The Last Days……..of Vacation

If you ever get the chance to travel and vacation on the east coast, more specifically Wilmington, I would recommend you and yours stay at Hamilton House.  Okay, maybe their house isn’t a “real” resort, but it sure feels like one.  From the nautical, serene decor and the way April cooked for us and then took us out sight seeing or beaching, I really can think of no other place I would rather spend my beach vacation.

I would have walked around my friend’s house taking pictures so I could show you all how wonderful and navy it is, but I didn’t want to weird her out.  It has been 3 years after all since I actually saw her and I didn’t want her to think that I was losing it or something.  But truly, prettiest house ever and it even had an outside shower.  Reese told the man at the grocery store about the shower the other day.  Bagger says to us, “Looks like we might be getting an evening shower here soon.” To which Reese replies, “My Auntie April has a shower in her backyard.” I think that made a real lasting impression on young Reese and I think it really opened up his mind to some new possibilities.  I will not be surprised at all if one day when he builds a house of his own, which I totally see him doing, he too will have an outside shower and April and Tristan, I know it will have been inspired by you.

Our first full day there, April took us to the beach.  There was an impending storm, but it stayed away long enough to have a good visit with the sand and surf.  Lila was especially fond of the sand, shoveling it into her mouth by the handful and when that wasn’t going fast enough, just started rolling around in it with her mouth open.  The older two really wanted nothing to do with the sand and instead, spent their time playing tag with the waves.  It’s a shame we live in a landlocked state because my children really seem to have a love for the ocean.  I love my Memphis and I really love how close it is to my parents, but if we could all pack up and move to one of the southern beaches, I would not be disappointed.

Enjoying her sand feast

Frolicking

We got home and the kiddos napped while April worked on dinner.  I say April because that is true, I didn’t even offer to help….she knows me too well.  Kitchens and cooking are not my bliss, I will clean up afterwards any day every day, but assist in the food prep…please, no.  I can’t even remember what we had for dinner, but the desert, oh that will do down in my dessert hall of fame for ever.  If you all remember, back on my birthday last year I talked about the sweat pants Shannie got for me and how I imagined them being the sort of thing that we would wear in heaven…..well, this cake that April made is what we will be eating while we are wearing our amazing sweat pants.  She made it for Reese’s birthday and he was so excited to get to blow out candles on a cake.  He loved his birthday toaster strudel, but I think he had about decided that there wouldn’t be cake this year.  Oh but there was, and if I close my eyes tight enough and think about it hard enough, I can almost taste it again.  Fantastic coconut cake April Dawn!

Happy Birthday!

Our next day we did a little site seeing, ate some more yummy food and I fell just a little bit more in love with my pseudo nephew Tennyson.  Happiest little boy ever and so much like his mama, I can’t help but smile.  And when he busted out that he wanted to watch “Steve” (the crocodile hunter) on t.v. (side note: his mother wanted nothing more than to go and visit the Australian Zoo back when we were in college.  She was a faithful watcher of the Crocodile Hunter and spoke of his family as if they were her own.  We were all broken-hearted for her the day that Steve Irwin died. So to see her little guy rattling off animal facts and on a first name basis with Mr. Irwin was just precious.) I couldn’t help but laugh.

Two little men and their ice cream

Auntie April and Tennyson, I always get sad when my ice cream is gone, too

A little history lesson

I have been so blessed that my closest friends have been willing to share their littles with me as though I were actually a real “auntie” and getting to be with them on their turf was probably one of my favorite parts about this little vacation.  Watching these little “mini-me’s” that we have created bonding with each other was fascinating.  The way Lila and Kiki, Steph’s little girl are just drawn to one another, the same way their mothers are and then how Mattie mother henned over Tennyson, it just warms your heart.  It’s almost pretty magical to get to see these ladies who I was a girl with, who have been so special to me, now be mama’s.  I have absolutely nothing at all to do with how they do their jobs as moms, but I couldn’t be prouder of them.  And I guess its really easy to love someone’s kids when you love them so much.  I’ve always said that one of the biggest yet unspken ways of showing me that you love me, is to love my kids.  So friends, you should feel very loved because I adore those little ones of yours!

Our time with the Hamilton’s was over entirely too soon.  We had a wonderful time and it was everything a vacation should be.  thankfully, we would be stopping one last time at the Murrill’s again on the way home, otherwise, I think I would have cried.  The ride home is never nearly as fun as the journey there and I think we all would have been in pretty foul moods if it hadn’t been for the promise of a little more vacation over the weekend.

Mr. Fish

The Tennyson

Three little monkeys in a pack n play

Swimmin

Lila took more to the eating, than to the swimming

Doing some tricks with the handsome, younger brother of Uncle Tristan. Thank you Tyler, the bar has now been set very high for any future suitors

Hanging out at the pool

We arrived back in the Asheville area just before dinner, we could get used to this again, spending Friday nights with Mark and Steph like back in Tulsa…..before we all moved away and had 5 kids.

We went hiking Sabbath afternoon to waterfalls, now making our vacation bucket list complete….beach, driving through mountains, wrecking the car, getting sun burned, vomit from at least one child, seeing a celebrity (Reese and I swear we saw Jeff Gordon), visiting at least one race track, eating 5 lbs of Twizzlers, stopping at one uncharted Goodwill, spending the night with a cop, and hiking up waterfalls.  It was time to go home now.

A little posing

Me and my monkey

The Murrman (Baughman + Murrill) Girls

Nature Director Mattie teaching Rosie about caterpillars

Playing in the falls

The Murrills, after we found Mark and the girls again….he got lost

An actual family photo not taken in a glass door

The soundtrack to this photo is, “Girls, let’s go back to the car and eat donuts!”

It’s always sad for something long-awaited to come to an end.  It was only fitting that it rained the majority of the way back, but the wheels are already turning in our heads and hearts as to how we can get ourselves back out to North Carolina again.  Thank you for a beautiful stay and for your southern hospitality.

