I promise I love you, blog friends.

I just live a really, really busy life and I have not had time to update you on it. I know, that seems to happen a lot lately. I take it back; last night I could have updated my blog in the 20 minutes I spent uploading pictures to Facebook, but since those pictures were several months overdue, Facebook won (for the first time ever, might I add). I feel like I've been all around slacking in the updating on my life lately. Believe me, it's been plenty interesting, but I feel like I don't have time to write anything nice and pretty and tell a good story, so I just throw a bunch of random pictures and words and links and hope you see some sort of method to my madness and excuse me for it. That sentence was three lines long - do you see what I mean? Okay, done with the rambling.

Like I said, there has been plenty happening. Great stuff. I promise I will get on the ball {eventually} and tell you about it in a timely manner, but until then, here are for quick highlights from the last couple of weeks.

1. I painted a pumpkin. It was fun, and of course it involves glitter. Thank you, Brenna, for the idea :)


2. Tiny human time with cute people has happened a lot recently. Pailynn and I practiced our shot after an AmPo game, and I'm pretty sure she will go pro. Do you see that form?! Impeccable.


3. My little brother got hurt again but he doesn't have to have surgery! Do you remember at the beginning of the football season when all of OSU's quarterbacks decided to throw their fragile bodies at the ground got hurt? Well, Kale has the exact same injury as JW Walsh, and he finished playing his basketball game when he hurt it, just like J Dub himself. Tough cookies, I'm telling you. Although they are all getting bubble wrap for Christmas.


4. I went to Stillwater and saw some of my favorite people! OSU played this weekend at home, and not only did my dear Little, Catie, go with me to the game, I got to see my long-lost vet school friend, Kevin! I was pretty sure one of the animals ate him, it'd been so long since I had seen him.



5. My middle brother is growing up, and I am really proud. Last night I watched his opening ceremonies team perform at an FFA event. Tomorrow is JH basketball. Friday he plays high school basketball for the first time. It's almost too much for me to handle. I can't begin to tell you all how proud I am of my brothers. I want them to reach all their goals and realize all their dreams, and I know they are both capable.


Your life. What is happening? Do you blog? Link to your favorite recent post, because chances are I haven't seen it since I haven't read any blogs (except this one) in about a month. Whoops.

Homecoming Weekend

This weekend was my absolute favorite weekend of the whole entire year: Homecoming. In my last post I shared memories of my last homecoming as a student at OSU. This is my second homecoming out of school, and I think they just get better each year. It's weird running into people you had class with (shout out to Blake and Stephanie!), and now you have real grown up jobs, and several people only make it back to town for Homecoming weekend. It made me realize we are actually grown ups and, as far as I can tell, we a doing a pretty good job of it.

Before I get to Homecoming, I'll start with Friday night. Prior to heading to Stillwater, I attended the wedding of my friend, Trent, who married Jamie in a beautiful outdoor wedding. Seriously, they couldn't have ordered a more perfect evening.


After the wedding, we headed to Stillwater. Thankfully, my parents had a hotel room, and although I feel like a terrible alumni admitting this, I didn't make it to Walkaround. I did drive by the Phi Lamb & ATO house deck before heading to the hotel and going straight to sleep, though, so I don't feel too horrible.

Saturday was an 11:00 kick off, and I might have sort of watched the parade from the hotel as I fixed my hair and got ready. My dad made me a waffle (courtesy of the hotel continental breakfast, haha), which was delicious, then we headed over to the stadium to see what all was going on.



When Meg and I got to the game, we decided we should take a picture before it was entirely too hot. Thank goodness we did! Apparently the weather forgot it was October, because I definitely got a sunburn.



Laine came to sit with us in the last part of the game and tried to get the tailgaters to cheer with him as we were leaving the stadium. Note to fans: "orange" is followed by "power" and the when someone starts with an "O" you follow with "S-U, COWBOYS!!!"



After poking around the renovated Union (beautiful, btw), Meg and I decided to be dutiful alumni and take a picture of the library and fountain - you know, things that haven't changed a bit since we were there (okay, maybe neither of us used the library, so it could have changed, but still).




