Camping at Jackrabbit

So we just got back from from our first camping trip in 4 years and I only have two words to sum up the experience, wet and cold. Ok, let me back up a little bit, we returned from Florida, Monday night, unpacked, went to bed, woke up on Tuesday, re-packed and left to go camping. We were tired from traveling, but excited to camp with our friends, the Sampsons and do some boating. The camping spot was about an hour and a half away, so we thought the weather would probably be close to what it was supposed to be here, WRONG! We get to the campground and start to set everything up, as we were putting the tents up, it starts to pour! Everyone was soping wet, and a lot of our stuff was too. It stopped long enough for us to finish setting stuff up. Mike took the kids out on the boat. They did some tubing, eventhough it was cold. Pretty much our entire trip was off and on rain and wind. The lake was so beautiful though. No one was there so the water was glass, it was so hard to not go out and do some wakeboarding and skiing, but I knew I would pay for it, by being cold the rest of the day. Everyone has their "cryptonite" and mine is being wet and cold. The kicker is, at about 7pm the clouds would break a little bit and the sun would shine until it set and it would be clear all night. But during the day time it was cloudy, cold and rainy.

Lake Shatook, North Carolina.
Everyone, huddling by the fire, trying to stay dry.
Braxton, Zach, Parker, Carter(Puzey), and Max. The boys had a great time!

Hailey, just waking up. She loved sleeping in the tent, in her pink "princess" sleeping bag.

Hailey playing in the lake, it was really cold!

The boys found a rope swing, which I think was the highlight of the trip. Mike helping Braxton get on.
Braxton flying off!

Destin, Florida 08

We are back from our annual trip to Destin Florida. You just can't beat a 5 hour drive to stay at a beautiful beach. This year we went with my sister and her family. They had never been to Florida before, so it was fun to get to experience it with them. Although, my sister wasn't able to make it to the actual beach for very long, due to illness and having a brand new baby. (the sacrafices we moms make.) The kids had a great time playing at the beach and at the pool. Mike and Mike were able to get some golfing in and Kristine and I were able to do a little shopping, kid free!

Look at that water! You can see why they call it the Emerald Shores.

The Mike's burying Mike C in the sand. Ta-da! I don't know who had more fun, the kids or the dad's......

Gymnastics Jubilee 08

Lastnight we had Hailey's first performance. We had rough start to the evening, due to the fact that I had to wake her up to get her ready to go. She was soooo grouchy and then she found out that she had to wear her black leotard and not her pink one. She just fell apart. I finally got her to stop crying by offering to put make-up on her. That made her happy for about 5 minutes and then she remembered she was wearing black.........and the entire night went like that.
Hailey's class just did a little showcase of what they had learned this past year. It was cute, but not too exciting. She is now old enough to do ballet and tap so that will be fun.

Hailey remembering she's still in the black leotard.
They wouldn't let anyone use flash photography, so the picture didn't turn out very well. But this is Hailey doing her tricks on the ballance beam.

Showing her medal, still perplexed over the black leotard.....My favorite is the white underware you can see..:)

Hailey and her cousin Kira, very proud of their medals. (Kira is only 2 months older than Hailey)

Baseball 08

Baseball season is over! Well, technically, it is. We are the #1 team in the league (in Braxton's age group) so now we are doing tournament games. We've won the first 2 and have two more to go. We were supposed to play tonight, but a tornado warning put a nix on that.

At the beginning of the season, Braxton's heart wasn't really into the game. He loved basketball so much that it was all he wanted to do. And as my mom witnessed, it was at times painful to watch him play. However, somehow the coaches have lit the fire under him and he's now one of the best players on the team. He is one of the strongest hitters, and the coach knows that if a fly ball come's anywhere near him, he'll catch it.

Go Rangers! Getting ready to hit the ball. Braxton is the one on the outfield.

Baseball ready!

Braxton Playing third.

The STUPID Birds!

Every spring, when we lived in our Avonshire house, we would hang plants off of our back deck. And every year we had birds that would make their nest in those plants and cause the plants to die. I would go out and spray the plants with the hose and a very flustered bird would fly out...it got to be so ANNOYING!!!!!

