Here we go!

Tucker wants us to post on the blog since we have been neglecting it. We had a great weekend at the lake with all of our cousins! Tucker and Tanner did their best to support the firework stand at Lake Nocona. They had some much fun blowing up cans and watching the fireworks. I am so glad that they are starting their own memories at the lake just like I did over 35 years ago.

Goodbye 2009

Well, I am afraid that I didn't document 2009 blogging very well. So, instead of trying to catch up, I think that I will do a little recap of the year and just move forward. So glad I thought of that. :0) This will definitely ease the burden of me trying to catch up on some much needed blogging and just start over fresh with the new year. I guess that will be one of my New Year's resolutions...more blogging about Tucker. Let's just hope he gives us some things to blog about.

2009 started off easy enough and has been a great year for our family. Tucker made it through Kindergarten without too many incidents and his poor teacher even returned for another round. He started reading and found a love for math and science. But, his ultimate joy in school is to entertain the other students (not exactly the highlight of the year for his teacher.)

Tucker continued to play soccer for the Jedis and they had a great season. The spring season was extremely cold, but we persevered a made it. I vowed to only participate in indoor sports from January to April, but we will see how that goes!

Spring Break we went to Las Vegas. (I blogged about it here.) Tucker and I spent most of our time playing xbox 360 and swimming in the hotel pool. (I am so glad that we drove all the way from Texas to Vegas just to play video games and swim...this is something that we certainly never do at home!) HA! John set out to win millions in the casinos, but ended up leaving with a few $. We did walk around with Tucker and see lions, tigers, and dophins.

The highlight of the spring for Tucker was getting to go see Montreal play the Dallas Stars at the American Airline Arena. Tucker has become very passionate about hockey and more specifically Montreal Canadien Hockey. He logs onto the internet to NHL.com first thing in the morning and right before he goes to bed to check the most current hockey statistics. He basically eats, drinks, and breathes hockey!




Summer came upon us quickly and so did the hot weather. John and Tucker decided to escape by driving with Willy to Montreal for a couple of weeks. Did I say a couple of weeks....somehow a couple turned in to 6 weeks!! I was still working, so they enjoyed visiting with family, friends, and the Bernard Cantina for poutine. The weather was beautiful and they stayed outside playing hockey, roller blading and Tucker learned how to ride a bicylce!

I had a lot of quality time to myself and actually got to just float and read in our pool for the first time ever! I finally got a 2 week vacation and flew up to Canada to be with my boys and enjoyed every minute of the time I got to spend with them. While I was there, we picked strawberries and made strawberry jam. We also was able to attend the Montreal Canadiens summer rookie camp. Tucker loved this!! He also had the priveledge of meeting Jean Beliveaue. Jean Beliveaue played for the Montreal Canadiens and helped win the Stanley Cup 10 TIMES!!

Finally the boys had to return home and 1st grade was waiting on Tucker. He has a wonderful, patient 1st grade teacher and we are seeing a lot of growth. He is reading more fluently, but still doesn't have my love of reading. He is a numbers kind of guy!!

The starting of the new school year, also means that Tucker's birthday was fast approaching. After going through many ideas, we invited about 25 boys and girls to join us for some broomball at the local ice rink. They seemed to have a great time, with only a few injuries! Next year, I have sworn to a quiet movie/slumber party for 4-5 boys. I think it is time for a smaller affair.

Soccer season also started up and Tucker was the high scorer for his new team, the Blue Dragons. Although we had a hard season (almost losing every game), the boys have seem to get a little spunk about them and we are hoping for a great new spring season! I am NOT looking forward to the cold, outdoor games.

Halloween was spent as a Ninja. We didn't really know what a ninja was, but the costume has some really cool weapons! Peaches and Papaw visited us on Halloween and Tucker ended up with WAY more candy than he could eat. After trick or treating, we sat outside and gave away the rest of our candy. Tucker's favorite costumed visitor that night was a whoopee cushion. He could hardly give the whoopee cusion kid any candy for laughing so hard. It was very funny!

