Trip in Pictures

2011-08-17T13:50:00.000-05:00

I had this long post all planned out in my mind about our trip to Florida, but I really just can't find the time to put it all down. I will get there eventually. Eventually, when I'm not so busy at work. Eventually, when I don't have to wake up at 5 a.m. in the morning just so I can beat the school traffic to work ::the joys of living in a college town:: . Eventually, when Ryan and I have everything done on the house that we want and we can actually come home and relax. Eventually, right? If I ever see you in person, feel free to ask about the trip because I'm pretty sure I will not be able to get it all down in this post. Long story short, the trip was great! Reed handled the 12+ hour trip like a champ and was amazing the whole time. Here are some pics to document Reed's time at Granny's and Grandad's:

Reed smiling at Granny. He was so happy she fixed him some eggs. She is his new BFF - he had never eaten eggs before.

Surprise, surprise, Reed is in the highchair again (his favorite place since it usually involves food of some sort). I think he is eating spaghetti here.

Reed spent all of his time at Granny and Grandad's house crawling behind things and getting into everything. Momma said he couldn't hurt anything so I just let him wander around. But I kept an eye on him and told him no when he reached for pictures and started slapping things (like the fish tank).

Behind the recliner and table, Reed discovered a bowl full of pine cones (????).

Handsome little guy :)

The day before we came down, James turn 4! So we had an impromptu birthday celebration that included cupcakes, hamburgers, cupcakes, hotdogs, cupcakes, and chips. Oh and cupcakes.

There was a lot of this going on:

Funny, this is exactly what I look like when I bake...

Reed eating (again) mmmmm carrots!

Swimming in James' pool at Granny's. This boy LOVES the water!!

:) Right before we added bubble bath to the pool so I could bathe Reed. He HATED being in Momma's garden tub. He screamed louder than I have ever heard him cry. Maybe it was because I bathe him in our sink? But he LOVED the pool...I won't even pretend to understand why he loved the pool but hated the garden tub.

This was after we got back. Ryan and Reed are BFFs and when Ryan went outside, Reed was not happy that he was left inside.

To sum up the Florida trip, it was great! It was nice to see Momma (although I wish it would have been under different circumstances), Reed really enjoyed spending time at Granny and Grandad's and he also enjoyed the time with his Aunt Sissy, Uncle Billy and cousins (Britt, Bubbles and James). James did really good sharing with Reed and helped me keep an eye on him, but he was not happy when Sissy would love on Reed. The trip was short, but good. I'm glad Momma and Gary were able to spend some time with Reed - he has definitely changed so much since Christmas! Well, I have to get back to work. I'll be back, eventually ;)

-B

Clean Carpets and a Foyer Table

2011-08-15T20:47:00.007-05:00

Well, we've entered the "it's-almost-football-season-and-people-are-going-to-be-coming-over-a-lot-so-we-need-to-tie-up-loose-ends-around-the-house" cleanup mode, and it's a little scary. Because our entire house is loose ends...

Here is what we knocked off the to-do list this weekend.

We'd been talking about renting a carpet cleaner from Lowe's (just $25/day) and freshening up the carpets, and Friday we made a somewhat spontaneous decision that this weekend was the right time to do it. And I wasn't going to rent this thing just to go around the areas where we walk - no, I planned on taking full advantage of our short time together.

So I started pulling everything out of all the carpeted rooms and by the end of the night, everything in the guest room was on the bed, everything from my office was in the foyer, and the few small furniture pieces in Reed's room were on his bed.

Saturday morning we cleaned out the master bedroom and got everything out of our closet. Things were either completely bare, or piled on top of one another.

And so I went to get the cleaning unit. But you can't go to Lowe's and only buy what you went to get, so I snagged some wood for the foyer table and figured that would keep me busy through the weekend. This was a correct assessment.

I also ran into Charles & Nell at Lowe's, which seemed appropriate because Charles gave me the wood I was planning on using for the foyer table. So we spent 15 minutes or so catching up before I checked out and headed home.

That afternoon, Bekah and Reed went to visit Julie, one of her Orientation Leader friends, who was baby-sitting the little Mullen kid for the weekend. So while they sat with their toes in the pool hobnobbing with the prince of the football program, I cleaned the carpet. And this was a SLOW process - 2 solid hours of slowly pushing and pulling and cleaning out the nasty water...

I didn't know how gunky the water was - I thought there was a filter to catch dirt and the water would just be discolored, so I dumped it in the bathtub. Wrong move. All kinds of debris fell out, but most of it was hair. Gross. From then on, I dumped the water on the back patio.

By the time a slightly red Bekah and Reed showed back up, all carpets were clean in the house and I was all kinds of tired. But when Bekah said that Julie wanted to go eat at The Grill, I was in. I had already worked up an appetite and I thought I might get some inside football info from the little guy. Stansbury's kids seem to be close to the basketball team...

...but Canon didn't have any pigskin scoops for us. But he could sing the fight song, and that was enough to impress me. Also, I am not looking forward to Reed being 2 years old (Canon's age).

After dinner, Canon invited us over and he gave us a tour of the house and we played football on the floor for a little while. This part of a 2 year old wasn't bad, but I still don't think I'm ready for it.

Late Saturday night, I started moving a bunch of stuff back into my office, but the house was still a disaster.

Sunday afternoon was fully dedicated to the foyer table. We weighed many options prior to deciding on this very simple design, but we chose the one that looked the roughest - the oldest-looking design. We thought that fancy [expensive] turned table legs wouldn't mesh with the old-school look of the table stop.

So there I was with six 2x4's and an idea in my head - basically, the way I start every project. Just wingin' it. Heck, it's only $20 worth of wood...

I'll spare all the minute details and cut to the chase. By 2pm I had this:

And then we stained the whole thing - we thought the undertone of stain (under white paint) would give it an old look, and would be beneficial if we wanted to distress it (we don't know if we will). And by 5pm I had this:

And then I painted the base and added the tabletop. By 10pm I was looking at this:

We both REALLY like it (me, probably more). And just as I was crossing this off the to-do list, Bekah comes back with "oh, now we have to buy lamps to decorate it." No sooner do I finish one thing, and now there's something else we have to find and buy...

So today we went to Lowe's and picked up some lamps.

That's about it for the weekend. This week we're recovering from the carpet cleaning - getting things set back up - and I'll be transforming the shop back into a garage. It is out of control.

And here are some recent pictures of Reed to please the grandparents and great-grandparents. As you can tell, Reed has now mastered crawling up and down to get into things. He's crawled outside several times and made it out into the grass once to play with Humphrey and me, and he often tried to get into the shower. Anyway, here are some photos.

-Ryan

Diggin'

2011-08-09T20:52:00.022-05:00

It's been busy around the Sparks house lately as we've been welcoming a new family member. This guy --->>

He and I have been growing close the past 10 days, especially while Bekah and Reed were in Florida. But more on that later. I'll pick up two weekends ago.

---SATURDAY JULY 30---
Early Saturday morning, my folks came up and Bekah and I hustled on over to Tuscaloosa to do some shopping. This was our first time in Tuscaloosa since the tornado, and the devastation was still astounding. Right next to where we shopped, there was nothing but rubble - and I couldn't tell what used to be there. Bekah noted that a gas station was demolished, but I couldn't tell what the pile of busted pieces of concrete and scrap metal used to be. It was quite sad, especially since they're still working to clean up even this long after the disaster.

But back to happy thoughts. Bekah wanted to get some professional-looking clothes (I know - despite our best efforts, we seem to be growing up and possibly maturing...) and she found several things at The Loft and NY&C.

When we got back to Starkville, we had a nice dinner with my folks at Zorba's with some fried Feta cheese. YUM.

That evening, I had the urge to work in the yard. We mentioned a while back about our progress in pulling up all these dallas grass weeds. I guess I should've Googled it, but officially, it's "dallisgrass." Anyway, here you can see how crappy it looked in our front yard.

After dinner, I went home and dug up weeds for a solid 1.5hrs before the sun began to set. We rapidly retrieved all the dug-up weeds and took them to the dumpster before it got dark. Our trash can was completely full of only weeds. Bekah and I were unable to lift it into the truck, so we- uh, I -had to roll it to the dumpster (luckily we live close) and toss in the weeds by hand until we could pick the trash can up. There were easily 150 chunks of dirt & weeds in that can.

---SUNDAY JULY 31---
Sunday afternoon was a similar story. I dug for a good hour, and then Bekah and I filled up the trash can about halfway full. Then I started pouring topsoil to fill the holes. I used 20 bags (3/4sqft each) and that still wasn't enough. Sunday evening we went and bought 15 more bags - that was more than enough to fill the current holes, but I was nowhere through digging so I knew I'd use them eventually...

The yard looked pretty rough from the road, but hopefully the bermuda grass will spread over the holes soon. Heck, it sure took over all the dead clover in the backyard...

Sunday evening we went to The Lodge and WalMart and snagged some items in our foyer. It's been almost 2 years since we bought the house, and we never had anything in there that was long-term. No tables. No pictures. Nothing on the windows. It was basically just a seldom-used storage room off the side of the living room.

---MONDAY AUGUST 1---
The next day, I got busy in the foyer. One of our recent blogs included pictures of our front door shades, and now we've added some pictures:

We're using these two side walls to display pictures of us hanging out with friends at MSU games. People who are currently featured: some guys I used to paint with at basketball games, Charles Rhodes, Carrie, Barry Booker, the Sciples, Jay, Jack Cristil, Mike, and Dan Mullen. So if you happen to be one of these individuals, you should feel honored to be featured in our household (except you, Carrie). And if your name is Charles Rhodes, Jack Cristil, or Dan Mullen, feel free to stop by and hang out anytime. We'll probably end up cycling through some of these as time goes by, and we may eventually expand down and put more frames on the wall.

---WEDNESDAY AUGUST 3---
Bekah and Reed left early that morning headed to Florida to see her family. Kathie was having surgery Wednesday and Bekah and Reed went down to visit and cheer her up after the procedure.

Meanwhile in Starkville, I survived the rest of the week on cereal and hog sausage. And I kept digging.

---SUNDAY AUGUST 7---
Bekah and Reed returned from Florida. The house was a disaster - our cleaning lady was gone on some vacation in Florida :) - but there were no more weeds in the yard! Well, no more weeds ROOTED in the yard. There were still four huge piles of dried dead dallisgrass scattered across the front and back yard. And after a glad-you're-home meal at Mugshots, I got busy putting all the dallisgrass in the bed of the truck. I snapped this picture before I headed down to the dumpster.

Recognize anyone? On the bottom picture, you can see the shovel handle on the left side under all the weeds.

So after hours of strenuous labor, pounds of sweat, numerous bottles of Gatorade, and a sunburned back, we've got this:

I still need to finish filling all the holes and divets and such, but it's so refreshing not to see those all over the backyard.

---TUESDAY AUGUST 9---
Monday, I received a poster I ordered online. A while back I found a pretty cool, high quality photo online that I thought would be great as a poster-sized addition to the office. So I edited it, made it look a little sweeter (I think), and Tuesday I went and bought a frame from WalMart (that's really our only option here in Starkville).

The poster features Anthony Dixon, the former Mississippi State running back who is now in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers. The picture is of Dixon as he dove towards the corner of the endzone in the 2009 Egg Bowl. Dixon barely got the ball over the pylon, scoring a TD on the play as Mississippi State beat the last team known as the "rebels," 41-27.

I made the entire background of the photo black and white, and left Dixon in color (mostly maroon). I also applied a "cartoon" effect in GIMP, the photo-editing software I used, to make it a little more poster-y. I think it looks great and fits in perfectly.

And on a Mississippi State note, we received our football season tickets today. Football season is right around the corner, and we're pretty excited. I think it's no coincidence that the ticket for the Egg Bowl features the "THIS IS OUR STATE" logo and the Golden Egg trophy. At least their fans can get a glimpse of the trophy as we carry it off the field again, and they can have the ticket as a keepsake to remember what it looks like.

Okay, I guess that's all around here. We're here all weekend and have some more plans for the foyer. Hopefully we'll have a positive update early next week.

-Ryan

REED

2011-08-01T20:23:00.006-05:00

Here are some recent pictures of Reed. But first, a video. (You need to click play on this one, Granny).

Now the pictures...

A Bunch of New Stuff

2011-07-27T19:29:00.006-05:00

Well, we went down to Brandon this past weekend and came back with a car full of stuff. Here's how it went down.

Friday evening, we met Mom & Dad for dinner at El Sombrero before doing some shopping. Reed has generally been well-behaved when we've eaten out, but I think he gets more jealous as he gets closer to eating people-food and realizing what he's missing out on. Anyway, he was screaming the whole time and Dad scarfed down dinner so he could take him outside while the rest of us finished eating. Reed wasn't really upset, it was just an attention-getting yell. Still, this was probably the worst he's been when we've been out to eat (well, aside from tipping over a big glass of sweet tea at Mugshots)...

After dinner, Mom & Dad took Reed home and Bekah and I went looking for some clothes for her. We shopped for a while, didn't find anything, and eventually wandered into Pier 1 and walked out with some new barstools and 2 outdoor pillows for our Adirondack chairs. Here are the barstools; we'll show the pillows later.

They may look a little tall, but we think they work fine. The top is black leather and the legs are dark wood, very similar to our coffee table.

We signed up for a Pier 1 credit card some time ago and they sent us a 20% off welcome coupon. We cashed that in, and the cashier was surprised - they usually send a $20 off coupon, but the 20% off worked better for us, saving $50 off the bill.

After Pier 1, we mosied on over to Target where we picked up some new mats. One for the kitchen...

...and one for the bathroom (double-sided).

Saturday morning I got up early and headed down to Granny & Pawpaw's. Pawpaw offered to build us a swing a while back, and had the wood already cut & prepared - all we needed to do was put it together. So I got down there around 7:45 and we worked until 10:30 or so. I don't have any pictures, but we finished putting together the 6-foot swing. They'll bring it up in the fall and we'll build the frame for it in Starkville. By the way, Pawpaw snatched all the cyprus wood required for $60, and bought 1000 screws for another $10. When making my Adirondack chairs, I bought ~400 at Lowe's for $15. I got swindled.

While I was there, I also toted off a table saw and miter saw courtesy of my Uncle Ed, who also gave me the bansaw a while back. I still need to build another contraption so they can be put away in the storage room. (like my bansaw pallet)

I really appreciate the hand-me-downs, but Bekah didn't seem too thrilled for two reasons:
- we have to find a place to put them
- they are two more ways for me to cut off a finger

A special shout-out to Pawpaw, who showed up in suit & tie & a big bandaged finger - sans fingertip - at a banquet where I was awarded a scholarship in 2007. I'm sure Bekah will be reminding me of that for the rest of my life...

Table saw:

Miter saw:

When we were through building the swing, we went to meet Mom, Dad, Bekah, & Reed at the Flowood Flea Market. For the most part it was okay - your standard flea market - but in the back they had a lot of old reclaimed wood-type stuff that was cool. We were thinking of buying some things when I realized the guy that was selling it was wearing an ole miss shirt. Aaaaaaand away we walked empty-handed.

After a shower at Mom & Dad's house, Bekah, Reed, and I drove out to Ridgeland for Chris & Amanda's baby shower. Chris lived across the hall from Mike & I in Hathorn Hall waaaaay back in 2003, and we went through Electrical Engineering together. Bekah stayed at the shower while Reed & I went to Buffalo Wild Wings with Chris & Tyler (the shower host-husband, who I also paled around with in college), and we had some good wings while waiting on the party to finish. Reed was better at Buffalo Wild Wings than he was at El Sombrero the night before, but it was a familiar setting to him...

(That's from our dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings after the Gator Bowl) Reed fussed a little, but I poured some yogurt bites out for him and that bought us some time to eat.

We finally got the okay to return to the house, got a quick briefing on the gifts (we got the girl - what else? - a Mississippi State dress), and said our goodbyes so Bekah and I could drive back to Starkville.

On our way out, we stopped by Bed, Bath, & Beyond and snagged a few pillows for the couch.

Trying our best to continue our weekend-shopping-frenzy, we stopped by Lowe's Sunday afternoon. We were tempted by some patio furniture, but stayed the course and bought what we went for. First, a weedeater. Our Bermuda grass is untamable and was taking over our sidewalk. But not any longer.

We also got some front door insulation - there was a small crack between our door & the frame, allowing air to come in, so Sunday evening was spent with both doors off their hinges. It was quite the episode, but we finally got it done.

And lastly, we got some shades for the front door. After hanging it one door, I realized that these weren't going to work. A) they were the EXACT same color as the walls, and with NO texture. We need something to stand out from the walls. And B) they were white from the outside and you could see the cords. It was a "thermal shield" and a bright somewhat-shiny white. It looked really tacky from outside. Bekah wasn't too bothered, but I hated it.

I didn't get any pictures of those shades, and we returned them to Lowe's yesterday. We swapped them out for these:

They're pretty close to our wall color, too, but they have a little texture and design. It looks much better than the other ones. And they look better from the outside, too.

And here are the Adirondack chairs with the pillows we got at Pier 1.

So that's what all we got. Whatcha think?

This post is long enough, but we'll try to update later this week with several pictures of Reed.

-Ryan

Front Porch Furniture

2011-07-19T17:27:00.006-05:00

It's been a while since we updated the blog, so here's a recap of what's happened.

The week prior to July 4th I was in Holland for a week, and while I was there Bekah found out that she passed her comps for her Master's Degree!