Saturday evening, the Kennedy and Ratcliff families headed to Hideaway for even more fun (at this point it felt like Saturday had lasted several days). There was a lot of laughter - and even more jokes at my expense - and it was such a wonderful time.




Keely and I had to stop at Rhinestone Cowgirl, where I found a cute car candle in the shape of a cowboy. We all also went to Orange Leaf, where Kaden displayed some wonderful dance skills and he and Keely both gave us a taste of the latest teenage fashion.



Today we slept in, ate at Joes, and headed home. Needless to say, I'll be sleeping very well tonight! :)

If you went to Homecoming - and especially Walkaround - share a link to your pictures/ blogs with me!

Forever orange,
shaeken

#tbt Homecoming Edition

Tonight is all night pomp at OSU, meaning my favorite holiday (ahem, Chase) is just hours away: Homecoming Weekend!!!

Two years ago, after countless hours of hard work, several all nighters, a few tears, a whole lot of stress, millions of memories and 3,729 Diet Cokes, James (my Delt counterpart) and I hoped and prayed our house dec would come together and be everything we had been imagining for months...And it turned out even better than we could have dreamed.

Being involved with Homecoming was more than just tissue paper and chicken wire to me. It was #catdh10 with Emily, Starbucks runs with Laine and couch cuddles with Lacey. It was learning to manage a businesslike budget, being pushed to the busy limit, managing people and their hours, managing my own time and school, and being creative without holding back. Most importantly, it was making friends and memories to last a lifetime.

Jared and Emily with our sign


My adopted Delt little, Connor :)


With my little, Catie, at all night pomp. She learned to weld right after we took this picture!


Mr. Mike, part of our house dec


Slinky


Our full house dec!! "What's your story?"


With James and Kayla during Walkaround. Exhaustion had definitely hit at this point!


With James, receiving our award on the field during the game!


So many fun memories. I just love Homecoming. Stillwater, I'll see you in 24 hours!

According to Laine

I got a text from Laine Tuesday night that I ws absolutely positive was a joke.

"Sometimes I think I should hairspray my pencil notes..."
"Your pencil notes?" (I thought for a second he was writing on pencils...) "Hairspray them?"
"It keeps them from smearing/losing the graphite."

Clearly I had to test his theory because in all the hours days weeks time I've spent on Pinterest, I had not heard of doing this.

Test it yourself. You need paper, a pencil and hairspray.



Since it was Lainey's idea, I wrote his name. Giving credit here. The top one is without hairspray and you can see some smudging. The bottom one was hairsprayed, and on the part that was dry when I smudged, there's no smudging! (I was a little too excited to let it completely dry)


Mind. Blown.

Those of you who are still in school and don't take notes electronically, this could be a good way to preserve those notes you take and file away until the night before finals. :) Typically anything I took with pencil was too smudged to read by the time I got around to studying it! Brilliant. Laine, you win at note taking. Good luck on your test today!!

Tate time part 2

So as I said, I got to babysit Lori Jo's baby Tate the last two nights. He is such a great baby and we had a lot of fun snuggling. It's official - the Kennedy family (mom, dad and the boys hadn't met him until Monday) absolutely loves that tiny human. Kale loved holding him and watching TV, and Kaden helped him rock out to a little music :)

Monday night I barely slept at all... Every time I would doze off, I would freak out and worry about not hearing him! After a bottle around 11, he slept until 5:15ish!

Oh, Auntie Shae, I will definitely wake you up if I need you. Sleep a little!!




On Tuesday night, I took that advice and actually got some sleep...until around 2, when he decided he needed food. Oh, and a diaper change, of course. I went back to sleep thinking how lucky I've been that he hadn't had a dirty diaper the whole time I'd had him (I don't like smelly things).

Little did I know, he had other plans...when he woke up at 6, he was definitely a little squirmy. That is when I discovered he had left me a stinky little present. I guess that teaches me to count my chickens before they hatch!

This week was such a fun time getting to have play time with Baby Tate. Any time his grandparents would like to visit cousin Clara I will gladly take over their duties!

Tate time part 1: he tooted...

