thank you, God.....it's FRIDAY!!

whew....people, i haven't looked forward to a friday the way that i have on this week in a looooong time.  it was a killah week...but it was productive. 

**hkay had ballet camp this week.  this entailed an hour drive there and back each day.  totally worth it because she absolutely LOVED it, but a drain nonetheless.  i'll post on it next week!

**during hannah's three hour camp, ava girl and i hit up the local shopping for back-to-school stuff.  hkay has some totally cute new clothes (but alas, no turquoise sequined shoes.....dangitall.  i WILL not be defeated in my quest though....those shoes are a must have for her  turquise plaid shirt that i got her.  it's over-the-top or nothing at ALL!)  and two, count'em...TWO new lunchboxes.  her mia got her a fabulous pink and white polka-dot lunchbox from pottery barn for the days that hkay's feeling all sweet.  i got her an awesome hot pink and black tin hello kitty lunchbox for the days that she's feeling a lil sassy.  i might be more excited about them than she is ;)  my girl also has some brand-spankin-new crayons, pink erasers, scissors, and other whatnots for kindergarten.  there's no turning back now!

**i signed up for a 5k folks!!  yep....it's on like donkey kong from this point on.  i have actually successfully run 3.1 miles (TWICE!) in the past week,  now i just have to get my time to somewhere a scootch under 6 hours.  my goal is around 24 minutes.  but get this....the race is on october 2nd.  for those of you not "in the know"....that is my 31st birthday.  that's right....i'm going to attempt what may be the event that ends me....on my birthday.  hey, nothing says "happy birthday" quite like cardio-pulmonary rescusitation...right?  those of you who might actually be AT the race (you know...with signs, cowbells, streamers and confetti.....oh yeah, and an OXYGEN TANK!), please make sure the emt is at least mildly attractive.  i don't want to wake up from my birthday-near-death-experience to some uggo giving me the breath of life....mmmmkay? 

and now.....a lil blast from the past (for anyone who is even mildly interested in reading these old posts.  i know that i am.....but my life fascinates me, so yeah). 

july 28, 2008:  our lives in three paragraphs:  hey....everyone was sick....what did you people EXPECT from me!!  and it figures...chandler is STILL the best "sick kid" in the house.  just give them boy his blankie and he's al good :)

july 29, 2009:  summer time updates:   this one was interesting for me to read because it documents some of chan's first words.  i had forgotten about a couple of these!  and we DID sell our house...say yay on that.

it only took her ten months.....

...to reach these milestones. 

it almost took me as long to actually DO her ten month pictures. 

**and don't think for one second that the fact that "h" is turned isn't owning me right now.  i wish i could reach into the picture and FIX IT! oh yeah....and i will not be using the yellow letters/numbers from henceforth.  that is, in fact, a one at the beginning.  stupid pale numbers!  okay...longwinded rant over***

ava girl hit the big 1-0 two weeks ago, but i just now got around to doing her pics.  in my defense, i live in florida and it rains each.and.every.afternoon.  without fail.  you could set your clocks by it.  and we SO don't do morning photo shoots.  my hands are all shaky from sleep deprivation and ava's MUCH too perky in the a.m. for my liking. 

besides....have you ever tried to take pictures of an active baby?  she's VERY easily distracted:

"mmmmmm......wooden blocks.  i could use a little fiber in my diet.  think i'll commence chewing upon them.  and yay!  there's some sand to add a little extra grit to the flavor!"

"look.....some grass moved over there...."

"was that a bug?  it could have been a pteredactyl.....we might need to go investigate."

"i know i've seen these blocks a bazillion times, but i'm suddenly extremely fascinated by this particular one." (she has a VERY impressive vocabulary for her age...)

"oh...you want a picture of ME???  petite moi?? (for you, mia!) why whatever for?"

"okay.....but just ONE!"

"and now, back to my blocks.   that i never play with....even though they're always available to me.  but they are like magnets now....and i don't want the ones in my hands, but rather the ones that mommy keeps telling me to leave alone.  i'm QUITE the rebel like that....and apparently pretty wordy.  must have inherited that trait from my mom."

anyhoodles...on to the focus of this here post. 

things that miss priss is now doing by her tenth month:

1.  clapping.  all you have to do is say "yay" and she starts clapping.  it's a very "pavlov's dog" moment!
2.  waving.  if you're REALLY lucky, she'll grace you with a double hand wave.  that's reserved for when she's very excited or in the mood to show off a lil bit.
3.  saying "mama" and "bye bye"
4.  growing fangs.....i think that in honor of "eclipse" coming out in theaters (a little sumthin sumthin for you, salt....i knew you'd get all sparkle happy at the mere mention of a twilight movie!), she decided to forego sprouting her middle top two teeth and instead opted for the top two lateral incisors to come in first.  so we have the bottom two middles....and then fangs.  oh, if only those teeth came with an edward ;)
5.  achieving her ph.d in destruction and mayhem. 

