Sunday, December 27, 2009


Mason's Santa haul


The twins' Santa gifts (Seems a bit paltry
next to Mason's spread, but they didn't mind!)

















I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that Santa brought you just what you wanted! We had a very happy (and very busy) holiday here! We did Christmas in installments so we could celebrate with everyone. We started on Wednesday with Matt's dad, his brother, Jonathan, and Jonathan's roommate, Matt. We had pizza and presents, and that's a combo that can't be beat!

We had Christmas parts 2 and 3 on Christmas Eve. Part 2 was breakfast and presents at my parent's house, and part 3 was dinner and presents at Matt's mom's house. At this point, we had already racked up some major loot! Mason got video games from all his grandparents, I got a new steam mop, a fancy-pants breadmaker, and some other cool kitchen tools and such. Matt got clothes and a brand new vacuum cleaner. And no, people weren't trying to tell us that our house is dirty, these are things we asked for! So we went home Christmas Eve and mopped and vacuumed!! After we got Mason to bed, Matt and I spent a fun couple of hours playing all his new video games until it was time for Santa to come. And boy did Santa come! Mason got two more video games, plus a bunch of other toys. The twins favorite things were a shopping cart and a farm magnet set that talks and sings, and the humongous pop-up tent and tunnels set they got from my parents. It's been awfully nice having new stuff to entertain them! Matt's favorite present was his new vacuum. Mine was the CDs from my favorite tv show, Glee- I've been listening to them non-stop ever since!!!
We had Matt's mom, brother and his roommate over for breakfast Christmas morning (Christmas part 4) then we went to my aunt's house on Christmas day (Christmas part 5). It was really great to see every one, but we didn't stay too long because the twins were trying their best to get into things and go up the stairs and a host of other things they're not supposed to do. We were so busy trying to keep them corralled and out of trouble that we didn't get to spend nearly as much time with everyone as we would have liked. After we got home, Matt's mom, his aunt, Jonathan and his roommate came over for dessert (Christmas part 6). We were wiped out after such a busy day.

But the fun and celebration didn't end Christmas day. Matt and I always have some of our friends from high school who are now fabulous New Yorkers come to visit the day after Christmas. They're in town to celebrate the holidays with their families and we grab any opportunity we can get to see them. So they came over for dinner Saturday night (Christmas part 7) and we had a big time catching up.

Today was finally the day that we didn't have to go anywhere, but of course, there's never a day that we don't have to do anything! Today's agenda called for getting the Christmas tree out. It was REALLY crunchy, not to mention it takes up a huge amount of space. So we got that sucker out first thing this morning. I tell you what, we could not have done it without our wonderful Mason. He entertained and played with his brothers for well over an hour while Matt and I got the tree and the giant tree cage down. He was a champ! So as a reward, he got McDonalds for lunch and we all took a trip to the park this afternoon. And tonight we are doing nothing but sitting on our butts for some well deserved rest!

But even though we've had 7 Christmas celebrations, we're not 100% done. Matt's parents are giving us new cabinet doors for Christmas, so we're going to do that over the next few weeks. We got granite counter tops a couple of weeks ago, so cabinets are next, then repainting, then we'll have a fabulous kitchen. It will be the gift that keeps on giving!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Did y'all think I abandoned you? Sorry, but things have been CRAZY around here. So, I'm not sure if I mentioned a while back that I made some tutus for my girlfriends' kids that were quite glam. Well, they turned out so darn cute that I decided to try to make a few bucks off of them. So the past week or two has been spent trying to get the tutu business off the ground while simultaneously doing all the 10,000 things that mommies do to make Christmas happen.
I need everyone to say a prayer for my fledgling tutu empire. My cousin's daughter, Charlotte, was wearing her very glam tutu in Brooklyn, and a store owner was taken with it. She's looking for someone to make tutus and hairbows (oh yeah, I'm also hawking hairbows) for her store, so my cousin, Jane, told her about me! I spoke to the store owner, and hopefully she'll place an order after the holidays!!!! It may come to nothing, but I was very proud that someone liked my tutus enough to want to sell them! But y'all keep your fingers crossed that it happens.
For now, we're trying to get our website up and running. It's still in the very early, VERY rough stages, but you can check it out and see what I'm making. Come see me at www.thetutuzoo.com and order a fabulous custom tutu or hairbow (once we get our order page up!!)

