2011 Round 2

Saturday morning, the kids had several hours to play with their new toys and then we loaded up and headed down to the lake just after lunch. When we got there, we all decided to take a walk together and I attempted some “candid” shots. I had just come back from my run, so I turned around and went back to the house before the others, but left my camera with mom and later when I was looking through the pictures, I LOVED that she captured Wyatt’s pouty stance/face. As I laughed and showed him the camera, I asked, “Wyatt, what happened?!”

We had a nice evening and everyone slowly trickled in. Greg drove down early Sunday morning and we all were together on Christmas morning for the first time in years! Santa came and brought Samuel’s gifts because they were going to be there for several more days, but we explained to our kids that because we were going home that day, Santa just left their stuff at our house. They handled it VERY well overall. Wyatt LOVED Samuel’s SuperMan cape and that was really the only point of contention, but they played very well together and a gold cape (that Samuel loved because he wanted Batman) was cut and sewn out of an old nightshirt of mom’s! AND Emily & Daniel were kind enough to let me take it home with us to leave out for Wyatt from Santa, too and I’m ordering a replacement for Samuel! Wyatt was VERY excited and has worn it just about more than he’s not.

We all got a lot of great, thoughtful gifts. Mammie & Grandaddy got Greg & I a new mattress! The one we’ve had for the past 10 years was actually not only Greg’s growing up, but even his parents before he was even born! So, it was loooong overdue. It was delivered on Thursday, so I didn’t get to sleep on it until we got home on Sunday, but it’s been incredible just knowing the dust mite, skin flakes, sweat and drool are just getting going again, not 30 year’s worth of accumulation! They also got Wyatt a basketball goal, which we have all had a big time playing. Dellaina is actually very good at it and says she plays in PE! They got a climbing dome for all of the kids, too, but we never managed to get it put together! Thanks to cold, darkness or rain (or laziness). Greg surprised me with beautiful Tahitian pearl necklace and earrings. It’s always fun to get those maroon boxes!! Emily, Mary & I got swatches of fabric from Doug & Morgan with promises of *something* to come. We each liked our unique fabric and can’t wait to see what Morgan plans to whip up! I love my yellow sweater from Doug & Morgan and Emily & Daniel got me a tiny music player for running AND had already loaded music onto it for me!! Garris & Mary got me beautiful scarf and gorgeous wooden frame with decorative beads – it’s very unique! Wyatt and Samuel got swords and had a blast attaching the trash bags! Dellaina got a Lallaloopsy tree house from Mema and a unique playhouse from Garris & Mary that uses magnetic poles and balls and you can rearrange them in different ways and pop in different pictures of walls and items and even has a page of ones you can color yourself. She also got a keyboard from Mammie & Grandaddy that has a neat teaching program on the computer to accompany it and she's already learned Mary Had a Little Lamb and is very excited about being able to play the piano! We also had lots of help hemming all of Dellaina’s new pants! She’s in a size 10/12, but they make them soooo long! We headed home after naps to have time to get the kids in bed and get Santa set up and have Monday at home together as a family and recover!

Christmas at the Lake VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

2011 Round 1

Greg drove down around 2:00 and we all gathered to eat dinner and then open the tremendous pile of presents!! We passed out all of the presents under the tree, making piles for each person and went around opening and playing. Highlights include lots of great clothes, Batman toys, Lallaloopsy dolls (both Dellaina & Addison got a large set and carrying case and even Wyatt got the little boy pirate so he could play, too), games: Operation and Hungry, Hungry Hippos! Greg even surprised me with some awesome yard/garden art of a metal owl and dragonfly!

Christmas at G&G’s VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Dellaina’s Bowling Birthday Party

Somehow Dellaina remembers that she had her birthday party on Dec. 18th before and it worked out that we had it on the 18th again, only this time it was a Sunday. We invited all of the girls in her class (7) and a few of the boys and then with neighbors, friends not in class and cousins, it was quite a list. With the holidays, I didn’t expect all of them to be able to attend. oops! It was kind of mad chaos. But, it was fun. Even the adults got to bowl a few frames as well. Good old Walmart cake – we went in to pick one out, I was trying to talk her into another $7 cookie cake, but she saw a purple cake with sparkly glitter on it and was bound and determined. So, we ordered one like the sample and I found some Toob Fairies to put around it. I thought it turned out quite pretty, actually! And was still only $15, so quite a deal compared to what I have paid at Publix before!! Taste-wise, I prefer Publix, but…times are tough. Art supplies, Littlest Pet Shop, jewelry, pants (some already hemmed, thanks Aunt Morgan!!), finger nail polish, voice activated password journal with MP3 and speaker attachments (she had memorized the entire description from a magazine and Granny found it at the last minute!) a Fur Real Cat, Lollaloopsy doll – the artist, of course – and a new, bigger bike were among the choice gifts this year. Now she no longer looks like the bear at the circus riding the tiny bike. She was a little nervous still at first with the bigger size, but has gotten more comfortable with it since. And the small adult sized helmet fits her head nicely!

