Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Kindergarten update

Elena came home today, took off her clothes, put on her nightgown and went in her room!!! :)
This is the child who does not nap, and does not even get crabby about it...
She is worn out. ;).

Her brother, could not wait to see her!! He had all kinds of tidbits to share with her...so now they are in the living room playing sweetly, catching up.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

sooooo SWEET! {please listen}

The weekend....

Well, let's see....
Andy was out of town working this weekend.  ALL WEEKEND--as in he left on Thursday at 5:00 AM and got back on Sunday at 5:00 PM.
Ugghhh...since he left we have had:
one violin lesson
one soccer practice (which I had to coach b/c Andy was not here.  YIKES!  I am not a sporty girl...at all!)
a hair cut and a shoe shop (we waited behind seven customers in the line in Stride Rite)  in DURHAM
and the
KICKOFF
of the new Sunday School year....
whew...that is ENOUGH for this Mama!
We are all glad that Andy is home. ;)
I was rescued by a phone call this afternoon --an invitation to play for the afternoon--and get out of the house.

ENOUGH--ojala que se vayan a la cama ya--andy is putting them to bed.

Friday, August 27, 2010

another good song...

explanations of it all...

Let's see...
the first picture is of Elena and Yineth (pronounced Jeanette)..Kindergarten buddies.
Do their faces show how giddy they were after the first day of Kindergarten?
They were absolutely giddy!

The others...
Me, tucking in Elena's shirt.  The students at our school wear uniforms (which I love).
They all look so handsome. ;)

Elena showing her Kindergarten Spirit before we left to go to school.

Victor smiling big for the camera.  --He will start preschool next week.

I guess those are all the explanations.

Can y'all see the golden light in the air/???--It's there.

the pictures of it all....






Thursday, August 26, 2010

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

This book was just exactly how everyone I have talked to said it would be.  It was wonderful.
It was a really enticing story...just the story telling --very good, at the same time it was telling some really
interesting and important history.
It was about black americans in the south working domestically...but it was not written in a facty facty way...
the story revealed the facts sublty.

My mama has always told me stories about the "help" on their farm.
They were all black people.  The women raised her when her mama was at work, teaching school.
So, reading this book brought about a lot of questioning in my mind.
This history, in my family, is not so far in the past.
I have met the people that helped on my grandaddy's farm--they all moved to N.Jersey {curiously}-- ;), and they came to visit at my Aunt Mary's house one Christmas.  I was a little girl.  I barely remember them...I know their names...Pearly Mae and T.
There is so much more to know....so much!
Time to get askin'
I wish my mama would read this book, maybe she will.

Now. For myself, reading about how the young white women in the story acted and how they {treated} the help....I just cannot imagine it.
I really do not like for someone to clean up my mess.... much less would I ever take it for granted (even if I were paying the person).
Isn't it interesting how so much can change in a generation?
My expectations of motherhood, cleanliness (or lack thereof), "help" etc.
Very interesting.

okay..I am off to ponder something else now...Morgan, I really do recommend this book! ;).

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

please...

click on Morgan's post...
It is about Camp Meeting.

Whoever you are out there in bloggy land...if you read my blog ever...click on Moore Moore Moore... (in the side bar) and read what she has just described {for me} b/c it tickles my heart strings...

It VERY MUCH reminds me of
la feria
en sevilla

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Kindergarten dreams....

Tomorrow is the first
day of Kindergarten!
Sweet dreams baby...
Oh, and the tooth fairy will be here in a minute...
Let me go put on my wings...and get my wand & two dollars.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Points

Food=points
Uncontolled eating + weight gain= WW points

Summer time bliss and eating leads to discipline and control of Fall.

When food is points you can really tell how much you WERE eating when you were
eating WHATEVER YOU WANTED!
Andy has to constantly hear my points commentary.
Do you think he is not used to this?
We have been married coming up on 10 years now...
"You know Andy, a bowl of grits has two points and those sandwich rounds are only one point each."
~that was this morning's  points observation.

ugghhh...

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Today





Today we went to the beach
It was the last day of summer vacation for me.
Andy stayed here with Eva and I went to Emerald Isle/Salter Path with Elena and Victor.  The water is warm and calm there.  They were both able to go in with me.
I got to spend several hours of my last day hanging out with two friends, drinking some beers, and chatting.
Mostly we were wondering who our children will have for Kindergarten teachers...which I will find out tomorrow. ;).
I am ready for routine, but for some reason the end of my summer vacation always feels so---important.
I start to really feel emotional about all that has happened over the summer, how my children have changed etc.
Everything is such a whirlwind at the start of a school year.
Hold on tight....it is passing us by!!!

