HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SOPHIE-CAT!

Pics of Sophie, one for each of her four years. I pulled these up earlier today thanks to her celebration at school. Yes, I cried when they pulled out the coming-home outfit that she wore... which usually stays in my top drawer so I can see it everyday. Anything goes on our birthdays; the kids can request *anything* so she asked for Pop Tarts for breakfast (actually the very first time I'd bought them... not to say we don't have junk, but just not that in particular!), carrots/dip/Goldfish/frosted cookies for snack at school, mac & cheese for lunch & pizza for dinner. We just finished up our picnic-on-the-living-room-floor dinner from Mellow Mushroom, aka "the best pizza ever", which was followed up by leftover cake from her party on Saturday. The kids just burned off most of that by dancing wildly to Christmas music, complete with air guitar behind the head from Ben & tap-dancing from Sophie. Her birthday night is complete!

Bedtime & Bonfires

Every so often the kids decide they want to crash in the same room. If they're tired enough, it goes well because they just go to sleep with minimal craziness. If not, it could be a LONG wait. It's kind of funny to see because they both have so much *stuff* that they sleep with, there's barely enough room for them! And Sophie has this cuddling habit which Ben isn't fond of.

Anyway, pics below of their sleepover & of the bonfire our friends Cynthia & Tommy hosted a few weeks back.

See - only a few weeks ago! I'm catching up.

Ben & Sophie funnies

Tonight as I was putting Sophie to bed, she interrupted our prayers by saying, "Mom, I have to tell you something." She pulled me in close, then said very lovingly, "you're the biggest mommy in the whole world!" Not exactly the words a girl wants to hear, but it was obvious she meant it to be a very big compliment, so I could look past that to its meaning!

Ben has a.... girlfriend. It's really cute but vaguely disturbing to me all at the same time. Isn't he still at the "girls have cooties" age? When he first came home & announced this, we had just realized that he had his first loose tooth (which he has since lost), so that was a LOT of growing-up things happening at once. Too much for this mama! Anyway, so we were chatting about what made C his girlfriend & why he liked her, and I now know two things. One is that he likes her because she wears pants. The other is that she plays trains & trucks with him. I asked him how this was different than what he did with his *guy* friends and he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Because she's a GIRL!"

Fairy House

Ben was really into making fairy houses recently. You can't see much from the picture, but he constructed a really cool house complete with a bark roof & support beams (sticks) and had a blast gathering stuff to create it. Sadly, it was destroyed by a reckless Power Wheels dump truck, but we hope to build another one soon!

Family visit & Halloween

Dorothy & Connie made the trip down to spend some time with us & with Lois & Chris. We had a great time! They got to have lunch with Ben at school & also visit Sophie at school. They were here when Ben lost his first tooth (sniff!) and the Tooth Fairy came - covered in another post ;) They also got to come trick or treating with us & to Pump It Up the next morning before heading over to Baton Rouge to watch Katie perform at halftime. Let's just say they got the whole Mississippi experience! We enjoyed having them here & are glad we got to squeeze so much in during one visit.

Random cute things that I want to remember

As we were driving, Sophie pipes up from the backseat - with a very self-satisfied look on her face - " Jack (classmate) likes me a lot."

Me: "Really? How do you know?"

Sophie: "He smiles at me. He just gets a happy face when he sees me at snack time."



Oh my.

Weekend stuff

Ok, I've decided to forge ahead with journaling & catch up with other details later (birthday weekend, for one). We've had an exceptionally good weekend, it was one of those times when the kids have been playing together nonstop (with only occasional scrapping), the weather's been perfect, and there were lots of fun activities to bring us away from the house... if we're at home, it seems like a bottomless pit of chores/projects/cleaning up calls to us constantly.

So,
on Friday the kids went to Mrs. Sarah's... our lovely babysitter who keeps our kids along with our friends' kids most every Friday evening for a few hours while we have a date night. Rod & I tried a new 'raunt here in town called Yellow Mouth Grill. They have *outstanding* fried artichokes with 2 different kinds of sauce (tiger sauce was our fave). There was a guy panhandling outside & I pleaded with Rod to give him $$. Rod, who, as most people know, is VERY practical, suggested we bring him dinner instead (so our $$ wouldn't end up buying a 6 pack). I agreed & we delivered a plate from KFC a few minutes later. Only then did we realize what jerks we were.... "Hey, we just finished a delicious meal from this nice restaurant, enjoy your 2 piece special!" But we did include a large diet coke, surely that counts for something?

On Saturday Benji had a soccer game & Rod took him to that, since I'd been to the last 2 games. He's enjoying it this year, which is all we expect from our kids in organized sports. He's not so much into actually kicking the ball & getting into the crowd of kids, but he runs his head off and has a great time. We have another golf lesson scheduled in a week, so we're just into the trying-different-things-out mode right now.

Later on that day we headed to Seward Farms, which hosts a huge corn maze & has various other activities during October. It is a guaranteed blast every year. Our favorites are the cow train & hayride. Ben led us through the maze! And Sophie & Ben made several trips running down the huge hills they have there. They conked out in the car & only woke when we rolled up to Bops, a new frozen custard place in D'iberville. They woke up REALLY fast.

I'm bummed because a good friend was in town & I didn't make it to her dinner because I thought we got back too late.... little did I know they were still sitting around chatting at 9pm that night! It was great to see you today, Katie!

Today, Sunday, we went to church & then the kids picked Mexican for lunch. They're currently sitting in the bounce house outside with 57, 839 stuffed animals waiting for chocolate fondue to be done in the crockpot. I've been trying to use it more often, inspired by A Year of Crockpotting. We tried a cheese fondue last night, which taught me that white wine that's been sitting in the fridge for 6 months is just not good. Even when cooked & piled with goat, gruyere & swiss. So I'm hoping for the kids' sakes that it turns out much better today!

