Catching Up!

Okay, there are SO many things to blog about and I have had no time to do it until now! June was a whirlwind for us but we had more fun than anyone deserves to have. I'll prove it in several upcoming posts!

But before I do, I'll start with the one dark spot in the month -- our friends the Patterson's moved away and our whole family was (and still is) pretty bummed about that one. We all said our goodbye's and vowed to keep in touch, and Boone and I are looking at our calendar to plan a trip to Europe sometime in the next few years. Anyway, this was as they were leaving our house...


You'd think that a lifetime of moving around would have made it easier to say goodbye, but it hasn't. Sigh. Thanks goodness for my therapists, Ben and Jerry.

Okay, now onto the happy parts! My mom arrived a few days before Keaton's birthday and we stopped for dinner on the way back from Atlanta...

...umm, yeah. My kids were excited to see Grandma. So we came home and basically got ready for Keaton's birthday. I am kicking myself because I was so busy during the party that I had my mom take most of the pictures, but I forgot to get them from her before she left this morning! Aarrgghh!

You'll just have to trust me that Keaton had a great day, and it looked like Thomas and Friends exploded all over our house when it was over.

Here is a blurry shot of him before blowing out his candles on his Harold the Helicopter cake -- I was nervous that he might freak out when we cut Harold into edible pieces, but he was fine with it and asked, "Can I eat Harold's face?"


After all the friends left, we pulled out one of his gifts -- an automatic bubble blower that he and Rylan played with for nearly an hour! It was great and they loved it!


We just sort of chilled the rest of the day and got ready to head out the next morning to Charleston with my Mom. When I get the rest of the photos from Keaton's birthday I will post more, but he really did have a happy day and loves to tell everyone now that he is 4 years old. We love you buddy!

Girl, Interrupter

I have a terrible habit that I need to work on, and if you have ever had the distinct pleasure of being near me for longer than 3 minutes you most likely already know about it. I identified this problem years ago, but try as I might, I just can't seem to knock it off.

I am a chronic interrupter.

And I really hate it. I can be in the middle of a conversation (and I use the term loosely here -- seeing as "conversing" involves two people SHARING ideas) having just finished what was certainly a witty tidbit -- and before your idea is all the way born I get this little tickle in my brain. It's like when you know a cough is coming at a really inappropriate time so you try to stifle it, and you make that little throat-clearing noise that never relieves anything, so you just end up making more noise because you were trying to avoid the real cough. Anyway, that's me when you are talking. My brain needs to cough, and I try so hard to stifle it so as to be.........what's the word?.....oh yes, POLITE. But time and time again I fail! I get the tickle, the words start forming in my head, and I tell myself, "Nicole, don't do it! You can wait! Let them finish the sentence!" But then that other side of me says, "Don't wait! The moment will pass! If you say it now they will see that both of you were thinking the same thing at the same time! Say it! SAY IT NOW!" And out comes the big nasty cough/comment. I am momentarily relieved of pressure, but also totally mortified that I couldn't keep it in a little longer.

It's not that I don't value you or what you are saying (unless you are Rush Limbaugh or Nancy Grace) -- on the contrary -- it's usually that I am so desperate to point out our similarities that I can't wait to prove to you how compatible we are! Really, I think a big part of it stems from the fact that I spend 94% of my day with children 6 and under, and I get so excited when an adult wants to exchange ideas and words that I trip all over myself trying to get every thought that occurred to me in June out in 7 minutes.

And so, I interrupt. I even interrupt myself while writing (note excessive use of parenthetical remarks)(yep, just like this). What's the deal with that? Like I can't wait for another sentence to say what it is that I am thinking about? Like I really have such important things to comment on? Nope, not so much.

There seems to be some link here to the way I eat as well -- quickly, usually in excess, and without pause. Seriously, I am the first person done eating almost every time. It doesn't matter if I got my food last, or if I heaped my plate much higher than you did, or if you are a ravenous hyena -- I will beat you. I find myself looking up when I am finished, taking a second to inhale, and realizing everyone else is maybe halfway through the meal. "What's taking you so long?", I wonder.

