Surf and Turf

I would first like to apologize for the photo of the dead squirrels.  I feel like maybe I should have warned you better or given you a chance to scroll down aways before it just jumped out there in all its dead rodent glory.  I hope you weren’t too terribly offended or scarred.

Brandon went back to work today and I didn’t set foot out in the yard.  It isn’t completely finished.  I spent a good chunk of the day with my finger clippers (by that, I mean the ones that snap twigs so easily that they seem like you could easily chop off a finger) being the human wood chipper.  And by that, I do not mean a chipper of humans. It was all so much fun cutting the branches, but standing there for hours trying to cut them up into smaller pieces to fit into trash bags made me second guess by chopping enthusiasm. After a few hours of that silliness, I went to join Brandon with the mulch.  He instructed me that the easiest way to spread the mulch through the beds was with a rake turned upside down.  That was a decent enough idea, but let me tell you, the easiest way to spread mulch is to get down on your hands and knees and just use yourself as a rake.  I feel like I have now gotten very up close and personal with my yard and especially my flower beds in the last 48 hours.  There was one point last evening where I was sitting up against the house, behind a few bushes waiting for Brandon to return with another load of mulch.  The thought passed through my mind that I should spend more time sitting amongst my azaleas, alone enjoying the moonlight.  No, those weren’t the thoughts I was having.  Mine were more along the line of, “You are a 33-year-old, grown woman! What in the world are you doing at 8 o’clock at night hunkered down like a Peeping Tom in the foliage surrounding your house? You aren’t playing hide and go seek in the dark! And if you were, I would wonder even more about you.” I don’t think I have ever or will ever again sit in the dark, behind my bushes, in a large pile of fresh mulch. Probably one of those once in a lifetime, or at least once every decade kind things.

Some of the ivy still needs taken care of and we are hoping to have my limb piles hauled away by this weekend, but other than that it looks pretty good.  Still nothing has been planted or anything like that, but at least it looks like someone lives here now.

Today, I bonded with the children that I had neglected over the last few days.  I made them all 3 meals and none of them were served on tv trays while watching another marathon of My Little Pony.  It’s possible that we may have let the tv do some babysitting while we were tackling the yard work. We did watch some tv, but it was Netflix episodes of Mr Rogers Neighborhood.  In my world, Mr Rogers and My Little Pony aren’t even in the same category of tv watching.  We learned about how fortune cookies were made and Mr. Rogers took us to meet the author and illustrator Eric Carle.  We learned how he does the art work for his books, which is awesome and we plan to do tomorrow.  Clearly, Mr. Rogers is nothing like watching My Little Pony.  They also made egg carton tulips.  I thought this would be a fabulous art project, but they whizzed through it in about 15 minutes.

Mattie had wanted to go to the beach for the holiday, but I think they were just as happy hanging out in the sand box (there are no pictures of this because I spent the time that they were busy trying to clean up my house after the last few days of tracking in mulch and dirt and who knows what other things) and then doing a little swimming in the tub this evening.  Mattie wanted to make sure that everyone who sees these pictures knows that they are wearing their bathing suits because she would NEVER take a bath with her brother.  So for the record, they are wearing the appropriate swimming attire.

Because everyone knows that little brothers need big sisters help even to smile

Attack!

Goofy boy

And since there really isn’t a whole lot else to share about this evening, I thought it would be a perfect day to do “Seven Years Ago Today”.  This was actually taken on the 25th of March, but close enough.  This is Mattie getting Grandma’s old school rollers put in by Mumsey.  She was very proud of the whole thing.

Funny, at the same age, her sister still doesn’t have enough hair to put a clip in much less a whole head of rollers.

The Yard and Pancakes

Here on the morning of Day 3 of Baughman Family Yard Extravaganza, I have to say that my enthusiasm to go out there and tackle those bushes isn’t what it was on Sunday. On my mind is more than willing to take on the task, but my body…..its TIRED! And because I am becoming an old person, I’m sore.

Things have been going really well, though and we have discovered that I am quite the little arbourist.  It started off with trimming just two little bushes by our driveway that had some very obvious dead branches and using the little tiny clippers.  Tiny, yet sharp and strong enough to probably take off my finger.  And by yesterday I had moved up to those huge puppies and have pruned everything that has limbs and is growing in our yard.  I don’t think Brandon intended for me to make a fortress of limbs around the playhouse, but it happened and the bushes in the “forest” out back look tons better.

There has been a casualty in this, though actually, it appears to have happened before our work began.  It was just discovered during our great yard cleanup.

Can you guess what it is?

 

It’s two squirrels that appear to have drowned in an old trashcan that has filled up with water.  I have never really given much thought to squirrels and swimming, but by the looks of things, they don’t do a very good job.  And you would think that when the 2nd one saw his friend either struggling or floating around in there he would have done all he could to avoid the barrel of death.  One in there I can understand, but 2? I thought squirrels were smarter than that. Now we aren’t quite sure how to get rid of them.  Can you just throw animal carcasses away in the weekly trash? Do we need someone official to come remove them?  And what about the water that they have been floating in for who knows how long?  It’s all so gross!

