Our weekend at The Oaks and Pigtails from H-E-double hockey sticks!

I just love this time of year. Fall is on its way, the weather will at some point be turning cooler and college football is in full swing! The Aggie's home opener was Labor Day weekend so we headed down for the game - excited about the start of another football season. What makes this year even more exciting is that we finally have a place to stay for football weekends. This means no more driving home in the wee hours of the morning after a game. Our dear friends, Kate and Brad, and Kate's parents have been hard at work fixing up an old family home in Pettibone, Texas, which has been nicknamed "The Oaks." This was our first weekend at The Oaks and we had such a great time just relaxing with friends. Even despite the Aggie's loss!

Here are some pics from the weekend.

The Oaks

This is our room. Notice how we just made ourselves at home and moved right in!

Riggin's (Don & Tianay's Lab) takes a swim in the tank.

Sleeping beauties.

Maggie & Daddy

Of course the place is fully equipped with satellite TV. When the TV was not tuned to football it was tuned to Noggin, much to MagB's delight

You can't really tell from this pic but Michael and Brad are hard at work assembling the grill to be used for the weekend festivities. This was a good half-day job. But their work paid off because we ate (and ate) like kings.

Exploring the place. Kate has impeccible fashion sense, don't ya think?

The following pics are from earlier this week in what I will call the unfortunate pigtail incident of September 08. Here's how it went down: Awhile back, one of the teachers at Maggie's school asked if I minded if she put a ponytail in Mags hair sometime. I said, "sure, why not," as we have often sported the Bam-Bam look at home. Fast forward a month or so and the same teacher, in passing, tells me she has been dying to put some pigtails in Maggie's hair now that she has the bangs. I tell her we have not tried that yet, but it would probably be cute. So on Monday when I pick Mags up, she is sporting pigtails - which were indeed cute - but also pulled so tightly I could not even imagine that she sat quietly while being coiffed to the point of looking like she had undergone a really bad face lift. But allegedly she did not make a peep....Until we got home that is.

As soon as we got home Mags got super-fussy and was inconsolable. She didn't want her milk, or a cookie, or her dinner, or to be held, or to be put down, or her binky, and she was crying like she was in some kind of pain. It was heart-breaking. Finally I deducted that it must be her head from the intense hair-pulling pigtails. So I try to take them out and these suckers were wrapped so tight that I don't even know where to start and I am already picturing what my sweet MagB is going to look like after we have to cut the pigtails out because I am just not sure there is any other way to undo what has been done. But I keep trying, and I am obviously hurting Mags in the process because she is just wailing, which is stressing me out because I just want to stop the hurt for her and then there is Michael, who is beside himself trying to get me to hurry. We finally managed to cut the rubber bands out, but the damage was done and poor Maggie continued to cry until she finally fell asleep. She woke up about an hour later and immediately continued her state of insolability. Michael and I were at our wits end. Surely it wasn't the pigtails if she was still crying? But what then? She couldn't tell us. At this point Michael tells me to put her in the car beause we are taking her to the ER because there is obviously something wrong with her and I'm like, O.k. but you are doing the talking because I have no idea what to tell them is wrong with her (Um, doctor, she won't quit crying and we don't know what to do!?) Anyhoo, we get her in her car set and set off to the ER and by the time we get there she is apparently over whatever it was that was distressing her so, because she is all smiles and "hey, let's play" as we pull into the parking lot. So we go home and she is completely fine the rest of the evening. Still have no idea what was wrong with her - but I'm sticking to the head hurting from the pigtails. Poor thing. Needless to say, I had to tell the teacher on Tuesday morning that, while the pigtails were cute, please no more until she is older and I can handle taking them out.

Here's Mags pre pigtail-breakdown.

Seriously I still have no idea how the teacher got these so tight? It just looks painful.

And I will leave you with this pic of Mags at dinnertime. She loves her some Chef Boyardee! Who doesn't right?

Love to all! Have a great week.