 

Bowling Party! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Race weekend

Friday, after helping at Dellaina’s school, I checked her out and we all headed down to Atlanta Motor Speedway. We met up with Josh and walked around the trailers, bought some ear muffs for the kiddos and then headed into the track to watch the end of the truck race qualifying and the Cup drivers practice. We thought it would be good exposure for the kids to see the cars we talk about each week, but not pay or sit through a whole race. Sure enough, after about 40 minutes, they were asking to go. We had a great time and it was just the right amount. Greg & Josh stayed and watched the truck race and I loaded up the kids and headed to the lake for the long weekend.

I thought for sure Doug & Morgan were going to come down and was surprised they hadn’t and no one had heard from them. I figured they’d gone to the pediatrician and he’d discouraged them from coming (they need to be extra cautious exposing Martin to people – especially school age kids! and ones that had been kind of congested! but were very vigilant with hand washing, Lysol wipes, keeping Martin mostly in their room, changing shirts between holding him and hugging us, etc.). Sure enough on Sunday, they Skyped and basically said as much, but still seemed like they wanted to come down, so as the day progressed, I fully expected them to show up and was surprised when they didn’t. Mom called at dinner time to ask and Doug said they definitely weren’t coming that night, but would probably wake up and have the same battle the next day. Not 15 minutes later, they were pulling into the driveway. It was a great surprise at that point! We had a great weekend visiting – from afar – and just seeing them all interact and be an adorable little family. Dellaina & Wyatt seemed very enamored meeting their new cousin, too. Wyatt even sat down and read him a story at one point, too. precious!

The porch at the lake had recently been painted and I LOVE it. So sophisticated. And I <3 a blue porch ceiling!

Labor Day weekend VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

New and Randoms

I’ve switched my toolbar from the right side of the screen to the left side because I got tired of it popping out (I like to hide it so it goes away rather than locking it and taking up valuable viewing space) when I’d try to scroll down a page. It took some time to adjust, but not too bad and I’m not sure if it’s better or not. I just don’t like it on the bottom as much for some reason. #oddities

Thanks to the magic of Facebook (I posted a picture and posed the question and got an answer! much easier than trying to Google “blue plant that closes during day”), I’ve figured out the blue plants we have growing in the front yard. Apparently it’s called Spiderwort! Which, is pretty fitting, because the leaves kind of hang like spider legs (although, apparently the name comes from some other sticky substance inside the leaves that is similar to spider silk – also it’s called “cow slobber” sometimes, too!) it’s spread to 2 other new random places, but we kind of like it. I think it’s thriving this year because it likes sunlight and it’s not in the shadow of the tall Oak! Apparently, it’s not opening at night and closing during the day like we thought – the blooms just last for a single day! Each stalk/stem just produces ~20 or so, so it looks like it’s staying in bloom over a period of time.

Also prospering and starting to bloom:

our new rose bush Greg had planted where the tall Oak used to be out the front door.

 

yellow ??  

First of the Day Lillies we planted from bulbs!   I wondered if we’d planted something different, because some grew so tall and some stayed so stumpy!?

  look! do you see it?! It might actually be blue this year! Definitely a purpley-blue coming out since I took this picture even. And 2 in the backyard are coming out blue, as well! yay!

Wyatt’s head was a magnet, now his face seems to be. He had some scratches from Gizmo from getting him wound up and chasing over the weekend and then today, apparently he collided with a friend outside on the playground and came home looking like a boxer with the red cheek and eyebrow bone. He also peed himself during all of the commotion and crying, but didn’t tell anyone and no one noticed so when Greg came to pick him up, he was wet. lovely. And he’s wet the bed TWICE this week as well!! Regression is SO not cool.

I found a cool shirt at Kohl’s that you can color and then wash and color again! She worked on it all last week, with intentions to wear it on Friday (you can see it in the video) and then we washed it over the weekend and it did mostly come out and she’s started a little bit again!

I got my nursing uniform in! Not the best picture, but starting to feel official!

Dellaina got her dance costume for her recital at the end of the month, but it was too small! The straps were tight and made her hunch over, so they took it to an alterations lady and had a crotch piece sewn in! She just got it back and didn’t want to try it on, but I forced her and then forced her to pose for pictures, too. It definitely fits better. I think it’s just made weird with a high waist and that’s what it’s supposed to look like.