so there you have it.  on the one hand, it feels like she's always been with us....i just can't remember life before ava.  on the other hand, i can't believe it's already been ten months.  at some point i'm going to have to come to grips with it and start planning on her birthday.  but today, my friends, is NOT that day.

shutter love tuesday.... sports!

it's shutter love tuesday over at the treehouse!  this week's theme is "sports".  i snapped this picture of my daughter cheering on her cousin, matthew, at his all-stars state tournament baseball game.   what are sports without the great fans???  ;)

and yeah....my cousin plays for my old high school alma mater's intercounty rival's city team, but we are not ones to do things halfway....so we bedecked ourselves in freeport orange and blue and cheered as hard for them as if they'd been our hometown team!  why?  because that's what family does for each other...no matter how much it hurt our walton high school braves' hearts  ;)

(p.s.....they ended up winning that game....but they lost the next night's.  i think it's because we couldn't be there!)

click on the trendy  treehouse button to see more "sports" pictures!

i heart faces week 30: purple!

this week's i heart faces theme is "purple" and i immediately knew which picture i wanted to use. 

hannah wanted to have a ballerina birthday party this year, so we took some ballet pictures to use as decoration.  she had so much fun dancing and posing in her purple tutu that she and her mia made at a tutu fabulous event this year.

to see more "purple" photography, click on the i heart faces button below!

blastin' from the pastin'

it's flashback friday!  (still working on the theme song).  this past week has been a total whirlwind.  we had hkay and chan's swim lessons on monday.....went to panama city beach for the day on tuesday (have i mentioned how much i love living close to the beaches????)....i spent the day on the beach WITHOUT KIDS on wednesday with my friend, lea, and we ate at panera bread (my first time there...oh so good! )...and then i went in to work on thursday and friday to prepare for students to return to school in TWO weeks.  what summer vacation????  ;)  

i'd like to say that next week will be a little more laid back, but we have swim lessons for chan and hannah is going to her very first ballet camp for the week.  chaos....utter chaos.  someone remind me of what i did with all my free time before kids?  that's right.....i did squat. 

 i suppose it's like what my mother-in-law alway says.... i'll rest when i'm dead.  for now, i'm the chicken and my head has been cut o.f.f.  (if that's a southern phrase, then i'm sorry if i just grossed out any of my northern/midwestern readers!). 

july 23, 2008:  even he-man started out as a baby.  oh man.....my little boy has grown so much since this post!  he's still a destructive lil booger though ;)  and don't mind the oddly skewed pics....i was still trying to figure out blogger and its weird picture placements!

july 23, 2008:  pump it up playtime. what a fun day....and such a cool place.  i think that we should make a trip back soon after rereading this!

july 23, 2009:  30ish weeks.  shield your eyes at the end of this one.  that is a big ole white preggo belly.  i'm lucky that the epa didn't try to "rescue" me off of the beach and return me to the depths of the sea! and it was oh so fun to relive the whole gender surprise experience though!  oh yeah....and that ultrasound that we were SUPPOSED to have later in the pregnancy to see if the baby had turned....yeah.....THAT never happened.  which resulted in ava girl being born backwards.  good thing she was a "keeper" because i was NOT a happy momma for a hot minute!

so there you go.  super fun times in '08 and '09.  these are just reminding me of how fast my babies are growing up.....i'm going to go tighten down those bricks on their heads so they'll slow down just a scootch!

bought 'em some peanuts and crackerjacks....

well.....not really.  more like popcorn and italian ices.  but close enough, right???  we went to the ballpark to watch my cousin matthew's state all-star game.  of course, hannah was freaking out over the fact that her shirt had a bulldog on it....i had to explain to her the difference between a GEORGIA bulldog and a FREEPORT bulldog.  she's such a good little florida gator!!  although, my little walton high school braves heart cried a little at seeing my family (myself included) decked out in intercounty rival freeport's colors, but we do not hold it against my cousins for their parent's mistakes in choosing a school for them ;) 

anyrivalry, we donned our orange and blue, held up our homemade signs, and hooted-n-hollored (which bascially caused ava girl to crawl up and attempt to wrap herself around my neck in fear!) for our all-stars.  they played an awesome game and won 5-1!!  sent those mulberry boys a-packin. 

hannah was all about rooting for the home team. 

