The Knight Family

So Sunday was scheduled to be Rowan’s birthday party. We spent the last couple of weeks working on a few things around the house to get ready for people coming over. Our main task was getting the front courtyard area cleaned up. I’ll try to find a before picture so that I can post an after picture of that soon. But back to Sunday…
Though we were worried about rain in the forecast, the weather was great. A little warm in the sun but in the shade it was nice. All in all the weather was awesome for mid-August in Oklahoma. We setup a few of Rowan’s new toys in the backyard and pretty much just let the kids go crazy in the backyard. Ali did a great job getting the food together with a little bit of help from her mom. Rowan had lots of guests for his birthday party including family members: Great Grandma Knight, Great Aunt Beth and Great Aunt Shirl, Nana, Frumpa, Uncle Greg and Te-Te, Beeta, Uncle Michael, Aunt La-La, Alyssa, Gregory, Ben, and Lilly. He also had some friends. My friend Blaine, his wife Michelle, and their 2 year old daughter Olivia made it as well as my friend Tarra and her daughters Skylah, Adryana, and Livia.
I think the kids all had a great time. We turned a little pool into a ball pit. We had Rowan’s two birthday presents from his Mom and Dad: a Little Tikes basketball hoop and a Bouncy House (think miniature Jupiter Jump). There were also all kinds of balls and pushing toys and Rowan’s sandbox to play in too. Oh and Ben found the dirt in my backyard where the grass doesn’t grow.
After playing outside for about an hour, we went inside to open presents. Lilly and the other kids helped him out with opening the presents. Especially after he opened the dump truck from Aunt Shirl! He could have called it quits then if we would have let him. But we got through all of the wonderful gifts that he got. We were very thankful and Rowan loves all of them. Monday morning when Rowan woke up he came downstairs and just bounced from toy to toy all day. Ali said it was hilarious watching him play and then something new catching the corner of his eye.
After presents it was cake time! Ali got Rowan a “Thomas the Train” cupcake cake to fit in with the theme of his party. It was very cool looking. Words don’t do it justice so check out the pictures in the album. We were fortunate to do the cupcake eating outside because it was primarily green icing and a lot of it! There was green icing everywhere! But after we got the kids hosed off we let them bounce around the backyard a little more.
Then the party wrapped up and we cleaned up everything. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work. It was worth it though. Rowan had a blast and I think it was fun for everyone else too.
Hope you all enjoy the photos in the album. I tried my best to video the utter chaos. I have yet to look at the footage but when I do look at it and get it edited I’ll post it for you to see. As usual click the picture to go to the album.

So Saturday was Lillian’s 2nd birthday party at Nana & Frumpa’s house. When we got there all the boys were in the pool swimming as Lilly was in the process of getting up from a nap. Once the birthday girl got there she was greeted with her first present of the evening: a toy stroller for her baby doll. Rowan really wanted to push the stroller (he does this constantly in our driveway with the big one). After a while the grill got fired up and burgers and dogs were thrown on the fire. In the meantime, Nana had ribs roasting in the oven and fresh corn on the cob boiling on the stove. We ate well!
After dinner was over the kids did a little playing with toys upstairs as the adults finished eating and cleaning up. Then it was present time! Lilly got a lot of “pretend” toys like a big set of toy food for playing in the kitchen and a very cute princess outfit.
Once the gifts were all opened, it was cake and ice cream time. As you’ll see from the pictures Lilly enjoyed her cake! It was delicious. Afterward all the kids were in the front room spinning around and bouncing off the walls from the sugar. You’ll see a few of the pictures that Ali took. She also got some video and I’ll try and get that posted soon. It was a very fun party and the kids all had a great time. As usual, click the picture below to go to the album of pics. I’ll be getting part 2 of the 2nd Birthday Weekend Saga online soon so check back!!!

Hello all.
Well the football season is about to hit full swing. The team finished it’s second week of practice despite heat index temperatures around 110 degrees. Saturday morning the team had a scrimmage against 3 other teams in Inola at 8 in the morning. Ali was working so, after a kind-hearted parent volunteered to get Chris to Inola (about 40 minutes from our house) by 7:30, it was up to me to get Rowan ready to go at a decent time. So we made it by around 8:45. We were there for most of the scrimmage. Rowan was much more interested in running around on the rickety bleachers so I got to pay very little attention unfortunately. What I did see looked pretty good. Chris will play Tight End on offense and Defensive End and maybe a little Linebacker on defense.
One of the handful of plays I got to see was his very first play at Middle Linebacker. He shot the gap and hit the running back in the backfield for a 4 yard loss. One of the parents on the team got a great picture of it:

We’ve got more practice and then one more scrimmage either this Saturday or next Saturday and then the regular season will begin! I’ll try to take a few pictures here and there. If any of you want to check out the team website and see all the photos of the team in action go to Jenks Maroon Homepage

Just attempting to see what posts from the website look like when I make them on my phone.
This is my view of my desk at work. Computers and piles of paper. Woohoo!