We made it throught the rest of the holidays and 2009 safely and happy. We have watched Tucker grow and become the little boy that we love more and more every day. I love to talk with him and hear is insights into his young life and see the innocence through his eyes. (I could do with a little less farting topics!) So here is to the memories that we have made and to the future memories that we will make for 2010!

Snow in Texas? HA!

I really can't remember if I have ever had a white Christmas in Texas. I think that we have a had some close calls and that it has been icy, but this time we got it good. We were in Nocona at my parents house when it started gently snowing about 8:20 Christmas Eve morning. It was so pretty and clean! But by 11:30, we were in full on blizzard conditions.

Luckily, John had just arrived and said that the roads were just starting to get slippery. Our original plan was to go back to our home after eating our Christmas Eve turkey dinner, but Mother Nature had her own plans. Since mom and dad live out at the lake, they really don't have anyone to come snowplow, so basically we were snowed in for a while. I had to send a few emails Santa's way so that he knew where Tucker was going to be. (John also called before he left, thinking that we would get snowed in and brought along Santa's loot.)

John arrived with snow clothes, gloves, hats, and goods so that he and Tucker could enjoy the snow outside. Willy played along with them, as well. I stood around and took as many pictures as I could. We had the best time playing in the cold and then coming back in to warm up. Here are a few of the pictures...

Long Time Coming

Ok, ok...I am going to try to do better this year of keeping you all up with Tucker. I haven't blogged in so long that I am a bit overwhelmed as to where to start. Do I try to catch up or do I just keep going like I have been blogging all along? I think that I will start with the present and then catch up as I go along.

Watch out for Redheads...and homework

I have to be out of town for the few days to go to a tech conference, so tonight I was doing my best to get Tucker organized.  Each night he has homework to do to help him learn good study behaviors.  (These are words from his teacher's newsletter.)  So, I was trying to get him to do as much of the homework as we could together, so that he didn't have to rely so much on his daddy.  They tend to get busy playing and forget about that kind of stuff when I am not around!  Part of Tucker's homework was just to properly write upper case and lowercase ABC's.  Sounds easy enough, right?  We are doing fine until we hit G.  For some reason, Tuckers starts losing concentration and does a lower case a, then q, pretty much every letter but lowercase g.  Let's just say I really don't have a lot of patience anyway, and this just about did me in.  So, I just got up from the table and told him to finish his homework on his own, and I start cleaning the dinner dishes.  Tucker huffs at me and says, "So, I guess it's true what they say about redheads...they ARE violent."  I couldn't help but giggle a little bit when he said this since I had my back to him anyway and all I did was get up and do the dishes.  I don't know where he heard that, but I would like to exchange "impatient" for "violent", please. :0)  I can't wait to hear how John and Tucker do with the rest of the homework this week. 

Last Weekend of Lake Fun

Labor Day for us means that it is the last weekend to spend at our lake cabin. There is sadness because the lazy days of summer are officially over and there is a little bit of excitement knowing that we are in the beginnings of a new school year and upcoming fall season. We spend our time at the lake with mom & dad doing the usual...riding the jet ski and boating. Tucker's cousin Eleanor came along on Saturday with my brother and Tucker played with her in the lake. They found our kayak and Tucker paddled Eleanor around. She looked like a little queen telling Tucker to go faster or turn around.

We enjoyed hot dogs by the lake, which for some reason makes them taste better than just having them at home. Dad and Jeff also grilled bacon wrapped jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese. Very yummy!! We all swam and ate while John and Willy fished. It was a nice, lazy weekend at the lake for us all.

Another one bites the dust

I guess Tucker became tired of only having 1 front tooth out. I had a feeling that he would figure out a way to get rid of the other front tooth. By the time I picked him up from school today, he had yanked the other tooth out. Once again, I had to do a little bit of my happy dance just because I didn't have to deal with it. So, for now we have a really wide non-toothy grin.

He was so excited that he is now missing his two front teeth! I thought he was happy because the tooth fairy would be visiting again. However, I overheard him tell his daddy, "I am like a real hockey player now, since I am missing my teeth." Should have know it had something to do with hockey!

