This weekend, was supposed to be our family get away vacation. Jackie and I would be taking our dear son Desmond to the beach! He would enjoy some sand, and some water, life would be grand! Ok, so there was some holes in our plan.

1. Jackie forgot her bathing suit.
2. My swimming trunks would not stay on me.
3. The beach was in Atlanta?
4. Desmond had started teething again this weekend.

Ok so reason #4 was the kicker. How could we spend over $40 to try and force our child to have mandatory fun at a fake beach in the middle of Atlanta? So being as cheap as I am, ( I like to call it frugally creative, but people just call me cheap anyway, even to my face! you know who you are) I did the next best thing. Sucking up and pooling (no pun intended) all the resources of the Rutledge family household. I filled up two kiddy pools, threw in some balls (but not these balls as Benjamin might say. But actually yeah I did) and then turned on a sprinkler, bringing the beach to their front yard! You see, when you mix a little Irish in with a little GA redneck, you make for some good ole’ fashion fun times! Thank you Rutledge’s for making our summer beach vacation come true!

Ohh and if you cant tell from these pictures, Desmond LOVES water. Loves, Loves, Loves it!! So enjoy some splish splash photos from this weekend. Danny also had a blast, they interacted a lot more this weekend. That was fun to watch.

One Day, Yes One Day I will have my own…..

Desmond’s 1st time eating a Banana

What a weekend/week it has been! This weekend Jackie and I hitched a ride over to Alabama to see her Uncle Jack and Aunt Linda. What a blast we had, but getting there, now that was something to blog about. I learned a few things about Jackie’s mom. She is pretty famous for her sense of direction. We have nicknamed her “MomStar” because we always call her when we are lost. However she now seems to use Starbucks as her compass. Starbuck locations are like her North Star in the sky. She knows where they all are, and they all eventually lead to your destination, so just follow the starbucks. Her dad’s car did not have a speedometer, so the needle pointed to the gears and not the MPH. So if the needle was on R you were in “racing mode” D and you were “dragging” we either were doing a 100mph at times or 25mph it was hard to say. 6 hours later we completed a 4 hour trip, you do the math.

This was my first trip to see Uncle Jack and Aunt Linda over in Alabama. He is has been fighting cancer for a few months now. He was in great spirits and look as strong as ever. He had me laughing pretty good. He also gives his brother Bob a real hard time, an even much harder time then I do, which was great to witness. He also had a new hair do, which I think looked very “Bruce Willis”. So who knows maybe Uncle Jack and him can do a new Die Hard movie or something. Aunt Linda cooked some of the best food, it was endless. Thank you so much for that! I did not get many pictures from the weekend (sorry Heather). We were just having too much fun to take any! I got some of Jackie and Desmond in their pool, and of their dog Pearl, who just loved Desmond, and kept bringing him her toys to play with. It was very sweet. I am throwing in an extra picture of Desmond eating Banana. He made some priceless faces, but loved it! He just was not real sure about it. Ohh and one more thing, he is soooooo close to crawling, he gets up on all fours with no problem, and just rocks like he is about to take off. I will get some video together soon.

I pretty much have never won anything that I can remember, so this felt like a big deal, felt good.
There was lots of great photos there, so to get 2nd place from all that was really wonderful.

*update*
Ok, so I did not really have much time friday to post about this, so I am making up for it now. So yeah 2nd place! There was lots and lots of photos, 1st place went to this huge picture of one of the Allman Brothers. I think it was Greg, and it was an old photo from back in the day. It was for sale for like $3500. I put $85 on mine, I think mine was a deal. I would even accept a coupon, didnt matter for where, as long as it was not expired and I could use it. The pictures will be on display for the next few weeks at the Middle Georgia Art Association at Ingleside Village in Macon. So what did I win? $150 and a confidance booster. I am happy with that.

I do not get to get many pictures with my mom and Desmond, so today is a special post, I know it is Video Wednesday. I am still going to post a video, its an oldie but a goody. You will get to hear some Irish accents even from me a little, (Leigh Anne try to contain yourself). Sorry nonyoutubers, I do not have an external link for you.

My mom is in town, and she was all dressed up, so why not take some photos. Everyone be sure to tell her how nice her hair looks. Jenn did it, I think it looks great. So did Desmond, they were happy to see each other as you can see.

The video is from about 7 years ago. My dad found a baby squirrel, and Nana was fascinated with it.