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Here's a bit of a virtual Christmas card for all of you- those twins can dance!!!!

http://http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/yVe7dk9BRSyFiJUb

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

We've decked the halls on our blog!!!


My beloved in-house tech staff

Woohoo!! Check us out with our fancy holiday blog!! One million thanks to Matt, our in-house computer guy, for helping me navigate the murky waters of online scrapbook sites. And I think we finally have it fixed so that you can leave comments without having to jump through flaming hoops! (fingers crossed) Just click on the comment button at the bottom of the post and let me know what you think!! I want to hear from my (hopefully!) friendly readers.

The tree in all its glory being guarded by
the impenetrable tree cage!


Mason and his hot daddy- I'm kinda
diggin' the beard! (and Mason's bandit mask)


Mason's tree in his room


Paige and I in our matching glitter hairbands
It's hard to see mine, but trust me- it's there,
and it's fabulous!!

The tree decorating committee

Sweet Haysie at the tree farm


Sweet Will in the sunshine


The boys in Budda's truck with the tree



We found our tree!

So, the overdue Thanksgiving/Thanksmas post.... We had a great Thanksgiving. My mom had a very full house, and though we were missing a few, we all had a fun, and fattening, day. I swear I ate more I would have thought possible, but I enjoyed it! We were also celebrating my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary- quite a milestone! There was a lot of good company and delicious food, so you really couldn't ask for a better Thanksgiving.
Friday was Thanksmas, and a glorious Thanksmas it was! The weather was just cold enough to make you feel like getting a Christmas tree, and it was a gorgeous and sunny day. Matt's mom and dad came over in the morning and I made biscuits and gravy, then we all headed out to the tree farm. We used to always cut our own tree, but I got tired of wimpy-branched Leyland Cypress trees that can't hold an ornament worth a darn, so we switched to pre-cut Frazer Firs. At the tree farm, you walk into a big barn filled with freshly-cut Christmas trees. The smell is unbelievable! I found our tree immediately- it was literally the first one I looked at. It was gorgeous, but of course I still had to shop around a bit! I couldn't find anything that beat the first tree's perfect fullness, so it was declared this years' winner!
Getting the tree was the easy part. Setting up the giant tree cage, not so much. It required two trips to the hardware store for bolts, and took a fair amount of wrestling to get it put together. My father law said, "We won the cage match!" But they got it done and we stuffed the tree in the stand, then we stuffed our faces. It was Thanksgiving all over again, only in sandwich form. I swear to you, my mother in law probably makes the best dressing I have ever come across. It is truly a thing of beauty, and we were all in food heaven! I honestly think I ate more at that lunch than I did on Thanksgiving, but it was just too good to stop eating!
That evening I made potato soup (lord, am I going to talk about anything but food?) and my parents and Paige and Matt's mom came over to eat and decorate the Christmas tree. Of course, Matt had to make the annual trek to Walmart beforehand to replace all the burned out strands of lights! You'd think by now I'd learn to check the lights before Thanksmas! But he got the lights on and did an excellent job, and the ladies did the decorating. By the time we got done with it, you could barely see any green on the tree! We also helped Mason decorate a little tree in his room, and I spent the rest of the weekend decorating the rest of my house and shopping with my mom. So it was a great holiday weekend, and I was sad to see it come to a close.

