Scary Man choking my child!

William went through a bag of costumes and found this mask.  Sarah and Winston had a fun time with it! :)

New Job, Old Job, New Job

This is Caroline on the first day of her job.

Caroline worked for two weekends at the Grill in the museum near our house last February.  Unfortunately, we didn't realize when she started that she would have to work every other Sunday - missing church.  So, she had to quit.  But she is now employed every other Monday afternoon as a babysitter.  She's counting her nickels and dimes to buy herself a camera like this one  Not sure how long that's going to take! 

The Perfect Organism

 

Hey it's Sarah. I was going through all the drafts of our blog and found this one. We finally got rid of this Rosemary bush because the scent was attracting some scorpions. It took my dad about a day to cut it down. The main 'trunk' was about 3-4 inches wide. This is what my mom had written in the earlier post.

We planted a tiny little Rosemary plant off the back patio about 5 or 6 years ago. It has grown - and GROWN! We finally decided that it had outgrown it's location. Spence liked to call it the perfect organism because you couldn't kill it, but he has subdued the earth and conquered it.

~SARAH GRAY~

Postscript.  I guess you'll end up with a few "oldies"  I'm going through old drafts and this was still in there - from Sept 2009!  It's still a cool picture.

Redding Air Show

We were glad that one of the Jelly Belly planes was at the airshow, since Sarah, William and Winston were all wearing the new t-shirts that we had just gotten from the Jelly Belly factory!

Just found this in the drafts folder - not sure what happened.  We took quite a few more pictures at the airshow, but I figure that I better post this before the new year is upon us! :)

Spencer's Birthday

 

We enjoyed a nice family celebration of Spencer's 47th birthday a few weeks ago.  He loves Mexican food, so we tried out a new restaurant (for us).  We haven't been out to each much in the neighboring town of Griffin, so it was nice to have an opportunity to do that. 

William was thrilled with one of Spencer's gifts - Stratego!  The game where strategy wins.  Spence and his brother played a lot growing up and he has been asking for it for years.  It's been hard to find in a "regular" version - not Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.  But this year is the 50th anniversary, so I was able to find a nice "normal" game to get him. 

Winston was determined not to look at the camera.  Seems as if we either get a cheesy grin, or no face at all!

Hiawassee Nov 2011

We had a wonderful weekend with all of Spence's family to celebrate his mother's 70th birthday.

Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Katy, her daughter, Ivy, and husband, Fred, Nathan, Spence, Winston, me
Cy and Malinda
Caroline, Nathan's daughter, Leighton, Sarah
William

 Cousins playing together.  Winston was 2 in May and Ivy will be 2 next March

 Big Cousins playing together!  They had fun with their "photo shoot," especially with the apps on Sarah's Itouch.  I'll have to do a separate post just with the pictures they took with that!
Leighton was 14 in August, Sarah was 12 in June and Caroline 15 in September

 We were still able to enjoy some of the fall colors on the mountains.

 Birthday dinner for Malinda - and cake and ice cream!

 The girls got out Malinda's wedding dress and took pictures of Leighton in it.

A fun weekend for all!  Looking forward to doing it again in a few weeks in Greensboro for Thanksgiving.

Enough already!!

Back in September, we had quite a mouse problem.  This is what greeted me one morning when I woke up!!  YUCK!!

Last week, we had an almost sleepless night.  Between Winston crying from not feeling well and a mouse scratching, we only got a few hours of sleep. 

While we were gone to Hiawassee for the weekend, the mouse poison that we had put out (little boxes that have blood thinner in them that the mouse eats) did their work.  Unfortunately, Spence had gone under the house and plugged lots of holes where he thought mice might have been getting in.  He was so thorough that the poisoned mouse couldn't get back to his nest!  We came home to a smelly house.  I finally found the culprit!!

Needless to say, all the windows are open and we are airing out the house! 

I'm tired of the furry little things.  They are UNWANTED house guests!

Part of California Trip Sept 2011

I have all the airshow pictures on Sarah's computer, so I'll have to do a separate post for those.

But here is most of our trip.

How do you keep a 2 year old occupied on a 5 hour flight?  Vanilla wafers and stickers!  Better than the last time Winston was on a plane!

We flew into SFO and were able to have lunch with Craig and then see his office.  The kids all liked his "double" computer screen!  It was good to get to see him, but we were sorry to miss Donna

We were only able to see Christy for a few minutes in the cell phone lot of the airport!

Winston had fallen asleep in the car, so only the older 3 got to visit with her.

 On the way to Redding, we stopped at the Jelly Belly Factory.  Caroline got to taste a "grass" jelly belly from the Harry Potter set and about threw up.

Aubrey and Olivia took the day off on Friday to play with the boys (and the girls when they weren't doing school work.)  They had lots of fun together - including hair salon.

The whole crew had pizza before we picked Amelia up from school.

Caroline had her eyebrows "threaded."  Here's the "After" photo!  Such a pretty girl!

Here she is in GREAT pain - having it done.  Her lids were puffy and red for quite awhile after she had it done.

The kids tried on their souvenirs from Dubai - Winston is displaying the mixed nuts he was given. :)

Braves Country

We were able to go to a Braves game on Wednesday and watch them beat the Florida Marlins!  It was Weather Education Day, so we started out near the third base dugout and watched a weather presentation by the Channel 2 Meteorologists on tornadoes, hurricanes, lightning and more.

 
After the presentation, we paraded around the warning track.  We got to see lots of the players up close and watch them get the infield ready for the game.

 Winston even got to walk on the track by himself. 

Then we went to our General Admission seats.  They were really high up, but they were shaded!  And since it was almost 90 degrees F., we were happy for the shade.

Winston took his nap - despite the noise and hubbub. 

When he woke up, he was a sweaty, silly-haired mess.

Our tickets came with hot dogs, water and chips.  After the game, we took some pictures near the statues outside the field.

Atlanta's hometown hero, Hank Aaron

Ty Cobb


And William doing his own impression of a slide.

It was a fun day for all!