Sense Of Humor

Last weekend:

Jed: "Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

Me: "The bad news."

Jed: "Well, my bike has a flat tire."

Me: "That stinks ." (Slightly stressed about putting more money into the bike.)

Jed:"And the computer crashed again. I can't even get it to boot up...

Me: "Oh no!" (Annoyed about spending more money and knowing from previous experience that our computer will be dismantled and parts strewn about our living room until he can fix it.)

Jed: "... and we may have lost our most recent pictures, that weren't backed up."

Me: "No way!" (This is devastating to me, precious memories, lost.)

Jed: "Yeah and the real kicker is the a/c in the van stopped working again."

Me: "Unbelievable!" (We just paid an astronomical amount to have it fixed earlier this summer, I felt sick to my stomach.)

Jed: "You want your good news now?"

Me: "Ugh, I guess but nothing could make up for all that."

Jed: "None of that is actually true."

Me: "What?!"

Jed: (Grinning from ear to ear.)

Me: (Punched him in the shoulder and walked away.)

This weekend:

Seth: "Mom, Ford took off his diaper!"

Me: "Oh geez!" (He's been doing that a lot lately)

Seth: "He pooped and poop is everywhere!"

Me: "No! No one touch him or the poop! Get away from...." (Running into the florida room, not seeing feces anywhere.)

Seth: (Grinning from ear to ear)

Me: (Giving Seth a suspicious and irritated look while grabbing Ford because he had pulled the tab on one side of his diaper)

Seth: "He didn't really poop." (Giggling to himself)

After thinking for a little bit about the last week, I realize that Seth has been lying to me quite a bit about really silly stuff. I pull him aside,

Me: "Seth, you've been lying to me a lot lately, why?

Seth: (thinks briefly then shrugs) "I dont know, I guess I like to joke a lot."

Me: (Light bulb goes off. Trying not to grin from ear to ear.) "Ok, we'll talk about this more later." (Find Jed to inform him of his spectacular, example setting skills.)

Kane's Feelings On GL

"But mom how did you survive growing up here without Chick fil a??!"

Kidding, this is actually his standard reaction to being outside. So. much. fun.

Cousins

Our last full day at my grandma's my cousin stopped by with her children. I hadn't met her kids yet and she hadn't met my two... or maybe even three youngest, I can't remember. Unfortunate side effect of moving over a 1,000 miles away from where you grew up.

Ford was pretty jazzed to have some visitors his own age!

Six out of grandma's seven, great grandchildren under one roof!

Such cuties!

Poor little L, Kane has never met a stranger.

Case in point.

Fortunately baby A knows how to deal with men already.

Kane can be sneaky though.

I dont get to take pictures of little girls very often but when I do I eat it up!

The big boys went outside to play, well the big boys who aren't terrified of being outside that is.

My cousin organized a good ol' fashioned game of red light, green light. I think this might be magenta light...

A quick break on the front porch.

Then a rousing game of Ring Around the Rosie.

It was a blast! Thanks for visiting us guys!

An Update

- Kane is potty trained during the day (we still put a diaper on at nap time b/c I dont relish doing extra laundry). Potty training Kane has been interesting. The other boys had potty training down in about a week, we're over the 2 month mark with Kane. It's not that he doesn't get it, he does, in fact he's learned to work the system. See we started out giving him a treat whenever he went #1 on the potty after a day or two of going to the bathroom every 5 minutes, I began to worry that the kid had the tiniest bladder ever and we'd need to see a urologist. As I payed closer attention I realized he was going pee just a little bit, stopping, getting his treat and then going again to get another treat. Talk about bladder control!!! So I had a little chat with him and we phased out treats for going number 1 and only offered it for number 2. Biggest mistake of my life. I'm wiping butts more often than I ever have in my 6 1/2 year career as a mom! Ugh! The icing on the cake though, he's terrified of public bathrooms. They flush too loudly for him. He shakes, covers his ears and screams. Its fantastic.

-Ford is walking. In the last 2 weeks he's gone from mostly crawling to mostly walking. Its weird to see my baby walk around the corner now!

-The older two boys are loving school. Evan's love of food has been eclipsed by his love of four square, evidenced by the half eaten lunch he has left at the end of every day. Fortunately he has time to finish it in the van on the way home. Evan has gym two days a week this year, soccer on Mondays and swim lessons on Fridays. Seth has gym on Wednesdays but was rained out last week so I'm looking forward to hearing about it this week!

