I can't believe it's almost Christmas. We only put one tree up this year (I usually do at least two and I have had as many as five trees), which I think is a big step for me. I've learned to scale back, not necessarily due to the economy, but due to the fact that I am dead tired.
Drake is almost fully potty-trained now. He still wears a pull-up at night, but I'm OK with that. I got most of our Christmas shopping done in November this year. I've just been trying to decide what I want to get for George this year. Honestly, he's so hard to buy for.
Skylar is having major drama with her PE teacher. She thinks the PE teacher has some sort of personal vendetta against her, but in reality, I think her personality just rubs Skylar the wrong way - she seems perfectly fine around Bart, who also has her for tennis lessons.
Friday night I didn't work, so I was able to go on the Young Women's trip to Bath to see a live nativity scene. It was outdoors in an amphitheater. It was a REALLY cold night and we were all freezing, but it was definitely worth it. We had a lot of fun. I brought Bart and Sky along with me. Bart was so funny. He didn't know what to do with himself around all those teenage girls. We had to make him settle down and stop sitting on people. I think he developed a little crush on at least one of the girls.
Lucy is being a little pill lately. She is perfectly adorable, but when she gets it into her mind that she doesn't want to be changed, she makes it almost impossible to change her diaper or her clothes. Sometimes she pitches a fit and kicks her feet on the floor. Once in awhile if she's standing up, she stamps her feet if she's angry. It's pretty funny, but also pretty annoying when I'm trying to get the big kids to school on time. The other day, I could swear she said "Dora" and pointed to a Dora toy in the store. Today, she put her arms around Drake's neck and hugged him for a long time, until Drake got tired and pushed her off.
Having kids is great entertainment.

At the beginning of December, I was able to go with Skylar to the 4th and 5th grade Colonial Camp field trip ("field trip" because it was in the field outside their school). It was a lot of fun. The kids played Colonial games, got their faces painted like Native Americans, ate a Colonial lunch cooked over a fire, got to shop in the trading post, dressed up in old-fashioned clothing, and made crafts. It was a really cool field trip.

the Battleship

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we took a trip to Wilmington to see the Battleship. It was pretty chilly. The kids pretended to cook themselves in one of the ship's kitchens. We hung Bart from a meat hook just for laughs.

We realized around 2pm or so that no one had eaten any lunch and the natives were getting restless. So while George, Bart, and Alan went to explore some more, the rest of us took the children into the lounge and dropped a small fortune buying drinks and snacks.

After the Battleship, we followed headed over to Mike's Farm which is in Beulaville. Bart had gone once for a pumpkin patch field trip, but my family had never gone for the light display before. The lines for tickets were so long and it was COLD out. Lucy was getting cranky and George was overreacting and saying how he was going to take Lucy home and I should get someone to bring the rest of us home. Ha! I got sick of it and told him that we were leaving RIGHT THEN. So we loaded up the the three youngest and allowed Skylar to stay with the rest of the family. Then we switched vehicles with Alan. I was pissed at the way George was acting, but reprimanding him wasn't going to do much good. I reminded him that it was his sister's birthday which was why we were going to the lights display and then to their delicious restaurant. After everyone had calmed down, George turned the car around and we headed back for dinner, apologizing to Mindy if we were rude.

Let's just say the food was delicious!

Here is Mary with the three older kids.

Today Lucy waved and said "Bye, bye". It was so cute I couldn't stand it.

This morning Skylar was inducted into the Elementary Honor Society or something like that. I was such a great mom, of course, that I left my camera at home and someone else's mom had to take a picture for me. Also, I spent the whole ceremony standing up in the back of the room holding onto Lucy and shooting Drake dirty looks to STOP TALKING AND WHISPER RIGHT NOW, MISTER.

