A Day for Ella

Today was Ella's birthday. I know five is a big number because of kindergarten and all, but four seemed awfully big to me today. At four they are definitely not a toddler any more and in August Ella can attend Georgia's free Pre-K program. So today we celebrated our little lady with a party fit for the economic times! Here are the events of the day:

1) Chocolate chip pancakes (that I woke up early to make...grrr)complete iwth a candle to blow out. I thought for some reason these were every kid's dream breakfast. Not my kids. They both asked for cereal shortly after trying their gourmet flapjacks. They are cereal connoisseurs.

2) We then made "funfetti" (everyone know those are the BEST) cupcakes and brought them to our little playgroup hosted at Ronald McDonald's place. The icing with the funfetti on top was really popular...there were a lot of bare, topless cupcakes around.


3)Earlier, we made a very special trip to Big Lots where I would intentionally point and "ooh" at something to see Ella's reaction. We walked away with a couple gifts totaling $6. The best part about it was that Ella was so ADD-like in the store (just like me in a store) that she didn't even realize I was throwing her presents in the cart. We also walked away with a bag of Rotini noodles that Ella saw and requested for her special dinner. Much to the chagrin if Jason, we had spaghetti with Rotini noodles. When he was really little he ran away one night because his mom made spaghetti. It's a long-running joke in the family...but he hates it. All in the name of Ella, he sacrificed and managed to shove some down. *GULP*
4) After dinner we took Ella to feed "Scarlett", HER horsey. Oddly enough, there's a horsey named Scarlett every where we go.Hmmmmm.


5)She opened her wonderful presents to which she exclaimed, while unwrapping, "Oh dear...oh, dear" (???). She was completely thrilled with her presents. We continued to play chutes and ladders and then we climbed into the "tent" (which Ella always calls a temple) and watched a special movie with candy and ice cream.

Ella and Link's pose. TADA!!!!!

There's no place like....

We had a "WIzard of Oz" day on Wednesday. I took the kids to see "Bolt". There is something that makes me giggle when I watch my kids at the movie theater. Their eyes are big, mouths open, and attention spans captured. I wish I could have that effect. Anyway...we were just on our way out to our car when the manager of the theater ran over and told us to be careful because it was hailing and a tornado had touched down. I was just about to go out casually in that mess. As I looked closer out into the parking lot, I saw huge chunks of hail falling violently down. Shooting down rather. Here's a pic of what was coming down. It's baseball sized hail. Who cares about golfball sized hail! It was CRAZY! I even saw peices bigger than this on my way home. That night it was touch and go with our electricity. That night on the news, there was converage of the tornados. A reported ten tornadoes touched down in our area. One of which destroyed a church a few miles away. We were untouched. There's no place like home, for sure!

Georgia on my mind: Part Deux

Last night Jason was refinishing a bench in the garage. Tonight he went to go work on his car, changing the brakes. I was out there for morale, and he noticed this big piece of poo that had not been there the night before. We had quite the conversation about where that poo had come from. Ella? A cat? A ginormous mouse?? Who knew. Then he teased me that whatever produced that excrement could still be in there. I shuddered at the thought. About an hour later, he's still out there, tinkering away and he calls for me to come out. Above is what I see. Look very closely.




Yes, a possum. It had been "renting space" in our garage for a day. It left us two little piles of waste and chewed a huge hole in ou8r garbage. Jason wanted me to participate in cornering the rodent so it would run out. No way. So, he ended up chasing it out of the garage with the tool that every man needs for these type of situations- a broom. Thanks honey!!!!!

***Sometimes on Rachel Ray they have an animal segment. A possum was the star just a few days ago. I actually started empathizing with the possum. These poor partially blind animals that get run over due to their blindness. AW. Apparently they are quite smart. I have no sympathy now. Sorry! Crouch somewhere else possum!

Who wore it better?

Today Emily and I got out and enjoyed the 70 degree weather. It was gorgeous. They had so much fun. This see-saw proved to be quite the challenge to mount. Cooper and Link would run to at the same time (only one seat was left because Ella was on the other side) and the first one there would slide off the other side in their overzealous efforts to jump on. The other would exclaim that his opponent fell off and then they would so the same thing- slide off. Emily and I, being the great moms that we are, sat by and died laughing at the competition.

Blurry, but oh so cute. And so telling of his fiery personality. This (and below) are pictures of him throwing a fit because he didn't want me to take a picture. Can you guess what he's saying below? No, it's not a four letter word. It's a two.
I love taking pictures if Link when he's mad. It's possibly when I laugh most- when he's mad. it's so dang cute.
Who wore the pony ears best? 98% say Ella did. She got these from a my little pony birthday party. Ella even got to ride a real pony several times. Hot dog was the name. And pineapple. Someone was hungry when they named those horses.

This is a fun tea party we had when Ella's friend Riley came to play. The girls were trying to have a sophisticated time and Link kept on trying to bang the table so things would spill. He was trying to destroy and loving it while the girls cried.

Georgia on my mind

Georgia..........sometimes....I just wanna leave. But then again, every state has it's downside, right? I have been dealing with Georgia red clay all week because Jason has been planting and it's been raining....yada, yada, yada. I ended up spending way too much time (thanks to my OCD nature) scrubbing my kitchen floors. As I was mopping, Jason put this container on the counter and asked me clean it out and then run it out to him. When I asked him what was in it he told me dirt. Right. Another reason to love Georgia.....grubs. Seriously, these things will make your stomach churn. Yes, they were/are alive. This is the type of thing fear factor tries to get people to eat. I put a pen in the corner so you could get an idea of how big these things really were. I LOVE Georgia. Oh...they were in the bottom of the pots that the trees came in.
We had playgroup this past week at my house. There were about 20 people attending including adults and children. Sufficient to say...my house was destroyed...but, all in the name of fun. These were the three newborns having the most fun. What a life. From left to right is Kyle Ethington, Ethan Hutchings and then Eric Johnson.






I thought this was so cute. I was organizing, cleaning out this dresser in Link's room and he took advantage of the empty space. And Ella....well, she took advantage of having the power to keep him in there.



We had a really fun family date night at the bowling alley. Link's face was priceless as the ball went down the lane. We got bumpers, thank goodness. Turns out, I needed that as much as the kids.