Oh, and the pictures of Eva are demonstrating her baby big stuff persona.  She likes to feed herself cereal and don't you DARE try to help her!! and she enjoys sporting her sister's plastic jewelry --which she can put on by HERSELF thank you very much, and also--her sister's flip-flops..yeah that'll do (notice I had not used her sister's BRUSH to brush her hair out of her eyes yet.  That's pretty good to be able to do all that with a lock of hair hanging in your eyes!   Not sure I could. :).

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Sketchers

Elena's pick, "Twinkle Toes"

My pick for Eva
Victor's choice, "Hot Lights"
These are the shoes that are advertised each Saturday morning on network t.v.--Cookie Jar TV to be exact.  My children had these on the mind when we went to buy school shoes. ;).
I don't mind that.  They need shoes, they know what they like...no problem.
I picked Eva's out.  I still have the power over the one year old. HA! She loves them, by the way.
We had fun picking these out.
Victor was sooooooo excited, and he has been so cute putting them back in the box, and wanting them to be in there the right way.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Who to call...

So, for about two years now the shower in this house--we have but one, folks, runs about like a trickle.
So, in order to wash out this brillo pad of hair which God has given me--I have to squat and wash it in the spigot.
So, my mother in law told us...I think that the toilet is leaking--you all should call a plumber and get it checked out (I thought it was Victor's pee to be honest).
Then I noticed that all of the knobs in the shower leaked all around them too.
Bad shower experiences were had on many days.  Over and over with the crappy shower.
I really don't do anything about these kinds of things that bother me, UNLESS I get tripped out, like --oh no the toilet is leaking and the floor is getting ruined and it might fall through.
So, I asked several people about the best plumber to call..girls in my little social dealy, my Daddy (who really trumps them all) ..they all agreed on this one person.
He and his son work together.
It took FOREVER for him to get over here--he called each day to check in, but he could never manage to actually GET HERE.
I remained super patient and sweet.
Well, yesterday he came.
Let me just tell you that my bathroom has been transformed in to a spa!
Oh yes.  Take care entering the shower lest ye get knocked DOWN from the pressure of the water exiting the shower head.
No more drippy knobs.  No more {victor pee} around the toilet.
yippie!
The moral to this story:
When little things are bothering you all along--everyday things--CALL SOMEONE TO FIX THEM.
P.S.--Victor just sort of pees wherever.  Bless his little heart. :)
He does lift the lid and the seat {just barely} then he just pees...

My next job:  Getting the {crappy} shower walls taken down and replaced AND the crappy plastic around the shower. :)

funny--I love this!

A Southerner knows that "fixin" can be used as a noun, a verb, or an adverb.


I am fixin to go to the store--As in "about to."
The fixins at the picnic were potato salad and cucumbers and watermelon.
Go tell Daddy to come inside and eat, he is out there fixin the truck.


In other news:  I got my cool nook cover! Turns out sometimes Sissy and I surprise eachother in really indulgent ways, and we {might} have passed this on to Caroline.  She was shopping with me the night before Andy got the nook for me and she was really attentive to my favorite picks.  While I was at the beach, she and Sissy ordered it for me! :)
We do this...like buy eachother expensive shoes or whatever that the other would probably like. So there!  
P.S.--Is is Sissy's birthday today...I did not get her a surprise this time--but we don't work like that ---the surprises are not scripted by formality..they are more spontaneous ones. 
Oh, and I am keeping Clarissa today for a bit (the new baby) so that could be considered a birthday sort of treat--but I more consider it a treat for me. :)
I have no idea how to change the font size-and the part at the top was pasted in from an email...so all you folks who might wear glasses to read this sometimes...well, you can take em off.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

word nerd stuff

Okay, I am reading this book, The last days of Dogtown, by Anita Diamant.  I like the book, in some ways, and in others it is haunting.
This story has all types of people in it, and some of them I could really do without reading about.  Most of the time I like to keep my reading very very lighthearted--like oh darn she did not get the guy, but you know what, she did find a good purse on sale--not, the boy was orphaned and had to live at his aunt's whorehouse where he was a servant and was badly beaten, one day one of the men who frequented the brothel stole all of the boy's spare change he (the boy) had been stealing all his life.
The former is a happy escape for me.
The latter reminds me that there are truly evil people, and there are fiction writers who can come up with these vivid stories about true evil.
There are some aspects of this book that I like--some sweet moments, the way that Anita Diamant writes are two of them.
Other than those two, and my absolute inability to put a book down once I start (vamos, unless it is truly bad), there are not other good aspects of this book to me..the setting is utterly depressing etc.
Okay so back to the word nerdiness.  Here are two words that I found in this book that caught by eye:
Catarrh (cognate of the spanish word catarro, which means, 'cold' (As in I have a cold).
AND French Pox--which is a blame filled name for syphillis.
So in searching for these words --via google--I found a cool blog with interesting history facts, and I found out that the word catarro came from greek.