Another sad discovery that we have made during this great work extravaganza is that our children don’t seem to have a clue how to do physical labor.  On day 1, they actually stood outside and cried, wept really.  Oh everything way fun and wonderful when Reese was with dad at Lowe’s, but once they got home and we had him all bundled up and told him to pick up all the sticks and twigs that bush parts that I was trimming….he lost it.  And that Mattie, she would just stand in the bushes and stare at us.  Holding one stick in her hands to give the appearance of possibly being in the process of helping, but we all knew that was the same stick in her hands for a good hour and a half.  She didn’t so much weep and roll around on the ground, like her body was rejecting the outside and the thought of cleaning anything up like her brother did……no, she was our little dramatic grumbler.  And there may have been a point where she had to doing her standing with her stick in her hand and a little travel size cake of soap in her mouth.  In their defense, they really haven’t had the opportunity to do things like yard work before.  Oh sure, Reese loves to help Poppy out and their house but there are tractors involved and big riding lawn mowers and water hoses and lets face it, there’s Poppy.  Mainly, we were just asking them to pick up and break sticks and that in no way competes with garden tillers and tractors.

But as I was saying, this whole yard work thing is fairly new to them, they haven’t built up the stamina for it yet.  Mattie was only 3 when we moved from our house with a yard in Tulsa and we weren’t exactly using her for child labor back then.  And up until this past summer, the house we lived in had a yard about the size of our bathroom.  I also think its possible that their bad attitude towards helping in the yard could possibly be my payback for my own less than positive attitude towards yard work when I was a youngster.  I don’t think I ever stood there and wept or rolled around on the ground wailing that my feet wouldn’t work anymore, and I know I never had to eat soap for my hateful words….but its possible that I used to hide when told that I had to come out and help with something and I’m pretty sure that Mumsey used to come up with fun things for us to do only to use them as bargaining chips. You can’t ground someone if there isn’t something going on that they want to do.

One last defense of my lazy children, it was only 40 degrees outside during these past few days.  Being cold could have had something to do with their lack of enthusiasm.  I don’t imagine that they would be more excited if it was 80 outside, but I think being frigidly cold didn’t help things.

I will include some before and after pictures tomorrow or later today after we have finished up more.

And before I go here, I want to share the last few pictures from our last day in Gatlinburg with Mark and Steph.

We had planned to go to the famous Pancake Pantry down in the heart of Gatlinburg, but as famous as it is for their yummy breakfast choices, it’s equally as famous for its long line.  I am more than willing to stand in line for an hour and wait for the best blueberry pancakes ever, but we didn’t much think that our little offspring would handle that very well.  And then eating while knowing that there was a whole line of folks breathing down our necks, waiting for us to finish….well, we just didn’t need that kind of pressure.  Maybe when the kids are older.  I can imagine sitting the 5 of them down, “Now that you are of age…we can finally go to…….The Pancake Pantry!”

Instead, we went somewhere closer to our cabin called FlapJack Slim’s or something like that.  The food wasn’t fabulous, but the kids were messy and somewhat loud and we felt much better about ourselves when we left that we hadn’t waited forever and no one was waiting on us.  We took a few last little pictures, mostly because in our rush to get out of our cabin in time for check-out, we hadn’t had time to take any.  And since FlapJack’s outside looked very similar to our own cabin, we decided it would work just fine.

Corralling the children into the little wagon

Wagon full of Murrman kids

The best we could do

The Murrills

The Baughmans

The Kiki

The Reesie

These two adore one another

The Mattie

Caught in the act, giving a flower to his Rose

Sunday Funday

It’s Sunday here at Baughman’s Palace, which means Baughman Family Yard Work Extravaganza.  We moved to this house in late summer, and by the looks of the front yard, the previous owners just sort of let things go once they knew they weren’t going to be living here much longer.  And once they knew it was sold, well, lets just say the front yard wouldn’t be a contender for yard of the month.   Anyway, a fire has been lit inside of Brandon to claim that prestigious award.  The family, minus Lila and myself, are currently at Lowe’s picking up supplies.

I should go out and take some before and after pictures so that you can see just what we are working with here.

So after spending all this fun time with the Murrill’s, and getting caught up on all the little things going on in our lives, I was inspired by Steph’s working with Rosie on her letters.  Reese and I began a little bit of “school” at the first of the school year, but Lila’s schedule kind of messed us up.  But I decided that I could use some of the things that Reese is already interested in and does every day, and throw a little education into it.  Now that NASCAR season has started back up, I thought maybe we would use that.  I’m sure that when a lot of people think NASCAR, they don’t immediately think educational tool.  But wowzers! it’s worked wonderfully to teach my little guy his numbers and we thought we would give it a try with his ABCs.

We started with the letter A.  A is for automobile, and Auto Club Speedway, where this week’s race is being held. He seemed to really like it and I think we can have a lot of fun with this.

Now, on to more of our adventures in Gatlinburg…..

Sunday morning we woke up, once again to our children insisting to be fed.  I think I probably said this last time, but wow these littles can put away some breakfast! We had a delicious morning of biscuits, gravy, eggs and dancing.  And I am sad to report that though the littlest ones seem totally fine with their parents dancing rituals and singing, Mattie has officially become too cool and even though no one was around but us, she was absolutely mortified of her family.  We are no longer as cool to Mattie as we once were, and that makes us a little sad.  But at the same time, to that we say get over it Mattie.  I’m not sure how it happens, but there is always a sing along, usually accompanied by dancing when the Murrman get together.

She’s gonna kill me, but this is one of our dance sessions , I’m so sorry Steph but it was this or a movie

We then headed to the Aquarium of the Smokies for a fun-filled adventure, and adventure that started off with un-napped little people.  We knew it was going to be fabulous going into this with such preparation. For the most part, things did go pretty well.

Scaring their daughters with the fake dinosaur proved great entertainment for the dads

Captain Bran Nemo

The vicious Rosie Shark

Reese and lobster claws

I’m not sure what dinosaurs have to do with aquariums, but anyway…..

