We went to Tech on Sunday and took some pictures for our Christmas cards. Yes I know it seems a bit early to be thinking of that, but I have to send them out soon!! So, if I have your address then be looking for them in the mail soon! Since I am really bad about snail mail, you might want to wait until AFTER Thanksgiving to start looking for those. I figure I do not have class all week, (Except for Tuesday when one of my HUGE projects is due, and YEAH for me I am already all ready for it and VERY proud of myself) I will start addressing and sending those cards out. I am having the 1 year anniversary of my 25th birthday on Saturday so Happy Birthday to me! I am sure I will be blogging about how wonderful my husband is sometime in the near future everyone have a great week!! OH, and the pictures were taken by Erin Burgess, isn't she WONDERFUL?

What one year can do

So here are 2 pictures of my baby. This is exactly one year apart...of course as you can guess they are both Halloween pictures. It seems that everyone I know is having babies right now (THANK YOU GOD I already have mine!!!) I was looking through pictures of Parker when he was little and thinking how amazing he was, yet how scared sensless I was. I am becoming to believe this is a normal feeling and all new mother's feel this way. This did not stop me from thinking that I was not really made to be a mom however. Everyone that knows me knows that I do not always revert to the "Mommy thoughts" as quickly as most of my fellow mommy peers. But somehow this little guy (now big) has managed to survive, and pretty well I would like to add. So as I am going into my field soon and becoming a "real live teacher" it gives me great confidence that if I can raise this little guy than I can do anything! Of course I must say that I am very blessed because he is one of the best kiddos there is. Of course he is full of ENERGY but he is very compassionate, helpful and very smart. I hold whole length conversations with him, which I always have done for some reason. Now he actually responds to what I am saying, so it is really amazing to see how far he's come in one year! It's hard to believe that he was once as small as all of my friends kiddos are now. I know I say this with EVERY life stage that he is in, but I think this is my favorite stage thus far!! He is SO curious and bright. If he can't figure something out the first time he doens't throw it like most of his friends, he sits down with it and keeps trying. He actually put a puzzle together this morning with my Dad. My Dad said he did very little, he just watched Parker figure it all out! Of course it wasn't 1,000 pieces or anything, but it is still amazing. It's also funny to see how much like my Dad and my Grandpa he is. He has the same personality as both of them. If it stays that way he will make an amazing Father and husband himself. I can't think of three better men in the world than Gordy, my dad and my grandpa. I also want to add that even though Gordy is gone during the week Parker and I have not only bonded more (if that's possible) but we've started to learn to cherish the time that we do have. Last week in our small group Donna and Steve asked us to share what God has been showing us. I think that through this ordeal God has been showing me that we need to cherish everything we have. In this time of economic crisis, meltdown or whatever you want to call it, we need to realize exactly how blessed we are. Every moment I have with Gordy now is cherished and I realize EXACTLY what he means to me. Before when I saw him everyday it was easy to take him for granted. Now I thank God everynight that I have such a wonderful man in my life and that I get to spend the rest of my life with him and raise our amazing son. I also think Parker is learning this too. We count down the days until Daddy his home again but at the same time we have fun together during the week. When Gordy is home on the weekends Parker takes full advantage of his time with him, and I love that! We only have 2 more months until Gordy's job down there is finished and I am expecting God to show us so much more before that time! Love to all, sorry this is so long!

Officially one of "them"

This past weekend was a lot of fun! So, I feel that I am now "officially" a Red Raider. I can honestly say this is the first time I have watched a game and actually cared who won. Not only did I care but I was one of the mindless fans screaming at the TV as if the people could hear us. It was ridiculous, but fun none the less. We actually missed the first part of the game because we were at the Corn Maze with a bunch of fun kiddos, Pat and Kara. Halloween was fun, we took Parker Trick or Treating, really for the first time. We actually did a lot of driving because there were so many people that wanted to see him so we just drove to friends houses and COTR for the candy and festivities. He had a BLAST! And he was actually allowed to go into one of the jumpers by himself because there was no other kiddos in line. (Thank you nice lady at COTR you made my baby boy's night!!) He was having so much fun I thought I was going to have to climb in there and get him! Sorry there are no pictures...well there are but I am not going to find the camera in my sea of papers and essays to download them right now. I promise I will post them later, hopefully before next Halloween. Love to all and WAY TO GO TECH PLAY THAT GOOD THIS WEEK PLEASE!!! OH and tomorrow is voting day DO NOT FORGET! And if you have any "I voted stickers" you can pass them to Parker on Wednesday night or Sunday morning depending on when you see me :) He was decked out in them all of last week, it was great. SO get your voice out there and VOTE. Again, love to all, I am now done with my public service announcment, carry on back to your lives.

pumpkin madness

So last weekend we had some friends over and we carved pumpkins! There is a picture of our finished pieces. It was so much fun and it was nice to see some people. Parker was a HUGE helper, he thought it was the coolest thing. He kept taking all of the pumpkin lids off and looking inside. I think he kept thinking "I know this was full of stuff a minute ago!" There are a few new words in his vocabulary now. He says "bubbles, outside" which sounds more like ouchide and he shakes his head yes and no with the correct word now. He is growing up TOO FAST! He can also drink from a straw, which I know most kids can do long before this age but for some reason he never wanted to try and drink out of one. Well now he wants a drink of everything! And he follows me around the house saying "Mo Mama Mo" even when I have nothing to give him. It's amusing. He also "helps" we with school work. As long as I give him a sheet of paper and a pencil he will help me with "sool" which is what he calls it. Love to all I know I haven't posted in forver! Homework and student teaching is getting the best of me I am afraid!

