The Finishing Touch

Well for the first time ever, I decided to get up at 3:30 a.m. and try my luck at the Black Friday experience. Let me tell you it was definitely an experience! I headed straight to J.C. Penny's to get the Christmas tree they had marked down to $108 from $340 - there was only going to be six of them available at our store. As luck would have it, I showed up 20 minutes early and I was able to get my hands on one. So since it was sooo easy, I decided to head over to Wal-Mart to try and get the trampoline that they had on special. Since their doors didn't open for another 45 minutes I figured I'd have a fighting chance at least....BIG MISTAKE!!! An hour and a half later, I was finally able to walk out of the store, although it was trampoline-less....talk about a nightmare! But I had my tree, so I was excited. Since I brought it home this morning Blake bugged all day to put it up, so once Dad got home from work and we had dinner we got all of our decorations put up. Now Blake just has 32 more days to stare at it and for it to drive him crazy before Christmas gets here....and that Mom and Dad have 32 days to keep Ashlyn from unwrapping all the gifts and undecorating the tree - wish us all luck!

A Georgia Hot Tub

This is how our jetted garden bath tub is used the most - a playpen for my children! As you can see they're in there playing cars, that's what Ashlyn does every day while I'm getting ready in the morning. It's great to have the tub, but in the year that we've lived here I've probably only used it 10 times or so - it's just too hot the majority of the year. Rick on the other hand likes to use it as an ice bath after he's worked out in the yard during the miserable summer months. He'll fill it up with straight cold water, turn the jets on and sit there and freeze. I guess it's good that somebody's getting use out of it!

"I think I can, I think I can...."

"I knew I could, I knew I could!" Blake went out today with a much better attitude to try and learn to ride his bike and whata ya know - he figured it out on the first try! Now we have a little who knows how to ride a bike - yipee! Now he's already bugging us to go on the bike tour of Jekyll Island - we told him he had to learn to ride without training wheels before we'd take him because it's 8 miles. So it looks like we'll have to go on one of Dad's days off during Christmas Break and rent bikes for Mom and Dad and a seat for Ashlyn to ride the island.

Beautiful Tennessee

The family poses for a photo op overlooking Chattanooga, Tennessee.Dad and Ashlyn testing out the old rickety swinging bridge to cross over one of the canyons - yikes!Great Grandma Woolhiser helps Blake with the viewer to check out the valley below.

We decided to get out of town this weekend for a long weekend and go up northeast of Atlanta to visit my aunt, uncle, cousins and grandparents. Since they live about an hour south of the Tennessee border we decided to go up to Chattanooga for a day for some sight seeing. It's beautiful up there with all of the fall colors, you can't begin to describe it. We went and saw Ruby Falls, hiked around Rock City, rode the incline railroad and had a blast.

Soccer Pizza Party

We had Blake's team pizza party this weekend to celebrate the end of the soccer season. He had a lot of fun playing this year even though he got his fingers smashed pretty bad while playing goalie - it's been over a month and they still don't look "normal". He was pretty excited when he saw how cool their trophies were this year, it even has his name on it.

Open Wide

Ashlyn has decided that when she's had enough to eat, this is her way of letting us know. She opens her mouth as wide as she can and lets the last bite just oooooze out all down her face - what a turkey! It's a good think she's so cute, because sometimes ya just wanna wring her little neck.

What's With Kids and Suitcases?

I'm not sure what kids think when ya get out a suitcase to pack to go out of town. Do they think we'll forget them? We are going to Atlanta for a long weekend and were packing to leave and guess what I found in my suitcase after I left the room for a minute - Ashlyn! Blake did the same thing when he was about two months younger. Since I knew I had the same picture of Blake, I ran for the camera when I saw her get into the suitcase. Crazy kids!

"Wow, a real living room!"

That was Blake's response when he came home from school today after the delivery boys game. Can you tell Ashlyn likes it too? Our house is starting to look less and less like that of college kids and more and more like that of adults - we got a new living room suit today, as they say in the south. We were a little worried about how it would fit, but it worked great. We're slowly, but surely setting up house and loving every minute of it! We still have to find some finishing touches to add to the room. Rick would say that it needs some knick-knacks - I hate that word! So I politly told him that our living room needed nothing crocheted or that would be found at a 90+ year old's estate sale (my definition of knick-knacks), but that we'd find some things to spice it up and accent things a bit.

"I Like to Ride my Bicycle, I Like to Ride my Bike"

Blake would not agree to the lyrics of this popular song. We finally forced him to take the training wheels off of his bike this weekend - if we would have waited until he was ready we'd have a 15 year old still using training wheels. As you can tell by the first picture, he didn't take it too well and did nothing but cry even though we never let go and he never fell. Eventually after we got tired of hearing him freak out enough about how he's going to fall and get hurt we did let go and watch him fall, many times - none of which he got hurt. After he realized that even if he did fall he wasn't going to get hurt, he was able to figure it all out. He still has Dad run along side in case he needs help, but he's getting the hang of it.

Freaky Georgia Critters!

Okay, I am about tired of the crazy wildlife here in Georgia. Last night I got up to get a drink of water around midnight and flicked on the light in the back entry way so I could see to get to the kitchen when I saw something small and oval and the floor. Thinking it was a leaf that got tracked in the house earlier that evening when Rick mowed the lawn I bent down to pick it up and throw it away. Needless, to say it was not a leaf and it hopped into the laundry room and landed on the laundry soap. Totally freaked out, I yelled out for Rick - I hadn't got close enough to see what it was and since it was only about 2 inches long, I thought it was a Palmetto Bug. Rick got quite the laugh when he came in and saw it was just a tiny tree frog. However, I got the last laugh when he had to run around the laundry room and back entry way (in his underwear)chasing it to take it outside. Then once he had it, still in his underwear, he had to take it outside to let it go - he didn't dare try and put clothes on a risk it getting away! I'm telling ya' the critters that they have here are crazy!

Say Cheese!

Here are a couple of cute pictures of the kids that I took the other day because there was a cute kid contest that I wanted to enter them in. Ashlyn was a pain in the butt and I literally had to run around the backyard after her. The only reason I was able to get this picture was she fell down and I was quick on the draw. Blake was a little more cooperative, but kept on telling me how annoyed he was that I told him what to wear instead of him picking his clothes. Considering their lack of cooperation, I think they turned out cute.

Pop Rocks!

The kids had a great time trick-or-treating last night and ended up with a bigger bowl at the end of the night than we handed out at our house. Blake's pretty good a rationing out his candy, so hopefully it's gone before Halloween comes around again next year. Here's a couple of pictures of them tasting some Pop Rocks that Blake ended up with in his bucket - can you tell that they're not impressed! We couldn't believe it, that was a classic when we were kids!