A Heavy Heart & 2 Years

My heart is pretty heavy this morning thinking about this day 2 years ago when we lost a sweet family friend. Aaron Travis Singleton was the younger brother to one of my best high school friends, Bobby Singleton and also a close friend with my younger sister Breeann. Jordan and I spent a lot of time with Breeann and Aaron the summer before he passed and quite a few of those summer memories involve Aaron. Aaron was a real genuine boy. He comes from a great family and is missed dearly.

Thinking of the Singleton family today and sending prayers their way!!!!

On another note, the Lions will be playing away at YORK tonight and we will sadly be missing this game since it's so far away and I have a Bridal shower... We will be there in spirit :) Good luck Dalty and....

GOOD LUCK LIONS!!!

Happy Friday Everyone!

The Alford's

Our Big UT Fan

While we were shopping last weekend, we picked up a new UT outfit for Buddy. I decided to take off the tags this morning and try it out.

Playing Football

He also has his UT football in these pictures. He loves any kind of ball, period. But he really likes this football. I think because it's soft. Daddy would say because it's UT. :) I thought his little outfit was super cute. Except it looks more like a basketball warm-up to me. As you all know, we are BIG Gator Haters in our household. My dad can't stand it because he is a HUGE Gator fan. Since he was in a pretty grumpy mood this morning when I dropped off Tuff, he decided to let me know about it. I think he's just getting a little worried about what the Vols may bring Saturday (TN vs. FLA. game). Haha. But he's also going to have to get use to seeing the orange because that's where Tuff's from. I'm sure when he gets older and can make his own decisions, he will be a UT fan at heart. Besides, UT is home for our little Vol baby. It's in his blood.

Not a lot has been going on around our house this week. Work, home, dinner, bath, sleep. That's pretty much our patten Monday-Thursday. I'm so glad tomorrow is Friday. Oh Friday, how I've missed thee. I've been getting hooked on a few different shows since Jordan's started working nights. He leaves so early that I have nothing else to do.....

I started watching Big Brother about the 3rd or 4th week into the show. I know this is like the 12th season, but I just got hooked. Last night was the season finale and it lasted 2 hours. I don't know who watches and who doesn't, but I was glad to see Hayden and Lane make it to the final 2. They were probably the 2 most trust worthy people on this season's show. Hayden ended up winning the $500,000. I was glad for him because Lane already comes from a really wealthy family so I didn't think it'd be too fair for him to end up with the half a million. Does anyone else watch this show?

My 2 all time FAVORITE shows are....

Army Wives

One Tree Hill

Army Wives just ended it's past season about a month ago. I think this show is my favorite out of everything. I wish it was on year around and it seems like it's the shortest one of them all. One Tree Hill just started back up this past Tuesday night. I'm pretty excited about that. The first show was pretty good. Jordan is actually the one who got me into watching OTH but he says it's gotten way out of hand since it started. I could barely even get him to watch it with me last season so now that he works nights, I'm not sure if he'll watch this season at all. I watch almost everything on CBS. It seems to be a good channel for shows. From what I've been seeing on commercials, there's going to be alot of season premieres next week. I can't wait! Maybe I'll find some more new shows to get into.

April and I seem to be getting alot accomplished on the wedding arrangements. It's just a short time away. I know I've said it enough, but I am SO excited. We are headed back up to the location on Sunday to talk about a few more arrangements, etc. We also have plans to meet with our photographer on Sunday at 2 for some Engagement pictures. Hopefully I'll get those back sometime before the wedding so I can share them on here. My dress should be ready for pick up tomorrow and it seems like everything else is just moving right along. I'm looking foward to the "Bridal" shower tomorrow night. It should be fun and interesting all at the same time. Pictures to follow....

Hope everyone is having a good Thursday. Only one more day until Friday. YIPPPEEE!!!!

The Alford's

3 weeks marks the spot

Until....

The BIG Day!

 I'm starting to get pretty anxious/excited. Jordan and I have known each other for 10+ years. It seems like we're already married most days, but I can't wait to officially be Mrs. Jordan Alford. I want it on paper!!! :) We still have so much to work on for the BIG DAY. I am meeting my sister for lunch today to go over some more planning. We have cake/cupcakes to design, the men's clothing/shoes/colors, some decor ideas to finalize, flowers to talk about, rehearsal to plan, hair appointments/pictures, OH MY! I can't believe it's so close. I can't even begin to express how excited I am!!!

