Goodbye Huntsville !

As Meri says Papa high, weallly high (with her big circular arm movements)
We're amazed at how big this building is and how fast it went up.
Josh's shadow loves the rock wall he built her. She pretends she's all manner of animals roaring on top of it or just climbs around like a goat. I'm convinced I'm going to have to ship her off to Uncle Matt for some safety lessons so I can keep my sanity.




My little interpretive dancer communing with the wood fairies.

Snow!

Yes, it does snow in GA, a smidge anyway. We'd been hearing all day about the snow so when it finally started coming down we went out to play. It didn't matter a bit that it was dark or after bedtime, we had a blast. And we were so glad we did - it rained during the night so it was gone in the morning.
I love, love that Evie was actually able to participate in a snowball fight with us! She had no problem making the snowballs and she's got an arm with a very good aim so we were definitely on the recieving end of some hits. She and I mostly just ganged up on Daddy. And Meri? She just walked around fussing because it was cold and dark.

Cuteness

Whenever I get all nostalgic and weepy about my babies growing up I go through old pictures. With E's 5th birthday looming on the horizon, I've been doing it a lot lately. I don't know what it is about 5? Maybe because it's the start of having a school age child instead of preschooler? Whatever it is, I've definitely been weepy lately! Anyway, I just found this ... I really don't know if I shared it or not? Do you remember? I just thought it was so cute and pretty typical too. He is such a good Daddy, he was obviously in the middle of doing something with the tractor when somebody decided he needed to color instead. They are definitely two lucky girlies. My only worry is that he and Evie are too much alike sometimes, it's scary!

" I pink?"

So the other day Evie comes tearing into the house yelling "Rosie is painting!". Great. We have about 20 gallons of paint out in the shed and my mind starts thinking of all the things she could be defacing. So, I step outside and yell and she shows up looking like this, telling me proudly "I pink, I pink!". It took some convincing but they finally brought me to the scene of the crime, it was way out back by the compost pile. It turned out it was just some drywall compound so no worries about cleanup or property damage. She was so proud - she'd pink the world if I let her. I swear she asks everyday if she can pink!

Chistmas Cookies

So I'm a little slow, I think we're all aware of that.
This was our annual Christmas mess making session at Mimi's.
Evelyn was very precise in er placement of the decorations and Meredith just wanted to eat the decorations. She got tired of eating the green sugar and pilfered a bowl of peppermint chips to eat under the table.

Notice any thing... funny about this picture? A couple of weeks ago, we were waiting the car for Daddy and they unearthed a tube of old mascara from the depths of the van. Willing to do just about anything to make the wait more bearable, I put it on them. The results were so laughable, I had to grab a picture. She looked like she was wearing some drag queens fake eye lashes! I'm sure she won't be complaining when she's older - too many lashes definitely falls into the category of blessing rather than curse!
Anyway, I just found this picture and had to share because it made me laugh all over again!

Christmas

Meri putting "stick" on Mimi
Meri helping me make apricot rolls .... this one had to be made into cinnamon rolls because it ended up with about an inch of butter on it.
This is the cutest little mouse puppet - they're little baby mice inside a gift box.
Nathan realizing he got a guitar for Christmas. This is his guitar strap - it took him a minute, he thought it was a belt at first.
Candy and the farm.
She love, love, loves her playmobile farm. Santa(or Mimi and Poppa actually) brought them each a set! Oh and a whole herd of horses. The detail in these toys are amazing - cell phones that will snap into their hands, horse poo, all sorts of fun stuff.

I want to spend Christmas on Christmas island...

I actually prefer the beach in the winter. You can keep all the naked people and the loud noise ans the blistering sun. Give me a nice stiff wind and a deserted beach and I'm blissful.
Every year when we visit Grandmama we make the enormous effort of driving 15 minutes to Folly beach, everybody always grumbles but they usually come home sandy and happy.
The girls were crushed that they couldn't put there suits on - not that it stopped them from getting in the water!

Happy New Year!

I'm blogging about new year's ever first because I'm trying to ignore all the Christmas mess still left in my house:)

We spent New Year Eve at Edisto Island State Park. Our camp site was literally yards from the beach. In the picture below it's right behind Evie - she was picking "flowers" for me.