Rosie and Lila

Watching the rays

Reaching for rays

Being one with the fish

The girlies riding the vibrating fish, yes it vibrated

Kiki was over the aquarium about now

The kiddos had a fun time, Steph and I once again wore coordinating outfits – only this time it was the same sweater, but in different colors because we are cool like that,  And the only real meltdowns came in the gift shop, but that was on the way out and I think we were all shocked that we made it that long.

I don’t know if you can tell that our sweaters are the same, but we knew.

We had planned to go home and make our own dinner of spaghetti, but it was pretty obvious that we might be lucky if we made it across the street to the brightly painted Mexican place before things got really ugly.  Other than Reese losing it because his shirt got wet while trying to pet the stingrays and he didn’t like the way it felt, (he fixed his own problem by stuffing his shirt with napkins) and then having issues with his spicy cheese – our little group of children who outnumbered their handlers did really well.

Stuffing his shirt with napkins….whatever works Reese

On our march back to the car, we 2 important stops to make – Kilwin’s for ice cream and the Hollywood Star Cars Museum.  One of these days our kids are going to figure out that you can buy tickets and actually go into these places, rather than just peak over the fence.  Reese was thrilled to see the Batmobile, even if he did have to stand behind a little barrier.  I don’t know that the girls were as impressed, but they handled it well.

Retro Batmobile

The Batmobile is behind me!

Another fun day with memories made.

Target Take 3 and Gatlinburg Sabbath

Good morning!  I fully intended to blog about our trip yesterday, but instead I was busy going to Target multiple times.  It’s not uncommon at all for a day to include more than one trip to my favorite store.  Quite often, I go with a list and that list either gets lost and I realize I forgot half of the things I needed, or I get the items on my list and then get home and realize that I saw several more things that now I need and I just must go back.  On these multiple trip days, I do try to at least go back to a different location.  I wouldn’t want the workers to think that I have some sort of a problem.  Yesterday though, I blew that theory.

On trip number 1, I went with my list and even kept up with my list.  I got all the items and then some, no need for a return trip.  Job well done.  Until I happened to look at my receipt and saw that my friendly cashier girl (who by the way, was extremely aggressive with her sales pitch regarding my opening a TARget credit card.  To the point that she even told me that if I opened one any other day, that she wouldn’t get the credit for it and then made me feel very guilty that she appeared to have been born with special needs and her life would never be the same as mine.  I don’t need that kind of pressure while purchasing juice boxes!) had charged me for 3 pairs of playground pants (those little shorts are wonderful if you have a little girl who loves wearing dresses and has no clue what modesty is and that hanging on the monkey bars with your dress around your ears isn’t really lady-like) instead of just two.  If it had been two toothbrushes or something small like that, I probably would have just let it go.  But she charged me an extra $8.45 and that just seemed a little steep.

So after Mattie’s Adventurer meeting, she and I made a little stop again at our neighborhood TArget to see about a refund.  We also realized that our last hair elastic had broken during a very aggressive hair fixing session and unless we wanted to use a scruncii from 1990 or some of those hair things with the little balls on the end that I just never really figured out, we should probably grab some more.  And we  were out of cereal.  So we picked up a few more things and were then on our way.

Upon arriving home, and putting our purchases away, I realized that a few of the things I knew we had bought, hadn’t made the trip home with us.  Unlike cashier number 1 who seemed very focused on me, this 2nd one seemed completely unaware of anything except her upcoming break.  Fact is, I think she was out of her little stall before I finished signing my name for my credit card.  It was highly possible that in her urgency to make her exodus, she had neglected one of our sacks.  So back to TArget I would have to go…..trip number 3.  This was ridiculous!

I have vowed to not set foot in that particular store for at least 2 weeks….and to be more careful in my cashier selections when I do.

So on to a recap of what we did on Sabbath while in Gatlinburg……

There is very little as wonderful as waking up to the sound of kiddos laughing and your dear friends’ voices.  It’s like grown-up christmas morning and the friends are your presents.  Knowing that we had a beautiful day without any sort of agenda and all the time in the world to enjoy it was just lovely.  After a relaxed morning and early afternoon, we decided it was time to venture out.  We had a great cabin up in the mountains, but steep slopes don’t make for very good playgrounds for antsy little people.  The boys did some research and found a few parks that looked good and we headed off.

The first park was beautiful, but wasn’t exactly the play area we had expected.  It did have a track though and what preschooler doesn’t love a good track? We did what any other parents would do and immediately set our kids up for some races.  Nothing says fun family vacation quite like a spontaneous field day, right?  I am pretty sure that if this had happened to me as a child I would have flopped down on the ground and thrown a little tantrum.  Our kids received the whole thing a bit better, maybe because they were just completely confused as to what in the world was going on.  Or maybe because Uncle Mark climbed over a fence and anything that involves parents scaling fences looks more appealing than it did a few seconds before.

Turns out that Mattie is quite the little sprinter.  She runs out of gas pretty quickly, but that girl’s fast!

And Reese, shockingly, is a distance runner.  He started out, wearing his Batman shirt with cape flapping behind him, at a leisurely little clip and just kept running.  He was like a little Forest Gump, not very fast, but those little legs pumped all the way around the track.

We’re number 1

And Kiki worked on her climbing skills.  Forget running, she was more into the fence climbing.

After their little workout, we did some creek playing.

Rosie getting some help

Sweet Girlie

Precious little Kiki feet

Batman and his sis

Fishing?

Me and the Bat

And the boys did some toddler tossing.  When you forget your football or frisbie…..just use your child.

