the fair!

last week, the fair was in town! i am lovin me some fair! it reminds me of waaaaay back in the old days when i was a little girl! ha! at the fair i used to attend, you had to walk through the "fair barn" to get to the rides. that meant you had to suffer through looking at jars of homemade jelly, homemade quilts, tractor exhibits, and the occasional prize calf before you even got to climb into the Tilt-A-Whirl! and remember those ugly little metal necklaces you got when you threw darts and popped a balloon? that cheapo thing ended up costing about $20! i always got the 2-piece broken heart one...i kept one side and gave the other piece to my best friend. at least the best friend for that week!!

fortunately, my 2 boys are more into the kid rides and the food than playing those horrible games. my parents, poppy & mimi, went with us and we all had such a great time! they bought armbands for blake and brady so they could ride as many rides as they wanted....as many times as they wanted! gee, thanks. we haven't been up that late on a school night in a while!

hope you enjoyed the fair as much as we did! see ya there next year!

my cool football players!

wow, this has been a crazy week! in addition to school everyday, monday night was football practice for blake, wednesday was church night, thursday we went to the fair, friday night was the rebel football game, and this morning was blake's flag football game! that's with me working 12-hour shifts and kenneth leaving to go out of town for 6 days. we are plum "wo out"! i had to post this cute pic of the boys before the game last night. they are just hams when a camera is pointed at them! (and check out the cheese on brady's face.....and i don't mean the smile!)

yearbook yourself

landon stumbled upon a hilarious website and passed it along from his myspace! thought you all may be interested in it....for a laugh! it is http://www.yearbookyourself.com/ . you upload a pic of yourself and it puts your face onto old yearbook photos going back to 1952! as embarrassing as this is, i've posted a few of myself! i actually look alot like my mom in some of them!

this one is "me" in 1952!

this is "1966 Tess"!

and this is some FINE 1962 hair!

now that i've shared such fabulous pics of me "through the years", you have to share yours with me! hope you are all having a great week!

myspace

just wanted to post a link to my myspace. i have found so many old friends through myspace that i had lost touch with over the years! i try to post lots of pics of my family, friends, and just crazy off-the-wall stuff when i can. anyway, send a request and we'll be "friends"!

i've been tagged!

my friend jennifer tagged me to play this little blog game! the rules are as follows:

1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

i had several things in mind to post here, but decided on 7 of the more docile things....in fear that if i put some of my other quirks, the loony bin guys may come and cart me off!

OK so here goes a little about me:

1~in addition to my degree in nursing, i also hold a bachelor's degree in psychology. i really didn't plan on that as a career, i just thought i may need the knowledge to deal with my goofball family! um, okay, moving right along.....

2~i have a serious pet peeve issue with people who have pierced ears but don't put earrings in them. i hate to see empty holes! my friends at work know how i am...and some have even left for work, realized their holes were naked, then turned around to get their earrings! you go, girls!

3~my favorite tv show, and really the only one i have time to watch on dvr, is Survivor! it just warms my heart to see 16 people starve and torture themselves for a month for 1 million dollars when they can answer 5th grade school questions for 1 hour to win the same amount of money! i mean really....do they not research their options?

4~i have to sleep with one arm under my pillow, no matter which side i'm laying on. often i wake up with a paralyzed limb, but it's worth it.

5~when my second son, brady, was born we banked his cord blood with CBR (Cord Blood Registry). we felt it was definitely worth it with so many diseases and childhood cancers these days. his stem cells, God forbid we should ever actually need them, could also be used to treat his brother.

6~i have a ridiculous adoration for shoes, especially when it comes to flip-flops. i own more than 80 pairs of shoes....and 31 pairs of flip-flops! yes, i just counted. and no, my husband doesn't even fight me on it anymore.

7~my favorite time of the year is fall. not because of cooler weather, pumpkins, or cute long-sleeve clothes....but because it's CANDY CORN time!! yay! i just love me some candy corn!

well, there you have it! now i'm supposed to tag 7 other people but i don't know that many bloggers so i'm just gonna tag aimee! she's my sister-in-law who's pregnant with her first baby, my nephew-in-progress, named Elijah. poor aimee is 31 weeks and has been put on bedrest. for any of you who know her, you know she's NOT a bedrest kind of person! pray for her. the good thing is that she'll have plenty of down time to come up with her 7 "things"!

until next time, have a great week!

our house

a few of my friends who live away have been asking about the new house we built last year. this is our second house to build in the last 5 years....and hopefully will be the last! the first house was 15 minutes out of town so i figured we would eventually want to be closer to the almighty Wal-Mart! now we are in a great part of town and hope to be here forever! i decided to go ahead and take a quick pic today before another hurricane blew through and demolished my little baby landscaping! hey, it will flourish eventually!

i remember

on the eve of September 11th, i just wanted to stop and think about that horrible day in 2001 when evil struck our lives and caused so much pain to so many people. i remember that morning so well. i normally would have been sleeping late that morning but, being pregnant with my first son, i had to get up early to go to the bathroom! i switched on the tv just after the first plane hit a tower...and was mesmerized for hours after. aside from the realization that hundreds of people were probably dead, i remember thinking how very afraid i was for the child i was carrying. how i just wanted to hold on to him forever inside me because the world is so crazy and dangerous. i loved my son from the day i found out i was pregnant, but that was the day i learned what real motherly love and protection was all about. i still feel that for both of my boys....every single day. in the weeks and months following that attack, we were consumed with charity and kindness...and most of all patriotism. sadly, we've lost alot of those feelings. most people "got over" it and slowly began to forget about helping others.....and stopped praying for our country. if ever there was a time that we need to start praying for grace, mercy, and protection for the United States, it's right now. of the two men wanting to be commander-in-chief of this country, one just scares the life out of me. a Muslim-raised man who has no morals or Christian values wants to occupy the highest office in our country and throngs of people support him in that mission. for the sake of our freedom and the safety of our kids please pray that God allows the man that He wants to win this election. tomorrow pray for the families of those victims who still miss their husbands, and wives, and mommies, and daddies. fly your flag proudly. and smile at a stranger.

Jesus' last name?

my youngest son, brady, is 3 so he was able to go to vacation bible school this summer. i was really excited about that because it meant, most importantly, that he would be learning about God and his teachings...and also it would give me a few quiet hours of "mom time"! the boys and i were riding in the van one evening during bible school week so i decided to quiz them about things they were learning. blake told me about his story from that day and i was impressed he actually remembered it several hours after he heard it! then i asked brady what he thought about bible school. he said, "i love Jesus Price!" i asked, "who?" and he said again, "i love Jesus Price!" then i realized that Christ sounded like Price to him so he thought that was Jesus' last name! i was trying so hard not to laugh! i just smiled and told him that mommy loves Jesus Price too! (we'll just deal with the name correction a little bit later!!)

first blog!

i've been so inspired by aimee, jennifer, and liz that i decided to start my own blog! i really do have a very simple little life .... so just grin and bear it when i ramble about the everyday things that go on in the swanner household! i'm happily married to kenneth, my husband of almost 11 years! we have 2 precious little boys. blake is 6 and brady is 3. these three guys are the best and they honestly just make me smile all the time! i'm a registered nurse in a neonatal intensive care unit and just love my little babies. i've been blessed with a wonderful family, a great job, a beautiful home, an awesome church family, and some pretty darn cool friends! so, just check back here when you get a dull moment in your day....and i might just have something here to make you smile! God bless!