American Idol & Wicked

On July 24th a bunch of us girls went to see American Idol at the BOK Center. It was awesome! I sat with my niece Taylor and cousin Rebecca because we are the fun ones. Although our section was complete duds - no one stood up or anything. The people behind us and beside us acted like we were so annoying for yelling and wanting to stand up to cheer or bogey! :) However, I sat down and let the girls stand up where they were not in any body's way, and we all had a blast! Mom, Kelly, Amy, Haylee, Becki, and Gale Ann sat in the section next to us. I guess Haylee was a hoot to watch!

Me with the two crazy girls!

Taylor and Rebecca - I can't even explain! :)

Kris Allen - the American Idol winner

The whole group at the end

Adam and Allison sang a song together and a girl decides to throw a bra and pair of underwear on stage. Allison kicked the underwear off, but Adam grabbed the bra and was hilarious!

Matt and Scott - dueling pianos!

The bottom six of the top 10

We really had a lot of fun. We went to eat at Caz's before the concert and it was delicious. Thank you again Kelly for the tickets!

For Christmas Kelly bought all of my mom's family tickets to Wicked. I seriously can not believe I did not lose my tickets from December to July. Anyhow, I had tickets for July 26th in row G on the floor, but Kelly had two extra tickets for July 19th row V (floor) and she could not find anyone to go. She did not buy any tickets for our husbands, and Brian said he would go if I could trade my ticket. So, I sacrificed my row G tickets for row V to spend the evening with my husband. :) It was awesome, and I was really impressed Brian liked it. I had no idea what to expect, and it far exceeded anything I could have imagined. It is basically a twist on the Wizard of Oz we all grew up watching and loving. If you did not go you should next time it is in town. It was one of the best shows I have seen at the PAC, and I even recognized one of the actors from Law & Order. He played the Wizard.

Since he played in Wicked before his American Idol days I had to include a (not so good) picture of Adam from the concert!

Thank you again Kelly for both tickets! I had so much fun at both!

Bryson's 2nd Birthday!!!

For Bryson's 2nd birthday we had a Dinosaur theme party at our church on his actual birthday July 18th. It was a little hectic, but what party isn't right? We were supposed to have the party at our house, but when we started adding up all the family (not including friends) we were at 60 people. Brian and I both have huge families. So, we changed it to the church. There was another group from our church having a family reunion that day, and they were still there whenever we showed up to start decorating for the party. I felt really bad because we were stepping all over one another in the kitchen. People were showing up for the party, and we were still setting up. I was trying really hard to not stress and enjoy the day, but I stressed and it flew by. As long as Bryson had fun that is all that matters.

Since we had the party in the afternoon we had all kinds of food. I wanted it to be very kid friendly so we had all kinds of kiddie snacks! Bryson loved getting to eat all the left-overs.

We went shopping the Thursday before with aunt Kelly for the party food and the rest of the supplies that I could not order online. We got to watch Jamison that night, so she got to come along and enjoy the ride (literally).

Aren't they just too cute for words!

We found these dinosaur hats at the Dollar Tree and Bryson had to have one for his party!

He seriously would not put the Happy Birthday sign or the dino hat down. Oh, and he had to have a "Happy Birthday" sticker that he would not take off.

The day before his birthday Brian and I took a half day off and took Bryson to the zoo. He had so much fun, but we got there kind of late and started with the elephants so the buildings were closed by the time we got around to them. We are total newbies with the zoo. We knew the zoo stayed open until 6, but we did not know the buildings all closed at 5. Oh well, we still got to ride the train and carousel and we had fun.

Bryson striking his "Saturday Night Fever" pose! :)

One of the new baby lions. We went back to the zoo a couple of weeks ago and they are not so small anymore.

After the zoo we went to the mall so Bryson could build-a-bear. After 20 minutes he finally chose a horse (he is obsessed with horses and guns). He had to dress it in an OSU shirt. He kept saying "go pokes, mommy, go pokes." Then from the mall we headed to Chuckie Cheese. Brian's parents, my parents, my sisters, Brian's brother, and our nieces and nephew met us there. We had so much fun playing, eating, and partying. This place has changed so much from the time I was a kid. It is kind of sad. And, I am not going to lie the food was horrible. However, I did discover the nice thing about Chuckie Cheese is you don't have to eat there (unlike Incredible Pizza) you can just come to play any day of the week. We may have to eat dinner somewhere and then go there to play again sometime.







