Last Wednesday, I traded Lanie to Amie for Annabelle after class and we went to some of our friends' house to play while the little ones played and then napped. Amie got some really cute pictures that I just had to share with you all! Annabelle and Lucie ADORE one another!

Uncle Jonathan stopped by and hung out a little. He is so good with kids.

We had a lovely afternoon celebrating Eli Bobilya's first birthday party down at RECO. There was a creek to play in, lots of good food, friends and of course FOURWHEELERS and DIRTBIKES! Here are some pictures of the festivities:















The boys were thrilled to see a boy named Adam and his family show up. He is cousins with one of our other friends and they remembered from the pool this past summer. Anyhow, he is seven years old and brought a 50 dirtbike. SWEET.


















I had never heard of the tradition of letting the baby let a balloon fly away at the party until this one. It was pretty neat to watch it go on and on and on.

Lillyann is Eli's cousin and will be one in June!
She is too cute!

Annabelle had about as much fun as the boys. She loved playing in the creek and grazing at the food table. Ami always makes an awesome spread for any gathering!








Adam was so excited because he got to ride the dirtbike and did very well with it. Caleb has done it before, but last time Adam tried, he crashed. We forgot their helmets so they had to borrow Eli's!







The boys end up wet from head to toe if there is anymore than two inches of water involved.





Annabelle prefers to sit on the fourwheeler when it is OFF. She wants no part in riding anything at this point in her life.

Did you watch the Extreme Home Makeover Finale on Sunday evening? I forgot to remind everyone to watch it so we could all see Seth and Dana's one chance for stardom. Well, do not worry too much if you missed it. Seth and Dana didn't make the final cut to be shown for all of the hard, voluntary work they did that week. In fact, close to none of those regular workers were shown. I suppose that is what America would rather see.....those goofy designers and hot chicks with pink tool belts working. Ok, I am giving ABC too hard of a time, and I am afraid my blog might disintegrate over night if I say much more.... The show was just fine and I am so happy for that family and church to get a nice new start in life. It was quite sweet.

We went to a viewing party hosted by Deltec Homes at the Cinebarre that night. It was OK, but would have been better if Seth would have done a short little interview for WLOS and scored some news time. I had it all set up for him on one of our bathroom breaks but he would not do it! I tried my darnedest to get them to interview me instead, but when they realised that I hadn't even gone down there I got shot down. I told them that I could definitely work up a few tears, but they weren't impressed. (tears is something else America must want to see because over half of the show was dedicated to someone crying) ANYWHO, Seth and I might be alike in many, many ways, but when it comes to performing or getting in front of the camera, we are night and day. So Seth ushered me back to the theater after apologising to the news crew saying, "She gets all weird when there is a camera around guys." He had such a point there cause I DO get weird in front of a camera and I have since I was little. Most of our home videos include me being hugely obnoxious and a camera hog. I don't want to even begin to think about what that implies about my character. Let's not go there.


Dana wouldn't go out there to get a little airtime either. Come on, fellows, that was free advertising! So, oh well.


We did enjoy the hour leading up to the show because they played some clips of the actual building process and interviewed the folks who came from all over the country to make the project happen. I guess after the first few episodes viewers do not want to see how cool it is that they really build these house in a week. That might get redundant and they would rather see those eccentric designers instead. Well, I will close this with a quote from my friend, Paul, "It was a great thing everybody did, in spite of the oprah-like tear fest and the big-headed TV stars. We know who the real heroes are!"

Click here for a clip from the "show"

"the best day of my life".......

