By the 8's

This pretty girl

is 8 years old.

She is also 8 inches shorter than me. Only 8 inches.

Wow.

I work with a fanstastic group of kids. Sometimes they annoy the poop out of me, and they get me in trouble for things they shouldn't do. But they are a great kids who are kind, caring, and work hard.

And give fantastic Christmas presents. This was last years's present. Year before? Massage. Year before that? A warm fuzzy coat.

This year?

An iphone.

Seriously.

I've been having iphone envy for a while, and they knew it. A couple of them decided that should be my present this year, and collected money and got Bobby involved to get the phone.

This is what I have now for a cell phone.

I'm loving it and scared to death of it at the same time!

The Wedding in Pictures

We got ready for the wedding Sunday afternoon and took pictures.

Met up at the church with the cousins and took more pictures.

Found a beautiful bride and her groom

Took pictures with them

No pictures during the ceremony, then we went to the first reception at the church. The handsome groom posed with the little blond girl who kept following him around.

We ate cupcakes, shrimp cocktail, meatballs, stuffed mushrooms, and oh so much chocolate. And the girls ate sugar cubes, meant for coffee or tea.

We ate the special M&M's in these little tins

We waited outside for them to leave the first reception

We threw paper confetti at them as they got in the limo.

*** my favorite shot of the entire weekend***

They waved goodbye to the masses

We traveled to the second reception, and jammed out to High School Musical 3.

We ate shrimp and grits, a Southern delicacy you can read about here, out of these glasses

We ate herb roasted chicken, steak, salad, potatoes, the whole nine yards on tables decorated with beautiful potted plants

We had fun with family we don't normally see, and Papa had fun wearing grandson's glasses.

We ate wedding cake, oh so yummy.

We toasted the new happy couple

We boogied down with our cousins

We took family pictures outside in the beautiful courtyard in the chilly, foggy night air

We ate even more chocolate from the chocolate fountain

We took pictures of Grandma and Papa with their grandchildren on the front porch of the cottage

We took family pictures of the entire group on the front steps

We made new friends

We danced to Party in the USA with our dad

We got kisses from a radiant bride

We blew bubbles while we waited for the happy couple to leave

And at the end of a very long day, in the early morning hours, we listened to Dad read a book about animal safari's.

It was a beautiful wedding, well planned and executed, and execptional in every sense of the word. My pictures and words do not do justice for it.

One funny: Conversation I overheard:

Woman I didn't know: "Is that mink?"

Macy: "No, it's pink!" (with a look of , are you an idiot? don't you know the color pink?)

Macy's birthday and travel

My sweet Macy was 8 yesterday! I was remiss in posting anything, because I had a busy, busy day! School was chaotic, and I left early to take snacks to her class. I then took her and Kaylin home, and we loaded up in the car to start driving to Atlanta.

Her birthday dinner? McDonalds in Higginsville. And we let her celebrate big time with chocolate chip cookies. Oh yeah, we are high class!

We drove until 1 am, and stopped for a couple hours to sleep at a cheap hotel. Loaded back up this morning and arrived at my brothers about 1 pm.

I feel bad we were in the car so much on her birthday, but really couldn't be helped!

The post in which I appear negligent and a drug addict

Three straight nights of sniffling, coughing, up all night by the little ones.

Three straight nights of Bobby working at the fire station, leaving me to handle the 3 am wake up cries. And the 4 am ones. And the 4:30 ones.

There was not going to be a fourth.

I raided the medicine cabinet, and found only Benedryl. IThat'll work. I checked the dosage-- For kids ages 6-12, 1-2 teaspoons. Well, Kaylin is almost 6. I grabbed a tablespoon, forced them to drink the stuff, and sent them off to bed. 15 minutes later they were conked out. Hard.

Then I washed off the spoon. Hmmm, this is a tablespoon. I think the dosage was for a teaspoon. I wonder what the conversion is. I googled it, of course, and found that 1 tablespoon=3 teaspoons. Oops. So I overdosed my kids on Benedryl. No wonder they were so sleepy!

I shook Kaylin a little, and she rolled over and sighed. Good, she's alive. Macy was whimpering in her sleep, so I knew she was okay.

And now I'm off to take a muscle relaxer to help me sleep. Nothing like a drug-induced sleep at our house tonight.

Santa, Dance and Snow Day!

Saturday night, after the cheer clinic and Macy's birthday party, Macy had to dance outside at a lighting ceremony. It was supposed to be a couple weeks ago, when the weather was great, but was rescheduled for Saturday night when it was 25 degrees. She was on the other side of the stage the entire time, so my pictures aren't great, but she is on the far right, on the end, standing up.

 

Macy with two of her besties, Paige and Kaylee. She (and we) is so fortunate to have such good friends.

 

After the dancing, Santa arrived! We were first in line, which was cool. Macy asked for a DS.

 

Admiring Santa...

 

Little sister asked for a DS too. Big surprise.

 

I just love, love, LOVE this picture.

 

Today is the reason I'm a teacher (okay, maybe not the only reason): SNOW DAY!

It's 11:45, and we have:

• slept until 8:30
• had snow ice cream for breakfast
• made beaded bracelets and necklaces
• played a Little Pet Shop board game
• raided the fridge for strange concoctions for lunch
• asked 852 times if it's warm enough to play outside.

 And now I'm off to do some packing for the Wedding Event of the Year.

Macy's 8th birthday party

Macy wanted another pool party for her birthday. I love how easy they are to plan, so I was all for that. She wanted a Wizards of Waverly Place theme, which is oh-so-difficult to find a cake for. I ended up having a picture put on the cake for an extra $5. Not happy with how it turned out, but hey, it was all gone in about 10 minutes, so it didn't really matter.

The birthday girl...she is getting so big, so mature, so grown-up.

Macy and her Nama and Papa

The group...forgot to get a group picture before they started swiming, so I herded them all over by the stairs. I think we had 20 kids in the pool, plus a couple sibling tag-a-longs.

The following pictures are a record of me trying to get all the kids to jump into the pool at one time. First, not all of them wanted to jump. A few of them were still pretty gun-shy at jumping. Second, it was so loud in there (you have no idea how loud) they couldn't hear me counting. You can see what happened.

Watch Macy's arm in the last three--everyone is jumping in around her, and her arm is still out there. She was like, "Hey! We're all supposed to go at the same time!"

We gave CD's with "magical" music--did you know Magic Carpet Ride, Every little thing she does is Magic, Do you believe in Magic, and Magic have all been re-done by someone from Disney Channel?

Next year her birthday is on a Saturday, and she's planning a sleepover. I welcome a change from a pool party, and, strange as it might sound, I like when they have sleepovers.