Mostly pictures

A quick update, Carter turns 9 months this week (I KNOW I KNOW!) and as you can tell he is as cute as ever. He's getting around now, not really crawling but rolling and scooching backwards. He's had a rough week of ear infections and pink eye but all is better now. The other kids are busy with an upcoming Aladdin performance they are in this weekend. Ellie isn't in it but she's the biggest fan and loves to watch rehearsals. I'll post pictures of that next week. There are also no pictures of McKenna but there will be soon. Please don't tell her, I don't want McKenna scorn! I've included a video clip just for the York relations, hope you enjoy!

Spring, play and dancing

Just a short blurb. Spring has sprung here and it's beautiful. We've had a few days of sun and a few days of rain and everything is blooming. The picture is flowers off our star magnolia tree in the front yard. It produces these incredible flowers that make me *sigh* when ever I see them.

McKenna finished yet another production. This one was through a drama group at her school and was so fun to watch. It was "Doo Wop Wed Widing Hood" with lots of singing and dancing and she loved it. Tyler and she are now rehearsing for "Aladdin Jr." which is going to be fantastic, but they (we) are ready for rehearsals to be over.

Tyler starts Little League tomorrow and he's excited for that, too. Dee gets to coach him this season so I'll keep you posted on how it all turns out.

Dee's birthday was this week and came and went without a lot of fanfare. We did get together with friends for dinner and cake and all had a good time.

Lastly, Carter started dancing today. Probably not a big thing to anybody but his mom, but I thought it was a kick in the pants so I've posted a little video. Eight months old and he rocks!

Finish...

It looks like I cut out the middle of the last post. I often do that when trying to include pictures in certain places. Do'h! Here's basically what got cut out.

I said we sampled some Southern cuisine (boiled peanuts, fried green tomatoes, etc.). We went to River Street and saw HUGE boats on the river, shopped and ate some more. We explored downtown Savannah, which I loved and would like to spend more time. The houses were amazing, Spanish Moss hung in the trees, everybody was friendly and it just has a feel about it. We played at the park and Jonas cracked me up all weekend. We attempted the beach but it was stinking cold that day. I'd like to try again when it's warmer! Mostly we just enjoyed being together and the trip went too fast.

To Georgia and beyond!

We decided to go visit James and Amber in Savannah over President's Day/Valentine's Day weekend. Sounded simple enough because I had a plan. Marybeth was coming in to watch the other kids (not Carter because he flies for free) and we'd be off. Boy do I owe her - her weekend was filled with chicken nuggets and sleeping on tents on the couch!

We had a small layover in Chicago on the way there and all would be smooth. The weather was supposed to be in the 70's in Georgia so I packed capris and sandals. Sounded lovely. Well as any good story goes, we had a couple hiccups getting there, such as our connecting flight through Chicago didn't connect and they couldn't get us any closer than Atlanta (4 hour drive) and that wasn't until the next morning. The "good" news was our luggage made it to Savannah... right.

We spent the night in Chicago which turned out to be fantastic because we were able to hook up with Dee's step-brother, Rocky, and our niece and nephew for dinner.


Then off again! We made it finally after lots of early morning hours and not much sleep. Once we were finally there we had a great time. We got to meet our beautiful niece, Savannah (who I think looks like her beautiful mom.)

Unfortunately our trip was over way too quickly and alas, the return trip was also filled with mis-haps including our flight not going because of a leak and spending 6 extra hours in Savannah after waking up at 12:45 our time we didn't make it home until 12:30 our time. A full 24 hours of partying in airports. Carter caught the flu somewhere along the way and the next day everyone here was puking which made me wish we had a vacation coming up...

Winter?

We've been having interesting weather as I'm sure most of you are. Here it's been beautiful (70-80's) and everyone insists on worrying about what is to come "Sure going to be a bad summer...". Now, don't get me wrong this may be very true. However I've come to the conclusion we can't change the weather so dang if I'm not going to enjoy it while it's here!

We celebrated last week by going to Whiskeytown Lake with our dear friends. We had a picnic and played in the sand pretty much all day. The kids were crazy enough to play in the water a bit but I just enjoyed the sun and kept saying things like IT'S JANUARY!

Christmas Fun

Christmas was magic this year. The kids are the perfect ages and it was absolutely fantastic. We started Christmas Eve with tracking Santa across the world on a NASA website. Man that guy can move! When he got to New York it was time for the kids to go to bed. We opened the Christmas jammies and read the story of Christ's birth from the bible and off they hopped to bed.

My favorite story was in his letter to Santa, Tyler asked for "a Nintendo DS or 3 king-sized Slim-jims". So Christmas morning at 5:30 on the dot the kids tip toe into our room and we all head to the living room. Ty could see Slim-jims poking out over the couch and started yelling, "I got the Slim-jims! He brought me Slim-Jims!" Didn't get a DS but I don't think he noticed. All three of the kids were so excited for Christmas and the whole day was magic.

A perfect weekend

As you know by my previous posts, I am often astounded at how quickly time is flying. My youngest son has turned six months before I even had time to catch my breath. He is rolling, sitting and babbling as if everyone knows what he is trying to say. Until this point I have felt behind and trying, unsuccessfully, to catch up. I am drowned in the things I need to do or what I should have accomplished rather than the present. However, this weekend I was blessed with the most wonderful thing - time. I never once felt rushed, behind or like I needed to be somewhere else rather than enjoying the moment and I loved it! Perhaps the tides of the full (HUGE) moon slowed the earths rotation or perhaps this is how life is supposed to be and the rest is just noise. What ever the case I thought I'd let you in on my fantastic day.

Saturday started with some quick carpentry by my super handy husband. I thought I'd be clever and get a can-consolidator for a cupboard. Sounds good, but it didn't fit into the cupboard it was supposed to, so I moved the stuff in the other cupboard where it did fit and thus had to again rearrange. I thought it would end up being a difficult job but Dee was able to get all the shelves just right and all put back together better than it was. So check off getting something done.

I looked at the clock thinking of lunch and nap and was delighted to see it was only 10:00. We started in on some board games but as I said the weather was delightful (70's) and we ended up at the church playing baseball. I learned a few things such as, Tyler will not bat without wearing his batting helmet. Ellie doesn't care about 1st or 2nd base but always has to step on 3rd. McKenna wore the wrong shoes and ended up playing with the baby because her feet hurt. This was good for me because I learned it's OK to pitch while holding a 20 pound kid but not as easy to run and tag someone out. I learned Dee can hit way into the outfield but Pete (the dog) will not retrieve it unless Dee goes with him.

After baseball we went to dinner and came home to play the Wii. We were all completely exhausted once the day was over but I loved just being. The best way to describe it is complete joy and I feel fortunate to have enjoyed it for a full day.