Caleb often declares certain days "the best day of his life" and yesterday just so happened to be one of those days. We started the morning by recovering his missing Heelie wheel from Aunt Amie's house. (he lost it the second day he got them) Then we went to the gym where someone made an extra yummy smoothie for the boys (I get a free one when I teach and they often vary in the ingredients depending on who makes the smoothie) After that we stopped by Mimi and Grandaddy's (who Annabelle now refers to as "Gay") to pick up some allergy medicine for me and the boys ended up staying for the afternoon of yard work (Caleb's FAVORITE pastime) shooting the air soft gun and Happy Meals. Then, Seth and I picked them up and we all headed to a friend's house for a cookout where they jumped on the trampoline and ran around wild shooting cap guns with their kids.

But, wait, there's more. Seth took the boys to a birthday party at the Cheshire pool at 6:30 while I took Annabelle to Mimi for the night. Then Lacie picked the boys up for me and brought them back to the cookout and they hung out around the campfire until almost midnight while we all played and sang.


That was one full day, huh?

This picture is totally unrelated, but what is a post with no pictures???!! Boring, I tell ya. So this is Kiah and Adam with Annabelle. Look at her little angel kiss mark on her forehead. That thing has faded a lot.

On Turning 30.......

So, I had my 30th birthday a couple of weeks ago. I think that turning 29 was harder because I spent the entire year dreading the arrival of May 2nd, so that when it finally rolled around I was over it, and I already thought of myself as thirty anyhow. It was a great excuse to have a cool birthday party, which I did. We had some friends over for our weekly family music gathering at Aunt Carolyn's and Uncle Larry's house and called it a birthday party. Seth spent the week after work making 2 very sweet fire pits for us to enjoy and getting things ready for it all. (what a guy!) I was surprised by a few out-of-town friends coming so that was super cool. My sisters got me the coolest necklace made by my friend Kelly and she gave me matching earrings. It was one of my favorite gifts ever (closely following my sweet guitar Dad bought me a few years ago). Anyways, I realised that I like my birthday no matter what year it is and I am going to make the best of it. Yep, bring on 31 cause I am ready now......






Then there was a really great Mother's Day following. Seth's parents came in to town for the weekend which means big time break for me. They come into town completely dedicated to the idea of taking our children off my hands as much as possible. It was so nice to run errands alone and go teach class all by my lonesome. They took the them to the movies during Annabelle's nap on Saturday and then took all three loafing that evening while Seth and I went out. When I got home from church Sunday, Reba had straightened the entire house once again. What a great feeling to come home to that! Of course the kids had a ball and Annabelle got her fill of the dog, Max. It was a great Mother's Day, and guess what my sweet kids (aka hubby) gave me...... One full day to do whatever I want and some spending money! Heck yeah, he knows how to make Moma happy these days.

Love those kids to death, but I really do not get many breaks from them these days!

Oh yes, we planted some of our garden this past week too. The boys helped till the space while Annabelle and I transfered our herbs out side. I can't wait for all of the yummy veggies!


I will leave you with a few pictures from tonight's bath time.

The River Battle

One of the great highlights of our Dollywood trip was riding the newest ride called "Water battle". We came around to this ride from the back and didn't really check it out before we decided to all hop on together. Even Annabelle could ride since she was allowed to sit in my lap. So we piled on these boats that had guns you could pump water through and shoot at the other boats. What we didn't realise, was that these same guns were all along the shore for onlookers to soak the passengers of each boat as it went by. So here we were, riding through this river with grown men drenching us without mercy from the guns on the shore. They were shooting us in the face. It was hilarious. I am sure that we set a record for being the loudest two boats to go through all of this. Kiah and Lanie were crying, I was screaming, "I have a baby in my lap!" and most of the others were shrieking like girls. I wish we could have gotten a picture as we exited, soaking wet.


But wait, it gets better......the best part was shooting the boats from the shore which we did for at least another thirty minutes. Caleb and Adam thought it was the greatest ride on earth so they rode it over and over while we drenched them from the sidelines. It was so fun.


Another highlight for me personally was riding the rollercoasters with Amie, Chuck, Jonathan, and Beth. In fact, Mimi braved one of the scariest rides with us too.

OK, I am back.

