Morning Conversation

Me: Serif, you need to get dressed because you're not allowed to wear pajamas at school unless it's pajama party day and today is not a party day. You need to see Ms. Sandra if you have a problem with that because she makes the rules. Serif: No, Ms. Shawny and Ms Rachel. Me: Yeah, I guess so for your class. Do you have a favorite? Serif: Pekka Rinne and Kaia. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

So Sad

Serif dropped a piece of cereal on the floor this morning and tapped his toe and said, "Helmut!" =( - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Today's Quote

"When Jesus watches over the whole world, he keeps monsters from coming to our house." - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

First Dentist Appointment

They have a train that runs along the ceiling throughout the facility. He thought that was pretty cool.


We went to Chick-fila for dinner the night before and the cow was his form of entertainment between the train laps.


We really should've gone before now but really didn't think he'd let anyone in his mouth. He proved us wrong. Cassie was so great with him and got him to do the entire cleaning . . . and floss! She gave him these "crazy cool" sunglasses to put on so the light wouldn't bother him. He loved them.


He did so great that they let him pick a prize from the drawer (he chose a dinosaur) and Dr. Buzz gave him a build-a-bear! Would you look at those nice shiny teeth! "Just like Pekka." he said.


He did have tears in his eyes. He wasn't watching where he was going as we were coming out the door to our car and he fell off the sidewalk onto the street. He was fine but I think it scared him and embarrassed him more than anything. Not to mention the stress of it all during the appointment. I got a close-up to show him his teeth but I think you see more tears than anything. Poor guy.


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New Room

We took the crib down over Christmas and moved Serifs big bed in to the nursery and turned the front room back in to a play room again. It's so nice having a true bedroom for him without all the distraction of toys everywhere!


When we moved the bed to its new location we had to face it the other direction. I was not liking the gap at the base of the ladder being in front instead of facing the wall so we had to get creative. (For those of you that may be unfamiliar, this bed flips upside down to create bunk beds.) we remembered that the mattress could roll up since its foam and we also needed a place for his slug night lights. So, I had Jeff go get a dowel rod and I sewed some curtains for the slug house! It's the little things that make me smile. Today, he wouldn't put his clothes on after a shower and he was being rather defiant so I put him in time-out and told him to get dressed. When I went back in to check on him he was completely under his bed in the slug house! It was hilarious! Jeff snapped some pictures and told him to get out of there and get dressed before he gets a splinter in his rascal. That did it! I'll have to add a photo here soon. I'm on my phone and don't have access to it right now.


His play room got reorganized too and he got some wall hooks for his guitar collection . . . "just like Justin and Julee's!" - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Random Texts

I was flipping through the stations and stopped on a country station with a John Anderson song on. He listened for a minute and grinned and said, "Do you know who that is?" I said, "Who?" He said, "That's Pekka."


"Hey! They pooped on the ceiling. A baby did that." (in reference to his classrooms bathroom ceiling.) I got him dressed in the "big" bathroom at school and as I was putting his shoes on him he said, "Mommy, I'm not going to cry when you leave." (First time he ever told me that. It was nice that he recognized it.) As we pass the arena, "I'm gonna eat a hamburger all. then I'm gonna eat a hotdog all. then I'm gonna eat popcorn all. I'm gonna eat it all." (in reference to the all-you-can-eat game we were going to that night. We went and he really did! He ate the whole night: all but 1 bite of a hotdog, a small bag of popcorn and a bag of peanuts!)


I took Nannie's gloves off of him last night and he cried for them to be put back on. Once he was in bed, he waited a few minutes then took the gloves off and laid them next to him and said to me, "I want to keep these right here.". He slept with those gloves all night. (It was so cold out and Serif lost one of his mittens in the arena. Annie gave him her gloves and scarf to wear to the car. He thought was pretty special. He was right. Thanks Nannie!) - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

First Ice Skating Lesson

Today started the first set of lessons for Serif (and Jeff). He did great! He would never let go of us prior to the lesson but he actually went out there on his own by the time lesson was half over! We were really proud of him. I told Serif that he was going to have to teach me. I think he liked that. We get a free hour of practice during the week and I plan to join them and learn along with them. I think Serif will be taking off and leaving me soon though. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Finer Details

Serif did this last night before the hockey game. I just now really noticed it and am amazed at how small and how detailed he is getting. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Pete, Serif and Terry

We went to the game last night and here's the highlight of the night. We were on our way to our seats when we spotted someone we knew. We stopped to talk a second and a side door opened up and Pete and Terry came out. They immediately spotted Serif and laughed and said, "Hey, look at that! Can we get our picture with you?" I told them yes and they swooped Serif up on the counter and took this picture. We found it on their twitter this morning. We also got Pete to sign his jersey. They were pushing it to get to their box in time and Terry whisked away before we could get his. They were so nice. The other cool thing that happened last night was this: we were down at the ice when the players came out to practice before the game. We got Serif on the glass as close to Pekka as we could. Pekka finally saw him and he waved to him! So cool! What a great night. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Photos of the day

I just got a text from Serif's school teacher with the following photos. Ha!