Toothy Tuesday

As I picked up Tucker this afternoon from after school care, he met me with this big partially toothy grin. He pulled his front top tooth out this afternoon after school! We went to his dentist a couple of weeks ago, so I knew that his front teeth were getting loose, but I still didn't expect it to happen this soon. So far, Tucker has lost three teeth and they have all been remove during school. I am actually very happy about that because for some reason the thought of pulling teeth just really seems yucky and gross to me. So, I was just a little bit excited that this big event happened away from my eyes.

I was concerned about how Tucker would take not having a front tooth, but he is doing great. (He does seem to care about the way he looks these days.) He said that it is hard to say "s" sounds, but he also told me that he would manage. He goes around smiling just hoping that someone will notice that he is missing a tooth, almost like a trophy or something. That's my child, never one to shy away from attention or being able to tell a story! Now, we just have to wait for front tooth #2 to come out which I think is probably just a few days away. I have caught him trying to wiggle it, so Tucker is pretty determined to get it out too. Let's cross our fingers that his teacher gets lucky enough to deal with this one too.

First Day of First Grade

Today was the first day of first grade for Tucker. He seemed a little bit excited and a little bit nervous. We had our backpack ready and clothes laid out anticipating the first day.

This year seems to be a bit easier for us all since it is our second year to be at this school. Tucker is familiar with the layout of the campus and even seems to know most of the faculty. (Not sure if this is a good thing, though.) The principal and assistant principal knows him by name and both gave him a big hug on Meet the Teacher night. I guess they are ready for the munchkins to be back, too.

After meet the teacher night on Friday, he was able to see that he already knew a lot of kids from last year, so he was excited about having friends in his classroom. I was excited to see his new teacher and learn that she has about 10 years of teaching experience and a son entering kindergarten. I think that we can relate!

Tucker has had a fabulous summer, but I think that he was ready to return to school. Throughout the morning while getting dressed, he kept repeating, "I can't believe that I am a first grader!" I don't think that I could get him to school fast enough! He was ready to go and get on with the day.

His only disappointment was learning that I was going to walk him into the classroom on the first day of school. You would have thought that I was making him walk around in public without any clothes on! He tried every tactic he could think of to keep me from walking in the building, but I was just as determined to see him to his desk! I really don't know where he gets his stubbornness from. So, we made it to the classroom along with every other classmate AND THEIR PARENTS. Once Tucker was safely in his little desk. I gave a little wave goodbye (I promised not to kiss and hug him at school) and headed out the only to glance back and see him already talking to the other kids at his desk, laughing away.

Real or Fake?

Tucker seems to have time on his brain constantly. Everyday all day long he is asking, "how many minutes will that take?" I usually give him an estimate of time, but sometimes I will say that "whatever" will happen 'in just a minute'. I tell him that I am cooking supper and he wants to know how long it will take. If we watch a movie, he asks again, how many minutes long is the movie? I am not even sure that he understands the concept of a minute or not, but he loves to ask about it!

On Saturday, he wanted to play a game and I was in the middle of folding laundry. Not that it takes much for me to give up folding the laundry, but I did tell him that I would play "in a minute." I watched him walk away, but then he paused and turned to me and said "Are you talking about a REAL minute or a FAKE one"? I guess his concept of time is a little better than I thought.

We are Jammin'

After a morning of eating picking strawberries, we went back home with Oma and Peepaw to start making our favorite (and requested) fresh strawberry jam. Oma had all of the ingredients ready and waiting for us.

We started by washing the strawberries and then Oma and I cut off the tops of the strawberries while Tucker had the job of smashing the strawberries with the potatoe masher. I must say that Tucker's job looked like a lot of fun to me! I don't really know how many strawberries were smashed in the process of jam making, but Tucker grew kind of tired of smashing after a while. There is only so much fun that can be had right?