-Speaking of Seth, I am so impressed by how responsible he is! Not that I expected him to be a slacker but the kid is really on the ball. Reminding me about his show and tell, gym days and to pack his snack. I think he'll come in handy round here cause I don't know if y'all know this or not but his momma, well she's a little absentminded.

-Jed and I went on an awesome date this weekend. For the first time since I was pregnant with Evan, almost 7 years ago, we went to the beach, sans children! It was phenomenal! Not only did I go in water deeper than my knees I also was able to sit down in a chair and relax. No counting heads in the water, no worrying that one of the kids would be hit by a car, no fighting with a toddler over eating sand and the only person I had to worry about cleaning up after was me! Jed and I realize we need to be more intentional about taking breaks like that more often.

-A big thank you to Shannon, Christina and Jessica for the babysitting! :) You guys are the best!

-Thanks to Netflix I'm now addicted to Friday Night Lights. Does anyone know if its coming back for another season? I know it struggled in ratings for a while. I hope so... I guess I could just google that huh?!

Alright, well that gets you mostly up to date with what's going on around here. I've got laundry to do so adios.

More Pictures at Grandma's

Ford's first bath at Great Grandma's house!

Too bad he hates baths.

Oh and he's the spittin' image of his dad in this picture!

Playing army men with Great Grandma!

She's the coolest!

"Mom... when's it my turn?"

Nap time!

Make yourself at home Sethy.

My Grandma's House

This house was built in the 50s for my grandparents. They had four kids at the time and its a two bedroom, tiny rooms at that. Can you imagine?!

The attic quickly became the 3 girls' bedroom and I'm glad it did because its my most favorite room in the house! It has a cool secret passage way and hidden rooms. I played for hours up there!

Its also happens to be where our family stays when we visit! Quite nostalgic for me! Since none of the homes I actually lived in as a kid are still in our family its nice to be able to share this one place from my childhood with my kids.

It hasn't changed since I was kid!

Bubbles in the front yard!

To be continued...

Destination Thanksgiving!

We're planning to have Thanksgiving in North Carolina again this year! Which gives us the perfect opportunity to check out, Pilot Mountain State Park, just a couple hours, give or take, from where we'll be staying! I only realized this on my road trip last month as I was driving by. This is really exciting as our family has a love of hiking the mountains of NC!

This summer we did, Chimney Rock

When we arrived we discovered the elevator was out. Really we're not crazy enough to plan to hike that with 4 little kids but since we were already there...

We walked 315 feet to the top which is little more than 400 stairs! Oh and we were carrying Ford the whole way and Kane part of it!

At the top. I really had to fight my anxiety to be able to stay up there. I did ok, my head was fuzzy because I instinctively held my breath from time to time and I couldn't really bring myself to look out over the edge but thats a huge step up from blacking out or feeling the need to become one with the ground. I think it helped that mountains dont sway...

Jed took this, obviously. Behold Lake Lure!

And then Clingmans Dome,

No stairs just one heck of a hike. Altitude: 6,643 ft!

Its only a half mile from the ranger station to the lookout but let me tell ya, its brutal! I saw at least a half dozen little kids drop to the ground in a puddle of tears, including two of our own, and more than that many adults that I thought would need stretchers to get off the mountain!

Even Fifi needed help!

The view at the top was lovely though and totally worth it!

The trail to Clingmans intersects with the Appalachian Trail which we'd like to do part of some day, ya know when we're out of the stroller and diaper phase.... which I'm hoping is before we hit the wheelchair and adult diaper phase! :)

Until then, bring on Pilot Mountain!

Oh and few extra pictures for my mom! Hi mom!

A Man Party

Our last night in NC, Sofie had a slumber party to go to. Before Sof even left Evan was lamenting his cousin absence. To cheer him up Aunt Jessie and Uncle Nate promised him and the other boys a "man party"! Evan requested, soda for party, Seth, muffins, a.k.a. cupcakes and Blake, a real life game of Angry Birds. I love that kid. While soda and cupcakes were easily enough to procure from the local grocery store, Uncle Nate had to improvise on Angry Birds.

In lieu of hunting down ornery fowl, and ugly green swine the boys settled for this. The party was short notice and all.

Cheap shot.

He was probably making up for this from earlier.

Let the fun begin!

On a side note, during the man party dinner Aunt Jessie asked the boys what kind of pop they wanted, we had two flavor options, to which they responded with "Huh, whats pop?"

We be from the south Aunt Jessie and around these here parts we call it soda. Dont be tryin to force that there Yankee slang of yours on us! :)

Thanks Aunt Jessie and Uncle Nate for letting us stay with you! We had a blast!