Christmas Pictures

Abigail put herself to sleep reading a Disney book Nutter Butter Santa cookies me and the girls made Emily in front of Maw maw Kayes tree

Abigail in front of our Charlie Brown Christmas tree

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. It doesn't really seem like it is already going to be 2010 in 1 more day! I am looking at a 4 day weekend coming up here and I can't wait. Brian and Amy are coming over tomorrow evening for a Guitar Hero New Year's Eve party. Hopefully Ned and Kelly can make it by after they visit family. My house looks like a toy store exploded, but hopefully Amy and Brian can sympathize with me. HAHAHA! I am just going to open a closet and shove all I can in there and hope no one opens the door. Upstairs is a disaster area too, but that's none of my concern right now.

I hope I can get some things organized and thrown away while I am off work this weekend. Why is it that no matter what you do or how long you work at it, things are never just perfect? I wish I could just deal with my minor case of OCD and move on. Happy New Year!

Abi's singing debut

Here is one of Abigail's songs she sang for her school program. I think it is so sweet and I have had her sing it a 100 times because I like her voice so much. She even sang it for the ladies at the public library last night.

Christmas Programs

Here are a few pictures from the kids' Christmas programs. They had to have there picture made with Santa and their bus driver Mr. Mike. Note Emily and her friend Hannah had picked out the same Christmas dress!

Charleston Trip

Every fall Brandon and I take a trip down to Charleston. We have a favorite Oyster Bar we like to visit called Pearlz. We go down there to get our fill on steamed oysters. I think I gained about 4 pounds over the weekend. How in the world does that happen?!?!?!?!?. Desserts, drinks, rich, creamy foods-I know exactly how it happens!

We always stay at the Lodge Alley Inn which is right there on East Bay Street. We don't need our car the entire time we are there because everything is within walking distance. This year we had yucky rainy weather so we didn't take very many pictures. Our room was a very nice loft off of the courtyard. We had a kitchen and dining room that we didn't even use. The dining room did make for a nice backdrop for our picture though.

We started our Christmas shopping on the way home. Tis the season!

The Playhouse

We have been working on this playhouse for about 5 years or so. It had to make the move from our old house over to our new house and then it sat for over a year before we messed with it again. Brandon finally started doing some little things to it. It now has stairs, windows, a front door, and carpet! All we need now is some interior upgrades and cedar shingle siding. Going by our timeline we should have it ready just in time for the girls to sneak their boyfriends over! Ha Ha! I think we may have to bolt it shut when that time comes!

Halloween Pictures

Here is my Halloween in a nutshell. We took Kelsey with us. We ended up just going to grandparents and then to my friend Stacey's neighborhood. It really wasn't all that fun without Brandon home with us! Emily and Abigail had to stay with Maw Maw Kaye that day while I worked and I didn't even think to get there picture with my parents before I left that evening! First picture above is with Paw Paw Terry (Brandon's stepdad), second picture is Paw Paw John (Brandon's dad) , third picture is Grand Ma Ann (Brandon's mom), and fourth picture is Kelsey and Kadyn (Candace's babies)

Daddy left us!

Well, we put Brandon on the big bird last night for the flight to Germany. I heard from him twice today. He sounded tired, but he said it was really pretty there. They are staying on a river near some castles that have bullet holes in them from a long time ago. He said they had so really bad turbulence and for about an hour it felt like they were on a roller coster and people all around him were throwing up their supper. He said he got sweaty and his mouth watered really bad, but he never threw up. Emily took the leaving him at the airport pretty badly. She cried for about 20 miles up the interstate before she cried herself to sleep. She was crazy sounding and saying things like "IT'S JUST NOT RIGHT WITHOUT DADDY" and "I DON't WANT TO LEAVE HIM" and I thought she was going to hyperventilate. A bit too dramatic for my taste. About 10 minutes into it Abi is looking calmly over at Emily and says "Emi, you starting to make me feel upset." And then it carried on for a while longer. She recovered, but she still talks about him being gone. We went into Kohls last night and I was telling Emily her face look red and an older woman said, "What's wrong sweetie" and Abigail said "She's been crying because our daddy is gone!" Of course I had to explain. Then today at Footloose skating rink Abi struck up a conversation with a pregnant woman and Abi told her "My daddy couldn't come because he left us!" Abigail has no idea how this sounds to an adult, and the woman looked pitifully at her. I jumped in to explain, but I don't know if the lady believed me or not! It has been crazy! Anyway, we are doing fine and staying busy. Emily has her last 2 softball games this week and us 3 girls have Thursday and Friday off together to do something fun. Probably Nascar Speed Park. Here are a few pictures of the leaves turning around home here. I can't believe how beautiful they are!

