Fall Beach Trip.

For the second year in a row (tradition!) we took full advantage of our furlough day and headed down to the beach with the Boozer family.  This year, Daddy Boozer hooked us up with a condo in none other than PCB and we spent a great three-day weekend sleeping, eating, swimming, eating, riding go carts, and eating.  Perfection.

Here's a quick rundown of our weekend:

Friday:  Hit the road after work.  Dinner at Cracker Barrell.  Roll into PCB in time to unload and lay down. :)

Saturday:  Up and excited!  Devour a bag of Honey Nut Cheerios.  Hit the beach.

Emmy LOVED splashing and crawling and getting wet.  She was at such a great age to enjoy the beach!!!

The biggies loved the water, too, but spent quite a bit of time digging holes in the sand as well.

Mid-day break for lunch and naps.  We hopped in the car to head down the strip and ended up stopping at Pier Park for some fantastic Seafood Nachos at the The Back Porch.

The afternoon was spent at the pool.

And then, after an awful first half of the Georgia game, we headed out to The Red Bar for crab cakes and chocolate brownies.  Delicious.

Sunday:  Hit repeat.  Donuts for breakfast, beach time for all. 

The weather over the weekend was absolutely perfect.  Hadley spent hours in the ocean, simply floating around.  She loved having her toes nibbled by the little fish and catching hermit crabs with Cadence, Brock, and Harris.  They ended up with quite a collection.

The mid-day break for lunch ended up, well, interesting.  We decided to leave the beach and walk over to Dusty's on the Captain's orders.  Dusty's wasn't far at all from our spot on the beach, and I don't think anybody else minded too much, but this pregnant mama felt like I was walking on asphalt straight from Hades.  It's a good thing the food and company were good, because our poor little waitress was struggling.  And that's putting it nicely.  We laughed a lot.

We hit the pool immediately after walking back from lunch and then collapsed for late afternoon naps.  After a good 2+ hour rest, we headed out for pizza and go-carts. 

So much fun!

Of course, no trip to the Gulf Coast is complete without a stop at The Donut Hole, so we hit that place up for breakfast after checking out on Monday morning.

 

I'm honestly going to miss this furlough day if it ever gets taken out of the calendar!  We're still partial to Fernandina in the summer time but have loved us some Destin and Panama City in the off season.

 

Thanks for an awesome weekend, Boozer fam!

Ten Months.

Wowza.  Ten months.  Where to start?

Probably with your weight and height from your 9-month well-check, which I forgot to mention last time.  Back on September 10, you weighed in at 18 lbs 3 oz (36 %) and were 27 inches long (28%).  You continue to be the smallest baby yet, although I still haven't gone back to compare actual weights and heights.  Maybe one day.

You continue to be full of life, smiles, laughs, and babble.  Your top two teeth are getting ready to break through and really haven't caused much of an issue for you yet.  You're still a great sleeper, going down around 7:30 for the night and up again around 7:00 (later on the weekends) in the morning.  You're hanging on to that little morning nap (about an hour or so around 9:00) and are still championing a two-hour afternoon nap (as long as we're home!). 

You're a lightning-fast crawler and have mastered the art of pulling yourself up to your knees.  You climb on, over, and through whatever you can find and still LOVE to be entertained by your brother and sister.  You understand "no" and occasionally obey the command...Norman's food, water, and kennel are some of your favorite forbidden things to get into.  You also babble "ma ma" and "da da" constantly, and will often look to each of us when we ask you to identify someone. 

You're a dancer.  Daddy often plays songs for you on the iPad and you bounce and clap away.  "Cherokee Boogie," by BR5-49, is your absolute favorite and you love being the center of attention whenever we all start singing and laughing with you.

Your hair is still red, your belly is still big, your feet are still tiny, and your ears are still full of wax.  You're still a great eater (a good mix of baby and table food) and have gone back to drinking a little more formula throughout the day (between 20-24 oz).   

You're over being confined. No more swing and it's extremely rare for you to tolerate the bouncy seat or exersaucer anymore.  You're most definitely a girl on the go!  You're into EVERYTHING, too...if you can reach it, out it comes.  We're getting over your "stranger anxiety" phase, too...there are rarely tears in the church or gym nursery anymore, although you still prefer to be held by someone in both of those situations.

You still seem so little to me.  I know in just a few months, once Thatcher arrives, you'll seem like a giant, so I'm trying to hold on to your "littleness" as long as I can.

I love you, girl-girl.

Glory!

I surprised Ben (and earned myself wife of the year status) this past April by purchasing a pair of extra special pants for his birthday.

He wore them a couple of weeks ago to the UGA/Tennessee game.

I'm quite certain that everybody we passed on our walk to the stadium commented.  And my man totally dug the attention.

I'll never be able to top those things.  :)

Culture Day.

Every September, Primrose celebrates "Culture Day."  Each class picks a country to study in-depth and then shares that knowledge with all the other students in the building.

