Football season is here again and I'm not talking about Gators but the mighty, mighty Tigers!! The boys are doing great this year and my cousin is on the Varsity team doing really well himself. Our family has been supporting the Tigers each Friday night they have a home game. It has been fun to see how much Gus and Noah have grown since last season, see for yourself!!

They had a great time. Gus likes to dance to the band and watch the cheerleaders and he thought he wanted to touch the tiger mascot but that was right up until he got within arms reach of the Tiger!!

Tonight the Tigers take on our BIG rival, the Bulldogs. Good Luck Hunter, we'll be there to cheer you on!!

Lastly let me leave you with a funny picture. Gus' Uncle J and Aunt Lynsey just got back from a cruise to Mexico and this is what they brought him back.......

I'm thinking he might have to be a little mexican for Halloween, what do you think?

I've been tagged.....

Becca from The Texas Darlings has tagged me with some questions so here we go! I hope that she is not completely bored by my ordinary life!!

1. Where were you born? and your parents? - well we have all been born in Florida and have remained in the same counties all of our lives!!

2. Least favorite memory of awkward high school days- My first trip to the prom with J. (now my husband). I was so nervous and scared. He still hasn't let me forget it either:)

3. My favorite photo I have taken -

Our vacation this year at the beach. I just LOVE this picture, mainly because it has my favorite two people in the world in it but it just grabs at my heart strings!!

4. Song that makes my day go better - This is a tough one for me because I love all types of music, therefore I never know what station I'll be listening to. However if I am feeling low I need something with a good beat that I can turn up really loud and roll the windows down.

5. How did my husband and I meet?- Being from the incredibly small town that we are from we have known each other forever. Our fathers went to high school together too; again small town! It wasn't until the 11th grade for me, 10th grade for him (yeah I feel for a younger man) that I started to notice him THAT way:) I wanted to ask him to go to prom with me and I finally worked up the courage to do it, at the Ag shop, which is where we had our first kiss too. Anyways, we went to the prom and one other date but me being me I was too shy and decided to break up with him (stupid). Then his senior year I started crushing on him again, I was already graduated and basically I stalked him. Not in the scary way but I went to all of his baseball/football games and was always available to go skiing on the river. We took our first serious date on June 14, 2002 and we started "going out" officially on October 4, 2002. We were engaged December 24, 2004 and married December 3, 2005.

6. Favorite snack?- Would have to be cold m&m's and a coke! I get that from my dad, he always keeps some in the fridge:)

7. First concert? - I'm not a big fan of concerts basically because I don't like rubbing on a drunk stranger while having my eardrums busted out but the first and probably the best one I have been to was Brad Paisley at the Strawberry festival in Plant City, Florida. It was a small concert before he was super famous and I loved it. But I love Brad, so that's why I made an exception to my "no-concert" rule!!

8. What makes you the happiest?- Hearing J. say I love you for no reason and seeing Gus' face light up in a face-busting grin:)

A Family Afternoon

J has been out of town for basically the whole month of August. With the exception of the weekends he has been in two different states for the last three weeks. Gus and I have missed him terribly and were so glad to see him Saturday morning (he got home around 1:ooam)!! Needless to say we hijacked him for the day, hooked up the boat and headed for Suwannee. It was a great day to be out on the water, it was overcast and there was a slight breeze!

Gus wasn't crazy about the lifevest we made him wear.

It was the same lifevest that all of the Ayers' kids have worn including J. At one point we were riding around and Gus started licking and chewing on the vest and when I pointed it out to J he said he used to do the same thing when he wore it!! After our big ride we went inside for a cold drink and Gus had a blast exploring. He loves the big windows that face the water and playing behind the drapes. He also had fun going through the books that cousin Allie had left down there! He also wanted so badly to swim in the "pool", which is what he kept calling the river!! I don't think he meant head-first daddy!!

It was a great afternoon topped off with a yummy supper with J's parents. We are so glad to have daddy back home again!!

Muddin'

One positive outcome of the rain we had everyday of last week is PUDDLES. Saturday evening while we were on a family walk we ran across this huge puddle in our driveway. Gus made himself right at home! Ya'll he ran from one side to the other, he crawled, he splashed, he threw mud, he even walked right out of his shoes!! (note the floating shoe below)

Every time he fell down he took a deep breath like he was afraid he might go under!!

Who needs a pool?? He wanted to show me his bellybutton! See him pointing?
Look at this face! We stripped him and hosed him down on the carport before we let him back in the house. He had dirt is all of his little wrinkles!!

HE'S ALL BOY!!! :)

Shaggy no more

Gus has been in serious need of a haircut for several weeks now. I mean it was curling around his ears and in the back to the point that brushing it did no good whatsoever and it was driving me crazy. So now that my friend, Kalyn who cuts my hair and did Gus' first haircut, has started her new job at a local salon, Gus and I headed over on my day off yesterday. We decided to butter up Kalyn by taking her out for lunch before the big cut and we had a great time visiting with her. Then we headed back to the salon and plopped Gus in the chair and covered him with his very own camo cape!!

