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!