Abigail's mean streak

On the 10th day of school Emily came home and told me that Abi got in trouble on the bus and Mr. Mike had to talk to her. Apparently a little girl told Abi to bite her finger and put her finger in Abi's face and Abi bit it. Well, I have spent the last 4 years trying to make Abi do what she is told, so what can I expect? Ha Ha Well, we had a talk and she said she would do better. The next day they came home and Emily said Mr. Mike didn't see this, but Abi had squeezed someone's neck until they couldn't breath. I told her no TV of playing games all week. Then the girls went to the basement to play and Emily came up with her camer/video recorder and showed me what Abi had done. Emily had been using the video recorder and Abi attacked her and choked Emily and it was all caught on tape! MY GOD!! What has happened to my cute little innocent girl? She is an animal! We had another talk and I let her know I was not happy with her.

This child does have a sweet kind heart, I promise. A few days later I was in the basement on the elliptical when Abi wanted to know if everything dies. I told her that they do if they were living to begin with. They she said "I want to know what things feel like." I said "Like touching things to see what they feel like?" She said "No, like I want to know what they feel." She pointed to the wheelbarrel in the basement and said "Like that thing, I wonder what it feels." I suddenly understood what she meant. I told her that it doesn't feel anything because it was just metal. I said if you took a hammer to it, it would not scream, but me or her would if the same was done. We had a lond conversation about this and she now understands between living and non-living. She knows living things usually experience the world with their senses like, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. Abigail and I spend a lot of time together by ourselves in the basement while we are exercising and Emily is reading her book in her own little world. We seem to have these deep conversations at least once a week and it is amazing to follow her cognitive development and watching her put pieces of the puzzle together. She is an amazing little girl and I love hearing her little voice talk about the wonders of the world. Anyway, I hope to continue to have these moments with her because I really enjoy being a part of our discussions. Besides, one conversation like this and a

mother can forget about a choking incident! HA! HA!

Cabarrus County Fair

We were cramped for time last week, but we decided to head out for the county fair on Wednesday night. Just our luck that it rained all afternoon and we watched the sky thinking that we may have to cancel. Around 6 pm it stopped raining and the clouds began to clear. We jumped in the car and met daddy at the fairgrounds. We didn't have much time because we were late getting there so we just bought 24 tickets to go along with the 6 that Doug gave us. Then a family leaving gave us 2 more that they hadn't used. So the girls were excited because we figured they each could ride 3-4 rides each before we had to go home and get ready for school the next day. Emily chose to ride the big swings while I took Abi over to the ballon ride. Then they rode the roller coaster together, then the haunted roller coaster ride, then another roller coaster and a safari jeep ride. We were walking around when we saw for $5 you could get strapped into a bungee thing and jump on a trampoline. Emily had seen the bigger version of this at the beach one time and wanted to ride it, but we wouldn't let her. The one at the fair wasn't as scary looking, so we said, what the heck, my as well let her ride. Then Abi was mad because we didn't tell her she could jump, but I hadn't really realized that she would have wanted to. So we gave them each a $5 bill that Maw Maw Kaye and Paw Paw Jerry had given them and they got strapped in. They asked me to stay with Abi, so I didn't get the full picture of her in her apparatus from far away, but hopefully you can get the jist of it. They thought someone as small as her would need help being pulled down to the trampoline to make contact with it to push off, but Abi caught on very fast and really didn't need any help. This thing pulls you up to where you feel almost weightless and then the bouncing keeps you in contact with the trampoline after you get started. They LOVED it and I was wishing we had one at home! After they got off we went and got some fair food. We ended up with a candied apple, a powder sugared funnel cake, a foot long hand dipped corndog, and an ear of corn. Wow! Then we watched the end of one of the kids' fireman's sh0ows. At the end of it they let the kids crawl through the "smoke" house and practice staying low to the ground to avoid smoke inhalation. Abi and Emily got in line and the next thing we know Abi was running back out and away from the side of the house they were supposed to be going in. She ran up to me and said "Is he going to try to suffocate me!?" I explained to her that no he wouldn't and the smoke wasn't real and wouldn't hurt her and she ran back to get in line and then ran back out of line. She wasn't stupid-if a house is smoking and on fire you are NOT SUPPOSED to run INTO it! Makes sense to me! Abi was tired after watching the fireman show and we went home and left daddy and Emily (along with Paw Paw John) there so they could go inside and look at the animals. I took Abi home and gave her a bath and she went to bed.

