an afternoon at the park

we invited some of sam's friends out to veteran's park to have a belated birthday party. laney quickly dug in to the cake and ice cream.

only a few children were able to come, but the ones that were there had fun playing together.

an afternoon at the cabin

Ron's sister's father-in-law has a little cabin tucked away in the woods. After early church on Sunday, we drove out to "somewhere Southeast of Clanton" for a picnic lunch and other outdoor activities. We parked our cars just off the main road and road Thorne's trailer to the cabin.

Sam and Luke sat on the 4-wheeler for part of the ride.

We pulled up to the quaint cabin with a little pond in the background. It was so cute... until I was reminded a little later on that there was no running water. The outhouse consisted of a 5-gallon paint bucket. Good thing we were only there for the afternoon.

The hammock was so great that Ron and I are convinced we need one.

Laney was trying to find the perfect spot to eat lunch. Every few minutes she would put her Capri Sun in her mouth and chomp down to hold on to it while she picked up her plate and moved to a new place.

Sam took a short nap.

As did Ron. I don't know how safe it is to rest with a loaded gun in your hands. I'll just assume the safety was on...

Luke tried talking us in to letting him drive the 4-wheeler all by himself.

All the kids got a ride on Pop's tractor.

It was a fun adventure. After about three hours of roughing it, we packed up and made the trip back home. The kids are ready to go back again!

iPhone images

my stupid dog did this to me. he ran outside to catch a squirrel, and since i was holding his leash it flung my hand into the door frame. now it's several shades of blue and purple.

sam and i went to get his glasses adjusted again. this is beginning to be a monthly occurrence because he and his friends play so rough. we sat on the stairs at the doctor's office, eating our costco pizza slice and hot dog, while waiting for suzie to finish her lunch so she could get his glasses fit just right.
yesterday was the fall festival at briarwood. on a side note, if you listened to rick and bubba yesterday you probably heard them bad mouth the fall festival throughout the show. his kids go to the same school as mine so i identified with what they were saying. it was totally cracking me up!
sam and luke got their hair painted. sam went with red and blue while luke just stuck with green.
we had a really fun time. i was surprised at how obedient they were! they stayed right by me the whole time and made sure to ask permission before running off to do something. (that almost never happens by the way... the Lord answered my prayers for sure...)
i bought laney a pair of furry crocs on clearance about 9 months ago. now that it's getting cold i pulled them out for her to wear. they are just a bit too big, but she loves them and can keep them on without tripping over them. awesome!

Sam's Birthday

Our little guy turned 6 this past Tuesday. These six years have flown by! Freddie came in town a few days before his birthday to take him out to dinner. I took a picture of him in his Pappy's car right before they drove off. He felt so special.For breakfast, he asked for cinnamon critters. And so we rolled out some dough in cinnamon-sugar mix and gave him eyes with mini chocolate chips. Super easy...and Sam was happy.
I went to visit him at school and brought Snickerdoodles and Brownies for his classmates.
They sang "Happy Birthday" to him quite loudly.
These are his table mates...
And for lunch I told him he could pick to go wherever he wanted. He chose McDonald's. Next time I might say "Anywhere but McDonald's...".
Ron picked out his present. He decided he needed a gun. So this week has been full of target practice.
Happy Birthday, Sam! We love you...

mushroom cluster

i don't know that i've ever seen these before now... and all of a sudden i'm seeing them everywhere. i've always thought the intricacy of a mushroom is so beautiful. the cluster is even more impressive.

iPhone images

Laney was feeling a little under the weather and fell asleep while we were in the carpool laneWe woke up one morning to find a spotted thrasher at our doorstep. It must have flown into our back window; so me and the kids gave it a nice resting place. Sam and Luke even picked out some sticks so that we could make a cross.
My first blooms. Dave gave me some gladiola bulbs a while back and I've been anticipating this day. I don't know what colors they all are, but I thought it was fitting that the first bloom was purple since it is my favorite color.
Laney picked up the phone and I asked her what she was doing. She said "I'm calling daddy to say hey".
Out at dinner she showed us her unique way of eating fruit loops, using her crayon as a fork.

luke's first buzz cut

when ron cut sam's hair last weekend luke was emphatic that he didn't want his cut. well, that changed when cousin kole walked into our house a few nights ago with really short hair. i guess peer pressure exists even at the young age of 3.

so we sat luke up on one of our bar stools and ron got to work.

he did great and got a kick out of seeing the hair as it came off.

and within 15 minutes, we had a bag full of beautiful blonde hair and a piece of laffy taffy as a treat. good job, lukey...

a lesson in running

sam is doing his first race in february. it's a marathon. he has between now and the race day to log 25.2 miles. then on race day, he gets to run the last mile with all the other kids who have put in some hard work as well. ron tried to show him the difference between running and jogging, explaining you can't start too fast or you will wear yourself out.

and they're off! the jogged 1/2 mile. luke ran the whole way. sam said he was tired just a few minutes in and walked home by himself. he doesn't want to have anything to do with running now. that's not what ron wanted.
tomorrow is his birthday and he's been trying to guess what we got him. tonight before bed he said he just didn't want it to have anything to do with running.

Bagster

I briefly mentioned that we are doing a minor basement renovation which includes pulling down all of our old ceiling tiles. This has left us with a lot of trash. We bought a bag from the Home Depot. You fill it up and Waste Management hauls it away for you. So I loaded it up last Friday while all the kids were at school, meticulously putting it in there like a puzzle, hoping we weren't going to exceed the 3,300 pound limit.

My OCD side loved the finished result. Neat and orderly.

And sure enough it made it into the truck without falling apart.

The trash is gone, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us. Any volunteers? :)

a little manicure

Laney has been sick the past few days. So while the boys were at school I thought I'd take her for her first manicure. She has fun trying to decide between the pretty colors...She also had fun reaching for the pretty colors...
But when it was time to actually get her nails painted, she was not having fun. She cried so much that the nail tech simply got up and walked away. Oh well, maybe another day.

Briarwood Homecoming Parade

The kids were dismissed from school early on Friday to prepare for homecoming traffic. After meeting Ron at the bottom of the hill for a quick snack at McDonalds, we made our way up to the parade. It was a beautiful day for it...


Luke's friend, Ken, gave the kids some yummy cookies to eat. They entertained me the whole time!
Check out Luke's dimple... oh my, what a cutie.

I still don't know whose chairs these were, but Luke and Laney made themselves comfortable.
Bela (Sam's carpool buddy), Ava and Leah met us up there.
Laney enjoyed waving at the "princesses".