We schlepped all 4 bikes up there and boy were we ever glad we did. Evie had sort of gotten te hang of her bike tis fall but she wouldn't attempt it with out somebody right beside her and it was still mor a source of frustration than fun. Check her out below - it finally clicked and she was riding all up and down the road.
The wind was so bad right before we left that we took to hanging out hunkered down beside the car.
I have a picture I need to get out - Me and Evie on this same spot when I was about 3 months pregnant with Meredith!
This pretty much sums up the girls feelings of the camera lately! So there is actually not a whole lot more pictures to share!
We had a really good time - probably the best New Years Eve I can remember. We played on the beach, took a super long bike ride and had a picnic along the way. We bought some fresh oysters and had an oyster roast at our campfire and then went to bed at 10:00. I managed to sneak out and watch the sun come up on the beach. It was truly fabulous and we soooo wish it didn't have to end!
I've more to share later from Christmas and our time in Charleston.

Deck the Halls....

I'm on a song kick - what can I say? Falala la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
We put up two trees this year (note to self - do not be so ambitious next year) Evie loves that she has her tree and I have my tree. The reasoning was that we wanted to cut down a fresh tree with them but we didn't want it in the living room since it would be, ohhh about two feet away from the raging inferno of our wood stove. I didn't feel like a Christmas blaze this year so we put the fake up by the fire. Too bad that my nice holiday memory of tree cutting with Daddy was a bust. There were two dogs at the tree farm, do I really need to tell what was more interesting?
This is how our visit went
ME: " Let's pick out a tree - ooooh look at that one it's pretty"
THEM: "DOGS, dogs, dogs DOOOOOOOOOGs! "
ME: Don't you want a tree for the toy room? Let's pick out a tree..."
THEM: "I want to pet the DOOOOOGS! I want to pick the GRASS. I DON"T WANT A TREE!!!!"

Good times. And, they've already managed to break two of the unshatterable ornaments I bought especially from old Martha. Plus three of my precious ones but we won't get into that. I figure that any Mother who decides to buy exclusively blown glass ornaments for HER tree deserves what she gets. We did have a blast decorating it, although the beads and tinsel might have been a bad idea. Oh, and the angel lost her wings - do you suppose there is some meaning behind that?

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat.....

I finally feel a little less hum buggy. We've got both trees up, we decorated the gingerbread barn and I have a Miss Piggy song stuck in my head. Do you know the one? Take the title and add "please to put a penny in an old man's hat. If you haven't got a penny then a half penny will do...." The part that is so, so wrong is that I can't find our CD with it on there so I just have my awful version running through my head - not the fun Muppets one. Otherwise I wouldn't mind too much - John Denver and the Muppets pretty much make any thing okay.
Anyway - here is what consumed our entire day yesterday. It was supposed to be a simple fun thing to do with the girls and somehow it morphed into this. I can not lie - it's actually cardboard and we glued most of the stuff on but we did use icing for the decorations! The girls were in heaven - candy for Meri and horses for Evie.

More tea part and some randomness

My future lactivist is a little confused - the baby horse was drinking Daddy's milk

Dishwashing gone awry.


Leaves, leaves and more LEAVES!


Boy, Daddy really needs to rake!
Such a serious girl! That was my great grandmothers teapot - how cool is that? Not that it's fine china or anything but still it makes me happy. Every time I brew a pot of tea I think about her and am transported back to her house. Under the buffet, at the table with cookies or out on the sunporch - child hood nirvana! Don't get me started on Grandma Jeans basment or Grandma Francis' kitchen! That makes it sound like my grandfathers weren't important which is NOT true- it's funny how the house takes on the female name isn't it? I do that with all my friend's houses too...

She has become so aware of herself lately. We have soo many people stop us and tell us how pretty she(they) is(are). It's starting to be irritating! The other day I was trying to get her speech therapist to understand why we think she needs more help and she actually said "but she's so pretty and smart". Nice. So she's going to think her worth is in her looks and not be able to do anything with her intelligence because she can't communicate! ? Seriously!
This is such a real shot. T0unge out, slouchy and completely oblivious to me!

Rock On!

This was what Meri wore the other day - it was supposed to have a dress on over it. She thought she was a rock star.

Speaking of big girls

E has started stealing my headbands - can you believe she's big enough to borrow my accessories?

Who is this CHILD and where did my baby go?

Goodbye color

We had a tea party yesterday so I could try and capture the last of the leaves. I am very sad that dreary, boring winter is on it's way!

See it's sad because it really means that I don't have babies anymore.
And since we're comparing E&M here is the same spot, same time. I gotta say I'm not seeing the resemblance? Maybe it's the eyes? M has recently been getting some thick lashes which is making her eyes look bigger.
Also I'll be posting my client photography blog stuff over here now

http://raedyer.blogspot.com/