Friday is also nearing. We will be having the bridal "lingerie" shower at my house. It should be interesting. Hope and Kelly seem to be getting pretty excited and working pretty hard to make all this happen. I am so thankful for good friends. God has truely blessed me with some GREAT girls in my life. Girls I know I can lean on for anything at any given time. I can't wait to see all of our kids grow up together like we did. I hope they can all be friends just like we were/are. Except for Little Miss and Tuff. They will be boyfriend and girlfriend one day. I always told Kel I hoped she had a girl first because that would be Tuff's gf. Of course, I'm not sure what Justin thinks about that idea. Haha. Now, we are all waiting for Hope to add one to the mix. I bug her all the time but she and Justin seem to be on the "10 year plan." :)

I ended up going to watch Dalty play last night. It was a little bit of a different atmosphere for Tuff. There wasn't near as many people at this game and he seemed to be beside his self with all the room he had to run around in. Needless to say, he wore this mommy out. The Jr. Varsity lost 34-22 but definitely played a great game. Dalty had alot of tackles. It seemed as if he was just throwing those little kids around out there. I'm sure it was a much more different atmosphere than what he's use to playing with on the Varsity team. It was definitely more interesting to watch than the past Varsity games. It seemed to be 2 teams on equal levels trying to win a ball game. That's the kind of games I like to see. Dalty's next game is Friday at York and unfortunitely we will be missing this game. It is a 2 and a half hour drive and we just don't see Tuff making that drive there and back. Or ourselves. So Good Luck Dalty. We'll be cheering for you back at home.

I know I promised a few pictures from the weekend so here are some I took Friday night at Dalton's game....

Dalty #62

Giving Daddy kisses

Getting ready to head home.

Happy Tuesday!

The Alford's

Weekend Re-Cap

I left work about an hour and a half early Friday for a follow up with Tuff's doctor on his ears. He seems to have kept the same ear infection for over a month, so a few weeks ago they gave us his 3rd antibiotic. It was supposed to be one of the strongest antibiotics. So just to be safe, I wanted to have his ears checked to make sure it worked. And it worked. Buddy's ears were nice and clear. I figured they were good to go since he has been in such a better mood but I wanted to be positive. From the doctor's office we headed to Bluecoast to get some dinner before heading to Dalton's football game. His game was in Donelson (Nashville) and it was raining on and off all day Friday so we were all hoping it would stop before the game started. We got lucky, once the game started, it ended up being a pretty decent night with no more rain. The boys lost 44-6. They don't seem to be having the best year so far but they are such a young team. I think in the next year or two, they will really be worth seeing. Right now though, Dalton is the only one worth watching. :) Tuff had a good ole time. He does so well at the away games for some reason. He just runs and runs his little heart out. At the home games, he tends to be more whiny and want to be held. I'm not sure what the difference is. Dalton has his first Junior Varsity home game tonight at 6. Jordan has been having to go into work early so he won't be able make it and I'm just not positive me and Tuff will make it either. I guess I'll just have to decide by how I'm feeling this afternoon when the time comes....

Saturday morning Tuff was up and at it by 7. So I got Jordan up and going and we headed to the Boro to get some things done. We started out morning at Cracker Barrell. YUM. We all love Cracker Barrell for breakfast. Of course we can't ever leave there just buying food. We always seem to find stuff in the store. This trip, we got some candle holders that are like a bronze color with dark orange candles that smell of pumpkin spice. Ahhh.... I LOVE fall and I LOVE pumpkin spice smell. It's great! We also got Tuff a new UT T-shirt. They always have cute UT stuff during football season. After breakfast, we headed over to Once Upon a Child to pick up a few more winter clothes for Tuff. Once Upon a Child is a nice consignment store in Murfreesboro. It's good for finding gently used clothes, furniture, toys, etc. They have it all. I didn't really rack up but I did leave with 3 shirts, a pair of jeans, a puzzle, and a ball all for $26. Pretty good huh? Tuff LOVES balls. He has every kind of ball you can imagine but while I was browsing, him and Jordan were playing with a ball so Jordan decided he needed that ball to add to his collection. :) I'm just thankful it's balls and not dolls... We made a stop by the grocery store and headed home to get ready for some COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!!! It wasn't a pretty day in our household as Florida State fell hard against Oklahoma 47-17 and Tennessee fell just as hard against Oregon 48-13. Boo. We had my sister Bree, her boyfriend Will, and their little girl Ada to watch the TN game and eat some steaks. Mom stopped by since Dad was working and we had an extra steak to spare. Dalton also stayed the night. It was a good night. I had a good time hanging with Mom and Bree for a while, while the boys watched the game. Here is a few snap shots of my niece Ada with her Uncle Jordan and her Lubby cousin....

I think GIRL looks good on him ;)

Tuff trying to give Ada kisses. He's always loving on her, I think this is a good sign for a sister but daddy disagrees ;)

Sunday, me and Tuff headed to mom's so she could dye my hair. We weren't there long before we headed home to rest the remainder of the afternoon. I left my camera at home so I won't be able to post pictures until tomorrow. But here are a few I took with my phone....