The trip to the Netherlands was quite busy (12hr days) but uneventful - no lost luggage, no airplane sickness, etc. And I did manage to sneak away and buy this to bring home:

And this for Reed:

Mom & Dad came up Sunday night prior to July 4th, and they took Master Bekah and me out to celebrate. The next day we cooked out and lounged around the house.

The next week, we made a few athesthetic changes around the house.

We rearranged these two walls in the dining room.

And we got our framed MSU paintings back.

Also, I got some more old MSU football bleacher boards (originally mentioned here) from Charles & Nell, so we'll now have plenty for some projects.

I brought some of the boards in to see how they'd look and though I thought we'd be sold on hanging one above a door, we're now not too sure we like that look. It's just a little too country. We didn't want to have to start putting rusty wagon wheels and those giant black silhouette stand-up figures in our front yard...

We've got our fingers crossed that a table-top would look nice, but we've got a LOT of wood so we're still trying to think of something we can do with what's left over.

The weekend after July 4th was the first time Bekah, Reed, and I were home alone together for an entire weekend (Friday afternoon - Sunday night) since mid-April, and we made good use of it. Frankly, I had forgotten how much you could really get done...

Friday afternoon I tried on a bunch of clothes that I never wear any more and packaged a suitcase full of clothes to go to Palmer Home. That night I worked in my office closet and the hallway closets and filled up the garbage can with stuff that we don't need anymore. We also went through a bunch of Reed's clothes and we'll be taking them to Palmer Home, too.

Saturday morning we got up and went to the Starkville Farmer's Market and Lowe's but didn't buy anything. At Lowe's we found some hanging baskets to put on the front porch, but we couldn't decide on plants to put in them, so we didn't get anything...

Later I dug up a bunch of "Dallas grass" weeds in in our front yard. The guy that sprayed our yard (and got rid of all our clover) said the only way to get rid of the "Dallas grass" is to pull it up. To date, I've pulled up at least 50 chunks of grass and I'm not even 25% done with the yard. I filled the holes up with topsoil left from our flowerbed excavation, so you can see how many weeds we had in this small area...

Here you can see some of the yet-to-be-dug-up Dallas grass sticking up.

Saturday afternoon we went downtown Starkville and had an early dinner at Zorba's before going to the Running of the Bulldogs. It's loosely based on the Running of the Bulls in Spain...

...where people try to outrun/avoid the running bulls in a crowded street. But we in Starkville aren't that stupid, so the "bulls" were these roller-derby girls with water balloons and foam bats. And it only lasted about 100 yards. We didn't participate, but found plenty of people to make fun of and entertain ourselves. It was a big football kickoff and steak cookoff and there were a decent number of people there considering that all the students were gone for the summer.

After the festivities, we went to Lowe's and picked up a bunch of wood so I could build two chairs for the front porch and fix some bed slats in Reed's room. Sunday afternoon I got busy...

Remember these adirondack chairs I built way back in 2008?

Well I made those out of cheap and unreliable whitewood and they weathered and rotted fairly quickly, so I got some treated lumber this time - 5/4" thick deck boards.

And by last Sunday evening I had one chair completed. And a huge mess in the garage.

I can't even tell you how much quicker it was to build these this time around. Previously I worked with a jigsaw, sandpaper, and elbow grease. My pinky fingernail used to rub against the sandpaper and would wear thin and be tender for a while... Now that I've got the bansaw and electric sander, it's much easier. It easily cut my time in half.

Given the massive mess, I continued to work on the second chair all last week. The heat prevented me from working more than an hour and a half at a time, but I finally finished the chair Friday evening.

I had 3 8-foot boards left, so I thought I'd build a table, too. Saturday I had to go in to work for a full day, so I didn't get anything done then, but I was able to knock the table out fairly easy Sunday afternoon.

So now we've got this:

This week's project is to paint them. The weatherpeople are projecting cooperative forecasts today and tomorrow, so maybe we can knock them out soon. But we'll see. If there's a group of people I don't trust, it's weathermen. And women. And ole miss fans. Hopefully we can get something done.

I guess that's it. We're headed down to Brandon this weekend, so we'll probably wait on another post until we return.

-Ryan

Painting update: Here's the color of our chairs.

Bye Bye Baker's Rack

2011-06-11T19:24:00.008-05:00

You might remember this post a while back where we proclaimed ourselves to be student-loan-free. Well, we got this in the mail today.

Yes, that's a congratulations-you-paid-off-your-loan letter and it came with a check for $1.49. Apparently we overpaid.

So with all the money that we're not spending on loans now (plus the $1.49), we're starting to make some improvements around the house. You know we already worked hard on the flowerbed and dressed up our front porch, and our next project was to replace was the baker's rack.

It just looked too airy - we wanted something fuller there, but we really didn't know what to get. So I hit up craigslist to see what I could find, and I came across a couple in Corinth, MS (2hrs north of Starkville) that were selling an old china cabinet. So Friday Mom, Reed, and I drove up to check it out. And we loved it. So we brought it back home.

It fits perfectly in that spot, still has an ample display area, and is a lot fuller than our baker's rack. Bekah's yet to see it in person, but she gave her blessing based off some photos we saw online.

You might notice that it's missing a doorknob on one of the bottom doors. We have it - we just need the right screw. Hopefully Lowe's can solve our problems tomorrow.

Around the house, Humphrey's been peeing on the new bed we bought her and Reed's been trying to pull himself up on everything and open any doors he comes across. So we're having to keep both kids on a short leash.

Here are a few videos of Reed standing up.

I didn't take a video of Humphrey peeing on her bed. You're welcome.

Oh, and as I was typing this up, Reed crawled on his knees for the first time. So, yeah. It's about to get crazy around here.

And, yeah. Mississippi State pulled off a 9th-inning comeback to beat #2 Florida today in the Super Regionals (the round of 16). The winner of tomorrow's game goes to the 8-team College World Series. Here's a video of Nick Vickerson's walk-off homerun. Awesome.

Until next time, HAIL STATE!
-Ryan

Vacation: Part Two

2011-06-06T17:49:00.006-05:00

First off, my apologies to the five people that read this blog for a later-than-planned Vacation: Part Two recap. We were a little busier than I expected this past weekend and I didn't get the blog written.

Friday night we went to eat at Zorba's with Mom & Dad. Saturday morning we went to the Shepherd family reunion and Saturday evening we watched MSU baseball beat Austin Peay in the NCAA Regionals. Sunday I was on Reed duty while Bekah studied for comps (her final test for her Master's Degree), and Sunday evening we watched MSU beat Georgia Tech and advance to the Super Regionals (the final 16 teams).

Let's see, we left off Tuesday night...

Oh - but first, let me solve a complaint from the last blog. Bekah was upset that I uploaded 2 pictures of Dad and I ziplining, but only 1 of her. Really what I did was put up one of each of us, then one of Dad and I flipping upside down. Bekah didn't have any good action shots like that, but here's what I do have.

Now, back to the vacation...

Wednesday morning we planned on driving to Cade's Cove, but after driving 30 minutes I noticed that the GPS thought it was going to take another hour to get there, so we cut our losses and came back. While the women were getting ready, Dad and I drove out so he could get some pictures of a couple of waterfalls, but that was another failed attempt as we couldn't find them after driving out another 45minutes. Not a successful morning.

For lunch we ate at one of the many pancake houses in town (The Log Cabin house that Mrs. Kathie recommended) and afterwards we spent the afternoon down an Arts & Crafts trail and saw many interesting-but-too-expensive shops with local craftsmen.

We then went back to downtown Gatlinburg and ate at Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co. where Bekah aced a Forrest Gump movie trivia quiz. Afterwards, Mom bought some popcorn, Dad bought a hat, and Bekah and I rode a ski lift to see Gatlinburg from above.

Later we headed to Hillbilly Golf and played putt-putt golf down the side of the mountain.

Dad beat Mom by a few putts and Bekah and I both finished way behind both of them. It was embarassing showing by the young Sparks.

Thursday morning Bekah's knees were still hurting so I took off to hike the Chimney Tops trail. When I started hiking around 6:30, there were no other cars in the parking lot. The trail was two miles to the top and incredibly steep the entire time, but I hustled to ensure I made it to the top and would get some pictures free of other hikers.

The trail followed a stream for the first mile. I snapped a few pics on the way up.

It took me about 30min to reach the halfway point and the trail only got steeper from there. I finally reached the top after an hour and was faced with a giant rock face that you had to climb to reach the peak.

The rock face was steep, but it really wasn't that bad, and I was able to "run" up most of it without depending on my hands. It took about 5 minutes to get to the top, and it was totally worth it.

At the top I sat down, enjoyed the view, and had some breakfast - a Gatorade and some left over Granola bars. After 40 minutes at the top I decided to head down and finally ran into someone else about 10 minutes from the top (they probably started hiking about an hour after I did). And I consistently ran into people on the way down. When I reached the bottom, the parking lot was full.

I'm glad I started early and got plenty of hiker-free pictures at the top.

After cleaning up, we headed back to Pigeon Forge and ate at Big Daddy's Pizzeria for lunch and had some fantastic pizza and sandwiches. And we all spent some more money at the outlet stores.

That evening, we ate our final dinner at The Peddler and had some nice steaks and shrimp topped off with a brownie and ice cream. :)

And that was it for Thursday - we went back to the condo, packed up, and fell asleep watching the NBA Finals just before the Mavs made a huge 4th-quarter comeback.

Friday morning, Dad and I got up early to walk the first part of the Chimney Tops trail. Since we failed on his waterfall pictures, he wanted to get some along the beginning part of the trail I had hiked the day before. We stayed out for about 2.5hrs and got some nice pictures.

We ended up leaving around 10am Friday and like I mentioned ealrier, got home around 6pm.

And that's it. We had a great time and it was nice to do some things while Mom & Dad were able to watch Reed. And thanks to CARRIE for watching Humphrey while we were gone!

Bekah's headed to Denver on Thursday, returns Tuesday, and takes her comps on Wednesday. And then I leave for Holland next Saturday the 18th and return the following Saturday the 25th. So we're tag-teaming this whole "parenting" thing the next two weeks.

We'll try to check back in along the way.

-Ryan

Vacation: Part One

2011-06-02T19:22:00.011-05:00

Well we've had a great time on vacation but our condo has been internet-less until now. So today I'll update you on our first two days. Tomorrow when we get home, I'll post a blog about Wednesday and Thursday.

Sunday night we arrived at our condo around 6:00pm and unloaded before heading back down to Gatlinburg for some dinner.

Here's the view from our porch.

Early Monday morning we got up to get ready for our hike up to Mount LeConte. We got on the road about 7:00, and after driving 45min to park our car at the end of the trail, Mom took us another 30min to the beginning of Alum Cave Trail.

The hike started out cool and for the first mile, the trail followed a creek. This part of the hike wasn't too bad on our feet. It was mostly on packed-down soil, and there weren't too many rocks or exposed roots on the trail.

A couple of times, the trail crossed the creek and we walked across a log bridge.
At two miles, we reached Arch Rock, where we ran into another hiker who took our picture. Stairs were carved out inside the rock.

At this point the trail got a little rougher with rocks and exposed roots. It wasn't hurting us at that point, but it would later. Around 9:15am the trail started to go through patches with direct sun and we started to get hot. We reached Inspiration Point at 9:40am, our first opportunity for great views. It was in wide-open sunlight and it was quite warm up there.

Shortly after Inspiration Point, we reached Alum Cave Bluff - what the trail was named after. This was roughly the halfway point to the top of Mount LeConte.

Ocassionally along the way the trail got extra rocky and there were cables to help guide the hikers.

The walk up really wasn't that bad. We'd stop ocassionally and dine on the finest Gatlinburg has to offer - a loaf of bread, Pringles, and granola bars - that was our diet. We really never got tired on the way up, just got out of breath.

The weather was great for most of the hike up, except for an hour when the trail was in the sun and it warmed up. It was overcast a lot of the time and the trail was often in the shade keeping us cool. The views on the way up were outstanding.

At noon we finally reached the top, where LeConte Lodge houses hikers. I hear there's a 2yr waiting list and you're booked for that weekend every year - like season tickets. And it's like $130 a night. No thanks, we'll just hike back down.

After lunch (or whatever you'd like to call Pringles, bread, and granola bars), we took a 0.4mi roundtrip excursion to Cliff Tops - one of the best views at the top of LeConte. It was a little cloudy, but well worth the walk.

At the top, we saw some llamas. The only way to get to the top of LeConte is to hike, and the llamas carry supplies to LeConte Lodge 3 times a week. We started down Trillium Gap trail while the llamas were still tied down at the Lodge, but they soon caught up with us. We tried to stay ahead, but it was useless. We were practically running, so we stopped and waited for them to pass.

We later passed them again while they were taking a pit-stop. The trail down was much different than the way up. There were no really good views, and there were loose rocks and exposed roots EVERYWHERE. It didn't take long before the bottoms of our feet started hurting. We stopped to rest and the llamas came and passed us. As they walked by, Bekah noticed that the final three got loose and were no longer connected. We called to the guy walking them down, and he asked me to bring them up for him. Oh yeah.

The rest of the trip down seemed long and painful. We were tired from the walk up, and the walk down wasn't as interesting. The nature scenery was nice, but there were no good views like on the way up. But we passed this little creek several times as we zig-zagged back down. We ocassionally stopped and listened to the running water and enjoyed the coolness of the stream.

With 1.3 miles left, we came across the main attraction of this trail - Grotto Falls. We stopped here to rest and I took a lot of pictures. The trail acutally went behind the waterfall, which was cool. We didn't run into many people on the way down, but there were several families coming up to see the waterfall.

All in all, it was a good hike. We had a blast on the way up and on the way down for the first couple of miles. There were some great views and we came across some interesting people. Ideally, we would've liked it to be 8-9 miles, because the last 3 miles were really tough on our feet, calves, and knees. But it was definitely worth the risk doing something we'd never done before.

Tuesday morning, Bekah, Dad, and I got up and got an early start to our zip-line canopy tour. We got harnessed up and headed up a steep hill on an ATV. The zips were great, as were our guides, who told us about the trees in the area and some history of this section of the Smokies.

I don't really know what else to write about the zips. They were really fun and towards the end, we were allowed to flip upside down. Dad and I did it. Bekah didn't. Here are some pictures.

After the zip-lines, we cleaned up and headed to the outlet malls at Pigeon Forge. We at lunch at Five Guys Burgers & Fries and after 5hrs of shopping (2 of that was at Ann Taylor Loft...), we ate Italian for dinner at Johnny Carino's.

That night we came back and relaxed at the condo and I watched the first 3 quarters of Game 1 of the NBA Finals (Game 2 is warming up as I type this). I fell asleep on the couch during the fourth quarter.

I guess that's it for our first two days here. More to come tomorrow.

-Ryan

Vacation!

2011-05-29T06:33:00.004-05:00

Before I get into a preview of our vacation, I'll respond to some comments about our bleacher board and our plans with it.

Kathie suggested that we keep it intact and hang it over one of the doors, but the only place we could hang it and keep it entirely intact would be in the garage. We really just don't have 12 feet of space in our house where the board wouldn't look awkward. While we are strongly considering hanging part of it over one of the doors, we'd have to cut it to put it there. We're not opposed to that, but we want to be absolutely sure that's what we want before we cut it.

And Aunt Janet recommended to have it as a shelf and put some MSU stuff on it - probably some of my memorabilia / autographs. I thought of this, but there were a few downsides. First, the shelf wouldn't be very deep as this board is only 5.5" wide. But mainly, I don't think you'd be able to see the main attraction of the board - the etched-in numbers. Putting stuff on the shelf would cover them up, and it'd need to be pretty low for people to see them.

We're leaning towards hanging part of it over the kitchen door, and using the other part as the top of a table (maybe in the foyer?). But we don't know yet. It will stay intact in the garage until we decide on its permanent purpose.

Let us know if you have any more ideas.

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It will be awhile before you see us do anything with that wood, because our weekends are getting full again.

May 28/29 - leave for Gatlinburg
June 4/5 - family reunion
June 11/12- Bekah will be in Denver for work
June 18/19- Ryan leaves for business trip
June 25/26- Ryan returns from business trip

Those last 2 weekends above, I'm tentatively scheduled for a business trip the week of June 20th, and travel would likely spill over into the weekends on either side of that week. So the weekend prior to July 4th will probably be our next full weekend where we are both at home together.

The last weekend Bekah and I were both in Starkville by ourselves on Saturday and Sunday was April 9th and 10th. We've been down for Easter and Mother's Day, had friends up to work in the flowerbed, gone to Nashville, etc. And it's all been fun - I'm not complaining - but I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend prior to July 4th. Hopefully nothing crops up between now and then.

-----
And now for our vacation info.

We are leaving for Gatlinburg this morning and returning on Friday.

We're staying here at Highlands Condos.

And Mom and Dad are coming, too, allowing us to do some things we couldn't with Reed. One day, we plan on doing a day-long 13-mile hike in the Smokey Mountains that would offer us this view.

And another day, we plan on doing a short 4-mile morning hike that would have us perched up here.

Dad's going to be joining us Tuesday morning on a 2.5hr zip-line tour through the mountains. It'll look something like this.

The zip-line isn't quite as risky as my excursion during our vacation last year (skydiving), but it should still be pretty thrilling and offer nice views. We plan on taking our cameras so we hope to have a couple of videos from the ride.

We've basically got 2 days (out of 4) booked with the day-long hike and two half-day excursions. That leaves us a couple of days to explore Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.

