Oh, waitress!!!!!!!

So we got back to Illinois after 2 + weeks in GA. We unloaded, ate, and crashed. It was a long day in the car for all of us. The next day we slept in and just had a leisurely morning. I slowly unpacked and started to get organized. The kids were playing on their own downstairs, and I was doing some things upstairs. All of a sudden, I hear loudly from 2 sweet voices down the stairs holler, " Oh Waitress!!!!!!!"

What?! Has it really come to this?? I laughed and headed down there to see what they wanted. They both wanted to "order" some macaroni noodles with just butter. I asked them if they thought I was running a restaurant, and they giggled and said, "Yes!"

So as I am in the kitchen, they both holler from the den, "Oh, Waitress!" And I walked in to see what now. They wanted to watch a movie while they were eating. So I put in Ice Age and finished fixing their macaroni.

So here are the "customers" who ordered lunch and a movie from their mommy, oh wait, I mean their waitress.

Jessa could not pay attention to her noodles for watching Ice Age.

They are so spoiled!

\

I guess I know my place around here! But I will say they did not even leave a TIP!

Registration is hard.

I tried to come up with a more clever title for this post, but I am quite frankly just too tired. I have been jumping through hoops all over town, all to get my precious baby ready to register for Kindergarten here in Illinois.

It is a little daunting considering that I am going to do this as a "new student" for these kiddos many more times. When Momma enrolled Lucas and me, it was once as new students in one system. We both started school in Clayton County, and we both graduated school in Clayton County. As much of a believer in Public School as I am, I will say that I have tossed around the words "home school" more than a few times the past week or so!

I have endured screaming at a doctor's office for a health check (and that was just in the parking lot when they realized where we were). Momma went with me to the pediatricain near her house. When we were doing the same thing being new to Hinesville, it took me more than a month to get a well child appointment since we were not "established." I decided to avoid that and take the Illinois forms to the pediatrician who has known these 2 since he checked on them in the hospital at their births! I checked and the Illinois people said that was OK. Jessa did have to have one more shot, and boy is she not a fan. We left the office before the forms were finished, and they promised to have the forms ready for me that day. Ha! I have spent hours on hold calling them trying to get it finished. Ugh. A week later, Mom picked them up and express mailed them to me.


In Illinois, you also have to have a dental form signed. No problem, we needed to find a new dentist here anyway. So I called, found one, they had a cancellation, score! Jessa is also not a fan of dentists. I think her reluctance is because she is such a control freak. She takes after me, I think. . . Good news, we got the form signed. Bad news, we have a couple cavities. Due to Jessa's "high spirit," and extreme dislike of dentists in general we were sent to another dentist. She (thankfully) decided that we will be having the "you are sound asleep cavity filling special" later in August.

In Illinois, you also have to have a vision test. And not the eye chart one at the pediatrician. We did that, too, but we had to see an actual optometrist for a real eye test. Can't make anything easy. . .She was panicked, but she did great! 20/20! Of course, my friend Kelly's little boy has glasses and he is precious. Momma was torn about whether or not she wanted Jessa to get to be cute, too!!



So after one pediatrician visit, two dental appointments, an optometrist appointment, countless phone calle, huge chunks of time on hold, fancy scheduling, a patient and helpful May, and one express mail package, today I walked into an elementary school and registered my sweet baby girl for KINDERGARTEN.



She is of course beside herself with excitement.
The bus! The new teacher! The new friends! The school supplies! The new clothes! The new backpack! The cafeteria!
I am so thrilled that she is so excited, and I am so proud of the little person that she has become. But I am also so torn because this is just the beginning. Before I know it, she will be going to dances and dissecting frogs and having crushes and learning locker combinations. Before I fall apart, I am just going to enjoy my Kindergartener and all the fun firsts for now.

City Museum

Living at Scott AFB is very exciting for us. We have mostly stuck to the South, except for our time in Europe. So we are thrilled to check out a new area. The closest big city to us is St. Louis. There are tons of things to do in and around St. Louis. We had already done a few things on visits with Daddy over the past few years, but now we have lots of time to check it all out!


The first FUN place we visited was the City Museum. Wow!

They built this museum in an old Shoe Factory. It is definitely not a traditional museum, by any means.

Look at our incredibly expensive and oh so fashionable bracelets.

