Getting ready for church Alaina and I had a fun little conversation:

Christy "Laina, you have such a cute bum!"

Alaina smiles demurely.

Christy "Where did you get such a cute bum?"

Alaina ponders this for a minutes and then smiles, "In my underwear!"

A cute bum and undies for under 5 bucks. Who knew?

Ahhh....another visit from a parent....another room decorated. I am a really, really fun person to visit! Come and see us. I still have a couple more rooms to paint and when we are done with that, we can start on the yard :)








Dad spent the first couple of days painting the room a pretty ash-blue. It looked so good that I was really worried I might totally screw it up with my crazy little idea. After a lot of patience, blue tape and careful measuring, we think we got the room looking pretty snazzy.

Hobby Lobby

I pushed my cart of children up to the register and rummaged around at their feet trying to find the few items I was able to cram in between them. The check-out girl was giving us the usual glazed over look I get from most people who have at least five more hours of crafty items to slide over their register. I muttered some half-hearted apology for taking so long as I disloged the last little picture frame out from from under Austin's impressively large bum and threw it on the counter with the rest of the junk. Avoiding any eye contact with the growing line of harried looking women behind me, I slide my credit card and waited impatiently to sign the signature pad. Half a second after a "beep," I was waiting, hand out-stretched, for the receipt. The girl promptly slapped it on my palm and just as I was about to jet off, Alaina leaned forward to the check-out girl, flashed a smile and said, "Thank you, Gorgeous!" The girl shook her head out of her work-induced coma and looked at Alaina (who was still leaning forward with an ear to ear grin) and said, "what? " "THANK YOU, GORGEOUS!" my baby loudly reiterated.
The check out girl laughed and with a new gleam in her eye, said, "oh...thank you." The once indifferent line of women behind me came to life and swarmed up to the cart with oohs and aahs. "Aren't they adorable." "Are those curls real?" "Are they all yours?" They smiled. They touched. The kids, as usual, ate it up . Even my day seemed a bit less dreary. Who knew that a simple little statement could do?

Charleston. Gorgeous. Love it. Wish you were here.

Mom and I took the kids there for a day trip last Monday. The 3 hour highway trip seemed more like a lazy Sunday drive through the dense woodland of South Carolina. Charleston looked as romantic as it is described in The Patriot & Gone with the Wind with its old balconied homes and manicured gardens over looking the ocean. At least in historic Charleston. Mom kept an eye out for Rhett Butler and Scarlet O'Hara even though I told her she should be looking out for 90 year olds.

We walked down one of these well preserved streets with the kiddies. Hundred year old trees shade the sidewalks bordered by wrought iron fences flowers entwining. Horse drawn carriages pass through the streets every 5 minutes carting tourist around trying to get a glimpse into the past with these architectural gems. It was here that Austin decides to drop his pants and yell out, "I have to go pee pee!" Before I could stammer out any response Ethan has his pants around his ankles saying, "Me too!" Mom was on the cell and backed around the corner pretending she didn't see me. (she did) I couldn't let those boys pee on one of those elegant homes. For one...I might have been arrested. So I pointed them towards the best thing I could think of. The drain. The only real problem was that in order to hit the drain I had to face the boys towards the street...where all the passing horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians could see them. Alaina was pretty bummed she couldn't join him.

Later we went out on this huge fishing pier out on the beach on neighboring James island. It was getting pretty chilly on our way back in, so you can imagine my surprise when I looked back and saw, for the second time of the day, Austin's bare bottom. I quickly walked back and tried to pull his pants back up, but he was pretty adamant about keeping them down. "I want a bath!" he cried. We were right next to the fish gutting sinks, which I imagine he thought were like big tubs. When I told him that the sinks were broken (my usual response when the kids want to use something I don't want them to use) he shook his head and pointed to the ocean and yelled out, "I WANT A BATH!" Yes, that's right. A bath in the ocean. My boy looked so set on jumping on in himself that I decided to carry him the rest of the way. What can I say? My boys love being in the buff.

Austin did actually manage a few seconds of nudity after he fell head first into the ocean (while chasing waves on the beach.) Mom stripped him down and covered him in her sweatshirt until we could get back to the car. He is pretty cute naked.