Monday, November 23, 2009


The enormous tree cage getting a coat of primer

Wooooooo, y'all, only 4 days (really 3 1/2) days until Thanksgiving!!!! I cannot wait! I did my big grocery shopping trip this weekend to get all my ingredients, and I currently have over three pounds of cream cheese in my refrigerator. I'll be cooking something every day between now and Thursday. Tonight Mason and I are baking the cutest turkey cookies for his class. They're sugar cookies decorated to look like turkeys, and I think it will be a really fun Mommy and Mason project. Tomorrow I'm going to do the cranberry sauce for Thursday. Wednesday is the big baking day- I'm doing pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, and these crazy-good streusel-topped apple cheesecake bars. I'll also make the sundried tomato/pesto/cream cheese appetizer. (so with those things alone, we're looking at two pounds of cream cheese!) Thursday morning I'll do the squash casserole before we go to my mom's for more family fun and food than you can shake a stick at!! But the fun doesn't end there. Oh no, it's only beginning. That night I'll come home and make a pumpkin cream pie (more cream cheese!!) for Thanksmas.


What is Thanksmas, you may ask. Well, Thanksmas is a holiday of my own creation that takes place the following day. Matt's mom will come over with a big ol' turkey that she made. After we go to the tree farm and get our gorgeous Frazer fir, we'll come home and eat Thanksgiving leftover sandwiches (turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce all piled on white bread- YUMMMMMM) followed by the aforementioned pie. The rest of the afternoon will be spent decking the halls. Matt's mom generally has to work at the hospital on Thanksgiving, and she is the unchallenged queen of Christmas decorating, so out of this, Thanksmas was born!


Keeping a Christmas tree safe from my wily twins was a big challenge this year, but I think my dad and I solved that problem! I came up with a design for a kind of "decorative fence" around the tree and enlisted my dad's help in bringing my vision to life. We started Saturday morning at Lowes, and $125 worth of lumber and 8 hours of labor later, we have a tree cage that is a sight to behold!! I'm still working on getting that sucker painted, but I swear, ain't nobody gettin past this thing! It is a veritable Fort Knox of tree enclosures! It consists of two sections of railing that bolt together, then bolt to a 4x4 plywood platform that slides into the corner of the living room. It's designed to break down into three large, but flat pieces for storage, and should withstand years, decades, perhaps centuries of use!!! The plan is to thwart the attempts of babies trying to get to the Christmas tree for generations to come. Plus, my dad and I had a good time building it together. We had a few mishaps. We used decking posts and spindles, and realized just in the nick of time that if we didn't cut this thing down some, we were going to have an enormous deck around the tree rather than a fence! I measured one piece of lumber wrong, and we underestimated the number of spindles we'd need, but that only resulted in one additional trip to Lowes. We were quite sore the next day, but it was totally worth it to get to spend a fun and memorable day with my dad!

Saturday, November 14, 2009


Here's classy no-pants Will climbing out of the cabinet

Peek-a-boo!


Mmmmm, cottage cheese and peaches.......


Just checking in since there hasn't been too much going on. But I imagine we'll be getting busy soon. Can y'all believe there's less than two weeks until Thanksgiving? I can't wait!! That's my absolute favorite holiday. Any day that centers around food, family, and being grateful for your blessings- sign me up! Plus, I get to cook tons of food, and y'all know I like to cook. I honestly like the day before almost as much because I get to spend the whole day in the kitchen. I also love the fact that Thanksgiving sort off kicks off the Christmas season. Once the lights come on on the Rich's great tree (I know it's now Macy's, but it will always be Rich's to me!) the Christmas season is officially on. I won't put up anything Christmas-y before, but the day after, we deck the halls! Even though I haven't started decorating, I have started shopping. I went last weekend and got a good chunk of the kids' stuff done. The twins are almost done, but I have to get a few more things for Mason. I try to spread it out so it's easier money-wise. Toys are expensive!!
This week we spent most of our time in the backyard, enjoying the beautiful weather. It rained all day on Tuesday, and that made for a loooooooong day. I'm not even going to lie- I busted into the Chardonnay around 4:30. It was that or kill them, and hey, it's always 5:00 somewhere, right?