It is hands on and very kid friendly (and rather expensive). Most of the bottom floor was caves that could be explored. We were crawling around, checking out the cool carvings and the tunnels and slides. SO fun! I was sorry I was wearing shorts!

Look at that big kid. They are big on the parents being involved!

Posing in the caves - Jessa cannot even stop looking around to look at the camera!

David was a trooper!
As you crawled through the caves, you found old staircases to climb up into the old factory. There was a huge, spiral slide made out of an old chute used in the shoe making process. Jessa was nervous at first, and Spencer wanted me to slide with him. After Jessa finally consented to go down this slide but only with Bay, she was hooked! She ran up the all the stairs with us trying to keep up. So funny – as I topped the stairs, I saw the back of her head sliding down and Bay hopping in the chute quickly, just trying to follow her!

There were slides everywhere. The staircases used painted old conveyor belt rollers. You could climb inside tunnels and over other people. Everything was cool and recycled and fun.

Daddy trying to make sure Jessa waits her turn on a big slide.

Big bowl slides

Bay is the coolest grandfather, wouldn't you agree??

The roof was another attraction all of its own. There was a Ferris Wheel! What a view!

The elevator taking us to the roof.
Also on the roof was an old school bus. It was mounted on the edge, so if you climbed to the front you were hanging off the side of the building. So cool!!

Spencer could not wait to hop on the bus!
Oh and Jessa loved being able to walk across the fountain pond.

There was also an aquarium in the same building. It was sort of small, but we still enjoyed it. There were tunnels in the tank for you to look in and climb in.

Jessa made friends with a turtle:

Oooo and lunch was fun, too. A little pricey, but the seats were worth it.

AND they have the world's largest pencil there.

Bottom line: We love the City Museum in St. Louis! What a fun way to spend the day!

6 thumbs up (Jessa, Spencer, David, Bay, Nikki, and Me)

Hello New Furniture!

What did David and I get each other for our anniversary this year? I am sure you have been laying awake at night worrying about this. I bet you have a pool going with your friends and loved ones, right?

Well, even though you may not be really wondering, I am going to tell you.

We got new furniture! Yee-haw!

When we got married, we lived in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment. Seriously. Tiny. And we had nothing but wedding gifts. No furniture, but we did have 12 5-piece place settings of fine china and 48 crystal stems, darn it. Our only new, real piece of furniture was our mattress and box springs, a wedding gift from Mimi and Poppy. Our kitchen table was a card table that we borrowed from my mom for a while.

That is one fancy card table, huh?
Our clothes were in those cardboard drawers with plastic handles. Our "couch" was a crappy futon that sat on the floor. To make it look more like a couch, we had it up on cinder blocks.

Pardon the silly picture of David sleeping, but it was the only one I could find.

The barrels and milk jug lamps were Momma and Daddy's when they first got married.

We did get a few pieces of furniture from goodwill. (Picture it: me, mom, a rented U-haul pick up truck, a kitchen table, a coffee table, an old chest of drawers, and a small desk, AND a second floor apartment - all for under $100.) You get the point, right? We were pitiful babies just starting out in the world.

When we got to Germany, we had what they call "Quartermaster Furniture." Basically, you can borrow furniture from the government. We had guest beds, couches, dining room table, a hutch, etc. We had that in Bamberg and also in Mannheim. Not the nicest furniture ever, but it worked since it was all we had and it was FREE!

When it was close to head back stateside, we bought our first real, grown-up furniture.

We bought it at the end of 2001. We loved it! We were SO proud of it. We moved it 5 times. It had been loved by many dogs and cats. It had been covered in baby spit-up, formula, juice, ice cream, snacks, and then there was me! I was even harder on it. It had survived David pulling out all the stuffing to "wash" the covers, only to never have the cushions lay right again (I was out of town, bless his sweet heart, he was only trying to help). So when our sad, old, stained, thread bare furniture was unpacked into our brand new house, David looked at it and said (as old Rafiki once said in the Lion King), "It is time."

He was right. I agreed. BUT I was worried because the dogs LOVED what we had.


But we went shopping, and then I got excited! We got a great deal at LaZBoy for 2 new couches. We were planning on a couch and love seat, but for $20 more you could get another couch and way more seating. The lady was somewhat confused because I was so worried about the dogs. I was against leather. She started telling me that the leather is not easily damaged by pets. And I laughed and said, "Oh, no, I am just thinking that the dogs would not be very comfortable on leather." I guess some people do not consider their dog's or cat's comfort when purchasing furniture. I needn't have worried, though.

