happy birthday, kathryn and emory!

today, my best friend from high school, kathryn, is turning 28! whoo-hoo! i'm sure she has big plans to party it up in greenwood tonight! probably on a gravel road in the middle of a cotton field somewhere. or maybe just a nice dinner out. either way, happy birthday, kathryn! i love you!!

as i was looking around for a picture to post, i came across this one. i didn't have very many options because all of my picture albums are still at my parents' house. anyway, i had to post this one because i wanted to show off the bangs. hello? are those smoking hot or what?? i don't know exactly when this was, but i think we were in st. simons at some point during high school. i am quite the trend setter, aren't i?


today is also emory's birthday! she's not 28....she's just a young, little thing. but, we still love her anyway!

this past week, we took her out for a birthday dinner a few nights early. we can't polish off nearly as much pizza as we can sushi, but the conversation was just as entertaining. somebody mentioned that when we get together we need to get a pen and paper and write down all the topics covered. the topic number was, i'm sure, at least up to 150 and covered everything from shorts with built-in underwear to the vast array of supplies that come in pocket sizes. we are soooo all over the place. anyway, the thing that we talked about that has stayed in my mind was fears. everyone has pretty typical fears...snakes, spiders, heights, etc., except for that girl on the end. ginger (in all her craziness) fears traffic jams. yes, traffic jams. lucky for her, we live in rural mississippi, and getting stuck in a traffic jam is highly unlikely. unless you count getting stuck behind tractors. in which case, she might want to stay at home during picking season. of course, then she has to watch out for the roaches. tough call.

anyway, happy birthday to the two birthday girls! i hope you both have a great day and get to eat lots of cake. and ice cream. call me if you want some help with that.

i'm a redneck woman (i ain't no high class broad)

about a week ago, chase's lawn mower died. he took it to get fixed, and they called today to say that it was ready for pick-up. while we do have a truck, we do not own a trailer. who would have ever thought we needed one? we've made it just fine without one until now.

anyway, our neighbor, shannon, owns just a little bit of everything (including a trailer), and he was willing to let us borrow it to go get the mower. unfortunately though, chase was working and wouldn't be able to get to the mower store before they closed. so....this left me as the one and only available person to go get that thing.

yes, i drove all through town and up the highway outside of town just like this...

...with mower and trailer in tow.

you could see the people that i passed cock their heads and look with a "what in the world?" look at what could have only looked like a 12 year old driving a monster truck. but, i made it. i wasn't too sure i was going to make it back because when i pulled up to the store i didn't calculate my exit very well! so, after the mower got tied down, i had to back up the trailer amid a parking lot full of tractors. (i know their are plenty of females who don't understand the difficulty in backing a trailer, but just trust me here.) thank goodness i had practice from backing a boat in the lake! or as chase tells me almost on a daily basis for just about everything...."you're a redneck from the country. shouldn't you know how to do that?"

yes sir. i do. i know how to work that lawn mower, too, but i'm going to continue playing stupid on that one!

upside down wes

he's a fast foodie

william likes to ride up beside you while on his tricycle or tractor and pretend that he is ordering food at a drive-thru window. the following is a conversation between him and his poppa while in inverness this past weekend.

william: "can i have, ummmmmm, some chicken nuggets, french fries, salad, and sweet tea?"

poppa: "is that all?"

william: "and, and some chocolate milk."

poppa: "anything else?"

william: "that's all. how much will be that?" (i love how he says this backwards.)

poppa: "that will be $7.22."

william: "here you go" (and he holds out his hand to give him money)

poppa: "thanks. here's your food." (as he tries to give him his food)

william: "no, no...this is wendy's, not chick-fil-a."

poppa: "huh?"

william: "you have to go to the second window to get your food. wendy's has 2 windows. chick-fil-a just has one."

poppa: "i think you eat out too much."

sadly, he may be right!!!

lots of sun and very little sand

this past week, we headed down to the beach with the henson side of the family. we left out of here around 8 that morning, and let's just say that mapquest needs to have on their website, "estimated time" and "estimated time when you have to stop for a 2 year old to pee every hour." there is seriously nothing at all between here and moblie, so we stopped on gravel roads and even were practically in some lady's driveway at one point. of course, she had to walk out to check her mail just as soon as he had to go. she didn't feel the need to return the friendly wave that i gave her! at around 130, we finally arrived in mobile and ate a late lunch at felix's (thanks, heather). the little people slept in the car after lunch, so the last little bit was free of pit stops!

once we got there, we all had a lot of fun. see...here's the three moms looking totally sane after a long trip to the beach.

so yeah, even though there were 5 kids under the age of 2, we were all relatively calm and collected at the end of the week! don't get me wrong....there were meltdowns. i think we'd all agree that the best was when sara beth went into hysterics because zeb foolishly cut up her grapes! i mean, come on....who wants to eat cut up grapes? so the rest of the trip, whenever we saw someone that was upset, you'd hear one of us say, "somebody must have cut his grapes up." or, "who cut your grapes up?" this will no doubt be a classic line in this family for years to come!

we stayed at the caribe which was actually across the street from the beach. it had a ton of pools with water slides, waterfalls, fountains, and a lazy river. it was quite a hike to get to the sand and water, and with all of those cool water features, the beach was kind of non-factor anyway. (that's not totally a bad thing when you are with people who like to eat sand and/or are able to smuggle 4 pounds of sand into my vehicle when they've only been in it for 5 minutes.) anyway, we did make it over there once, so we could at least say that we went to the beach!