Kiki seemed to love it and what’s a little danger if the kid is laughing?

Toss to Uncle B

Safe!

And back to dad

I would like to also point out that Steph and I realized very early into our day that our outfits were coordinating.  You might not be able to tell it from the pictures, but her navy and white striped top had these little corally colored accents around the collar.  They matched my coral cardigan perfectly and when wearing perfectly coordinating outfits, there’s only one thing to do…..

Take pretend catalogue photos, of course!

There was an attempt to go to a 2nd park, but it didn’t go very well.  It’s route involved a drive through the main strip through Gatlinburg that half the state of Tennessee seemed to be trying to drive down as well and about halfway through we just gave up and decided to go on home.

Uncle Mark asking for a kiss

Letting him take one

A last little highlight of our day that I just have to share is Steph and I’s trip to the outlets.  We had both received a coupon in our email for Gap outlet informing us our 40% for the next 48 hours and we were itching to use it.  ITs not every day that you get a coupon that you can actually use.  So after getting the littlest ones in bed and the bigger ones settled with pajamas, showers and a movie – we felt it was time for us to go out for a little shopping. We arrived to Gap, which had its doors standing wide open, with big plans.  There is something absolutely lovely about a coupon in your hand and shopping with no babies.  We were having a grand time, finding deals and enjoying the company, when one of us made the comment that it felt like we were the only ones in the store.  About that time, an employee walked by and we inquired about what time they would be closing.  Turns out they had closed about half an hour ago.  We pulled up about 5 minutes before they closed and had just been mosing around like we owned the place.  I don’t know if no one had really noticed us or what, but we felt absolutely ridiculous.  We blamed it all on the open door.  And for that fact I would like to say that at half an hour later, the door was still standing wide open so anyone could make the same mistake. We made our purchases and rushed out as quickly as we could, of course laughing the whole way home at our little mistake.

And when we got home, we had a fabulous dessert waiting for us.  Every good day should end with something warm and sweet from the oven. And a good belly laugh with your buddy

 

This Was Supposed To Be Posted On Friday….Sorry

I have taken this little blog on the road again.  Unlike last weekend, I am neither flying solo nor the pilot.  Also unlike last weekend, a crash doesn’t appear to be in our near future.  Its funny what adding one other parent to the mix can do.  Anyway, we are headed to Gatlinburg to hang out with our peeps the Murrills – we’re gonna have a Murrman weekend.  I probably shouldn’t put out on the internet that we are leaving and going out of town, you know, for the whole house might get burglarized thing.  But I don’t think my mom, or my mother-in-law is going to come and rob us.  And the Murrills are going with us, so that pretty much takes up most of my readership…I think we will be fine.

Anyway, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t let too much time go by without sharing all my awesome stories from this week.  I say awesome very loosely….very, very.

So the other day I finally got myself motivated to look through the piles that have accumulated on my desk and decided that before I do anything else, I had to get the sweet finger print tree from Lila’s birthday framed.  This would involve a trip to Michael’s and I have been avoiding that place like the plague after my almost twice-daily visits during the holiday/ birthday seasons.  I decided it was time though, not only for the frame, but also because I feel that I am seriously lacking in the Easter décor department.  I’ve never really put that much thought into setting a springtime mood in my house, maybe because our previous home was reminiscent of a cave and its hard to bring spring into a cave.  But after driving around and seeing that the rest of the neighborhood had some pretty schnazzy wreath action going on, I figured I better step up.  It is becoming very apparent that my neighbors consider an unwreathed house to be a naked house.  Mixing my bare house front with our anemic yard…a hunt for wreaths was also going to have to start.

So I went to Michaels and found a frame, brought it home and discovered it wasn’t the right size.  Well, the return trip to Michael’s would have to wait.  I wasn’t going to start this two a day thing back up again.  So the frame in a sack went back in the car and put on the next day’s to-do list.

The next day, after picking Crosby up from the dog groomers, I was quickly informed that a trip to return that picture frame wasn’t going to be necessary.  My big ol’ dog had placed himself right on top of the frame and broke the glass.  I guess the broken glass poking his doggie booty startled him so he stood up and proceeded to walk around all over the frame breaking it into several pieces.  He is nothing if not thorough.

About the time all this was happening, we were driving past Goodwill.  Goodwill would help me.  If nothing else, maybe I could find another, cheap 8×10 frame and use the glass out of it to return the now broken frame.

I didn’t find another 8×10 frame, but I did find this:

Congratulations Blake and Emily

Yes, it appears to be some strangers wedding picture, (side note, there was another frame just like it only the glass was shattered and the matte was all ripped up.  I think it’s pretty safe to say that this marriage didn’t last and that’s why this happy photo and frame found themselves at Goodwill).  But it will work perfectly and it was only $6.99, so I am now kind of thankful to Crosby and his dog bottom for breaking the other one.

In case you are wondering, I have since found some wreaths for the front door.

And I also found these fun little eggs that spell out “Happy Easter”, but I am at a loss as to where to put them.  In the store, they were hanging from a cool, rusticy tree branch and this just seemed like a great idea for my own home.   However, it seemed to have slipped my mind that I don’t have a cool, rustic tree branch in my house and I might have to come up with a plan B.

 

I plan to search the yard for the perfect, dead tree limb when we return from our trip.  Actually, now that I think about it, Gatlinburg is probably a treasure trove of dead, perfect egg hanging branch.  That could be fun in the car on the way home.

This was really long and drawn out way to describe my Easter décor and I am very sorry if you have read all of this and now feel like you have completely wasted a portion of your life that you will never get back.