The silver lining to rainy days is fun boots

Mattie and Auntie Steph

Charlotte Continued….or the Great Disappointment, Whichever You Prefer

I realize I am taking awhile.  The way I am dragging my report regarding my family vacation out, one would think that we traveled with Moses as our leader through the desert.  I have decided that since there is really nothing else on the docket for this week, if I can accomplish only one thing, it will be to finish up this recap.

So I left you all on the side of the road in Rock Hill, South Carolina.  Once we were all checked out, with an accident report in hand to turn into the insurance powers that be that stated that we were in no way at fault and Jeep boy had Allstate insurance, we headed on our way.  To Hendrick Motorsports, where all my NASCAR dreams were going to come true.  I was trying not to let me hopes run away with me, keep my expectations low and I might be pleasantly surprised. I was trying to tell myself things like, “It’s probably going to be closed so you’ll only get to take a picture of the outside of the buildings through a gate or something.”  All the while, I think way deep down I was thinking really fabulous ideas like, no this is going to be a birthday miracle for Reese (me) and Jimmie Johnson is going to walk out and then ask if he can go have lunch with us….he’s probably been waiting for us to arrive.  Or something else ridiculous like that.

On a side note, I think my tendency to get caught up in my wishful thinking has rubbed off on my boy.  At one point when we were at the park with Officer Paul, Reese casually remarked that we were hoping to stay with his Uncle Jimmie while here in Charlotte.  When Paul asked about this Uncle Jimmie, Reese replied that we didn’t know where he lived and he doesn’t know we are here.  I can only assume that he was talking about the race car driver.  What have I done to my child that he actually thinks that Jimmie Johnson is his uncle?

So we turned off of the main interstate and onto a little tiny, country road.  I’m not gonna lie, this being the home of NASCAR, I was looking around expecting to see little race tracks all over the place.  Like pools when you fly over Florida, I expected tracks all over the place.  I saw none.  I also expected that since all these different racing teams are from the Charlotte area, even though I don’t really root for the other guys, I would still maybe see signs of them.  I love my team Hendrick, but you need all the teams to play so seeing everyone else would have been nice, too.  I saw none.

Finally, there is was Papa Joe Drive, and within seconds I saw the lovely, gleaming campus of Hendrick Motorsports.  The huge warehouse looking buildings emblazoned with the giant 48 and 88, then 24 and 5.  I had made it!  And this was incredible, surely something magical was about to happen!  I mean, how could it not?  AFter all our talk about one day coming to Charlotte…..if we could just make it to Charlotte, Reese and I……oh how we wished we could have followed those haulers when we passed them back in what was that MArch and we got so excited…..and we were finally here.

Looks promising doesn’t it?

Of course we first went into the 48 building, and this is the point where I imagine that even if anyone of importance had been there, the lady at the reception desk probably would have activated some sort of a panic button letting them know they should leave because I bet I had the goofiest grin on my face .  I am glad that there were no pictures taken of that because I have no doubts I would now be embarrassed.  I’m glad I got that out of my system.  Reception lady informed us that the viewing area of the garage was currently closed due to a luncheon going on.  This is where I feel like I was probably especially ridiculous, because I actually asked if there was anyone important in that luncheon.  She replied back that “everyone here at Hendrick Motorsports is important”, to which I think I just glared at her.  Then she quickly went on to say, that no, there wasn’t anyone important inside and they ought to be finishing up in the next 20 minutes.

No big deal, we would go and check out the other building.  And we actually found it pretty exciting. You can walk right up and almost into the actual garage where the mechanics and engineers are doing their thing.  Sure, there’s a glass wall between you and them, but you can just see everything. It was really neat because while we were watching, they pushed in Jeff Gordon’s car from the race 2 days before and it was all beat up and everything from him banging into other cars and the wall.  So while my hopes had been kind of deflated a few minutes before, now seeing how exciting the garage was….they got bloated right back up again.

Jeff Gordon’s garage

The kids and the 24 and 5 car

We walked back into the 48 building just as they were opening a big overhead garage door to allow visitors into that garage area…..the sound of my popped hopes could probably be heard for miles.  There was a small viewing area, almost made to look like a track with 4 cars on display, a Lowes lawnmower and screen set up right smack in the middle of the room blocking any sort of view you might have into the actual garage area left over from their luncheon.  Part of me wanted to go out to the lady and let her know that we had been involved in an accident just trying to get here this morning and really, this wasn’t going to cut it.  My boy (me) follows this team and watches every race and all we wanted to do was see a little behind the scenes of what goes on and there is a screen in the middle of the room!  Why does Jeff Gordon have a big open garage and Jimmie and Dale Jr don’t?  What are they trying to hide?  This is not okay!

Poor boy all decked out and looking at parked cars

Stupid screen preventing me from seeing ANYTHING

We drove all this way to see a lawn mower

It was time for the gift shop and museum

Which mainly turned out to be some cool stuff throughout their gift shop.  This part of the story would have been okay, but they were out of just about every thing that I saw that I may have wanted to purchase.  As much as I adore it, I will admit that NASCAR driver t-shirts aren’t exactly the cutest things out there and if I was going to ever have a chance of finding something sort of cute, I figured their home store would be the best place.  Every time I would spot a shirt that I sort of liked, it was that of a different driver.  I feel that the one place that should never be out of stock of your favorite persons gear is their home turf.

Focused

I wish my kids’ car seats were this complicated, they might stay in them

The closest Reese and I got to our friend Jimmie on this trip

Reese and a winning Lowe’s car

So we left, having seen no one special, no warm reception by Jimmie Johnson realizing that his biggest fans were there, not even Mr Hendrick the owner.  Not even with a t-shirt (Crosby does now have a cool new dog bowl but still…..) To say that I was disappointed would be a huge understatement.

