Mom-ology

There is nothing better than seeing what your kids think of you!
Please note how much I weigh to him.  And how tall I am.  I think those dimensions are closer to barbie than me but I'll take it!
I used to play in the mud.  Ha!  My mom has the proof.  Now I do Stella & Dot.  Quite a bit of difference!

And my favorite food!  Ha!  Brussels Sprouts.  So true!

And that final saying.  My dad's been telling me that for years.  "I wouldn't trade you for a gold nickel".  I don't know where the phrase came from but I've heard it all my life and apparently my kids have learned it's a term of endearment.

Love this.  A poem about me.  The order of my cinquain is pretty, kind, caring, running, cleaning.  I'm ok with the order of it.  I think he knows me well!

I went to AL to visit on Mother's Day (read: Allie Gray was there!).  We had a fantastic lunch and time together.

I LOVE LOVE this girl!  I got to squeeze her ALL day!

This was my fantastic mother's day gift!  I had been lobbying for it for a long time.  The boys had caught on and insisted he get it for me.  He loves me, of that I'm sure!

Our mom is the greatest!  She is so incredibly selfless and there is nothing she wouldn't do for us.  She's the one who isn't hungry when there's only one slice of pizza left.  She taught us social grace and I will always be thankful.  She is the one that thinks of things before you need them and already has it done.  I don't know what'd I'd do without her.

I'm so happy my sister got to experience the joy of motherhood with me this year.  She is a fantastic mother and this baby girl is PRECIOUS!

”C'est Si Bon”! -the after party

"Anything worth doing is worth over-doing!"-Kat Urban Cullen

Now if those aren't words to live by, I don't know what is.
I'm the queen of over-doing and I wouldn't have it any other way.

    
The deFoor after graduation party had been long in the works.  We'd talked about it, dismissed it and then brought it up again.  We Love to host parties but our house is small and we live further from downtown than any of our friends.  It was decided that the only way to celebrate a deFoor graduation was with crawfish and when I found a way to score them fresh and LIVE, we hit the seafood jackpot and started making plans.  All of our families were in for graduation. It's no joke entertaining 14 guests!  My sister told me people like to eat...A LOT!  I found that to be great advice.  Who doesn't like to eat and that's just what we did!  We had an elegant spread of mizithera cheese from The Old Spaghetti Factory before a walk down Broadway to christen them to the Nashvegas lights.  After the ceremony, we had a splendid meal at one of our local favs, Cabana where we all sat around in the large private "cabana" seating.  We enjoyed "chad margaritas" and dinned on some of the best  southern fusion in all of Nashville!

The pinnacle of graduation weekend was getting those mud bugs into the boiling pot.  Jason had quite a crowd rounded up to come.  All of our close friends from Vanderbilt attended and enjoyed mounds and mounds of crawfish.  84 lbs to be exact.  With all of the other fixin's, we didn't even come close to eating it all but it was fabulous and SUCH a hit!  The homemade ice cream really struck a beat with most and my mother in laws last year's frozen blueberries were a total win in the cobbler.  We know how to party and we do it right!  Congrats to all the graduates for a job well done and a lot to be proud of!  

 Kat definitely wins the prize for the largest crawfish!

He DID it!

It was a leap of faith. A journey into the unknown.  Our last 10 years had been anything but stable and predictable so this shouldn't have been a big change, but it was.  We left the comfort of the Army for a civilian life and I'll be the first to shout it from the rooftops, we've never looked back!  I was hesitant to enter into a private University.  For the first few months, I couldn't understand why this institution was so far superior to so many other programs including distance ones where we could still have an INCOME!  Trudging through the first semester was a bit like deployment.  I didn't see him all day and when he came home at night, he had to study until far after I went to bed.  It wasn't until he was meeting with the companies you hear about in the magazines, until companies you dream of were emailing HIM to eat dinner with them, did I realize why we were doing what we were doing.  It all came together in an a-ha! moment for me and I realized that this place that we'd both become pretty fond of was totally worth it!  Not only has it provided us with great friends who are like family to us but it also connected us with networks of the greatest companies right at our fingertips!  I thought so many times that I would be an outsider because I wasn't the student and I was just the stay at home mom of 2 boys but we are a team and they understood and recognized that.  Vanderbilt is the bonds that tie us together in business and in life.  I'm so incredibly proud of this guy for completing his MBA from this highly accredited program with a pretty impressive GPA I might add!

These two are the only Masters holders in our families!  My mom was so proud of him and sent him a weekly text message cheering him on!

Home Sweet Texas!