Saturday was absolutely gorgeous- sunny and mid-70's, so Matt and I took the kids to the big park in Athens. They had a ball! Mason's been before, but it's been a couple of years. This was the twins first time, and they loved it. Will went tearing off to the nearest climbing structure the minute he walked in the gates! Hays was a bit more cautious, but it didn't take him long to start exploring. The poor little guy managed to trip over something and incur a rather impressive looking head injury, but after a hug and some juice he was okay. Mason found a cute little girl to play with and they all had a great afternoon. Mason was asking when we could come back before we even left!

Sunday was haircut day for all four of my guys. Everyone was shaggy- especially Matt. So we took them to get shorn and de-mulleted. They were a handsome looking crew afterwards! My mom and I did a little shopping that afternoon and I got the most fabulous pair of red glitter ballet flats. They're so awesome, Dorothy would be jealous! They came from the little girls' department of Old Navy. What can I say, I may be grown, but I will never outgrow my love of sparkly shoes!

One other funny thing from this week is the twins' new favorite game. They love to climb into one of the kitchen cabinets that has doors that open on either side of the counter. They stick their heads out of both doors so it looks like some giant, two-headed baby monster! They also like to stick their heads out, then grab the door and pull it shut- like cabinet peek-a-boo! Crazy monkeys.


Tuesday, November 3, 2009

I was watching the boys play in the backyard this afternoon and wishing I could freeze time. There's something about the late-afternoon sun shining through the fall leaves, the way it silhouettes them and creates a glowing nimbus around their hair. In that moment they are so sweet and so beautiful and so perfect. But it's so bittersweet, because even as I'm cherishing that moment, I'm mourning the fact that they won't always be these precious little boys. Mason is already out in the world, having his own life outside of our family. My sweet babies aren't really babies at all anymore. Each step takes them closer to being little boys, and I can barely stand it. I just want to tell time to slow down, don't make them grow up so fast, let me hold them just a little longer.

Sunday, November 1, 2009


Trick-or-treat!



Why is this little monkey so sad?




He got those monkey ears off two seconds
later and refused to put them back on!


My pumpkin


Matt's pumpkin

Well, since someone forgot to tell the twins how the time change thing works, we're up bright and early to post Halloween pictures! We had a really fun Hallowwen. We were worried about the rain, but it didn't interfere too much. We took all the kids downtown in the afternoon to trick-or-treat at all the stores on Main Street. Well, Mason was trick-or-treating, the twins were just there to look cute in their stroller! But we had lots of fun seeing all the great costumes. Our kiddos were awfully cute, even though Hays refused to wear his monkey ears and just looked like a kid in a brown suit!
After dinner I took Mason over to my parents' neighborhood for round two of trick-or-treating. When we set out, it was misting a bit, but not really raining. Unfortunately, it progressed to drizzling, and then into rain. Luckily we had time to hit several houses and he got plenty of candy. The walk back in the rain wasn't so much fun, but none of us melted! We headed back home and Mason gorged himself on candy. But we still managed to get him to bed at a reasonable hour and a frightfully fun Halloween was had by all!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009


Mason as Skippyjon Jones


Will doing his best Lone Ranger!


Haysie's rather impressive busted lip


This child loves dogs more than anything!


This is what happens when Hays gets one of Mason's markers!

Just thought I'd share a few pictures of the madness that is daily life around here. We have survived another long, rainy day, but I'm not sure how many more we can take!! If the sun doesn't come out soon, Mommy's running away to Fiji!!!!

