Fall Pictures

School Days

Jake and Will are both in school at the methodist church right near our house. It is a mother's morning out type of thing. They both go two days a week from 9am-1pm. At that time I am usually sleeping because I had worked the night before or cleaning the house and quickly running a few errands by myself. Both boys love to carry their back packs with them and they have to have them on when they get out of the car at school. They are suddenly 10 and 11 years old instead of 1 and 2 years old.

However, they are both waiting by the door for me when I get there to pick them up. The interaction they get with the other kids is great and jake is learning is numbers and letters. He loves to tell us every letter he sees wherever we go. It is so neat to watch them learn and grow each and every day!!

Take a number please

This past week everyone, yes I said everyone in this family has been sick. The boys have had some very stinky diapers while bobby and I have felt very nauseated. We both came home sick from work on wednesday, which is out of our character so you know we did not feel good. Jake and Will seemed to not feel very good on the last day of our trip to Atlanta to see our family, and it seemed to have spead to Bobby and I (lucky us)!! However, it seems as though as soon as I get them well they are going to school the next morning. Jake will walk straight up to Mr. In fluen za and Will will become best buddies with Mr. Roto virus.

Actually this has been our first time to have been sick in months which I believe is GREAT considering there are not one but two toddlers in our home.

It was heart warming to actually just lay on the couch and hold my two babies even though I hate it when they are sick. So much for Mom's Day Out......

Rock-A-Bye Baby

Will is the baby of our family right now and boy does he love every minute of it. At the tender age of one he seems to already know he is the baby. He is completely spoiled rotten. He is very friendly with others. He will smile and wave to you, but when you go to reach and hold him he tucks his head down on mommy or daddy's shoulder. It is like he is saying, "ha yeah right" He and Jake have so much fun together playing and just being brothers. However, I have caught Will on more than one occasion just crying and whining like jake took his toy and jake is in the other room playing. Poor Jake...... bringing up boys is a fun, exciting, and never a dull moment adventure in our lives!!!

Visiting the Family

This past weekend we decided we were going to pack everyone up and go to Atlanta to see our family. Let me rephrase that.... we decided but I get the pleasure of packing everyone up.

If you have ever traveled with small children then you know that it is like moving for the weekend. It takes an entire day to pack everyone's stuff and a day to unpack everything when you get home.

On Thursday I made everyone a list of things they needed and should not forget. I tried to get the boys stuff together, however as I was putting things in the suitcase Will decided he wanted to pull things out. The suitcase was much for fun to climb in and out of than to put clothes in. I packed diapers, wipes, DVD's, toys, clothes, toothbrushes, and everything else I could think of to make the trip as easy as possible on the kids. In turn, the easier and happier the kids were the happier I knew I would be as would Bobby.

We got to Atlanta on Friday night and stayed with Nanny and Papa. We had so much fun and they were very excited to see us especially the kids. On Saturday, Bobby went fishing and the kids and I went to lunch and shopping with all the girls. We stayed at Gaga and Pop's on Saturday night.

We had a blast this weekend, it just never seems like there is enough time to see everyone for as long as you would like to. The kids did great and were exhausted for the ride home on Sunday night. I was very nervous that they would not sleep, but they were amazing and slept the entire ride home and did not even wake up when we put them in their beds.

The worst part about the ride home was that a grandaddy long leg spider almost got me in the car and I screamed and was scared to put my legs down in the floorboard the rest of the night. Bobby laughed at me for about ten minutes..

Glad someone thought that was funny....

Maybe next time...

The other night we took to kids down to the pier on the river fishing that goes out into the gulf of mexico. I volunteered to stay home with will and told bobby to take jake. Bobby talked me into going by saying, "let's have family night and everyone go, it will be so fun!!" (for who? I was thinking)

Will was fussy the whole 10 minutes of the ride to the pier so I knew we wouldn't be there to long. Jake was so excited saying, "I ready daddy, I ready"

Jake and Bobby went over to fish on the rocks. They were having such a good time together. It was so neat to see jake watch his daddy fish and him try to copy!!

Meanwhile, Will and I walking around the parking lot as he is screaming at the top of his lungs in the stroller. He was looking at the boats and then would cry...

The boys fished for a little while and then they got hungry so we packed everything back up and went home. Will fell asleep in the car. Daddy and Jake had fun even though they didn't catch a fish... maybe next time as jake would say.

Reality Show

I've decided that I like theory better than reality. See, you can lie in bed at night, thinking of the day ahead, and in THEORY it's going to be a productive day that leaves you with a real sense of accomplishment. But in reality, at the end of the next day as you lie in bed you are going to feel like a long armed tree sloth that didn't serve much of any purpose except to maybe hold the branches on the tree. Such is my day, most every day, since I've been a stay at home Mom. However, two nights a week I work at the hospital. I manage to hold all the branches up but seem to make no real contribution to the jungle.

For instance. I lie in bed and in my mind have my to do list for the next day. It looks something like this:
-Rise early and have quiet, personal time before kids wake up
-Enjoy breakfast and juice. In peace.
-Read Bible and get prayed up to arm self with grace, mercy and patience (and extra patience for Will these days)
-Apply facial mask, shower, wash and condition hair, loofah dead skin off, moisturize, moisturize, moisturize, apply makeup, dress and put on perfume
-Wake up beautiful children with a kiss and a song and the smell and sound of sizzling bacon
-Feed children hearty breakfast before "creative arts" session
-Dress cooperative children and lead them to table spread with arts and crafts supplies where they will make cute sock puppets and rehearse puppet show they will put on for after dinner entertainment
-Make out menu and grocery list for month
-Season pot roast and put in crock pot along with new potatoes and baby carrots for healthy dinner for family
-Launder clothes, stopping to add fabric softener mid-cycle so children and husband will smell Downy fresh
-Organize children's closets and pull out all out of season clothes to take to consignment shop to make extra money as contribution to family budget
-Dust wood blinds, baseboards and ceiling fans, gently removing family of dust bunnies before they request carrot cake for dessert
-Look over appointment book and call Dr's, Dentists, and Vet to schedule appointments for checkups, teeth cleanings and rabies shots, keeping straight who goes where and gets what
-Freshen up and put on lipstick to greet husband with a smile as lighting candles for lovely dinner family will appreciate, savor and compliment, saying "mmm, mmm" with each bite
-Enjoy puppet show

Here's my reality. As in, what I actually get done that day:

-Quick prayer: Dear God, HELP!
-scarf down something quick for breakfast (on a good day)
-Change out empty roll of toilet paper before having to use any more pages from Martha Stewart Living
-Hit repeat on Wiggly Wiggly World for 97th time
-Smell laundry to determine level of salvageability from mildew after being left in washer for couple of days, and decide to try to dry anyway, tossing in half a box of dryer sheets to mask the smell
-Fix platter of dry toast for dinner
-Fall into bed, exhausted, and make to do list for tomorrow

And the thing is, I will not have STOPPED all day long! But what's funny is....if anyone ever calls my house at any time of the day, as the kids are screaming and fighting in the background, the baby is howling at the top of his lungs and the circus theme song is playing (ya-da-dadada-da-da-da-da-da), I will invariably pick up the phone, sweetly say "He-llooooo??" and when asked what I'm doing say "Nothing, nothing at all."

??????

Well I'm off to accomplish at least one task on my list for today and put on deodorant. At least under one arm. Maybe I'll get to the other one tomorrow. Wish me luck.