Boo!

For our first Halloween in our new house, we decided to round up some of the kids and take them trick or treating around the neighborhood. We loaded two Rapunzels, Anakin Skywalker, a flower and Yoda up the back of Hop's truck, redneck style. Safety first!

Snuggled up in the blanket...HELLO FALL!

By the end of the night, we had five tired kids with more Halloween candy than you can imagine. Bring on Thanksgiving and Christmas....I love this time of year!

Another Weekend, Another Trip

I wasn't sure if anything could top our Charleston trip last weekend, but Tutu and Poppy stepped up to the plate and created the perfect weekend for the girls. Since I needed a break after the driving and chaos of last weekend, my parents offered to take the girls while I went to Jacksonville to enjoy a ZBB show kids free. We met just outside of Tifton and I sent the girls on their way to Tallahassee. First order of business, trunk or treat at First Presbyterian Church

Maysie eating and drinking like a big girl!

Organizing as usual. She must get this from her daddy.

Railey inspecting the goods after trunk or treat. Notice the trick or treat bucket....Mrs. Danford made that for me when I was a little girl.

No trip to Tallahassee would be complete without a visit to the duck pond

And finally, Mrs. Danford invited Railey to come to the stables to meet her horse.

Whew...all of this in two days. And she didn't even get pictures of the lunch they went to with our cousins, Brooke, Sydney and Toni, dinner with Uncle Ted and Tommy, or playing with the neighborhood kids. Now, back to Atlanta. I am going to have to step up my game to keep up with Tutu and Poppy!

Southern Ground Food and Music Festival

Oh these sweet little children have no idea how good they have it! There were eight kids under the age of 5 and they loved being in Charleston. Their "normal" at a concert is a bouncy house, more arts and crafts than you can imagine, a tent for them to play under, and access to everything. What a life.

One of my favorites.....

Railey's favorite person, Clay

Day Two, we played infield for a bit, Railey got feathers in her hair, and, in James case, lounged a minute and posed for a picture

I can always count on T-Bird to get down and dirty and play with the kids

After lunch, we spotted a firetruck parked backstage. Yes please!

More bounce house

My attempt at a picture of five of the kids. I think I need to just give up

Watch out Charleston...knowing this group, the number of kids will have doubled by next year!

Full of Awesome

A friend forwarded me this post from a blog and I just couldn't resist but to post it for everyone to see.... There was a time when you were five years old, and you woke up full of awesome. You knew you were awesome. You loved yourself. You thought you were beautiful, even with missing teeth and messy hair and mismatched socks inside your grubby sneakers. You loved your body, and the things it could do. You thought you were strong. You knew you were smart. Do you still have it? The awesome. Did someone take it from you? Did you let them? Did you hand it over, because someone told you weren’t beautiful enough, thin enough, smart enough, good enough? Why the hell would you listen to them? Did you consider they might be full of shit? Wouldn’t that be nuts, to tell my little girl below that in another five or ten years she might hate herself because she doesn’t look like a starving and Photoshopped fashion model? Or even more bizarre, that she should be sexy over smart, beautiful over bold? Are you freaking kidding me? Look at her. She is full of awesome. You were, once. Maybe you still are. Maybe you are in the process of getting it back. All I know is that if you aren’t waking up feeling like this about yourself, you are really missing out.

Make New Friends, But Keep the Old

Thanks to Aunt Jenn, we scored tickets for the Disney Princesses on Ice show. We invited Sadie and Colette to come and watch the show with us and even had a few extra tickets so Colette could invite another friend to join us. I loaded up Railey Rapunzel and we drove to Decatur to pick up Sadie. These girls have so much fun with each other and they couldn't wait to get to Philips Arena to watch the show. Great seats Jenn!!!!

The girls couldn't believe the show and Railey kept asking "Is this real?"

Halloween "BOO"

This past week, I opened up my back door to find that Railey and Sara Mays had been "Boo'ed." Someone in our neighborhood had left an amazing bucket of goodies for the girls with instructions to pass the Boo along to other friends. I already loved our new neighborhood, but these things make me love it even more. So Railey and I went to Target to create our own goody buckets to give to new and old friends. She took such pride in picking out the perfect candy and treats for her friends. Mama wrote out the poem and we were ready to go!

I loaded Railey and Maysie into the car and we went to five houses to make our deliveries. Railey loved dropping them off on the front porch then running as fast as she could back to my car to we could make our getaway before being caught.

As Garrett says, "Enjoy the little things. One day you may look back to find out they were the big things."