We had a really good night and I am really happy that we went because I know that fair memories are wonderful and they will always remember this night.

September Daycation!

Well, the Burnette's have been at it again! We decided yesterday morning to ride off for the day. We left home at 10:30 and found ourselves hungry just 30 minutes away in Harrisburg. We stopped at Bojangles and had biscuits and seasoned fries. YUMMY! We rode up to Lake Lure to look for a place that our timeshare doesn't "own", but has weeks available at. We asked a lady in sales if we could go look at the properties to see if we might like to book something there in the future and she gave us a window hang tag so we could get through security. I asked if they offered day privledges to Bluegreen owners and she told me no, but that was ok. We rode on in and looked around at the pool, golf course, lake beach area, and wellness center. The girls wanted to swim, but without day privledges we weren't technically supposed to go in. but we were able to walk right in to the pool area with no questions asked. This wasn't what Brandon and I had wanted to start out with for the day, so we talked the kids into going with us over to Chimney Rock to go hiking with a promise of ice cream afterwards and a trip back to the pool before we went home. So we headed down the most curvy road I have ever been on and Brandon had a ball handling his car in S turn after S turn. Emily and I got little carsick feeling, but we were ok. We went up to Chimney Rock and found out that one of the trails we had been waiting all spring and summer to hike was finally open. It was labled moderate to strenuous and not recommended for small children, so we were game! Ha Ha! We had to hike up to the Chimney just to get to this trail because the line for the elevator was long and we could get there faster by hiking. The girls did great and we got there in no time. Once we got up the the Chimney base, we hiked on up to "Exclamation Point" and saw some wonderful views. The weather was picture perfect and we could not have picked a better day to do some hiking. We even stopped to smell the flowers (see picture). We hiked back down to the shop at the Chimney area and Brandon and Emily waited in line for 30-45 minutes just to get us some ice cream. Abigail doesn't like ice cream and she picked herself out a salad with crackers and ranch dressing to eat instead. If you don't believe this, see picture! She said all the walking had made her hungry! She even ate the cucumbers that were in the salad after we doctored them up with salt and pepper! I sat with Abi and watched her eat while Brandon and Emily were in the ice cream line. When it was there turn to order I asked Abigail if she was sure she didn't want some ice cream and she said "No", so I ordered my 1 scoop of Bunny Tracks and 5 minutes later I realized that I had lost all rights to my ice cream cone because she liked it and ate it up! She was hungry! We rode the elevator back down to the parking lot and made our way back over to the pool we had sneeked into earlier. We changed into our bathing suits and helped ourselves to the ice cold pool (it was close to 7pm and the temperature outside was dropping too!) We played and helped the girls practice their swimming skills-Abigail is doing amazingly well and Emily is doing really good too. After all of our lips turned blue we went and changed back into our clothes. I had not packed a comb and by the time we got to Fatz Cafe, Brandon's hair was dried and he looked normal and me, Emily, and Abigail looked like drowned rats we matted hair! Oh well, we were on daycation, it didn't matter! We had never ate at a Fatz Cafe and we loved the rolls! My God, now I know why they call it Fatz Cafe, it can't be good for you! Our food we chose was mediocre, but waitress was nice and atmosphere was good, so we left happy. We rode on back home and finally landed-I mean got home, at around 11:30pm. We had a wonderful time and were so glad that the kids cooperated and were in such good moods for the whole entire day. We are so blessed to be able to take trips like this and enjoy our time together.