Really quick before I go, we found a little something the other day and even though we hardly need this in our home, Reese and I felt like it would be wrong not to purchase it.  We have also been feeling like it’s time for Lila to start developing her love for NASCAR.

It was also fun to refer to our car as a Lowe’s Transporter.

And lastly, we have some new developmental milestones going on with kid #3.  She has chosen her “lovey”, a striped, cozy Carter’s blanket that we have affectionately named “Carter”.  Each of my children of latched on to a special little something early on.  For Mattie, it was Brandon’s Big Boy bank when she was about 18 months.

Those two were pretty tight for a while and she took him everywhere.  Her penguin later replaced him.  Happy Feet, the penguin was a regular fixture in our lives for quite some time and even now, keeps up residence within easy reach in her room.  Though he no longer goes as many places with her and he isn’t always her go to comfort, he is still placed very high on the list of valuables in her life.

Reese quickly became a blanket boy.  Whenever he was fussy, a blanket over the face seemed to work magic.  I know that probably sounds terrible.  I should stop here and say that we did not wrap the blanket around his face in a sort of suffocating way, which would be wrong.  But having a crocheted or knitted blanket over his head (with plenty of holes for air to pass freely) knocked him right out.

At about age 2, that blanket became a specific creation made by Nene.  She made him several blankets, many of them longer and nicer than this one.  But for some reason, this striped little “travel size” guy became numero uno.  He was named “Soft” and the two were inseparable.  Soft has been to Disney Land, the Grand Canyon, left in a hotel room and remade a few times.

Reese, Uncle Kris and Soft…at DisneyLand California

It was no surprise to me that Lila too latched onto a blanket, but this is the earliest that any of my kids have “imprinted” on their chosen lovey.  And since they don’t seem to let them go any time soon, I suppose I should start hunting for more copies of “Carter” so that should it live as wild of a life as “Soft” has, we will have back-ups.

Loving some Carter

Kid number 3 has also learned to stand independently.  She seems oblivious to the thought of walking, but at least we know her legs do work.

You can barely see them, but those little legs are standing by themselves

 

Have a great day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Field Trips

I thought I had a firm handle on this whole time change business.  GRanted, Monday morning had us still on vacation mode being as we were at Mumsey and Poppy’s and didn’t have to be anywhere at any particular time, but still.

This morning was like being woke up by a screen door hitting you in the face.  It felt like a mean, cruel joke and every single fiber of my body thought it was a terrible idea.  What made getting up even more difficult was the fact that today was a field trip for Mattie’s class and I would be chaperoning, while taking my two other children.  I’m gonna take a minute to be honest here and tell you all that on these field trips, I really don’t know how much of a responsible adult I really am.  There were multiple times today alone that I wasn’t 100% certain of the location of my charges.  I always found them within seconds of realizing that I had lost tabs on them, but still.  I also feel like a poor chaperone because by the time the teacher has me keeping up with my own 3 kids, I usually only have one other none related child.  Kinda makes me feel like maybe if I didn’t go, some other mom who doesn’t bring her entire flock might come instead and be a super-duper responsible grown-up who always keeps up with her kids.  But that lady has yet to show up and want to take my place, so I guess in the meantime I will have to do.

Anyway, back to my point….waking up is hard enough as it is, but knowing that you have a museum full of wild children awaiting you in just an hour doesn’t really put much pep in my step.

WE survived though and actually had a pretty lovely time.  Like I said, we usually only get one other kiddo with us in our group and this year it has been a little kindergartener named Zoey.  I’m not sure why Miss Zoey is always placed with us, Mattie is a 2nd grader and they really don’t hang out much, but nevertheless, Zoey is our field trip buddy and we like her.  Reese has got to where he just expects that he will be with his trip partner Zoey.  She knows the ways of our car now and even that I keep goldfish in the front seat.  I was Miss Zoey’s substitute teacher for 6 weeks last year and even then, she only called me Ms. Mattie’s Mom.  It has become rather endearing to me and I hope she never calls me by my actual name.

Miss Zoey had on a camouflaged jacket today.  Reese pointed out immediately that she was wearing a “Duck Dynasty-Style” coat.  We may live in the south and love us some NASCAR, but my son is not familiar with camouflage.  Zoey then informed us that it was camel flogged and made her invisible.  I immediately checked my rear view mirror and saw that both of my children were sitting there with the most puzzled expressions on their faces.  You just know that they were trying to figure out what the green, foliage covered coat had to do with camels and how did it get its magical powers.  We arrived at the museum before many questions came from that, but I am expecting them to pop up the next time we watch Duck Dynasty.

So with my tiring day of waking up an hour early and keeping up with many small children, I am ready to go to bed now.  I am pretty positive that there will be stories to tell tomorrow.  In the mean time, enjoy a little treat from seven years ago today.

Mattie No-Pants, eating a lemon while vacationing in Branson, Mo….also wearing a disposable bib as a cape

Trucks

I’ve missed you all, Blog Friends.  I’ve had every intention of blogging since Thursday, but my hubby took me out on a surprise date.  We had a lovely evening of trying a new restaurant and strolling through Target like we used to do back when we were childless and had nothing else to do.  We used to go up and down each and every aisle, checking every little thing out, feeling the different pillows and testing out the new deck furniture.  As you all know, my trips to the store are no longer leisure outings and I can barely look at the things I am there to purchase (which often leads to me getting home with the wrong thing), so in its own little way, this evening sashay through good ol’ Target with my honey was better than anything.  Have you ever seen the movie Date Night, where Tina Fey’s character is saying to Steve Carrell’s character (her husband) that sometimes she just needs a little space and alone time?  That her dream escape would be to rent a hotel afternoon all to herself for an afternoon and just sit and drink a Diet Sprite.  This evening was my hotel room with a Diet Sprite.

