So what is wrong with you?

I have not gotten along very well with bugs this year.  Earlier in the year, I was attached by chiggers and had to be put on antibiotics.  I will spare the details on the blog.  For a visual, when I showed my friend Meg who is a medical professional, she responded with "that is pretty gross.  Go get it checked out."

Recently, I got a tick or spider bite.  I will not spare you the details so stop now if you don't want to know the rest.  Here is a picture of the bite. It is about the size of three quarters and it is on my back.  Gross, I know.

Turns out that I have a tick borne illness.  It is not Lyme disease which is good, but I still am bad.  The fever is gone.  The bug bite is almost gone.  The weakness in my legs is not gone.  I am walking around like I am lame.  I stagger.  I am slow.  People at work keep asking what is wrong with me.  I tell them, but then I regret it.  They regret asking.  So now I am telling the world:  Stay away from ticks.

Football For The Perrymans

This year we signed William up for flag football.  Will is a go with the flow little guy so he was lukewarm to the idea.  Even with his tepid acceptance of playing football, Will was thrilled about playing outside with little boys his age.  He could also see that his Daddy (yes, the 32 year old who still wants to play football but has aged out of the rec league) was super excited so it helped Will get in the right spirit.  We bought the mouth guard, cleats, socks, uniform and practice jersey.  We were ready.  Then I learned that practice would be every day of the week until school started.  Wait what?

Yes that is right, every day.
Oh my gosh, what have we signed up for?
This is crazy.
I have learned more than I ever had about rushing.  I get home at 5:30.  We have to leave the house by 5:40.  In that ten minutes, everyone has get out of the car, to go to the bathroom, eat something, change clothes and get re-buckled into car seats.  Needless to say, there is a lots of noise.  Most of the noise is me yelling "GO, GO, GO, GET IN THE CAR!!"

When we get there, the calm sets in.  I put my chair down in the grass, arrange the snacks and the water balls and settle in for the1.5 hours of watching practice.  Practice is the exact opposite of the getting ready time.  It is quiet.  Time passes slowly.  The girls play aimlessly and there is nothing to accomplish.  I am shocked at myself saying this, but I actually look forward to sitting out in the grass next to the football field.

Now that school has started, we only practice twice a week and have games on Saturday morning at 8am.  We are supposed to be there at 7:15, which we never have made it on time, however it is okay.  I think the coaches understand and expect us all to come running up with our kids and chairs and waterbottles at 7:35.

Strange enough, I tear up every time Will's little team takes the field.  I love that little guy running out on the field ready to take on a game challenge.  I think of him as a tiny baby in my arms and the way Matt dreamed of the day when HIS boy could play football.  I think of all the other mommies thinking this exact same thought about their sons and I get all choked up....until I snap back to reality of Harper spilling her drink, Abby loudly requesting bubble gum 400 times in a row until I cave, and the slew of activities that I need to prepare my brain for the rest of the day.  The pride and tears are a fleeting moment but  they are worth it.  I am sure we will sign up for football again next year.

Harper Turns Two!

My little lady turned 2.  I am so excited that my littlest is so grown. She is so full of excitement and words and giggles.  She can sing Happy Birthday but it sounds like "happy Bourth Day to yewww"  I loved it.  Here is she is opening presents.  She got a towel (because she loves towels) and a stroller (because she loves strollers).

Here she is doing her absoulte favorite thing in the whole world:  playing with both Abby and Will.  The best part is that they are playing willingly for a few minutes.  That makes it even better.

Harper's new favorite trick is to take take pictures with her eyes closed.  She smiles a big smile and closes her eyes.  She thinks it is funny and laughs and laughs after the picture.  Here she is with Aunt Ack-Ack and with Matt.

Happy Birthday Harper.  You are awesome even with your eyes closed in every picture.

Happy First Day of 1st Grade!!

Will started the first grade today!  He was all packed and ready to go.  We have had lots and lots of rain so we had first day of school pictures in the kitchen.  Check out the smiles on these faces. 

How do you spend time during a hurricane?

By running and playing in the gutter of course!  There was no thunder, no lightening and the girls wanted to play outside.  Why not?  I want them running and and playing in the puddles.  When they laid down in the gutter full of rain water I was a bit concerned because it was gross, but I didn't stop them.  Nothing says youth like playing in the rain. 

Very proud of their wet clothes.  You can see that Abby is contantly talking.  Nothing new here.

Harper is in full run.  I think she saw one of the cats.

Sparkles

Abby let me know the other day that her name is Sparkles.  Sometimes she goes by Sparkles Abby (Abby is her middle name) and sometimes it is just Sparkles. 

It's cool.  It could be worse.

Cornhole with the Perrymans

Ah, it is summer!  I love summer.  We are enjoying every bit of the warm (okay, super hot) weather.  One of the constant activities for the summer is cornhole.  We play with our neighbors in the back yard and have a great time.  Here we are one random Saturday night.  Please note the baby on the cornhole board.

Harper has the best seat in the yard.  Abby is posing.

At the other end of the yard is the other half of the teams.  Please note that Matt is my partner in this game.  Usually, he ops for Kevin as his Cornhole partner.  Kevin is really good.  Matt is too.  I am...well...getting better. I have had one or two great games but mostly I throw all over the place.  It might be because of the distracting children.  Please note there are no distracting children on Matt's side. 

Matt's boards are the ones with the Carolina Tar Heel on it.

So why do we have custom boards?  

Because it is really fun.  Even I like it and I don't like most games.  I have played in the street on days when the ground is too wet to play in the grass.  I have played past my bed time.  I have let my kids stay up past bed time so that we can play one more game.


So where are the children during all of these events? 
Usually we serve them dinner and let them run around the house and yard to burn off energy.  They have a great time and entertain themselves until they fall into bed exhausted.  Really, a win win situation.

So how serious are we about this game?

We are so serious we have played in corn hole tournament.  My partner and I did...um...just okay in the tournament.  Matt and his partner Kevin did great.  They came in second place and I was so proud.  This was not Matt's first tournament. 
 

An amazing team.

And here is me in the game!

So come over any time, let's drag the boards into the street (not actually drag, because Matt would have a heart attack if someone moved his boards improperly) and throw some cornhole!