Roses and a Stinker!

Ring around the rosie

A pocket full of posies

Ashes, Ashes

We all

Fall Down!


Most of the time Grant is too busy trying to irritate his little sister to play with her, so when there's a brief moment of happiness, I do my best to catch it and remember it!!

Is anyone with me on 4 being the most difficult age??? Every conversation is about what he wants, where he wants to go, to eat, etc., etc.... I am worn out. Not only all of that, but hittting is an issue. I am at an impass on how to deal with it. Time outs do not seem to be effective for him, and is spanking really a good way to teach "no hitting?" I need some discipline advice. He only seems to act this way around us. His teachers at church and school say he's great. He can be as sweet as can be, and then he's a little devil. I feel like I'm just banging my head against the wall with everything we've been doing...help..please!

Annual Labor Day Getaway

Last year, we went on a spur of the moment trip to Gatlinburg with Pook's family. We decided then we'd be back again this year. Both brothers, all of the cousins & nana and papa, plus our family all stayed in a beautiful cabin together. This is the road that our cabin was on - we thought it was fitting!


The plan was to spend lots of time at Dollywood and/or Splash Country. However, the weather had other plans. It rained alot and was pretty cool the majority of the time. Here's our family + a cousin. They'd actually been on a water ride, but I had not..just rained on.


I just had to post this picture b/c it cracks me up. I have no clue what Grant is doing biting that baby's head, but I walked around the corner to take his picture and Micah was playing in the floor. As I snapped, he popped up off the floor so he's all blurry. He had stickers all over his face..we all did at one point. Stickers= cheap clean fun indoors!


my beautiful neices with Claire on the deck of the cabin. this was the 1st day when we arrived and some of the only sunshine we saw!


this pretty much sums up the 1st 1/2 of the Sunday - everyone in ponchos, even Claire. Poor thing fell asleep in the stroller with it on & it got all fogged up from her sweating.


daddy & grant getting a little workout on this ride.


claire relaxed in the stroller & enjoyed a beverage while they worked up a sweat.


1 brother is missing from this picture unfortunately, but i still kind of like it.


we had a wonderful time and the kids, especially, enjoyed staying all weekend with their cousins! i'm not sure if there are plans to go back next year, but we'd be all for it if so, despite the exhaustion that was felt by all for the rest of the week!

I Caved...

and some little girl was pretty happy about her new boots!! she even did a little jig when she tried them on for the 1st time. if you're gonna live in Music City, you gotta have some boots, right?!

Wilson Co. Fair 2009

We made our annual trip to the fair last week and had a great time. The 1st picture is from right before we left. It was drizzling a little bit & there was a nice big rainbow.

This picture has no significance. I just liked it, however, I'm terrified of ferris wheels!

Grant, being the runt that he is was about a 1/2 inch too short to ride the "big" kid rides. He could ride most of the kiddie ones alone, but really wanted to ride some other ones. He was actually too short for the Fun Slide, but the guy let him on anyway. When they handed him that carpet and struggled up the stairs, I questioned whether I was doing the right thing by letting him do it. Here he is at the top.
He took no chances coming down & kept himself from going fast with his hands. He rode it later on in the night & some random girl carried him up the stairs and they went down next to one another. It made me a nervous wreck, but he went a lot faster!
He was dying to ride swings, but I didn't think they'd have any small ones. He saw these and was super excited. Some big kid got on right behind him & wouldn't quit kicking his swing. It was driving him crazy! That's why he's pointing behind him here.

Claire got in on a little ride action herself!

This was just a photo spot, but I think she thought it was a ride. She didn't want to get up from here. She was holding on tightly and giving us this stern look!
sweet girl loved her some cotton candy!!

and look who we found wandering around at the fair. Grant wanted to meet him, but wasn't too sure about him getting so close.

and the monkey...Did anyone else see this? They called it the banana derby and had these tiny 'monkey jockeys' riding on dogs' backs. The monkeys freak me out. They look like little old men. Grant wanted to have his picture made and for $5 we were in luck! You could give the monkey $1 and he'd give you a postcard. Watching this monkey look for money & running to get a postcard was pretty funny...but freaky!


We enjoyed our time at the fair this year, and look forward to making more memories there for years to come!

