Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket

Friday, July 31, 2009

Conversation with Chandler

While discussing the "coaches" on the Wii, Chandler made this remark

Casey: I know. He is so mean. He just says mean things all the time!
Me: Who says mean things?
Casey: The boxing coach!
Chan: The boxing coach, you know, on the Wii. He is all the time mean! At the end, he always says things like "I bet you didn't even break a sweat." And that's crazy, because I broke, like, ten sweats!

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Chicago Post No.1

There will more than likely be a Chicago Post No.2 over the weekend, but for now, a quick recap. We left Friday night and made it there around 8am Sat. morning. I believe this trip will be our last night drive. We drove through what definitely felt like a tornado in southern Illinois around 2:30 in the morning - rain, hail, whipping winds - definitely not fun. When we got there, my wonderful Aunt Sheila and Uncle Mike took over childcare duties while Chris and I took over the bed. Sleep is a wonderful thing. Saturday night, my cousins Mike (his wife Jenn) and Beth (her son, Ryan) came over for dinner. Sunday morning we headed off to Dad's for a cookout celebration. There were over 50 people at Dad's on Sunday and food for 800. Seriously. I think I gained 6 pounds on Sunday alone. Monday, my dad and stepmom took the girls on a shopping trip and Tuesday we went to the Children's museum, and to Space Golf. Wednesday we met up with my Gram, Aunt Pat and Uncle Russ for lunch, dinner at Dad's and then on our way home. 2 summers ago we were lucky enough to come up for 10 days...I hope we are someday able to do that again...this trip was much too short.

Every year, I take a picture of the girls at the piano. This is the first time that Q joined them.


My Dad and his sister, Dorothy.


Cousins! Joey, Lisa, me, Jessica and Tony.


2nd cousins! Chan, Jayliana and Casey.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

On the Go!

That definitely describes us these days. I realized last weekend that we are down to the very end of our summer. Essentially we had this week, next week (we leave on Friday for Chicago) and then we are in Chicago until the Thursday before we go back to work. YIKES! How did that happen??? So, according to Chris, I have scheduled us into the grave. The past week, we....

Went up to work at my school (oh, what fun!)
Went swimming with Meg, her kids, and the Wylie's at Rebecca's house
Attended a Leadership Meeting at my school
Went to the dermatologist to have my stitch taken out (the mole was nothing)
Helped Frankie organize the studio and went out to dinner (YAY!)
Went out to dinner with Anna and Donna (YAY!)
Took a nap
Did laundry
and went to Zoo Atlanta today with Dea and her crew (another YAY!)

Next week we will be...

Going to work up at school
Going to Prayer Group
Having a Book Club Meeting
Getting my hair cut and colored
Getting the girls hair cut
Attending a UMW get together
PACKING FOR OUR ROAD TRIP TO CHICAGO!

Whew...I think I might need to go to bed...the list makes me tired just thinking about it. In addition to all of that, Chris also has about 2 weeks left before he finishes his M.Ed. Hooray! Hopefully at that point we will have a normal life...doing normal things...with our normal free time. There is free time in normal life, isn't there? :)

All this talk about Chicago though makes me very excited. We will arrive on Saturday, Sunday Dad is having a cook out, Monday and Tuesday Dad has taken off work to be with us, Tuesday night Chris has a man date to Wrigley Field with some of my boy cousins, and then we are leaving Wed around dinner time. Chicago really does make me happy.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

The M Key

I have a very old iBook G4...very old..but I love mmacs and can't really afford a new one, so, I'll just have to mmake do with what I've got. Except Q is enthralled with technology. He LOVES when we have the laptops open and is dying to get his pudgy little fingers on themm. And he did. At the end of April he sneak-attacked mme fromm the side and tore off the top of the delete key before I could get the screen closed. He broke it when he ripped it fromm the keyboard and since then I have been relying on the little tiny button beneath the key as my delete. Okay, pain in the ass, but whatever, it still works, right? Well then, shortly after the mmugging of my delete key, my "mmm" key decides to go on the fritz. It types double, sommetimes triple, just about everytimme I type an "mm." And then I have to go back (with mmy ghetto delete key mmind you) and delete all of the extra mm's. This was LOADS of fun when I was finishing up my applied project in which I typed the words "mmmedia specialist" or "mmedia center" 843 times. Awesome. Words like "summmmer" and "bummmmer" and "lemmming" are also fun. So please keep this in mind everytimme I blog, send you an emmail or commment on your facebook page...I mmust really love you.

**I did not delete any of mmy extra mm's in this post, just so you could have to full experience with mme.

Where Does The Time Go?

Because I don't have any pictures to go with whatever it is that I am going to write tonight, I pulled out some shots of the girls from 4 summers ago...when they were 3 and having fun meant dancing to the oldies with mom in the living room, perfecting "the batman." Enjoy.


Casey


Casey in the blue, Chan in the pink. This is before they told me what their favorite colors were and before I could tell that pink "does not look good on Chandler."


My Channy girl

Ok, so back to this summer when they are 7...much older and wiser then they were at 3. Whew! I am starting to feel a little bit tense as the last bit of summer is closing in on us. I know, I know, I don't want to talk about that either...but its true. We spent 4th of July weekend out at Mom's, Monday the girls had a play date, Tuesday I had a dermatologist appointment (more on that in a minute), Wednesday another play date and then Thurs and Fri we were at Mom's. This next week is more craziness for us and then we are leaving for Chicago on July 24, coming back the following Thursday and starting work the next Monday. Do you see? Can you believe it? Really? I can count summer down just like that.