I knew Skylar was going to try to con me into taking her out of school early (it was only 10:15 by the time we were done) and had steeled myself to be firm and unyielding in the face of her excuses. I was unprepared for tears, however, and I let her sucker me into checking her out early. She really hates school right now, which is a shame. I'm afraid she's losing interest in learning because she is so bored/frustrated.

Right now I'm mad at George. I'm not really sure why, but I think it has something to do with the fact that he barely said ten words to me all night and when he did it was to ask me to unload the dishwasher, put dinner away, and to add that it only takes "a few minutes" to cycle laundry through the washer and dryer. I had been hoarding my arsenal of four-letter words for just such an occasion and felt it was appropriate to drop one in response. It felt pretty good.

Me and My Big Mouth

Why can't I just ever keep my mouth shut? Today it was 75 degrees. I want to throw up.

December

I'm so happy that it's been chilly so far this December. Of course, now that I've said that it'll probably be 75 degrees this week.
It rained yesterday, so the New Bern parade was postponed until next weekend. Unfortunately, I work next Saturday. The flotilla was still on, but as we loaded the kids into the car, it started raining so we decided to go to Jacksonville instead to go Christmas shopping.






Today I took the kids to town hall after church for a Christmas ornament-making party and visit from Santa. Lucy was freaked out and screamed whenever we brought her near Santa. As a result, we have only one picture with her and Santa together and it was only because Santa snuck up behind her when she wasn't looking and someone else snapped the picture real quick.

Ha ha. Lucy has absolutely no idea.

Drake, meanwhile, is suspicious of the Big Man in Red.

He warms up, though, when Santa starts talking toys.

I just threw this picture in because it's so dang cute.
Rub a dub dub.

A little bummed

I just buried Drake's hermit crab, Mr. Krabs, under the magnolia tree out front. We also buried Tuck, the turtle there last year. I gave him plenty of time in case he was just moulting, but finally I had to make the decision to bury him because he obviously wasn't doing real well.

He and Drake had some good times.

Giving Thanks

I'd like to say:

T- tired
H- houseguests
A- arguments
N- noise
K- kids
S- screaming


Just kidding. We had a good Thanksgiving. George's siblings all came over to our place for the big event. It was actually really nice (if a little chaotic) to have everyone here. I just didn't let it get to me that I cleaned the house only to have it destroyed. It was all OK because we had a good time and the kids had a BLAST.

All the kids slept in Bart and Drake's room, except for Lucy, who slept in her own room. We borrowed an air mattress for our guest room, but it had a slow leak, so we ended up buying a queen bed that someone down the street was selling. By the time I got home from work on Wednesday night, everyone had arrived.

I had to work a lot of the time, but George was home, so he was able to entertain everyone. Thursday was such a gorgeous day. I got to sleep in and prepared half of Thanksgiving dinner in my silk PJ's.


All the children played outside nearly the whole day. We had entirely too much food and the women pored over Black Friday ads while the men watched TV and dozed off. Everyone chipped in to make dinner and clean up.

Here are the cousins with their super-cute turkey cookies that Mindy helped them make.


After we ate, Mindy, Mary Kay, and I took Lucy for a walk around the neighborhood in the stroller. Lucy got antsy as we were going down Anchor Way, so I carried her. It was beginning to get dark. As we walked down Anchor Way, we spotted a fox across a field standing perfectly still, staring at us. I reassured everyone that it wouldn't bother us. As we approached the cul-de-sac at the end of Anchor Way, we saw a deer standing a couple hundred yards away in the yard directly in front of us. Again, I reassured my sisters-in-law that the deer wouldn't hurt us, that there were tons of them in River Bend.

Then - the deer RAN STRAIGHT AT US!!!!

I thought it was going to charge us and all I could think about was getting Lucy to safety. I pulled Mindy in front of Lucy and Mary Kay tried to block us with the stroller. Just before it got to us, the deer veered into the woods, where we saw several other deer running off.

We were SO freaked out. I mean, we thought for sure that the deer was going to attack us.

