Bull Creek Ranch

We went to Bull Creek Ranch for a fun afternoon of canoeing, swimming and fishing in the pond for my friend, Paul's birthday on Friday. It was a dreamy site with the clearest water I have ever seen in a pond. Caleb and Adam loved every minute of the festivities, and hit it off with Paul's nephew, Marshall.











Annabelle, Kiah, and I watched the action from the deck overlooking the pond and then on the dock too. It was perfect weather and a lovely time!

THE TOOTH FAIRY

We are in the midst of the tooth-loosing stage at our house these days. Caleb has lost all four of his bottom teeth and Adam just lost his first one this evening. I say "lost" in the case of Adam but that doesn't do the removal of the tooth process justice with that little guy. Let me start by explaining the two distinct levels of pain tolerance in my boys. Adam is the toughest of the toughest (besides Lanie who isn't quite right when it comes to pain) and Caleb is just............not very tough. I used to think of a having a high tolerance for pain as a good character quality one possesses, but now I believe it has more to do with physical pain receptors that we each are born with. Does that make sense? So, the ability to bear pain is not only due to the idea of just being emotionally tough and all, but is more due to the fact that pain actually feels differently to some people. I have seen this played out with Caleb and Adam. Caleb painfully teethed for weeks as a baby, while Adam's baby teeth just appeared one day. No warning, just there they were. Then there is the shameful fact that when Adam broke his femur bone at the age of two, we didn't even take him to the doctor until the next morning because he quit crying pretty quickly and we were in Georgia so we waited..... bad parent feeling, for sure when we found out it was actually broken.

ANYWAYS, back to the teeth. Caleb has probably set some sort of record for how long a tooth can be loose and holding on by a strand before it falls out naturally. Adam, on the other hand, had a this tooth that was just barely loose and he yanked and pushed on it .....and had me pull as hard as I could...... and had Seth pull on it........... and had Emily pull on it... until we finally got that darn thing out. ( it did have a permanent tooth growing in well behind it so I thought it would be good to get it out anyhow) He was so excited to finally lose a tooth!

Let me back up and tell you why it is so exciting to loose a tooth around here. It is not because they get a lot of money. It is actually because they have a personal relationship with the tooth fairy herself. Emily (10 yr. old neighbor) has taken it upon herself to put on this whole masquerade of tooth fairy-ness. She writes them notes from the tooth fairy and even calls them every other day or so to tell them about her adventures and how they need to be well-behaved and all. I am astounded at how gullible they are. It almost worries me. And then I think, "wow, if I accomplish teaching them anything in school it will be quite an achievement" OK, I am kidding, they are both pretty darn smart. just gullible.


It really is cute and quite helpful. The tooth fairy tells them to make sure and remember to wear their shoes to the gym, do their handwriting assignment, and brush their teeth well.

I had better go and put Adam's money under his pillow. I forgot one time with Caleb. It was OK because I just snuck up that morning and switched it out. I'll bet you never knew that the tooth fairy can come during breakfast!

Seth took the boys down to Bear Creek (La Grange, GA) for a weekend of fishing, biking, fourwheeling, and scouting for the upcoming hunting season. They had a wonderful time with Papa and Uncle Heath. Seth says that Adam has a real talent for fishing. He is not just patient but has that little unexplainable something that makes him quite the little fisherman. He loves it. This is one of the many fish he caught:







That left Annabelle and me home for a little girls weekend. I, of course, had grand plans for all that I would get accomplished, but in the end realised that Annabelle is the one who deters me the most from my daily tasks. I did do quite a bit of housework and paperwork done so I settled for that. On Friday, Lorie did my hair so I could check that off my list of things to do as well. Then Saturday I spent mainly organising all of the homeschool stuff for the upcoming school year. We started yesterday with our handwriting, reading, and math. It went well and I am actually pretty excited about the year. I like how as the boys get older, they are so much easier to teach.......like something connects in their brains so that they just understand concepts.


It is good to get a little time away from those guys once in a while so we can really miss them and enjoy them more when they come home.

On Sunday, Annabelle and I went to Mimi's birthday party:


























Oh yeah, Kiah and I made Mimi's birthday cake together Saturday and then she spent the afternoon planning a fashion show with my 10 year old neighbors, Emily and Gentry.


You know, maybe I got more done than I had originally thought.......









These are a few pictures of Annabelle's favorite activity lately...."playing beans" Basically she just plays in the backyard filling plates and buckets with gravel and serving them to the boys or me as "beans". It is pretty darn cute. The other picture is Caleb and his homemade spear. he loves to attach pointy rocks on the end of sticks to make some sort of weapon.

Wow, with a little rest, my outlook on everything changes so dramatically! Thanks to everyone for the sweet, uplifting comments about my previous post. You are all so wonderful.
















So, back to the Harrison Household happenings. Right now the kids are running full speed up and down the hallway while pretending to be on dirt bikes. When they get to the bonus room they pull off amazing stunts and tricks for the imaginary onlookers. Annabelle is right there with them running as fast as her little legs will carry her. I am getting a kick out of listening to them. Adam did a flip off of his desk in the playroom earlier today and landed flat on his back on the floor. It didn't seem to phase him and I had to stop him from trying again. That kid has no fear.

These pictures are from earlier last week when we decided to take an adventure out in Bent Creek for the afternoon. My ten year old neighbor, Emily, came along with us and we all walked the bike trail out to the little swimming pond near the campgrounds there. It was pretty cool though we were all really worn out from it all. Can you believe how OLD Caleb looks in this picture?



Emily has been hanging out with us a lot lately which is truly a blessing for me since she is so helpful with the kids. She is a real sweetie and Annabelle loves her so much.
We are going to go into a depression when she has to go back to school at the end of the month.











I ran in the Sourwood 5K this morning and enjoyed running a race at my "home stadium". It was sweet to know all of the volunteers cheering us along the way. I also liked that the route backtracked so that we could hive five or wave at the other runners as we all passed. Cheshire worked the event out quite ingeniously in that they were lots of age categories for the winners (5 year increments for male and female runners 1st 2nd and 3rd places) and therefore LOTS of awards. I came in second in my division and went home with a lovely jar of Sourwood honey. Better than that, I beat my personal time from the other races by a little. Even better than that, while everyone waited for them to tally the results, someone suggested that I sing a song........and so I did. I sang a little a capella version of Sweet Dreams by Patsy Cline. Do you think I am so weird?

Sadly I have no pictures from the race though I might find a few at the gym later this week or online.















I added a pretty cute little video of the kids at the pool too so feel free to check it out.

I am totally overwhelmed by life right now.


So I thought I would blog.


I just really go through times in the week when I feel way in over my head.


selling our house
homeschooling the boys
dealing with the onset of "terrible twos" with Annabelle
bookkeeping for Harrison Homes
designing the next house plans
teaching classes
keeping this enormous house clean.....in SHOWING condition no less!
cooking decent meals


I will get over this. In the meantime, I will just take it one step at a time. right?

I learned a very valuable lesson this week.
Never drive down the DO NOT ENTER/ One Way streets in Montreat......especially if your license has been expired for 3 months.

Yep, I got pulled over on Monday but got off with just a warning ticket which I considered very fortunate. The next day I bit the bullet and went down to the DMV to get a new license. It wasn't all that bad though because it only took about an hour. Sure, I would have loved to have been the gal sitting in there waiting and merely reading a magazine rather than the one with three fidgeting kids to entertain, but we made it happen and I should be good for the next eight years now. (or until my license gets lost in the unorganised mess of a life I live)

I will make it a point to post again as soon as I feel cheerful.