Coming soon to a mailbox near you....

That is right, for the first time in our family history, we are sending out Christmas cards!!!

Fall Happenings

I need to play catch up!!!

These are pictures from the parade in our neighborhood every year; I always have to work that Saturday, so Eric teams up with some of our neighbors and takes the kids....caught being silly!!

 As you can see from the look on their faces, they are anticipating the rush to get candy from the next float.....or firetruck.....or boy scout troop

 This is just a random picture to prove how happy our kids are when they get to eat sugary treats that his mommy obviously does not give him (smile)....

 And then there is this!  So we are at the cabin, and I hear gun shots outside, but do not think much of it as the cabin borders a national forest....and then I hear a lot of talking outside, and so I think, well maybe I should go out and see what is going on......only to find this.......seems the boys (Charlie included) have gone squirrel hunting......very troubling.....

 Austin spotted for Eric, Eric shot, and Charlie retrieved....luckily the camera ran out of batteries prior to Grandpa Barry teaching Austin how to gut, skin, and pull the meat off of the squirrels so that Grandma Delma could make some squirrel soup!!!  I have to say I could not have gone back to being a vegetarian at a more appropriate time in life!!!

 Oh that is right my friends, Austin is holding the critters by the tail without a glove; I almost had to give one of my "talks" but then remembered that boys will be boys and a little squirrel blood never killed anybody......please do not tell me stories of someone who got hurt by dead squirrels!!!

 Then there is Ansley's Halloween party.  A few weeks ago she asked if she could go back to school, so we put her in a Mother's Morning Out program at our church.  Eric went to her Halloween party and helped her to decorate her cookie.

 She had lots of fun and was dressed up as a lady bug....stay tuned for the costume shot!!

 This was at the cabin, this past Saturday afternoon.  An has given up her afternoon nap, but on Saturday while we were waiting for dinner to be ready, she fell asleep sitting up in a chair....well, it was late and I did not want her to take a nap so late in the day, as she would then not go to sleep until, WAY LATE, so .... I picked her up.  Well, she of course continued to sleep in my lap, so then I tried to make her stand up, and she started to wobble.....and then she sat down on the floor and continued to sleep, sitting up.  This was the best picture to capture what was going on, but picture her swaying back and forth, sleeping while sitting up!

 And then there was Halloween; Austin went as a pirate and Ansley a lady bug.  Eric had class, so I was by myself, so needless to say, we got lots of candy but did not give any out, since no one was home when the trick-or-treaters came around!!

 An and one of our next door neighbors, Jordan, that she loves.

And then this is Austin and Aris; they are in the same class and have a play date every Friday afternoon.  So they obviously gravitate towards each other at neighborhood events.  Earlier in the day on Halloween, Austin saw Aris's mom at the school and asked her if he could borrow a sword for his pirate costume (as I obviously was not going to let him have a sword to use to poke his sister's eye out with) and she brought it to him.  The look on his face was as if he had won the lottery.  I rationalize that this just makes him appreciate things more!!

Have a great weekend, and I will try to update more often!!

Another birthday

Another day, another post, another birthday.....this time Grandpa B. is 65!!

Singing 101

I am not soliciting birthday wishes; just posting to my virtual baby book :)

For some reason the audio is not matching up with the video; I will try to fix that later.

Kindergarten

Oh happy day, oh happy day!!!  AC1 started Kindergarten today!!!  Austin just told me that was a rhyme.  Just before we went to the bus stop.....(flash back to birth)

and then back to reality...................

 This is a shot of the whole group who rode the bus from our neighborhood to school today.  There were about 20 in all.  Austin did great ... until ... he got to the bus and realized he had not gotten a hug from mom before he walked towards the bus (he did get a hug but was so wrapped up in the awe of the bus he did not even notice the hug).

Fortunately for us, there are several kids from our cul-de-sac on the bus and one of the 4th grade girls took Austin's hand and led him onto the bus...at which point he positioned himself in the back row with her...anyone worried yet???

Oh happy day, AC1 is a Kindergartner :)

Picture Diary

You just cannot get us off this lake :)  We took our neighbors' son with us a few weeks ago; I am just now getting around to finding the camera cord :)

 Austin LOVES this float and another one from Granddad

 Our neighbor Logan went out on it too!!

 Logan and Eric went fishing; but not catching.....

 Then, we got the most interesting gift that I only think could exist in GA; you can get free mulch from tree companies when they have to cut down a tree.  This actually came from our power company; I called them months ago, and they just put your name on a list and when they are in your area and have a load they come and drop it off!!  Free Bradford Pear tree mulch!!!  It covered our back yard; we are very glad, the weeds were OUT of CONTROL!!!