On the way back home, we passed the same fox still standing in the field stone-still. We quickened our pace, thinking that if the deer nearly attacked us, what might a fox do?

Freaky.

We got back to the house and all the girls went out together to the movies to see New Moon. It was hilarious/annoying because Skylar insisted I sit beside her during the movie. She kept a vise grip on my arm through the whole movie and kept biting my hand when things got really intense.

I got to bed by 11:30 or so, then woke up at 3:15 am and DRAGGED myself out of bed, hating myself for being weak enough to allow a seasonal sale and the promise of "doorbusters" to seduce me out of bed on a morning when I could normally have slept in. Stupid, stupid....

But all us girls got up and hightailed it out to Jacksonville, which has the only real mall for quite some distance. We did nab some great deals and managed to get back home by 8:30 or so. We hit several stores and were home in time for me to catch a nap before work at 5pm.

Here Lucy and Bart are spending quality time together:


While I was at work, the older kids all got to go to bowling. Then everyone (and I mean freaking everyone) dropped by my work to say "hi" to me. I later learned that my husband's ulterior motive for coming to see me at Target was so that he could buy a new Wii game to play ("for Bart") and browse the Legos. When I found out about the Wii game - which I was planning on getting Bart for Christmas - I really hit the roof. Why would he in his right mind go out and spend $40 or $50 on a new game a month before Christmas???? What was he thinking???? And he ended up ruining a surprise for Bart. ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH.

If we're playing that little game, I may as well go right on out and buy myself an iphone, because I really want one.

Lucy has added two new words to her vocabulary this week: Spongebob and banana. At least Mama and Dada were her first two words.

Drake is potty-training. One day it just seemed to click for him. He's not totally there yet, but he is exclusively in pull-ups and not diapers. I made him sticker chart so he can make a big deal out of No. 1 and No. 2.

Drake's hermit crab, Mr. Krabs, is dead (I think). I'm not sure how to tell if they're moulting. When I was little, I think I accidentally buried my hermit crab alive while it was moulting because I thought it was dead. I feel really bad for Drake, who does not know there is anything wrong with his crab - yet. When he got Mr. Krabs, he was holding him and he said, "I love you, Mr. Krabs." He named him all by himself. I don't know if it was something we did, or if the crab was just sickly when we bought him. I have no idea! I think we need a pet who can let us know when something is wrong.

Mom came down on Wednesday so I could go to court in the morning to have my ticket dismissed. She brought Drake a stuffed animal, a blue-footed booby. Yes, I'm being serious. It's really cute and Drake loves it. He brings it everywhere, including to the dinner table where "Bird" has to have a plate and napkin, too. "Bird" almost took a bath with me the other day, and "Bird" has to be buckled into the car, too. "Bird" also goes by an alias - "Seagull". You never know which name Drake will use. He sucks on Bird's beak, which is kind of weird. Yesterday he took Bird outside and put him on the handlebars of his bike while he rode around the driveway. It was pretty cute. Then he and Skylar made Bird a nest out of pinestraw on the front porch. Drake held Bird in his arms and told him, "I will love you forevers."

Bart is the kindest little boy (or the biggest flirt). We went to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast while George was in Germany and Bart offered the lady behind the counter a piece of his new watermelon gum. She was so touched by his gallantry that she gave him a free munchkin donut and then gave us his donut on the house. When Bart realized he'd scored free food just by being nice, he was amazed. The other day when we were in the furniture section of Target, he tried to give a lady working there a piece of gum. She thought he was sweet and stopped to talk with us. I'm not sure what freebie Bart was trying to score out of that one.

George and the kids watched the Sandlot Friday night while I was at work. George told me that after the scene where Squints kisses Wendy Peffercorn (sp?) the lifeguard, Bart told him that he really wants to kiss a girl. I told him he could kiss Lucy, but he said, "No, mom, I mean a woman."