Bryson was obsessed with hugging the guy in this ride. I was cracking up.

At least one person enjoyed the food. :)

When Bryson woke up on his birthday I let him pick out what he wanted to eat. He had waffles and then he wanted to open up his presents from Brian and I. I had put all his pjs, clothes, and shoes in one large bag for him to open and he was such a typical boy. He just pulled them out and threw them saying, "clothes, clothes, clothes." We were rolling. I put a video below of him opening the bag.

Yes, I ran out of regular wrapping paper and had to use Christmas paper, but I turned it inside out.

Here are the party picks!

You can't see very well, but my aunt blew up some pictures of Bryson. That is the two dark spots on either side of the kitchen doors.

Food table

My mom actually made his cake. She did an amazing job and it was delicious. Please excuse the dinos mouth. Brian's grandma got a little carried away with the teeth. :)

This was Bryson's personal cake - it was huge. He took it to church the next day and shared with all his buddies.

My aunt Kelly and I made these dino cookies.

During the party we had a "dino egg hunt." The eggs had prizes or candy in them. Kelly and I made these visors for all the kids to wear and then take home as a treat. They have cool dinosaur foam stickers on them. They turned out so good.

Drew and Bryson checking out the loot.

I got Bryson's shirt at Target. It has a 2 on it with a baseball crashing into it and at the bottom it says Oops! I thought it was very fitting.

I was really excited because Bryson really got into opening his gifts this year.

Bryson jumping the jupiter jump.

Here is the present video.

July 2009 (in September) :)

So this is just sad. I guess if I want people to read this blog I need to keep it updated. Sorry about that. July was full of busy weekends (including Bryson's birthday - more on that in a later post).

Bryson did not like the fireworks again this year. We thought he would really get into them so we bought him some he could do. This is him and daddy setting one off.And, this is him afterwards running to his momma yelling "I wanna go inside, I wanna go back." (Excuse the huge shirt. He had an accident at church, and this was all they could find to put him in. I forgot to pack an extra set of clothes).

My handsome little guy in his Fourth of July outfit aunt Kelly bought him.

This little guy cracks me up. He is seriously pure entertainment. He wants me to play with him all the time, and at times I find myself just sitting back and watching him. He is so funny. He has this Mickey Mouse towel that is more like a rain parka. He loves to put it on after baths.

And, he is all about the sunglasses. They are nemo and have sharks on them. He thinks he is such a big boy with them on. The first time I put them on him he laid his head back and gave me a thumbs up. :)

Girl's Nights out:

On July 7th Gavin Degraw played at the Spirit Bank Event Center. My sisters and I bought our tickets back in March. I am a huge fan, and the girls I work with are also. We bought the tickets and then I thought my sisters might like to go and have a "girly" night without boys and babies. We ate dinner at Zio's and headed to the concert. We had so much fun. Gavin was awesome, and Collective Soul opened for him. I really did not think I would know any of their songs, but I knew a couple. Then, they started playing this song and Katie and I were freaking out because it was on the Twilight Soundtrack! :) Such dorks I know - it does not take much to get us excited.

On July 9th Amy turned the big 2-5! We celebrated that weekend by going out to dinner at Los Cabos and then we headed to Cherokee Casino. Us girls and Brian and Richie went. Why we went the casino I have no idea because none of us gamble. We like to walk around and watch people. We had a blast together though. We have officially decided Brian and Richie are not allowed to hang out together.

June 2009

June was also a busy month for us.

June 1-5 was Bryson's first week of Vacation Bible School. I did not get to help during the week, but he came home with some of the cutest crafts. The theme was Polar Express, and he was in his nana's class. He thought we was such a big boy. I was told he would get right in there with all the big boys and get rough and rowdy - great! June 7th was the program, and he looked so handsome with his hair fixed and his little blazer on! :) He even said a part in the program, and sang the "butterfly song." He is getting so big - tear!

Little Miss Jamison in the front (you could not see her otherwise)!

June 5-7 - 10 year High School Class Reunion.

I had so much fun at the reunion. It was so nice visiting with people I had not seen in 5 - 10 years, and catching up with others that I don't get to visit with that often (even though they live close). I was on the planning committee, and we really worked hard to get it all put together. In the end everything turned out so great! The reunion started Friday night at the Full Moon Cafe. We ate and visited until real late and headed home cause I was missing little man. Saturday afternoon a group of us girls (plus some spouses and kids) got together at my house for lunch and more time to catch up.