Moving on to the next phase, we then added A LOT of sugar to the smashed stuff. We were able to rest for 10 minutes while the sugar and strawberries did their thing, then we added the Certo gel and freshly squeezed lemon juice. Tucker then had to stir the mixture for 3 more minutes. Then it was time to put the jam in the jars. This was my job since it can get kind of messy, but Tucker continued to watch and make sure that he knew which jars "his jam" was put in. We continued this process the rest of the afternoon unitl we had about 25 jars ready and finished. Now, I just have to figure out how to get this stuff back to Texas to share with some of you. Heide keeps laughing as we buy more and talk about bringing all kinds of things with us. There really is a limit to what the Cherolla can hold you know. :0)

Poutine - Yumm-o

With all of the hard work strawberry picking, we had to stop by John and Tucker's favorite place to eat. It is called Bernard's Canteen (you say it with a French accent, right?) It is basically a burger and fry kind of place but they have some local favorite foods. I usually get a burger, but their fries are why we go there. They are freshly cut and of course fried. But, the goodness according to John and Tucker doesn't stop there. You have to trick up the fries to make them into a yummy, messy goodness called POUTINE.It is basically brown gravy and cheese curds on hot French fries. The brown gravy is similar to a roast beef gravy and the cheese tastes a lot like the pull cheese that you buy in the store. I think that it is an acquired taste. I sort of think of it as the French version of our Chili-Cheese fries. Tucker likes it because John likes it. I can usually eat poutine one time while we visited John's parents but I think that my guys could eat this for lunch everyday if it wouldn't clog their arteries (and if it was available in Texas). So, there is a little bit of Montreal cultural food info for you. Enjoy!

Strawberry Fields Forever

It has been raining a lot in Montreal, but we did get a break in the rain enough to go pick fresh strawberries! Tucker and I were very excited about that. We love to come to Montreal during strawberry season because there is nothing like picking and eating fresh strawberries. The only bad thing is that I can hardly eat a strawberry at home because they do not taste as yummy as they are here!

Tucker's motto was to pick one eat two. I think that he followed that very well. The poor farmer would have probably kicked us off the farm if he had seen how many strawberries Tucker ate. John and I eventually had to fill the rest of Tucker's basket while he filled his belly! Each of us had a basket to fill so we had 5 huge baskets of strawberries when we were finished. Heide and I started trying to figure out the different things that we could make with all of the strawberries. We knew that we would make several batches of jam (per Peaches request)! So mom, you do have several jars have jam coming your way. :0)

While we were picking, we also had a contest to see who could find the biggest strawberry. Tucker somehow won with a berry almost as big as his hand. Life is berry, berry good here in Montreal right now.

Peaches, you will be happy to know that we have made lots and lots of fresh strawberry jam, so you should have enough to last you a long time as long as we can get it all in the car.

Music to My Ears

With the Stanley Cup finals going on....all we do is watch hockey. This is just a little more than this Texas girl can handle! While watching the game, not only are we pausing and rewinding to watch special moves, plays, and fights (Thank God for Tivo!), but John and Tucker also have to play their own hockey game between periods. The area between the front door and back door is the "hockey rink". Once again, a little too much for this mama to handle.

When John or Tucker scores, they each have a theme song that they sing out. Tucker's song is Katy Perry's "Waking Up in Vegas" song chorus, and even more specifically..."shut up and put your $ where your mouth is, that's that what you get for waking up in Vegas". When John scores, he starts singing "Just a Friend" by Biz Markie.

I found myself in the kitchen playing around on the laptop and trying to ignore the two boys, when I hear Tucker just singing at the top of his lungs his "theme" song. Rather annoyed, I go into the entryway to see what provoked such a loud, eardrum busting outburst with his song rendition. He just looked at me and smiled and sort of shrugged his shoulders, "I was singing in surround sound." All I could do was laugh out loud. I am betting that he kinder teacher will really miss him over the summer. :0)

Do you feel sorry for me?

I guess that John felt that Tucker was having too much fun with all of the Photo Booth business. He had to figure out a way to get in the process. I really don't know where I was when they were busy making this precious gem.

Just wanted you all to see what I deal with every day?

Anyone what to join this craziness?