Well we had a pretty good Saturday. We drove over to Arkansas to visit family. First we drove over to Fayetteville to visit my Grandpa in the hospital. He is recovering from heart valve repair and replacement surgery. He’s doing very well but we’re sure he’s ready to get out of the hospital. We’re hoping he’s well enough to come over for Rowan’s birthday, but if not we told him we’d bring the party to him soon afterward!
We then drove back to Siloam to my Grandma’s house to eat lunch and visit with all our family that was in town. Oh and of course there was a new baby in the family who was in town. Claire was napping when we got there, but she soon woke up and I got to hold her. I think Rowan was pretty fascinated by her. I know Rowan was that small just a couple of years ago but it’s getting hard to imagine now. It was great to see Eric and Colleen too, as well as my aunts Beth, Shirl, and Sauce. All in all it was a very fun trip and Rowan and Chris both behaved themselves very well. Rowan did especially well considering he didn’t nap until the drive home. It was a lot of driving time and we were glad to get home. Getting to visit with family made it well worth it. We can’t wait for Christmas to get here.
Well here’s a few photos we took (click the picture to go to the album). Enjoy!

Ali’s parents brought us all back some cool stuff including my and Rowan’s 1st Red Sox t-shirts. Rowan’s has David Ortiz’s name and number and mine is . . . Manny Ramirez. So I wore it for the 1st time on Thursday and about 5 hours later Manny gets traded to the Dodgers! Oh well, it’s still a cool shirt. On a related note if your favorite sports team has a player that you don’t like and would like to see traded, give me a shirt or jersey with their name and number and it just might happen. I’m 1 for 1 so far. Ha ha ha. Here’s a pic of me and Rowan modeling our cool shirts:

Hello to everyone.  I just wanted to post a couple of bits of news.  First, Chris got back from Massachusetts on Saturday.  He spent 10 days in the New England area visiting family.  Ali, Rowan, and I stayed in Tulsa and made sure that Nana & Frumpa’s pool was alright and took care of the “princess,” their cat Ella.  We were sure sad that we didn’t get to make it this year but we were glad that Chris got to go and he had a great time.  I should probably get him to post a little bit about what he did since I wasn’t there.  The photos below are 2 different albums of photos that Nana took.  One batch was from a Boston Harbor tour that they took and the other is some beach photos from the Cape (I think).

In other news, football season is here!!!  Chris was drafted by Jenks Maroon.  So far I feel like after 3 practices that things have improved 200% from last year.  The fact that he is being coached by a 2 time All American offensive guard that played for OU might play a small role in that!  I’ll be sure and post football news, photos, and maybe some video when I get it.

As promised here’s the picture albums:

 

Well I took the day off from work to watch Rowan. We decided to go do something fun and went to Chuck E Cheese for lunch. Rowan hadn’t been there before and he had a blast. I did my best to take a few photos. Rowan was busy taking everything in so he didn’t look at the camera much. The monster truck was definitely his favorite ride. Click on the pic below to get to the album of photos. Enjoy, I think we’re off to swim in the pool now.

On Saturday we got up and drove over to Siloam Springs, Arkansas to visit with my grandparents. We hadn’t been over with Rowan and Chris since late April and we weren’t sure when we would be able to go over for a visit. We first stopped by Great Grandma’s house. We had Rowan saying “Little Grandma” pretty well before we got there. Of course he kinda got bashful once we got there and it took him a while to say anything at all. We took a few pictures of him standing near Great Grandma. He was pretty good about staying an arm’s length away.

After some visiting, it was lunchtime so we drove down the street and picked up some food at Barnett’s. I had my usual: a Mr Barnett’s burger, a large order of french fries (which I shared), and a large chocolate malt (that Rowan and Chris conned me into sharing too). Delicious as always. Now I don’t quite think it’s a sign of the impending apocalypse, but Barnett’s is under construction these days and it looks like it’s expanding. After probably close to 60 years of business it looks like they might be adding indoor seating! So the world as we know it may very well be ending soon, I don’t know.
So after lunch and some more visiting, we decided to push our luck and postpone Rowan’s nap. We went over to Grandpa and Grandma Clara’s house for a little visit. Rowan was a bit bashful but he eventually gave his Great Grandpa a hug. After about an hour of visiting, Chris exploring their house, and trying to keep Rowan from destroying any of the kajillion breakable antiques, we decided to head home.
Postponing Rowan’s nap before a car ride has 2 possible consequences: he sleeps the whole way or he screams the whole way. We have experienced both. We got lucky this time and he slept almost all the way home.
We’re looking forward to going back to Siloam in a few weeks to meet Baby Claire!

I totally forgot to take a picture of my big 30th birthday gift.  I got an in-ground basketball goal…in a box.  So I undertook the assembly of a basketball goal for the first (and last) time.  Fortunately for me, my younger brother Michael “volunteered” to help me dig the hole, mix 800 pounds of concrete, assemble the goal, and install it in the ground.  It only took 2 weekends too!  So without further ado, here are a couple of photos of my pride and joy.