Today we are just catching up on lazy time, washing our beach towels and bathing suits, and cleaning up the house a little in anticipation of another work/school week ahead!! Abigail and Emily were listening to the O Brother Where Art thou CD earlier and Abigail came up and told me about the song Down to the River to Pray. She said first they said"Come on sister, then they said come on brother, and then they said come on babysitter let's go down" I thought I would roll! The last chorus actually says, "Come on sinner, let's go down, down to the river to pray." She thought they said sitter instead of sinner and then she told me babysitter instead of sitter. She is so funny. You have to be pretty smart to stay 1 step ahead of your kids so you can figure out their thought processes! Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of Labor Day and good-bye till next time!

Abigail's First Day of Pre-K

Today I put my baby girl on a school bus for the first time! She gets to ride with Emily to Ridgecrest and then she gets taken over to Running Creek for her school day. She was so excited this morning that she didn't even give me a hug before she jumped on the bus and disappeared. I had to call her back so I could at least get a picture. This evening Lacey was here to get her off the bus for me and I asked her how everything went and she sputtered out a whole days' worth of events and excitement. She said "Momma, one boy kept getting in trouble and got put in time out." Later this evening I asked her did the teacher tell everyone her rules and Abi said "Yeah, like Keep your clothes on" I was like "WOW, that has to be a rule? Do they have problems with kids taking their clothes off?" She said "Yeah momma, that's what that one boy was doing that kept getting in trouble." I said "What did he take off?" and she said "His shirt, his shorts, his shoes, he didn't take off his underwear though. I kept looking at the teacher so I couldn't see him" Oh dear I think! She is excited about going back tomorrow, so I guess this is a good thing!

Summer 2009

WOW! How in the world did this summer go by so quickly? I haven't really kept caught up on all this blogging stuff since July 4th, but I will run down some of the highlights to get me caught up...for now. We started off our summer with a week long trip with our friends (the Johnson family) in Marble Hill Georgia. This was one of the best vacations we have ever had with the kids. Jordan and Alyssa (ages 8 and 3) kept my 2 kids busy and everyone seemed to have a great time. We went hiking, swimming, rock sliding, and even got the kids into canoes. We visited the Cabbage Patch Memorial Hospital and saw a Cabbage Patch doll be born. It was pretty amazing. We also visited Helen Georgia and I recommend everyone to visit there one day. We hiked up to Amicalola Falls, played in a nearby creek and had a picnic at the top of the falls. We had a 3 bedroom cabin at Big Canoe at Marble Hill. It was out in the middle of the sticks in the mountains of Georgia. We would make a day of exploring and then we would spend a day at the pool to rest up for the next day of exploring. We stayed up late and watched ice road truckers, loggers, and deadliest catch. As you can probably tell, Brandon had control of the remote! One day we cooked out by the pool and left our leftovers in a ziploc bag to cool off before we put them in a cooler and crows came and tore apart the bag and ate the meat and jalepeno peppers. They left and brought back their friends and family and our stuff was surrounded by big black birds! Then one day at the pool I was caught acting like a Baywatch babe by one of the lifeguards. (He was behind me and I didn't know it, but Amy, Brian, and Brandon all saw him!) One day Brandon lost his sunglasses at the rock slide and 2 days later found them on one of the lifeguards' face. He went up and asked for them back-it was like taking candy from a baby! We got home from vacation and Brandon's Festiva caught on fire and he had to buy a new car-a 2010 Mustang GT. He has never had a brand new vehicle and he was tickled to pieces to finally get something nice and new.