Monday, October 26, 2009

I had such a fun afternoon with my boys today. We have a really big backyard, but it's pretty much rocks and dirt and patchy bits of grass. Because of the rather rough terrain, we haven't really spent any time out there with the twins. We play on the back deck a lot, but I've never really let them venture out into the backyard. But now they are both competent walkers- and Hays finally learned how to walk in his shoes- so I decided it was time to give the backyard a go. I took them out after nap this afternoon, and they had a ball! They were amazed by this whole new, uncharted territory. It was like they had just discovered a new world! They explored every inch of the yard and loved every minute of it. Well, not every minute. There were lots of falls, a few of which resulted in tears. At one point, Hays tripped, rolled down a hill and busted his lip. That resulted in lots of tears and blood, but all was well after a few hugs and kisses and a popsicle! Once Mason got home from school, we had even more fun. It was one of those all-too-rare idyllic afternoons. The kind of thing you see in a commercial, or the dreamy, perfect version you imagine an afternoon with three little boys to be (minus the split lip). Truly a great day.
We did have one little hitch. Mason has "character day" at school tomorrow where he's supposed to dress as a character from a favorite book. We were going to use the book "The Devil You Know" which is a cute story about a family that has a mischievous little devil that lives with him. He causes all kinds of trouble, so they hire someone to get rid of him, but she, in turn, causes much worse problems. The story illustrates the old adage "If you trade the devil you know for the devil you don't, you just might get burned." It's a really cute, clever book and we were going to dress Mason as the little devil. Well, when he got home from school he told me , "My teacher doesn't think my costume is a good idea." At first, I was mad. The story has no religious connotations whatsoever, and there's nothing offensive about it. But after thinking about it, I realized that only the kids in his class will hear the story. The rest of the school will just think that I sent him to character day dressed as Satan! So even though I thought it was ridiculous, I convinced him that it was probably a good idea to change his costume. So now he's going as Skippyjon Jones, a siamese cat who thinks he's a bandit chihuahua. We went to Party City and bought cat ears, and a bandit mask, and I painted a cat nose and whiskers on him. He looks adorable, he's happy with it, and no one will be appalled or offended, so crisis averted!

Friday, October 16, 2009


Mommy and Mason in a rocket

Our only family picture!

Checking out a fountain at Epcot

Mason taking Daddy for a ride in a racecar!

Thursday, October 15, 2009


At the Undersea adventure in Epcot

Yum!!

Meeting Lilo and Stitch

Checking out a hippo at Animal Kingdom


Our Disney trip rocked!!!! It would have rocked more if it hadn't been 98* with about 150% humidity, but what are you gonna do? Mason had an awesome time and that's all that really matters.
We did the Magic Kingdom the first day, and that wore that little boy out! The combination of heat and a lot of walking had him ready to go by lunchtime, but we convinced him to hold out a little longer. We made the mistake of not getting the park hopper tickets, so we knew we only had one day at each park and we didn't want him to miss anything. The Magic Kingdom was closing early for "Mickey's not-so-scary Halloween party" (That I did not want to pay an extra $150 to attend) so we had to cram it all in. But we managed to do almost everything, so we don't feel like he missed anything too great. I was disappointed that he didn't get to see the big Spectromagic parade at night, but alas, you win some, you lose some.
We did Epcot the next day, and I think that was everyone's favorite. It's very laid back compared to the Magic Kingdom and the crowds were better. Plus, there are a lot of interactive things for kids, so Mason had a lot of fun. We left Epcot early afternoon and went back to the hotel for lunch and swimming. Then we went back to the park in the evening for the fireworks, which were spectacular. Disney sho' nuff knows how to put on a show!
The third day was the Animal Kingdom, which was my least favorite. It had a few cool things, but I thought a lot of it was kind of lame and boring. Although, that day was by far the hottest and most humid, and we were all quite tired, so I'm sure that had a lot to do with it! We did enjoy the safari ride, and we saw an incredible "Finding Nemo" show, but I think when the twins are old enough to go, we'll skip Animal Kingdom and go to Universal Studios instead. And we'll go in November when temperatures are better!
See more pictures below!

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Lines are boring!!

Tired little puppy

Whoa, castle!

Posted by PicasaThe jungle cruise was cool!

Arriving at the Magic Kingdom

Waiting in line

Riding a dinosaur at the Animal Kingdom

Meeting King Louie at the parade
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Monday, October 5, 2009
















I forgot to tell y'all that Hays is finally walking! He's walking all the time and climbing everything in sight. His new favorite thing to do is climb up on the kitchen table!