this month {from my phone}

I am so close to giving up altogether on the blogging thing. Life is moving much too fast, and I feel like there’s no time to sit at a computer to compose anything worthy of being read. Then I remember that I began this blog for the purpose of documenting the ins and outs of our little life, and that alone seems worthy of being behind on a little laundry. It’s a struggle, nonetheless, which is why this is a recap of the last month, not week. A month that has included four-fifths of our family getting the stomach bug, Daddy turning 30, dance beginning, Watson turning 2, Watson taking his first trip to the emergency room and much much more.  I hope to upload the pictures from my real camera someday soon, but until then, here are some phone snapshots of what we’ve been up to…

The big kids love ice cream, but ice cream gets pretty messy. Milkshakes are our new favorite because they get ice cream with almost zero mess! {I do have to clean the blender each time-boo- but it’s easier than getting ice cream out of my dining room rug.} And they especially love their ‘job’ of adding some sprinkles to the top!Baby Girl is loving school! We had a rough first week, but now she wakes up super excited to go each morning. Adding an hour and a half to her school day, though, absolutely exhausts her.  On this particular day she asked me, ‘is I allowed to sleep during my rest time, mommy?’. And then she proceeded to take a four hour nap. The little man is on the move. All day everyday. The big kids and I usually go for an ‘adventure’ to the mailbox in the afternoons. I now have to make sure the from door is shut all the way after we caught him trying to escape.I started back at the gym this month {after a five month hiatus. FIVE MONTHS! who does that??} and this was my view from the floor the entire first week. The soreness that followed was the first thing that I’ve ever compared to the pain you’re in after you deliver a baby. It was bad. After Emory’s first full week of school, we went out for Friday ice cream. The kids thought it was great……Until I told them it was time to go home and they couldn’t finger paint on the sidewalk with the melted ice cream still in their cone. That didn’t go over well. And then all children were stripped down to their undies before being strapped into their carseats. We’ve yet to go back for Friday ice cream.  Aaron and I celebrated our 6th anniversary. Good thing my sister offered to babysit so we could go to dinner, or else neither of us would have even remembered our anniversary! We have been holding onto a Ruth’s Chris giftcard for a long time {because we’re not huge fans} and we decided to finally go use it. The meal was actually more disappointing than we expected, but at least we got to see Tony Hawke while we were there! {See him on the couch through the doorway??}The dessert was actually the best part of the meal. If it hadn’t been an entire month ago, I’d probably be able to tell you what it was. But suffice it to say it was delicious and could have fed about six people. {But we still ate it ourselves.}I’ve been trying to finish some decorating around the house lately. One project was turning an old window into a chalkboard for my kitchen. I’m happy with the results, but I’m pretty sure I’m not much of a ‘sand it all the way down, clean it off, let it dry’ kind of girl. Next time I attempt this I’m gonna host a wine party in my garage and make some friends help me. {Or do it all while I politely refresh their wine glasses the whole time.}The Stomach Bug 2011 hit our house hard. First Boland {we have no idea where he got it}, then Emory and Watson at the exact same time, then Aaron. I’m mostly thankful that I never got it, but there’s a little part of me that wishes I could have locked myself in my room and thrown up in the toilet instead of {not}sleeping on the den floor beside the kids who were throwing up in towels faster than I could wash and replace them. Fingers crossed we don’t get hit by that again this year. The boys accompany me to the gym each morning. Wondering how they would do is part of the reason my hiatus was so long. But I’ve been so thankful that they sit quietly in their stroller, in their jammies, eating cheerios and watching Cars. Yes, they watch the same movie every.single.time. Watson refuses to watch anything else and between kettle bell swings or dead lifts or pull ups or box jumps, I can hear him reciting lines along with the movie. A distant second to the movie Cars is Toy Story. He likes to dump the instruments out of his drum and wear it like ‘Buzz Yightyear’.We welcomed September with open arms, hoping for cooler weather. And for the first little while we got it.  Which made me happy because I was so ready to pull out the knee socks for Emory’s uniform. They’ve since been put away again because it’s back to being 84,000 degrees outside.  