I took these last night....

He was enjoying some quality mommy time before Nite, Nite.

Aunt Tori (my little sister) sent me this one just a few minutes ago... He was in a pretty good mood this morning and it looks to me like he's still hangin on to that good mood....

Happy Monday!!!!

The Alford's

Thursday = One day from Friday :)

Good Morning Thursday! :) Thursday is always a good day because Thursday means one more day until Friday! Everybody, and by everybody I mean me and Tuff (Daddy works nights), got a good night of sleep last night. How do we determine a good night of sleep around our house? Let me tell you how. A good night of sleep at our house means I don't hear Tuff on the monitor ALL night long, not once! :) Another sign of a good night of sleep would be me waking up to the sound of my alarm clock wondering if it's really set to the correct time? I set my alarm every night, just incase, but really knowing I won't need it. I'm usually almost always awake before the alarm goes off. Especially lately. Since Jordan started working nights, I haven't been sleeping to good on the nights he's at work. I've never been the type to be able to stay at home by myself at night, alone! I'm terrified of everything. Every noise, light, movement, etc. Now that I have Tuff to worry about too, it's even worse. Needless to say, I cherish my weekend sleep when daddy is home with us....
On to one more good sign of a good night's sleep in our house.... If this is what I see at 7:10 am.....

This is by far THE BEST sign of a good night's sleep! :) Every since Tuff was born, he has been an early bird. It wouldn't matter if I laid him down at 8:30pm or 12:00am this child is still awake and head off the pillow anywhere between 6 and 6:30. No matter what, no matter when, no matter where. And yes, this is counting weekends. Oh MY weekend mornings to sleep in, where oh where have you gone? :) Lately though, and by lately I mean just the past week or so, Tuff has started to sleep in a little bit. Last weekend, both Saturday and Sunday morning he slept until 8:30. NICE. When Tuff was younger and we were still living with Jordan's parents I often found myself in a dilema when Tuff would wake up early and I had to get ready for work. Jordan doesn't usually get home from work until after I've left, Jordan's mom and dad were always still sleeping. It was impossible to take a shower because I had no one to keep an eye on him. There were many mornings I would have to race to get him ready and take him to my mom and dad's early or have them come get him. (My mom and dad keep him daily) Once we finally got our own house, things got a little easier but were still difficult when Tuff would wake up before I got a shower. Now, Tuff sleeps every morning until after I'm out of the shower. But, the best days are when he sleeps until I am completely finished getting ready. I like to have a routine in the morning and I like him to be the end of my routine. Get up, get shower, get ready, wake Tuff up, get Tuff ready, out the door.

Those are my signs of a good nights sleep at our house. :)

Tuff's shoes I talked about yesterday did fit. They actually fit perfectly and he seems to really like them! Here are some pictures of him this morning sporting his new shoes...

sweet boy

Big feet

Mom and Dad are coming to Murfreesboro this morning to get groceries and eat lunch. I plan on meeting them so I can see my sweet boy mid-day. This always makes for a good day!

Well we're officially less than 24 hours from GAME DAY. Cannon County has an away game at Donelson Christian Academy. We will be there with our game faces on. Having a little one makes it hard to make the away games so we are trying to make it to the one's closest to home. So far, we haven't missed one. Next Friday Cannon County will be playing York, which is too far of a drive for us. We will be sad to miss a game but also knew there would be a few we wouldn't make.

Bring on the weekend and bring on some FOOTBALL!!!! :)

The Alford's

EDIT: Here are the shot's from lunch with my baby boy (who was ecstatic to see his mommy!!!)

Sweet Boy ;)

Big Foot

Our baby boy isn't even 14 months old yet. That's barely 2 months past 1 year. He grows soooo fast. But the one thing that boy has that grows the fastest are his feet. He has HUGE feet. That was one of the first things that was noticed right after he was born, his big feet. I guess he probably got the big feet from my side of the family since we all have pretty big/long feet and toes. His Ba Ba (Jordan's mom) called me Monday wanting to know what size shoe she should get him. I told her he was generally wearing around a size 6. Boy was I wrong. We tried the shoes on him yesterday and his poor little toes were about to pop out of them. So, mommy had to make an exchange on her lunch break today for a SIZE 7!!! Can you believe that? Almost 14 months old and wearing a size 7! I wonder how big his feet will actually look once we get those bad boys on. Haha. In the meantime, here is what his super cute shoes are looking like...

Cute huh? They are Stride Rite's so they should be pretty good for his walking. I just can't get over how big our little baby is getting. Lately, he's just not seeming so little anymore.