"He likes the housekeeping center... He is Mr. Homemaker... Have a good day!" - Ms. Rachel - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Legs

the boy has mighty good electric razor skills.

75 Degrees and Sunny

So, I was vacuuming down the kitchen after they took Helmut away and a picture flew off the fridge. It startled me a second but then after picking it up, one of our iphone app magnets that says "75 degrees & sunny" was laying face up on the floor. I immediately felt like God was saying everything is okay. Maybe it's 75 and sunny where Helmut is now. Thanks, God for your subtle ways. I needed that and you knew. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

You were a good dog, Helmut.

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Today's Quote

Jeff was chanting (like, "Miller is a sissy" from the Pred's game), "Serif is spaghetti." Serif would say, "No, I'm not." with the same tone. After several more cycles of hotdog, silly, etc, he said "Serif loves Kyia." and Serif said, "Yes, I do!" . . . and the truth comes out! Kyia is a girl in his class that he often talks about. He says she's his favorite. =) - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

"What's this?"

I was all ready for work and getting everything ready at the front door when Serif comes up to me and grins and lightly runs his hand over my leg. "Mommy! What's this?" I obviously do not wear hose very often. I told him they were pantyhose and he smiles and says, "Yeah, like that leg lamp! We have one like that!" - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Making a Wish

After meeting Pekka we all went to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner and then walked through the Green Hills mall. Anelia and Uncle Don taught Serif how to make a wish at the fountain.











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Serif meets Pekka

Jeff was listening to the radio on Thursday and heard an announcement that Pekka Rinne, THE Predator's goalie and Serif's hero, was going to be at the AT&T store in Green Hills on Friday at 4:30pm. Thursday night, we told Serif that we were going to get to go meet Pekka. He got so excited and said, "He's going to come out on the ice and I'm going to show him my pads!" We were so excited and took off work early so we could pick up Serif from school and get in line to meet Pekka.

Here's Serif with the life-size cut-out of Pekka as we were waiting for him to arrive.

We were at the front of the line and it was getting close to time for Pekka to arrive. Serif said, "I've gotta go to the bathroom." I pulled him out of line and was looking for an employee to ask where the bathroom was when we saw Pekka walk up outside. When Serif saw Pekka outside putting on his jersey, he wouldn't leave the front doors. He is so struck with Pekka that he seriously watches his every move, always. When Pekka came in the door, Serif was the first person he saw. He was all decked out in his jersey and new "Pekka pads" that Aunt Shannon made him for Christmas. Pekka smiled really big and somewhat chuckled and said, "That is so awesome!" I don't think Pekka was expecting to see that. He seemed tickled at Serif and kept watching him throughout the night.

Serif kept saying that he wanted Pekka to sign his jersey on the back. Pekka was so cool and so patient with all of us and signed anything we gave him with a smile! He signed Serif's jersey, his Pekka stick, a photo and a letter (see below).

After Pekka signed Serif's shirt, he scooped him up and sat him on his knee for a photo. Neither of them could really quit smiling. It was so sweet. So here it is, "Little Pekka" and "Big Pekka".

There is also a contest going on to design a mask for Pekka. He will only wear it one night but afterwards you get to meet with him after the game (of which you win premium seats to) and he gives you the mask. We would be beside ourselves if we won. Serif and Jeff collaboratively worked on the mask together. Serif did the illustration and Jeff pulled it together and added a couple of graphics. We also wrote a short letter and added a couple of pictures of Serif in there. We decided to have Pekka sign the letter. When Jeff handed it to him, he actually read it and commented on how cool it was and how much he loved the photos. He then asked if it was for him and if he could keep it. Of course we said YES! We really only had 2 copies with us. One for him to sign and the other to submit. Since he asked to keep it, we still had him sign one and we'll just print another copy to submit this week. No way we were going to say no to that!

The above photo is actually one that someone else took while we were there. Jeff saw it posted on Twitter and has since seen it repeatedly posted by other people who like it. He was able to pull it off and save a copy.

