VID00218

              Tonight I am finally sitting down to blog with the Rangers game on in the background. Life is good. We have been extremely busy over the last several weeks. Getting settled in the new house is coming along slowly but surely.We love it here so far. Other than the fact I have a long way to drive for work and traffic in Dallas makes me crazy! The house we love. Our neighbors are great! Scout loves to go on walks here because there is a house nearby with horses and they will come right up the fence so you can pet them. It just takes a really long time to get everything unpacked and organized...but we are getting there.


  What we have been up to...


   Two weeks ago Scout and I flew to TN to visit my family. We had a really great time! When we got there on Friday morning we got to meet my friend Molly for breakfast at Noshville. The food there is always so good, and it was nice to get to visit with Molly for a bit. Molly and Mark are expecting a baby in May and I am so excited for them!  Afterward we went to my parents house to visit with family and Scout got to play outside with Cameron and Aden. She had a blast! (you must check out the videos of Aden singing below...so funny!)  On Saturday we went to my Grandparents house in Hohenwald and Scout got to ride Apatche for the very fist time.  (See above video) It was very special for me to get to see my daughter riding Apatche. My Grandparents have had horses my entire life. When I was younger they had anywhere between 15 and 30 horses at a time. The horses were the main source of entertainment when my cousins and I spent time at their house. We all had our "own" horse. (or we pretended they were ours at least).  Apatche was always "my" horse even though he is technically my Dad's. Now my Grandparents only have five horses and  Apatche is the oldest. He is 36 years old. (I think that's right). Every kid in my family has rode Apatche numerous times and when he does finally die it will be a sad, sad day in the Willis family. He is a great horse.He does still have a little pep in his step believe it or not...he actually ran with me a little when were there. I so wish I had the time to ride horses more often. It's one of  my favorite things to do.
  After visiting with my Grandparents we went to visit my Uncle Danny and Aunt Sherry and then we went back to Mom and Dads. Sunday was cousin Eli's birthday party. He turned 13!!!! I can not even begin to explain how old that makes me feel. And his big brother Andrew is a Sophomore at UT Knoxville!!! I really can't believe that!! Seriously....how did everyone grow up so fast!?!?!?!   Anyway...the party was outside at this beautiful park in Columbia. The trees were just starting to change and the weather was perfect. Fall is beautiful there! On Monday morning Scout and I flew back to Texas were her Daddy was anxiously waiting to see us. (really her although he says he missed me too :) )  We had a wonderful trip!  Scout does fantastic on the plane! So far she has been a really awesome traveler. I know there will come a day when she will have a complete melt down on the plane and I will be that Mom with the screaming child that is driving everyone crazy...maybe not...but I feel like the fact she does so well is almost too good to be true. She is not one to sit still, so the fact she actually sits in my lap and looks at books, plays with her toys, or just falls asleep....well...I feel really lucky....and really on edge because I know that nightmare flight is bound to happen sometime. I took a lot of pictures of our trip...

  Last weekend was Kamden's 11th birthday and also Jillian came to visit. We took Kamden and his sweet friend Brayden to the Texas State Fair. Mandi, Blake, Kelly, Britain, Josh, and Lana also joined us.  Then we had birthday cake at Lewis and Kelly's house. It was a fun weekend! Brayden stayed the night and he and Kamden were up most the night playing war, video games, and watching movies. When I got up early Saturday morning I found Kamden asleep on the couch, Brayden asleep in the floor and all the lights on! It made me laugh.  Apparently they wore themselves out.

 I finally left Scout over night for the very first time ever this past weekend. I suppose it's a little ridiculous that she is 15 months old and I have never gone a full day without seeing her...but I work a lot during the week sometimes and I never really know how my schedule is going to turn out, so unless Kris and I are going out of town or something I want to spend the majority of my weekend with her.  Kris and I  drove to Memphis to Kevin and Becky's house on Friday evening and then we all went to the Ole Miss/Arkansas game Saturday morning.  We left Scout at our house with with Grammy Jonne and they had a great time. I was able to leave her and I didn't freak out so now I can say I have left her over night. :)  We got to Memphis at about 1 am and then up at 6 am to drive to Oxford and tailgate before the 11 o'clock game.  Becky played basketball for Ole Miss (for those of you Texans who may not know that)  so they have season tickets. Ole Miss put up an impressive first half but then completely fell apart after half time. We still had a really good time though. All my teams got killed over the weekend so I am hoping next weekend is better. Thanks to Becky and Kevin for a fun trip!!!!

 

Scout is doing wonderful! I had to re-schedule her well child visit for this Friday because of a work conflict, but I did take her to the Dr. two weeks ago for a fever and a cough and she weighed 20.8 pounds. She is still pretty tiny but she doesn't think so. The girl has absolutely no fear at all! She is climbing on everything and she wants to spend 24/7 outside. We play outside a lot but when we have to come inside she likes to sit by the door and whine while reaching for the door knob and then eventually plops down on her butt in defeat and continues to whine until something better catches her attention. We are working on this. She also thinks she can run so she gets to going pretty fast and then falls. Needless to say her knees are always scratched up and bruised. We have had two bloody lips so far. One from falling in Rooms to Go and one from tripping and falling in to the steps. She hardly cries though...oh no...she is much too busy to waste time crying. She will let out a couple of wails and maybe squeezes out a few tears, and then she is on to the next thing. Busy, busy, busy!!! She says a few words; mom, daddy, baby, dog-dog, bird, uh-oh, and several things that we think are words but we aren't quite sure what they are. She also has her own language that sounds like this  "diddle diddle diddle diddle"!  She loves music and loves to dance. She also loves to snap her fingers now which is hilarious! We have so much fun with her. She keeps us on our toes that's for sure!! I will try to do better about updating the blog. It's just been super busy lately. I will have Halloween pictures up soon so stay tuned! Happy Tuesday everyone!!!!