DWTS Week 2: Kim & Mark go home

This last week on Dancing with the Stars challenged the stars to either the Rumba or the Paso Doble. Kim Kardashian has been booted from the ballroom! Ten stars remain to tackle the jive or Viennese waltz this next Monday night. I still can't believe that Cloris & Corky are still there but hoping they will go this next week...

My blessings for this week & a Photo Share Opp!

One of my favorite photos from my photography class: Union Street Bridge from Boardman River in downtown Traverse City, MI.

• I've felt extremely blessed to have some extra time off during the last few weeks so that I could spend some time with the family. Rylan and I went to the park several times a week and just spent time together playing, learning and having fun. I loved it!
• We received a real gift this week from Mike L*, one of my co-workers. He gave me a bunch of clothes that his son has out grown. Rylan will be able to use them for quite some time. I'm so grateful to him for this gift. I hope someday that I will be able to do something for his family.
• I'm so excited that Autumn is here. I'm not normally a "fall" person but this year I seem to be. It's the beginning of the holiday season so I'm very excited. I'd like to start getting the house and garage organized so that when we can put up the holiday decorations, it will be easier.
• Great friends! I've been able to communicate with more of my friends lately either through email or blogging. It's so great to connect with friends that I haven't seen or talked to in quite some time and share our lives with each other. I'm always looking to make new friends out there in the blogging world.

I felt so terrible taking this one...

I really did feel terrible taking this one but this is such abnormal behavior for Rylan that I had to get the photo. He was mad because I wouldn't let him read the cosmo. :)~

Misc. photos of Rylan

This was his first time of ever having a milkshake from SONIC. He actually split it with Mommy so he didn't have as much as it seems. He really enjoyed it and he felt like such a big boy drinking from the cup like Mommy.

I just couldn't believe this one so I had to get a photo.

Shopping tuckered him right out... I love these moments!

Bath Time Art by Rylan Small

This was so funny... He's going to be a famous artist someday and I'm copyrighting his first work! LOL!!!!

We had a little visitor today...

We had a little visitor today. We're going to call him Peter Rabbit (of course!) I have no idea where he came from. We were trying to catch him and hopefully find his owner but the little bugger is mega fast and wouldn't have any part of our plan. We ended up chasing him into the neighbor's yard which is where we just decided to take his picture. (Which is why there are weeds in the flowerbeds) I hope that the owner has found him by now or he'll be terrorizing the neighborhood. (Course maybe he's been on the loose for awhile and he's the one that destroyed my watermelon!! LOL!! Just kidding of course!) I do think it's very strange how many stray animals have found their way to our doorstep over the last 3 years we've lived here. We've found atleast 10 dogs, a cat and now a rabbit... goodness, whats next!??!?!?

DWTS 7: Week 1

I'm not sure how many of you are fans of Dancing with the Stars but I like to give a recap each week as to what happened, who I think did a good job, bad job etc... so this is Week 1 of Dancing with the Stars 7. This season started off differently than others have in the past. They started with 13 stars and 2 will be eliminated this first week. I had made a promise to myself not to pick a favorite before the show began just simply basing it off of who the stars were. I had my suspicions of who I would probably like more than others and once they began dancing this week, I've realized I was right on. Who is my first pick you say? None other than Lance Bass & Lacey Schwimmer.

I know... Another *NSYNC star... Everyone knows that Joey Fatone is always going to be my favorite NSYNC star. I still think that Joey should have won but whatever! Lance has alot of work to do to become a judges favorite, show who he is and what he can do. He needs to work on his interaction with Lacey and show more emotion during the dances. I also personally think that they could use just a bit less makeup on him.. he looks way too tan and looks like the rumors are true!

I have some others that are among my top picks but I don't really know what order they are in just yet. I need to see more dancing before I can decide. I can say that I'm really enjoying this season so far. I'm hoping to see someone (professional side) win who hasn't won before. No offense to those who've won in the past but I want to see someone else get the trophy ball this year.

Maybe Karina Smirnoff? She's a great dancer and just seems to end up with blah partners. Rocco seems like he may do well if he works really hard and doesn't make her gain weight with all that pasta he's cooking her...

I feel really bad for Edyta Sliwinska! She is a good dancer and she's only had two partners worth having... Joey McIntrye and Jason Taylor. This wasn't her season as we all saw last night. Her partner Jeff Ross was the first to be kicked off.

I also really like to see Warren Sapp & Kym Johnson and Brooke Burke & Derek Hough. Both couples seem to be very good and I'm hoping will make it pretty far in the competition.

I don't really have an opinion about any of the other dancers except two.... Susan Lucci and Cloris Leachman.

Susan Lucci is nothing but skin and bones. The only thing I can compare her to is a wishbone after Thanksgiving dinner and I keep thinking that Tony is going to snap her in half... I hope she's gone soon. I will fast forward through her performances if I have to...

I also can't stand Cloris Leachman. After her little "Granny Gone Wild" performance the other night, I lost all respect I may have had for her... I know she's 82 and deserves some credit for being able to get around like she is with all of her issues... but that doesn't mean that she should be dancing around like she's twenty. She needs to keep her saggy cleavage covered up and just walk away now. (I'm fairly sure she'll be the one to go home tonight!) She made an absolute fool of herself after her dance on Monday night.. I kept asking Roger "Is she drunk?".

Well, that's all for now folks... I'll post more on this subject next week!

UPDATE: I just can't believe it! Cloris somehow got saved and Ted McGinley was sent home. I'm quite surprised.

Photo Share!

You can tell it's Fall when the sunset looks like this...

It was hard to get last night because I was trying to race the sunset home from Walmart. It would have been prettier if I had gotten home fast enough to catch more of it but oh well. I'm going to see if I can't get a better shot today.

(Just going to let you know that I'm posting more photos on my photography site. If you look in the list on the sidebar, you'll see a link to my photography blog.)

Photo Share!

I was driving over to my moms house yesterday and noticed something in the road. When I got closer, I realized it was a group of chucker birds. Chuckers are in the quail & pigeon family I believe. I thought they were pretty in a way and thought that it was strange to see them here. They are not very common to see in town... maybe if I was going up to the foothills or something but for some reason, our neighborhood has a group of them that decided this is where they wanted to live... maybe they are golf fans. (I live in a golf course subdivision.) Anyways, the first photo is a close up one that I found on the internet. The others are all taken by me yesterday. I probably looked weird walking up the road taking pictures of these birds but oh well...

We're going to start potty training!!!

Well, we've finally decided to start potty training. I know this is going to be a long process that will require A LOT of patience from me but I have to get started on it. I can tell that Rylan is getting there. Lately, he's been getting our attention and then pointing to or patting his diaper. The only hard part is that Rylan doesn't really know the word yes yet... so if you ask him if he needs to go potty or if he's gone potty, he says "NO". It's his comfort word. However, he seemed very interested in the potty when we brought it home. I'm so glad I got the one I did because it has a frog sticker on the lid. Rylan LOVES frogs! He kept saying "Frog! Frog! Frog!" and pointing to it. He's not real fond of the blue cushion ring.. he keeps taking it off. With time, I'm sure he'll realize why it's there. We also bought Pull-ups to try out on him. I couldn't find the "Cool Alert" ones so I got the ones with the images that fade. I'm now thinking that I should have kept looking because in the beginning, the cool alert ones are probably more effective. We'll have to see... I'll keep you all posted. Until then... Enjoy the pics!

He's showing me that the images are still there so he hasn't gone potty in the pull-ups!