Coach

It is actually hard to put in to words how great Kyle is at coaching high school football.  In a way, to know him well is to know how fantastic he is in this role.  He was truly born to do this.  It is really fun to watch him coach and love on these guys.  CCA had a great season - they went 7-3.

 O-Line & D-Line

These coaches have a blast together.

Tarah Jo

 Our dear friend Tarah came to visit from Durham with her two boys a few weeks ago.  Her husband Tyler, Kyle & I all went to Rhodes together and she is just the kind of friend that I can pick up with like no time has passed.  It helps that we are both in Crazy Town right now with these houses of wild boys! Our boys were FAST friends... so sweet to watch.  She brought gifts for all of us, too, including this awesome Wampus Cats shirt for Mac.... Tarah is from Conway, AR and we used to make fun/love her high school mascot and had a fun time in Conway for a weekend in college at her precious mom's house.  Can't wait to see them again!

 Ryans with Rowan & Connell

Sweet Jackson

We lost Jackson the week before Thanksgiving.  We had 6 more months with him than we thought we would when he was originally diagnosed, so we are grateful for that time, but wow -- it was still so hard to say goodbye.  We picked him out when he was just 4 weeks old and impatiently visited him out at the farm until he was 8 weeks and we could bring him home.  He survived moving from streams and snow and no-leashes to the harsh city life with concrete and skin issues from the heat and a constant leash!  He really was a true mountain dog. The night we set up the nursery for Tucker (when I was still pregnant) he sensed that his charmed life was over as he knew it and he began sulking.  It was hilarious!  The day we brought Tucker home from the hospital we have a great picture of Jackson going straight over to the infant carrier and setting his nose on Tucker's lap as if to say "So you are with us now?! Great..."  He then survived three rough boys giving him more love than he ever wanted.  He was sweet and patient for all these years and we will miss him so very much.

This kid is 4!!!

 Well, first of all, we made it through Mac being three.  That's no small feat.
            Second, he is wild and funny and sweet and confident all bundled in one.
                       

 Mac is sort of known for his random toys.  

He is constantly holding his small hay bale (pictured above) 

for part of a lego set or an action figure. 

He does this all day at school and 

won't get settled in my car until he has something in his hand...

He rarely plays with normal toys -- mostly just plays

with these little things with full sound effects.

Did I mention his confidence and humor?

...Oh how we love you Mac.

This is all Everbank's fault!!!

...or we could call it Trips 9 & 10 to the Emergency Room

It starts like this.  It is August. We go with friends to the Jaguars Family Night Scrimmage. We bounce house and dance to the DJ and throw footballs outside the stadium.  And then just as we walk in Mac falls in a fairly non-dramatic fashion in to a partition.  And it catches his mouth in just such a way that causes a lot of blood. And our friend John scoops him up and we run to find an EMT station just ahead (praise God!)  Tucker begins loudly declaring "This is ALL EVERBANK'S (name of the stadium) FAULT!"  One of the front office guys of the Jags hears this and comes over to ask to email him on Monday.  It is immediately clear we will not be attending the game that night and the kind EMTs (after signing our lives away because we weren't taking an ambulance) help us out of the stadium and through the parking lot to our car and off we go... yet again... to the Emergency Room.

Stitches in and we are out of there!

The next day...

Later that day...

Sunday morning...

By Sunday afternoon it is looking HORRIFIC and he has a fever so we call Dr. Mary. She is LITERALLY the most unbelievably caring pediatrician and has us come to her house so she can look at them herself.  She almost immediately says we will be admitted and she will call ahead for us to tell them we are coming (this will be Trip #10!!) Before we leave she gives Mac a special pirate treasure chest to take with him to the hospital.

Now Kyle has JUST left for his week long football high school football camp which was about 2 hours away, so I let him know that we are heading to the hospital and he starts driving back while our dear friends David & Katie come over in the mean time.  Sure enough, after the doctor and I share a 4 minute love-fest about Dr. Mary, he tells me we will most certainly be staying and they get him started on antibiotics.

Finally up in a room tucked in.

On Monday it was still quite bad, but he watched a LOT of TV in his underwear. Which is pretty much his dream day.

Tucker wrote Mac his first note. He was still quite caught up on the stadium's liability in the situation.  We were glad to see the confidence he had in God's sovereignty, though!

Tuesday -- getting slightly better, but they still felt the infection was somewhat resistant so they played with the antibiotics.

Getting bored Tuesday night so he transformed in to Spidey to scare his nurse.

Tucker comes for a pre-bed time visit. One of our sweetest pictures of them... You could tell they were actually missing each other's company!  He wrote a really sweet note again.

Wednesday he finally got to leave!

And sure enough, when we emailed the guy from the front office, we received a nice package wishing Mac well.  We called it The Lawsuit Protection Kit from Coach Mularkey :)

Halloween 2012

Always one of the best times of the year for lots of pictures!

Above: Mac acting completely goofy during his class picture... vintage move.
Below: Attempting my pumpkin patch perfect picture. Always a bribe-filled, frustrating, parent-of-the-year moment for me.

 Halloween Night. Spiderman, Michael Phelps & the Football Guy (who was supposed to be a pirate, but very firmly and politely told me "No Thank You" countless times to putting on his costume so I relented and went with Plan B)

Tucker is extremely creative and literal at the same time... It was very important to him that we got every detail right (For instance, he HATES purple, so I got him dark blue ribbon to make the medals. He was mad they weren't purple and said he would have sacrificed for perfection!)

 Trick-or-Treating with fun friends...

 Time for Tucker's class to the Pumpkin Patch

Our Football Man

Sometimes you just need to start again. Tonight is the night. I have too much to catch up on, so I'll just start with Charlie. He had a birthday last week and he is now TWO. Crazy that our baby is getting so old. His most dominant characteristic for months now is his OBSESSION with football.  He hands us the remote and asks us to put it on for him to "Watch Football" and he watches film with Kyle for his high school coaching and he is almost always wearing jerseys and other gear.  He is crazy verbal, but a lot of what he talks about is "Football Guys," "Football Shirt," "Football shoes," etc.  LOVE him.

"Daw-dy"

Charlie is talking up a storm in pre-2 year old language.  He calls "Daw-dy" (doggy) through the house all day.  He likes to know where he is and he loves to give him his food.  He starts calling him before he discards his rejected food on to the floor.

 

 Sweet 10 year old Jackson has bone cancer and won't be with us too much longer.  He has been such a faithful companion and wonderful dog.  He has put up with us moving him from mountains and streams to the city... and then suffered through three semi-abusive/overly interested toddler boys.  We could not ask for a better dog.  He is hobbling around (the main tumor is on his front leg) and sleeps most of the day away, but we think he is doing okay on pain medicine for now.  I went out the other day for a photo shoot. It was, as usual, mostly a failed attempt... but the pictures show a lot of the boys normal interaction!