We headed to Charlotte MotorSpeedway, because remember how happy Talladega made me?  But it wasn’t the same.

We didn’t know if we would get another chance at a family photo on our trip. I like the “no pets” part at the top

Brandon says I started off too big.  Kind of like with our bonuses, that’s how he gets paid the big bucks at work (completely joking).  No that’s just how he gets paid, he gets a base line salary  (like how a waitress gets a base line) and then based on billing, the bonuses come in (tips) only that money is also used to pay the secretaries and all that other office stuff.  But what I am trying to say is that they are always a surprise and based on collections.  You never know when insurance is going to kick in or patients are finally going to pay so it’s always a surprise what we get.  The first bonus check was shocking to me and probably a once in a lifetime event.  But ever since then, I always hold every bonus check up to that standard even though it was probably a mistake by the clinic or something.  The same goes for my NASCAR Jimmie Johnson experiences.  I was a newbie into my obsession this time last year.  We went to Daytona to watch practice and Brandon and I just happened to get lost while trying to make our way to Poppy and Reese who were at the garages.  We started out walking through the fan campgrounds and before we knew what had happened, we were walking through a fenced off area of really nice tour buses.  And that’s when a Chevy Tahoe drive right past us and pulled up to the tour bus closest to us and Jimmie Johnson, along with his crew chief Chad Knaus got out.  I started too big too soon.

It was actually must closer than this picture depicts

I realized this, but even realizing it doesn’t make it any easier.

Brandon even dropped my off at a Goodwill store just outside of Charlotte while he got gas to try to help dull my disappointed pain, but it was a bust too.  It was almost like that Goodwill was mocking me.

Thankfully, our journey was still just halfway through.  We weren’t going home just yet, but had more adventure ahead.  To Wilmington, the land of the beach, where they taped One Tree Hill and the home of some of my favorite people, the Hamiltons.

It was going to be okay after all.  My day was hardly ruined because after 3 years of April Dawn Hamilton famine, I would get 3 uninterrupted days of feast.  Forget you Jimmie Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports, ( not really at all) we’re going some place where they wait out on the front porch for your arrival.

And that they did.  All the NASCAR drivers in the world put together wouldn’t be as sweet as the welcome I received from my favorite 3-year-old little boy.  Forget you Charlotte…..for now.

 

More Pictures…..Because We Can

So since I have the power to share pictures again, I decided that rather than talk to y’all about the smell of death that has been hovering in my car for days, I would share some pictures of the first few days of our vacation.  I have also had my in-box flooded with questions about the NASCAR Hall of Fame and many of you begging to see pictures of everything.  That whole sentence was a lie.  Not one of you has asked me a question about the Hall of Fame or anything in it.  But I will share just the same….because this is my blog.

So our first stop was in Fletcher, just outside of Asheville to visit our special peeps, the Murrills.  We arrived there early Saturday morning.  Its’ funny, Brandon and I have known Mark and Steph for years and whenever we get the chance to be together again, it’s like no time has passed.  We have weathered some life experiences together and just get each other.  Our kids haven’t had these same experiences and none of them have ever even lived in the same city together.  But we are seeing the bond that their parents sharing passing on to the kiddos.  They are familiar with one another in a way that boggles your mind just a little when you think about how little time they actually spend together. Mattie is the little mother hen, doting on the little girls and making sure that Reese is staying in line.  Reese and Rosie have this little thing going on, a sort of yin and yang that we are crossing our fingers about, praying that it leads into a romance and marriage when they are 30.  We don’t want to force anything on them, but the 4 of us parents have had many conversations about how much easier it would be if we could just tell them that they had to marry one another.  Steph and I also love the idea of getting to be sister grandmas.

The Future Mr and Mrs Baughman

And Lila and KiKi, they are already besties.  Like to the point of Kiki reaching out and pulling Lila’s high chair closer to her when they are eating.  These little birds aren’t even 2 yet and have already found their best friend soul mate.  If they are in the vicinity of one another, they will reach out for each other.  They prefer to be touching at all times, but if that won’t work they have to at least be in the same area.  If Kiki has something, she makes sure that Lila has one too.  I think Lila’s love for her blanket was influenced by her friend KiKi, who also has a special blanket friend.

Keeks and Lila…besties

They don’t really speak words to one another, at least not words that the rest of us can understand.  But when they are together, these two Littles chatter to one another in something that almost sounds like squirrels talking to one another.  And then they will just laugh, like fall down on the floor and laugh.  I have no idea what their friendship is based on, but they have obviously chosen one another and I love it.

The Murrman Kids

Here are some pictures of that first morning of being 5:

Happy Whole Hand Little Boy

Making a wish

And then on to the NASCAR Hall of Fame:

Enjoying the moment

Posing by Jimmie Johnson’s shirt and racing gloves from when he was a little boy

Those tires are SOOOO heavy. I would make a terrible pit crew member

Attempting to call a race, but enjoying hearing their voices on the radio much more

We couldn’t find Reese there for a bit and walked around a corner and found him sitting here on “Uncle Bill France” the father of NASCAR

I would like to frame this and put it in my NASCAR room one day

Upon finally being released from her stroller, she walked right up to Jimmie Johnson…or at least his fire suit

And then let’s end it here on a fun note, a little photo footage of our traffic incident:

Our Semi and the naughty jeep there in the background

Our bumper scuff and naked tail lights, it doesn’t look bad but I know it will cost a chunk

Stay tuned for the rest of the trip and a little side note about my smelly car.  Have a Happy Friday!

Pictures are Back

This is a little public service announcement.  I have began the incredibly long task of editing my pictures to make them smaller, which requeires that I delete the photos from a post and then edit them, save them to my desktop in a little file and then go back and plug them in again.  It really doesn’t take that long at all and I could probably knock out all of the past entries in about a week….if that were all that I had to do.  If I had a nice little office and I went into that office every morning at 8 with my laptop and my coffee mug and sat without any little distractions, I have no doubts that this little issue would be taken care of in less than 5 days.  That is not the world that I live in, however.