It's ours!  Last weekend we flew to Texas to look for our future home.  I had been researching online and had narrowed our search to a few houses.  The school search wasn't nearly as difficult as it was in TN. There were plenty of acceptable schools in the area.  Our flight was great and our first tex-mex meal was superb.  It wouldn't be the last we ate while we were gone either!  After a LONG day of looking at houses, we decided on this one only to find out it was under another contract and they didn't have a Lucy so they win.  We were both disappointed because we simply didn't agree on our second choice.  He wanted the larger but slightly older house and I was stuck on getting in a new one.  There's just something about moving into a NEW house!  Well, he settled and we were applying for the second choice when I got a call from the agent that the first choice was still available IF we could get a few things done TODAY.  Well we made it happen and after performing like circus animals for 2 days just to get the house, we got it!  Neither of us had to settle, we both LOVED this one!  The yard is big and the kids will easily be able to walk to school.  It's nearly in the back yard!  We will be moving to The Woodlands, Texas the first week in June.  The community is supposed to be fabulous and perfect for families. It's a VERY large planned community and it has a Trader Joes IN the neighborhood.   The commute, well, it will be trying at times but in 18 months or less, it will be cut down from 90 minutes to around 10.  That's the silver lining!  

After the house deal was done, we DESERVED these drinks!

We decided to celebrate by eating our fav, crawfish!  I knew it was season and you just can't get em' here in good ol' TN!  We both ate 2 lbs of crawfish and decided to snack on some raw oysters.  Jason chastises me about never trying new things when he introduces me to them so I decided it was time to try the oysters.  I liked them and ate several.  BIG Mistake.  To make a long story short, I'm allergic to oysters.  My sister is allergic to nothing else in the world but oysters and I knew that.  Apparently, I'm no different.  She tried them 3 times to come to that conclusion.  I won't have to try it again.

On Sunday after church with my friends The Schiffmans, we decided to road trip down to the Kemah Boardwalk.  We had mentioned it last summer but never ventured down there.  It was quite a site to behold. It was hands down the best people watching I've done, possibly ever but certainly since I left Fayetteville, NC.  The oddities were so entertaining we didn't need to pay extra for fun things to do.  We walked around a bit then Jason decided to jump right in there with the best of them and bought a "yard stick" of beer.  Nothing screams spring break like drinking from a yard stick!

I never get used to these elaborate 15th birthday celebrations.  We didn't have these in Alabama and it's so strange to see a girl so young in a wedding/prom dress!  This one had a paparazzi, an entourage and a bouquet of spikes and ribbons to carry.  She did a carriage ride around the boardwalk with all of her court and then stopped here to make photos.  Surely they can crop out the giant porta-potties in the background of her glamour shots, right?

I'll Fly Away

This is the ONE "as seen on TV" toy that I'll have to admit might be worth it's money.  Minus the whole shipping and handling fees of course.  The boys got this from our sweet friend Ms. Marie for easter.  It was a great easter gift and it wasn't candy so she get's points for that from me!!  The kit comes with a coupon for the caterpillars to be mailed to you but as with anything else now days you can totally order them online.  they show up a few days later crawling around in your mailbox.  Yes, they are in this self contained cup and much to my delight, there is no need to ever even take them out of it until they are fully formed cocoons   Their food is the brown paste at the bottom of the jar.  When they arrive, they are about the size of 1 inch pipe cleaners.  It is unbelievable how quickly they grow.  It took less than a week for them to become as big as a pencil in diameter.  When they are preparing to become cocoons, they crawl to the top of the jar and attach to the paper disk inside the jar hanging upside down in a "J" shape.  They boys loved watching them eat and grow.  Every day they were waiting for the "J" shape and knew what was next.  

Lincoln continually called them "Coons".  It made me giggle so I didn't always correct him.

 As soon as everyone had jumped onboard with cocooning, we took the paper disk out and pinned it inside the butterfly pavilion to await their big debut.  Over the next several days, they hatched one by one.  We were never quick enough to watch the hatching process but a few we discovered quickly after hatching when their wings weren't quite dry.

 We fed them sugar water dropped onto flowers and fruit.  We enjoyed watching them flutter around for a few days then we set up a date for their release into the wild.

 Sevier Park in Nashville proved to be the perfect spot and from the way they took off without so much as a photo, I'm pretty sure they were excited to finally be free!  I loved the joyful look on Lincoln's face as his butterfly wasted no time taking flight.

 The boys were sweet and cooperative for some reason this afternoon.  They sure love Ms. Marie (or Miss 'aree, as Lincoln says) and will miss her in TN but hope to show her around Texas in the near future.