Where shall I begin to catch up? Let's start with the eye injury incident. A couple of weeks ago, Caleb and Adam were running through the upstairs turning out lights for me when they rounded a corner and collided with one another. Caleb's forehead hit Adam right above his right eye and busted it open. It was a small wound and he is pretty tough and cried very little, so I just put a couple of sterry strips on it to hold it together and went on about my business. Then about an hour later, Caleb comes to me to say, "Uh, Moma, you'd better look at Adam's eye." Sure enough, there was blood oozing out of the strips and running down his cheek. So I called the nurse and, of course, she says to take him to the ER. Adam and I grabbed some books and toys and headed there where we began the LONG wait to be seen. Remembering how quickly they got Caleb taken care of with his thumb, I asked Adam if he could scream or cry some but he said he just couldn't do it. So we waited...........and waited.......and Adam started to fall asleep.......and we waited. About 2 hours into the wait I went to check on our progress where the nurse told me there was a trauma that came in back there and we were looking at hours of more waiting at this point. Adam's eye had stopped bleeding so I made the call to go home and then take him to the sick clinic at our doctor's office early the next morning.
Friday morning, I woke up every kid at 6:30 so we would be the first patients seen at the doctor's office. It just so happened that the doctor who was on call that morning forgot to wake up and we ended up waiting for over an hour (3 kids in a VERY small room) to be seen After all of that, she said that the sterry strips looked fine and we could go on about our day. I was relieved and worn out to say the least. THEN, Friday evening, Caleb accidentally hit Adam with a golf club IN THE SAME SPOT! Well, actually, about an inch below. Luckily the "busted open part" was secured under the sterry strips from the night before. He did look rough to say the least though. I have a great picture but need to get it off of Lorie's camera.

He looks just fine now and I am amazed at how fast it all healed.

Up next, we took an awesome trip to Gatlinburg and Dollywood, courtesy of Mimi and Grandaddy. The first day, Lorie, Moma, Annabelle and I went shopping at the outlets while Grandaddy babysat the other kids for us. He took them to the pool, then to Chuckie Cheese and a few other places. At one point of their excursion, Adam looked up and said, "Are we loafing Grandaddy?" He told him yes and then proceeded to impress them beyind all belief by purchasing an M85 airsoft gun. The boys were astonished and thrilled! So they walked in with this gun all hyped up on candy and such from a glorious trip loafing with Grandaddy.
It was a sight!


That night Uncle Jonathan, Beth, and the Pittman fam arrived and the next morning we all went to Dollywood. It was really really fun! Mimie and Lucie (whom Annabelle calls "duh-duh") rode the elephants. Annabelle rode...nothing, except the merry-go-round. (but not on a horse, we had to sit on the bench like retards)

Only Jonathan Chuck and Beth's stomachs could handle this ride. It was like the pirate ship/dragon ride at carnivals except it spun at the same time.


I am quite sure that keeping Adam's eye soaked in "theme park water" helped it heal so quickly!
Since Annabelle was terrified of all of the rides, I let Caleb win her a duck in one of those games they ask to play all day long. She loved it, but I can't seem to find it now.
Caleb is not much of a daredevil yet when it comes to rides. He will ride like a maniac on his four wheeler doing wheelies and all but won't do anything more exciting than the Veggie Tales roller coaster at Dollywood. It is the control thing I guess.
Oh my, I haven't mentioned the latest stage in Annabelle's life where she would rather not be any further than a few inches from my hip at all times! The family was so helpful in tearing her off of me for a minute or two and distracting her so I could have a break. Truly, I don't mind it too much, cause I know it won't last long and how can you mind the fact that someone in this world wants YOU and only YOU.


Every Dollywood day must end with 10 consecutive rides on the obnoxious ride called the Rampage. The kids love it because they get ridiculously wet. Grandaddy was sucha good sport to ride it with them over and over.












I have lots more to share but I need rest now. I will finish this up later.