Pink Piggies

"Mama, I just looooove painting my toes pink!"



I know you do LuLu. I know you do. Crazy cuteness.
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Sucker

I swore with this dog that I wasn't going to let Tucker get on our bed (for like at least a year).


I made it to day 3. He's too precious.

He went to the vet today. Our boy weighs 10 pounds! That's going to change quickly!
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Dog Gone Good!

Tough Decisions....the duck or the ball....


Happiness.





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Introducing.....TUCKER!!!

As I make this post, lookie lookie what cutie is sitting here with me....it's TUCKER! We are in love! Note: Excuse my gross appearance, I ran 6 miles tonight (and then ate a salad and two pieces of cheesecake....darn you cheesecake!).

This post would not be complete without the entire explanation of what ACTUALLY occurred this weekend. As Charles Dickens said, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

Goal for the weekend: Go to Arkansas and spend a relaxing weekend as a family, on the lake, fishing, hanging with our new puppy and enjoying the fresh Ouachita Mountains.

Here's what happened.

1. We rented a cottage. We called the resort to let them know we would be arriving late Friday night. The lady who ran the place told us she would leave Cottage Z open, with the keys inside and the lights on and to just "go on in" since it would be so late.

2 Arrival: 11:15pm. Trey says, "want me to go check it out first?" I reply, "naaa....I want to check out the bed situation to get the girls moved in quickly." I go up to Cottage Z. I open door and walk in. I find half naked man, in bed, watching TV. I am shocked. My eyes almost come out of my head (WHO LEAVES A DOOR UNLOCKED?). I quickly slam door and start doing the, as Trey calls it, "Katie uncomfortable dance" while in a state of confusion. I then sprint to car. Half naked man comes out of room speaking some sort of Cajun language I cannot understand. I told him we were told we were staying there. He continues Cajunish language. I decide there's no way I'd stay there now anyways and I leave. We call owner of resort to figure things out.....she went to bed. It's now 11:30PM. We are in the sticks. We have NO place to stay. Oh.....boy.

3. Where we ended up. After being rejected from other hotels due to them being booked, we found an open room at a motel that looked sketchy.....at best. When Trey went to check-in, I was hoping when he came back that he would tell me he gave the place a 4 out of 10....he didn't....he said it was a 3 out of 10 at best. I should have known. Please observe pictures from the interior of the room...

Luckily, Trey killed two roaches before I found them. Reese was very excited about the pink toilet seat. I was not. In fact, once we were in bed for the night, I went to Trip Advisor on my iPad and read the reviews on the place. One stated, "This motel is the epitome of nasty. A lot of sketchy people live in this motel because it's so cheap, and it is notorious for drug busts. At one time, someone had a chicken living in one of the rooms with them, no joke." Another one said, "Couldnt wait to leave. Room had no heat, woke up freezing the next morning. Room smelled like cat urine. Didnt hardly sleep at all. Reminded me of the Bates Motel in the movine "Physco". And finally, "Website states $22 per night single room. When I arrived, the office had a sign stating "Go To Room 20". Room 20 had a sign etched in crayon stating "Go To Room 18". Went to Room 18 and obviously interupted some "personal" event between night manager and boyfriend. When they opened the door, the smell about knocked me down ! I reluctantly asked about a room and was told $55 per night !!! When I mentioned the website, she said "I don't know nuttin bout that cause it's $55 from me". It was late and I asked if I could see a room anyway but the manager said all the rooms looked like hers. I don't live higher class but I would not house my dogs in the room she showed me (hers). There were cars in various states of repair and junk/ equipment scattered around the parking areas and was CREEPY, VERY CREEPY to say the least."

Go ahead and laugh now.

Trey told the girls we were on an adventure! The girls thought it was great. Oh...my....goodness.

4. Now for the good part. Getting a dog has been a long time coming. It took me quite a while to get over losing my boy, Jake. In fact, when talking about him last weekend, I came to the brink of tears....again. He was awesome and my heart wasn't ready for another dog until recently. The girls have been BEGGING for a puppy. We finally felt ready and had been recommended to use a wonderful family who had goldens in Arkansas. We thought we'd make a fun weekend of it....well, the puppy part was fun!

We arrived to see lots of adorable puppies.

There were three boys left. We knew we wanted a boy. One of them was digging, barking and gnawing on all kinds of stuff.....I quickly eliminated him from the selection process :). The other two were precious, but one, in particular, stuck out to us.

And so, after considering the names Oreo, M&M, Booger (thanks Trey) and Tucker, the family agreed that Tucker sounded like the perfect name. Plus, since I had wanted to name a boy Tucker and that didn't happen, we found a way to use it!

We quickly decided that rather than find a new place to stay for the night, that we would go home and still have a good portion of the weekend left to just hang out. It was the best decision.

The ride home was so smooth. He slept the entire way on various laps.

Hailey has been so responsible and takes him out all the time and praises him. In fact (KNOCK ON WOOD PEOPLE), there have been zero accidents so far and this guy likes his crate 99% of the time! I came out of our bedroom today and found them doing this on the couch together :).

It feels good to have a dog in the house again. Makes our house a home. And, there's something about watching the kids learn from and interact with animals that is so wonderful. I'm sure we will have some puppyhood stories and that all won't be smooth sailing, but it'll be a fun journey.

National Champs!!!

When I arrived home on Monday, Hailey immediately asked me two questions.

"Hi Mom! Did you win your tennis tournament?" I said, "actually, we DID WIN!" She said, "AWESOME! Does this mean you're FAMOUS NOW?"