It's a stark contrast to our usual Chicago trip every year, and while it will be a little more active (hiking 17 miles + zip line), it should be a slower-paced trip without fighting the CTA trains and traffic in Chicago.

We'll try to update the blog while we're out, but Mom and Dad are going with us. And they're like half of the people that read the blog. But we'll do our best to update the rest of our audience (Granny, Kathie, and Carrie) while we're gone.

-----
In other news, we had a guy come and spray our yard to get rid of all the nasty clover we had. It took a while, but the clover is starting to die and Bermuda is filling in!

The front yard doesn't look too bad now that the Bermuda has filled in...

...but the back yard is still about 1/2 dead.

In the back yard, you might be able to see two shades of grass. The darker Bermuda is what's coming in now. And though it still looks about 1/2 dead, it's already filled in a good bit and there are smaller Bermuda sprouts still coming up. I'd say we had 75% clover in our backyard, and now I'd say it's split 50/50 between dead clover and Bermuda.

We're obviously excited and the Bermuda is SO much easier to cut than that thick nasty clover. It knocked my mowing time down from an hour to 45min, and I don't have to mow as often. It's great.

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I guess that's about it.

We'll talk at ya from Gatlinburg.

Flowerbed Festival 2011

2011-05-23T18:38:00.007-05:00

It's been a busy weekend here in Starkville. I'll try to sum it up.

Friday after work, Bekah and I met Theressia at The Grill and had a nice early dinner before she went to the baseball game. Afterwards, Bekah and I went to Lowe's to prepare for the weekend. We loaded up with 15 bags of mulch, 15 bags of topsoil, and a 3ft x 50ft sheet of WeedFree - a mesh sheet that allows water drainage but stops weeds from growing in the flowerbed.

Jay & Claire got in around 8pm and Jay and I nervously listened to Jim Ellis while State made a 9th-inning comeback and beat LSU 6-5. That win ended up being huge - we finished 2nd in the SEC West and are going to the SEC Tournament for the first time since 2007.

Saturday morning Jay and I went out around 7am to start digging up the would-be flowerbed. Bekah sifted out the grass from the dirt while Claire watched Reed. I took zero "in-progress" photos, or "before" photos, so you'll have to just read and see the results at the end.

We were making pretty good progress but around 8:30 we noticed that we were going to need some more topsoil. So we sent the girls to Lowe's and told them to go ahead and pick up some planters Bekah and I saw the day before. Reed was sleeping at the time and I thought Jay and I would be able to continue for a while, but as soon as the truck was out of sight we heard Reed yelling on the baby monitor. I brought one of his "stand-up-and-play" contraptions outside, and after a bottle he was okay while Jay and I continued digging. Carrie showed up a little after 9:00, so she was able to help with Reed-duty when needed. When we started working on the west side of the house, we moved his play-thing over by the A/C unit and he did great while we worked. It was starting to get a little warm, but we were all in the shade. His arms are a little red from the sun, but not bad.

We finally finished digging around 10:45, so we laid down all the topsoil we had and spread some mulch around the part of the flowerbed we finished last year. The girls got back around 11:00, and they worked on the planters and flowers while Carrie, Jay, and I cooled off and ate some donuts. The planters we got were 2 half-whiskey barrels. They look really cool, and it's nice to have at least SOMETHING now on our front porch. The girls also got two zennias and some petunias to go in each one.

By the time Jay and I finished spreading the remaining topsoil, it was almost noon. And with the baseball game starting at 2pm, we all grabbed some quick showers and fired up the grill for burgers, deer sausage, and hog sausage. The weed-free sheet, mulch, and cleanup would have to wait for Sunday morning.

We lost the baseball game, but enjoyed sitting with our baseball-loving cousins - the Sciple's - in the shade behind home plate.

After another quick trip to Lowe's for mulch, we all went to Old Venice for dinner.

Reed woke up at 6am Sunday morning (as he does every morning), so I went on out and started putting down the weed-free sheet and mulch. But I soon realized we would need more of both. Another trip to Lowe's, another swipe of the card. That was the 4th time in less than 40 hours. We finally finished around 11:00 and after cleaning up, we had a victory luncheon at Mugshots.

Here are the finished pictures. We only worked on the left side this weekend.

Special thanks to Jay, Claire, and Carrie. We wouldn't even be close to done without their help. Tune in next year when we'll actually plant stuff.

-----
Now, an important part of the weekend I skipped.

Saturday night after dinner, Jay, Reed, and I headed to the Sciple's to pick up a piece of wood Charles was going to give me. A little background - per Charles, in the 1970's MSU decided to switch from wooden to metal bleachers in the football stadium. Charles knew the guy that was hired to pull out all the old wooden boards, and he ended up giving a lot of that wood (cyprus, I think he said) to Charles. Charles built a barn out of it, but the barn was destroyed in a storm. He saved what he could and still had a few long scraps, some of which still had the numbers on them.

I was of course very interested - Bekah and I both obviously love MSU and I am very intrigued by the history of the university. To me, this is a piece of that history. Anyway, after feeding some catfish (Reed was mesmerized by the rumbling water), we walked out to Charles's shop and picked up this huge 12ft piece of wood. And it looks FANTASTIC. It's a 2x6, weathered nicely, has some character, still has the original bolt holes, and all the numbers (#6 through #13) are visible and etched into the wood.

Here are some pictures after I swept off years of dirt and sawdust and cobwebs.

We obviously want to do something with this, but it's 12ft long. Part of me wants to keep the piece intact and not further damage / modify it, but the only thing we could do with a 12ft board is hang it in the garage, and then it wouldn't be as visible as we'd like. So we may end up cutting it anyway. I'm not opposed to cutting it, but I want to use the entire piece, ala two 6' pieces, or a 5' piece and a 7' piece.

We've got a few ideas and we want your feedback.

Here is what it'd look like in the garage.

It would be seen the most above the opening in the kitchen.

But it would fit the theme of our "Old Starkville" dining room.

Or it could go above the other side of that opening in the foyer (leading into the dining room).

Or maybe it could go over the television, to try to help fill up that huge wall space. We think something needs to go up there, but the 5.5" wide board may be too thin.

Some other ideas we have:

- A bench. It's the board's original purpose, but I don't know where we'd put a bench. I'd rather not have it outside where it would further weather and deteriorate, and I don't know where it'd go in the house.

- A tabletop. Jay came up with this, and this seems interesting to me. The etched-in numbers would provide some uniqueness to the top. We would put a couple of boards with it, but it would still be a slim table - maybe for the foyer or something?

Whatever we decide, I'm really excited about the possibilities for this wood. If it was pulled in the 70's, there can't be that much of it left lying around. And I'm happy to preserve whatever we can.

Anyway, we are open to ideas. Let us know what you think.

-----
Now for some videos of Reed.

Splashing in the bathtub.

Crawling.

We're headed to Gatlinburg next week for vacation, so we'll try to post a few updates while we're there, as well. So stay tuned.

And don't forget to comment with your thoughts on what we should do with that big 12ft 2x6.

-Ryan

Robert Randolph

2011-05-14T19:09:00.007-05:00

My folks came up Thursday night, so they were ready and rested for Reed when we woke up early Friday morning to get ready for our weekend getaway. We left around 8:15am and headed to Nashville via Tupelo. After stopping at Subway for a quick bite, we arrived at the Mall at Green Hills on the south side of Nashville so Bekah could do some shopping.

We walked around the entire mall twice before Bekah finally went into Ann Taylor Loft. An hour later, she walked out with a sack full of clothes that included dresses, shorts, tops, and a couple of sweaters. Shortly after leaving, we found out that they were having a 30% off sale the next day, so we would need to return the following morning to get price-adjustments that would allow her a decent amount of cash-back.

With our car packed with Bekah's clothes and huge smile on her face, we headed to our hotel to check in and get ready for the evening. We weren't very hungry so we decided to go take our time at the hotel and then go straight to the Cannery Ballroom to see the concert. The doors opened at 8pm, but we arrived around 7:30 and picked up our tickets at will call. When the doors opened, there were maybe 50 people there, so we walked easliy to the front of the floor for the best seats.

The venue was very interesting. It was an old building that may have been a warehouse in it's past life, and it included brick walls, wooden beams, and exposed ductwork in the ceiling. The capacity was 1,000 and the stage was small, but we figured it would be a nice place for a show, especially since we were standing front and center.

The opening band was okay, but we were unable to hear most of the lyrics. They finished around 9:30pm and before Robert Randolph came out, we talked with a couple next to us from Kentucky and played with our camera to try to get the best settings for dealing with the multi-colored stage lighting in the background. Some of the pictures turned out really weird, and we determined a black-and-white photo wasn't a bad option that would eliminate the red and orange hues that would ocassionally dominate the photo. That's why some of the pictures below are black-and-white.

Eventually Robert Randolph & the Family Band came out around 10:15pm and the concert started.

The concert started out great and just like he did in Starkville, he invited some female guests to join him on stage during his song "Shake Your Hips." I immediate recognized the song and figured out what he would be doing, so when he motioned to Bekah and her neighbor from Kentucky, I told them to jump the railing and get on stage. The Kentucky girl went immediately, but Bekah was a little timid. But when Robert pointed at her again, I hoisted her over the railing so she could get up there.

And here's a short clip of Bekah's dance moves - she's just to the left of Robert Randolph.

I won't rag on her about her lack of dance moves since I was raised Baptist and I can't dance either. But she was raised Presbyterian, so she doesn't have as much of an excuse as I do...

After the song, all the girls exited the back and Bekah came and joined me on the front row. The rest of the concert was fantastic, and he finally finished up around 12:15pm.

Afterward, we convinced a stage hand to snag us one of Robert Randolph's thumb-picks from a small container on stage, and then headed out. On our way to the car, we ran into the bass player Danyel. I told him how much we enjoyed the concert, and though he was apparently meeting some friends, he was very courteous and shook my hand and took a photo with us.

We finally got to the hotel and got to sleep around 1am. Saturday morning we went to a recommended place with good beignets, but they were closed so we settled for the Panera Bread at the mall. We got the discounts on Bekah's clothes, which she immediately spent on more clothes.

Anyway, it was a GREAT getaway and a fantastic concert. And we're glad Bekah was able to finally get some clothes with the money she's been saving. We're home now and are resting from the busy weekend.

Last night I watched the Mississippi State vs mississippi baseball game, where the black bears got their first win against us this year. We won the Egg Bowl, swept both basketball games, took the baseball Governor's Cup in Pearl, and won the first two baseball games in oxford. This was their last chance and they finally got a win. How sweet. Reed had to wait an entire 7 months to see them finally beat us in one of the three major sports.

Have a good week!
-Ryan

Expired.

2011-05-11T18:12:00.000-05:00

This is a long one, so get comfortable.

A long time ago, we bought a house and Mike sent us some Omaha steaks and hamburgers as a house-warming gift. Or was it for Christmas? I don't remember. But it was the end of 2009, nonetheless. We didn't get a grill until this past March, so those steaks and burgers had been chillin' (literally) in the freezer since then. We've now eaten all of the burgers and last Friday we were going to start on the steaks.

So Bekah woke up Friday morning to marinate the steaks and noticed that the Dale's sauce expired a while back.

"A while back," like... 2006.

Yep. Five years ago. I was a junior in college, working in Louisiana. So I assume Mike and I bought it in Hodge and then toted it back to Stonehenge Apts in Starkville, then it rode down the street to Bekah and my rental house on North Montgomery, and then down to the house we're in now. The expiration date is impressive enough, but for this little bottle to make it through at least 4 moves without someone throwing it away or realizing it was expired... Wow.

Needless to say, Bekah insisted on buying another bottle - though we had used this one to help flavor the burgers we ate previously. Anyway, she went home at lunch with a fresh bottle and marinated them and we had a nice steak & potatoes dinner that night.

Saturday we packed up the family - Bekah and me, Reed, Humphrey, and Carrie - and headed down to Brandon for Mother's Day.

Saturday afternoon we hung out at Dogwood Mall for a while and ate lunch with our tailgate master chefs Jay & Claire. Bekah dragged us around for a while, but we didn't buy much - Reed got some new clothes and Bekah and Carrie bought some cupcakes.

While we were gone, Reed played with Mom & Dad.

That evening all the Sparks's (minus Humphrey) crammed in the truck and we headed to Granny & Pawpaw's for a Mother's Day / Mom's birthday / Dad's birthday / my birthday dinner. Pawpaw grilled steaks and they were great. I didn't ask, but I assume they used marinade that wasn't past due.

After dinner, Pawpaw and I unloaded our old blue suede recliner (mentioned here). Mike and I picked it up in the summer of 2004 at Aunt Ruth & Uncle Jerry's house and toted it all around Starkville and down to Louisiana and back (it moved at least 7 times) and now it's at Granny's - just down the hill from its origin at Aunt Ruth & Uncle Jerry's.

And Granny told me she wanted to "clean it" first. Apparently she knew how messy my former roommate was. I mean the chair only lasted 4 years in a college apartment, had been moved 7 times, gathered 3 years of Humphrey hair, got spit up on by a newborn, and sat out in the garage for a month before we were able to take it down to her... So the only conclusion I can come to is she's scared of Mike's germs.

After we unloaded the chair, Pawpaw gave me some pegboard - more on this later.

Sunday morning, all 9 Sparks (minus Humphrey) and a couple of adopted family members met at Eastside Baptist for Reed's baby dedication. He did fantastic and stayed in the sanctuary the entire time, taking a nap during the sermon.

Afterward, we took some pictures with Bro. Ron, who introduced him as a "future Mississippi State Hall of Famer." :)

For lunch we ate at El Sombrero and Reed sucked on a lemon. This was priceless and had us laughing along with the table next to us. We are going to try this again in the future and get his reaction on video.

After lunch we stopped by to see Mike (in town for Mother's Day) and his family and we had a nice hour-long visit with them. While we chatted, Reed army-crawled on the carpet and kept himself pretty entertained without any toys. It was great to see all of them.

We then picked up a new carseat (Reed's getting too big for his current seat) and headed back home.

At home, we put Reed down on the rug to play while we unloaded. The last I saw of him, he was still on the rug, chasing after a little blue ring that was on the hardwood floor...

Then, 5 minutes later he was here.

And Monday while I was working on a project in the garage, Bekah found him here.

He doesn't know how to use his knees yet, but he's not far from crawling. And we're not far from chasing his little butt all over the house. Baby-proofing the bottom 4 feet of our house isn't a current project we're working on, but I imagine it's next on the list.

Tuesday afternoon we went to get yogurt [for dinner] with Carrie. And Reed was up to his usual shenannigans at Local Culture.

-----

I guess that's all the good stuff. Here are some of the projects I've been working on recently.

For my birthday, Dad got me a retractable extension cord to go in the garage. This is much-needed and will be quite useful when the garage morphs into a shop. I mounted it Monday afternoon.

It was very difficult to mount because BAYCO (the manufacturer) gave me 2 flat-head screws to mount the bracket. Using an electric drill to screw a flat-head screw into a 2x4 stud IN THE CEILING is quite difficult and I eventually gave up and used some of my phillips-head screws instead. With the flat-head screws, the drill was slipping and spinning off constantly. I was lucky to get 2 turns of the screw before the drill fell off. You can't even imagine how much easier the phillips-head screws were, compared to the flat-heads. I gave up after 20 minutes with the flat-heads. The phillips-heads took maybe 5 minutes. Anyway, it's done and I'm glad. And I hope I never have to take it down.

Bekah picked me up a new studfinder at WalMart this week so Tuesday afternoon I framed and mounted the afore-mentioned pegboard I got from Pawpaw. Also, early last week, I built the table seen underneath the pegboard.

We used to have a big plastic shelf there, but I moved it into the storage room so I could hang the pegboard. The custom-built table (doesn't that sound fancy? it's not.) fits the space better than the mass-manufactured shelf, so I have a little more side-to-side and front-to-back room with the table, though I don't have as many shelves. But now I have another table-top to work on plus the pegboard to hang stuff.

It's a definite improvement and gives me some more versatility when the garage transforms into a shop.

Aaaaaannnnnddd... You might remember that we recently purchased some Mississippi State oil paintings on eBay from a guy in China. Well, we got them stretched at the local frame shop and they're now hanging in our living room.

Frames for each of them were quoted at $75 each. We'll definitely end up framing them, but we're going to wait until after our vacation. So they're just out there naked in the meantime.

That freed up the other pictures that were hanging on those walls, but we haven't re-hung them yet. I'm anxious to start on our family vacation collage in the foyer, but we'll probably wait on that until we return from Gatlinburg.

-----

Taking a look at our upcoming weekends...

May 13-14: This Friday we're headed to Nashville to see Robert Randolph & the Family Band in concert - our anniversary / Mother's & Father's Day celebration - and we're pretty excited.

May 20-22: The next weekend is the 2nd-annual "Flowerbed Festival" at our house, where lure our unsuspecting friends to give of their time and efforts in a hot Mississippi weekend full of elbow grease and sweat. In exchange, we give them some food and a few pats-on-the-back. This year we plan to prepare the ground for the other half of our flowerbed (next year we will plant stuff). It was basically just Carrie and I last July, while Bekah waddled around and ate pickles out of the jar. :) This year we've convinced Jay & Claire into helping so we're hoping we can knock it all out in one weekend. More on that in a future blog.

May28 - June3: Family vacation in Gatlinburg! Hiking, zip-lines, go karts, etc.

June 4: Shepherd family reunion. Also my 26th birthday.