Boone has observed this countless times over the last 10 years and finally asked me one day to do a little experiment: "Try swallowing all your food before you put another bite in", he said, "you know -- so your mouth is actually empty for a second." So I rolled my eyes (standard procedure), put a forkful of food in my mouth, chewed it up, and swallowed.

I have never had anything feel so unnatural in my life. It took an embarrassing amount of concentration to accomplish this feat of emptying my mouth of food in between bites. I'm certain the food expired before I had the chance to eat it all, and I quickly went back to my old method.

As I am writing this, the link is occurring to me: this is really my interrupting problem in reverse! I just can't get it all in fast enough, but in my haste I end up missing things like flavor and oxygen while everyone else is truly enjoying the meal/conversation.

Sigh.

I am hoping that there is some 12-step program to remedy this annoying habit and that by admitting I have a problem I have already completed the first step (you know, so I can hurry on to the next ones). In the meantime, please accept my apology and know that I am really trying to work on it. If you sense during a conversation that I am getting a brain tickle, just cram a Ricola down my throat. On second thought, put a bowl of them in front of me -- that'll keep me busy enough for you to finish your sentence.

The Beach!

So we went to Myrtle Beach last weekend and met up with some of our best friends from our Ohio days. We had such a blast with them -- that is, until I got food poisoning on the last night. But what can you do, right? The silver lining to that story is that although I ate like a total cow all week, I came home nearly 3 pounds lighter than I left! Yippee!

We wondered if maybe we had completely lost our minds when we planned to have 6 adults and 10 kids staying in one suite together, but it really worked out well and we all still like each other. Well, at least we still like the families we were with -- I guess we shouldn't assume that the feeling is mutual.

Anyway, here are some pictures for anyone who cares...

This was just before our first trip to the indoor water park at the resort -- awesome place to stay with little kids, especially if you want "non-sun" water options.

Boone and his boys in the Lazy River -- Branik really enjoyed this, you just can't tell by the look on his face this particular moment.

We headed outside too, and I was able to capture the craziness of our group in one shot...

That's every kid in chronological order and 5 of the 6 adults (notice how I managed to keep myself in a bathing suit off the blog:) You'll notice Jessica (out of the water on the left) struggling to keep Branik from hurling himself into the pool like this...

This kid had no fear and did this over and over and over and over again until Boone and I had aching arms from lifting a sopping wet 2 year old out of the water repeatedly. I wish I had a picture of his face while he was doing this -- he looked high (but happy!).

Here we are at Joe's Crab Shack -- I'm happy because we are eating...again...okay, still. Some guy was walking around making balloon animals and swords for customers and he practically drooled all over us when he saw a table with 10 kids. It kept them entertained for a good half hour, so it was totally worth the $20 tip (especially because I didn't pay it!)

We also went to the aquarium and the kids got to hold horseshoe crabs which was cool...


...Branik really loved this shark and ray exhibit and sat totally fascinated for a long time. It WAS pretty relaxing and they had all this groovy mood music on so we all just kind of chilled out.

But the majority of our time was spent at the beach, digging in the sand, body surfing, and generally wasting time and loving it...


Good friends, good food, good beach -- we think we'll do this again next year, except maybe without the throwing up at the end next time. We love you Spittles and Wests!

School's Out!

Well, I can hardly believe it but Rylan is done with Kindergarten! She had a really cute graduation and program at her school on Monday which Boone and I were both able to attend. Of course, she stole the show with her brilliant recitation of "Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" (okay, a portion of it), followed by a rousing rendition of "First Grade, First Grade" sung to the tune of "New York, New York". Being a former theater geek and current attention hog myself, I was totally giddy watching one of my offspring hamming it up on stage. I spent the whole program thinking, "Yep, that's my kid up there!"

That is, until the festivities ended and the parents were invited to take their children home with them for an early release day. Yippee, right? Yeah, that's what I thought too. Read on.

I knew that taking Ry home was an option beforehand, and so, having the boys off at a playdate (to avoid what surely would have been a total disaster at the school), I planned to take her out to lunch with me and then to the mall so she could pick out a new dress. I was really looking forward to our surprise Mommy/Daughter date, so you can imagine my horror when my proposal initiated this exchange:

Rylan (looking confused): "Can I just stay at school instead?"