This year, Hadley's class chose to study Scotland.

She was the cutest little lass I've ever seen. :)

Babe had a great time parading around the "Primrose Patch" and joining hands with her friends to sing "It's a Small World" at the top of her lungs before "traveling" to all the different countries represented in the building.

Parenting more than one child never ceases to amaze me.  There are times when she is so strikingly similar to Harris and then times when their differences cause me to think they couldn't possibly be related. 

While Had was excited to see me at school, she's so unbelievably independent and comfortable in her own skin that my presence didn't really seem to make a difference to her...which is completely unlike her older brother.  I'm not sure if that's a personality trait or simply a byproduct of having seen him go through it all, but she takes everything at school in stride...

And never, ever stops talking.

I love that girl. :)

Tailgate Sunday.

Tailgate Sunday has become one of my favorite church traditions.  It's seriously hard to beat tailgating at church...it doesn't get much better than worship and buffalo chicken dip.

David Greene came to speak at Tailgate Sunday this year.  Harris thought it was super cool that he used to play for UGA, but didn't quite have the attention span to listen to the former quarterback speak in church.  At one point, he leaned over to me and said, "When is David Greene going to stop talking?!?!?!"

David didn't stop soon enough for Ben.  In fact, Ben got his very own shout-out from the stage for his outfit of the day.

I love that man.  Ben, not David.  I don't even know David.

How 'Bout Them Dawgs!

While I haven't taken too many pictures of the last couple of Georgia games (Tennessee and Vanderbilt), I managed to take enough for the rest of the season a few weeks ago when Florida Atlantic was in town.  We headed down to Athens late in the afternoon to enjoy tailgating with quite a few of our friends.  Auntie and DB even made the trip with us!

The kids always have such fun playing before games.  Football is, of course, a favorite game, but they've also been known to play Star Wars, go on "nature walks," and eat donuts by the handful.  And you can rest assured that at some point during the day, Hadley's going to steal a little hug from Walker.  In fact, she told us during lunch a couple of weeks ago that she was, "falling in love with Walker."  Lord, help us.

We made it into the stadium fairly early, even after stopping in The Letterman's Club for a bathroom break. 

The game was such a blast, especially since we beat The Owls by quite a few touchdowns. :)  The kids love cheering, yelling, and listening to the band.  They also like the cotton candy.  Harris' favorite parts of the game are when the big screen says, "make some noise!" and "gooooooo dawgs!"  Hadley loves the dancers.

In fact, because it was Letterman's Day, we got to make the trip down to the field at halftime.  My sweet girl was in heaven after getting her picture made with a G-Dawg "twon twirler."  We even printed that bad boy out so she could take it to school.  That girl is IN LOVE with the dancers and twirlers in the band.

As usual, the kids had a blast on the field.

 

And, once we made it back to our seats, Babe spent the second half pretending that she herself was a "twon twirler" and that we were all dying to have our picture taken with her.  That girl is awesome.

We couldn't have asked for better behaved, more engaged kids.  Especially for their first night game.  In fact, when we finally made it home and I put Harris in the bed, he woke up just long enough to say, "Man, we rocked them tonight."

I love sharing football season as a family. 

Seriously.

My Favorite Fair.

A couple of weeks ago (probably more like three), we made our annual trip to the county fair.  I really can't explain to you what it is about the fair that causes me to work it into my budget every September, plan out the perfect afternoon for us to make the trip over, and be willing to keep my kids up a little bit later than normal on a school night, but I'm hooked.  And so is the rest of my family. :)

We ended up meeting Granti, Auntie, DB, Cody, Mo, Raven, and Sam for opening (and cheap hand stamp) night.  We spent the early part of the evening in Kiddie Land.

Of course, my pregnant self had to sit out on the hand stamp yet again this year, so Ben lucked out and got to ride quite a bit.

My pregnant self did, however, fit in well at the fair.  Especially with Emmy on my hip. :)

After riding everything (that was working) in Kiddie Land, we headed to the 4-H petting zoo.  In addition to the animals and the free milk, the kids also scored some super cool balloon hats.

And then we made the transition over to the big fair.  Harris had a blast!  He's tall enough to ride just about everything and believe it or not, the kid's a dare devil.

He and Auntie had a blast on the Crazy Mouse.  They even rode twice!  Ben and Granti...not so much.  In fact, I'm quite certain Ben's squeals could be heard across the entire fairground.  Easily the highlight of the evening for me.

Both kids enjoyed multiple fun houses, the house of mirrors, and the ferris wheel.  Harry rode the big, yellow sack-race slide over and over and over again, while Babe was compensated for being too short by being taken to see "Mermaid Girl" with Granti.  I think Granti was a little disappointed.

Emmy, bless her heart, just gave up and went to sleep.

The kids ended the night with a ride on the Frog Hopper.  I'm pretty sure that's becoming a tradition.

Until next year, fair...you better believe we'll be back!