The day Mom came into town we decided to put Alaina up in pin curls.
Laina actually let us do it without much fuss, but when we took her hair down, it looked exactly the same way it does with a little hair gel.


We let mom have one break from the sewing machine and took her out to ice-cream. She was so happy to see the sky that she was impossible to get back into the house. From then on, she was only allowed to look out of the windows. ;)
































The kids had a great time at the church Easter egg hunt. They sat down to look at their loot, and before we knew it, Ethan had chocolate smeared from one side of his face to the other and an empty basket. Gotta love those Easter sugar highs. On Easter Sunday we let the kids color their own eggs. Actually, I let Mom do all the work with the kids while I took pictures. We made a great team.

Lora Bear Michelle Piggle-Poo Scribner (aka Bo Da Dee Bear, Lolo) got hitched. It's true. I could hardly believe it myself. The problem is, anytime I ever look at this girl my eyes disconnect from my brain and all I see is a little girl. Images likes these distract me from the grown up conversation she is having about college, mission, dating etc.

In fact, when she told me she was engaged, I had a total 'Father of the Bride' moment with the image of this little girl saying, "I met a boy, we fell in love and I'm getting maaarrrriiieeddd!"

A couple of days before the wedding, I spent the morning with Lolo and Marks-&-Spencers at the beach with some of his family. All of a sudden I looked over at her and saw this grown up beautiful women. It was incredible...she was poised and engaging and just when this new vision started to settle in she jumped on a boogie board and barrelled down a sand dune with her hunk-o-burin'-love. It wasn't the brightest idea to start with and became increasing silly as they crashed and burned 3 quarters of the way down. In a flash of sand and dirt, Lolo managed to turn back into a little girl.

In the flurry of the next few days our sweet little sister had a few bridzilla moments, a few emotional moments and a couple fleeting moments of panic. But, then Saturday came, and there she was. Simply gorgeous. She was graceful and calm. And she owned the room. Every bride is the center of attention on her wedding day, but not all brides make everyone around her feel equally important. Little kids and old folk were given the same loving attention. I should have known it all along...I've seen her growing up. But I don't think I've actually seen her as a grown up until now.

Oh...and that Mark is okay, too.

Well, he doesn't stink or nuthin'.

All wedding photos were taken by Kari since my camera was on the fritz and she took such great pictures. A women of many talents...she also made the cake!

There I was, a ninth grader. The year was 1989 and leggings were in. So were stripped shirts, rainbow neon and off-set ponytails. I detested it all. I had spent the last year perfecting my get-away-from-me/I-don't-care glare. Def Leppard, Metalalica, Bon Jovi and Scorpions with a healthy dash of Cars (thanks to Scott) and Talking Heads (thanks to Craig) were my main musical repertoire. I had studiously turned my entire wardrobe black and decided that black eyeliner was the only makeup worth wearing. Mom had spent the entire year trying to get me to wear pink. Christmas was a pink sweater dress that was collecting dust in the closet...although I secretly thought I looked pretty good in it. The only cool person I knew who looked good in pink was Scotty. Pink neon, of course. And he only pulled it off because, well, he could pull anything off.

The year is now 2007. Leggings are in (didn't learn the first time around, did we ladies?) Over sized stripped shirts in neon sit haphazardly on nearly every mannequin in the mall. And I just spent the last 3 days studiously creating a masterpiece bedroom that would have made my 9th grade self jump off a cliff. Pink. Pink walls. Pink flowers. Light greens and yellows. Granted, it isn't my room. It is Alaina's. But It looks as thought a pink flamingo threw-up in that room. Not just pink, mind you. But flowers. Lots of flowers in pastels. Lots of glitter. Lots of sparkly thingies. And everytime I look at it a huge grin spreads across my face. Ahhh...what do 9th graders know anyways?

Mom has spent the last week with us and I immediately forced her to pull out the sewing machine and slave away the entire time. She made some curtains in the office/spare room. She made that awesome canopy matching curtain. I think she started to rethink the whole idea of coming to visit. The pink overload was completely my idea. Halfway through the painting I started having serious doubts about my color choice. I finished at 3 p.m. and even as I washed off the brushes I wasn't sure what I thought. After a good long sleep, though, everything looked perfect.