Me (thinking she must not have heard me correctly): "Don't you want to go to lunch? Just you and me? And then we can go to the mall and buy a new dress for you!"

Mrs. Copeland -- (her teacher) (from Alabama): "RAH-linn, don't you wanna go with yer Momma to luuwnch and out shoppin'? There's not but three of us gonna be here at the skewl darlin'!"

Rylan (either considering her options or trying to translate what her teacher just said into English): "Um, I think I want to stay here, if it's okay with you, Mom"

Me: "Ry, you are ALLOWED to go -- most kids are going home -- (grabbing her hand) Let's go eat and go shopping!"

Ry (now looking at me like I am retarded): "Mom, I want to stay at school and ride the bus home at 3:30"

Ummm, WHAT? Are you freaking kidding me?!? My daughter would rather stay at school with the kids whose parents didn't show up for graduation then go shopping and out to lunch? I've known forever that she looks exactly like her dad, but this episode left me thoroughly convinced that there is absolutely NONE of my DNA floating around in her body. I missed over 60 days of school my senior year (a lot of that was due to Mono and then an unfortunate meeting between my head and a weight machine at the YMCA) and never EVER turned down the chance to skip school to eat and spend money!

So, feeling totally stunned and rejected and a little self conscious about what the teacher might be thinking ("Hmmm, how bad is Rylan's home life if she would rather stay here than go with her mom?"), I left Little Miss Teacher's Pet at school and went, by myself, to the mall -- thinking the whole time, "That is SO not my kid..."


So, after soothing myself at Ann Taylor Loft, I came to the realization that even if Boone somehow changed the laws of human reproduction and cloned himself in female form (which he could probably do if he was bored enough) and I was nothing but a human incubator for 9 months (it's really closer to 10 months, but that's another post), I love that little twerp to pieces! Boone and I are as proud as parents can be of our big girl, and we know she'll do great things in First Grade! Love you, Ry!

The Great Outdoors! (even greater when I'm not in them:)

Last weekend, Boone decided to take Ry and Keaton camping along with the male component of the Patterson family. We aren't brave (read "stupid") enough yet to try Branik in a tent with his sibs, so he and I stayed home. I am perfectly fine with this arrangement for as long as it holds.

Anyway, Ry and the boys drove about 30 minutes to Clarks Hill Lake for a quick overnighter, but you'd never have guessed it by looking at the car! I wish I would have taken pictures of the back of the Tahoe on the way out because they had enough gear to go to Mars. Even so, they stopped at McDonalds on the way out (because kids don't eat foil dinners, okay?) arrived to a totally empty campground, set up the tents, and went to lake.

Keaton spent most of his time doing this (throwing fistfuls of rocks into the water)...

...and then cleaning his muddy hands on his pants. Nice. This is similar to how he cleans syrup off his fingers, only he uses his hair instead of his bottom (but only because he is sitting on it).


Rylan spent the majority of her time like this...

... gathering THOUSANDS of clam shells off the lake shore. They were both in heaven and loved having the kind of free reign that comes only when Mom is in another county and therefore unable to think about the laundry accumulating by the minute.

When it started to get dark they headed back up to build a fire and make Smores. At about 10:30 when they were all sufficiently sick and sticky they called it a night (note the school bus and Harold on Keaton's pillow -- classic).


Boone reported that not much in the way of "sleeping" occurred -- it was more "laying quietly in tent" until Boone HAD to pee at 5:00 am (he's old). The kids were pretty much awake after that which meant Saturday was a recovery day for all of them (Keaton begged to go to bed at 11:00 am and crashed out for around 3 hours when they got home). I, on the other hand, got over 8 UNINTERRUPTED hours of sleep for the first time in I don't know how long. It was awesome.

Anyway, they got up early and had pancakes, because everyone knows that the only way to follow a McNugget and Smores dinner is with a boatload of maple syrup and juice the next morning!

After this, the 3 kids managed to convinced the dads that they REALLY needed to swim in the lake at 8:00 in the morning -- how could anyone say no to these faces?