We hosted a big Beer Tasting party for Aaron’s 30th birthday. It was so much fun, but so much work. I felt like I washed pint classes for days and days and days. Of course Emory was very worried we didn’t have enough decorations for Daddy’s birthday, so she colored a banner. The kids are so awesome at entertaining each other. As we were getting ready for Aaron’s party they just kind of kept to themselves and one would make another laugh. As much as she likes to be alone and keep to herself often, Emory is the best big sister to her two brothers. And they adore her just as much. Watson’s newest obsession…his red sunglasses. Or ‘gashes’ as he calls them. He wears them to school, to the grocery store, to grandmama and granddaddy’s house. Everywhere. Thank goodness the little man can sleep most anywhere. Because he certainly needs to. We spend a lot of afternoons playing outside with the big kids and he’s happy to take his naps in his stroller in the garage. We are at least kind enough to plug the fan in so he doesn’t roast. We’ve been getting up on Saturday mornings and strolling to the shopping center as a family. Aaron takes the double stroller and I take the single. One morning we strolled to the bookstore. We spend a while just reading books and playing with toys. The kids loved it, except they didn’t understand not being able to buy the toys when the time came to leave. Whoops. We let them each pick out a book instead and they enjoyed their goodies on the stroll home. We had some friends over to watch the first Carolina game, so we had to deck out the kids in their garnet and black.Our sweet friend Walker was clearly wearing the wrong colors, but we love him anyway. Watson made sure to give him a little whip last while riding the jeep though, just to show him that the Gamecocks rule the roost around here. We added a little spice to our school wardrobe with a skirt and polo. It took Emory a month before she realized that not all of the other girls only wore jumpers everyday. She asked for the ‘skirt and red shirt like my friends wear’, and while I think it makes her look so much older, I think it’s cute and am happy to oblige. Target run…Halloween stuff is now out…I bought my first bag of candy corn for the season!! We’re now on bag two. Baby Boy turned two and is not longer a baby. Sad sad sad. But he is one of the most fun kids ever. It takes a lot to break down his little guard, but when you do he is the funniest, sweetest, craziest kid you will ever meet. He melts my heart a million times a day. He enjoyed a quick birthday breakfast of pancakes before heading off to school.At school {with his red glasses…see them?} his friends sang him ‘happy birthday’ during circle time. We picked the birthday boy up from school, but then dropped he and Emory off at home to rush back out to the doctor with Boland and what we thought was pink eye. Turns out he has a scratched cornea. We got eye drops and rushed back home to finish prepping for Watson’s party.We had another drop in temperature and we snuggled in blankets in the car as we waited for Emory in the carpool line. And we enjoyed some birthday presents when we got home!We strolled to Starbucks Saturday morning where I got my first pumpkin spice latte! I’ve missed these all summer and can’t wait for the holidays now!And the big kiddos got chocolate milk, which they think is such a treat to buy instead of make at home. After Starbucks, we put the kids down for quick naps, then got them back in the car to head to tailgate for the football game. Boland was jealous of everyone else drinking their beers in coozies, so he insisted on putting his bottle in one. And a sad first for us…we took our sweet boy to the emergency room just a couple days after his birthday with a big gash between his eyes. He fell onto a metal window sill at a birthday party and beat his Daddy to his first set of stitches. {Well actually they glued the cut instead of stitching it} It’s hard to look at my precious little boy with a nasty wound across his face, but we’re so thankful it wasn’t any worse as the cut was pretty close to his eye and could have easily done much worse damage. He’s stayed home from school for a week because we had a hard time getting the wound to stop bleeding and I was terrified he would bump his head at school and we’d be heading back to the ER again. He has milked this injury for all it’s worth {and I haven’t helped} and we’re now having to have a little Toddler Boot Camp to reinstate some rules that fell by the wayside this past week. But I really enjoyed having some {lots!} of one on one time with him. The second half of this week has been nothing but rain. Emory donned her Hello Kitty rain boots to head to dance and we stopped by the store on the way. She got out and was dancing as it drizzled. She loved it.We picked up a little friend to take her to dance and they enjoyed snacks before class.In putting some groceries away I found a bag of candy I had stashed away to keep my kids and husband from eating it. Score. It was a nice surprise on a rainy day. Watson is obsessed with the vacuum cleaner. He always wants to help me vacuum, so I finally went out and bought a little Dirt Devil dust buster. The kids fight over who gets to use it and vacuum up the crumbs from the floor.  I feel like a genius. If only the stupid thing didn’t have to be recharged every 6 minutes. We had so much rain that when we got home from dance this week we sat in the car for 20 minutes to wait for the rain to stop. We’ve always used our garage as storage for toys and other ‘stuff’ instead of parking in their, and I’ve never minded until this week. It monsooned so badly for so many days straight… …that I finally went out and bought some rain boots. I’ve wanted them for a while, but never really needed them. I’ve gotten some good use out of them in the short time they’ve been mine. Coming soon…a matching pair for Emory. How exciting. And we geared up for another Saturday of football this week. Watson looked so handsome {and old!} in his USC polo. Thanks Aunt Boo!!

So, while I’m no where near caught up on blogging, I at least feel like that’s a pretty good synopsis as to what we’ve been up to. Life will continue to be crazy, but hopefully I’ll find some time to document the goings-on around here. Until then, you can pretty much assume I’m drinking pumpkin spice lattes, eating candy corns, planning some sort of party and tending to sick kids. Just the norm.