 

Thanks to a VERY generous Mother’s Day gift from my mom (backwards, right?!) and dad, we got a new set of chairs for the patio! We’ve been looking for a long time and just wanted 2 chairs and a small table. I wanted them to rock and swivel. voila! Wyatt helped me put them together on Friday, but the base of one had started to unravel and while I could have just glued it, it was new and I wanted to swap it out. After picking up Dellaina, we went by Wal-mart and it took an hour of my life I will never get back, but finally, I got a replacement base (off the display they had way up high on a shelf, but the other display chair was ALSO unraveling! hmm.) and when I came home to finish, the front part of the seat was unraveling, too, I hadn’t noticed, but it would not be as simple of an exchange (and the other one hadn’t been simple like it should have been) so some hot glue is in it’s future and it will be perfect! Looks great! Especially as we get more and more of the deck stained! (Greg did the floor of the catwalk today! since it never rained like it was supposed to – and we postponed the neighborhood yard sale because of the forecast!)

  

Mother’s Day weekend

Here are a couple of shots with my new camera from gymnastics last week. Wyatt is in the red 95 (Lightning McQueen) shirt. I think all of the blur really captures their class of restless, energetic boys!!

After having our house and deck pressure washed a few weeks ago, we’ve been gearing up to stain the deck. I persuaded Greg that we should go with a red stain, so he went to the store last weekend while we went to a birthday party and was going to buy 2 5-gallon buckets of the stain, but the lady convinced him he should start out with a 1-gallon bucket and make sure. Thank goodness! Because I came home and was like, “um…I don’t like it!” oops. I didn’t take a picture of it, but it was called “Barn Red” and indeed it was. We were worried about it fading to a pink, too! So, then, we went on the website and ordered samples of stain to try to figure out what we did really like.

 

 

We ruled out the black/gray quickly and I liked either end, worried that the middle-left was too purple-tinted. Greg was worried the far right would be too orange and he went and ordered the stain, thinking he was getting the far left end, but got the names mixed up and we ended up with the middle-left, but it was a happy accident, because I love it! It’s a deep brown and doesn’t look purple at all. You can see the difference compared to the floor and parts that haven’t been stained yet. It’s a BIG job, but we got a good start, thanks to Dad!  

It was a very slow job painting all of the pickets and there was a lot of prep work, too, tapping down nails and sanding the rails first. Mom and Dad came up on Thursday night, intending to help us with the staining over the weekend. They had an air mattress and broke in the new playroom as the guest room! Friday morning, Mammie got to come with me to Pastries for Parents at the school (Greg’s pretty busy first thing in the morning and wasn’t able to get away, so it worked out well). We let Wyatt sleep in and were actually on time! He woke up just before we were leaving and got to stay with Grandaddy. The kids didn’t know they were there as they had arrived after bedtime, so it was a fun surprise! Dellaina was saying “Humpty Dumpty” and was supposed to drop an egg into a pan, but Mrs. Keren forgot the egg. She didn’t flinch when there was no egg and did really well, speaking out loud, so I was proud of her.

  

Emma as Little Miss Muffet

After breakfast, we came home and got dad, Wyatt and Gizmo and headed over to the nursery to walk around and get a Rhododendron for Mother’s Day for mom. When I was showing her a picture of Wyatt in front of our blooming Rhododendron a few weeks ago she exclaimed, “that’s the bush from the golf course that I loved! I broke off a piece to bring it home and ask Mema what it was.” They also got a different colored Rhododendron and a beautiful orange Calla-lilly because Mema likes orange. It was fun.

Wyatt and I took a nap, while Mammie ran to the store and to pick up Dellaina from school. They played outside for a long time, I ran and threw a lasagna in the oven. Then, I got to go out for Mexican with my gym friends.

Saturday morning, after breakfast, mom loaded up the kids and Gizmo and headed down to Emily & Daniel’s for them to play with Samuel. Emily & Daniel were headed to Athens for her 10 year high school reunion! I had to go to a CPR course and after being on my knees and practicing compressions for 3 hours, I was sooooo sore! I went to E&D’s after the class, just as the kids were waking up from naps. Mammie took them back to the playground again to play and then started a movie while I laid down for an hour. I ran in their neighborhood and then we headed home for dinner. After feeding Samuel, Mammie & Grandaddy headed to Athens to stay with Garris & Mary. They all had breakfast at Doug & Morgan’s the next morning, too.

We had a lovely day at home, mostly outside in the yard. Just together with no schedules or obligations or plans. The kids brought me a card in bed and I used my camera to document parts of the day. cleaning out the debris from the drain! it’s amazing how much gets in there!

 

Wyatt’s sweet picture of…his sister. 

and Greg was kind enough to snap one so that my head could be in it. Dellaina had to have a turn, too and I thought it was funny she was following him and snapped it right as he got behind the trashcan.

we finally planted the sunflowers, too. more yard/plant photos to come.