So, a busy next 4 weekends for us. But after that we should be free - we'll be done with the flowerbed for the year and we'll be broke and out of vacation days... So there's really not much left to do. Maybe we can enjoy our summer weekends before football season starts ramping up again in late August.

We'll put up another post on Sunday recapping our trip to Nashville.

Happy Friday the 13th!
Ryan

BIG NEWS

2011-04-28T18:30:00.006-05:00

Well I mentioned earlier in the week that we might have some big news, and we do.

We are now...

...

...

DEBT-FREE!

[cue the confetti and kazoos]

Well, except for that whole mortgage thing...

But at least there's no car note, no student loans, and no credit card bills (well, there never were. but there still isn't)!

This is something that we've obviously been working hard towards and sacrificing for. We were lucky to both graduate from Mississippi State with degrees (Bekah will soon have TWO) and not much combined debt. And while I really hoped we'd have it paid off a long time ago, life happens...

Soon after graduation we needed to get Bekah a new car, adding to the total.
Then we went to Europe for 3 months and didn't save any during that time.
Then Bekah got a job and we were back on our feet doing well, and we had just paid off the car when I was laid off for 6 months.
Then I worked in alabama (You'll notice that I don't capitalize this state. It's intentional) for 3 months, and we weren't able to save money. Paying for two houses sucks
Then Reed came along...

So it's been quite a roller-coaster ride getting to this point. But some things that hindered us were necessary given the circumstances (replacing Bekah's car, moving to alabama), and some were once-in-a-lifetime events that we don't regret at all (spending time in Europe, having Reed).

There's not much I can say about getting laid off. That sucked and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But we made it through and we're now at a point that seemed so far off 15 months ago - we are both gainfully employed, living TOGETHER, debt-free, with a kid.

I'm sure we'll be in debt again someday - probably when Reed goes to college, since we are spending his college savings on football and basketball season tickets...

Just kidding. Kinda.

But at least we'll never have those pesky student loans again, and that feels GREAT.

So I guess these are ours now. :)

Anyway, we're going to take some of our monthly money that WAS used for loans to upgrade/add some stuff in the house.

And our first addition is...

Some ORIGINAL artwork! And no, I'm not talking about those peguins Bekah drew back in high school that she forced me to keep for years. And it isn't some novice fingerpainting from Reed, either. This is actually some pretty good stuff.

We bought two 20x24" oil paintings of Mississippi State's campus. Below you can see the paintings and a picture for comparison.

Here's one walking between Perry Cafeteria (left) and McCool (right). You can see the Chapel tower in the distance.

And this one is looking on the Drill Field. You can see the flagpole and two buildings in the distance. The Library is on the left and Swalm is on the right.

We are PUMPED about these pictures. They are SOOO vibrant and colorful in person, and we snagged both for $100 total. We'll still need to sink some more money into them with matting, framing, etc, but I think they were great for $50 each. They might end up hanging on these two walls in our living room.

We don't know where the Orange Bowl picture would end up, but we really like that, so It'll find a new home somewhere for sure.

And we have a new idea for our vacation pictures - they will probably end up in our foyer on the left two walls below.

We're considering doing a "vacation collage" on those walls with many pictures (lots of separate frames) of the places we've been on vacation. Currently, that's only Chicago (6 times) and Europe, but we're going to Gatlinburg this year and we'll try to vary our vacations in the future so they're not full of pictures at Wrigley Field. It will be a long work-in-progress, but something we can add to every year.

To help even things out in the meantime (while we wouldn't have much to put on those walls), we are considering making one wall a "Mississippi State friends" wall with pictures from football tailgates, bowl games, basketball trips, etc.

The wall on the right (opposite the dining room) will likely end up with a table and something large on the wall - like a mirror or painting. But that's out in the future. Don't expect anything anytime soon.

Also, tomorrow is the last day we'll be taking Reed to Columbus for daycare! Next week I get to start sleeping in and we get to save on gas money. Yay!

So it's been a good week for us here on the home-front, even if we did lose power for 12hrs yesterday during the storms. We're glad to still be here and we didn't lose anything in our fridge or freezer.

So what do you think about our new oil paintings and our plans for the foyer? We are open to other ideas.

-Ryan

Easter!

2011-04-25T19:42:00.004-05:00

We had a GREAT Easter weekend down in Brandon. Here's how it went down.

Saturday morning we left Starkville at 9:30 with our real son Reed, our purchased daughter Humphrey, and our adopted family member Carrie, who we convinced to come down.

Bekah, Reed, Humphrey, and I got home around noon to enjoy a lunch with the family. Dad had some good steaks and Mom made some hashbrown casserole and carrot cake. I ate light (we were later heading to eat crawfish), but I did sample and it was tasty. Bekah doesn't eat crawfish so she chowed down and enjoyed the lunch.

After lunch, Pawpaw took Reed outside and Dad, Bekah, and I went down to join him.

At 3pm, we picked up Carrie and went to Jay & Claire's for a crawfish boil. It was a great time and we stayed until 7:30.

While Carrie & I ate crawfish, Bekah teased Reed with a Coke.

After the afternoon festivities, I went home to watch the end of the MSU / South Carolina baseball game (State beat #2 S. Carolina 5-3) while Bekah & Carrie went shopping. No luck for them.

Easter morning was crazy, and all 3 of us were up before 6am getting ready for a 7:00 sunrise service at Rock Hill. Reed enjoyed the music and playing with the Hymnal, and he fell asleep during the sermon. After service, we had breakfast at church - Baptists eat often, but it seems like they ALWAYS have food when we go to Rock Hill.

After breakfast it seemed like we still had HOURS before the normal 10:30 service at Eastside, so we visited one of Dad's friends and went home for a bit, where we took a couple of family pictures.

This was Reed's first visit back to Eastside where I grew up, and we enjoyed seeing everyone and they enjoyed seeing him. He didn't do as well this service, and Bekah had to take him to the nursery after 10 minutes. We're looking forward to being back there in 2 weeks for Reed's baby dedication.

After the service and after every mom and grandma stopped to see Reed, we talked with Bro. Ron for a while before going to El Sombrero's with my folks. After lunch, Reed got to play with his Easter basket.

Then we loaded up the crew and headed back to Starkville, but not before the girls convinced me to stop at Diary Queen. I didn't have to be persuaded much...

I guess that's about it. It was a nice weekend.

Check out the new Easter set on Flickr before you go. One thing about Flickr - it will only display the latest 200 photos, so it is starting to kick off the first photos I put up way back in August. We're not upgrading, so you'll just have to deal with it. :) But at the pace we upload pictures, it will still be a good reference for the past 6-8 months of Reed's pictures. I'll still put a couple of pictures of Reed in our blog, but there will always be more on Flickr. Be sure to still check those out.

We don't have any major plans this week except a baseball double-header on Saturday against alabama. Hopefully it's a nice day.

And we might have some big news to post this week. Nothing huge like a new job or pregnancy or anything, just something we've been working toward for a while. More on that later this week. Hopefully.

Hope you had a great Easter!
-Ryan

Grindin'

2011-04-22T20:38:00.009-05:00

First, I need to address that Reed [and his dad] were apparently ahead of the curve, as pictures of this new shirt circulated the internet this past week...

If it's too small to read, it says "Grindin' for my State." You might recall that Reed was wearing a similar shirt at Super Bulldog Weekend, 10 days before the shirt in the above picture was debuted.

So, yeah. What can I say? I guess I should've majored in fashion.

Anyway, it's time for another brief update, so here's what we've been up to since Super Bulldog Weekend.

Last weekend my folks came up and while Bekah went to bed early Friday night, Mom, Dad, and I worked on changing some things up in the office / mancave / future game room ?? (I think a fullsize arcade game would be spiffy...)

A long time ago (2007), I spent $10 on a set of Cubs caricatures that were made and sold in 1972. When Bekah and I went to the Cubs Convention in early 2008, I toted them up there and got a few of them autographed by former Cubs players. They're one of my favorite pieces because they're so unique - I've only seen 2 other sets like this for sale. Anyway, the wall around my Billy Williams jersey was looking bare, so we moved the autographed caricatures around to help fill the wall above my Wrigley Field seats. I also moved my Cubs bar light so it'd get more visibility.

The caricatures used to hang vertically along the right of my window. To fill their old space, I put another Cubs sign and the scorecard that hung in the Wrigley Field dugout while we watched our last game [of 5] on our honeymoon. The Cubs came back from a 1-9 deficit, and it was one of the most exciting games we've seen. You can reminisce here. Later, I purchased the MLB-authenticated scorecard from eBay.

That frees up a couple of other walls but I don't have anything to put on those yet. I'll probaby put up some sort of shelving system eventually, as my current home-made shelf is running out of room as I keep adding things to it. My latest addition...

It's a commemorative Gator Bowl ticket autographed by Coach Mullen. The MSU Athletic Department sold them and it came in a nice acrylic cover. It was pricey but I like the look of the ticket, and I was bummed when we ordered our tickets through MSU and received these pieces of aesthetic beauty:

I like to keep our game tickets, and this one is just BORING compared to the colorful souvenir ticket I purchased.

Back to the weekend - Saturday morning, Bekah, Mom, and Reed went out shopping for the little guy and Dad and I stayed back to do some woodwork. You might remember that I built this workbench a while back:

But it was too deep (in the first picture, you can see how it compares to the side of the garage door), and it was tough to get my truck in the garage. A future goal we have is to be able to fit both cars in the garage (I hear some people are doing this now), and a workbench with that depth would prevent that. We still won't be able to get both cars in there for a while, but fixing this table was the biggest obstacle. Here's the remaining to-do list:

-take our old recliner to Granny's house
-get a cover for the lawn mower and move it to the patio
-move the grill to the patio
-get rid of that stack of hay that's been there for a year (I tried to grow grass in the ditch last year...)

And here's what it looks like:

Anyway, resizing the worktable was a daunting task, so when I had an extra pair of hands to help (Dad), I didn't hesitate. We started around 10am and worked until 2:30pm, finishing just before Mom & Bekah got back from shopping (yes they were gone for 4hrs). I wish I had taken pictures during the process, but it was pretty cool how it went down. We didn't disassemble the entire bench - just the pieces that were holding the front 2 legs to the back 2 legs. We ended up removing a 2x8" up top and a 1x8" below, reducing the depth by 8". I think we removed 7 or 8 total pieces of wood, scrapping 3 - the bench didn't need as much bracing since it wasn't as deep. In the end, we only cut four pieces of wood. We unscrewed more than that, but we only cut 4 pieces.

After that, we added casters on the legs so it now moves around freely. I don't have a shop and don't anticipate one in the near future, so I need all my shop-like pieces to be flexible and storable in the garage. Having casters on the bansaw (where I discussed here) and the workbench allow me to stretch out and move around the garage when I need to. Anyway, here's the new workbench.

There's not a whole lot of room to work on it, but I have some more ideas for additional storage / organization. Maybe I can tackle those projects soon.

Like I said, we finished about 10 minutes before Bekah & Mom got back, and we threw some sausage on the grill and some sweet potato fries in the oven and had a nice lunch (?) supper (?) meal at 3:00pm.

In fact, I don't think I ever put up pictures of our grill. We got it from a guy at work that was moving to Miami. And he got it from someone else at work that was upgrading their grill. So it's been passed around a little bit. But it still works, and after some TLC it cleaned up okay.

Eventually we'll change out the burners (they do need to be replaced, as they're rusted and the fire doesn't disperse evenly) and make the right connections so it'll hook up to our gas line in the back yard. But it's a Propane grill for now and we've been loving it and eating more deer sausage because of it. Yum.

That was it for the weekend. Now for a few tid-bits...

I didn't put this at the top of the post because I imagine most of you know already, but this is a HUGE deal for us. REED WILL BE GOING TO FIRST PRESBYTERIAN DAYCARE IN STARKVILLE STARTING MAY 2! That will save me at least 45min per DAY, and will save us at least $25 in gas per week. Nothin' wrong with that. We've enjoyed the Columbus FBC Daycare, but it's just too far out of the way. I can't wait to sleep longer and have more money.

We've had some bad weather in Starkville this week but our house hasn't been hit bad - no power loss or anything. Just a lot of rain.

Sometime recently, Carrie (!!!) came over and dyed Easter eggs with Bekah. Seeing what a poor job they were doing, I dyed a couple. Can you guess which one's mine?

......

.....

This one, of course.

Our upcoming weekends are pretty busy:

April 23 - headed to Brandon for Easter
April 29 -
May 7 - headed to Brandon for Mother's Day
May 13 - going to Nashville for a Robert Randolph concert
May 21 -
May 29 - leaving for Gatlinburg
June 4 - Shepherd family gathering

So we'll be travelling 5 of the next 7 weekends. Yikes.

I guess that's it. Check out of Flickr page - I put up some more pictures of Reed from this past weekend, and some from the Mississippi State Easter Egg Hunt at the MSU President's house.

-Ryan

Super Bulldog Weekend

2011-04-11T19:26:00.003-05:00

Oh yeah. Super Bulldog Weekend. This is the best weekend of the spring right here, and Bekah, Reed, and I soaked it all up. I was actually disappointed in the amount of photos we took, but I'll give ya what we've got.

But first, play the video below so you can have some Robert Randolph background music while you read the blog.

Friday, Bekah and I took off work so we could lounge around the house and store up energy for the weekend. That afternoon, Reed went to the doctor to get his 6 month shots. Just like the other times, he cried hard for no more than 30 seconds and settled down completely once we gave him a bottle. Food cures all for this little one.

That night, we went to the first of three weekend baseball games against #4 Florida, and watched from start to finish as State grabbed an early 4-2 lead and kept fending off Florida to win the series opener 7-5. Reed had a good time...

Saturday morning we went to the second baseball game, but we bolted when State was down 0-12 in the fifth inning or so. Yeah, nothing to see there. We headed over the fanfare to catch up with some former football Bulldogs. We got in line to see Jerious Norwood (who was scheduled to sign autographs but never showed). He graduated a year before us from Brandon, and set all kinds of rushing records by the time he graduated in 2005. And he scored the game-winning touchdown when we beat #20 Florida in 2004. That was the last time the goalposts got torn down at Scott Field, and I have a chunk of the goalpost. I was hoping to get him to sign it, but no luck. I assume you're still listening to Robert Randolph, so I've included a video of Jerious's well-known game-winning TD at the bottom of the blog. Check it out when you get to the bottom.

I also hoped to see 2009 senior and current San Francisco 49er Anthony Dixon. Dixon set all the school rushing records, and was just a tough, fun guy to watch. You probably know I like to make funny [to me] shirts for Reed to wear, and the latest one I made says "grindin' for my STATE." This slogan has picked up a little steam around campus and on MSU websites, and it stemmed from Anthony Dixon's interview at Kentucky after he ran for 250+ yards (an MSU record). Again, I've included this video at the bottom so I don't interrupt your Robert Randolph music. Pretty good, huh?

Anyway, I wanted to get Reed's picture with Dixon in his "grindin' for my STATE" shirt, but the line for Dixon was at least an hour and a half long. We had no shot of actually making it to the front.

So I was hoping for a little better, but I did get a mini-helmet signed by 2011 graduates KJ Wright and Pernell McPhee. McPhee quickly became one of my favorites when he made fun of ole miss TWICE during the 2010 Egg Bowl in oxford. And actually, that's KJ Wright on the right-hand side of this image.

That's the "landshark" signal - something the ole miss defense does when they make a good play. But their defense was TERRIBLE this past year, yet they kept doing that stupid thing while they won 4 games and opponents were consistently putting up 30+ against them. So when McPhee got in the backfield and got a sack, he did the "landshark" on their turf. He got a penalty for doing it the second time, but it was WELL worth it. I like a guy that's cocky like that and knows how to get under the other team's skin. I make fun of the black bears every chance I get, and when the players are buyin' into it too, I approve.

So after snagging a few autographs, Reed got his picture taken with Bully.

Then we picked up some free MSU ice cream and headed to the Union for something to drink. There, we saw a bunch of old men glued to the Masters on TV. Ugh. I can't watch golf.

At halftime of the Spring Game, MSU announced that we will permanently honor four former Bulldogs at Scott Field this year: Jack Cristil, Johnnie Cooks, Jackie Parker, and DD Lewis. Not a bad group of guys. We've met Johnnie Cooks, a linebacker from the early 80s, and been to his house. He was super nice as I just marveled at all the memorabilia he had from his playing days. And of course everyone loves Jack Cristil. The other two guys had great professional careers. Anyway, it's good to get these guys honored at the stadium.

After the Spring Game, we headed to dinner at Rosey Baby's with our tailgate friends Jay & Claire, and then we went back to campus to watch the Old Main Music Fest. Bekah, Reed, and I beat everyone else there and we listened for a while before Bekah got a little tired and started worrying about Reed and the noise. So she took him home while I stayed out with several friends and watched a terrible performance by Shontelle (?)... But it was worth it to see the main act, Robert Randolph & the Family Band.

This was a FANTASTIC concert. Robert Randolph has been named one of the 100 greatest guitarists of all-time, and he's only been around for 10yrs or so. They're kind of funk jam band, and a lot of their stuff reminds me of The Allman Brothers. They always have up-beat positive music, and he was quite energetic at the concert. For his song "Shake Your Hips," he brought a bunch of sorority-type girls on stage to dance around while he played. The song you've been listening to is "The March."

I liked it so much and felt so bad that Bekah didn't stay, that we are planning on going to Nashville for a quick trip in mid-May to see him play.

