Thanksgiving in Pawleys Island

This year, I am more thankful than ever for the two beautiful kids, the wonderful family and the fantastic friends God graced me with. I am also extremely blessed at 34 to have 2 amazing Grandmothers still here for my children to get to know, laugh and play with.

Thanks be to God!

This Thanksgiving, in true ACB form, we packed up and left Atlanta a full week before Thanksgiving and headed to Charlotte. They got some much needed time with their Dad and I got some much needed time with my friend Brooke. She made lots of delicious food and we drank lots of $8 wine...it was a great weekend.

On Monday morning we left early to drive to Pawleys Island to see Bubba, Snookie, GiGi, Uncle Mike, Uncle Clay, Aunt Natalie, and cousin Luke. Cade and Brey were greeted in usual grandparent fashion of being offered Cheetos, chocolate chip cookies and juice boxes for lunch...because as you all know, there are no Cheetos and chocolate chip cookies sold in Roswell, GA (at least that is what I have convinced my kids to think).

Shortly after the oh-so-nutritious lunch, my Dad announced that since Cade had learned how to ride his bike without training wheels, he was taking Cade to the store to buy him a new bike to keep at Bubba and Snookies. Now - please note that they live in a neighborhood FULL of grandparents and this neighborhood has "borrow list" posted at the clubhouse and there are PLENTY of bikes on that list....but Bubba wanted Cade to have his own bike. It is a marvelous thing to be the first born grandchild. And I know because I've been there!

Cade spent every morning and every afternoon riding his new bike around the very flat neighborhood telling my Dad that his "Laser snake bike" (a Razor Cobra) was the best bike in the world. He was VERY appreciative and it was awesome to see he and Bubba head out everyday on their bike rides.

Clay, Natalie, & Luke flew into Charleston pretty late on Wednesday night so the kids didn't get to see Luke until they woke up on Thanksgiving morning. It was so fantastic to see the three kids together. I think the person who got the biggest kick out of watching them was my Grandmother who the kids call GiGi. The coolest part of the entire weekend for me was seeing her read them the books that she used to read to me and Clay.

October has come and gone....

And we are still in Atlanta...much to the dismay of many. But we have done some wonderful things in the last 4 weeks:

1) Breyden only wears a diaper to bed and other than that, we are potty trained!

2) Cade has graduated to doing book reports at school every week and also is doing a lot more math and reading
3) We had a fantastic Halloween - Holly Hobby and Dash from the Incredibles had a successful trick-or-treat outing

4) I got to Johnson City unexpectedly to see my Grandmother and a few friends that I hadn't seen in years and also went to Clemson for the first time in 5 years

Party at 4 am!!!

There has been a recent upswing in the number of parties in my room at 4 am - and this is no throw back to my college vacations. These parties at 4 am leave me without sleep for an entirely different reason....

2 kids under the age of 5 (who weigh less than me combined) end up taking up 90% of my bed for at least 3 hours of the early morning. Here is what I woke up to this am. This might be my favorite time of the day now:

The next female super hero: Balance Beam Breyden

Breyden's most favorite thing to do is go to gymnastics. She says "I flipped" for 2 days after her class and I am CERTAIN that Wendesday is her least favorite day of the week because it is Cade's gymnastics day.

What a GREAT birthday present!!!

After watching the Olympics, I had had enough of the flipping on and off the couch. And so when a very good friend wanted to do something for them for their birthdays, I knew exactly what could be done:

GYMNASTICS LESSONS!

They both go one day a week for an hour to a great gym where the coaches are super helpful and VERY patient. Here are some shots from their first lessons....sorry they are blurry. Parents have to stay in a glass enclosure so we don't disturb the instruction. ;-)

not - hot - pot

Cade has had homework almost every night since school started. The good news for him is that it typically never takes us longer than 20 minutes to do it and generally it is stuff that we would have done at home anyway. But I am no early childhood educator and so, don't really know what is appropriate for him to be learning at 4.5. So tonight when I saw what we had to do I was REALLY excited to see the end result would be.

The following is a list of words that Cade READ tonight:

dot * hot * not * pot * got * cot * bat * cat * fat * hat * mat * pat * rat * bin * fin * tin *pin

WHOO HOO! Pretty soon, Cade will be reading the bedtime stories to me!

so at 5:45 on a Tuesday with 2 kids...do I look like I want to "dine"?

If I walk into your restaurant (I don't care if you are Wendy's or the Capital Grille) on a Tuesday afternoon at 5:45 with 2 kids, you should know I am not coming to your dining establishment for an "experience". If my 2 year old daughter has to ask every person in your assigned blue shirt that walks by "where's mine"...do you think you are getting a 20% tip?

If you actually have a printed kids menu and hand out crayons - you should know the drill.

UGH!