The world that I live in has 3 young humans in it that seem to take great offense to me sitting down for any extended amounts of time.  I can only sit if one or all of them are allowed to sit on me.  I have heard several times in my life that if a shark stops moving, it will die.  Die from what, I never really understood, but nevertheless, those sharks have to keep moving.  I live in a sort of opposite world from the shark, if I stop moving, even just for a minute, those around me might die….or at least thats what they think will happen.

Anyway, I am writing this to let you know that the site is probably going to be showcasing old blog entries , saying that they are new because they have actually just been updated (the new smaller pixel pictures).  Please feel free to read those oldies but goodies, but know that that is what they are. Just modified versions of the past.

But while we are on the subject of pictures….because I shrunk down a few, that opened up a little space.  A little space for me to load up some more pictures from earlier in July, like when Nana came to visit and the fun of the 4th of July.  It’s not nearly all of what we’ve been up to, but at least its a start.

Enjoy!

God Bless America

B and his mama

Nana and the Grandbabies

Nose pickin’

Planting with Nana

Being birds in the giant nest

Hanging with sis in the Fairy House at the Botanical Gardens

Nana and Matilda

Sisters

There is a fine line between festive and tacky and you can clearly see I crossed it

My festive flower beds

Grillmaster Brandon

Reese and Landon parading around the ‘hood

After the parade, the Grand Marshall fire trucks sprayed our children

Thank You Target, The Birthday Party Can Go On

Reese’s birthday party is in roughly 4-5 days and I’m gonna be honest, I don’t really know how prepared I am.  I did stumble upon a goldmine for party favors at Target today.  Reese had $3.61 to spend and so we were hunting for something fantastic while on a budget.  He had picked out a package of animals crackers from the dollar section and a Batman toothbrush, and he was pretty excited about this……and then we found it.  In the back of the store, where the seasonal fun usually is, we saw a small sign on about 5 shelves that said 90% off.  What in the world?  For that price, it almost seems like why bother, but Target, I am so glad that you did.  We found two, big, ride-on pool toys for less than a dollar each.  Ninety percent off, baby!  And the fun Justice League little crafts that I had imagined would be so perfect for Reese’s party, they were only $0.50 each.  Not $0.50 each, $0.50 for the whole package of 10 crafts. Suddenly, I am feeling a bit more confidant in myself and this little birthday shindig.

On the subject of my children’s birthdays, I may be slacking as far as Reese’s is concerned, but the other day while looking for scrapbook paper at Michael’s, I pretty much knocked Lila’s out.  There is all this fabulous nautical cuteness at my favorite crafting store.  Things like whale-shaped cookie cutters, stamps that say, “Ahoy” and a little red cut-out that says” Thar she blows”.  And little note cards that were 6 for $1.50 that are going to make precious birthday invites.  They are going to look darling with the anchor cupcake picks I found earlier this summer.  I had no idea what I was going to do with those cupcake picks, but decided immediately that I had to have them. Now this little 2nd birthday is just falling right into place…..too bad its in January and not this Sunday.

I’ve been sending the kids to vacation bible school this week.  I told someone that yesterday and they looked like me like I was ridiculous.  I suppose it is a little late in the season for a church to be putting on their VBS, with it being August next week and all, but I couldn’t be happier with their scheduling.  We were beginning to run out of fun and exciting here at Baughman manor.  I am at the point of encouraging the kids to paint cardboard boxes for fun.  With white paint, not even fun paint, just plain white because that’s all I can find.  And I think they would be happy with that idea, except its raining outside and they are no longer allowed to paint in the house. So thank goodness for late scheduled vacation bible schools.

Another fun and exciting event going on these days, Lila has been handed the spoon.  Seeing as the girl is 18 months old now….almost, it seemed like a good idea to start teaching her a tiny bit of independence.  I plan to start teaching her how to do the laundry next month, it seems only right since she is the one making the big mess and should be required to help get her own stains out.  She seems to really like the extra responsibility and refuses to now eat anything that she has not first handled herself.  Even cereal, she has to do herself.  I would just skip the messy cereal, but she insists on eating whatever everyone else is having.  This means that we will not be eating out in public for the next 6 months.  This also means that the little is starting to grow up .  Wanting to be a big girl, do what everyone else is doing and how they are doing it, even if she doesn’t quite know what “it” is.  She wasn’t supposed to do this, grow up.  We made a deal back when she was in utero and then shook on it during our first slumber party at the hospital when she was born.  She also promised that she would never talk back to me, never date a boy who drives a van, never doubt that I love her, never get married without me present and never let the others put me in a nursing home…..and now that she is starting to grow up I am beginning to wonder how sincere she was.

Maybe if I stop buying her cute, nautical birthday decor than she won’t do any more growing up.

That Time of Year

It’s that time of year again around here.  Actually, I could be saying that about several things – almost back to school, time to cut Mattie’s hair (it feels just like wheat), car tag renewal time (Brandon’s is actually overdue but he is playing a fun little game with himself to see how long he can go without a policeman noticing), time to buy new heart worm preventative for Crosby, and Reese’s birthday.  That last one is really the one that matters the most, and technically, the birth day occurred while we were on vacation.  Reese turned 5 at Uncle Mark and Aunt Stephanie’s and was greeted with a birthday toaster strudel decked out with a huge “5” candle and one of the best serenades of his life.  From there, he ripped into a few boxes of Legos and then settled back for a short drive to Charlotte, the long-awaited Charlotte where all of our NASCAR dreams were to come true.