Sunday afternoon, Reed and I went up to the baseball game while Bekah finished some homework, and we watched MSU blow a chance to win the baseball series, as we lost 1-3. But it was a fun weekend and it's always good to get everyone back in Starkville and see friends we haven't seen since football or basketball season.

That's all I've got for now. Head over to Flickr to see some more pictures. But first, check out these other two videos I referenced while you were listening to Robert Randolph & the Family Band (his sister, brother, and cousin are in the band, along with a white guy).

Jerious beats #20 Florida in 2004.

Anthony Dixon "grinds for my STATE" at the 27second mark.

-Ryan

Losing a Family Member

2011-04-04T20:38:00.006-05:00

It's never easy losing a member of the family, but that's what we're going through this week at the Sparks household. Many of you remember the ugly divorce that ended the 5yr Sparks/Davis domestic partnership, and the two members of the family that are leaving us this week were two of the love-childs from my and Mike's former relationship.

It was an ugly separation, but I managed to maintain custody of our precious little ones. It's not that I didn't see Mike as a fit parent - it was just easier on the kids. They wouldn't have to move since I took a job in the same region while Mike shipped off to Houston, Alaska, and New York; and with Bekah in the picture, they would be raised in a two-parent household.

Of course I'm talking about the green sectional couch and the blue suede chair, both of which found their way to Mike and me free of charge. [sadly enough, through all the years these pieces have lived with us, this is the only decent picture I could find...]

As I recall, it was the summer of 2004 (SEVEN YEARS AGO!!!) and Mike and I were looking to move out of 513 Hathorn Hall and into an apartment. Of course, we didn't have any furniture - we were just broke college kids. But miraculously, a large couch, comfortable chair, and functional dining room table [honestly Aunt Ruth and Uncle Jerry, this is the nicest way I can put it. I really wish I had a picture of those pink chairs...] found their way into our loving home. I use the word "loving" because we were loving that we just filled our apartment with free stuff.

The pink chairs and dining room table were troublemakers from day one. And while we tried to do the best with their particleboard underside, screwing and unscrewing the legs during the many times Mike and I moved just didn't work (from highschool graduation to college graduation, we moved EIGHT times). The top was warped from the beginning and each time we moved, we spun the legs to alternate the hole placement in the particleboard. By the end of it's 4yr tenure, one of the legs had been moved closer to the center of the table due to deteriorating particleboard - it was bad, and wobbly would be an understatement (we had to prop up a leg or two). Still, we stuck it out with the table and chairs until Bekah came in the picture, when we shipped them off to another foster home, the dumpster. They really had endured a beating by this point...

Again, I am really disappointed that I don't have a picture. I guess that shows how much I wanted to remember those pink chairs.

But back to the couch & recliner eulogy...

Early on, the couch suffered severe damage - at least an 8inch gash - and it was unclear whether it would survive. But thanks to late-breaking technology (fishing line), and a top surgeon (Granny!), it pulled through. Sure, we tried to hide the blemish with blankets and pillows for a time, but after a while we embraced the battle scar. We dumped the couch before I grabbed a picture of Granny's fine sewing job (seriously, it held for 7 years), so no luck here either...

As time went on, the couch seemed to be the "Rudy" of our furniture set. I always wondered if it would make it to the next destination - whether it would fall apart, or whether we'd just get tired of it and get something else. But it always seemed just good enough to last. Remember kids, you don't have to be the fastest runner to live through a bear attack. You just have to be faster than slowest fat kid. And that's exactly what the couch did. First, we needed a bed (I was previously sleeping on a futon), then we replaced the dining room table (a must, as mentioned before), then we needed a mattress for our guest bed, Bekah needed a new car, then a coffee table, then we bought a house, a refrigerator... There was always one thing slightly higher on our list than replacing the couch. But now all the fat kids have been eaten and it's time for the couch to go.

Here's Humphrey sitting on our former couch. Okay, maybe ALL the fat kids haven't been eaten.

In contrast, the chair was always the gem of the freebie-group. As I recall, the couch originated from someone's storage unit (who knows how old it was), while the chair was fairly new and being taken care of at my Aunt & Uncle's house. It didn't have the rough childhood that the couch did. There were no scars or stitches, but being suede it was always a little high maintenance. You couldn't put your dirty shoes [or have a baby spit-up] on it, unlike the leather couch that would wipe clean easily. So we're hoping to replace it with a leather chair.

But it's quite the feat these two have lasted so long, since other pristine pieces from the Sparks/Davis era were not as fortunate - that ratty, wobbly $40 WalMart assembly-required TV stand we used to have, and the blue love seat and king chair that Randy left in Hodge and we adopted. I did manage to scrounge up some pictures of that blue love seat. It's in the background of these pictures. It was pure class...

But it's going on 3 years since the divorce, and it's time to move on. Bekah and I are both 25, and though we act closer to Reed's age, we at least would like people to THINK we're grown up enough to appreciate tasteful furniture that somewhat matches the rest of our house.

---The Replacements---

So this past Saturday morning after I returned from Seattle, Bekah and I went to Woodland Furniture, self-described as "Mississippi's largest furniture store" and I don't doubt it, while Mom and Dad babysat Reed. This place is HUGE - 5 warehouses split up like:
-Office furniture
-Bedroom & kitchen
-Couches & chairs
-Outdoor furniture
-Coffee tables & pictures / paintings

We walked ALL OVER this place at least 4 times sitting in every leather-looking couch we saw (we quickly realized that we couldn't justify the ~$1600 true leather). We didn't see the exact style we liked - we originally wanted something like this to fit in the corner of our 10ft wall and 6ft wall:

But they only had 2 couches like this - one was courderoy (no thanks), and the other was leather but didn't have the chaise part on the correct side (plus, it wasn't comfortable). So we eventually decided to get a regular couch and a chair to go on the small 6ft wall. Once we came to that conclusion, the chair was easy to choose since Bekah and I both liked this guy:

The different shades of tan would match our light walls and dark floors, the off-white color of the chair would match our rug, and the blue would add a little color. Plus, it's VERY comfortable. The only downside is no armrests - it's more of an accent chair, for looks I guess. After walking around a lot more, we finally decided on a couch we liked, but we had to convince them to split up their couch/loveseat combo because we would have NO room or use for a loveseat in our living room layout. So after talking with 2 different saleswomen, we finally convinced them to separate the two and we added this to our tab:

To me, it was one of the nicest looking couches there. I like the curved sides (below the armrests), and it is a simple design - no buttons or any excess decorations on it. You know I prefer simpler, plain items - heck Bekah was pretty surprised I liked the chair given its design. In fact, she didn't even mention the chair - I was the first to say that I liked it.

We didn't find a king chair or recliner that we liked, so we decided to keep the recliner for now and just replace the sectional couch. They packed up the pieces in the bed of the truck and we headed back. Dad grilled some deer sausage while we were gone, so upon return we all ate some sausage dogs and some fixin's (cole slaw, potato salad, hush puppies, etc) courtesy of my Aunt BB and Unc.

After that, we unloaded and brought in the new pieces. But we realized that putting the couch on the long 10ft wall and the chair on the short 6ft wall just wouldn't work. It was too crowded and we didn't want people bumpin' knees. So we decided that in the long-run, the chair will probably either go to the side of the TV or maybe in our bedroom - it's not too big, so it can go pretty much anywhere. But in the mean time, it's where the recliner used to be. We'll keep it there for a while until we save up enough for another chair. And it's cloth, so we'll have to keep an eye on Reed and make sure he doesn't spit up or stain it - since one of our main goals was to get a chair that could be easily cleaned. Who knows, we might keep it there long-term. Ya never know.

Now for a couple of unanticipated improvements:

-With the standard straight couch instead of the sectional, we pulled back the coffee table and there is a TON of room for Reed to play on the floor.

-The couch sits WAY higher than the green sectional. I guess I got used to sinking in deep in our previous couch. I knew the elder Sparks - my parents AND grandparents - had a difficult time getting in and out of our old couch. You guys shouldn't have any problem with the new one.

I guess that's it. Here are some more angles:

-Ryan

Greetings from Washington State

2011-04-01T11:26:00.005-05:00

So I'm in the greater Seattle area on business this week, and I had quite the interesting trip up here. As I like to do, I'll spell it out chronologically for ya. (All times are Central Daylight)

4:00pm - Leave the house and head to the GTR airport, listening to Jim Ellis discuss MSU's 3-game sweep of #21 Auburn

4:30pm - Arrive at airport and check in.

4:45pm - Security opens up, I get in line.

4:50pm - My turn. Walk through the portal with no problems - heck, at this point, all I had one me were some adidas lounge pants, a t-shirt, boxers, and some socks. Nothing in my pockets. I knew I was good to go.

4:51pm - Scratch that "good to go." Something was the matter with my shoes - maybe they couldn't see the entire shoe on their x-ray, I dunno - so the lady pulls out the swabber and points me where to go.

4:52pm - I turn around and go sit down on the "Group W" bench. Now this, this is where they put you if they think you may not be MORAL enough to join the army after committin' your crime. And there was ALL KINDS of mean nasty ugly lookin' people on the bench there. And there was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-lookin' guys sittin' on the bench right next to me! And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one - the meanest father-stabber of them all comes over and says, "Kid... what'd'ya get?" And I said "I didn't get notin'. I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage." And he said, "What were you arrested for kid?" And I said, "Littering." And they ALL moved away from me there on the Group W bench until I said, "AND CREATIN' A
NUISANCE!" And they all came back and shook my hand and we had a prime time talkin' bout crime, father-stabbin', and all kinds of groovy things that we was talkin' about on the bench...

[sorry I seem to have drifted into a bar of "Alice's Restaurant". Most of you are confused - find 40 minutes of your life to listen to it. Now back to the story]

4:53pm - The male security guard comes over and informs me that he will be patting me down. His words: "when I get to a sensitive area, I'll let you know and I'll use the back of my hand." Many humorous (to me) responses roll through my head, but I decide to keep quiet because I didn't want to (a) be kicked off the flight or (b) be subject to a full-body cavity search.

4:54pm - Pat-down commences.

4:55pm - Ahem.... Oh, sorry. I'm generally instructed to cough when that happens...

4:56pm - They realize they can't find whatever I am hiding and I am released.

5:15pm - The plane leaves Columbus.

6:00pm - Arrive in Memphis and eat dinner at Back Yard Burgers. Apparently, their adaptation of a Hawaiin Chicken Sandwich only includes grilled chicken and a slice of pineapple. No sauces, nothing else. It wasn't very good.

7:30pm - Flight takes off for Seattle (4.5hr flight).

midnight (10pm Pacific) - Arrive in Seattle, after sleeping ~2.5hrs on the way. Pick up rental car and get my luggage.

12:45am (10:45pm Pacific) - In the car, headed to Mt. Vernon. A seventy-five minute drive.

2:00am (midnight Pacific) - Get to the Hampton Inn (all the cookies were gone, Carrie), and the clerk tells me that they start serving coffee at 4:30. I told her not to wait on me.

2:30am (12:30am Pacific) - Finally get to sleep.

---MONDAY
6:30am Pacific time - Wake up for work. Not too bad of a day. Worst part was learning that I had a 6am conference call the next day.

4:30pm - Off work, headed to the hotel.

6:30pm - Walk to the sushi place across the parking lot. It's one of those places where the sushi goes by on a conveyor, and you just pick the plates you want. It was all really good. I sampled 4 different types of rolls.

7:30pm - Head back to the hotel and grab 2 complimentary cookies on the way up.

9:30pm - Bedtime.

---TUESDAY
5:00am - Bekah gives me a wake-up call. Ugh.

5:40am - Check out of the hotel (I would be at a different location - downtown Seattle - Wednesday and Thursday) and run to the car. Need to hurry to make the 6am conference call.

5:41am - Realize there is a huge SYSCO 18wheeler parked behind my car. I'm completely boxed in. Faaantastic.

5:50am - Give up trying to get the car out, ask the guy how much longer he'll be. Of course, he's "almost finished."

6:00am - Finally able to pull out of my spot.

6:15am - Stroll into the conference room.

I wrote this earlier this week, but never got around to posting it. Tuesday afternoon, I drove down to Seattle to spend two days at a PACCAR location downtown. It's now 9:30am (Pacific) on Friday and I'm about to leave the hotel and go get on a flight back. If all goes well, I should land around 8:30pm. Hopefully I won't have anything crazy events to report when I get home.

Saturday, Mom and Dad are coming up to sit with Reed while Bekah and I go furniture shopping. Hopefully we find what we're looking for. If so, I'll put up a blog with pictures.

Edit Saturday morning: Bekah neglected to sent the email, so I imagine few of you have read this. The flight home was uneventful except when the security lady noticing my Maroon 2009 Egg Bowl "From Dixon with Love" shirt...

After going through the full body scan, the conversation went:

Me: You know, I got frisked on the way up here...
Security: [Bending down to her walkie-talkie] Repeat that again, he was talking.
Security: Okay, they said you're good to go. No luck this time.
Me: Alright, thanks
[I turn to go get my things]
Security: Egg Bowl, what's that? It sounds delicious
Me: [almost uncontrollable laughter] It's a rivalry football game in Mississippi, and we've won the past 2 years. I very much enjoyed it.
Security: Oh, okay...

That's about all. I got home at 9pm last night and we're headed out shopping right now. Hopefully we have another update this afternoon...

-Ryan

Resemblance?

2011-03-31T09:03:00.011-05:00

Here is a picture of me as a tot:

And here is a picture of my tot:

Do you think there is any resemblance?

Maybe when Ryan gets home he will let me upload a picture of him as a baby and let me put it next to one of Reed. But don't hold your breath.

Picture Overload

2011-03-29T10:35:00.008-05:00

Ryan left for Seattle on Sunday and I took some cute pictures of Reed while Ryan was packing. I decided to share them and when I went to upload them to the blog, I realized that I had pictures on my camera going back to the Gator Bowl. Now, I'm not going to share all of them because frankly, most of pictures did not turn out that great. I am so glad that we have a nicer, better camera, because I now see why Ryan always tells me to use the "better" camera. Ryan, I will no longer take offense or stick up for my little camera. You are right. The other camera is way better. But, mine still records videos. So take that.

I was going to upload so videos of Reed, but after watching them, I realized that maybe Ryan and I were the only people who were interested in what he is doing in them. Plus, it was taking a crazy long time to upload and I, frankly, just got tired of it. So, here are the pictures. Now, some of these date back to December, but I don't know which ones because the date on my camera stays at December 31, 2009 - I will try to remember around the time these were taken. Also, I am uploading these straight to the blog and not messing with Flickr because I still can't figure how the heck to log in.

These two were taken a few months ago. I had Reed in his car seat while I was getting ready and he started fussing and I turned around to see him doing this:

Yes, he rolled over in his car seat. This amazed me. Shortly there after, he started doing the same thing in the bath tub. Now I usually have to bathe him with his hiney in the air while trying to keep his face out of the water. Obviously he is too small for his tub now, but until he can sit up on his own, there isn't much else I can do. Once he started doing this little rolling move he started being buckled into EVERYTHING. No matter what.

I don't know when this was taken, but I think it has been at least two months ago...but I know this is at Ryan's parent's house. Reed really studies his toys before he puts them ALL in his mouth.

This is some time after Valentine's day. FYI, he does not have red hair. It is blonde, but in pictures it almost always looks red.

Obviously after bath time. He used to hate baths. Then he loved them! Now he hates them again.

First time eating carrots. I have learned my lesson...always feed him without clothes on.

There is absolutely no need for 5 pictures of Reed reading a book, but I just couldn't decide which one to put up:

These were taken Sunday while Ryan was packing

This is Reed's new bathtub that he is not sure if he likes it or not. If you squeeze the beak it quacks and he just does NOT know what to think about it.

Still playing with Fuzzy Bee and Friends (his favorite book right now)

Trying to escape

Not a fan of the quacking...

About .00002 seconds before he completely lost it over the quacking

And this last one was taken a few weekends ago. My friend Brooke's baby turned one and Reed and I went to his party. While there, we ran into Britt and Campbell. I'm not quite sure how old Campbell is...two months or so? He is so tiny and so cute! I remember when Reed was that tiny (with a wrinkly head, as Ryan says). Reed is growing up too fast! I mean, he will be 6 months on Friday. 6 months people! Anyway, I really like this pic:

Me and Reed, Britt and Campbell, Brooke and Brayden

Well, this will be the last picture, I swear. I just really like it:

Reed in all of his drooling glory and Ryan :)

So that's it. I wouldn't be surprised if Blogger banned me from posting pictures for the next year, but if they do, we always have Flickr - well, not until Ryan gets back home. Thank you for appeasing me and looking at pictures of my baby.

Oh P.S. - I finally made Ryan sit down and upload a ton of pictures to Flickr. You should go check them out. The link is on the right hand side of the blog.

Swappin' Bodily Fluids w/ the Coach

2011-03-09T19:32:00.006-06:00

No, this post isn't about former MSU basketball coach Richard Williams...

Some of you will get that, but most won't. For those that don't, move along - there's nothing to see here.

It'd been about 3wks since my parents had seen Reed so they decided to come for the weekend, and we enjoyed some good sushi Friday night at Sushi on Main. I'm still upset that Bekah and Dad both got 3 Big Cheesy rolls and I only got 2, with Bekah smiling at me as she chomped on the last one after grabbing it while I wasn't looking. But Mom even ate some rolls and I think one wasn't cooked!