 Okay, so last weekend at the lake these ducks come swimming up to us while we are playing in the water....you would have thought, based on Ansley's reaction, that they were 3 headed ghosts....she screamed and screamed and cried until Eric put her in the boat ... she was deathly afraid of them, but yet felt fine feeding them food from inside the boat.  So she and Eric threw them crackers while Austin and I swam close by.

 LOVE it!!!  Tired (pronounced ty-rad)

The next day we found a new duck and her babies....again Ansley about screamed herself hoarse until we got her back into the boat!!!

Irritating

So as I am drying Ansley's hair tonight, Austin turns on my fan and starts doing the thing all kids do when near a fan, talking into it.  He only says one thing before he turns it off and looks at me and says, "Mom, I'm not going to do that because I know that it is irritating."

Now if only he could get it through his head how irritating it is when he picks on his sister :)

Holiday Weekend

So we spent the weekend at the cabin...........swimming:

 Our cabin is just behind these "monsters" ... we can only dream of being able to buy one of these :) but it puts it into perspective of where our house is with regards to the lake.

How Austin spent his weekend........jumping off the boat into the lake.....he really is amphibious 

 This is just a far away shot of the lake area where we spent most of our time.

 Austin could be in this inner tube all day; and I do mean all day!!  We pulled him behind the boat for quite a while.  This is a picture of him before we talked about hand signals....so for like 10 minutes we are driving around the lake and we have no idea what he is saying, but we know he was talking non-stop.  Seems he was saying go faster, slow down, and stop....we now have hand signals :)

An & I keeping close watch on the talker 

 When we docked for lunch An needed to go to the little girls room, so Eric took here to the bathroom, well just as they walked into the boy's room, there was a wasp nest and a wasp bit An; the worst part was that it got tangled in her hair and bit her twice while trying to get out of her hair.  It was a red wasp and my mom was allergic, so we were super worried!!!  We rushed home and got her a Benadryl and Tylenol and she was fine.  She actually seemed to forget about it until we would ask her how she was feeling ... poor thing!!

 Some how Eric convinced me that I could take Ans out on the tube and he could pull us slowly....it lasted for a bit but eventually we dumped out.... A2 did NOT like that at all!!  No more tube for her and I for a while :)

 A1 on the other hand could stay in it all day...until

 Oh that's right my friends....we let A2 drive the boat while Austin was in the float!!!!!  HAHAHA

 Can you see her little head behind the steering wheel????

"Hey An, don't look at Austin, look at Daddy ... don't worry about steering, smile and wave for the camera!!!" ............ okay, kidding!!!!  I am out of the picture but am actually holding onto the wheel and throttle the whole time....tricked ya!!

 After all of that fun, we had to get some rest!!!

Happy 4th of July America!!

Progress

One of the best things about our new cabin is that we are super close to a lake, so we decided to take out boat up there permanently, which meant for the first time in three years Eric has been able to park his truck in our garage.  This, my friends, is real progress!!  So because of that, we had to build a "parking spot" for our trash cans to be in compliance with out HOA.

Which meant power tools!!!

 

Austin helped Eric to build the fence and gate for the landing...kind of hard to describe...but here is Austin putting on the hinges.

 Ansley thought coloring one of the boards was a fabulous idea!!

 Look at the cuts and bruises on her legs & knees; seems this girl is quite clumsy!!

but at least she can still smile :)

 Is Austin trying to pop Ans' head off or is he just being silly?  You decide....

After all of that hard work, they set off for an afternoon at the pool.  This is a weird angle, but in the picture the two of them are actually sharing a pool chair during adult swim.  We needed photo documentation of them sharing :)

Lima Bean

So one of Austin's projects in school this year was to plant a lima bean and grow it hydroponically; well, once well established we decided to move it to a pot.....and low and behold, what do we have here??????

Dinner!!!  Woohoo!!!

 

So we asked Austin if he wanted to eat his product, and wait for it....NO!!!  He wanted to take out the seeds and plant the new seeds so that he could have more plants.  To think, this was the one way Eric and I thought we could get him to eat something green!!

Last few days of Pre-K

The last few days of school were activity days for the parents to attend and participate in with their kids....so Eric went to the field day and helped with the bean bag toss.  The girl in this picture is Austin's "best" friend Ashley.  They played really well together all year and he said he was going to miss her.  Some how out of the 20 kids in his class and the 20 in the other class only one other little girl is going to the same elementary school.  The weird thing is that our house was only about 2 miles from the Pre-K.  But it seems that most kids who are going to our elementary school either went to a church program or stayed at home this year.

 Austin is searching for the bean bag and Dad is not helping at all!!!  If I could just reach.......

 Of course, there was ice cream as a reward at the end of the event; note: Austin did not share with Eric.

 A semi-picture of the whole group.

 Austin is eating his cupcake before lunch; what a surprise!!!!

 Sign says it all!!!

Yippee!!!!