That same weekend the girls had their ballet recital and it was cute, even though Emily's routine was too short and they were only on stage for a minute if that! Brandon took the girls to Denton farm park a few days before the fourth of July. We had Abigail's birthday party at our house (on July 6) and about 45 people showed up. It was amazing! We had a really good turn out and were so happy to see everyone able to show up.

We took a day trip with the Morgan's to Blowing Rock and Boone to explore a little bit. We had a ball since we were able to ride with them in their awesome little minivan. It was like a traveling circus! The day we went we thought we might could go swimming, but for some reason I think the temperature never got above 70! It was a fun trip though.

I took the girls to Nascar Speedpark and at the end of our day it rained and we got a 1 day pass to come back again-it's like BOGO! I had talked Emily out of going to Emerald Pointe because it was calling for storms.

We took another family trip to Shenandoah Crossing in the middle of August and we got to ride horses and stay in our first yurt ( a permanent tent) We loved it! We went to Manassas VA and walked a battlefield-yay. Brandon's idea. Me and the girls were not really impressed. We would rather be at the pool. Emily mastered swimming from one side of the pool to the other and Abigail started swimming 6-8 feet without struggling. They both impressed us very much on this trip.

Here we are and school has started back. I apoligize again for not keeping this blog updated, but I will try not to get so far behind from now on!

We have spent a lot of time the past few weeks at Annette's house helping repaint some rooms and help get things ready for a new baby in the house. They are so fun to be around and me and Brandon and the girls can't get enough of them and their every day dramas. We have Lacey helping out with after school care since Abigail got into preschool there has to be a person to get her off the bus.

What I live for...

Can ya'll believe that my baby girl is almost 4 years old? In 2 more days I will no longer have a 3 year old. It seems like just yesterday she was a cute little swaddled bundle of love. Today she is like a whirlwind kind of like the Tazmanian devil gone wild. She is up to no good most of the time. Just last night I believe I should be given an award to my calm reaction to finding out why their bathroom and one of their hand towels was soaking wet. Neither one of the girls wanted to tell me why. It was midnight and I wanted to hurry and get them in bed and I told them, "No one is going to the parade in the morning until I find out what happened to this towel!" Emily told me Abigail dried off her stuffed animals with it. Now, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that somewhere there probably is a pile of wet animals somewhere. I wanted quick results so I decided to stay completely calm and be cool about it. I say "OK Abigail, show me the wet animals so mommy can take them to get dried off." She went to her closet, opened it, and started pulling sopping wet animals out of the bottom of the closet. She said, "I washed my little pony's hair too, but it's dry already." I calmly said, "OK sweetie, let me go lay these downstairs to dry."

Apparently Abigail felt the need to bathe her poor animals and put them back in the closet. Could you imagine the smell from that closet if I had not have been the inquisitive person that I am and asked about the wet hand towel?

This is just one of the many trials and tribulations that this child has put this household through. We just have to learn to try to stay one step ahead of her in the thought process, but that's hard to do. Every since Brandon's car burnt and melted to the ground and he came in the house huffing and puffing and trying to say, "I need the fire, fire, fire department", Abigail goes around and tells people about him saying that. It was a combination of him being out of breath and stuttering that put him in a tizzy. Whenever we want to ridicule him, we just say "I need the fire, fire, fire, department!" and he just cringes. Next time you see one of my kids ask them to do their imitation of daddy needing the fire department and then I will add the parts about him crying and saying "it's gone, it's gone, my car, it's gone!" I mean my goodness, it had a tax value of $300, what is the big deal!? Anyway, Abigail knows how to get under his skin just as well as me and Emily do. I am training them well!