but i'm thinking that eventually we were starting to embarrass her.  i was really hoping that her desire to put as much real estate between herself and the rest of us would come at a later age.....but alas, it seems that she's already attempting to not "know" us!

hey....we might have been loud....and possibly a tidbit embarrassing, but no other kid out there had their parents, their sister and her boyfriend, three aunts, two cousins, AND three second cousins in attendance (for which those other kids might have been thanking their lucky stars!! ).  it's for reasons like this that i'm so glad we live around tons of family. 

chandler was content so long as he had a coke, popcorn, or some baseball action going on.  oh yeah...and the m&m cookies.  no wonder i couldn't get the boy to sleep before midnight!  he was jacked up on some sugar, yo.  eventually he crashed, but he was vastly unpleasant the following morning.  his eyes weren't even fully opened when he came into the kitchen demanding his breakfast ("mommy....get me toptart!"). 

mia (aka, my mother) hooked the kids up with a little italian ice.  i can see the thoughts running through their heads here..... "spoons?  we don't need no stinkin' spoons!)

ava girl did pretty well...once we extracted herself from atop my head.  she clapped and spit up (because she's ava....and that's what she does! but in her defense.....aunt karen DID use her as a pom pom when we got all excited over one of the boys hitting a home run) and ate ALL of her gerber puffs....including the caps (baseball AND gerber)!

and, of course, there was matthew.  he played shortstop for the first half of the game....and then moved the what is only the BEST position on the field;  catcher. the boy is following in his favorite cousin alison's footsteps (although if you asked him, he probably has not a clue in the world that i played catcher in softball.....but subconsciously, i think he suspects it because it's the position all the coolest people play....and heavens knows that i am the COOLEST of the cool). 

here are the kiddos with matthew.  he's just good ole cousin to them on most occassions....but on this night....he was their baseball hero.  hannah was in awe and really just felt special that he took a picture with her! 

later, hannah decided to give me no less than 5967 heart failures by doing this: 

looks innocent enough, right?  allow me to pan out a little bit.  how about now? 

yeah....that's my precious firstborn....18 feet in the air.  on what can only be described as a glorified spider web.  i have to go throw up now.  and then spazz out some more. 

so, here's to fun, food, family.....baseball and heart attacks ;) 


****update:  matthew had another game tonight (which we didn't get to go to because it was austin's birthday today!!!  happy 37th bday hon.....i luuuuuurve you!!!) and they lost in a tight match 13-11.  this was an elimination game, so freeport is done.  but we're proud of those boys!!!

shutter love tuesday.....faces!

this week's theme is "faces" over at the trendy treehouse's shutter love tuesday.  i have always loved this picture of hannah.....so here ya go!

if you'd like to see more "faces" photography....click on the trendy treehouse button :)

i heart faces week 29- over my head

this week's theme is "over my head".  i wasn't sure what i wanted to do for this theme and then i remembered this picture i had from my nephew's 1st birthday party shoot a couple of weeks ago.  not only is my brother's hand over his son's head....but i know that aiden looks up to his firefighting daddy!

it's friday.....and we're flashing back!

we're flashing back today....you know, because it's flashback friday :)  let's see what was going on this week in 2008 and 2009, shall we? 

july 16, 2008:  it's a potty party!   i just can't get over how little hannah is in these pics!  i swear, some days i think that she's just always been five and she's always looked exactly the way she looks now. 

july 16, 2008:  to oma's house we go  reading this post reminded me that i need to give my oma a call and take the kids to go see her.  it's inexcusable that she lives 5 minutes away from me now, yet i haven't been to visit in longer than i care to say. 


in other news, hannah has officially been to every single "tune up" appointment known to man.  since may, she's been to the pediatrician for her kindergarten checkup and got the go-ahead for kindergarten.  she's physically ready to take on big-kid school, but that doesn't automatically make me emotionally ready for her to. 

then, she got her teeth cleaned....at which point they informed me that the "spot" they'd been watching for a year and a half was a massive cavity now that may or may not require a stainless steel crown and/or a pulp treatment (which is basically a root canal for kids).  after seeing a pediatric dentist on consult, who informed me that to get that tooth, plus one more taken care of (and sealants...because i wasn't gonna go through this again.  apparently she has deep grooves and is genetically prone to cavities.  guess all that nursery water, fluoride toothpaste, AND anticavity mouthwash wasn't enough) was going to cost us to the tune of about $2000.  this is for baby teeth, folks....you know, the ones that are going to fall out in a couple of years? hmmmm...howsabout i just take two grand and chunk it out of the window next time i'm driving down the interstate!?!?!  but austin found a dentist an hour away who was getting rave recommendations from OTHER dentists and he was able to get accurate xrays...which showed that this "massive" cavity was a small surface cavity.  they were able to fix both teeth with tiny fillings (with NO shots....which was a must for hannah!) and seal the rest of her teeth.  all for about a fourth of the previous dentist's bill.  God bless my husband for doing some serious phone calling to find dr. bonnin....who, by the way, now has new patients for as long as i can stand to drive an hour away to get their teeth taken care of. 

