Thanksgiving

Here's a few pics from the holidays with the grandparents. There may or may not have been a really cool family photo taken in the cotton field that may or may not end up as our Christmas card so therefore cannot be shown henceforth. Yes, quite.

A view of their backyard at sunset.


Tiny Miss getting ready for her stroll through the cotton fields.


Everything is edible on the farm, right?


Sing it with me now, "The touch. The feel. The fabric of our lives."


Who needs entertainment when this is the front yard.


And finally, Thanksgiving dinner. Their first. Sweet potatoes and butternut squash. YUMMY!

Date Nights

We climbed into the bunk beds of the big kids the other night. Carter on the top bunk with The Girl, me on the bottom bunk with Buster. We're snuggling and telling secrets when I hear, "Daddy, I've got to ask you something."

"Ok, what is it," he says. My ears are peeled.

"Will you go out on a date with me?"

Silence.

I lean over, look up top, and ask, "Daddy, are you weeping yet?"

After a moment, "Yes."

So we've made a new tradition in our family (I am ALL ABOUT some traditions!!). We are going to take each of our kids out on an intentional solo date, of which we hope to continue until they get married (of which my boys will not get married because they're not gonna wanna leave their mama and that will be just fine by me as long as they start paying for our dates when they get real jobs of which they probably won't have real jobs if they're still living at home with mama which will again be the reason they're not married because apparently some girls don't like it when boys live with their mamas until they're 42. I'm just sayin.)

First date of the weekend: Buster Boy and me! As much as I tried to coax him into some fancy dining, the pull of Chick-fil-A lemonade and the potential of a balloon was too great.

After dinner at Chick, we hopped back in the van to head to Tar-jay for some Christmas shopping. As I cranked the car, I noticed our song was playing on the radio. That may not seem the typical song for a soon to be 3 year old, but my boy knows good music when he comes by it. He sang wholeheartedly at the top of his lungs no where near the right key.

And it was beautiful.

And then I cried.

My mind has a tendency to do that. Get caught up in a really cool moment and then it fast-forwards to him walking across the stage at high school graduation. So I lose it. And it's annoying.

Dang hormones.

We ended the night with a little Christmas shopping. Each of our kids drew names and Buster Boy drew his little bro's name so after playing with EVERY SINGLE TOY in the entire store, we settled on a Shamu carseat hanging toy thingy. Under $10. Which was good considering the majority of toys Buster picked out were about $49.99. And coincidentally, toys made for 3-4 year old boys.

"I think Hunka Chunk REALLY wants this skateboard Mommy!"

Really? Really?

Smart kid.

The Girl chose a breakfast date and had her outfit (and her Daddy's) all picked out the night before, making sure they would both match.

They enjoyed a large breakfast buffet at Grandy's, followed by Christmas shopping. The Girl came home with a similar toy for her lil sis and I gave Carter the "Way to talk her into the least expensive toy in there" wink.

The funniest part of both dates were the cell phone calls home. Buster called his sis from Target because he just needed to check on her. Sis called Buster from Target because she just needed to check on him. You'd think they were the twins!

The Bunker

I have decided not to call our house a house anymore. That gives off illusions of grandeur. And while this house seemed a mighty perfect "starter home", with the addition of four little mites, it has shrunk considerably.

CON.SID.ER.AB.LY.

Instead, I prefer to call it our cottage. That gives it a beachy feel (hey we're 15 minutes from it, that counts, right?), and a small homey feel which sounds better than cramped tiny house.

So thank you, housing market, for allowing us to stay here about 4 years longer than planned. Let's not make it 10.

So we're having to make constant adjustments.

CON.STANT.LY.

We built an addition while preggers with The Duo and that has served to be one of the best decisions we've ever made (besides, of course, getting married, starting a family, blah blah blah). We call the addition "The Bunker". It's a step down from the now-extended kitchen and has another den, play room, and guest nook (there's no door so it's more of our "guest quarters" - again, giving off illusions of grandeur).

