Pretty cool website...

Have you all seen this website? It lets you read full length books with your kids and then it donates a hard copy to the charity you choose from their list of literacy based causes. The books have great illustrations since they're DK or Penguin titles. Just thought it might help a few moms who might be stuck in the summertime rut... not that we are over here or anything. Happy reading!

Six.... and Spoiled Rotten

Just look what the cat dragged in for Ava on her sixth birthday....

We had a little bit of a rough go with Cinnamon the first week, hence no photos of her right away.

But she's eating now, which makes her happy, which makes her cute and playful, which makes Ava happy.

What makes Nathan Jump for Joy?

A surprise birthday party trip to the beach with his favorite family in the whole world - the Ryan boys.

For Nathan's 4th birthday we packed up the car Thursday morning, drove to school and grabbed Ava, then proceed to slowly tell them where we were going during the 8 hour drive down to Litchfield, SC and the purdiest beaches on the East Coast (actually, really the only beach we've been too on the East Coast - FL doesn't count).

Ava was way too smart and guessed the surprise immediately, but Nathan was still confused after he opened the presents we had brought as clues - goggles, inner tube, beach toys and squirt sword things. He got pretty excited, finally, about 6 hours in to the drive.

Piggy Wiggly made a beautiful beach cake that added many pounds to all of our physique. We had to eat it all in 2 days, dang it.

Noah thought about paddling everyone but then decided he was out numbered. These poor kids are exhausted after a intense day at the beach and pool but we made them enjoy a birthday party. Ava may never forgive me for putting this picture of her up on the web. They were sunburnt, tired and ready to drop.

I especially was in the best mood after getting about 5 hours of sleep and realizing at 1:00am when we pulled into the resort that my bag (including all my swimsuits and all the bathroom stuff) was the only bag that didn't get packed. I spent 2 hours of quality time at the Goodwill and $27 dollars later I was good as new. Kinda. Here I am telling Jayme that she WILL eat WHATEVER kind of cake I put on her plate. I made the mistake of ordering a marble cake for 6 little kids that all wanted white cake.

Luckily the ice cream was white and well received.

And so were the presents - a beach creature set from the Ryans, a new space puzzle, a bouncy ball making kit, a football and color changing cars.

Nathan was having a tough time thinking he wanted to leave his old number 3 behind, but I think he decided it was more fun to be at the beach so he'll take the number 4.

If my computer had been more cooperative, I'd have posted more and told you more about this trip. For now, I'm dead and I'm at least 2 weeks behind - today is actually Lias's birthday but Nathan's finally getting his dues. And the wedding did happen, it was beautiful, I'm wading through 700 pictures from it and waiting for the good ones from the real photographer to post something. Good night!

Let the Fun Begin

At the crack of dawn, one of my brothers showed up after driving 16 hours straight, on top of another 20 hours before. Then about 6 hours later another car pulled into the drive carrying 4 other siblings and my dad. The porches are now clean, the yard is mowed and weed eaten, the brick walkway is reclaimed from the weeds and there are $100 bucks worth of beautiful flowers sitting in my sparkling clean garage. We stayed up til midnight watching Dirty Jobs and tying lime green and hot pink tulle onto 150 handouts to give to guest in 2 days. During our dinner, a single 3 ft by 1 ft package showed up, holding about 50 massive Gerbera daisies. The delivery man told us it was the 1st of 17 packages of flowers to come. We hope he's not right. Ava, Nathan and Lias are in heaven wrestling and playing with uncles and aunts. Most are asleep right now, and I'd better join them before I crash, but don't you kinda wish someone would get married every year just so you could all hang out more? Bring on the wedding chaos, we're having fun......

Bittersweet Beach Trip

So we're here at the beach for the next 3 days, which is great, but I forgot to load my bag with all the bathroom stuff and ALL my clothes, swimsuits, etc into the van, which is not great. But I'm headed to the local thrift store to see what I can find, which is fun, but I may end up at Walmart, buying junk for way too much, which is not too fun. Bittersweet, but I'll let you know how it all ends up.

And isn't it an appropriate time to go to the beach 1 week before you throw a wedding for 250 guests at your house? My sister Laurel's getting married, at our house, and I'm the wedding planner, next Saturday. We thought we should take a little breather before we started the chaos.

Naugh - E

Doesn't this baby look sweet and innocent?

Now he's starting to look a little naugh - e...

And now I can tell he's up to something for sure.

Whatda I tell you? Naughty, naughty, naughty.

Checking out his mess.

"This picture here is you and here's me, giving you a sweet hug, Mama"

Telling himself "NO, NO, E-LI" Very emphatically. Too bad it's 10 minutes too late.

The nerve. The audacity. The will to try again, in plain daylight and not even behind my back?

The evil eye.

If my eyes are closed, then you can't see what I'm doing, Mom.

Finally, the good sense to skedaddle before I blister his little behind. What a naughty twerp. But a dang cute one, huh?

In-between

Almost 4 is such a hard in-between age. He's not quite little enough to be a baby, but not quite old enough to be a big kid. He's goofy, funny and incredible articulate one minute, then whining and falling apart, desperately needing a nap the next minute. He gets confused between older and bigger, telling us all the time that when he gets to be a big dada THEN he'll be older than Ava. Yet he's one of the deepest thinking little kids I've met, and especially, that I've had to come up with answers for. He asks daily about why Allie died and if we can kill Satan and if Heavenly Father has a potty up in Heaven. Tonight he told me he doesn't have to go to the potty "often" since we had a whole conversation about what the word "often" meant today. He threw a fit at the church while we were cleaning so I left him in the glass entrance to the building while I washed the window 25 ft away. When he came out (which he was free to do anytime he stopped screaming) he told me he thought someone was going to take him, hence the conversation about kids not "often" getting kidnapped. He's cautious about things like getting his hands muddy, yet impulsive and spastic.

Sweet, sweet but can't control his little body so kisses you so fiercely and repeatedly it hurts. Runs up to Lias excitedly and hugs him so hard he cries, even though he's not trying to be malicious. Constantly fidgeting and dancing and sick of me asking him to go to the bathroom because I'm misreading his "body language". (We had a whole conversation about that term too - thanks to The Little Mermaid). Generally, self absorbed but occasionally blows me away with his niceness and willingness to help. Must be coddled or watch out and be prepared to deal with it for the next 45 minutes. CAN NOT handle suspense - turns away when anything remotely, or lots of things not even remotely, suspenseful happen on movies. I found him hiding behind a big couch pillow today, trying to watch The Fox and the Hound. Finally, after about 20 minutes, he dashed over to the TV and turned it off, so relieved to have the suspense gone. Transitions are hard for him - on Wednesday we'll mention something about church on Sunday and he'll start anxiously telling us he hates church, even though he loves his class when he gets there. He's smart. He can whip out a puzzle in no time flat, knows almost all his ABCs and is sounding out a few words, mainly N-O and O-N, which he finds everywhere and points out repeatedly. But he will. not. sing. them for anybody.

He's such an extreme personality. I hope he keeps his spunk, but learns to control his highs and lows. In the meantime, I'll try to cherish his little warm body cuddled in between John and I every night (even if he kicks us to death and gets bribed with all kinds of rewards for staying in his own bed) and try to keep my cool a little better when his excitement gets the better of him.

Ps. Pictures by my friend Tiff, she's great huh? And she's looking for families to photograph!