On another note, our long weekend has made this week seem pretty short. I am having a hard time believing it's almost Thursday already. Of course I'm not complaining. I love the weekends :)

Two of my best friends Hope and Kelly are throwing me a "Bridal Party" next Friday night. Girls, drinks, and under garments will be a big hit at this party. Hmmm... I'll let you all know how that goes. In the meantime, I've been working on getting Tennessee Vols tickets for Jordan and Dalton. This will be Jordan's "Bachelor Party." Since Dalton is the best man and he's under age, I thought this would be something good for them to enjoy together. Especially since neither of them have ever been to a TN game in Neyland Stadium. Jordan doesn't show his excitement much, but I know he's overly excited on the inside ;) He's always talked about going to a game. Maybe I can get them to take a few pictures there so I can share them here once they get back. We shall see.

Wedding details are coming along. We decided to do something small and cheaper, but it seems like it still takes a lot of work and detail... and money! Ha. We have been coming up with some super cute wedding decor ideas. I have our photographer lined up. We have Jordan's ring ordered. I plan on taking the boys shopping for their outfits this weekend. It's creeping up on us and will definitely be here before we know it. A month from now, you can call me Mrs. Ashley Alford. :)

Hope everyone is having a good Wednesday!!!!

The Alford's

Labor Day Weekend

As I mentioned in our last post, we started our Labor Day weekend at the Cannon County Lions 2nd home football game. This home game was their "black out" game for the year. Since all the fans were suppose to wear black and Tuff had not even one black shirt, I decided to run to Hobby Lobby on my lunch break Friday and pick up some iron on letters/numbers and black t-shirts. I was just going to make Tuff one but once I got there decided to make us all one, including Jace. They turned out great. I think Dalton was pretty fond of them as well ;) He asked his mama "Why don't you do stuff like that?" Haha. Anways, here are a few pictures of how they turned out....

Tuff in his shirt

Our family, Tuff's face is priceless :)

Jace & Tuff eating cookies

The finished project. I thought they turned out great!

Daddy & Tuff

Mama & Tuff

The Lions, getting ready to kick a field goal

Our sweet boy in the car on the way home

The game didn't go as planned... We were hoping for closer scores and maybe a WIN, but Dekalb Co. had other plans. I don't remember the final score but it's probably best that I don't. ;) Dalton did SO good though. I was so proud of him. He has been getting a pretty good amount of playing time but in this game, he played the whole game! His coach told him after it was over, he was impressed. I would think that's a good thing to hear from your coach when you're just a freshman! GO DALTY!!!

I was up bright and early Saturday morning to meet my sister at Stewart's for some wedding stuff. Stewart's is a local company that provides all wedding furniture/decor for rent. We got the arch that Jordan and I will stand under, the chairs, and a table cloth for the cake table. It's getting so close. I just can't believe it's less than a month away! I'm getting more and more excited!!! :)

GAME DAY also spilled over into Saturday at our house. Florida State started off at 11:00 against Samford defeating them 59-6. Woooo Hoooo!!!! GO FSU!!!! Tuff was up bright and early with his UT gear on...

That's one CUTE diapered bottom, if you ask me?

The Tennesse game was not broadcasted on TV in our area. We tried to rent it on PPV but for some reason we couldn't. So, along with EPSN updates, we had my dear friend Lana keeping us posted as well. Thanks Lane!!!! :) She was in town this weekend and her Gram rented it off PPV. (They have Direct tv and we have Dish, still not sure why we couldn't get it on PPV) Tennessee racked in a whopping 50 points against UT Martin. The final score at the end of the game was 50-0. It was a good day in the Alford household! Saturday night, we just rested.

Sunday we decided to have the family over for some drinks/appetizers. It was a good night being able to spend some time with the family and socialize a bit. I think everyone had a pretty good time...

Baby boy, checking out some birds flying over...

Emily, Jordan's sister and Jace

Jordan with all of his nephews, minus Jace.

Dalton, Jordan, Tuff, Courtland, Gabe

Playing hard

Jace giving Tuff a hug and kiss

Monday morning, me and Tuff got up and got ready to run to town to pick up a few clothes for Tuff. At the ballgame Friday night, it got cold. I got to thinking, even if I had wanted to bring him a jacket or put a pair of pants on him, I wouldn't have been able to since he has not one stitch of winter clothing. I had to change that. Mom rode to town with us so daddy could stay home and rest up to go back to work. We picked him up a jacket and a few pairs of pants. It's not quite time for long sleeve shirts yet. We had lunch at Zaxby's and headed home for a nice long 3 hour nap and later, dinner with daddy.

It was a good weekend. Hope you all had a good Labor Day weekend as well. :)

The Alfords