Abigail and I also have this special bond that usually occurs right in the middle of supper. First she says, "I need to go potty!" Then she goes to the half bath and sits and does her business and she hollers, "Momma, can you wipe my butt!" One time I said "Oh yes, I live for that!" Now when she does it, and mind you it happens during every evening meal at home, she yells "Can you wipe my butt!" and if I don't answer she says, "Don't you live for that momma!?" and I say, "Of course I live for it." What mother doesn't want to get up in the middle of a meal and wipe their child's butt? I'm telling you, me and Abigail are tight like this! I am just happy that she still needs me for something, never mind how slight it is. If you ask anyone in our house what I live for they will say "to wipe Abigail's butt."

So, to celebrate her birthday I took off a few days and we are going to go swimming and do some fun stuff together. It's kind of fun to have a birthday so near to the 4th of July because you can have a summer party for several days straight. Thursday night we went to Oakboro's carnival, Friday the girls went to Denton Farm Park with Paw Paw John and daddy, today we went to the parades in Oakboro and Unionville and we will go see fireworks tonight, who know what tomorrow holds, and on Monday we are having a cook out for her birthday. Tuesday we hope to go to Blue Waters to play in the pool. How lucky could a girl be to have all of this excitement around her birthday! I feel sorry for Emily having a November birthday.

American kiss

Wow, summer time is almost here! Thank goodness! Emily is ready to spend her summer with maw maw Kaye. I can't wait for her to get out of school myself. The other day I got a phone message from the school cafeteria manager. It went like this, "Mrs. Burnette, this is Mrs. Leak from Ridgecrest cafeteria. I'm calling you to let you know Ms Emily has a lunch room tab that's $34.30, I need you to call me tomorrow...Thank you" MY GOSH EMILY! My first thought was "How many lunches is she eating in one day?" Then I thought, "Why hasn't she told me she owed money?" Then I thought "I haven't sent a check for a long time." I went and looked at my checkbook and it had been almost a month since I had sent a $30 check, so it was probably due! I felt bad and sent a check the next day for $60, I didn't even return her call. Maw maw Kaye doesn't know what she is in for this summer. She doesn't realize the money that I will be paying her will just be enough to subsidize her grocery bill! Today Emily told us that that our dog and the neighbors' dog was going on a date because they were licking each other and when you lick each other you are French kissing. I asked her where she heard of French kissing and she said Angel told her on the bus. Later she said something in front of Brandon and he said "Well, what does that mean Emily?" She said "I think it is when you kiss inside your mouth using your tongues" Brandon said, "UGH that's gross!" and Emily said said "Yeah, it's a good thing we American kiss!" Oh Lord! She is only 7 years old! These kids on the bus are too advanced. I hate that Emily has to hear this kind of stuff from a second grader. Her newest favorite work is Crap and surely she didn't get that from me! Oh well, let's see what kind of habits she picks up from Maw maw Kaye this summer. It should be interesting!

Wishing your life away

Well, here it is Mother's Day already. Happy Day to all you wonderful mothers! You know sometimes I try to think up of cute sayings like in the Hallmark cards on the shelf, but nothing ever good comes to me. The heck with trying to write my own card! I have been thinking this past week about the maternal role models I have had in my life. First and most important it was my mom, then Maw Maw Minnie Belle (Maw Furr) and Maw Maw Kat.

My mom always told me "If you want something done you gotta do it yourself". Great. That is nice to know. For Mother's Day this year I wanted my bathroom spotless, you know the spotless where you can eat off the floors kind of clean. Well, I got it. Yep I did, I got home from ball game Friday night and cleaned it good. I wanted it done and I did it myself! Thanks mom! My mom is a worker. You know the ones, they never sit down. Always busy, gotta go, gotta go! Now what do you know-I am the same way. I can't stand to be idle. It makes me feel lazy. BUT...It has its good points! I am very efficient person because of this and I sleep like a baby at night! You know they say if you want something done, ask a busy person! But don't none of ya'll get any ideas-I charge by the hour!