Fun word nerd facts for tonight.  Now, I am off to get some lighthearted chick lit to read in the bed! :)



oh, and maybe I will post some pictures...why not now? :)
The one of Elena and the Capri sun--she was putting the straw into the empty spot where her tooth was!
The calm water in the background in the one with Eva? --the sound, silly! :)
What is V-man pointing at --can you guess?  Based on the information in my last post?

ever wondered?

Who in the world came up with the wally world name brand FAded Gl0ry?
I mean do you want your glory to be faded?
Is this some diluted reference to the flag?  As in Old Glory?
They do try to seem really patriotic over all walhell's.

Also--let's see there was another one...
I'll get back to you..I must go and find the baby...

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Emotion stew

Every year at this time this is what my life becomes.
When the summer is winding down my life becomes a big ole mix of emotions.
I am ready to escape the life of cinderella get back to work and get things going, at the same time, by now my children and I have usually settled into an easy rhythm by now.  They are used to coming to me for EVERYTHING.  My patience for the little things has grown immensely.
So I am torn--having to get back to the rat race and enjoying lazy mornings spent sipping coffee and responding to the easy requests of my own children--feeling the reward of working with my children at school, and feeling the rewards of spending every waking moment with my own children--just torn!
I start dreading and looking forward to the same event.
This year the event is even more momentous because Elena is going to Kindergarten and Victor is going to his first year of preschool with my favorite teacher ever, Ms. Wendy (Elena had her too).
So, two of my babies are starting something new...oh the nerves! (for me only or for me and them???)
Eva will be chillin here at the Casa with Camelia --oh, the life! ;).
We have bought shoes, backpack (one for V-man, E already has one), uniforms.....all the stuff is bought!
Now, just the waiting...one more week of waking up at 7:00 (not six), sipping coffee and washing clothes while little E takes her morning snooze, rushing out of the house to squeeze in errands or fun at 10:30 until 12:00--naps at 1:00--out again from 3:00-5:00 usually to Nana's to swim...
Poof! School starts...and another summer of hanging with my precious babes is over!
:(.
:).
See what I mean about the stew?

Beach bullets:
*Elena lost her tooth--I pulled it with waxed floss (not the recommended string type if I do say so myself).  Imagine the horror of having to have the puller of the tooth, "not quite get it out" and then have to put the string back on the tooth!! I finally got it! She was absolutely thrilled! :)
**We went on a dolphin tour! Yep (Carl Hiaasen would so pick on this!) But really, it was so fun.  Two hours in the sound looking at lots of dolphins including (A BABY ONE!!! ) So cute! and one that had a stump of a dorsal fin..interesting.
*The water alternated b/t cold and jelly fishy...not so much fun.
**The company was wonderful! We loved hanging out with Shannon and Joel and Carter for the whole week! :)










I will post pics in the AM--while baby E sleeps and I sip my coffee!


 
Here is a picture of the nook cover I want. :)

Saturday, August 7, 2010

fun..y fun

we had fun at the beach...
we have had fun arriving at home.

read two books on the nook.
fun.
swam etc. fun.

drank three beers, fed kids, showered at home...
fun.

more later...

Sunday, August 1, 2010

A surprise and a tragedy

First the good:
Andy got me a nook!!! oh yes he did! :)
I have already bought one book and gotten a free one off the internet.

Second:
The daddy of a childhood friend of mine (actually my BEST FRIEND in the neighborhood) died yesterday.
All of a sudden in his chair he had a heart attack that killed him. ;(.
This is so sad for his wife.
They were the kind of spouses that were best friends to one another.
He was such a sweet dad/man.
Real quick memory:
I was riding my sweet thunder as fast as I could to get to Kelli's house (probably to dance the snake on the back porch), when I skidded and fell into the gravel.
Mr. Robbie picked me up from the road, crying and took me in and dr'ed my knee as if I were one of his own.
That is how he was---so sweet! and caring.

Okay...We are off to the beach now! ;).

Spot on!

Spot is our family's chihuahua.  He is what we call, "an evil dictator/stuffed animal come to life".  Sometimes, after he has ...