Happy Birthday Josh

Today is Josh's 6th birthday. Happy Birthday my sweet boy.

Waking Up the Sleepyheads

Waking my children up in the mornings is an interesting event. I usually start with Josh who wants to snuggle a little bit before he will open his eyes. We talk for a few minutes and he gives me one last big hug before I move down the hall for the girls. I love those sweet moments with him before the insanity of our mornings really kicks in.

Next I go into the girls room and start singing a wake up song as I walk in. I start with Sara Abbett by pulling back the covers and kissing her face. She wakes up and, most most mornings, smiles a big sleepy smile and says, "good morning Mommy" in her sweetest voice.

Last (for a reason) is Anna Grace. I pull back the covers and try to kiss her but before I can get to her she has jerked the covers back over her head. Now, I have mentioned before that I am most definitely NOT a morning person but this kid makes me look like mary sunshine. Picture a bear in hibernation. I try several times to love on her a bit before I just snap, get up and get dressed.

This morning after waking the precious pookies up chaos took over. Nobody had anything to wear! Can you believe it? With three closets plus dressers all with clothing in them there wasn't a single thing for anyone to wear. Somehow they managed to go to school not naked. Apparently hairbrushes and toothbrushes were invented as a form of torture because I had to fight to have them used. We had nothing good to put in lunch boxes. A simple fix, I broke out the checkbook. I foolishly asked my perfect children to go back upstairs to make sure they had turned off the lights. I am abusive that way. Princess grouchy bear growled and snapped at everyone all the way to school. I need a vacation from mornings.

I have to add a couple Josh thoughts.
This is the conversation Josh and I had the other day:
Me: Where in the world did you kids come from?
Josh: That bird that drops babies. He means a stork.

And this is a copy of the email I got from his teacher last week:
Hey, We did a sink/float activity today. One of the items that we tested was a cork. Josh was the one who knew what it was, that it goes in a wine bottle. Wonder how he knew that. ha!

Friday

I woke up late this morning. That's not surprising since I am the girl who loves sleep, lots of sleep, and I stayed up past 9:00. I'm an early to bed late to rise kind of girl. Anyway, this morning at 7:08 I jumped out of bed, opened dresser drawers to get the necessary undergarments before rushing to the shower only to find this:

in my drawer. Isn't that sweet. What a great way to start my day!

Handsome Hampton

Posing before the show.

One of his many faces. blurry I know

The king and his prizes.

Mere allowed Hampton to be in the Little Mr. REL pageant at school. The boy loves, loves, LOVES to be the center of attention and what better way to get attention than to walk on a stage in front of a gym full of people. Well little man strutted his stuff, made every silly face he could come up with and basically showed off for the entire time he was on stage. The louder we, the audience, laughed the wilder he got. The kid has too much personality for such a small body. In the end his antics won him the prize. He got a crown and a trophy and the attention of hundreds of people at one time. Way to go my boy.

S-N-O-W Day

The weather forecaster called for snow. Immediately the schools in the area were cancelled. This is South Carolina after all! So...We got a snow day!!!! The kids were at first not too interested in the white stuff but soon they were up and begging to go out to play in it. And play in it they did. In and out all day. We have had a wonderful day together. I made a big pot of grits and AG fixed hot cocoa to keep us warm for breakfast. Most of the day I cleaned and the kids just hung out when they weren't outside.

Josh went to play at my moms for the day. He just needed some Grammie time. On the way we were discussing, what else, snow. Here's how our conversation went:

Josh: Mama, how do you make snowflakes?

Me: Only God can make snowflakes.

J: Oh yeah. long pause But I know how to make snow.

Me: Really? How do you make snow?

J: You put water in the freezer.

Me: Actually that makes ice.

J: Well, if you put flour in it then it will be snow.

Me: If you say so.

He cracks me up with the things he thinks about.

What a Day

Today was supposed to be a holiday. I didn't have to work. It was supposed to be a work day for the teachers so no school but daycare was gonna be open. Didn't quite turn out that way. I got a call Friday afternoon right as school got out saying a water line had burst and since there was no water, daycare was closing and would remain closed through Monday. Being the sister with the day off, I volunteered to keep a couple of my nieces and and nephews who go to the same daycare so their parents could work. I love to be with the kids. We had an amazing day. I had eight children who all behaved and got along really well. Now if you know our family you know that it is not always peace and harmony. Today was just so amazingly fun. Sara Abbett made breakfast and Hampton and Lacie helped me make a big batch of YUMMY brownies before 10:00. While I worked on the laundry the boys played in Josh's room and the girls in the playroom. Yes, they do need to be separated. They eventually went outside and worked for a couple hours collecting sticks and twigs and even a few huge tree branches to put in Uncle Timmy's burn barrel. I managed to make two pots of soup and get some housework done. I did have good intentions of photographing the different events of the day to document it but after I took pictures of the brownie makers, I never picked up the camera again. Maybe tomorrow we can do it all again but in the snow. Got my fingers crossed anyway.

My How You Have Grown

While looking for a picture disk the other day I came across one labeled simply My Babies. I had no idea how old it was so I decided to check it out. Can you believe how different my precious angels look today from just four years ago. It kind of makes me sad.

Then:

Now:

Merry Christmas

So I am a little slow to post these days. What with all the fun of the holidays it was more than I could handle so here I am trying to catch up. Since I last wrote anything we have had lots of fun things going on. The children had their parties at school, we put up our tree and had a tree trimming party at Grammie and PaPa's house and obviously Christmas itself. Christmas was a busy day. The children were up and down all night trying to see if they had any special visitors. We finally allowed them to come downstairs at 6:45. They had a great time opening gifts and visiting with Grandpa. We went to MawMaw and PawPaws after we finished here to start all over again. We finished the night at Grammie and PaPa's for just one more celebration. As usual we all got too much stuff. God is so good to us. This season has been wonderful but I am so ready to get back into a normal routine.