my cave

So, many of you have been asking how things are going. I NEED TIME!! There is NOT enough hours in the day to get everything done. I am trying to prioritize and just get the MOST important things done, but sometimes I feel like I am not doing a very good job at it. I have so much to do, and yeah I know here I am typing a blog! But in my mind this really helps reduce my things to do because now I don't have to answer the questions! So, we're doing good. Gordon is out of town Mon-Fri as some of you know. It's been hectic, homework, writing papers, homework, taking care of Parker, cleaning. You know busy day stuff. It's been really hard with Gordon being gone and some days I just am amazed I am able to get anything done. My child is into EVERYTHING!! But, thus far I have failed nothing (well one measly little math test...but I actually got one of the higher grades in the class) so I guess somehow I am getting it done. And even though I have not vacuumed the house in longer than I would like to admit there is no dirty dishes or mold anywhere. We're also all running around in clean (mostly) clothes, so I guess everything is getting done somehow. I just can't think about energy levels. On a better note my mom took Parker and I to the fair yesterday (it was his 1st time ever) and it was a nice break from writing papers and studying. Even though we only spent a few hours in the general population it was still nice! Parker wanted to pet the cows, of course I told him we couldn't, GROSS!! So, to everyone that ever reads this, caffeine is my best friend, lamps and my kitties keep me company in the late hours and pony tails have become the norm. I will hopefully talk to some of you in person when I can come out of my cave that has become my existence, a good time line for this would be after December 10Th :) Have a great week!

Pen snobbery

There never seems to be any time to do anything, yet somehow almost everything gets done. Although the laundry never seems to be finished, it is like a large animal of sorts waiting to attack me as soon as I step into the laundry room. Recently I bought some really nice pens. I mean, these are the pens that God intended people to use, they’re smooth flowing, perfect color and never seem to run out. Unfortunately for me they are rather pricey, but I have recently realized that my hand cramps do not care about price, just quality. So last week I decided I was going to become a pen snob, and yes it has gone straight to my head. Well, the other night I was getting ready to dig into a very long and labor intensive paper and I needed my snobby pen in hand. I proceeded to look in the obvious places, you know, the desk, chair, bed, dog toy bin, child toy bin and everywhere else a pen might escape to. After fruitless efforts of looking for my long lost expensive yet worth it pen I decided to give up and lower myself to the .99 pen from Wal-Mart. Just as I sit down to start writing my 19 month old son runs up to me yelling “Mommy, Mommy Mommy!!” Very loudly and very urgently. Of course I was at first inclined to ignore him and yell at my husband to come and get him. You must realize this was my only moments of free/quite time that I had sat aside and allotted just for this occasion. But anyway looking up at my son I see him running at me with fist high in the air holding something thin and small. His hand is an oddly stained dark color (from who knows what, and after living with him for these last 19 months I really don’t even try and speculate until I can get close.) As he is quickly approaching me I get a good look at his clothes and realize this dark substance has somehow traveled to his clothes as well. “Odd” I think. As he leaps into my lap proudly displaying whatever it is he has obviously won and grinning as large as he can. He hands me my sad, chewed, bleeding snobby pen. At that moment in time I can honestly not say if I was more upset about his clothes and inky hands or my dilapidated little friend that had only had the privilege of serving me but once in its sad and pathetic little life. Of course I wanted to yell, and cry and all of the above, but the look on his face made me stop. He had been looking ALL over the house for that pen for me, and even though he had, unfortunately for all of us, decided to take a chew while retrieving the pen for Mommy, he had still found it. So, on our way to the bathroom I tried (calmly tried) to explain that we cannot chew on pens because it has ink in it and it’s bad to get that in your mouth. Of course I am sure he didn’t really care, it has cool colors in it! Luckily this small sad moment also forced me to do some laundry, so there’s one chore down that I didn’t previously have done. I guess there is a silver lining in it after all. I have decided to traipse of to the store today and by myself another snobby pen. Hopefully this little troop can survive the Thornley household a little longer than its fallen comrade before it.

copy cat

Well, after such a wonderful first week of school I am feeling very confident about this semester as a whole. I am now going to buy a bicycle so if anyone has any suggestions feel free to throw them out there for me. Parker has done really well with me being gone so much, of course next week he starts PDO so I think that will be much more fun for him than staying at home all week with various people. Of course on Tuesday he stayed with Connie, and they apparently had a blast, of course tomorrow I will get a better story I am sure. My mom went and picked him up so she didn't really tell me any funny stories. I feel like Parker has grown up just in this week. We've started trying to potty train him (just getting him used to the idea) and this morning he went in it!! We think. You see we weren't exactly watching him 100 % so it could be from him..or his sippey cup. It's up for debate. But I would like to think he went in it. He also imitates everything Gordon does, I tell him he's being a copy cat and he throws his head back and laughs.(Which is something else he LOVES to do, I think he's being sarcastic because he crinkles up his nose while he does it, but it still makes me laugh) This morning we went to the store to get various things and Parker wasn't sitting in the cart he was walking (as he LOVES to do and rarely gets to). Gordon was squatting down looking at something and Parker walked up next to him and squatted down just like him and started pointing to things and looking at Gordon. It was SO CUTE! I would've LOVED to have had my camera. He says "dere" now, which I am interpreting as "there" although I could be way off. Anyway, that's not much news but I just wanted to share the "first" moments with the crazy "potty"time thing.