(look at that hair)

I think Kalyn was a little nervous since the last time she cut Gus' hair he was not happy with her and he squirmed and cried most of the time. This time, however, he was really good especially once he was given "the pink bottle".

Ya'll he sucked the yucky city-chlorenated water out of that bottle the whole time she was trimming his hair! That and he stared at the other customers in the building.

On a side note: Gus is probably going to grow up thinking that his favorite color is pink. All of the toys he loves at Ma'am's house are pink because they were first Allie Claire's. Don't get me wrong, he is ALL boy but it makes me wonder sometimes what all of this pink influence is doing to him:)

Well the finished product was a big WOW for me! My baby looks so grown up. I looked at him the whole way home thinking "Who is this kid in my backseat?". What do you think?

(Kalyn & Gus)

This weekend we had a great time on the Rainbow River. It was an incredibly hot day, perfect for floating down a really cold, crystal-clear river. We had around 26 people from our church that went, aging from 11 to 77. Gus had a great time. He rode with lots of different people like: his dad in the ganoe, his papa in a float, me on a fun noodle, and some church members on the big boat. We floated and talked and ate boiled peanuts. It doesn't get much better.

I think we could go every weekend. I was able to swim about half of the way down while Gus was hanging out with everybody else so I was as happy as I could be. I love to swim and dive down in the holes and look around! J was happy riding in the ganoe with the trolling motor most of the time but he did jump in a few times. Gus was out like a light as soon as we strapped him in the carseat! We are already planning next year and maybe going twice next summer!

For your comedy relief this morning I'll leave you with these pics of Gus eating a porkchop bone. He was having a great time if you can't tell!!! (This was all my mother's doing since I don't gnaw on bones, but Gus didn't seem to mind:)

ER trip #1

From the title of this post you can imagine all sorts of traumatic scenarios I'm sure. Thoughts of your own ER experience(s) are running through your mind complete with sights, sounds, and smells. I have never had to go to the ER for me personally but I have had to take a few family members from time to time. The last time involved watching my dad get lots of stitches in his leg and it ended with me sitting on the hospital bed trying to breathe so I wouldn't pass out!! This particular trip was for Gus, the first of many to come I'm afraid. While I hope, wish, and pray that it would be the first and last, I just don't see us avoiding it. My little boy is fearless and if it's climbable, and sometimes even if it isn't, he is going to try! This Saturday we had spent the day with Amy and Noah at the river and then at their house playing. We had eaten lunch, bathed, played, napped and eaten supper without major incident all day. However as time to pick up the debri from what looked like the storm of the century, Amy and I saw Gus fall from Noah's child-size rocking chair and his face collide with her end table. We both reacted quickly, me running Gus to the sink to wash the blood away and Amy to get a washcloth full of ice and then me walking outside to fill in J and Amy calling a local doctor for advice. By that time I had lost the adrenaline rush and was crying, Gus however was already trying to climb something else! After calling the after-hours hotline we were instructed to take Gus to the ER and since J was hot, nasty and sweaty he wanted to go home a shower first so Amy drove and stayed with Gus and I until J. got there. If someone would have looked in the truck on the way to the hospital they would have thought we were crazy. We had the dome lights on and "Bear Tunes" blaring, while Amy danced and I sang! We were trying to keep Gus from going to sleep since it was his normal bedtime and the nurse said he shouldn't sleep in case he had a concussion. By this stage I am fighting nausea and trying to put on a happy face for Gus but by the time we were almost there Gus was awake and having fun with my sunglassess.

This prompted a quick verse of "I wear my sunglasses at night" on my part and enough laughing to ease the sick feeling. After asking for directions to the ER, because Amy nor I had ever been to the one they sent us to, we parked and were promptly ushered into the children's waiting room. Overall the wait wasn't bad and the staff was really friendly. Gus did really great I think. He didn't like the name band on his ankle,

the blood pressure cuff on his calf, the pulse "thingy" on his big toe or the nurse and doctor that kept feeling on his hurt lip but all in all he did really good. Once we were given the ok to leave, Gus partaked in a bedtime bottle with daddy, who was smart enough to think to bring one (have I mentioned lately how great he is?).

The doctors never did determine if the teeth had gone all the way through the skin or not and I don't think they wanted to pull the wound open enough to tell and risk making it worse or upsetting Gus. The doctor said if it was her child she wouldn't stitch it because either way it would probably leave a small scar and stitches would be way more traumatic. So we came away with ointment, basically neosporin, and instructions to watch for infection and see our doctor in a week. We were very blessed that it wasn't more serious than it was and I ask all of you to go ahead and add Gus to your daily prayer lists now!

And for your comedy break for the day, this is what Gus looked like when I went to lunch today!

Notice anything odd? He ran out of clothes at Ma'am's house and had to wear Allie's. All lunch break I kept looking at him thinking how weird it was to see him in pink and flowers!! If only you could have seen him riding his pink pony (also Allie's) but thankfully his daddy won't get the opportunity to witness it. Ma'am already had his "boy" clothes in the dryer, so he should be back to normal when I pick him up!!