Side note: I've only been eating sushi for 8 years and trying to get Mom to try it the entire time. So given her track record of stubbornness and unwillingness to try something people [who have never eaten sushi] have told her is gross, I figure I'm ahead of schedule. Dad wasn't gung-ho at first, but it didn't take him long to try it and now he's hooked.

While we ate, Reed just sat awake in his carseat enjoying the scenery.

Saturday we got up and had lunch at my parent's new favorite Starkville eatery, City Bagel Cafe. I failed at a crossword puzzle before we headed to The Hump for HOOPS!

Last Saturday was Senior Day at The Hump, and the crew that is graduating (or is running out of eligibility - not sure if they're all graduating) is the last of the bunch that I got to see play while I was a student - Riley Benock, Kodi Augustus, and Ravern Johnson were all freshman during my senior year. Next year, no one on the team will be left over from my time at State. And I'm starting to feel old.

There weren't many people at the game - a trend this season due to a number of reasons: our under-achieving ballclubs the past 2 years, suspensions, fistfights, inappropriate Tweets, lack of NCAA Tournament appearances, etc - but those that were there gave a nice Senior Day ovation and the lack of fan support allowed us to move to the lower section. They turned off the lights in the upper deck, seemingly so the empty seats wouldn't be so noticable on television.

For the record, Dad was "perfectly happy" in our upper-deck corner seats but I insisted we move to some open mid-court seats in the lower section.

So all 6 and 1/2 of us (including Carrie & Ms. Theressia) loaded up and headed down to what Dad later described as "amazing seats." He admitted that he was "glad we made the move."

You're welcome, Dad.

Sometime during the game, I teased Reed with a Coke.

We pulled out a 2-point win, despite a ridiculous technical foul on Coach Stansbury in the final seconds that gave South Carolina the chance at the lead.

Afterward, we spotted our good frieds / long lost cousins Charles & Nell Sciple across the arena. So all 4.5 of us Sparks walked over and spoke with them until I saw Coach Mullen taking pictures with some fans. Knowing Reed had his "black bears suck." shirt on under his jersey, I knew this was a great chance for a photo. Unknown to me, though, Mom had recently been tossing Reed in the air repeatedly. And Reed had eaten a bottle during the 2nd half of the game. But I didn't know... So I went over to Mom, ripped off Reed's jersey, and immediately handed him to Coach Mullen. Mullen's wife commented on Reed's shirt and Mullen seemed amused, too. As I'm getting the camera ready for the photo....

Spit up. Right on the Coach.

Thankfully it wasn't much and most landed on Reed. Mullen took it in stride (he's got a young 'un, too), wiped his hand, and smiled for the photo. Great stuff.

After the game, Carrie (who likes seeing her name on our blog and the thought that many others on the interwebs -like you- will see it, too) came over and we watched some more SEC hoops games. Bekah eventually went to bed and before the end of the UNC/Duke game, I fell asleep on the couch. While Carrie was sitting on the other end. Such gracious hosts we are...

For dinner, we ordered a couple of pizzas from Domino's and Bekah spit out this gem while I was listing all the toppings on Domino's website.

"What's Canadian Bacon? Is that when the pigs are from Canada?"

Yep. I'm gonna let that sink in for a while and give you a minute to collect yourself.

Okay? Now I'm going to make sure you read it again.

"What's Canadian Bacon? Is that when the pigs are from Canada?"

So then I had to explain how Canadian Bacon = ham, and it was basically required that I make jokes about "imported" Italian sausage and any other topping that had a country / region attached to its name.

But I know I often make fun of Bekah's blondeness, so I'll take a jab at my own intellectual stumble, too. Carrie (hey she got mentioned again!!) and I each took a sample Wonderlic test - the test NFL prospects take before the draft. You don't have to know what the test was, really. Just know that I made a 32.5 out of 50 and Carrie (!!!) made a 40/50 - probably the lowest score she's ever made on a test, but still quite higher than mine. Bekah has not taken the test.

Also later, Bekah claimed that she heard "Mardi Gras" translates in English to "Fat Tuesday." While I knew Mardi Gras was ON Fat Tuesday, this seemed ludacris to me so I laughed and immediately claimed that this was false. But I googled to see what "Mardi Gras" DID translate to, and of course... "Fat Tuesday." At the time, I could've sat on this information and not told the girls but I willingly offered it up to Bekah and CARRIE (4 times!!) and they laughed at me.

And you can, too. But ONLY if you knew "Mardi Gras" meant "Fat Tuesday" AND you've made higher than a 32.5 on the sample Wonderlic. Either way, you probably knew Canadian Bacon = ham.

I guess that's all for today. Tune in next week to see what happens when I fix English muffins with French fries and have German chocolate cake for dessert!

Until then, here's some pictures of Reed.

Good for the Soul

2011-03-01T16:07:00.007-06:00

Let me just start off by telling you: vacation days are heaven on earth. Especially when you can stay home and play with an awesome 5 month old. Yes, Reed is 5 months old. I can't believe it - I know that is what every mother says about their child the older they get - but seriously - it is crazy to think about. Every night when I am going to sleep I just stare at Reed until I can't keep my eyes open and just think about how blessed Ryan and I to have Reed in our lives. He has always been a good baby, but my word, he is just so fun and all of his accomplishments just make my heart warm. Just when I think that I can't possibly love this little tot anymore than what I do, somehow, he does something amazing and I just can't contain my love and joy for that boy. So, why did I mention vacation days earlier? Well, I took off on Friday and it was the most amazing day ever.

Work has just been really crazy lately and Reed has been waking up in the middle of the night wanting to play and not go back to sleep, so I haven't been the most rested person lately. I'm not complaining because we have been lucky that he slept through the night starting when he was two weeks old. And he is not waking up crying or anything - he just wants to play. Anyway, I was starting to get run-down and cranky and I know when I get like that, some kind of cold or sickness follows. Since we did not have much on the schedule on Friday, I took a day off to rest. That was my intention, anyway. Of course Reed woke up while Ryan was getting ready, and Ryan overslept so he needed me to help him get out of the door. Even though I asked Reed if we could sleep just a little longer, that didn't happen - not that I expected it to. So, Reed and I headed into the living room, I put him in his bouncy thing, and ate some cereal and caught up on some shows we had in the DVR. Reed and I just hung out all day. We played and he was able to entertain himself for a while so I could do some SERIOUS cleaning, even though you can't tell right now. Later, we met Ryan at the baseball game. It was cold. State lost in the 9th inning. Next section.

At some point during the weekend I realized that Reed is really good at rolling over. I don't know when it happened or how, but that boy can roll from front to back and back to front. I guess I am usually holding him during the weekdays or he is either in his bouncy thing (which I fully expect to extract from the ceiling one day), so I never noticed his mad skillz at rolling. I guess he is just not on the floor much. He LOVES his bouncy thing. He gets to jumping and I half expect him to fly out (even though I'm pretty sure that's not possible...maybe I should double check it)...

Not only is he rolling, he is laughing his head off at everything. He loves to stand and he when he sees Humphrey, he puts his hand out like he wants to pet her. And I swear, he reached for me the other day. It may have been a fluke, but I am going to tell myself that he was reaching for me. Every time I pick him up, he rests his head on my shoulder for like 2 seconds and then he has his head up looking around. I like to think it's his way of hugging me :) You have to understand, I don't get to see Reed much during the week. Since he is in daycare in Columbus, Ryan takes him since he is driving that direction anyway. So I load the boys up to leave by 6:30 every morning and if I get home on time, I am still the first one to be there, even though Ryan gets off 30 minutes earlier. Lately, I have been having to work late, so sometimes I don't get home until 6 or 6:30 so I do not get to see the little booger much at all during the week. So if I want to think that Reed is hugging me and reaching for me, I will do so and I dare you (Ryan) to say anything about it :)

The week before Reed turned 4 months, I started attempting to feed him cereal with a spoon. I was holding him one day while eating some cheese and he kept reaching for it to put it in his mouth. Now, I know he puts everything in his mouth, but I thought he might be ready for "real" food - if you can call it that - so I decided to take the initiative and start him on rice cereal. Side Note: Every time I talked about rice cereal, Ryan thought I was talking about Rice Krispies until I came home with a box of cereal for Reed. How cute is that? Well, let me just tell you, Reed was not having any of it. He HATED the spoon. The face he made looked like someone had dipped his spoon in vinegar. So I didn't push it. I just kept trying about every other week. Well, Saturday I decided to try again, and wouldn't you know, he was eating from the spoon! I still don't think he really likes it, and he gets impatient after awhile, but it's the cutest thing!

Let's see.....what else....oh, Reed finally enjoys bath time, and now I give him a little rub down with some lotion since he no longer cries when getting out of the tub. But, he has started to out-grow his tub. His legs are so long that the other night he pushed his self right out of the seat and almost landed face first in the water. I think I am about to move his baths to the kitchen sink....just when I finally got Ryan to put the radio in the bathroom (I know he was tired of hearing me sing Baby Got Back and I Will Survive, but those are the only songs that pop into my head when I'm on the spot like that). Speaking of, you have to watch THIS video. Every time I sing I will survive, I never make it past that point in the song. I think of that of video the whole time and I guess I just don't know the rest of the words....

I guess that is it for now...so much has happened, but I can't really think of anything. I mean we go to the baseball games and I stroll Reed around the block when it's not cold outside, but I guess we just don't have time for anything else during the week. I don't think I can possibly put into words how much fun Ryan and I have with Reed. Ryan likes to do things to scare Reed (i.e. clap really loud) and it startles him, but then he starts laughing, it is the funniest thing ever. Reed is growing up and it makes me sad, but I'm happy and excited at the same time. I didn't mean for this post to be all sentimental and sappy, but whatever. Enjoy the pictures of Reed. And then watch the video again.

:)

Losing Your Voice

2011-02-28T21:53:00.006-06:00

You know I'm not going to miss the opportunity to put up a blog discussing the end of an era at Mississippi State. So you might as well get comfortable. This is a long one.

I'm sure everyone's heard about the retirement of Jack Cristil, MSU's play-by-play radio announcer since the early 1950s who has announced 600+ football games and 1500+ basketball games. He's having health problems and decided to turn off his mic at the advice of his doctors.

And yes, I shamelessly stole the title from Marshall Ramsey's cartoon reflecting on the news of Jack's departure.

Jack began broadcasting MSU football play-by-play in 1953. That's 58 years of mostly pathetic MSU football. Perhaps that's what gave him his unique style - a straight-forward approach where he was never accused of sugar-coating any scenario. This is far different from announcers [David Kellum] of other teams in [oxford] Mississippi I've [painfully] listened to who are unapologetic, over-the-top homers. Of course Jack was a State fan and wanted us to win, but when someone did something poorly he let them have it - whether that was Mississippi State players or coaches, our opponents, or the refs.

There are a couple of generations of Maroon and White fans who listened to Jack call more football games than they were able to watch in person or on TV. Mom told me that my grandfather would often sit and listen to Jack call games in the 70s, and I'm sure many others did the same. Jack was the eyes for so many fans for so many years before TV stations began picking up the sports broadcasts.

I didn't grow up in the radio era. As long as I can remember (pretty much, the late 1990's), a decent amount of MSU games were on TV regionally and last year I think all of our games were shown nationally. Since I came to State in 2003, I've attended all the home games and as I said, a lot of our away games have been on TV. Since I often had the opportunity of watching the game rather than listening to it on the radio, I wasn't listening to Jack on a weekly basis. Still, there were several away games during my time that wern't on TV and I would listen to Jack and Jim.

I recall an instance listening to a basketball game where Jack got blocked by the referee. Jim Ellis had just finished some color commentary and passed it off to Jack for the play-by-play.

Jack: "I can't see a darn thing Jim. This ref has been standing in front of me for the last 30 seconds. Back to you..."

There was just an awkward pause as Jim didn't know what to say. It was stuff like this that made you love listening to Jack. He wasn't polite about it - he was frustrated and upset at that ref. The same way I'd be if I were at the game...

I remember a basketball game in 2004 (the year we won the outright SEC Title) at South Carolina that wasn't on TV. We were ranked in the top-25 at the time, and EVERYONE was into MSU basketball that year. Mike and I were in Hathorn Hall and everyone there was listening to Jack on the radio. Down by three with seconds left on the clock, I remember Jack calling the play. Timmy Bowers received the inbounds pass and ran full-speed up the court. Coming to an immediate hault at the 3-pt line, he nailed it and sent the game into overtime. The fifth floor of Hathorn Hall was crazy. Kids running down the hallway jumping and yelling... We ended up winning the game.

And I remember driving back to our apartment after a football game during the Croom years. I was waiting at the redlight on Blackjack and Stone Blvd and Jack said that the Sonic "Drive of the Game" (usually featuring a nice play or towndown drive) would be his drive back home to Tupelo. We played a pathetic game and lost miserably, thus he couldn't pick a best play. He was just as upset as the rest of us.

It was always interesting to hear Jack handle players that had names that were difficult to pronounce. I remember a guy who's last name was "Kickingstallionsims" - listening to Jack trying to say his name was priceless. And Arkansas had a linebacker named "Olajabutu" or something. Pure comedy on the radio. But it wasn't always the difficult names. For four years, Jack would often call Barry Stewart either "Barry Sanders" or "Randy Stewart." Twanny Beckham was often refered to as "Beckman."

Since I moved to Starkville, I knew Jack's time behind the mic would be coming to an end soon. He seemed to be constantly smoking and his skin looked tan and slightly cracked - like well-worn leather. But now that his time is done, it's hard to believe.

Plans are being made to hang a banner for him at The Hump, and he will be in the "Ring of Honor" that will appear in Davis-Wade Stadium sometime in the future. For me, that's nice, but more needs to be done. This man announced almost 60% of the football games we've ever played. Wrap your maroon and white head around that one. He's seen and announced MORE THAN HALF of the games we've EVER PLAYED. That's nothing shy of amazing. He announced basketball games 17 years before The Hump was built. MSU wasn't even a University when he started - we were Mississippi State College. This amount of loyalty and length of tenure is unprecedented and matched possibly by only Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden. Jack needs a statue. And if they wanted to replace the face of Stephen Lee (brother of Robert E. Lee and founder of Miss. State) on class rings with the Jack Cristil's face, that'd be fine with me too.

I'm saddened by this news, but I know there are plenty of Mississippi State fans out there that have more cherished memories revolving around Jack than I do. I am glad that Reed was able to meet the legend and get a quick picture with Jack this past January.

The basketball game at Tennessee this past Saturday was Jack's last game to announce, and Bekah and I watched with the TV on mute, listening to Jack. State pulled out a close one, with Wendell Lewis scoring the go-ahead bucket with less than 4 seconds left. The win was great, but we were so happy he that Jack was able to wrap it in Maroon and White one last time.

Jim described the scene after the game - MSU players and coaches immediately came by giving Jack high-fives and handshakes. In the postgame interviews, Bost said the team was "fighting" for Jack at the end. MSU fans in attendance came by afterwards wanting pictures and autographs. And by Jim's account, Jack made sure everyone left happy.

I hope he's able to attend a future game so he can receive a standing ovation and see the love from MSU faithful. But maybe it's fitting that he goes out on the road - where he was heard by most MSU supporters through the years.

And it was great to go out a winner. Another great way to go out - the last 7 football and basketball games he called against the black bears of mississippi (Jack himself referred to them as the "black bears" in last week's Rick Stansbury Show) were all Wrapped in Maroon and White. We've won 5 straight in basketball and 2 in football. Not bad at all.

And I have to include my favorite Jack Cristil call. I wasn't listening to Jack when this happened - Mom, Meemaw, and I were sitting at the bar in Harvey's in 2004 watching it on TV. Mississippi State was playing at alabama, trying to clinch our first outright SEC Title in basketball since 1963. We just came back from an 18pt (EIGHTEEN POINTS!!) deficit and were down by 1 in overtime. With time winding down in OT, Timmy Bowers was about to cement himself into the hearts of Bulldog fans forever. It's a great call, except for Jim Ellis's short interruption there in the middle...

Pumps, Fakes, Shoots, SCOOOOORES!!

"...Timmy still goes baseline. Pumps, fakes, shoots, SCOOOOOOORES!" ... "UN-BEE-LEEIVABLE!" That game clinced the SEC Championship and was thus the most significant win during my time as a student at the People's University, and Jack's call seemed to capture my enthusiasm as I remember watching the game at the bar in Harvey's.

I'll wrap up this post with this. I don't recall anyone ever asking to listen to "Mississippi State" or "the game" on the radio. When you were looking for our games on the radio, you just referred to it as "listening to Jack." That's what everyone said and everyone knew exactly who you were talking about.

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Bekah will have a post up tomorrow about other stuff, including Reed eating out of a spoon this weekend.

-Ryan

It Snowed Again

2011-02-10T20:18:00.004-06:00

Snow.

But of course that didn't keep us from going to the basketball game. We won! And afterwards, we stopped to take some pictures on campus.

The State Fountain Bakery.

The Chapel of Memories.

And the Junction.

This Post May Not Be Great, But It's Better Than Christina Aguilera's National Anthem

2011-02-07T21:11:00.007-06:00

It's been quite some time since we posted, so we'll play a little catch-up here. In the interest of confusing you - err, keeping you on your toes, I'm going to go in reverse chronological order. So pay attention.

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Late night Feb6 / early morning Feb7: Reed slept all night. Yay!

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Sunday Feb 6: We went to over to John and Liza's house to watch the Super Bowl. There were 8 adults and 6 kids under the age of 6 in attendance. Between eating food, watching the game, and trying to forget Christina Aguilera's National Anthem "performance," we had to entertain / tend to / referee the kids. Wow. Bekah and I are perfectly fine with one.