and THEN....we hit up the eye doctor.  (shout out to lea....best optometrist in the world!!! )   apparently hkay has a touch of astigmatism, so baby girl's gonna go into glasses for about a month and see if her eyes can correct themselves.

you know...i always wondered what my kids would get from me genetically.  would it be my stellar sense of humor?  my razor sharp wit? my fabulous catlike reflexes?   well...as it seems, hannah got my craptastic teeth genes and my eye sight issues (please please PLEASE let it correct itself!!  i can't keep up with a 5-year-old's glasses!!).  great.  she'll probably get my godzilla feet and less-than-stellar math skills too.  you're welcome baby girl.  you. are. welcome.

what the wharf is a ballyhoo....part deux

wednesday saw a ton of storms, but we still managed to sneak down to the beach for a hot minute.  the current was super strong and i panicked no less than 345,083 times as the waves tried to eat my children, but we lived to tell the tale.  austin decided that to celebrate our surviving the sea, we would head out to a local restaurant named "ballyhoos".  a friend of ours runs the place and we've been there a ton of times, so we knew the food would be good and the atmosphere would be laid back (which is usually a plus when you're introducing three screaming cheetah-willies into the mix!).   now, i thought that a ballyhoo was a type of fish...especially since it's a seaside area and pretty much everything down here is named after some sort of aquatic critter or another....but i would be wrong.  "ballyhoo" means to blatantly advertise.  some synonyms would include "hoopla" or "hype".  so there's your vocabulary lesson for the day :)   or course, we're in a seafood rich area and i go and do the very thing that we always made fun of tourists for doing back when austin and i worked in a seafood restaurant (which, incidentally....is right down the road from ballyhoo's.  at least the building is there....it's a different restaurant now)......i ordered a hamburger.  but that's okay...because i made up for it when we went BACK to ballyhoo's on friday night by getting a grouper sandwich (YUMMMMM!). 

**hannah took this pic....my little budding photographer :)

thursday saw some more beach time (by this time, i'm pretty sure that we could repopulate our sandbox at home merely with the grains that ava girl was carring around in her fat rolls!).  have i mentioned how much i love the beach???  have i mentioned how grateful i am that we were able to spend this week at the beach.....and how grateful i am that our beaches are STILL mostly oil free??? 

that evening, we took the kids to go see toy story 3.  my mom came down (one of the perks of vacationing 30 minutes from home!) and wrangled the ava girl for the evening.  this was chan's first movie in the the theater...ever.  and it was in 3d.  here are my thoughts on this experience: 

1.  FIFTY-ONE DOLLARS for austin, me, hannah, and chandler to go see that movie.  now i remember why we don't do to the movies  very often.  that doesn't count snacks and whatnot (which, after purchasing the tickets, i was really really REALLY wishing that i'd smuggled some snacky foods in my purse!). 

2.  trying to get a 2  year old to wear those glasses was pretty interesting.  he kept them on his chin through most of the start of the movie.

3.  chandler is a popcorn eatin' machine.  and i think he drank his body weight in coke (which he never ever gets so he was in heaven!).  austin bought a tub o' popcorn that we could have all slept comfortably in.  i just knew we'd be tossing most of it in the trash after the show, but we put a hurtin' on that bucket like you wouldn't believe. 

4.  toy story 3 rocks!  and yeah.....i cried.  at least i had those goofy glasses on to hide my tearful shame. 

but, overall....as austin said later, we could have given chan a bucket of popcorn and a soft drink, sat him in front of the tv with some shades on, and he probably wouldn't have known the difference.  it was still great to get out though.  

friday was our last full day. the sun actually came out and some blue sky was peeking out through the clouds that day.  guess who used this opportunity to get righteously sunburnt?  if you said me....you'd basically be right.  you'd think that after experiencing the very worst sunburn (that i still have scars from) ever known to mankind last summer, i would have learned the positive aspects of sunscreen and would use it religiously.....but that would take smarts, and it would appear that i am lacking in that area. 

hi...i'm alison and i feel it necessary to acquire 3rd degree burns at least once per summer. 