My Dip O' The Moment

BooMama is hosting a DipTacular and I can't wait to see what everyone else puts up. This seems to be the dip I make most often lately. Football season & dips go hand in hand, so I'm sure I'll be getting busy making some soon! Enjoy! GO VOLS!


BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP

2-3 chicken breasts, boiled then diced
1 8oz. cream cheese
1/2 c. ranch dressing
3/4 c. hot sauce (Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Wing sauce)
1 pkg. shredded cheddar cheese
Tortilla chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. . Cook hot sauce, cream cheese, ranch dressing, and chicken on stovetop or in the microwave (stirring frequently) until the cream cheese is melted. Then add about a half a cup of cheddar cheese, and cook until it melts. Pour it into a baking dish. Cover with as much cheese as you want. Then put it in the oven until the cheese melts & starts to bubble. Serve with tortilla chips or it’s also yummy over a baked potato!

'Summar' Vacation Recap

I feel like most everyone has seen these pictures since I shared the link on facebook, but here are some of my favorites from our trip to Orange Beach a few weeks ago.


We had a wonderful week with wonderful weather all but one day. We arrived on the tail end of a tropical storm. It was raining & the wind was blowing about 30 mph when we got there. I was worried that might be the trend for the week, but it cleared off within a few hours of us arriving. We spent our days relaxing on the beach or around the pool. Well...relaxing as much as we could chasing 2 little ones.

Thursday, we did have quite the eventful day though. Early that morning, Claire & Grant were sitting at the table in our condo coloring. The table was taller than a normal table, like bar height. My mom was sitting at the table with them and actually had her hand on Claire's leg. Somehow, that little stinker managed to slide off of the chair and hit the back of her head on the tile floor. It didn't knock her out, she started screaming immediately. Once I got her calmed down, she started nodding off and I was having a really hard time waking her. I took her outside to see if that would help, and she started throwing up. At that point, I knew we had to go to the ER. In my mind, I was not looking forward to this. The only other time I'd ever been to the ER happened to be 2 years ago when we were on vacation in Gulf Shores and I was pregnant with Claire. I started bleeding & had to go. We were not seen for over 6 hours! I was determined this was not going to be the case with my baby. I went to the condominium office to see if that was the closest ER since we were staying in a totally different area than before. They said it was, but felt it best to call 911 because it's pretty far away. The manager called 911 & Claire & I took our first ride in an ambulance. We put her car seat in there, so she actually did great. She was just very quiet. She had a CT scan and thankfully everything looked ok, just a mild concussion.

These pictures were taken that same night, so as you can see, she looked fine.







Shortly after these pictures, we loaded up the van and set out for dinner. The last picture I took was the one of Grant holding his stomach in the post below. I figured he was probably just really hungry because it was getting pretty late...little did I know! Not a mile down the road, he started throwing up all over the van! We turned around & needless to say had take out. He got sick one more time once we were back in the condo and he was running a fever. He went to bed and woke up fine the next day!

One of the best things we did was take this little baby pool for Claire. I got it for $2 on clearance and figured it was worth a shot. I had seen it on someone else's blog & thought it was genius. We filled it up with ocean water & then she filled it with sand :-)! She enjoyed having something to play in.




Both kiddos LOVED the sand! They weren't too sure about the ocean until closer to the end of the week. By then, I was having to pull them out.

My poor mom & husband cannot take pictures. My mom tried this one, but I literally cropped out 1/2 of the picture on my side & poor Pook is only 1/2 in it. I'll take what I can get I guess.


We did this one with the tripod, and everybody is looking but Claire so once again...I'll take what I can get!



Our last night there, we took the kiddos to The Track. They had several little kids rides & of course, Claire thinks she can do everything her "bubba" can do. We put her on this ferris wheel with him & the look on her face tells it all. She was not happy about it at all! They had to stop the ride to get her off!


She loved the mini scrambler, however!


Grant took his first ride in real Go-Kart's with Daddy. I'm not sure which one of them had more fun!

btw...Claire got so mad when we left The Track that she made herself throw up! Just another day with my stubborn girl!


We had a wonderful time! I would've liked a few more days at the beach. I was worried that it would be stress filled since this was the 1st time we'd been on a long vacation since having 2 kids, but they both did great! Now, if I can only hold on until next summer!