My mom is also the kind of person that would give you the shirt off of her back (or her $100 flat iron) if you wanted it. She will not let her grandkids want for anything! I remember being in Sears as a young child and I think she was buying me school clothes and she had picked something up for herself, but when I pushed for 1 more thing, she looked at her item, thought for a second and put hers back and mine stayed in the buggy. Poor woman, she probably never got anything new and I was stylin' in my Pretty Plus sized wardrobe! I am not quite as bad because if I am lucky enough to find something that I like and it fits I'm gettin' it! I do get them something too, but that's just to justify me getting mine!

Well, I guess she is just about as good as it gets when it come to a mom. She got it honest though, and that's where Maw Furr comes in. Maw Furr was a mess! She died in April 2007, but there are so many things that she left behind. I remember saying I can't wait for summertime or I can't wait for Christmas and she would say, "You're wishing your life away." You know, now that I am older that makes sense. As adults what do we want to do with Monday-Thursday? Just sleep through it so we can get to the weekend? NO, we should not be wishing our life away! We should see each day as a chance to enjoy life. So what if we are at work, or cleaning, or trying to reason with a screaming child. It is hard to remember during these times that life is passing us by and we can't get a minute of it back. So today I pledge to try to pick my battles better and love every minute of it. Anybody else want to jump on with me? Maw Furr would be proud. She is also the lady that told me to never dry my bras in the dryer, "It will mess the 'lastic up in them." So you know what, my bras hang on my bathroom doorknob to dry. It makes sense to me! She was a wild old lady and I learned a lot from her too!

That leaves Maw Maw Kat. The most memorable thing about her was her grumpy ways. She gave my grandpa hell! He was so miserable because of her. She wasn't as bad towards me, but I saw how it was. I remember going to the kitchen to get a Little Debbie snack she said "Them thangs will make you fat." What do you know...they did! I don't now exactly what I learned from her because the time I spent with her I was young. I do remember going to their beach house in Holden Beach a lot as a child. I thought they were rich because they had a place at the beach (with a golf cart) and my grandpa was an electrician. I also thought the beach was 4 1/2 hours away, but then when I grew up I realized it is only 3- 3 1/2 hours away! Maw Maw Kat always wanted to give you something, whether it was money, clothes she couldn't wear, or knick knacks. She would sneak me money because she didn't want Paw Wetter to see that she had any to give. She was an incredible lady in her own way.

So, from these 3 wonderful women I learned this: Work like hell and enjoy every minute of it and beware of the Little Debbie's (they will make you fat)

We're eating pig tonight!

Tonight at the supper table Emily told Abigail we were eating pig and Abigail said "Momma, how was you able to catch this pig?" Emily, being the ever so intelligent child said, "Well, Abigail, it's all about gaining the pigs' trust so you can trick him into letting you get him. You take a feed bucket and lure him to the gate!" and Abigail said "REALLY?!, and then you put barbeque on him?" Brandon had to step in then and fill in all of the missing pieces between killing the hog and being able to eat it. Brandon asked the girls where do you shoot a pig and Abigail said "In the pasture daddy!" we were like no, what part of the body of the pig do you shoot it? Oh Lord... Why do we have to talk about this right in the middle of the meal. All I want to do is sit there and eat, not talk about slaughter day. Being around this family will make you want to be a vegetarian. Is there anything bad about how they make chocolate? God I hope they can't ruin that for me too! Well, hope everyone has a ointastic weekend.

Chimney Rock Park

Sunday we rode up to Chimney Rock Park and went hiking. After 2 hours in the car we were pointing out the mountains on the horizon for Abigail. She kept asking "When are we going to be in the mountains?" We kept saying, "We are in the mountains!" She kept asking "When?" and I thought I would jump out of the car and down an embankment! When we hit the main drag of Chimney Rock I exclaimed, "Oh my God, we are in the mountains now!!!" Abi said "Oh we are in the mountains now!" Wheww!