The game was great and everyone there was pulling for the Packers, though apparently none of us know how to determine the difference between a catch with two feet on the ground & subsequent fumble, and an incomplete pass. The NFL needs to clarify and simplify their rules for complete and incompelte passes.

When we got home, I hung up another picture in our Old Main-themed dining room. This completes that wall. You'll have to come over to see the pictures, but we have an aerial shot, a picture of the fire, and some pictures of the rubble after the fire. They're really interesting.

We still anticipate putting up one more picture to the left of the china cabinet, but we haven't decided on the picture yet.

Earlier that day, I hung 2 black-and-white Chicago pictures in our bathroom...

...and an old cross-stitch (???) that Aunt Ruth made for me when I was born, at the end of the hallway by Reed's room.

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Late night Feb5 / early morning Feb6: Reed woke up at 11pm, 1am, and 5am. After a long day Saturday, this was not received with enthusiasm. And after a mostly restless night, he still slept less than 2 total hours the entire day Sunday.

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Saturday Feb 5: Early Saturday morning, I started rearranging some pieces in our dining room. In the end, we kept the leaf in the table to make it a large square, and Meemaw's server ended up on another wall. In place of her server, we just lined up the 3 extra chairs that weren't at the table. Due to this, we have no chairs at our small bar in the kitchen, so we'll probably end up buying some bar stools to put there. That sound you hear is Bekah rejoicing - she has been pro-bar stool for quite some time.

Afterward, Bekah went to WalMart and picked up some picture frames (the ones that are to the right of the big picture in the image above) and printed out some pictures for our dining room. When she returned, I hung them and lowered another picture we had that was too high. Here, you can also see where we moved Meemaw's server.

Later, Carrie, who enjoys getting mentioned on our blog and noticed by the 7 people (including her) who read it, came over to watch basketball and play Rook.

Mississippi State beat LSU in Baton Rouge 58-57. Our #2 scorer was suspended, our #1 scorer and starting point guard was playing on a hobbled right foot, and another one of our starters continued playing despite losing a tooth during the game. It wasn't the prettiest win, but it was gutsy by the players that made the trip.

After the win, we watched the mississippi black bears beat Arkansas and Florida beat Kentucky. Somewhere in the middle, the girls justified going to get some frozen yogurt, but I opted for an ice cream milkshake.

We played Rook during the later games, and each person won 1 game. None of us really know how to play or have a strategy, so if you have any tips, please email me privately. One game I ended with negative 40 points. Thank you, thank you. *Takes a bow*

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Friday February 4: Reed had his 4 month checkups. He did well with his shots again. He was completely calm after 3 minutes. He weighs 13lbs, 9oz (in the 25% for his age - meaning he's skinny), and was 22" long (in the 75% for his age - meaning he's tall/long). Afterward, we went to Mugshots for dinner.

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Wednesday February 2: We lost at alabama in a pathetic effort.

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Tuesday February 1: Carrie (hey - two mentions in one blog!) came over for dinner and we played Rook for the first time. I won.

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Saturday January 29: We played #24 Florida at THE HUMP. They gave out shirts that were supposed to make a design and spell STATE...

...but not many people come to watch our joke of a team anymore, so it ended up looking sketchy.

But Reed did his part.

Also, my parents came up for the game. After the game, we painted 2 more of Reed's picture frames at Dandy Doodlez (only 1 more to go), and went to Zorba's for an early lunch before they left to go home.

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Thursday January 27: We played #19 Vanderbilt at The Hump and lost.

That's as far back as I can remember. We'll try to do better next time and not have 2-week gaps between posts. Until then, enjoy these pictures of Reed.

-Ryan

Thinning Out

2011-01-23T21:16:00.011-06:00

If you've talked to my wife for any amount of time, you've probably heard her complain about me trying to "purge" her stuff. Specifically, the kitchen. But before I get into the post, let me take a moment to defend myself.

First, you need to know that I like things simple and without clutter. Dirty, I can handle. Hey, I lived with Mike for 5 years and with Humphrey for 3 - but when there's just too much stuff in a room, it looks busy and distracting. Plain and functional is what I prefer. So I had a little trouble getting used to the kitchen in our last house. This is "both sides" - you can make a reference with the sink. The ONLY thing not shown is the fridge.

Two people had a hard time standing in there together, much less moving and working. Our cabinets were always crammed and you had to move something to get to what you wanted. I hated it and I was constantly trying to cut down to the bare minimum so I wouldn't freak out when I opened a cabinet and stuff came tumbling out.

So when we decided to buy a house, I knew I wanted a large kitchen so we could both function in there easily. So we ended up with this.

And it's great. It's a nice space with great storage, and admittedly, it's well beyond what a family of two - uhhh, three really NEEDS from a kitchen. But after what we had before, we knew we didn't want to be in that situation again.

So when drawers had to be rearranged like a 3-D puzzle so all our Tupperware could fit and our tip-top shelves started getting jam-packed and our lower cabinets became storage instead of stuff we used and we started using part of our pantry to keep items that weren't food... I stepped in. Time for another purge.

So here it is, 9:30pm on a weeknight and I had the urge to purge. So instead of just taking stuff out and putting it immediately in boxes, I thought that we should really SEE what all we have. Seriously - our bottom cabinets were packed. You couldn't see what was back there.

I sectioned off 1/2 of the pantry and decided that I would take all non-essential items and put them there. And leave them - not box them up. And over the course of the next month, if something was needed we'd pull it out of the pantry and use it - and it would go back in the regular rotation. But for the stuff we didn't use, it was time to either give it to Palmer Home or put it in the attic as back-up.

Now I don't want you to think that after I filtered we were left with just 2 plates, a fork, and a pot. I think I was very generous with what we kept in the cabinets. Anyone should be able to get by with "just" 5 skillets, 6 various sizes of pots & pans, several glass serving dishes, a full 12pc set of Fiesta-ware, 10 mixing bowls, etc.

After all the excess was out, the half of the pantry I designated was PACKED and the shelves were drooping. Looking at all this extra stuff, we realized we could go ahead and pull the plug on a bunch of stuff right then. We didn't need an 8pc set of Corningware - 5pc was more than enough. In addition, we put up 4 Fiesta jumbo bowls (of 8) and 3 Fiesta cups (of 7) that we never use, a few mixing bowls, and a bunch of MSU and Chicago Cubs plastic cups (I'll take the blame for having so many of these). So all of that is now headed to the attic, and there's still plenty in the pantry for our month-long experiment.

So what's our kitchen look like now? Well it's basketball season, so here's the starting 5 - the stuff we use often enough to warrant a spot in our cabinets.

And here's our 6th man - the stuff in the pantry that we might end up needing to put out in the kitchen.

And here are the short, scrawny white kids at the end of the bench. We're sick of toting their pimple-faces along as a favor because their daddy donated a lot of money to the university (for real - this happens). So we boxed them up.

Now don't be offended if something you bought us ended up in the pantry or is headed to the attic. We're not getting rid of anything. We're both clumsy enough (but mostly Bekah) that we'll end up breaking or losing something, and now we have ample back-ups. And in the meantime we are living in a peaceful and stress-free kitchen.

We'll probably have some more clean-up / organize posts in the future. Since Reed appeared, our house has been a disaster and we're starting to try to clean it up.

Sometime last week, Bekah managed to construct this after I told her that Reed was in a bouncy-thing at daycare. Reed's enjoying it (he was in it an hour today), but I'm still a little timid to put him in it though. I question it's structual integrity because I know the carpenter so well...

Also, I bought this 1949 Mississippi State Reveille yearbook on eBay. It has my grandfather's photo in it. He was a junior that year. I really like this and hope to find one from his senior year. We are keeping this in our dining room where we have several of grandaddy's MSU things (books and a cowbell), pictures of Old Main (the dormitory where he stayed), and some of Meemaw's dining room furniture. He's in the middle - Henry F. Shepherd, an Agriculture major from Gholson, MS.

This past weekend we went down to Brandon and had a nice day with my side of the family - all 6 of us. We took some family photos and Bekah and I did a little shopping. We came back Saturday evening.

Sunday was a busy day. We took Reed to the early church service this morning, and he did fine. He was great during the singing, but got fussy during the sermon. It wasn't so bad, and all the old people (we're at the early service, remember?) were so complementative of Reed.

Saturday night, Bekah and I takled about our plans to decorate the house. Most of the house has plenty of stuff, but there are still plenty of things we'd like to add. We decided to finish the dining room first, because we were closest to having it completely decorated (mostly because it's the smallest room in our house). So after church on Sunday, we went to Lowe's and picked up a shelf. We plan on putting up a couple more pictures of Old Main - and obviously filling out the shelf - but after that, we'll pretty much be done. And we'll be happy. We both really like that room and it'll be nice to finally have SOMETHING complete in the house. Since we bought the house, so many things have prevented us from decorating - getting laid off, moving to Alabama, Reed - and it's nice to see things finally coming together.

Sunday night we tried to give Reed some rice cereal. I don't know if he didn't like it or if he wasn't hungry, but he didn't take it AT ALL. I think we'll try again Monday.

Okay, it's late and I need some sleep.

-Ryan

Sick Baby

2011-01-17T15:17:00.009-06:00

Sorry it has been a long time since I have written...at first I was dealing with a sick hubby and now I am dealing with a sick baby. Yes, you read that right. My sweet, little bitty baby is sick. And I don't mean sniffles sick. I mean, exorcist throw-up sick. For about two days I was waiting for his head to spin completely around while I sobbed like a baby in the corner.

Let me back up and start from the beginning. I'm sure I mentioned a while back that Reed had his first cold around Christmas. No biggie though - just a cough with a runny nose. I did take him to the doctor before we went to Florida to make sure it was just a cold and nothing serious since we would be 12 hours away for a week. We didn't get to see Reed's doctor, but we saw the doc that took care of him while we were at the hospital when he was born. He one gave us some medicine and said Reed was fine. Well, that medicine sucked and didn't really do anything. So I resorted to giving him Tylenol and all was right with the world. Until last week.

Not only was Reed not sleeping at all, which is very unlike him, his cough got seriously scary. I mean, he would cough so hard that his face turned bright red and I thought he wasn't breathing. I freaked out. Then I asked Ryan if I should take him to the doctor again. I don't want to be one of these people who freak out over every booger or runny nose, but this cough really scared me. Oh, and he kinda stopped eating as well. He went from eating 6 ounces to 2. Not cool. So when Ryan told me to take him, I knew it probably was serious.

So Friday I took off of work and Reed and I headed to the clinic. This time we saw Reed's doc, who I adore, and he told me that Reed has a viral infection that had moved into his lungs. He then proceeded to write out three prescriptions for him. (Reed weighs 12 lbs. 8 oz, btw). So I got his prescriptions filled and headed home for the longest weekend of my life. As soon as Reed and I got home, I gave him a little bottle and then his meds. No problems. The medicine made him a little sleepy but he never took a nap. Awesome. Another sleepless night. Now, I am not really going to complain about this because since he was 2 weeks old, Reed has been sleeping through the night. Until he got sick. I know it is really rare to have a newborn sleeping through the night so I have no room to complain here, but I am praying that once he is better he goes back to that because I cannot function on one hour of sleep and I don't rock the dark-bags-under-my-eyes look very well (just ask my co-workers). I also get really grouchy and then I feel like a terrible person because I get frustrated at Reed, even though it is totally not his fault. I always feel terrible when the morning comes and I see his sweet face smiling at me. But he is never mad at me for being frustrated with him, which makes me feel even worse. But I don't think I am really frustrated AT him, more like frustrated with MYSELF because I am grouchy and whiny when he wakes up in the middle of the night...but I digress.
Anyway, eight hours later I give him a second dose of one of his meds and some more cough syrup (which has codeine. it baffles me that a three month old can have codeine). Maybe ten minutes go by and then all of a sudden, Reed starts coughing really hard, then he starts gagging, then all of a sudden, Reed, the recliner, and I are covered in nastiness. I died. Now, this was not spit up. Spit up just happens after he finishes a bottle. Reed burps then burps again and spits up; not a big deal. But no, this was...you know, I'm not even going to describe it but if you have seen the exorcist, you know what I am talking about. So I yell for Ryan and all of us head to Reed's room for serious clean up time. I am literally shaking the whole time and Reed is smiling. My heart stopped.

Next morning: Reed and I get up, I feed him a little bottle, give him the meds again and same thing happens. Ten minutes later, Reed starts coughing violently, gags, and then nastiness again. Cue the shakes (for me). And tears (from me too). Ryan woke up not too long after and found me in the chair, still covered in nastiness, crying. For my mother. A very low point of my day. I think we did this one more time before I figured out that one of the meds was making Reed sicker. So Ryan and I made the executive decision and stopped giving him that certain one. All has been well since. He is still coughing, but not nearly as bad. He is not wheezing, he has no fever, so Ryan took him to daycare today. I don't feel real bad about stopping one of his meds because the doctor explained to me what each one does and two of them do the same thing, but in just two different ways, he told me. So now he is just on one them and the cough medicine.

You know, I seriously thought I had this motherhood thing down. I really thought that it was not as bad as everyone was making it out to be. But then motherhood showed up at the door, knocked me down, sucker punched me, and laughed in my face while I crawled into the corner and cried like a baby while every kind of body fluid known to mankind was in my hair and on my clothes. Even though I felt completely helpless, gross and exhausted this weekend, I would not take any of it back. I just love the little family that God has blessed me with and I can deal with this a hundred times over if I have to, although I would prefer not to. Welcome to the real world, sunshine.

So what else has been going on in Sparkville?

Last Sunday night it snowed. and I did not have to work last Monday since we live in the South and no one knows how to drive in the snow and ice. Last Tuesday Reed's daycare was STILL closed - from the snow TWO DAYS before... But Ryan didn't find this out until he drove to Columbus and found FBC was vacant. So I took the day off to stay home with the kiddo. In our defense, we checked weather closings and no where did we see that his daycare would be closed. Reed and I spent approximately .002 seconds in the snow, long enough to take a picture that will never be shown to another human being, and Ryan spent approximately 20 hours in the snow building devious snowmen and writing messages in our yard.

As you know, I was off Friday with a sick baby and when Ryan came home he brought me some flowers. It was really sweet and the roses are so pretty! While I was holding Reed, Ryan said he didn't like the arrangement and proceeded to rearrange the flowers to his liking. His liking turned out to be just the roses in an old Coke bottle with water. All of the greenery and babies breath were in the trash. It was quite comical to see Ryan really concentrating hard and trying to fix the arrangement and it end up being just the flowers. He is too sweet and really funny - he constantly has me laughing. Well, except for Sunday night.

After the basketball game on Sunday, we decided to go ahead and go to the grocery store because we were already out and we were both really tired so why not just get it over with. The grocery list was left at home, and last week we went shopping without the grocery list and it was a disaster. We ended up eating cereal and french toast all week. Well, until we ran out of bread. Then we lived on chocolate chip and peanut butter chip cookies. At least Reed had formula. To avoid another week like that, we decided to stop at Zaxby's and eat inside so we could make a list.

WELL... Ryan was putting Reed in the booth and I was bending over to get something off the seat and the next thing I know: Ryan's elbow was meeting my nose. I quickly grabbed it, yelled "oh my nose" per Marsha Brady, and felt something wet running down my face. I just knew Ryan had broken it and I was gushing blood everywhere. He was going to have to carry me and Reed to the car and drive to the hospital so the doctors in the ER could stop the bleeding and rush me into an OR to have surgery to repair the deviated septum caused by his elbow. Turns out, the wetness I felt were tears. I was crying. I wasn't crying because it hurt though, I think he just hit me so hard it brought tears to my eyes. And maybe because I was a little embarrassed since other people were around and witnessed the whole thing. Ryan laughed. Reed smiled. The woman behind us looked half concerned and half giggly. Later on, her husband (?) told Ryan I probably deserved it. Ugh, my nose throbs just thinking about it.

Quick facts about Reed: He is grabbing things, gnawing on his hands and anything else he can fit in his mouth, and he smiles and talks constantly. When I say talk, I don't mean that my child is a genius and speaking to us, I guess I just mean he is cooing and making cute noises that melt my heart. His bouncy seat thing has three toys hanging from it and one of them is an umbrella that plays music when the handle is pulled. Well, Reed has been trying to do this for so long and last week he was finally able to pull it. Every time he pulled it (which wasn't that often) we would clap and say "good job," you know, make a big deal out of it. Then one day I was doing some laundry and I heard him do it from the living room. So I slid in there and made a big deal and smiled and clapped and congratulated him and went back to the laundry. No joke, he pulled it 5 times in a row. I totally got some cardio in from all the running and sliding on the floor with my socks back and forth from the laundry room to the living room. Now that little booger pulls that thing all the time. We still smile and congratulate him and make him feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside for pulling it (at least, that is how I would feel if I did it). He is super close to rolling over, I think, and he loves watching football with Ryan. It's the cutest thing ever.

But everything he does is the cutest thing ever. I'm telling you though, the pictures just don't do this kid justice.

Well, that is it for now.

-R&B

Life After Football

2011-01-11T17:36:00.004-06:00

Now that the euphoria of a 9-win football season, a 38-point bowl victory over Michigan, consecutive Egg Bowl wins, and a #15 finish in the AP polls has somewhat settled, we're back into our normal life. So what's been going on?