And we thought Skylar was going to be the one we had to worry about! What are we going to do when that boy's hormones really kick in?

P.S. This is the really weird sausage George had in Germany. It freaks me out.

Disney Part 1

These pictures are a long time in coming, but I have been totally daunted by the prospect of posting all these dang pictures.

However....I would suck as a person if I didn't post our Disney pictures, so here they are.

My 30th birthday rocked, even if I didn't get the party on the beach I had dreamed of. Instead of planning a party for me (George hates parties) at the beach (the beach is the only thing he hates more than parties), George offered to take me to Las Vegas. I have no desire to go to Las Vegas (sorry Nevada, nothing personal), so I jokingly replied, "You can get out of planning my party if you take me on a cruise". He thought that was a great idea, so we started looking into cruises, but as it was Labor Day weekend, I could not get Friday off, so we couldn't make it to any of the short cruises. So....we decided to take the Big Two to Disney...
We had a blast!

We drove all night (big mistake). George was so tired he made himself sick. I had just gotten off work and had planned on sleeping on the drive down, but my restless legs were driving me nuts. Bart's sleep medicine was in the back, so we pulled over on the highway so I could get out and take some. Well, it was dark so I couldn't see a THING and I stepped in a fire ant hill. My foot swelled up and looked pretty gross. We stopped just before dawn and parked in a hotel parking lot and we all slept for awhile before continuing on. We stopped again for breakfast in Florida at a Cracker Barrel. The kids and I ate while George napped in the car. Then we got up and drove the last hour to Disney, feeling a little tired but ready to GO!!!!

Skylar and Bart were absolutely amazed by Disney. They kept saying "We never thought it was really like this!" They were amazed that there was really a castle. They were amazed by how HUGE Disney was. They couldn't believe the shops and the people and the rides. It was a thousand times cooler to go there with them and see the wonder on their faces than any other time I've ever been.

One of our favorite rides was the Buzz Lightyear ride. We spent all of our first day in the Magic Kingdom. We looked at some of the shops on Mainstreet USA (the kids were agog at all the items in the shops) before heading over to Cinderella's castle for Skylar's princess makeover at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.

We had made a reservation, but we still had to wait a good while before Skylar was taken back. It was really worth it, though. She looked so regal and so beautiful, our little princess.



Here she is getting the finishing touches to hair, makeup, and nails....



And voila! Before and after:

Plans

I'm so proud of myself. I have thought up an elaborate plan to make sure George does not guess his Christmas present this year. It's always a challenge, but this year I'm going the extra mile to make sure it's a surprise. He's pretty sneaky, though, which is why the only person in our house that knows anything besides me is Skylar. It was really hard to decide what to get him. I was going to get him a pressure-washer, but the punk went out and bought one himself, along with a new weed-whacker. So I was going to get him a new bike. But he went out and bought it for himself. So I was going to get him a really nice Lego Star Wars set (which he had expressed a desire for), but - you guessed it - he went out and bought a couple set for himself and Bart (mostly himself).
I think he'll be surprised this time, really, actually surprised.

He's back

I picked George up at the airport tonight. His flight actually got in early. I know everyone around us must have thought we'd been apart for MONTHS. I'm sure we looked like lovesick teenagers, but it felt like we were apart for ages. The longest we've ever been apart since George went to boot camp eleven years ago is one week. Two weeks was absolutely too long. I do not see how military families do it.
What George said he missed most while he was in Germany (after me, of course) was his king-sized bed and king-sized blanket. He said for some reason, the blankets over there are basically the size of the bed with no overhang, so you can't really wrap up in them. Even in the 5-star hotel he stayed at in Munich. At the other hotel he stayed at, he slept in a double bed which had two twin blankets rather than one double blanket. Bizarre. He ordered room service there and the weirdo chose pizza and salad. Honestly - you stay at a 5-star hotel in Germany and order dinner from a 5-star restaurant and you get pizza and salad??
I'm up late right now because I'm waiting for my Tylenol to kick in. I had to get out of bed due to a horrible headache I've been fighting all night. Probably work-induced. The best thing about work is that we stay so busy that the time really flies. The worst thing about work is that we stay so busy.
Anyway....my Tylenol is kicking in finally, so I think I'll head back to bed.