Sports News

As it turns out, Tucker and the macbook are getting to be really good friends. He is making little "shows" daily. I guess I am now the show "producer", so I took the liberty to do some cutting an editing for his new sports newscast. He is going to have to work on his isight camera shots. I was in the kitchen when he was working on this, but he didn't need any prompting to talk. This is a little long (even after my editing), but it is worth watching. He actually did this a couple of weekends ago. I was actually surprised at the different subjects that he talked about because they happend so long ago (like the Super Bowl). I guess when you are young, your mind just soaks it all in. I just finally sat down long enough to put it all together.

I swear this child talks just to hear himself. However, I think that he gets it naturally. My grandmama can tell you all kinds of stories about me and my mouth. I used to go with her when she would get her hair done at the beauty salon. She swears that she could never get me to stop talking either. Hopefully Tucker will turn his blabbering into something positive one day. Maybe Tucker is a sportscaster in training...Channel 8's Dale Hanson needs to watch out!

Early Mother's Day Shout out

So, I am sitting in my hotel room in Austin trying to clean out some of the videos that Tucker has recently created when I come across this little jewel. Now that he knows how to make videos, that is pretty much all he does when he gets on my computer. I wish I could share them all with you, but you would get tired of the faces and crazy things that he says and does. This one is sweet and I actually don't even know when he created it! Good thing we have a bunch of tech savvy grandparents so that they can hear/see Tucker's shout out.

Mac Attack

I showed Tucker how to use Photobooth on my Mac laptop. Here is a little nugget of his creation. I am afraid that there is no stopping him now since he found out how easy it was to record himself. I can see lots of silliness in the future so just get ready. :)

American Idol

Tucker and I like to talk to each other about out day as we drive home. I ask about his day and then he asks about my day. Most often, I share what a great day I have had, but it has been a hard week this week. One of those weeks, where you are only at your desk about an hour total and otherwise are in meetings in various buildings all over the district. I have also been interviewing for a new tech facilitator. We had some great applicants which also makes for very tough choices.
So today was the day that I made a final decision for the new hire and offered the applicant the job. I was explaining the process Tucker and that I had to call some of the other applicants and tell them that they were not the "chosen one." This always makes me feel bad and I really hate that part of my job! I was telling Tucker that one person gets the job and four others have to be told that they didn't get the job. Tucker listened intently and asked questions. After a few moments of silence, he says, "You know, that is like American Idol. You have a winner and everyone else gets voted off ." I told him yes, but I was ALOT nicer than Simon.

Last Las Vegas Post

Our last day in Las Vegas had Tucker and I looking for things to do. We decided to visit Ethel M chocolate boutique at the Flamingo Hotel. I actually wanted to visit the factory, but we never actually made it there. I had visions of Tucker and I trying to take chocolate off of the conveyor belt like Lucy and Ethel from "I Love Lucy" show. Tucker and I would be fine with shoving chocolates in our mouths! At the "chocolate boutique" we picked out a box of chocolates with lemon filling, coconut filling, caramel filling, peanut butter filling, and chocolate truffles. We loved them all, but the lemon and caramel ones were my favorite! With our belly's full of chocolate, we then moved on to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville and relaxed on a couple of painted chairs. It was a great place to watch the people go by. I didn't blow out a flip flop, but I still wasted some time away. :0)

Later in the day, we went to the Hawaiin Tropic Cafe at Planet Hollywood.

While we were there, in walked a young girl who looked really familiar, but I couldn't place her. She went on to sit in a cabana at the restaurant. When John looked at her, he immediately proclaimed that she was "bikini girl" from this year's American Idol. He would know...he is absolutely in to American Idol, which actually surprises me a bit. While I am all over reality T.V., he doesn't get into TV much at all unless it football or golf. He will watch a movie, but he will not watch any series of shows except for American Idol. When it is on, basically the world is on hold. So with his American Idol knowledge, he KNEW that the girl was "bikini girl". He and Tucker were brave enough to go to her table to get a picture (all for Tucker, right?) Sometimes being a dad is really hard work. So that was our brush with fame while were in Las Vegas, if you can call it that. Tucker was excited about meeting "Makini girl" as he called her.