Bucket Lists- Countdown and Catch Up

After a short hiatus from the blog, one might think that nothing exciting was happening in the defoor house.  Quite the opposite is happening.  I’m feeling like I’m treading water and having a little de javu as I spend hours of my life researching housing and schools for our upcoming move to Texas.  All the while, life has certainly not slowed down to allow time for that.    We traveled over the weekend  to secure housing and I feel after that, while things won’t slow down in the least , I can at least do more productive things such as turn on electricity and start making mom friend connections!  Jason’s graduation seems to be coming with lightning speed.  I knew time would go quickly but it’s still surprising how much so!  Since spring break and until our move, every single weekend is filled with some fun, bucket list activities that we can’t leave Nashville without doing.  Some of our latest and greatest adventures are documented!

We FINALLY visited the local winery.  It was the first warm Saturday of the entire spring (and only one since then really!)  I asked Jason to go early in the week and we made plans.  It’s a bring your kids and picnic kinda place and sit out on the lawn to enjoy the view.  I packed us a few snacks of wine and cheese and we made our way to the perfect spot.  I had no more than sat down when I decided I loved it here.  To our right was a great  bench swing and it was a perfect way to watch the sun set on Saturday night.  The boys loved running up and down the hill.  It’s now on my “I want to go back” bucket list. 

Easter was celebrated in our home and we jumped on the bandwagon of doing “resurrection rolls” to illustrate the Easter story.  It was a neat demonstration with crescent rolls, marshmallows and sugar and cinnamon.  The marshmallow is Jesus body and the crescent roll is the tomb.  As it cooks, the marshmallow melts and “disappears” and the tomb cracks open to reveal it’s empty.  It was great for the kids and the bite I had was quite yummy! 

My mother would be deeply disappointed if I didn’t dye eggs with my children so i  took a new approach to “boiled” eggs by baking them in the oven.  It worked like a charm and the timing was easy.  It’s 350 for 30 minutes with each egg in a muffin tin to prevent rolling.  The dying was supposed to include both children but after a small meltdown, Lincoln had to take a nap and Jackson and I took the opportunity to keep the mess less and do it ourselves.  The boys loved the real eggs and hid them all weekend, including when they had a babysitter.  A few weeks later Jackson was looking for something and found one in a drawer that we rarely use.  Oops.  Then just last week (nearly a month after Easter) Lincoln was digging around for movies and found one in the TV cabinet.  So glad that didn’t get left there any longer! 

Not all that exciting but we just got a new garbage can and it’s one of those infrared ones that opens when you walk up to it.  You would think it’s an all new form of entertainment for all the ways and times the kids walk up to it to see it open again and again.  My favorite part is it’s 20 gallons and the trash has to be taken out much less often. I even got mom one for mother's day.  I know, every mother's dream is to get a trash can for mothers day but she taught me practicality and what could be more practical than a gift you use every single day and wouldn't buy yourself?  ha!    What will they think of next?

Another bucket list item was checked as we rode in the Nashville Pedal Tavern(Think a rolling bar with 10 bicycle pedals) a few weeks ago.  It was unseasonably cold and it had been raining.  I had some serious reservations about pedaling a bicycle bar in the rain.  I am made of pure sugar and I melt immediately.  Lucky for me, the rain subsided and they saved me a seat over the tire which coincidently doesn’t have pedals.  We pedaled from Demonbreum to Downtown, stopping at several bars along the way for a quick drink before coming back out to “pedal” and cheers with your drink of choice.  It was really cool pedaling downtown to all the cheers and jeers received from tourist and locals alike.  I did manage to get into a pedaling position once but it wasn’t the hot seat, that’s for sure!  We honestly made the men do most of the work but I think everyone had fun with it.  We are thinking Houston needs a pedal tavern now!

This weekend was Jason’s grad school prom.  They call it the Capitalist Ball but it’s honestly just a big kids prom.  We ate with a group of friends at a local “bucket list” place and then made our way to The Patron Platinum Club underneath Bridgestone Arena.  It wasn’t as cool as it sounds but it was neat thinking of who must be allowed to go there when that place is hopping!  I had worried where I’d find a dress and even asked a few people about borrowing one when I stumbled upon this little number at JC Penny.  I’ll just say I paid less than my friend Mari and that’s a good deal!  It was a good time with our grad school friends.  We are going to hate to say goodbye but luckily, many of them are staying in Nashville.  Always a place we will visit!

TWICE, yes, TWICE in two weeks I received flowers from the guy sitting beside me.  The first time they were delivered, I said “What on earth did I do to deserve these?“  The second time it was more like” What on earth did YOU do?”  ha ha!  It was very sweet.  I’m still not sure what got into him but it totally made me feel special and appreciated for the hours of research I’ve been doing for our future dwelling. 

Talk about the tulips.  I'd been hearing and seeing photos of cheekwoods 50,000 tulips for weeks.  When daddy came in for a quick trip, I knew we had to seize the opportunity.  It was just as beautiful as I imagined.  I'm glad I didn't leave Nashville in the Spring without seeing this!