And then Friday, the kids and I were off to Mumsey and Poppy’s in Arkansas.  Let me just say, that journey was less than a joy.  There was one particular portion of our trip that could have been an episode of “SuperNanny” if she did a roadtrip version.  Oh it was BAD!

But Sabbath was a new day.

They don’t look the least bit ornery do they?

We were thrilled that Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Tom and Aunt Heidi would be joining us at church and coming over for lunch.  And of course, My cousin John and his sweet wife Kumiko and their little cutie came, too.

We celebrated John’s birthday

Happy Birthday John!

Aunt Heidi taught Mattie some new card tricks

Should I take up gambling, I am so bringing her with me

The littlest cousins played together

Mattie gave Uncle Tom a good dose of cuddles

Reese taught Heidi all about Legos

And Grandpa shared with MoMo the treasures that he keeps in his pocket.

Flashlights are fascinating!

 

Our time in Arkansas was pretty relaxed and uneventful………….until our voyage home.

So we were driving along, doing our thing, barely two hours into the journey when we came upon this:

I know you are probably saying to yourself right now, “Wow Kaylee, a semi-truck.  Is this your first time driving anywhere other than in your neighborhood?” But this is so much more than just your typical semi-truck.  This just happens to be the transporter truck for Dale Earnhardt Jr,’s number 88 Chevy (there are actually 2 race cars in there) on its way back to Charlotte from yesterday’s race in Las Vegas.  That’s not something you see every day, and for people who are fond of the NASCAR, this was a pretty exciting deal.

For years now, driving along I have always wondered about the people I was passing.  They all just seem like regular old cars, yet you have no idea who’s inside of those cars.  I have wondered so many time, especially driving between Memphis and Nashville, if I was ever passing anyone famous.  That big tour bus that just drove by, was that a famous country singer on tour….or just an elderly couple livin’ it up during their golden years.  That big semi may not have had a famous person inside of it, but it had a very famous automobile riding along.  And that was close enough for us.

It wasn’t very long before we spotted this guy:

This is Carl Edward’s transporter, he drives for Subway and Fastenal obviously and won last week

Again, this may not seem like a very big deal to those of you who don’t attend the church of NASCAR every Sunday, but for those of us who do….well, this was incredible!  Plus, to see one transporter…that’s just kinda neat, but to see two who drive for different racing teams not 10  minutes apart….that leads one to think that we might have just plopped ourselves right in the middle of their caravan.  This was now way better than any travel bingo game anyone else has ever invented!  The rest of our trip was spent “hunting” for more.  Who else  might we see?

We finally had to stop for a pit stop, (like that little race reference there?) and just as we were starting our ascent up the overpass to get on the interstate again…….we saw it.  Our own personal great white whale, the unicorn of haulers…..The Lowe’s #48 Transporter.  We all saw it at the same time and you would have thought I life depended on chasing down that semi.  I did my own hauling over that overpass and knocked Reese right out of his car seat as I made my sharp left turn onto the on ramp.  In his excitement of actually spotting the Big BLue, he completely forgot about buckling up…but my dumping him out on the floor quickly got his attention and he was buckled again pronto. We had our own little chase and with much cheering, we pulled up upon this.

To say that Reese was excited would be like saying that apple pie tastes okay.  Apple pie tastes fabulous and not just Reese, but all of us were ecstatic about seeing our car celebrity.  We enjoyed every  minute of our drive with the Lowe’s hauler in our rearview mirror and I have to say, it was a little sad when we finally reached Memphis and had to part ways.  Reese ,especially, wanted to just keep following that semi truck, as though somehow by staying right on its tail would allow us to just pull right into the Hendrick MotorSports garage when it arrived at its home in North Carolina.  I think we were secretly hoping it would pull over at a rest stop or something and we could  pull over and take pictures with it.  Reese and I couldn’t help worrying about the driver and how he had probably been on the road for hours and hours and was still hours and hours away from his destination.  How fun would it have been if that Big Blue truck could have followed us home for the evening.  That sounds like a fun children’s book, “The day the race car truck followed me home…..”

Its fun to say I have the Lowe’s Sprint Cup Car in my rearview mirror…even if it is via a huge semi

Its memories like that, that I will treasure forever.  What are the odds that we would stumble upon something that makes us so happy?  And that we would take a bathroom break and stay inside for the perfect amount of time for the truck to catch up with us.  And had there been trees or something blocking our view of the interstate, we would have had no idea that our favorite car was right in front of us.  There are certain things as parents that we can orchestrate, that we can pay for, or finagle to make happen for our children.  Things that we know they will love like buying the doll that they have circled in the American Girl catalogue for months or getting tickets to Monster Jam, even simple yet still appreciated things like packing their favorite sandwich or writing a note in their lunch.  And then there are those other things, those things that you had nothing to do with and could have in no way executed by yourself.  Like seeing a shooting star.  But there it is, right in front of you, completely unexpected but fabulous just the same. This wasn’t even just a moment, but over 2 hours of driving, looking over his shoulder and seeing the truck carrying his favorite driver’s race car home from a race.  I would look in my rearview mirror and see him just smiling,checking back and smiling, as his Lowe’s truck followed him home.

