Christmas is here!

I know next to nothing about chorus, but I have to assume this is not an easy song to sing. It sounded 100 times better live, they really knocked it out of the park! You can't even hear half of the harmony (counterpoint??) in this recording.

I guess now that we have attended the Christmas concert I need to accept that it is right around the corner and get in the mood!

The Dog Days Are Over!

BigDaddy was sort of right; he did get mauled.....

In the first hour he was home he managed to: criticize my driving, send the kids into a fit of LOUD laughter after I had told them silence, lose the remote, and leave his boots somewhere I would trip over them.

I couldn't be happier!!!

Now listen Jack,

straighten up and fly right!



Get your sticker on....

and head to the beach!





There is something about spending time in a childrens speciality hospital that really reminds you not to sweat the small stuff....

She's a blur....

It is pretty bad when you can't even get clear pictures of her birthday because she is JUST.THAT.EXCITED.




She did, surprisingly, manage to stop for a moment and enjoy the flowers Pops sent to her. Just a moment though....

I don't wanna be on the beach! NO!!

I'm pretty sure I was a mermaid in a past life. I swear I start to get a little nutty if I am away from the water for too long. It really doesn't matter if it is a stream, a tiny pond, or the ocean; something in my psyche seriously craves it. As of recently I had long passed my breaking point, so today I WAS going to the beach. It didn't matter that this had become First Born's theme song, that I couldn't find the camera, or that it was supposed to storm.

During a short, weather related pit-stop at the spooky, abandoned outlet mall we learned about the Altamaha-ha. Oh how I wish we hadn't learned about the Altamaha-ha.

(stupid terrible cell phone pictures)
Middle Child has now decided she wants a Destination Truth-style birthday party to search for the Altamaha-ha...... Her party is not to end until we find the Altamaha-ha..... she is deadly serious. If at her next doctor's appointment she starts claiming the Altamaha-ha is talking to her, I swear I will unleash my fury on the Darien Visitors center. (See the way she's hugging it? Yea... my mom (who is petrified of dinosaurs) just had a heart attack, someone check on her please.) Also, why does that imaginary sea creature have legs?

After doing some early birthday shopping, we finally ended up at one of the best places on earth....

The good thing about severe weather warnings and crazy riptides, is that there are not many people dumb enough to venture out.


Oh sure, you'll run into an elderly past-life mermaiden that will make your daughter's month by telling her she has beautiful beach hair, but other than that you will be free to pick at hermit crabs,

trash talk seagulls,

and play "quicksand".

The best part of a windy day at the beach is that when someone starts to whine about not wanting to cross a teenie-tiny tide pool, no one can hear her!!!



I love Jekyll.... it really, really is my Happy Place. I belong here.

A year in hair.

Happy Birthday chameleon!

Baby, you wouldn't last a minute on the creek.

Cay Creek in pictures, because I am too exhausted to write much.

Truckin.

So we saw this truck being driven today. I forced FirstBorn to take a picture of it, I really wanted to ask the driver what the hell happened! I decided against it, and thought instead of how much this could be a visual metaphor for me right now. Everything is a little broken and smashed; but I'm still driving on.

Patience is not my style.

Too Marvelous for Words

So we were tourists in Savannah today. We went to City Market on a Sunday. At least there was no human feces in the stairwells this time! ("Mom how do you KNOW it was people poop?" "Animals don't wipe baby.") We controlled ourselves enough to not strangle the "real" tourists that stopped and parked on the left-hand side of the squares to take pictures of the parks!!!! Or the ones that stood in the middle of the roads to frame their shots better. Or the ones that don't understand the concept of one-way streets. (my husband understands them, he just doesn't think they apply to him personally) I love Savannah, I really do.

We ate pizza at a place that always gets recommended in tour guides. It was edible, but not even close to what we would consider good; not even for Georgia! Because it was under 70 degrees today, everyone except us was bundled up in their winter best. Every store also had their heat on full blast. We got looked at like we had 3 heads when we asked the already hot pizza place to turn their overhead heaters off for us. Also, birds...under my chair IN the enclosure! I really had to hold it together for that whole experience.


The second best part of our trip was seeing the new Johnny Mercer statue. If you've never been to Savannah, you're racking your brain right now trying to think of who he is. You know him, you really do. He is one of the most prolific lyricists in the world. If you don't know one of his songs you've heard your parents sing one. He is Savannah's son. For what would have been his 100th birthday last month they unveiled his statue made from this picture. It is perfect, right down to the honeycomb sidewalk. Two out of three kids instantly did the "Johnny lean", The Oldest apparently thinks he was reading something shocking.




The best part of our trip was not even a trip to the Candy Kitchen. It was watching a busker play the Rocky theme while a drunk guy re-enacted the training scene. On like 4 stairs...in slow motion. When he got to the top he did the arm pumps and some push-ups. Seriously classic entertainment, and the real reason why we love Savannah. It really is too marvelous for words here.

Hey, ho, way to go Ohio!

So recently we all made the trek to Ohio. Well all of us but Heinz.


There was a TON of food, liters of RedPop, and proper candies.
There were also more cousins than you could shake a stick at:


But no muskrats.

Popo that confused us with homeless vagrants:

Hotels with views like this:

Take that Nikella! ;)
There was some tandem bike riding,


and catching up with friends.



But after some of this:



There was a lot of this:



That's right, Pops sweet-talked us into The House That Harley Built on a day it was closed to the public. It almost makes 14 hours in the car worth it. ALMOST.

Thanks to everyone who put up with our invasion! We had a really great time.... even though I am still relegated to the "kids" room at Aunt M's.

So far behind...

So I'm way behind on posting. Go figure. Here are some pictures from Halloween.

The oldest decided she wasn't Trick-or-Treating this year. I guess I was o.k. with that. Over the years I've gotten fed up with people assuming she was 20 and pretending to be a kid for free candy. She still dressed up and passed out treats at our house.

The Boy Child was a sniper. We borrowed a Ghilley suit from a real sniper. A real sniper that has sniping awards and such. Very impressive to the 10-year old set. I'm pretty sure "normal" kids don't have access to the same things we do. Contray to popular belief I did not sit at home playing Battlefield in this get-up. The thought crossed my mind, but I didn't actually do it.

Middle Child was a charm school witch. She had worn this costume before, and I still don't completely understand it. I'm also pretty sure it wasn't intended to be worn with hot pink sneakers.

Hardly anyone in our neighborhood handed out candy, but they made up for it in volume. The kids bags were beyond filled in the short amount of time we walked around. I'm not sure what is up with the death of Halloween. Every year the selection of costumes and decorations seems to get smaller and smaller. Depressing. Where is the Fall spirit? I'm pretty sure a lot of it is clearing out spaces for more Christmas crap.... and we all know how I feel about Christmas.

Below are other random Halloween pictures. Please note me staring blankly at my phone in one of them. I'm trying to get the camera to work. Why I don't just hand all technology to the nearest teenager and grunt what I'd like it to do is beyond me. Certainly that is much easier than reading instruction manuals.