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.