Its moments like that, seeing them absolutely crazy with happiness, that make my mommy heart fill up and I want to take that fullness and store it away for moments like the drive to Arkansas.  Those are the moments where I feel so lucky to get to experience these wonder moments, I am so grateful that God has given me these little people.  I had no idea the color that they would bring, the excitement and joy of watching them discover their world and what makes them happy.  They are my daily rainbow.

So tonight when we said our prayers, we said thank you for giving us a safe journey home.  Thank you for letting us see our family and that Daddy had a productive weekend while we were gone.  Thank you for Crosby and please be with Baby Parks.  And thank you God for sending the haulers…..they were wonderful.

A Visitor and A Mistake

We had a guest last night, and it took about 5 seconds of her being here for Reese to fall head over heals in love.  We have been blessed to live right smack in the middle of everywhere people seem to be going and we often get to see friends as they are traveling from place to place.  And we were just that place for my dear friend Shelley on her journey to Tulsa, which was wonderful because it has been forever since I’ve spent any sort of time with her.  Shelley is actually the younger cousin of one of my favorite people.  I met her when she was probably 13 and I was in college.  She was the guestbook attendant at Brandon and I’s wedding and I have been so proud of the “grown-up” that she has become.

Shelley, her cousin April who is one of my Besties, and Mattie age 1

Anyway, Shelley arrived yesterday afternoon.  Reese played shy for about 5 minutes and then started pulling out his Monster Trucks and Nascar memorabilia to wow her with his knowledge of all things southern boy.  After about 15 minutes, he had asked her if she was married and you could tell by the sheepish grin that he was absolutely thrilled that this time, the pretty friend of mommies wasn’t married (and didn’t have kids of her own).  At about minute 17, he asked if she had a job.  It’s good to know that he’s at least looking for women who can provide for him.

Brandon, Mattie and I with Shelley when she graduated from high school

I would like to take a minute here to say that I have always wanted to make Shelley a part of my family.  I would love to become an official member of her family, but in my head I had envisioned it happening more through my brother- in-law.  Not so much my son.  I love Shelley, but not enough to become her mother-in-law.  That’s just weird.  For now though, I suppose its okay and if nothing else, it’s sure teaching him to have high standards.

Shelley, myself and Baughman babies #1 and #2 when she graduated from nursing school

Reese and the new love of his life this afternoon. We love you Shelley!

This morning, after getting Mattie out the door and Reese started on his first breakfast – I realized that my pants were on inside out.  This was probably a result of me not really bothering to fold them up when I put them away the morning before.  Its kind of funny how I work so hard to instill in my kids the importance of putting things away and cleaning up after themselves, but yet I have no problem shoving my things, often waded up,  into drawers.  Anyway, this wrong side out pants reminded me of another time when I sported some clothing  inside.

It was the summer after the summer that I had Reese, and I was taking Mattie to the pool.  I had felt brave and bought myself a new bikini, and this would be its debut out in public.  Mattie and I had left Reese at child-care and I was getting our little lounge chair camp all set up for our two hours of fun at the kiddie pool.  I had taken my cover-up off and was getting all settled in with my book when I notice a few teenage girls that seemed to be very interested in me.  I have no idea why my mind immediately went there, but I decided that they must be thinking that I looked pretty good for a mom.  I started to give myself a little pat on the back for looking pretty decent after having two kids and was feeling just a little bit better about myself than I had a few hours earlier.  I was feelin’ so good that the thought of having to walk all around the pool in front of tons of eyes to do what would normally be the walk of shame to take the girl to the bathroom, seemed like no big deal.  Feelin’ pretty awesome!

And then one of the girls started walking over to me.  Oh my goodness!  She was totally going to come over and say something to me. What in the world?! And then she started to talk, “Excuse me, this is really awkward and I feel sort of silly coming over here, but my friends and I were just thinking how great you look in your bikini and we were sayin’ how we hoped we could look like that one day after we become moms.” Too bad that’s not what she said…..What she said went more like this, “Ah, ma’am, I think your bathing suit is wrong side out.  The tag is right there in the back and we saw it when you walked by.” Oh my goodness!  I wanted to die.

Not only did I look like an idiot who doesn’t know how to dress herself, but then I had to walk back by them, giving them a chance to take another look at my ridiculousness, as I walked to the bathroom to correct my mistake.  To say I was mortified would be an understatement.  It’s one thing to think that people were thinking great things about you and to then find out at they really weren’t, but it’s even worse to find out that they were actually laughing at you.

I kind of want to hide right now just thinking about how they probably talked about me all summer, but not as the hot mom, more along the lines of the lady who was wearing a bathing suit that she shouldn’t have been and wearing it wrong side out for that matter.  I would be lying if I didn’t say fear of putting it on wrong wasn’t one of the reasons why I have switched to a one-piece these days.

Anyway, I just thought that might be a funny little story that you all might get a kick out of.  And may you always check your swim suit bottoms before going out in public.

Absolutely Nothing

I didn’t blog yesterday, mainly because I was taking that as my last day to be sick.  But if I were really being honest, I would have to say it was because I have absolutely nothing to share with the world.  My weekend consisted of me wearing various forms of lounge wear, eating apples with peanut butter and ramen and not once leaving my house.  I did go out and get the mail on Saturday, but that’s about it.

So you can see with all that excitement, how hard it would be to find something of any sort of interest to blog about.  I’m hoping tomorrow will be just crazy and I will have all sorts of stories to share.  I kind of have my doubts, but you never know.

So in the meantime, I will just leave you all with a picture – a 7 years ago today photo.