A quick little story about our time in Charlotte and NASCAR and proud parenting moments.  So the plan was to go to the NASCAR Hall of Fame.  We (and by we I mean, Me primarily) we very excited about this and decided it was a good idea to go and let all the kiddos go to the bathroom while Brandon purchased the tickets.  When we re-grouped, Brandon gave me a rundown on our tickets and how much everyone’s had been, noting that 0-4 were free so for today, Reese was still going to be 4.  Brandon seemed very proud of himself at this quick thinking that saved us a few bucks and there was even a minute when we rationalized our dishonesty by reassuring one another that he was born about 3 weeks early so technically, he should still be 4.  And it was just as he was going through the gates as a 4-year-old that hadn’t been paid for when both Brandon and I noticed his shirt.  I had taken special care in ordering and remembering to pack his “I am 5” shirt for this most special day.  There’s nothing quite like lying about your child’s age when it’s written on the front of their chest.  That was a very proud moment indeed for us.

And after that incredible trip to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, that left me absolutely giddy with happiness….we headed just over the border into South Carolina where our trip took a rather funny little twist.  This was part of our trip that, at the time, I think the kids thought it was perfectly normal.  And I imagine it will stay that way for a while, until they are about 16 and 19 and they start playing, “Remember When….” and they both draw a blank at who was that stranger that we stayed with in South Carolina?  So if you will remember from a few posts ago, I mentioned having met up with the old friend/ officer who had arrested Brandon back when we were in college, at another friend’s wedding.  I think I also mentioned how this person now lives in the Charlotte area and he and I talked NASCAR for a good long time and he insisted that should we ever make that trek to Charlotte, we were to call him up and stay with him.  I told him that wasn’t necessary and to keep in mind that we had 3 kids.  He said he wouldn’t hear of it and he had 4 bedrooms so that was fine. So, turns out we ended up taking him up on his offer.

We drove from downtown Charlotte to Officer Paul’s house in Rock Hill, South Carolina.  We then took him out for pizza, which probably scarred him for life, dining with the 5 of us and any thoughts that he and his lovely wife may have had about having kids were squelched I am sure.  I have never been told this, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to hear that one encounter with us made for great birth control.  After dinner, Paul suggested we walk across the street to a little park and let the kids play.  The kids had a great time getting their wiggles out and working on a few new tricks – every trip to a park, I wonder if this is going to be the visit where we leave in a rush headed to the E.R.  Mattie is working on her Cirque de Mat-tay act and it keeps getting more and more elaborate.  As we were leaving the park, still intact, Paul commented that it was a good thing we came and let the kids play because he really doesn’t have much at his house for kids to do….oh Paul, you have no idea how wrong you are!

Upon arriving “home”, before I could even get the kids jammies out of the Acadia, they had already assembled in Paul’s police car.  The lights were going and sirens blaring, having the time of their lives.  I think they may have even taken turns putting one another in cuffs and roughing them up as they put them in the back seat.  And he said he didn’t have anything for kids at his house!  You have a police car Paul, with lights and sirens and radios and hand cuffs!  As of right now, you are still the most awesome house they have ever been too.  This was enough to make Reese think that being 5 is absolute pure magic.  A unicorn could have walked down the street at this point and I think he would have thought this was the new normal.  I would like to take a second here to say that there is a Mrs. Paul, she was just busy being a doctor in Chapel Hill and missed our little visit.

The House of Paul went above and beyond and just about blew the kids minds when they went upstairs to the room where they would be spending the night and found……..an air hockey table.  This was just about too much.  This man had Chuck E. Cheese games in his house! They literally lost their minds at this point.  It’s funny, this experience in our trip opened my eyes to the fact that my children would go with complete strangers, not just go, but go eagerly with complete strangers who showed them a few cool sirens and lights or promised they had air hockey in the back of their kidnapper van.  I don’t think it was until about 5 days later that either one of them asked me who that police man was that we stayed with.  It didn’t matter, we could have just met him in the parking garage at the Hall of Fame.  But I can see much later in life, when the recall the evening, they are going to think its hilarious.

The next day of being 5 didn’t go as swimmingly as the first did.  We got in a wreck on the interstate before we even got out of South Carolina, which seeing as it was only about 5 miles back to Charlotte, that’s pretty bad.  That made for a pretty exciting, attention phone message to leave for Mumsey.  “Hey mom, sorry to call so early.  Just wanted to let you know that a semi hit us on our way to Hendrick Motorsports.  We are on the side of the road right now waiting for the police…oh wait, they are here already.  Okay, gotta go…there’s smoke pouring out of the semi and I need to see if I should get the kids out of the car and run. Love you!”

Yeah, that was definitely a point in our trip that I don’t think we will soon forget.  We were driving along and a steady clip when traffic started to slow down.  Then pretty quickly, it slowed waaaaaay down and we pretty much came to a complete stop.  Too bad the vehicle behind us did not.  I felt an unmistakable thump and braced myself.  Expecting something horrific to happen, or at least the air bags to attack us all.  Feeling brave, I looked in the rear view mirror to see what had hit us and what sort of chaos might be going on behind us.  All I could see was a mirror full of semi and my heart just started panicking.  Funny how adding “semi” to a story suddenly makes it jump in intensity.  I also saw a jeep with two young guys go sailing across the interstate and hit the embankment really hard.  Thank God they were okay, because they barely missed hitting other cars and had absolutely no control of their vehicle.

We made our way to the shoulder, where the semi pulled in behind us and the boys fell out of their jeep.  I sprang out of the car to check on the damage I knew we had (not without first making sure my children were fine of course, but since their chatter hadn’t even gone down a decibel since the accident occurred and the only realization they had that anything was wrong was that Reese’s Lego pan had tipped over and he swore up and down that it wasn’t his fault.) and then started to cry.  My cries were actually something along the lines of, “The Deductible, not the deductible!” But I think that was just my body’s way of letting out some scared energy.  To make a long story short, turns out it was the jeep boys that hit us not the trucker.  The jeep boys weren’t paying any attention to traffic and when we all stopped, they swerved to try to miss us and still ended up hitting us – though thankfully, not nearly as hard as they would have.  Hitting us and their already swerving motion, sent them right into the semi which had thankfully already put on its brakes.  Upon hitting the semi, they were then sent flying into the embankment.  Frazzled, very much so, and the back of that jeep all sorts of mangled from the semi, but at least they were okay.