Well, if you're me, you just say "Ummm, no." But I'm mean, and at the time I was still unconscious in my bed (tee-hee!) so you can guess what happened...

They all had an absolute blast and Keaton keeps asking about when he gets to go camping again. Kudos to Boone for being a great dad and gutsy enough to attempt this with young kids (and take a bunch of pictures too!)

I suppose Branik and I will be joining them soon enough, and I will do my very best not to ruin all the fun by being the Mom. Although it looks to me like I probably should have been there for what appears to be Ian and Rylan's lakeside wedding...

Feel free to send the happy couple gift cards to Target -- I swear they'll get them...

What the hail?

I know it's been a while since I posted, and I have no excuse. I just didn't post, okay?

ANYWAY...we had the biggest hail storm I have ever seen this afternoon -- like I seriously worried that I might have some broken windows. It just doesn't storm like this out west.

Check this action out!



Here are a few more pics to further illustrate the craziness -- this pretty much trashed our flower beds and knocked our mailbox open, but what can you do?

The thing that is so weird about storms out here is that they appear out of nowhere, go totally ballistic for a few minutes, and then disappear as fast as they came on. 15 minutes after this all started we had blue skies again. I think this is as close to snow as we will see in Georgia, and I had quite the time keeping the boys inside while this was going on. Good times...

I actually have a few things to blab -- I mean blog -- about, so stay tuned...

Why Mommyhood is Fun (yes, I said fun!)

Well, it must be your lucky day. Boone is still busy and I am all caught up on the DVR, so I guess I'll post again!


Rylan made this in school (note my flexibility!) and I just have to say how much I love my girl for drawing me as a stick figure and then describing me this way:


Man, is that kid gunning for some Polly Pockets or what! Don't ask me what finger sandwiches are, and for the record, I know nothing about dinosaurs. And while The Incredibles is just fine as far as Pixar movies go, my favorite show is The Office. But the part with my weight is totally accurate.

More about Ry. She LOVES to cook and will help out in the kitchen any way we (okay, Boone) will let her. So you can imagine her joy when her dad asked her to make Jello 100% by herself today! He walked her through it step by step but didn't help at all. I somehow missed taking pictures of the first part, but this was her serving us our portions...

I must say it was the best grape Jello I have ever ingested. It may be the only grape Jello I have ever ingested, but still, it was delish.

In other "man, our kids are getting big" news, Keaton got his first big boy bike today! He is already very comfortable on the bike, but has absolutely no interest in stopping so he refuses to brake. This could be problematic later on.

You'll be stunned to learn that he picked a Thomas helmet and pads (he put the pads on after this shot - calm down Nana!) and cruised up and down the cul-de-sac with Rylan for a good long while. This is really his birthday present from us but if we wait until late June to give it to him, it will be too hot to ride until, oh, Christmas. We figure that we can just remind him on his actual birthday that he got a bike already, which we are certain will work on a 4 year old. Plan B is to give him a container of Daisy brand sour cream which he loves because the word "daisy" ends in the letter "y". That's honestly why he asked me to take this picture:

(As I am taking Rylan's Jello serving shot) : "Mommy! Can you take a picture of the red 'y'?! Mommy, Mommy! See the red 'y'?!"

(I take the picture -- thank you digital camera)

"Can I see the picture of the red 'y' ?"

(Now comparing actual tub of sour cream to image of sour cream on LCD screen, grinning widely): "That's 2 red 'ys'" (don't ask me how to punctuate multiples of a letter in quotation marks).

Anyway, when he was done advertising for Daisy, he mined all the chocolate chips out of his cookie and ate what was left. Who does that? That kid hates chocolate. And yes, he asked me to take this picture too.

Branik, on the other hand, loves cookies and all their components more than life itself. We can't even say the word around him or he goes totally ballistic -- running around the kitchen screeching "tooteee!!! tooteeeeee!!!" He loves them so much he used his to scoop up his grape Jello. Although to be fair, who wouldn't use a cookie as a utensil if given the opportunity?


Whew! I am all blogged out, but Happy Mother's Day to all the cute, fun, smart, talented, and wonderful moms I know. And I guess to the Ugly Moms too ;)