daddy and wes making their way to the water

not too close

sweet wes trying to build his own sand castle

every morning after breakfast, we got all of our stuff together and went downstairs to play until lunch time. we could have made it out to the pool even earlier, but every single morning i had to hold one of william's hands while we ran around in a circle with him screaming bloody murder as i tried to spray sunscreen on him. we go to the pool every single day...you'd think he'd be used to this by now. eventually we made it down there every morning.

chillin' on the lazy river

diving in

wes got in on the action, too

taking a quick break for a pic

wes didn't even need the pool to have fun

william and sara beth waiting for a turn on the lazy river

after all the little people woke up from their naps in the afternoon, we got all cleaned up and went out to eat. you never knew who you would end up beside in the bathtub, but nobody seemed to mind!

william, wes and sara beth

william and ariana

we ate some really good seafood thanks to some good recommendations. after the crab races, feeding the fish and looking at the boats in the marina, waiting on the food at calypso's didn't take long at all!

sara beth, william and ariana didn't mind busting a move to some jimmy buffet at cosmo's. wes was out there, too, but he didn't make the picture for some reason!

we tried to get a picture while we were there of the grandparents with all the kids. this is the best i did. we are adding another grandkid in september. again, i say.....good luck with that christmas card picture.

when the "go home" day arrived, we packed up our car and left at 9am. we had thought about going to the pool one last time or maybe even hitting the outlet mall, but you never know what will happen when you have little people in the car. so we erred on the cautious side to give ourselves plenty of time. we made it to mobile fine and stopped at chick-fil-a for a snack. the next leg of the journey only took us the better part of forever. we stopped 3 times for william to tee-tee, once for us (and for real....where the heck are the gas stations between here and the beach? do i need to pack a travel potty for myself? or maybe i just need to pack an extra cup for me!), once for gas, once to change wes' diaper, and once for william to get dirty. yes....he started screaming at me to pull over because he needed to get dirty. we were just outside of macon, and there was nothing around except 500 trees and some power lines!! i told him to hold it, and he began begging for a cup.....yeah, that would have been interesting! so we finally drove up on a ratty best western. i made chase take him in to use the bathroom in the lobby, and i locked my doors and circled the parking lot until they made it back. the rest of the way, william whined about whether or not his feet could touch the dvd player, and wes was furious about something. if the kid would say something besides "dada" and "thank you," we'd be better able to understand what he wants. he obviously did not want cheese crackers or goldfish, and they ended up crushed on the floorboard of my car with that 4 pounds of sand! about 10 miles outside of town, william announced that he needed me to pull over yet again. i think the boy has a bladder the size of an english pea. after that last pit stop, we finally made it home around 445pm. you better believe i had ambien circulating in my blood at around 9 that night!!

we definitely can't wait to go back to the beach with the fam, but if anybody has a plane and would like to fly us to the beach next year...i will be your best friend ever!! any takers?

chowin' down

in an effort to keep wes occupied during our supper tonight since he had already scarfed his down, i gave him a whole apple thinking he would just look at it and play with it for a few minutes. he was more than occupied...he did some damage to that apple.


"get outta my face, woman! can't you see i'm busy here?"


i promise not to dress him like this very often because it makes him look so big boyish, but he had to wear something today that was not going to the beach with us. what a sweet big boy, though!

5 'til 6 and hungry

i love summer. i hate cooking in the summer. it's just too hot. our kitchen has 84 windows that face west, so when it's anytime after lunch it's approximately 200 degrees in there. (and shannon...if you're reading this....i LOVE my kitchen...and my neighbors!) anyway, i really don't want to turn on the oven or stand over a skillet on the stove or do anything in there that will make it hotter than it already is. plus, it's light until after 8pm, so i'd rather be outside playing with the little people than in the kitchen anyway.

all that to say that if i do fix something for supper....i will fix that thing only. i'm not a short order cook. so you can eat what is put in front of you, or you can go to bed hungry. your choice. last night, william chose the latter.

i made vegetable lasagna (it was cloudy outside, so the oven thing wasn't a huge deal), but he decided he didn't want "tasagna" because it had "those green things in it." he pushed it around a little, and then i made him get up because mama doesn't do the playing with our food thing. drives me crazy. so, he had 6 blueberries and a half a cup of water for supper.

this morning at 5 'til 6, i hear him upstairs saying, "maaaaaama....come get me." he usually gets up at 6:45am, so this is not a good way to start my day. anyway, i go up to his room, and he tells me to lie down on the bed with him. as soon as my head hits the pillow, he says, "mama, you need to leave."

still unhappy that there is a 5 on the clock, i ask, "why?"

"because you need to cook me some supper."

"are you hungry?"

"i am hungry, hungry, hungry. i want oatmeal and pancakes and chocolate milk."

maybe i should make supper be 7 blueberries and a whole cup of water next time.

sleepyheads

don't they look so sweet like this? i can only hope our trip to the beach this weekend looks a lot like this! (yeah...wishful thinking, i know!)

mr. fearless

our neighbors, the warrens, were out of town last week, and they told us to come use their pool while they were gone. so, we took them up on their offer. (thanks, y'all!) while we were there, my 2 year old decided that he was fearless. after the first time, i only had to watch him do it about 58 more times...

new digs

how happy is this kid in his new outfit?? he may wear it every day for the rest of his life.

pre-supper routine

every night while i'm getting supper ready, i plug in my ipod or turn on the radio. then, william, wes and i shake our groove thang while i cook and we wait on daddy to get home. chase has walked in more than once and rolled his eyes at the three of us gettin' jiggy in the kitchen. i sure am glad we put up that fence in the backyard....otherwise, our neighbors would think we were nuts for sure! (and, the song in the background.....it's one of william's favorites. move over itsy-bitsy spider!)