Well.....at least I could say yes to 50% of her questions! :)

What a weekend!!! I traveled to Palm Springs, California to play in the Tri-Level National Championship at the PNB Pariba Open. Basically,we got to play our tournament at the same venue in which the pros were playing. While Rafael Nadal and Federer played on Grand Stadium Court, my partner and I were playing on Grand Stadium 2. We could hear everything including the crowd, announcers, music. It was so cool. Although, when we went to call balls out on our court there was some major echoing from the lack of people there ;).

Basically, 16 teams from around the nation qualified to go. There were four flights made up of four teams. You played each of the teams in your flight and whoever won the most, got to advance to the semi finals to play the winners of the other flights. So, we played New York (yours truly played HORRRRRRRIBLE that first round, but the rest of the team pulled through. I suffered from what is known as, "OH MY GOSH I'M AT NATIONALS AND NOW I'M REALLY NERVOUS" syndrome. Luckily, I got rid of it.), Pennsylvania and Arkansas. Two of those matches came down to our team winning a tiebreaker to advance....very close.

So then, we advanced to the semi finals where we played the Southwest (Phoenix team). All three of our teams lost their first set, one quickly lost the second due to a really great opponent, and until half way through the second set, we thought our tournament life was just about finished. Next thing we knew, our two remaining teams came back and won their second sets (much to the dismay of Phoenix) and then they both won their tiebreakers. We were off to the FINALS!

We played Hawaii. My partner and I won our match. It was a great one and both of the other teams went to tiebreakers AGAIN. However, one of them won theirs so we were crowned NATIONAL CHAMPS! Yay Texas! It was so fun to be a part of it and to watch the pros up close.

We also got to drill with two former doubles champs of Wimbledon and the US Open and they gave us great tips.

And while we weren't playing, we had tickets to watch the pros playing. Our tickets were very high up. The first night, my good friend, Ana, and I were watching the matches from a big screen while relaxing on a lawn when a nice couple came up, told us they were leaving, and gave us tickets to watch Nadal from three rows up. I think we screamed.

And for the men's finals, they had a rain delay in which we found someone leaving that gave us tickets to their box....5 rows up to watch Federer play Isner. I'm pretty sure we screamed again.

And after the men's singles final, we were introduced on center court. On our way out there, we got to pass Isner and Federer.

Why hello Mr. Isner....can you explain to me how you hit your serve 140MPH? Seriously?

I must admit, I was excited to meet Federer. I don't care of Hollywood and celebrities, but a tennis legend who's probably in his last two years of competing? Picture please! There's a video my friend took of us acting like excited school girls before he came through the tunnel since we were told he'd greet us and we could get a pic. Then, right before he came, security changed the plans and we weren't able to meet him....and this is all I got...

Hi Roger! Bye Roger! Bye bye photo op!

Rafa came by though!

Here's a pic of our team playing with the mountains in the background. Beautiful.

And the big screen TV with a huge lawn you could lounge around on.

And one of my partner and I warming up!

And after the match, I got a pic in the umpire chair. I had to, it was begging for us to pretend we were umpires :).

Jewelry Making Anyone?

Landry started crying at nap time today because she had a "bee" in her nose. She's been sneezing a lot so I thought it meant her nose stung on the inside. Wrongo. Little investigation and I discovered she had shoved this...


Up there super far. Nothing some good old nose blowing couldn't fix. Anyone want to make beaded jewelry at our house tonight?
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You're Not My Dad!

Hailey's Girl Scout troop took a self defense/stranger danger class on Friday. Siblings got to participate. They had a BALL!! Here's Reese escaping danger by telling the teacher, "You're not my dad!!!" Strangers beware: Do not mess with my little ninja! Plus, she may try to cut your hair.

Lessons Learned

Landry shares her experience with having her haircut. Hoping she will not follow down the same scissor path as her sister.

FYI...when she says that Reese got in big trouble, it meant Reese had to lay down in her bed (which took her 5 minutes to fall asleep because she was a tired girl) for 30 minutes.

Obviously, you can see how traumatized Landry is. She could care less, the chick just wants to practice her gymnastics all the time.

Reese Has Many Talents

I should've known. I should be more perceptive. When Hailey non-chalantly said, "hey there's some brown hairs upstairs," I should have gotten the clue. When I looked at Landry and thought, "you look a little off. Hmmm. I'll just put your pig tails in later," my mother radar should've sounded the alarm.

It didn't. And then a few hours later I looked at Landry, gasped, and said, "LuLu, DID YOU CUT YOUR HAIR???". And she sweetly replied, "No, Reese did." Trey and I immediately turned our heads to a certain 4 year old who just happened to be staring at the ground saying, "I don't wanna be in trouble."

Truth is, we aren't mad. I have kind of been surprised that it took this long. However, in our attempt to not smile we made sure Reese AND Landry know to never ever cut hair again. Reese's punishment is that she's currently having to lay down for 30 minutes (torture for her, yet something that Trey and I would consider to be a reward!).

Here you go. I'm not a fan of bangs on kids. Don't care about what other people do, just not for me. Well....looks like I'm gonna have to get used to it! This picture makes the cut look much better than it appears in person.



Reese has many talents. Hair cutting.....not one of them.
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Show And Tell

I've been told that my blog has been boring lately. I couldn't agree more!! I've been really trying to get our house organized and redecorated after we had some painting done. How boring is that!!?? There are no fun pics of me staring at our walls pondering what in the world to hang up!

However Reese did have show and tell for the letter T yesterday. She found her item all by herself to take. The girls' babysitter made these for them for Christmas....how cute right? And in true monkey-see-monkey-do fashion, Landry decided to wear her tu-tu too (that's a lot of "to" sounds).


And Reese wanted a picture of her in action...


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Holy Cuteness!

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