For a while, I was sick with sinus drainage and a bad cough (something that was lingering pre-Gator Bowl). The Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night of our Jacksonville trip were all extremely painful - I couldn't even complete a sentence [or a word, it seemed] without coughing. But the days weren't too bad and I was fine during the Gator Bowl. And that's all that really mattered, right?

The Sunday night we returned was the worst, as I was only able to sleep for 4hrs (after driving the whole day...). Last Monday was a holiday, so Bekah made me a appointment at Starkville Family Medical Clinic. The nurse said I was getting over a cold and at some point I pulled a muscle in my chest while coughing (go figure). She loaded me up on 3 different medicines and told me to stay home Tuesday and Wednesday. The medicine was good for my cough/drainage (I was cleared up by Tuesday morning and my coughing was much less frequent) but it made me light-headed and kept my stomach churning constantly. So all day last Tuesday and Wednesday I was dragging a trash can behind me wherever I went. By lunchtime Wednesday, I quit taking medicine because I knew I couldn't go back to work - coughing or not - if my stomach felt this bad.

My stomach's better now, but I've still got this ocassional cough.

Last Thursday was Reed's first day at daycare. We were unable to get him accepted to a daycare in Starkville, so I'm hauling him to FBC Columbus everyday (about 15min past PACCAR). The ladies there are real nice but I hope we find a location for him in Starkville soon. Taking him to Columbus adds over an hour to my daily routine. They said he's done well, and the bubble next to "happy" on his daily chart was filled in last Thursday. It is tough to leave him every day, but he's probably in better hands - surely they know more about babies than we do...

Mom and Dad came up last weekend to see our basketball SEC-opener against alabama. We suck. An absolutely pathetic display. No heart. No hussle. No energy. Ugh.

Before that pathetic display at The Hump, we all headed to Dandy Doodlez to work on some late-Christmas-present picture frames. In an hour and a half, we got Reed's footprint on 6 frames and we (I) only finished painting 2 frames. So if you're one of the ones set to receive one of these frames, settle down. It'll be a while.

And then this happened. Two inches of snow shut down Starkville and Columbus for two days.

I got out early Monday morning and built some snowmen and made a sign so migrating birds would know that we do not approve of the school in oxford.

Bekah was off work yesterday as the People's University in Starkville was shut down. So she played with Reed all day.

When I came home yesterday afternoon, I got real busy and built a no-nonsense-sized snowman in our front yard. I like it. Bekah was iffy at first, but I think she finally came around. Some people like Frosty, and I respect that. I prefer the Abominable Snowman.

I take no credit for the originality. I have always been a fan of Calvin and Hobbes...

This morning I left home early to take Reed to daycare, but when I got there it was closed. So I had to drive all the way back to Starkville to give him back to Bekah. Luckily, she was able to work from home today. Seriously. It snowed Sunday night. There is no reason for places to still be shut down. Ridiculous.

And we have a few new things in our house...

Some new posters in the dining room.

A new hook in the bathroom and another one that we haven't hung yet.

And some old metal cars in Reed's room. We brought these back from Florida. Thanks Kathie & Gary!

Now I gotta go take down the rest of our Christmas stuff. It's been up about a month longer than I wanted it to be...

-Ryan

Gator Bowl Domination

2011-01-01T21:32:00.008-06:00

So we woke up today around 7:30am and headed to Jacksonville. After paying $25 to park, we went to the MSU tailgate ($15 per head) and had some crappy mustard-covered BBQ. It was bad. But we saw our cousins JoAnn, Bobby, & Brooke, and Jan & Robert. It was JoAnn, Bobby, & Brooke's first time to see Reed.

After the tailgate, we talked to Cathy and Kristen - two of the people that sit next to us in Davis-Wade Stadium - before heading to the stadium.

We walked in behind the band and ran into Monty, Robbie, Caitlin, and Colton on the way to our seats. Turns out they were one section to the right of us.

Of course the game was great. Reed had a rough first half, but we couldn't have asked for better seats for Reed. We were RIGHT behind the endzone and three rows from the top of the section, but NOWHERE else in the stadium were these ammenities present: two family restrooms with changing tables (30 paces away from our seats), an open air area where Bekah could stand and hold Reed and still be able to watch the game (3 steps away from our seats), and an awning in the shade where Reed could go if he got too hot (next to the restrooms). In addition to this, there were at least six open seats adjacent to the aisle for the four of us (+Reed) to sit in. No, the endzone seats aren't the best view (because you're SO far away from the other endzone), but these were definitely the best seats considering we had Reed.

Back to Reed - he was in the seat for about half of the first half, and the other part Bekah had him in the afore-mentioned open air standing area trying to calm him down. But he stayed down for 80% of the second half and seemed happy except when he got hungry or needed to be changed. We have a great football baby.

We hung around and celebrated after the game and purchased any type of Gator Bowl memorabilia we could put our hands on. Outside the stadium, we ran into Ms. Theressia and some other of our friends. Given that this game was at least 10hrs away from everyone's home AND that there had to be ~30,000 Mississippi State fans there, I was surprised at the number of people we saw that we knew in our half-day Friday and at the game on Saturday.

Cole
Julie
Paul
Bryan
JoAnn, Bobby, & Brooke
Jan & Robert
Cathy & Kristen
Megan Mullen :)
Monty, Robbie, Caitlin, & Colton
Jeff
Josh
Tony
Brian
Ms. Theressia

And the only of these that we PLANNED on seeing were our cousins. Everyone else we just stumbled into. MSU had a great showing and I'm glad I got to see several fellow fans and some guys I went to State with.

After the game, we went to a mall so Bekah could do a little shopping, but the mall closed at 6pm. On Saturday. Pathetic. We saw at least 15 people walk up to the doors, pull, and walk away. I can't imagine a reason to shut the doors so early, but they did.

After this failed attempt, we went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch some more football. After waiting 45 minutes and only seeing our waitress when she took our order (after 15min of sitting) and bringing us our drinks (and not checking with us for refills), Carrie said, "Our waitress isn't very good." (Carrie likes when she gets mentioned on the blog) But this quote was the understatement of the century. We were just flat-out getting ignored. After tracking down another waitress to light a fire under ours, we finally got some attention and enjoyed some good company, spicy wings, and good football.

That was our day, and it was FANTASTIC!

Here's a play-by-play of important events captured on the camera.

1:32pm - Kickoff!
1:49pm - MSU scores their first touchdown to tie the game at 7-7.
1:58pm - After blocking a punt, MSU kicks a field goal to go up 10-7.
2:15pm - Arceto Clark makes a tip-toe catch along the sideline.
2:50pm - MSU scores just before halftime, putting us up 31-14.
2:56pm - Jay and I rig up a hands-free way of keeping Reed out of the sun.
3:24pm - Michigan misses a field goal.
3:32pm - Reed has fun in the shade.
3:34pm - Jay suddenly becomes afraid of Bekah and/or Reed.
3:40pm - Group picture.
3:54pm - Johnathan Banks slaps the ball away from a Michigan receiver.
3:57pm - LaDarius Perkins busts out a HUGE run.
4:37pm - MISSISSIPPI STATE WINS!
4:41pm - Dan Mullen speaks after the win.
4:59pm - Group picture.
5:07pm - Sunset after the game.
8:14pm - Reed eyes some buffalo wings.
10:04pm - Gator Bowl stuff we bought.

Hope you enjoyed the game as much as we did. GO DOGS!

-Ryan

New Year's Eve

2011-01-01T06:46:00.005-06:00

So just a quick timeline here... (All times local to wherever we are)

10:30pm Thursday night - Ryan gets to sleep.

2:00am Friday - Wake up, get ready, pack my grandparent's Chrysler Town and Country.

3:20am - We departed from Starkville with Jay, Carrie, and Reed. Reed and Carrie slept the majority of the 10.5hr ride to Jacksonville. We stopped 4 times, and only 2 of those were emergency stops for Reed. The other 2 were for food / gas.

2:20pm - Arrive in Jacksonville. Park and walk down the Gator Bowl Parade Route.

2:45pm - Amongst the majority of the MSU-favored parade crowd, we finally see someone we know - Cole, who used to paint with Mike and me for basketball games. We also saw Bekah's good friend Julie. Jay saw some people he knew, too.

3:30pm - After watching most of the parade, we finally give up and go to Hooter's for some lunch. There, we watch Georgia put on a pathetic showing against UCF in the Liberty Bowl.

5:00pm - Depart Hooters, walk around The Landing - an outdoor mall-ish place on the river.

6:30pm - Head over to River City Brewing Company for the MSU Alumni New Year's Eve PAR-TAYYYY. We crossed this bridge.

7:15pm - Jay and Carrie walk right in while Bekah and I change Reed and prepare his stuff. In the meantime, the line to get in is increasing exponentially.

7:50pm - Bekah, Reed, and I finally make it inside.

8:00pm - Reed meets an MSU legend, Jack Cristil, and Reed's not too happy about it. Jay, Carrie, and I proceed to make fun of the way 80% of the people there were dressed. Tip: We are not a fan of sequins. If you walk by us in a full sequin dress, we're likely laughing at you.

10:30pm - We are beat and head to the hotel. Lame, I know, that we couldn't stay out until midnight, but <4hrs sleep followed by a 20hr day will leave you pretty tired.

11:30pm - Arrive at our hotel. Carrie gets SUPER excited that the Hampton Inn has free cookies for their guests. And by the way we pack, we think we're staying for an entire week - not just 2 nights.

sometime after midnight - we fall asleep.

7:00am - wake up and start getting ready for the GATOR BOWL today!!

Reed and I continue to have this nasty cough, though I think I am starting to get over mine. I'm having a lot of drainage, so I hope that's a good thing. Carrie is sick, too. I feel bad for Jay and Bekah, and probably whoever is sitting around us today at the bowl game.

We're right behind the goalposts today, so keep an eye out for us!

I'll try to get an update in tonight or tomorrow before we head back home.

Happy New Year!

-R&B

Christmas Recap

2010-12-28T10:18:00.005-06:00

I am going to try to make this short and sweet but somehow I don't think that will be possible (the short, not sweet part) since a lot has been going on these past few weeks. Let's see...where to begin...

Last weekend (the weekend before Christmas), Ryan, Reed and I went to Brandon for an overnight trip to do Christmas with Ryan's family. It seems like it was so long ago and I don't really remember what all we did or really what all happened. I know that Ryan's grandmother was sick and did not come over for Christmas because she did not want to get anyone else sick, especially Reed. We exchanged gifts with everyone and had a great time hanging out. Reed got an awesome Jumperoo and I can't wait for him to grow into it. He of course got some very loud toys from several sources (I will not name any names, but thank you for the toys *sarcasm*). Two people told us the toys were pay-back. But I do want everyone to know, my husband is an electrical engineer and he can probably figure out how to disengage the sound part in all of them *fingers crossed* :)

I just want everyone to know that as I am sitting here writing this, Reed is next to me filling up his pants. It smells like sunshine and roses! NOT. That will be a fun diaper to change. Maybe Ryan will get home early so he can change it....wishful thinking.

ANYWAY, I hate to say that I really can't remember what all we did last weekend. I don't think I have fully gotten over preggo brain (it really is a real thing guys). I'm sure Ryan can come in and fill in the blanks of what I have forgotten.

So we went down Friday night, oh yeah, and we went straight to Gap. Ryan's dad met us there to pick up Reed so we could shop and try on clothes easily and afterward, we went back to his parents' house.

Saturday we did the gift exchange and I was also able to give my sister and her kids their gifts and they gave Reed a noisy toy (thank you again).

We went home Saturday afternoon and got up Sunday morning to take Reed to church for the first time. Now, Ryan and I wanted him to sit with us and we decided not to take him to the nursery. Once we got in, I took a picture of Ryan and Reed and then the sweetest elderly lady asked if she could take a picture of all of us. I was glad she offered so we could have a family pic. She just gushed over Reed and was just super sweet.

Ryan and I go to the early service (8:30 am) because it is traditional and less crowded. Starkville Baptist is super huge for Ryan and me. We both went to smaller churches growing up so this church is a little over whelming to me, but the preacher is amazing.

Ryan held Reed while the singing was going on and Reed LOOOOOOOOOOOVED it! He started "singing" along, and pretty loudly if you ask me. When the singing stopped and the praying begin, Reed just kept on "singing". Loudly. Once the prayer ended, I apologized to everyone around us and took Reed out in the lobby. Everyone was super nice and kept reassuring me Reed was not bothering them, but I still felt a little bad. I knew it was time for his morning nap, but that boy fights sleep unlike anyone you have ever seen and that is what he did. Ryan brought out his diaper bag and I took him into the ladies room and changed him. I told him it was not polite to talk in church and bounced him until he was asleep. He slept the rest of the service while my arm was numb and tingly.

Once we put him back in his car seat after church, he woke up and we decided to go to City Bagel (a tradition I would like to start, but that might be a hard sell for Mr. Sparks). Once in City Bagel, Reed was happy, talking, and helping Ryan and I with the crossword puzzle (not that Ryan really needs any help with that-I married a smartypants). The rest of the day was spent watching football, grocery shopping and just lounging out by all.

We left on Wednesday to head to Florida to spend Christmas with my family. My grandmother from Colorado was down there so Reed got to meet another great-grandmother. Ryan's back was stiff from the long ride and he hurt it unloading the car, so he spent most of the trip in bed. Poor guy. My grandma showed me how to make her home-made doughnuts (AH-mazing) and if any of you were readers this summer, you might remember that I caught our kitchen on fire this summer trying to make them when I had a craving. After that, I don't think I cooked the rest of my pregnancy (which is sad because I was only like, 4 or 5 months along or something like that-I just remember that Ryan was still in Alabama because I was by myself and afraid to tell him what happened).

Alright, back to Florida. My grandma helped my nephew James and I make sugar cookies, I bought him a load of candy and had my sister threaten my life because of it, we had two very large family gathering meals, went shopping, and Ryan and I went to see a movie while my folks watched the wee one. We went to see The Fighter on Christmas day and it was really good! There were a crowd of elderly in the theatre with us, which was surprising because the movie was FULL of language, but it was really, really good. Reed got cool things including a frog raddle that seems to ribbit just by looking at it. BTW, thanks Momma. It's really cool and we love all the noise it makes! *Sarcasim again, but only about the noise. It is a neat little thing. It will be better when it stops making involuntary noises :) *

Traveling with Reed has not been that bad at all. We got home yesterday and he has seriously slept ALL day today. But I don't know if it is because he is sick, he was tired from the 13 hour drive, or a little of both. Oh wait, did I forget to mention he was sick? Yeah. No fun. He isn't really acting like it bothers him, but he is coughing and sneezing and leaking from his eyes and nose. It is really sad and I can say that I have not slept well since this has started (which was like, a week ago today). We went to the Dr. before we left and he gave Reed some medicine, but I don't think it is really working. I called back today and they gave me some signs to watch for and said to just keep doing what we are doing. But having a sick baby is no fun. Other than that, Reed is really awesome. He smiles all the time, but sometimes, he gets so serious it's scary. He is cooing a lot and just a lot of fun to be around. I took him to Wal-Mart with me today (I take him with me at least once a week) and I have to tell you, he makes the funniest faces. See, I get a buggy outside so I don't have to carry the 150 lbs of baby and carseat all the way into the store. But once we go through the doors, the floor is really bumpy and he makes the funniest face ever! His eyes getting as big as UFO saucers and his makes his face into the biggest "O" shape ever and he stays like that until we get to the smooth surface. It cracks me up every time. One of these days I'm going to have my camera ready and take a picture.

So, I think that is it for me. I have a headache and a poopy diaper to change. I will let Ryan add whatever he wants and put up the pictues. I hope he puts up a lot because we got a bunch of good ones.

They're up, but you gotta head over to Flickr to see them. (Link on the right sidebar)

ENJOY!

This post is FULL of pics

2010-12-14T08:43:00.016-06:00

This post is FULL of pictures of Reed. Why, you ask? Because I can.
Note to Ryan Sparks: if you delete this post, I will hurt you.

Last Sunday, Reed and I headed to Brandon to celebrate my Mammaw's 86th birthday. Her birthday is actually in November, but she moved to Florida sometime this summer so we celebrated her birthday while she was up for a visit. Now Reed is lucky to have 3, yes THREE, great grandmothers still around and as of last Sunday, he has met two of them (he will meet his other g.g. next week when we head to Florida for Christmas). But don't worry, he will know ALL about his other g.g., Ms. Martha, and he will be fully aware of just how amazing she was. So don't you worry about that.

Anyway, last Sunday Cousin Hope threw a WONDERFUL party for my grandmother and invited all the family members and even some of Mammaw's friends that she hasn't seen since she left (which was a surprise to her-she knew the family would be there but not her friends). We had cousins from Birmingham, Raymond, Terry, and Pearl there (and Starkville if you include the two of us). Ryan did not go because he had to work Saturday from 5 am to 1 pm; he needed a day of rest. But there was a house full anyway. And Reed got to meet all of his cousins and was passed around from arm to arm and he loved it. He is such a doll! So, here are a few pictures from that day and a few from this past week (I'm posting them here instead of on Flickr because I have no idea what our login is):

Aunt Sarah feeding Reed

Mammaw with Maggie and JT

Aunt Cha with Johnathon, Reed, and Margaret

:)

Mammaw with Reed

I think she enjoyed spending time with Reed

10 week photo shoot

Please excuse the drool stain on his head rest

And now for my most favorite picture of all time (so far):

Reed was having fun at Chik-fil-a with Ryan...I LOVE it!!