We finally got our new stuff, and we are all happy with it. Even the dogs:

I did not even get one good picture of the darn stuff when it arrived. I was so tickled that the dogs were happy. . .

We chose the darker color to hopefully not show dirt as much (we also paid for the Guardsmen thing where they'll clean bad stains for us for free.) It does show the lovely white hair a bit. But Momma gave me a sweatshirt once that sort of epitomizes how I feel about that: "No outift is complete without dog hair." I believe that can apply to furniture, as well. Don't you?

Hooray for headphones!

Just before David deployed to Iraq in 2005, he came home one night with a beautiful new van for me. It was so pretty. And I was not even upset - I never said I wouldn't want to drive a van. And when Jessa was born, I was driving my cool new Beetle. Having a van with all that room was so exciting!! AND the best part was the awesome entertainment system. Oh yes, it had a DVD player built in. No more trying to dangle the portable one from the back of the seat and trying to convince a 13 month old not to kick it or eject the movie while I am trying to drive.

One cool feature of this fancy van's entertainment center was wireless headphones. Wow! This meant that I could drive and listen to the radio while baby Jessa watched a movie. I was very happy about this prospect. See, as great as classical music is for babies and as educational as Baby Einstein was, those movies always made me drowsy. Not good while driving, wouldn't you agree??

Jessa's initial impression of the headphones was not as I had hoped. I was leading my horse to the beautiful, high tech headphones, and she was not willing to drink! (did that even make sense? you get my point, right??)

So I continued to drive around listening to her movies. I know all the Elmo's World episodes by heart. La-di-da-di-da. La-di-da-di-da, I know every word to that song! Fast Forward: Spencer is born, and Jessa's headphone strike continues. It was not as big a deal because now baby Spencer could at least listen to the music now.

Just before David deployed to Iraq in 2008, he showed up with a new van for me again. (I know that I am incredibly spoiled!) So we traded the old one without ever using the fancy headphones.
The new new van has 2 screens and 2 DVD players, so the kids could even watch different things! And again, I could listen to the radio, IF they had their headphones on. AND it has Sirius, so I can listen to really fun stuff, IF they were willing to wear headphones.

Now, many Moms would say that I should have given them an ultimatum and said no headphones, no movie. BUT they are SUCH awesome travelers. We have sometimes spent 12 hours in a car in one day. So I really do not mind them watching or listening to whatever they want. There are just times when I would like to hear a song that is not sung by a Disney Princess or Big Bird.

Well, I am happy to report that after owning a van that has wireless headphones for more than 4 years, my babies are in live with their headphones! Woo-hoo! The last trips between Illinois and Georgia have been awesome! We still listen to Kids Stuff on Sirius together a lot of the time. We all enjoy singing along to those fun songs, but most all the movies they watched involved HEADPHONES!

Headphones rock! Spencer can even sleep while listening!

Sorry for the crazy angles, I was driving. . .

And I just realized that Spencer wore the same shirt on both car rides.

I promise he has more clothes. . .
I am so happy to be able to take advantage of all the high tech coolness the van has to offer!

AND I listened to Cosmo Radio like half the trip back, Yay me! Yay headphones!

Mimi and Poppy had a farm

E-I-E-I-O

We've been in GA, ya know, visiting. During our visit, I wanted for us to all take a trip to Mimi and Poppy's farm house in Adel, GA. So, me, Momma, Jessa, Spencer, Cooper, Dunken, and Max met Mimi and Poppy down there for a few days.

The dogs all loaded up - always ready for a trip!

It is the house where Mimi grew up. It is such an awesome place - full of memories. Lucas and I spent many fun visits down there growing up. And I want my kiddos to have good memories of the farm, too. Sadly, we have not been to visit in a while. For real, look at this picture of Jess and Spence taken on the last trip we took down there:

Easter 2006 - Jessa was 2 1/2 and Spencer was 3 months old!

We had such a great time - catching up with family and just talking about the old days. It is so beautiful there.

The farm house

A family pond - gorgeous!

Although, after we were there for about a day, Spencer came to me. He had a serious look on his face. He said, "Mommy, why doesn't Mimi and Poppy's farm have any animals?" OK, point taken, it is not a working farm anymore. And even when it was, it was about crops, not cows and pigs. They did get to pet and feed the cows at Aunt Leta's house, so I guess they got to do something more "farmish."