So, about the dermatologist visit...I have moles. Not an overwhelming amount, but a few and just wanted to make sure they were ok, which in the case of the ones that I was aware of, they all were normal healthy moles. But I seemed to have a spot of bother, if you will, (not Haddon's best book, but funny for this), on my lower back they I had never noticed...completely unaware of its existence. Well, she removed it and sent it in for a biopsy. It was "suspicious" to her. Damn "suspicious" mole. Hopefully I will hear something tomorrow. In the mean time, I have increased my alcohol intake, chewed my nails down to the quick and have sprouted 18 new gray hairs. But I am sure it will be fine.

In other news, Q is back up to his tricks again. The not sleeping through the night, being a pain in my ass, tricks. He has also decided that 5am should be the sippy cup call and 6am should be the wake up call. We were becoming very spoiled with him sleeping until almost 8am the whole month of June. Big sigh.

The girls went to acolyte training today at church. This is where they learned all of their "acolyting" skills. Seriously. You didn't know it could be a verb, did you? According to Chan it is.

I have something funny to share in another post...that will come sooner than you think!

Monday, July 6, 2009

Quinn

For Quinn's b-day my aunt sent him an Elmo Live doll. Q is a big fan of Elmo, but their first meeting didn't go as well as I had hoped. Note the evidence as shown in picture #1. Quinn attacked Elmo and then clapped. He did this repeatedly. As we are not violent people in our house, I'm not sure where he learned these manners. The second picture is of Q plotting his next attack. It came about 30 seconds after the picture was taken and it also included a headbutt and some humping. On the plus side, the girls adore this Elmo doll and think that if they talk to him, he will talk back. Seriously.
Now, this next series of pictures is really something. On my way home from taking the girls to Vacation Bible School, Chris calls on my cell phone....
Me: Hey, I was just getting ready to call you.
Chris: Yeah, I just want to let you know that Quinn is not allowed to have any naked time after a bath any more.
Me: Oh, no, what did he do?
Chris: Well, you know the red balloon?
Me: Yes.
Chris: Well, during naked time Quinn climbed on the balloon and had it pressed into his abdomen and started humping it. He was laughing and smiling and having a great time. So great of a time that I thought I should take pictures of it. It was funny. So, I'm taking pictures, we're having a good time when I realize, 'Wait a second...he's taking a dump on the floor...oh, no, he really is shitting on the floor.'
Me: *gasp* He shit on the floor? And you stood there taking pictures?
Chris: Well, I didn't know when I was taking the pictures that that was what he was doing. It was after taking the pictures...and then I realized that he had pissed all over the shit AND the balloon.
Me: Awesome.
Chris: So, no more naked time...and he's going to bed now.


Sunday, July 5, 2009

Yellow River Game Ranch

On Friday, since Chris was home and Q was at the sitter's, we decided to have a family day and took the girls to the Yellow River Game Ranch in Lilburn. The girls had a GREAT time! I must say, all in all, in was a great trip...if you leave out the moments that I had of freaking out when we were suddenly swarmed by animals. At one point, we were surrounded by about 6 deer. Um, yeah, no thanks. We continued on the trail and in front of the pens with sheep on one side and goats on the other there were about 30 bird creatures (hen, roosters and pigeons) walking with us. Again, not one of my finer moments of the trip. Chris also made friends with some squirrels and chipmunks and they proceeded to follow us for some time. Great.


Chandler and Casey after spending an hour on the trail.

I must say, I did love this little guy. He was running crazy through the woods and Chris was trying to take a picture of a peacock. He must have noticed that he would be in the way of the picture, so he flattened himself on the stump and just laid there. How cute is he???


Chan petting a deer. (like you couldn't figure that one out for yourself!)


Casey feeding the deer a cracker.

After the YRGR, we went to The Avenue at Webb Gin. I must say, this whole area has changed so much from when I grew up there. Amazing, really. We ate lunch out and did a little shopping. The girls love the store Justice so we spent quite a bit of time in there. It was like a flashback to 1984. If Cyndi Lauper would have worn it, then it was in that store. Chandler was desperate for a t-shirt that had sleeve/glove things with it that the thumb went through but the rest of the fingers were cut out. But, it was $15 and none of us were willing to part with that much money. So, we compromised and went up to Claire's to see if they had any sans the t-shirt. On the way up there, Chris laid some ground rules.

Chris: If you have a meltdown, we're leaving. Like if they don't have them, or don't have ones that you want or they cost too much money and you get upset, that's it, we're leaving. So no meltdowns. Period.
Casey: Well, what if it just looks like I'm having a meltdown?
Chris: Umm, I'm not really sure what you mean.
Casey: Well, sometimes it just looks like I'm having a meltdown when I'm really not. I have sensitive eyes, you know, and sometimes they get all watery and it just looks like I'm having a meltdown. But I'm not.
Chris: Well, if it even looks like you're having a meltdown, we're leaving.
Casey: Okay. *shrug, rolls eyes, keeps walking*

Score! They each got a pair of gloves. Although, Chan picked black lace ones that are supposed to slouch a bit and she is not ok with that, so she has had several meltdowns since because they won't stay up...even after I taped them to her arms.