The boy driving got a ticket and had to go back and tell his dad that he wrecked his jeep, and has to appear in court.  The semi had to be towed and the driver was not very happy about not getting to make his delivery and the money that comes along with that.  And we have a chewed up back bumper from jeep tires and the casing is knocked off of our tail light, but thankfully all that we have is a really exciting story to share.  The car was fine, we aren’t out any cash, and there are no tickets written out to us (though I was a little worried when Reese announced he had to go to the bathroom and there was really nowhere to go except right there on the side of the road between two highway patrol troopers.  That had me a little uneasy for a bit.  Cuttin’ it a little close, Reese.) Overall, a pretty exciting way to start a Tuesday, especially when you are on your way to see how race cars are made.  I like to think that those boys were trying to give us the full NASCAR experience, where there is great speed there are bound to be collisions.

So back to this being birthday time around our house.  We are home now and because I can’t get things together very quickly, Reese’s party is going to be next Sunday.  I have spent today working hard on his little party invitations, sending Brandon out to hand deliver a few when he mentioned needing to go out and run a few errands and hoping to get the rest done by the time the post office opens in the morning.  He’s my only summer gathering responsibility but it seems like every year I have a harder time getting Reese’s birthday planned and executed.  It should come as no surprise that this years theme is Batman.  I usually try to gift my children with something meaningful, maybe even a special experience…you know, something deep and rich that matters.  But this year I purchased Reese the expensive Batman costume he wanted for Halloween last year.  If he had a birthday in say November, it would probably be half price, but here being even before Halloween it is not.  However, I am pretty sure that we will get our money’s worth.  If the way he lived in that silly turtle costume is any indication of how he will feel about the Batman suit, then I don’t think I really even need to worry about buying him any actual clothes for this winter.  He doesn’t really even like turtles and he wore that suit for weeks!  I am slightly ashamed at my Bat Suit purchase.  I’m not really sure why, maybe because it’s not the least bit creative or homemade or meaningful.  It just shows the world how much my child adores a pretend superhero and maybe that is what I am ashamed of.  Oh well, at least I tried.

Mama Hasn’t Tried Very Hard

Today was the first time I have taken a shower since Monday.  Monday’s shower was a little later in the day and I had some errands I really wanted to get a jump on early on Tuesday, so i just decided to forgo the shower until a little later.  My hair wasn’t greasy yet, and really, that’s how I judge the need to bath or not.  However, i did not anticipate spending Tuesday night at the hospital, so that showering later idea went out the window.  Don’t worry, I was at the hospital for happy reasons and am now the proud owner of a new little pseudo niece.  She’s bright, shiny and perfect and way worth giving up a shower for.  Unfortunately, my Wednesday had been pretty booked up and I had to hit the ground running with no time for showering.  The dentist and piano lessons can’t be put on hold for mama to get pretty. I planned to shower during naptime……put I participated in the same activities as my nappers instead.   I woke up with just enough time to load up a bench into my car,( I have been trying to sell it on Craig’s List for forever and hadn’t even relisted it since before our trip) before I had to meet the buyer at Starbuck’s.  Again, not enough time to shower, so I threw on workout clothes so that my now very greasy hair looked more appropriate.

Following my quick sale in the parking lot, I rushed home to meet a friend and then head to the hospital to see that perfect, new niece I was just telling you about.  Thankfully, everyone there at the hospital was too busy being enamored with the new little one to notice how closely I was resembling a homeless person.  And if they did notice, they were nice enough to keep it to themselves.  I then came home and fell asleep in my clothes while sitting on the couch.  My husband left me there for the night and I woke up to find my kids standing around me asking each other who that strange lady wearing mommy’s clothes was.  I figured it was time.

Not only was it nice to wash myself, but I really enjoyed my shower today because we now have a shower curtain.  That sounds like we have been living really rusticly for a while now.  I should clarify that we have had a shower liner since we moved into this house last summer, but I haven’t been able to find the actual curtain.  I decided this week that it was probably time to come clean to Brandon that I am pretty sure that I lost it.  I am also pretty sure that he had thought that all along but was just playing along with me when I would say I knew where it was, I just hadn’t got a chance to look there yet.  So we now have a really fabulous shower curtain that I am in shower curtain love with (its way better than the old one and now I am super proud of myself for losing it!) and I have big plans to go and purchase some new hand towels because now my bathroom looks like I actually give a care.  But that will have to come on another day, because today I showered and that took up the better part of the afternoon.

 

Vacation

I have been on vacation.  I love vacation, especially in the summer.  It feels all the more sweeter when it’s summer time. When you are on vacation in the summer and you stop for gas, you always assume that the other people stopped for gas are also on their way to an adventure.  Even though our destinations may not be the same, we are all fellow vacation goers and that somehow makes us comrades.  Summer vacations only happen once a year, so that makes them especially grand.  They also mark a certain passage of time, a way to measure the years.  You remember not only the events of the trip, but the soundtrack and what the dress code was.

I specifically remember that on the vacation of 1987, my mom had used her sewing skills to fashion us all “Jams”….surely you know what I’m talking about….those hideous shorts that were more like very generous capri pants.  They also usually came in very loud, often neon colors.  My mom was a jam rock star and thank goodness we have the pictures to prove it.  Also thank goodness, I haven’t got the picture situation taken care of yet here on the blog so you will just have to use your imagination.  One other little detail about our jams, they all matched.  Yes, nothing says our family is fierce like coordinating outfits.

The summer of 1989, we listened to Debbie Gibson’s “Only in My Dreams” cassette tape continually.  I can still sing every song on that album word for word.