And a big THANK YOU to Aunt Connie for hooking us up with all of the gluten-free baking mixes!! Sophie thanks you a TON and so do I, the variety of things you found is *amazing*! We can't find even half that amount around here. We're excited to try it out.

Birthday Surprise!

My parents & Rod conspired to give me the best birthday present I've had: a weekend at The Grand in Fairhope, AL. My parents drove up from Thomasville to watch the kids while Rod & I spent two nights at the resort. I felt like we'd escaped to a different country! The hotel is really gorgeous, and the employees there were some of the nicest people. We got settled in & right away went down to borrow some of their bikes for a ride. We headed down the main stretch & stopped at a pub (sounds so much better than 'bar', right?) to have a snack. After our super-healthy hot wings, we headed back to have afternoon tea in the lobby & then explored a little more. The next day we went horseback riding at a nearby farm, which was a lot of fun. I rode Trigger, who was much more polite than Rod's horse, who apparently had just finished a huge breakfast. He wasn't at all shy about dropping gifts wherever he wanted, which was especially charming since I was directly behind them in line. Nice! It was still a very enjoyable morning.

We spent some time downtown & ate at the famous Panini Pete's. Then it was back to the resort to go kayaking. We had a nice dinner & spent some time on the swings afterwards. It was strange not having the kids with us, but we scoped out the pool and took lots of pictures to show them to get them excited about coming with us next time. And my parents were awesome about taking great care of the kids and taking Ben to his first soccer practice on Saturday, then on to a local kids' museum. They swam several times at home & did lots of playing. And my parents were still peppy when we came home on Sunday! Amazing. The kids really enjoyed having them here and missed them terribly when they first left. We were so glad to be able to enjoy being away, knowing they would be taken care of so well.
Thank you so much Rod, Mom & Dad for planning this! It was wonderful.

Slackin'

I know, I know, it's been a while. Really we haven't been terribly busy; life has settled down to a fairly predictable schedule now that the kids are both in school every morning. And what am I doing with my time, you might ask? Some *have* asked, in fact, so here's a little rundown of the variety of things that may occur on any given morning:

-exercising. I mix it up with step class, weights at the gym, walking the bridge, or jogging down East Beach. Lately I've found it hard to stay inside with the gorgeous weather, so the gym is happening less frequently.

-helping out AR (Accelerated Reading) testing at Ben's school. A bonus is being able to see him in the middle of the day, in his own little class environment. My heart melts at every glance of his sweet, proud face.

-coffee with friends, which we label as our group therapy session. Oh, is it ever!

-inevitable trips to Wal*Mart

-working from home (tutoring) or completing random projects around the house

I definitely get the most satisfaction out of helping with AR or doing home projects, so I'm working towards doing more of those things. Sophie's school is closed to visitors until after Thanksgiving to give the kids a chance to get adjusted before us parents come traipsing through. Although we'll be able to spend some time with her at the school's annual fall festival coming up this Friday; Rod & I will both be able to come. I'm on the committee so I'll be plying kids with cocoa & all the accoutrements so they'll be good & sugared up when they leave. Good times.

So I have to say things are sailing along at a pretty good pace right now. The kids both absolutely love school and we're ecstatic to see each other when they get home. I'm in fact a bit selfish about my time with them... they beg to go play with our neighbors' kids in the afternoons & I bribe them to stay in with me to do art projects, bake cookies, listen to music. Isn't it a mother's right to do twisted things like that?

Halloween Party

Ok, my excitement has set in.... I'm almost caught up!

We had our 2nd annual Halloween party & I swear we should have had a prize for best costume because we had some GOOD ones! Our family was a little eclectic with Rod as a pimp, me as Carmen Miranda, Sophie as a cat & Ben as a fighter-dude. We had princesses, a cheerleader, pirates, pilots, witch, clown, nerd, Charlie & Lola, punk dude, geisha, Frankenstein, doctors, Princess Leia, the list goes on. The kids played on the 'Halloween trail' out back & ran around all night. We're already looking forward to next year!

50's Day & Tuesday Playdates

Ok, this pic of Ben totally cracks me up because that was all his idea! About a month ago, his school had a 50's day so this was his outfit. Check out the attitude!

Second pic: I found a bike at a consignment shop for Sophie so she could keep up with Ben. She had to get the hang of the pedals being farther away, but she mastered it pretty quickly!

Third & Fourth pics: Two friends & I trade off keeping our girls after school on Tuesdays. I look forward to the days that I keep them equally as much as my 'off' days! They are so funny & cute together. The last pic really reminds me of Charlie's Angels, for some reason.

Navarre Beach - Fall Edition

So we went to Navarre in the spring with my cousins & aunt; in September we made it there again with our friends Dale, Daralyn, Chase & Evan. But MAN this one was different! On the way, poor Ben threw up in the car. That continued every 5 minutes or so until we went to the ER that evening once our friends got there. The wait was too long so we never got checked out, but my *very* good friend Daralyn watched Sophie while we went. And that's not all! We had a great Saturday, went to the beach and the kids had a blast in the sand, then we went to the park on the mainland (check out the view below!). Then Sophie got the virus the exact moment I went for a walk on Saturday night. Daralyn again came to the rescue & helped Rod clean up, when I walked in everything was pretty much done (oops!). Of course their whole family came down with the virus the next week... we still owe them BIG time!

Pumpkins

We went to Courtney Farms to get our pumpkin (which is still, as of today, sitting on our front porch!!) and the kids posed in their tie-dye Halloween shirts. It was my first try at dying shirts & it was a lot of fun... though fairly messy. I'd definitely classify as a patio activity!