Ingram the Conqueror: Monday November 12th, All Day Long Strong!!

Who needs an alarm clock when you have Ingram the Conqueror blowing a vuvuzuela at 8am in the morning ON A DAY OFF??? Not us, that little stinker decided that as soon as he woke up (for the second time...the first time was at 5:15am) that it was time for everyone to get up and get going. Since it was Veteran's Day, Daddy had the day off and we were off and running by 9:30am for breakfast at Blue Plate Cafe. Normally, these breakfast trips are just for Madison and Lindsey but this time Ingram was also tagging a long. I was the last one out of the bed (for the first time ever I think!!!) and Ingram wanted me to go to breakfast too. They were so sweet to wait on me to get dressed and then off we went. After breakfast, we were headed back towards the house and realized that today would be the perfect day to get the girls some new clothes since all of Lindsey's jeans were too short now and Madison needed some long sleeve shirts.

We spent the next couple hours shopping and got the kids (yes all three of them instead of just the girls, apparently Ingram needed some stuff too) outfitted for hopefully the rest of the season until it's time to wear warm weather clothes again. They were all so good that we treated them to cookies from American Cookie Company that was nearby! Madison read her book when she wasn't trying on clothes and complained when she was trying on clothes. Lindsey played with Ingram until it was her turn to try on clothes and then groaned as she tried clothes on because she's just in between all the sizes! Once she couldn't take it anymore, she hid under the racks with Ingram and they watched a show on my phone. Ingram thought it was great because he only had to try on two pair of jeans before realized that we'd wait until he gained more weight to get him clothes. I guess he's cute enough that his high waters will be okay for a little longer!

After the sugar rush from the cookies, we headed over to Barnes and Noble to look at some books, but more importantly to play with the toys. While we were there we ran in to Ingram's teacher from last year Mrs. Jennifer with her kids and two other families that they had met up with for lunch. Mrs. Jennifer is the teacher that called us when Ingram had his first headache back on March 29th. He loves Mrs. Jennifer, but was a little shy since it was already past nap time and we'd been shopping for a while now. We also ran in to Mr. Johnny Farrah who is one of G-Daddy's best friends from Jackson TN. They went to school together and he also was in our wedding way back in 1998! Since we had been told about some of the other magazines that Ingram was in for the Thanks and Giving campaign, we searched the magazine section and found a couple of them for ourselves...At Home Tennessee and Family Circle. We're still looking for a few of the other ones but I'm pretty sure once we get the completed list from St. Jude, we'll manage to get all the magazines that have Ingram inside the pages.

Speaking of Ingram, he was in no way tired and kept telling us that he wasn't tired and didn't need a nap at home. A few minutes later while we were driving to the next stop, we saw that he didn't need a nap at homebecause he was already sleeping...on Lindsey! He had fallen asleep in the car and got about a 20 minute nap before we made it home around 4pm. He was still in need of a serious nap since he was Mr. Cranky Pants but we decided to let him ride it out and put him in bed early instead. I should have known that wasn't going to work because even at 9pm, he was still talking to Lindsey in his bed. The rest of our afternoon included getting Lindsey to soccer practice and picking up the leftover t-shirts that our friends the Whelans and the Bargers were selling at the soccer fields.

While we were driving to pick up those shirts, we got another call from Brandy Blank whose kids and their friends had a lemonade/brownie/cookie sale for Team Ingram! The kids had decided to do a lemonade stand while Brandy was out running (she is training for the half-marathon on December 1st and is on Team Ingram) and had made brownies and cookies on their own. They were only outside for a few hours but made $155.67 in sales and donations; the funny thing was that it wasn't even hot! They said that hot chocolate probably would have been a better idea.

We also got the rest of money from the t-shirt sales and donations from the tables that were set up at the soccer fields and couldn't believe the totals. Sweet people from our community that were either part of the Germantown Legends/Happy Feet Soccer teams or their competitors bought t-shirts, hot chocolate and made donations over 3 different Saturdays. Our soccer community contributed a grand total of $7,796.78 towards Team Ingram and St. Jude; more importantly all of that money is going to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital to help find cures and save lives! If our communities keep raising awareness like this and supporting St. Jude in all the research and treatment they do there, there is no telling how many thousands of children will have a better chance at beating cancer and other catastrophic diseases!