Another thing about those family, summer vacations that makes them so incredibly memorable are the catastrophes.  Something always goes wrong, and though it often seems like the end of the world at the time, those “hiccups” make for the best stories later on.  I will never forget when Poppy left my luggage, and only my luggage, out on the sidewalk in the middle of downtown Puerta Vallerta when I was 17.  Or last summer, when we were coming back from Florida and I accidentally left “Soft”, Reese’s lovey at our hotel.  I remember fondly when I was 16 and my mom chipped her tooth and we had to go to the only dentist that was open on a Saturday, he was located in a Sears store next to the lawn and garden section.  That was the same trip that we got lost in New York, Harlem to be exact and Poppy decided that the best way to figure out where we were was to roll down the windows.  Harlem isn’t that best place for you to slowly creep along with your windows rolled down.  Now that I think about it, that was ALSO the same trip that Poppy lost our car keys in the middle of Central Park.  See, all the memories!  And though it seemed like a dire situation at the time, would we be stuck in New York forever, or were we possibly going to die, we can look back at it now and just laugh and laugh.  And thanks to mom and her tooth, I will never open a little shampoo sample packet with my teeth ever again.  That one really was funny.

This past week has had its soundtrack, often podcasts of a radio show call Radio Lab, that and this weird poppy, dance music that Brandon likes to drive to because he says it’s happy sounding.  Our soundtrack has also been that of Reese and Mattie continually arguing with one another and then taking turns asking when we were going to be to whatever that days destination was.  And catastrophes – oh there were a plenty.  There was the wreck, the monsoon, the time Reese lost his mind and threw the tantrum to trump all tantrums and right in front of our friends whom we hadn’t seen in 3 years.  I really loved that one.

But they are stories to tell.  Snippets in time that when we are old and gray, Brandon and I can piece together for each other.  Filling in the blanks, remembering the little details that the other one has forgotten.  And these are the stories that my kids will rehash when they come home for the holidays, the older ones recalling moments that Lila was a part of, but too little to remember.  These were the pictures that they will look back and say, “What was mom doing to us?!” when they see how they were dressed.  Though honestly, there is no way that I can ever possibly do anything worse to them then mom’s jams.  No possible way.

I love summer vacations.  I love the adventure and the planning and the moment.  I love that we often try to either vacation with someone we love or to someone we love.  These year, we vacationed to our loved ones, the Murrills and the Hamiltons.  I love that every year, though we are the same people, the same family – our dynamics are a little bit different.  Last year, Lila was still just an infant and I was having the time of my life pumping every two hours on the dot.  It felt like I had this whole little dairy factory set up.  Me, my pump and that hooter-hider in the front seat and the ice chest right behind the car seat.  Should the car have caught on fire, I may have reached for that silly ice chest before I grabbed a kid.  I never had to take my turn driving, mainly because Brandon never had to take his turn pumping.

This year, people were a little bit older, everyone got to eat the same snacks and Reese’s bladder was just a little bit larger so there were fewer stops along the side of the road.  Overall, it was a fantastic trip and our think our happiness and memories can be measured by the huge mound of dirty laundry I have been battling all day.  I can’t wait to fill you my readers in on our adventures, the disasters, the funnies and everything in between.

Wednesday Fun

Nana has left the building, and the city of Memphis and we are sad.  I think Reese’s body was sad even before he realized she would be leaving us.  He woke up this morning complaining of a tummy ache and while I was poking around in the bathroom trying to find some magic potion to cure him, his vomiting began.  Thankfully, he had come in to join my in the bathroom and my carefully trained eye recognized the prevomit lurches before too much had happened.  Also thankfully, the bathroom is tile.  This was kind of a momentous even for Reese, being his first real vomiting experience.  Oh sure, he did plenty of spitting up as a baby.  Fact is, he was what I would describe as a very “juicy” baby.  The kind that you are leery of letting others hold because you fear what he will do to them.  Especially at church, people always want to love on and hold the babies at church but Reese was notorious for ruining people’s outfits.  It might explain why he is a bit standoffish around strangers now.  He was the kid that I would have wrapped in plastic wrap if I could to preserve his clothes.  He always had a bib on and even right up to his first birthday, he was still leaking.

He was brave during his maiden vomit voyage.  There wasn’t any crying, and minimal moaning.  I encouraged him to just close his eyes, it’s usually best not to watch during these things.  And he just kind of went with it and let nature do its thing.  Mattie on the other hand is always a very violent vomiter.  There is much crying and fighting it, which only  makes it worth.  It also gets everywhere, in hair, up her nose.  But than again, Mattie doesn’t halfway do much of anything and ever since her conception, seems to have had a flair for the dramatics.

So anyway, I think Reese thoroughly expressed how the rest of us felt about Nana leaving us.  California is entirely too far away and 6 months between visits is entirely too long.

I figured that the kiddos would be a little sad about the departing Nana, so we have big plans to go and get our parade paraphernalia after piano lessons this morning.  Hopefully, I haven’t waited to the last-minute.  I have never purchased decorations for jazzing up a wagon for a 4th parade, so I don’t know how far ahead I should have been shopping.  While visiting Michael’s, I also need to pick up some things to make Reese’s birthday party invitations.  This is really bad, he turns 5 on Monday and I have absolutely nothing.  Technically, we are having a party for him until the 21st, but we are going to be out-of-town (I probably shouldn’t have said that here on a public blog, but you have no idea who will be staying at my house so attempting to break it could be very foolish.) for most of the time between now and then and if I want him to actually have guests, I should probably get on the ball with getting invites out.

One thing that I do have figured out for his birthday party is that we will be doing a charity in lieu of gifts thing again.  Between the grandparents and us and all the loot the boy gets all year round, I think he will be fine present-wise.  I am super excited about who we are raising money for, and it gets me quite emotional thinking about it.  That being said, I can’t share the actual “cause” here on the blog because the person who it is in honor of will then find out our secret.  They are a part of my small following of 10.  If you would like to be part of Birthday Cause, please leave me a comment and I will email you back providing I have your address, or you could include it in your comment.  My goal for this is to raise $500 since Reese is turning 5.  I know that we are capable of much higher of a number considering the amount we raised for Pennies for Parks, but I would be perfectly happy with this.