I was looking in this girl’s baby book, and according to my excellent record keeping, she took her first steps on March 2nd.  So, if Lila is going to be like her sister, that puts her at taking her first steps on the 9th.  I don’t think that will be happening seeing as Lila doesn’t seem to feel that there is any reason to walk.  Why walk when you can be carried?

But though my girls may  not walk at the same rate, they do seem to share the same talent of being able to express their feelings without any problems.

Thank you for joining me for absolutely nothing Tuesday.

Hair and There

Yesterday was Chelsea’s last day here with us.  After 2 weeks, she and Doctor Brandon had decided that she was probably healed and rested enough to go back to her life as a college student.  I don’t know that I agree with that, but to be honest, I think my opinions are based more on how much I enjoyed having her here with me.  It’s incredible how even though I am never for a moment alone, being a stay at home mom can be extremely lonely.

So in an attempt to make our last few hours together special and memorable, Chelsea convinced Reese to let her flat-iron his hair.  With bribes of getting to watch his favorite episode of “The Brady Bunch” and a promise that all we would have to do was get his hair wet for it to go back to normal if he hated it, he sat down patiently as Chels straightened his hair. Things were going pretty well until he realized he could see his reflection in the computer screen.  To be honest with you Reesie, I was pretty alarmed by the way you looked too.

The straightening process

I know watching the Brady Bunch always eases my mind about uncertain situations

I don’t know which part of it was the worst, that it looked like a really bad wig, the length, just all of it.  I don’t think it was so much seeing Reese without his curls, I mean there was a time when he didn’t have them.

But if he was a straight-haired boy, I think we would have gone with a more complimentary/ less disturbing hairstyle for him.

Seventies news anchor hair

Shaggy scary wig

Scary wig

Side view

Weird, baby wearing a wig hair…cut it Ms. Nan cut it!

I am happy to report that his hair is now back to normal.  We took him in to get a haircut from his favorite Ms. Nan. (And right here I would like to give props to the ladies at the Salon for acting very cool when they saw Reese walk through the doors with his shag.) and all is well in the world of little boy hair here on Holly Grove Drive again.

After all of this, we had to drop Chelsea off with some of her friends who would be returning her back to Chattanooga.  The weather seemed to get colder and the sky cloudier as we waved good-bye and the moment we pulled out of their driveway, the kids moods just tanked. To the point that they were in a very heated argument about whether or not the apartment building we had just been at was a mansion or not.  Reese insisted that  it was because it was big and had over 25 windows.  Mattie said it couldn’t be because of the driveway and there weren’t any secret doors that she could see.  I wanted so badly to say that they wouldn’t be secret if she could see them from the outside, but decided that it was best not to add any sort of gas to this fire.

By the time we got to the post office where I needed to mail some things, Reese was just falling apart.  He claimed that he couldn’t get out of the car because his foot wasn’t working and he would just wait outside.  I reminded him that leaving him in the car by himself could get me in lots of trouble so lets just hurry and get in and out and we would take a look at his foot in a minute.  i hoisted him out of his car seat, sat him on the ground, tried to balance Lila and my two packages and headed for the door to the post office.  When his crying behind me just seemed to escalate, I turned around to find him on his knees “walking” through a parking spot.  I think he was trying to be all dramatic and make a scene, maybe even embarrass me (to which I wanted to say, Boy I just flat ironed your hair to make you look like a bad ’70’s movie detective, you’ve got nothing on embarrassing me!) but the parking lot was really rough and was more painful than he had expected.  So there he is, not willing to give up the walking on the knee thing, crying and me trying to get the post office door open while holding a baby and two awkward packages and a Mattie trying to hide behind me because the whole thing is just mortifying. I’m trying to adopt the attitude that at least we never go unnoticed.  If we were to come up missing and people were to stop at my local haunts like Kroger and the post office or Target, all the employees would know exactly who you were talking about when you described us.  I also like to think that my children’s spirited personalities wards off any potential kidnappers.

We left the post office and headed to Kroger where something precious happened.  As had occurred in the previous parking lot, Reese again started complaining about walking.  Before I said or did anything, Mattie got herself out of the car and crouched down.  Though she said it in a rather bossy, commanding sort of way, (we wouldn’t want there to be too much sibling love being portrayed here) she told Reese to jump on.  Still without saying a word, she carried her brother on her back all the way into the store.  It was precious and I wished that I had my phone with me to take a picture.  Especially, since her little uniform skirt had gotten itself hiked up the process of heaving Reese onto her back.  There she was walking with such a solemn expression, with her little blue play pants on full display for the world to see and I was proud as can be.  For just a moment, she was being her brothers keeper……with her little booty hanging out.

I’m pretty sure the rest of the world wouldn’t have seen this as the beautiful picture that I did.  Maybe it’s because 8 times out of 10, my kids are getting along like cats and dogs or maybe it has something to do with the fact that today marks the 6 year anniversary of my own big brother passing away.

I can think of many times in the last 6 years where I have wished that I could kick and scream and fuss and have by big brother offer to carry me when I didn’t want to walk.  Even in the last 6 days…….and to see these two little ones, laying down the ground work for their own brother sister relationship just makes my heart ache a little.

They have grown up so far being preached to that they should treasure one another, because they are in this for life.  I have also told Mattie that I loved her so much, that I wanted to give her my most favorite thing from growing up.  The best toy, the best friend, the best of everything….so I gave her a brother.

I don’t think they believe me, and that’s okay, but one of these days they’ll get it.

And in the meantime, they will have a mama who gets all misty-eyed in odd places like parking lots when they decide to be civil to one another.