We ate at the Old Rock Cafe where Emily scarfed down her entire cheeseburger (she has appetite of a horse these days) and Abigail ate pretty good too. We told them they would need the energy for hiking. We went up and purchased our tickets and started our 4 hour hike. The girls did wonderful and never complained one peep about being tired. Abigail climbed all the stairs and never once acted irritated. Abigail decided to buy some magnetic rocks in the gift shop and Emily got a rock candy sucker and an ice cream cone. Abigail walked by the ice cream stand and her bag of rocks jumped out and stuck to the side. She exclaimed, "Daddy this thing is magically!" She meant magnetic, but it came out magically. It was too cute!

We watched some mountain climbing and rappelling and Emily and I might decide to do this one day when we get our courage up. Emily has been wanting to do the climbing wall at the Whitewater Center, but when we were able to go they were closed. She has been very athletic these days. When she got her softball uniform and the sock package said athletic socks she asked me if she was an athlete since she had athlete's socks. I said "I guess you are since you are wearing athletic socks!" She has had 2 softball games so far and in each game she made a run. She really seems to enjoy playing and she is picking up skills fairly quickly. Some of the girls on her team have been playing 3-4 years and she is just beginning.

Who's that man momma?

We had a teacher's workday yesterday so the girls and I decided to make a day at Dan Nicholas Park. We ran a few errands and got there around noon and they played hard for 4 hours. We hit the carousel, train, putt putt, reptile and fish building, and the playgrounds. The kids were exhausted when we left, but I still wanted to go into Salisbury and get my oil changed so I wouldn't have to fit that in one evening after work. Emily stayed awake for the ride over to the Toyota dealership, but Abigail went to sleep on the way over. When we got there I went and got the service person and told him I had to get the kids out of the car. While I was getting the key off my keyring the service guy opened the car and sat down in the driver's seat to write down mileage and whatever else they look at and by the time I got around to Abi's side of the car and woke her up, he was ready to drive the car into the bay. Abigail comes out of her 10 minute coma, looks up at the man in my driver's seat, and groggily slurs out the words, "Who's that man momma?" and then her little head falls back to her chest. It was so cute! We get out of the car and everything else goes as planned. Last night at supper we were talking about our day and telling Brandon about what we did and Abi says "Who was that man that drove us there?" Brandon looks at me and says "Yeah momma, who was that man?" I thought I would die!!! It was so funny. I could not get it through her head that he didn't actually drive us there because to her he obviously he did! Oh my goodness, good thing I have nothing to hide!

First time blogging

Well, everyone else does it, so I my as well get started myself! I guess I should explain why I named this mismatched socks and mischief. I was trying to set up the new blog name and everything I could possibly think of already existed. I looked over and saw the laundry basket of clothes that needed to be folded and I thought I would walk away from the computer and fold clothes while I thought of a name for my blog. After putting away all of the clothes I realized that between the 4 people in our household, I only have 13 mismatched socks today! Wow! How does that happen? Where are they? Who knows! Do I care, we will just have to buy more, that's how it goes. Downstairs I could hear the kids and that's self explanatory-mischief. So there we go mismatched socks and mischief PERFECT! And it's not already taken! Good, let's get going. It's another rainy Saturday in the Carolinas and the kids are stuck in the house. Never mind the new 20" bike Emily got this past week, or the batting tee that Abigail got to try to practice her swinging. We have all kinds of new outdoor toys and the kids are stuck inside playing the Wii! Emily has recovered from her bicycle wreck and her 4-wheeler wreck from a few weeks ago. We decided her bike wreck was partly do to it being way to small for her height and her knees were over handle bar level. Poor child, I guess I need to check her toes and make sure she hasn't grown out of her shoes too without us noticing! Abigail has been a trickster lately. She plays pranks on everyone, including hiding my bra while I was in the shower! She got tested for the county's preschool program yesterday and I think she told them she didn't know things that she probably does know, she was just being contrary! We will have to watch out for her. She is going to be our trouble maker, I do believe.