Alrighty, well, piano lesson time is upon us.  Let’s pray that it goes better than yesterdays dental visit.  Mattie decided after multiple trips to visit “Auntie Christal” our lovely friend and dental super hero, that this was the time she wanted to get anxious and down-right afraid.  This is not her first, or second or 5th time in a dentist’s chair, so I’m really not so sure what led to her panic attack.  Maybe it had something to do with asking too many questions.  I think we can all learn lesson from Mattie’s experience here, if you really don’t want to know how they will be numbing your gum, maybe it’s best not to ask and just go with it.  There are a lot of things I would rather not know the details of and have learned that ignorance can often be bliss.  Anyway, Mattie got her first experience with nitrous oxide and didn’t really like that too much easier.  Hopefully piano lessons will be less traumatic….hopefully.

The 4Th Is Coming!

I found out some fascinating, pretty mind-blowing news yesterday while I was not helping my mother-in-law and husband dazzle up the flower beds.  They would probably be sweet and say that yes, I was giving a hand, but really I know the truth.  I was the mulch putter downer and that was a job that Lila could and actually was handling quite well.  Regardless of how much help I really was, this news was just incredible and is probably going to change my life…..at least for the next 5 days or so.

I have seen signs for a few weeks now stating that the Kirby Woods (our little neighborhood) 4th of July Parade would be (obviously) on the 4th and starting at 6.  I really hadn’t thought too much of this.  Mainly because the 4th of July seemed like it was still a good 2 months away and there really was no big hurry, right?  Well, yesterday while I was walking around the yard between mulch jobs gathering sticks, our across the street neighbor (the one who called the police on me for robbing my house) came over and informed us that our houses were actually on the main parade route and it has been tradition that houses on the parade route go all out with their patriotic decor.  I’m not going to lie, I felt a little terrified inside.  What did this mean?  What should I be doing? I hated to mess anything up, especially being on the parade route and all? What if I ruined the 4th?

I greatly appreciated her letting me know, however.  Scared I was, but hopefully I still had time.

I also don’t know what this means that Brandon let me know yesterday that he came across an old prescription of Xanax we had safely tucked away should a time or panic and unrest ever fall upon us.  Was he implying that this parade was going to lead me to having to take refuge in prescription drugs?  Or just trying to reassure me? We might have to revisit that…….

Anyway, I am now full of questions and would love to ask around but feel kind of ridiculous.  Here other people have real life situations going on and I am perplexed at what is expected of me as far as house decorations go.  There are already little tiny flags dotting my landscaping that were there even before I was informed about the parade, so I feel like I should give myself a little credit for already being patriotic-minded.  Old Glory has also been flying just outside of our front door for over 2 weeks now.  For the most part, I feel like my house itself looks pretty good, the navy blue shutters I feel add something as well.  It’s the decorating of the kids bikes and wagons that have begun baffling me.

The only experience of neighborhood 4th of July parades I have is from an old episode of “Jon and Kate Plus Eight”, back before they were weird and full of themselves and the show was mainly about ordinary, ever day sorts of things and how they maneuvered around with their gaggle of children.  Back in the good old days.  Anyway, they took their little herd to a 4th parade in Jon’s old neighborhood and it was darling and nostalgic and everything life should be on America’s birthday, but exactly how they did things, I guess I wasn’t paying super close attention.  I have a feeling that a trip to the Dollar Tree and probably Michael’s is in store for me.  This is also one of those times where I don’t think the kids are going to pay any attention to my attempts at teaching them that simple and classic is best.  They are sort of in the “go big or go home” phase of their lives.

I will do my best to have some of the picture issues taken care of by the end of the 4th because I don’t think this is something that y’all are going to want to miss.

On a side note, today is Nana’s birthday.  We feel very blessed that she decides to give herself the present of coming to visit us on her special day.  Looking back, we have had her several times on her birthday and they are each very special.  The kids and I took her to the Botanical Gardens today.  It has been unseasonably cool here the past few days and today was incredible.  It was slightly overcast (which makes for fantastic pictures) and only about 79 degrees.  We had no agenda, no specific points that we wanted to make sure and see, and for me, I was trying my best not to think about the pictures I should be taking.  We just walked and played and admired, stopping for fruit snacks or to dance around in water when necessary.  Mattie climbed trees as Nana and I sat on benches and admired our monkey-like girl.  There’s something really wonderful about child admiring when its done with another person who is actually a contributor to that child’s DNA.  Oh sure, my kids have lovely friends and adopted aunties and uncles who think they hung the moon, put getting to admire with a grandparent, oh that’s fun.  Not only do you get to bask in warm fuzzies about this little person you have great stock in, but it’s also kind of like the warm fuzzies are being heaped on you as well.  I have told the kids before, “No one is ever going to love you as big as I do….except probably Jesus, well, and your grandparents.” And it is so, so true!

I learn things every day about love, the love I feel for Brandon, the love I feel for my babies, the love my parents must feel for me, and every now and then, I get to catch a little glimmer about future love that I will have.  As fiercely as I love my children, and as happy as they make me, I can only imagine how head over heels in love I will be when they have their own little ones for me. But in the mean time, I will sit back and enjoy Nana enjoying her time.

So let me leave you all with this, Happy Birthday Nana Anna!  You are a wonderful woman, who I admire very much.  I am thankful for you every day.  For the you that I know and love now, at this point in time, and for the you who 33 years ago, starting mothering that boy of yours whom I later married.  You are one of my greatest blessings.  And thank you for making my flower beds look extra pretty for when the neighborhood walks by and judges the exterior of my house.