Clarification

I need to clarify my last post. I was referring to the fact that it's been raining steadily nearly all week with no break in the clouds, hence the building an ark reference. I was in no way trying to suggest that our country is going down the crapper and life as we know it is about to be destroyed....oh, wait a second....

I'm Building an Ark

Anyone wanna ride??

Tea Parties: Misunderstood and Vastly Underrated

Great article. I took the kids to the Tea Party at Union Point Park last Saturday for a little while. Of course, we didn't really get to listen too much because Drake wanted to swing and Lucy wanted to run around in the grass, but I was really proud that Bart and Skylar ASKED to attend. I didn't suggest that we go, I told them about it and they asked me if we could go. Of course, it helps that the Tea Party was being held at the park right by the swings and a totally gorgeous river view. Who says politics can't be fun?

Tea Parties: Misunderstood and Vastly Underrated

Today was a craptacular day. It's been raining pretty much nonstop since yesterday around lunch time. And my battery was dead this morning when I tried to take the kids to school. Thank goodness Vanessa was able to help me jump the car because George's car was not strong enough to get it going.
Just a few minutes ago, I dropped a bottle of lemon juice in the kitchen and it exploded in my face and hair.
Yay me. What a fabulous day.

Halloween Night

Scenes from our church trunk or treat:

We were an eclectic bunch this year. Skylar went as Juliet. Lucy was a bumblebee. Bart was Jengo Fett from Star Wars. Drake was Obi Wan Kenobi. And George and I went as Perseus and Medusa.

Lucy the bumblebee buzzes around her flower buddy Arden. Arden likes Lucy's antennae.

Drake scores lots of candy. Bart lets baby Ezra grab his nose. Vanessa will probably kill me for posting a picture of her, but her ice princess look was beautiful.

Here George and I show off our awesome physiques. Honestly, we should be carved from marble.

After Trunk or Treat, we went home and I took the kids trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. George volunteered for candy duty. I think Bart was more excited to give out candy than he was to get it. I found him at the end of the driveway with the candy bowl, waylaying trick-or-treaters. It was absolutely disgustingly hot (like 80 degrees even after sundown) but we still had a lot of fun. The boys were pretty tired after only a few houses, but Skylar wanted to keep going. One guy in the neighborhood was giving out half-dollars wrapped in orange tulle instead of candy. While we were still on the front step, Drake said really loudly, "This is money. I don't want money. Mom, you said we were supposed to get candy!" You gotta love toddlers' honesty.

Lucy loved trying out her candy when we got back home. I gave her a pack of Sweet Tarts to play with on the last part of the walk home because she was fussing. She ate the whole pack, from the top to the bottom with the paper on and everything (the next day I found the paper still mostly intact, if you know what I mean). Luckily we were able to convince her that raisins were candy and she ate two mini boxes of them.

I had to make the boys stop eating all their candy. They were being pretty sneaky, too. We even found Drake under the dining room table, cramming candy in his mouth. I had been pretty bummed out because I had to work most of the day, but it turned out to be a nice Halloween after all.

Our Great Pumpkin

The kids had a great time picking out a pumpkin (and a couple mini ones) at the pumpkin patch at the church up the street.
I couldn't resist taking a picture of a sign posted outside the church in a no-parking zone. Too funny!

Back home, Bart shows off his decorated baby pumpkin. Skylar and Bart scooped out pumpkin goo so George could carve a masterpiece.

Lucy studies the fake pumpkins on the front porch.

And finally - the finished product -
It's TROGDOR!!!!

We celebrate with Halloween cupcakes.