St. Simons, Part 1

I need to do a little bit of catching up, starting with our vacation to St. Simons Island, GA, back in August. I have about a zillion pictures (actual number), so I am going to do this post in two parts.

First, we stayed in The Strachan Carriage House on St. Simons. It was awesome -- as awesome as it looks if you hop on over to the website, and it really was kid-friendly. It was an older house (the site says it was built in 1910), so we did deal with some bugs -- mainly roaches -- but we are used to those, so I can't say that we were too bothered by them.

The pool in the courtyard was wonderful. We were a little worried about it before we got there because we were traveling with 7 kids -- 2 1-year-olds, a 2-year-old, a 3-year-old, a 4-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a 7-year-old -- that we made a rule that all kids had to have on life jackets at all times around the pool unless pretty much all grown up hands (6 adults and 3 college-aged babysitters) were on deck. The older kids, who are pretty good swimmers and just got better as the week went on, grumbled a good bit about our rule, but we decided that we would rather be safe than sorry -- I don't know why, but we like having those little buggers around. Seriously, though, they got used to it -- they would wake up around 7 or 8 in the morning, eat breakfast, get on their sunscreen, bathing suits, and life jackets, and hit the pool for most of the day. It was hard to get them to do anything else!

Today's post will focus on pool pics...

We followed the main pool rule:

Our sitters with my girls:

Someone gave W a mowhawk...

I don't think he appreciated it.

The girls entertained L:

The Farmer thought a kayak

was a great pool toy...the kids agreed:

Bubba made sure G had enough suncreen on:

Sassy went flying high:

Bubba learned to hold his nose:

The FIVE Amigos!

Me Likey

Trish over at Pink Preppy Lilly Lover (say that three times fast!) is having a little giveaway for this lovely watch, and I sure would love to win it. Nevermind that I just got myself a new watch as a reward for making it through my stressful summer -- this watch would go well with all of my gold jewelry while my other watch goes well with silver.

Do me a favor and don't go over there and join the giveaway, mmmkay?...it will better my chances of winning!

Peace out...

Our Answer To The Naked Cowboy

I think he's pretty darn cute!

Free Time

I don't know what I was thinking.

I thought that, by moving my family to The Farmer's farm, I would have some more time on my hands. I could see myself with a cup of coffee and my Bible out on the deck having a leisurely morning before I got into my work. I could see myself taking long walks around the fields, getting in lots of exercise. I could see myself catching up on this little ol' blog.

Boy, was I wrong.

We can all laugh at me now.

I am absolutely crazy busy all the time these days. I seem to live in my car whether I am commuting back to my farm two days a week or staying around here driving the kids to and from school -- a total of three round-trips (that take about an hour each!) a day. When I'm not driving, I'm cooking, or helping with homework, or working, or fixing lunches, or cleaning, or doing something that takes up all. of. my. time. I have seriously not had a free minute to myself in weeks.

I mean, I'm not complaining (okay, I am) -- I know there are plenty of moms out there who are running around like crazy people and don't have free moments to themselves. I just wasn't prepared to be one of them, and I have to find a little bit of a happier medium before I go crazy.

Or crazier, I should say.

Because I'm exhausted.

But, it's totally worth it to see The Farmer at lunchtime on the days when I'm here. And it's totally worth it to have plenty of room for the kids to run around and play without having to worry about them getting run over by some stranger flying down the street. And it's totally worth it to have The Farmer home at a decent hour at night.

It's totally worth it for us to be a family -- something that we've never truly been, or not a normal one, at least.

I've just got to figure out how to add some more hours to each day...

A Family Picture

I think I mentioned back in the spring that the people at BiLo sent a photographer down to The Farmer's farm to get some advertising pictures of the family. We posed for pictures, and then I never heard anything else about them. When The Farmer's blueberries were in BiLo I looked around to see if maybe a picture happened to be up in the store, but I never saw one.

So, I have no idea what BiLo ever did with the pictures.

But, I did finally get to see one the other day:

Do you notice who didn't get the memo about wearing khaki on the bottom?

I don't even own any khaki, so I guess I wouldn't have been able to wear any even if I had gotten the memo...

All in all I think it is a pretty cute picture. My face (and the rest of me) is a lot rounder in the picture than it is now, but you probably can't tell that unless you blow the picture up -- which I am sure you won't do unless you have tons of time on your hands.

Anywho, that is The Farmer's family picture, courtesy of BiLo...

Three!

As I mentioned in my last post, Bubba also celebrated a birthday this summer. He turned three on the 13th of August.

Last year when Bubba turned two, I went into a deep depression (okay, not really, just saying...) because it was the first time that I had a baby turn two without another one on the way. Something about not having another baby on the way just made me feel like my baby was growing up too fast, and I just wanted time to quit it already!

So you can imagine how I felt when he turned three. I mean, look -- he doesn't even look like a baby anymore:

But, we are happy to be celebrating another birthday with our sweet little boy. For the most part he is a joy to have around. He is, after all, three -- and whoever dubbed them the Terrible Twos hadn't gotten to the Threes yet...

But, honestly, I wouldn't trade him for the world! I love you, Bubba!

Five!

We celebrated a couple of birthdays over my summer blogging hiatus, starting with Sassy's fifth birthday on August 2nd! We were in St. Simon's on vacation on her actual birthday, so we had a little celebration for her there. We got these three adorable cakes from the St. Simon's Sweet Shop:

However, this was how Sassy was feeling on her birthday:

She just didn't have the best day, poor thing. She got a rash from her bathing suit. She got a fat lip from I-can't-remember-what. And she ended the day with a tummy ache, and that was before the cake! Last year she was sick on her birthday, so she is on a roll for not-so-great birthdays...

Because of our vacation and move we didn't have an actual birthday party for Sassy this year, but we had a family celebration when we got back. Luckily Sassy was feeling better for that little shindig:

I can't believe that my Sassy girl is 5 -- she is just growing up too fast! She is a big Kindergarten girl now and learning and growing more and more every day, and she is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. My sweet, sassy girl...

We also celebrated Bubba's birthday, but I will share those pictures tomorrow and my depression over my baby being a big boy!