Now that The Duo is (are?) rolling all over the entire house, it became adjustment time. They needed to be contained. After walking all over the Bunker with clipboard in hand, drawing all kinds of renderings of what we could do, I finally figured it out.

However, I've been given only one rule by the Husb. I must sleep on all decisions before one ounce of furniture gets moved. I think this is more so because I have my best creativity and "I WANT THIS DONE NOW" moments at about 11:30pm when he is about to drop dead from exhaustion.

Thankfully, I heeded his advice and slept on the latest decision (which would have included doing away with our guest area, rearranging all 3 rooms of the bunker and somehow figuring out storage - of which we have none - for large pieces of furniture).

Instead, I opted for a simple moving around of the playroom to split it up giving The Duo some contained free-for-all rolling space.

I gave the Big Kids one rule: You can't go in Baby Quarters.

That was such a painful rule to them. I guess because it's new and they wanted to squeeze in there with them. Who knows. So they did the next best thing. They pulled up their chairs, got some books, and read to their little caged friends.



I think this is going to work out just fine.

Killer Whales and Hat Tricks

It has been quite a season for the hot pink Killer Whales. Carter took the Big Girl (who is the smallest and youngest on the team) to her first soccer practice ever back in September and we really thought this whole soccer thing was not going to work out. She had never been under the authority of anyone other than us and her teachers at church, and especially never under a male coach with a booming voice. She was intimidated to say the least, but eventually let go of Carter's leg to join the team, though very timidly. It was touch and go for the first few practices and then something clicked after the first game. She ran her little heart out, never once touching the ball, and was amazed at the roaring of the crowd, many times hearing her name.

It was her 'AHA!' moment.

Then it was practicing "step ups" at home every day. Counting down the days on her new calendar until Thursday practice. Then counting down days until Saturday game days. Always making sure her proper attire was laid out the night before in an orderly manner. Drinking plenty of water starting on Wednesday so as not to be dehydrated Thursday - Saturday because those were critical days.

To date, I've had my proudest parent moment with her on the soccer field. It was about her 6th game. Rarely having ever touched the ball, she somehow found herself wide open with the soccer ball screaming towards her. As if the spirit of Pele was upon her, she owned the ball and dribbled down field with the most serious face I've ever seen. She dribbled straight into the goal and immediately turned around, face red as fire, beaming ear to ear, looking for a reaction from her family.

And boy, did we give it. Screaming, hollering, going nuts on the sidelines and looking at each other saying, "Did that just happen?"

Priceless.

Fast forward to today's game. The last of the season. She came into it with guns drawn and took over, scoring THREE GOALS! Mind you, she'd only scored 1 goal in the previous 9 games. I was attempting to click the digital camera, get some video footage on the camcorder, hold a baby and remain wrapped in a blanket, all the while screaming my head off because, YES, I AM A SOCCER MOM AND PROUD OF IT!!

AND MY GIRL JUST DOMINATED AND WHIPPED OUT A HAT TRICK! (That's 3 consecutive goals for you non soccer folk).

A proud parent moment.

She's already talking about the spring season and how many months she has to wait to start again. We're hoping to have the exact same team with the same coach because he is incredible!

An awesome way to start her soccer career!

The Panel of Judges

"Check out the double axel YaYa just stunted on the swingset."

"Yeah, I give it an 8.5 out of 10. She coulda added a flip for effects."

Trickin and Treatin

It's amazing what one can do with $0, a sharpie marker and a pair of scissors. Our church had a Pirate & Princess Party on Friday night, and while I thought I would make 2 of each, I quickly realized my mad sewing skillz would prevent me from the DIY princess costumes. So we went with 2 pirates and 2 piratesses. No tulle required.

Then we headed to the Robersons for Halloween. There were a total of 10 youngins but somewhere between the following picture and all of the group shots, I lost my camera. That is also why there is no proof of our Minnie Mouse and UGA football player who sat in the stroller, mad as hornets, that we required them to go trick-or-treating at their bedtime. You'll just have to trust me that they were adorable too.