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So I have realized that Fantasy Football is just about luck. Yes, you choose your team during the draft, and yes, you choose your starting line up but from there? Nothing! It is totally up to your players and their teams. You just have to sit back and hope they score the points they are supposed to.

The last 2 weeks I have been slated to win both games by at least 10 points - great right? Well somehow I have lost each one of them. The first week my team did not score near what they were supposed to in the "predicted" column and the other team blew their predictions out of the water with 2 players that had unexpected games. The second game, while not as bad, the same thing happened. I have realized that there is nothing I can do when this happens. Once the games start I am set with my lineup. No matter what happens, I can't change anything. It's a roll of the dice.

Speaking of dice, I have realized that Fantasy Football is very much like Monopoly for me. Yes, you can buy your properties and choose if and where to build your houses and hotels but in the end it is up to the roll of the dice where you land. Where you land, you pay. period. Once everything is bought up there is nothing you can do but roll and play and see what happens. This is what frustrates me about Monopoly. I cannot play with friend or family as I can get really upset. You work so hard on the front end to just leave it up to chance? No Thanks. Sounds familiar I think...

We'll see how the rest of the season goes... I play my husband next week. (My husband who has beat the pants off every person he has played so far - but by my theory it can't be by any skills of his own....?? )

Explosion!

Well Charlotte just exploded all the sudden!  She is crawling up a storm now!  In the previous post I mentioned that she is crawling some.  She was up on all fours and would crawl a few "steps" then collapse into an army crawl and continue on.  Today, she is crawling across the room like it is no problem at all!  She'll crawl to go get a toy, to come visit me, and even to the ottoman - where she is trying to pull up!

That is the other thing that she has started to do all the sudden.  I came in yesterday and she was up on her knees at her crib railing and now she won't stop!  Today she saw a cup on the ottoman and was doing a really good job pulling up to the ottoman to get it.  Needless to say I have gotten my butt into gear doing some of the baby proofing and tonight we have to lower her mattress before she pushes herself over the top! (she is napping in the pack n play for now - one push with a leg to go from being on her knees to wanting to stand up and I would have my first big "mommy accident"- no thank you!)

My baby is growing up!

Here are a couple photos of her new skills!  I have a little video of her crawling but it wouldn't upload to the blog so take a quick visit to my MobileMe gallery here: Charlotte Crawling!

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The Long Awaited Living Room

Well after 9 months folks it is finally here! We have furniture in our Living Room!  (Funny it took as long to grow Charlotte as it did to get some furniture... sad) We moved into this house in January and moved from about 900 square feet to over 2400, needless to say there were some empty or sparse rooms.  The formal living and dining rooms were the worst - didn't have a thing in them excepting the occasional pack n' play.  We are not formal people so didn't know what we wanted to do with the rooms, plus it costs $$ to furnish a home at at this point a nursery was more important!  I would have been fine leaving it empty - Brady loves running after his toys in there.  However, if you have been to my home you probably experienced a moment or two of awkwardness when you walked in.  That's because these two empty rooms are the rooms that you walk directly into when you come into our home.  Odd isn't it?  I would feel weird walking into someones seemingly empty home (especially if I knew how long they lived there!) Well it was time to get something done - it was driving me crazy, we had some extra cash, and we were having a lot of things happening at our house in the coming weeks (including dad's big 50th!) so we decided to get it done.

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Read "more" of our Craigslist adventure here...

Gulf Shores Vacation

A few weeks ago we took a wonderful vacation to Gulf Shores Alabama.  We were long overdue for a vacation and were excited to take our first one with Charlotte Bug!  The trip planning was actually my mom's doing.  A friend of her's has a boss with a condo that he rents out on a vacation rental website.  Mom jumped on and looked at it and it was 3 bedroom and 3 full bath - perfect for all of us! We worked it out so that Mom and Dad went down August 16th (Sunday) for Mom's birthday and their anniversary and were on their own from then until we (Jeff, me, Charlotte and my sister Hannah) drove down Wednesday. We had a great couple days as a family and then Mom, Dad, and Hannah left Friday and me, Jeff and Charlotte got the condo to ourselves until Sunday. (Our anniversary was Thursday the 20th) Shew! It took a lot of planning out all the details but it worked out perfect - and we got a cheaper rate for staying there so long!

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Find our "more" about our condo and the beach!

Charlotte's Fancy Photos

This post is a little late in being written, but I wanted to get this up on the blog for sure.  A week before Charlotte was 6 months old, our friend Erin Murphy came down to Spring Hill to take Charlotte's photos.  Erin is an amazing photographer! She and Jeff have been friends for years, she even took some of our wedding photos.  We have all wanted her to take photos of Charlotte once she was a little more interactive and could sit up and such. We decided that at 6 months she would do great and it would be a good milestone to get her "real" pictures taken.

Jeff and I found the most adorable ballerina dress at Pottery Barn Kids on a mega sale (and it was still 30 bucks if you can imagine).  It was the perfect dress to have her all dolled up and photographed in.  Charlotte was a total cheese with Erin - all smiles and giggles.  I thought she would tire out quick being moved and dressed and such but she held in there and was just a ham.  She loved the camera and the flash and most of all Erin.  We took the photos at home, mostly in her our room or her crib, so she was very comfortable with her surroundings.

I hope you enjoyed the photos!  See more on my Facebook or  MobileMe site gallery.me.com/jordan.lyons

If you would like to see more of Erin's work visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/emurphy/

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Charlotte at 7 Months

Time for a Charlotte update!  She is 7 months now (7 1/2 really by the time I am posting this... ) and I can't believe how much of just a little person she is!  She has this amazing personality that she shows off to anyone that will smile at her, it's amazing how many hearts she has captured in the aisles of Target and Kroger alone! Everyone asks if she is a good baby or comments on how happy she is - I couldn't dream up a better baby myself!  She rarely cries and if she is crying you know something is up and it is usually short lived.  Even when she is hungry or dirty or tired she'll let you know by talking to you or just letting out a little whine but does not burst out in screams until you put that first bite in her mouth.  If she sees that you are fixing her food or she is in her highchair she is pretty content just to hang out until it is ready.  I mean really, what more could you ask for!

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Click on "more" to read about all the fun things Charlotte can do now!

Labor Day

Sunday! This post continues from the previous post in Owensboro... Mom, Charlotte and I left Owensboro and headed to Bowling Green after lunch on Sunday.  Mom left Charlotte and I there and she kept driving south while at the same time, Jeff drove up from Spring Hill to meet us there.  We met up at his parents new house in Bowling Green! Jeff and his family are pretty much from Bowling Green but a couple years ago his parents decided to move down to Gallatin TN to be "empty nesters."  They were not as happy with their new "downsized" home or its location and really missed Bowling Green.  All that to say, they decided a few months back to go ahead and move back.  They found a wonderful home that is perfect for them and perfect for all the family!  All their kids are married now and grandkids are starting to pop up so more space is a must!  Jeff is of course the resident tech go-to-guy so he was called upon to set up their entertainment system so that was his main job Sunday.  All this back story to say, Jeff and I were at their house Sunday to spend the night and spend some of Labor Day with them.

Charlotte had been much better during the morning and early afternoon on Sunday but by later afternoon she was getting a little fussier and snuffy so we laid her down and she fell asleep early - about 6:45!  The grown ups had a wonderful home cooked pot roast for dinner and then Jeff and I had a date night!  We took advantage of Charlotte's sleeping and having someone there to watch her and took off into the big city of Bowling Green!  We drove around for a good hour partly looking for something to do and partly seeing what has changed since we had lived there and of course reminiscing our youth years!