Lori Jo asked if Auntie Shae (and Nana Kim) would mind helping with Tate while her mom and dad visited Tate's new cousin, Clara! Of course, I was over the moon excited about keeping the little ninja.

He's been here for two hours so far and has already reminded me of his stinky toots. We have watched MNF, and he helped me cheer for Eric Decker, who is on my fantasy team...right until he decided to fall asleep. What a fan. :)

I kind of lost my brother

A lot has happened in the last two weeks since I abandon my blog. #whoops. My reason excuse for not sharing anything was the blackberry I was using for two weeks while waiting on my iPhone to finally come in! After getting feedback on which case to get, I finally settled on Orange Lightning from Marley Lilly!




To quickly bring you all up to speed on the life of Shae, here are a few pictures.

Laine & I went to EYB at Tulsa last Sunday. I'm not sure if we enjoyed the concert or the people around us more! We were near some very interesting people for sure. Before we left the fair, Laine finally became a real cowboy rode the mechanical bull. Most were impressed with this LeDoux-like skills, and I was just impressed my city friend stayed on the bull, real or not, long enough to hit the eight second mark!






I took off work on Thursday to watch my little brothers show their steers. The Kennedy boys are carrying on the tradition of good livestock showmanship and I am so proud of them. They both got third in their class and Kale was second alternate for the sale.

My favorite and least favorite part of steer shows is when an exhibitor lets his or her animal loose. Or sometimes, when an exhibitor's parent lets the animal loose (side eye, TK). IMy dad let this happen, and of course I was on hand to document the rodeo that followed with Kaden's steer.






Friday evening, my cousin was playing in Edmond in the Class A State Baseball tournament (at small schools, like AmPo and Latta, football doesn't exist, so they play fall baseball.). Bryce and the Latta Panthers easily defeated Sterling, though I'm not sure my aunt quit bouncing up and down nervously the entire time (Ps - I love the iPhone panoramic camera!).




Since they won, they played for the state title at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark on Saturday!




After the game, Kale, Meg and I decided we needed cupcakes to warm us up (all the hot chocolate we drank during the game, along with blankets and layers, we're not helping a bit). We ran over to Pinkitzel, and Meg and I decided my next birthday party would be held there, and glittery heels would be required. I had the lemon chiffon cupcake and it was amazing.




And now, for the dramatic part of the story.

Kale needed new tennis shoes, so being the nice sister I am, I agreed to take him to buy some. While we are browsing the Nike store, he looks at me with a panicked expression.
"Sisigottagotothebathroomkbye." (Translation: sis, I have to go to the bathroom)
And he ran off.

I assumed he went to the bathroom in the store...until a few minutes later when I discover the store doesn't have a bathroom! Now it's my turn for the panicked expression. I asked the guy helping us where the nearest bathroom was, and he directed me across the hall. I go check - there are two family bathrooms, both with open doors and no sign of my brother. Remaining calm freaking out, I go to the next closest ones, in the food court, and call my dad to let him know I potentially have lost his 12-year-old. There's a guy about my age walking out of the men's room as I walk up, so I ask if he would go inside and see if there is a boy named Kale in there. He does, and there is, so I stop panicking. Unfortunately, there must have been a different boy named Kale, because it was not my Kale.

Feeling as though I am about to be disowned by my mother for losing her youngest child, I go to the information desk and ask if they will help me find my brother. At this exact time, I get an iMessage from my mom asking where I'm at.

Clearly, I was not about to tell her I lost Kale (I forgot to mention - she had surgery Friday).

Then she sends me another message. Kale is in the Nike store looking for you.

I tell the information desk people I found him and make a mad dash back to the Nike store to find my charming little brother standing at the front waiting on me. Not panicked at all. Ready to look for shoes. Completely unaware that his bathroom trip took several years off my life that a truck had already tried to shorten.

Needless to say, I bought him the shoes and did not let him out of my sight for a second until I had delivered him back to his tiny human keepers (parents) and vowed never to mix my brother and shoe shopping again. Ever.

I took this picture of Kale at lunch and I was pretty sure it was going to be on milk cartons before I found him.




Ps - keepers of tiny humans who I frequently spoil - don't worry, this won't happen again.