So, when we moved to this house, I figured we wouldn't have to deal with that here...........WRONG! These birds don't make their nests on our deck plants, they do in in the ceiling of our garage! This past fall, our washing machine over flowed with water, causing leakage into the garage, so Mike cut out a piece of the drywall that warped. And somehow the birds have discovered it and claimed it as their home.

We've tried to be good about not leaving the garage door open for very long, but as soon as we open it they start swarming around trying to get in. One night, Mike came home from work and found one in the garage. (It had flown in while I had pulled my car in) So we spent the next 30 minutes trying to get it out. We finally gave up and let it stay in there for the night. The next morning, I was standing on the porch, and those birds started diving at me until I went into the house.

Today, Braxton left the garage door open and the door that goes into the kitchen and the bird flew in the house! I spent the next 20 minutes trying to get it out of the house. The kids had a great time watching me chase it around with a rake. All the while that stupid bird was pooping all over the place! By the time I got it out I was so flustered, I just went ahead and closed up the hole in the garage. Let see you make a nest now little bird!

The birds.........waiting to get into the garage.

The hole that I covered.

Happy Mother's Day to ME!

Another Mother's day come and gone. It was a great day. Mike, made me ableschievers (sp?) for breakfast and for dinner my sister Kristine and her husband Mike came over and we had pasta salad, turkey sandwiches (with Mike Crosby's yummy rolls) and fruit. Braxton made a yellow cake that we topped with whip cream and strawberries. Doesn't get much better than that. As a mother's day gift we went out and bought a childrens playground for our backyard. Now the trick is, will it be put together before the summer is over.......

Mike, super excited to be making dinner!
So, if you can't be with your mom on mother's day, what's the next best thing?.....your sister of course. I don't think I've mentioned this, but my sister, Kristine and her family moved out here in December. It's been fun to have family close by. Now, my brother and his wife will be moving down to Charleston, SC at the end of the month. I went 9 years without having any family close by, now I'll have almost half of my family here.

FINALLY!

Braxton is 8 yrs old and finally starting to lose his baby teeth. I don't know why it's taken so long, but they've started coming out. He lost his first top tooth on Mother's Day and now has a hard time saying his S's and F's. It's pretty funny.

My "girly-girl"

Who'd have thought that I'd be raising a "girly-girl". Not that I'm super masculane, but I was never really "girly" as a child. I hated wearing dress's/skirts, didn't like to have my nails painted, always wore my hair in a ponytail, cause I didn't like it in my face, just things like that. Hailey on the other hand, loves Sunday's because she gets to wear one of her "princess" dress's to church, loves to have her nails painted, loves to put make-up on, loves anything that resembles "princess".

One of her favorite things is for her and I to paint our toenails. She is very good at sitting still and waiting for the nail polish to dry. She'll constantly let inform me not to touch her nails cause they are wet and she'll walk around the house on the heels of her feet until she feels like the polish has dried.

Today, she felt like she was big enough to paint her own nails. Let's just say thank goodness I was smart enough to have her do it in the bathroom on the tile floor. (easy cleanup) But she was very proud of what a good job she did.

Look at that concentration.....

She's a pro.

Happy with the finished product!

The birdie is in the playroom.....

It was a typical morning, Hailey and I cleaning and getting ready for the day. We'd just finished getting the playroom in order, and I had sent her to go and pick out her clothes while I went downstairs to do the dishes. About 15 minutes later Hailey comes running downstairs saying, very matter of factly, "the birdie is in the playroom". I just kind of brushed it off thinking that she was talking about a stuffed animal she had put away in the toy box. So I told her we'd put it away and we would play with it later. I sent her back upstairs to get dressed. 5 minutes later she came back downstairs, insisting the birdie was in the playroom. Again, getting irritated at this point, I told her that it was put away and we'd play with it later. She explained that there was a "birdie at the window". So at this point I thought she'd meant a bird had perched itself on the outside ledge of the window. I told her I'd come in a minute to see it. For 10 minutes she persisted that I see the birdie. So I reluctantly went upstairs and by golly there was a little bird sitting on the floor of the playroom. Not sure how it got into our house, but there you have it.