oh yeah.....AND i got attacked by a beach umbrella!  holy shlemoly.  i was standing at the edge of the water holding ava and i turned my head just in time to get a front row view of a huge umbrella slamming into the back of my leg.  the top knob hit right in the soft part of the back of my knee.  here's a tip for you folks who aren't from there here parts.....that beach "breeze" is really a hurricane force wind gust.....if you dig a 3 inch hole and think that it's going to keep your umbrella where you put it, you are w.r.o.n.g.   but i managed to hold onto my baby through the drive-by umbrella-ing so it was all good. 

one more trip to ballyhoo's that evening with the in-laws and the vacation was near over.  austin and i spend a few hours that night sitting out on the front porch listening to the surf and just talking.  it was marvelous. 

so that was our vacation for the year.  if you're still reading.....thanks for hanging around!  i just couldn't talk myself into doing a "part tres" to this. 

if for some crazy insane reason, you're wanting MORE, howsabout a little facebook picture album action?  here ya go...enjoy :)

vacation album                    

what the wharf is a ballyhoo???

we went on vacation last week.  apparantly all of that relaxation made me too lazy to blog about it :)  my aunt and ucle bought a fabulously cottage-y beach house and they ever so graciously allowed us to pay them to stay in it for a week!  of course, with the threat of gooey oil and/or tropical storms i was all a twitter (no...not THAT twitter) about our beach stay. 

(and my aunt would kill me if i didn't at least mention that the beach house IS for rent....it is wonderful.....it sleeps about 8, give or take a few.....and i can get you her contact info if you are interested)

as it turns out, it was FABULOUS with a capital "F"!

as soon as we got there and unpacked, we immediately went all touristy and took the kids down to the beach at sunset.  even the grandparents and aunt brandy and cousin amabel came down to join in on the fun.  we were frolicking and giggling like we'd never seen the beach before! 

 it was a gorgeous evening though....and as it turned out, the ONLY gorgeous evening that we would behold here in the "sunshine state" that week.  (ps....whomever came up with THAT farce of a nickname for florida....oughta get their bootay handed to them on a daily basis.)  usually we had skies that looked like this: 

day one started off with my morning run.  i know....it was a vacation. but i learned alot of running "etiquette" during those wee morning hours.  you see, when i run at home, the only creatures that have to endure the flailing and labored breathing are cows and horses.  down at the beach, there was the entirety of hwy 30-a bearing witness to my shameful plodding.  oh yeah....AND other runners!  i learned that you give a head knod greeting to the bicyclists (apparently their hands are busy helping them to not crash into me!) and you give a small wave to other runners.  those who do not wave back....you're allowed to trip. 

after everyone else woke up, we hit the beach.  i was pleasantly surprised at how clean the beaches were.  the water was beautiful and there were only a few tar balls that we could see. the red flags were a-flyin', which meant that the water was rough and there was a rip current.  the tropical storm/hurricane in the gulf was throwing some major waves our way, but the kids were still loving the splash factor....even though they weren't allowed to get in deeper than their ankles!

 the weather was overcast, which was perfect for my albino 10 month old and me.  we were able to back down from 70 spf to 50.  the tan half of the family barely had to sunscreen!  it was so nice staying in a house just across the street from the beach access.....so when ava girl demanded a nap, i just took her to the house, let her sleep, and then we rejoined austin and the older kiddos back on the beach. 

we became legend that week.....we were known as the people with the redneck baby stroller.  this was austin's idea and frankly, it worked VERY well!  all of our stuff fit nicely in the little beach buggy....and then topped off nicely with one ava girl. 

we also went out to eat monday night.  people, we were staying near san destin and destin.  literally hundreds of restaurants boasting all manner of delish foods.  where did we go?  applebees.  that's right....we hit up a chain restaurant at which we could eat literally anywhere in the u.s.  but it's all good gravy because i had a gift card.  you just can't beat a full sit down meal for 4.5 people for about $15 out of pocket!! 

tuesday was fairly uneventful....until we hit up baytowne wharf.  our friends, the dovers, came down to go out with us.  balloon weapons and crowns, a toy store, piers, dancing, playground, and ice cream later, i was fully prepared to proclaim this as "best night ever".......but just as the first fireworks were shot off into the sky, the heavens opened up and a full on storm hit.  we were literally on the opposite side of baytowne from any sort of cover.  i chunked the kids' new toys out of the plastic bag and threw it over poor betsy louise in order to keep my 4th (and favorite!) child dry.  the rest of my kids were on their own as far as drench prevention went.  needless to say, drowned rat was an excellent description by the time we made it to the parking garage.  we still had an awesome time though.... and i got some more pics to use in hannah and cole's wedding slideshow :)

 i'm going to stop here.  there's more to tell, but this is getting long.  i'll explain the "ballyhoo" portion on the next go-round!