People were constantly coming up to us and asking if we'd mind if they took his photo. People were so giddy over him! It was so funny! We had no issues with it and so his picture was taken a lot while we were there. The fans, the AT&T employees and the Predator's folks were all taking photos. The news crews were there as well and they kept trying to film him. He got camera shy a couple of times and would hide behind my leg. Another time was when Fox 17 got the camera right up to him and had the big microphone in front him, hoping he'd speak. He didn't. He just looked at it kind of funny and froze. I think he wasn't too sure about everything that was going on. I will say that they were really friendly about it all and never forceful with us or him. That would never have worked.

Here's a photo from News Channel 2! Thanks Gladstones!!! They only got a snippet of him (us). Jeff TiVo'ed Fox 17 last night. They had the most footage of him. Unfortunately there was a football game on last night that pushed the news back to mid-night! Jeff said it ended up airing at the very end of the news at almost 12:30. Sorry to those of you that may have stayed up to watch it. We are making a video of it and will post it for everyone to see. I may add more photos later too because I know Aunt Shannon got some good ones. Daddy was a little overwhelmed with it all and I had to keep nudging him to remind him to snap a few shots. Haha. He said he was a bit starstruck and excited for the boy that he couldn't think.

Anyways, what a great night! I do wish we had stayed longer. He was only there for an hour but we left after probably 30 minutes or so to go eat. The crowd was slowing down and I honestly think had we stayed, he may have even gotten to play a little with Pekka. That would've been priceless! Maybe there'll be another opportunity in the near future. If anyone hears of another fan event with Pekka, please let us know!

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The Set

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Life Lessons with Uncle Don

First Gun

We spent the day in Chattanooga on Friday and enjoyed the aquarium, shopping and Festival of Lights at Rock City.

We were entering the start of the trail to Rock City when spotted "SEE ROCK CITY" bird houses. We had to stop and look. When we did, Serif discovered something he found equally as interesting . . . a gun! He got so giddy over this little thing and would not hardly let us start the tour. We finally convinced him that we'd be stopping back by after the tour and we could see them again.

Well, the entire tour all we heard was "I want to go back and get that gun. I want to go back and get that pink gun." Ha! Ha!! Needless to say we did go back and he did get that gun.

Other conversation on the tour:

"I wish I had a gun like Uncle Don." -No, his isn't pink. =)

"If I had a gun I would shoot that deer." This was said as we were passing lit-up reindeer on the tour. Sigh . . .

Jeff (to me): "Uncle Don's going to kill us." (for getting a pink gun)

Serif: "I'm going to kill Uncle Don."

I think the main reason he ended up with that gun was because it was pink. It somehow made it a little less serious feeling. Although I must say that as we were driving home, Serif pointed it at me and pulled the trigger and said "I shoot you." THAT was the true moment of buyers remorse.

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Monsters

Well, I think it's starting; fear of monsters. Serif was afraid to go into a dim room today because he was afraid that a monster might get him. I was just putting him to bed tonight and just as I was giving him his goodnight kiss and letting him know that I was going to bed, he looked at me and asked if there were monsters that were going to eat him. Of course I assured him that there were no monsters and everything would be alright. He was fine after that, thankfully. I think it may make closing the door more difficult though. I only close it when he won't stay in bed. We all really prefer the door open.


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Ice Skating Lessons

Serif and Jeff will be starting ice skating lessons in 2 weeks!

(reference to top of blog photo)

Giddy Up!

Christmas Card - 2011

Okay, so I didn't get Christmas cards out this year but this would have been the photo for it had I gotten that far. We went to see Rider's in the Sky at the Country Music Hall of Fame a couple weekends ago and much to our surprise, Santa was there! They were taking free photos and no one was in line so I asked Serif if he wanted to go tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas. He looked over at Santa sitting in a nice big chair in front of an enormous Christmas tree and said, "Yeah!" I wasn't really expecting him to say yes since he tends to be very shy and not usually game for going up to strange (or even familiar) people.

I immediately walked him through the blue velvet rope all the way up to Santa Claus. He got up there and quickly walked up to him and put his hand on Santa's knee. Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas and Serif said, "A spiderman." Santa said okay and continued asking him "What else would you like for Santa to bring you? Would you like anything else?" Serif shook his head no and could never come up with anything. Santa even threw out a few suggestions but none seemed to interest him. Santa then asked if he'd like to sit up on his knee for a picture and I was shocked when Serif shook his head yes and hopped right up there like it was nothing. I stood back in awe of what I was witnessing. I couldn't believe it. Serif is never this easy to do stuff like this. Santa told him to look at the round ball (the camera lens) and I told him to say cheese. He did and we got this really great shot! I was so dumbfounded at the whole bit that I couldn't wipe this silly grin off my face for the rest of the afternoon.

We then went on in to see the show and it was fabulous! Wa-hoo, Wahoo, WA-HOO!