Back row (from left to right): Heather Forbis, Diane Krumm (Henderson), Leslie Stelzer (Eschbach), Leslie Thomason (Williams), me, Kellie Weaver (Wilson)

Front row (from left to right): Kristen Thomas, Christel Huddleston, and Sherry Wells (sorry can't remember her married name)

Saturday Night at the Radisson we had a good dinner, visited, and had so much fun all night!

Sunday was family day at the lake. We ate lunch under the gazebo. Jeremy Brownrigg grilled all the hamburgers and hot dogs. I was completely worn out by Sunday afternoon, and Bryson caught a virus so we slept all day Monday.

Friday, June 12th we took our first trip to Incredible Pizza. We went with our friends Ronnie and Bry and their two boys, Cooper and Cash. I only took one picture because my little man was not having any of the "stop so mommy can take a picture." You can tell by the one I got below how excited he was to have his picture taken! Brian and Bryson rode the go-carts, which completely freaked me out because he was barely tall enough. I nagged Brian so bad about not going to fast, and don't ram into anybody or anything. Well, my hubby is very competitive and of course they had to come in first place. Bryson got a little ribbon - he was so proud! He had so much fun running around, but he really could have cared less about playing games. He just wanted to jump in the little jupiter jump maze they had.

June 16th - 8 year Anniversary

Brian and I have been married 8 years now - crazy how time flies. On June 13th we decided to celebrate because his dad was having hip replacement surgery on our anniversary, and we knew we would be up at the hospital. We got a 1-hour Swedish couples massage, and it was awesome. I am still shocked Brian wanted to do it, but he said he felt so awkward while we were waiting for the ladies to come and get us. Neither one of us had ever had a massage. They told us not to eat right before, and our appointment was at 12:45. I was so embarrassed because my stomach growled so many times. When I finally relaxed I was in heaven! Brian was so relaxed he fell asleep and started snoring 15 minutes before it ended. I was trying so hard not to laugh, and he did not believe me when I told him he had fallen asleep! After the awesome massage we headed to PF Changs (with lines still on our face from the massage table). The food was so good. We had not eaten there in 5 years. After dinner we drove around Utica Square and headed home to watch a movie. We watched Defiance - not really the romantic comedy I would have picked for the occasion but hey it's not all about me right! :) We had a really good time together, and it was nice not to have to worry about what Bryson was going to eat and having to cut up his food and change his diaper.

June 21st - Father's Day!

Brian was actually off on Father's Day this year! Bryson and I got up early to get his gifts together. Then right before Brian woke up Bryson ran in there saying "open daddy, open daddy, dis for you." Bryson got him an OSU shirt, hat, shorts, and a memory book. He also gave him a gift card to PetSmart earlier in the week for his koi pond! We knew we would be busy all day Sunday, so Bryson and I took Brian to dinner Saturday night at Olive Garden. Sunday we went to my family's house for dinner. We had all kinds of food, and it was delicious! Then that evening we went to see Brian's dad, who was still recovering from surgery.

Happy Father's Day Babe!

June 27th - Animal Sanctuary

On Saturday, June 27th Amy, Richie, and I took the kids to the Animal Sanctuary in Broken Arrow. We really did not know what to expect, but it was pretty neat. You can buy chicken legs and actually feed them to the big cats. They also have a petting zoo part. It was really hot, but we still had fun. I felt really bad afterwards because Bryson did not feel good at all, and he would not eat and he was constantly drooling. I just thought he was teething, but I took him to the doctor that following Monday and he again had caught a virus and had a ton of ulcers on the back of his throat. Poor little guy!

Haylee and Bryson - he would not take his glasses off the whole time. We went to lunch at Cheesecake Factory afterwards, and he kept them on the entire time.

Jamison and Bryson checking out the new bear habitat.

Haylee talking to Mufasa the lion

My poor little guy!

On the way to eat afterwards Haylee rode with me and her and Bryson were playing with the monkeys Bryson had to bring. I hear Haylee say, "Bryson, you know I am just so amazed by Wal-Mart. I mean they have bikes you can ride on, toys, and even food." I laughed so hard. Later that night Brian asked Bryson if he saw the lions, tigers, and bears, and Bryson replied (without being coached or told beforehand), "oh my!" We both looked at each other and lost it. We could not figure out where he had heard that.