Six months ago today, life changed, over the last six months I have shared with you all this little boys journey, along with our journey as parents. In the 6 plus years that I have been doing a website, and the 3 plus years of blogging I think the last 6 months have been the most colorful and exciting. Thank you all for sharing with me my joy and coming each day for more. I hope I have been able to bring a smile and get a laugh.

As an added bonus, here is a little clip taken today of Desmond in his Jumperoo! Thank you Kelly and Joey for this GLORIOUS device, as you can see he LOVES it! Much like my poor little Honda, he is about to bust the shocks out and bottom out! Sometimes he is in it, and starts to fall asleep, and when we go get him out he wakes up and starts jumping immediately. It is very funny.

Whenever I was a kid and had a pain anywhere on my body my mom would always say “oh its just growing pains” and I believed her every single time. She would tell me that my bones were stretching and this was just me getting bigger. I think she was just telling me a tall tale. Us Irish are good at tall tales. However, it worked, I mean how could I argue with that? I wanted to grow, no pain no gain right? So every time I had a slight pain I brushed it off as growing pains. I am 6 foot tall, and it hurt like a mother to get here.

Desmond is now experiencing his own growing pains. His little teeth are coming in. He has two little teeth just sprouting through. Next week he will be 6 months old! He is now rolling over both directions. This freaks him out, because I think he kinda rolls and falls back ontohis back, and is all “what the heck just happened?!” It freaks me out too, because this is one step closer to him going mobile! He can also sit up by himself. Usually if he gets too excited he falls back, but most of the time he finds a good balance and can sit and play. We watched him for about a half hour today just playing with toys and talking to them, it was very cool. I have noticed that every time I run to get the video camera he stops talking. I think he is on to me. I am just going to have to be more creative and sneaky.

His sleeping is hit or miss here latley. He seems to sleep every other night, Jackie is really great about getting him back to sleep, she has a real nack for this now. She is wonderful. Our little boy is growing so fast! I am not sure we can keep up, we are just soaking up every moment we can. I still just cant get over it. Its funny sometimes I will see Desmond in things around me. I saw The Hulk the other night, and when the Hulk was sad or pouting, I saw Desmond. I sure do love that little boy.

This face is one of my favorite looks he gives. It makes me laugh every time.

Between the ages of 5 and 9 I remember summer time as fun in the sun, and getting a tan! I would brown really nice. I never burned. I would just get this really nice looking brown tan all over my body, and people were jealous. Everyone would admire my beautiful tan, I looked like a little foreign boy from spain or somewhere tropical. You may not think anything of that, but for a little Irish boy, this was a big deal. At least it was a big deal to all the grown ups around me, because most everyone in Ireland is pale white, and when there is a heat wave and the sun is shining (which is not often!), they fry like lobsters. So for me to tan and not burn, I was a super hero among my Irish counterparts. I was an elite.

Ohh but like every superhero I had a weakness, or a vulnerable spot you might say. That spot was my buttocks. It was as white as snow. So when I tanned, my glory was short lived when my mother thought it was the greatest thing ever to show everyone my buttocks, to compare my tanned back to my bright white untanned butt cheeks. She would yell with excitement to her friends or whoever was around, “look at this boys beautiful tan, and see how his little cheeks are snow white….isn’t it glorious!” she would say. Every time we met someone she knew (or didn’t know, it didn’t matter! I dreaded being called over….because as soon as I got within arms distance of her, she grabbed me threw me over her knees and down came my pants, and behold there was a beacon of light shining as bright as the moon, that moon was full, that moon was my butt.

Earlier I posted photos of Desmond, because I just thought they were so cute, but Jackie suggested I pull them down….and I agreed, I was not thinking, but then I got to thinking, and the above entry is what came of it. So Bonus for that. For those that got to see his cute little butt, congrats! (I know who you are!) it is chubby and beautiful. :)

Picture One: I finally got a good picture of the tongue sticking out, I love that little tongue.

Picture Two: Danny and Desmond. They are going to have so much fun together!

Picture Three: He is getting so big. Crawling is about to happen any moment.

Picture Four: My Mom and Desmond having a good time.

Picture Five: In midswing sleeping like a baby. I want a swing like this so bad.

Picture Six: This picture made me laugh! As I snapped it, he ripped one. His face is priceless.

I will just let the video do the talking.

(if you cant access youtube click here)