We also spent one evening "pin curling" our hair. Momma has always talked about one time when Granny (Mimi's mother) pin curled her hair in the same very house. I decided I wanted us to try it on each other. Mom was not thrilled about this idea, but they all went along with me.

During:

All curled up:

The next morning:

May

Me

Jess looked the best - we looked like we belonged on Coffee Talk.

David was relieved to hear that Spencer's hair was not rolled.

The dogs also had a blast. So many smells and noises that they were interested in.

All these two wanted to do was hang out and take it all in.

I know Max looks confused - he sort of always is, God bless him!

He would go out, do his business, and wait at the door to go back in.

He still does not get the whole being a dog outside thing.

We also got some good front porch time in. Hands down, the BEST thing about Adel is the front porch. Swings, rockers, a dark night, and all of us sitting outside listening to the "night noises."

Lucas and I spent many a summer night swinging on that porch. And it was so awesome for me to get to see my kids swinging in the same swing. It was wonderful!

So our trip was much fun! Jessa said as I was packing for us to head back to Atlanta that she thought we should just stay until we ran out of clean clothes because she was not ready to leave yet. I assured her we would come back - and hopefully we will not wait so long before our next trip. . .

Lucas is a lumberjack

And he is more than OK!

Seriously.

(Monty Python, anyone?)

Just look at him go. . .

The day after the tree fell in Momma's yard (that may or may not have made a sound), Lucas aka our favorite Lumberjack came to the rescue. Mom was planning to call a "tree dude" (in case you did not know, that is the official name of the professional people who come to your house and cut up trees that have fallen or take care of other tree related issues that may arise). BUT we could not keep him away. Apparently, people who are of the male persuasion cannot resist the urge to use power tools. EVER.

Getting ready by filling up the chainsaws with the proper gas and oil mixture.

J and S helping him and asking a lot of questions - he is so patient.

They also reminded him about 7 times not to cut off their feet.

He was glad they brought that up, so he could pay special attention to their feet.
He was so awesome!

He had some excellent helpers.

Sunglasses to protect their eyes from debris

Some teamwork to carry a large limb

Please note the little supervisors well out of harms way -

They would point to the spot he should cut next, and then retreat to a safe distance to monitor his progress.

He had 2 chainsaws at his disposal, and yes, he used both of them.

See earlier comment about men and power tools.

How manly!

No kidding, I was way impressed.

Some funnies from the day:

We hauled the wood to the street at Momma's (in the hopes that someone would steal it, to be honest. So far, no takers.)

I had to use Daddy's old van to get it up there because

(1) the wheelbarrow tire was shredded and would not hold air (Mom and I tried)

(2) we do not have a truck (maybe we should)

(3) Mom did not want us to mess up our cars and Daddy does have another newer van

One of 4 trips to "haul" the cut up logs to the street.

I wish I knew how to make paper or I had a mill.

I just know I could build something really cool.
Oh ,and I love to honk the horn. A LOT. Each time I drove a load up or backed up to get more, it involved almost constant honking. I say, safety first, right? Everyone needed to hear me coming.

Luckily, Mom and Lucas find me amusing. . .

David always cringes and pretends not to know me.

The little helpers before we got started.

Nicely dressed.
Spencer petered out pretty early and was back in his Sponge Bob PJ's within about 4 minutes and 43 seconds.

Jessa stuck it out longer. And when it was time for a break, she requested some lemonade since it was "such a hot day." When I told her we did not have any, I offered her several other options. She sighed and rejected all of my suggestions. She finally said, "I guess I prefer water, you know, it is healthier." Point taken.

During one trip from the middle of the yard to the street with a load of wood, Jessa was riding in the van with me. She said, " Mommy, could you turn on the air? It is sweltering out here today."

Here are the helpers and the lumberjack for our last trip down the driveway to park the van. Yes, there was honking:

Rednecks hanging out the back of a van seems to be a theme for us this summer. . .

Note the Spongebob PJ's on Spencer

And here I am with Lucas - we are posing by the fruits of our day of labor.

We all worked hard, but it was a FUN day.

I cannot think of anyone I would rather cut up and haul away a dead pine tree that fell in Momma's front yard with than my sweet brother.

**AND Momma even paid us, but we would have done it for free. . .