Girls Weekend in Charleston

FUN FUN FUN!!!

So Jess doesn’t so much like the beach right?  We’ve lived here 6 ½ years and haven’t spent much time there (meaning we haven’t taken the kids there to play since 2007…) SO, some of my girlfriends and me got together to play for the weekend.  YAY!  It was sooooooo great!

Also, I’m totally still nursing Max, so he came with us and was a ROCK STAR! For realz!  So so so good.  Turns out when you have 5 moms and 1 baby, plus no set schedule babies are super easy J

Friday morning I got a babysitter-since it’s way cheaper to pay a sitter for 7 hours then for Jess to take an unpaid vacation day—plus the boys love her so that’s nice.

Here are our adventures:

We drove to Charleston, picked up Rachel from the airport, checked into our hotel and took off to the beach.  It was great weather and not very crowded.  

We read a tiny bit and talked a lot.  

Max slept for most of it but woke up at the end to take in the awesome-ness of it all.

Then off we went to dinner by the beach at Banana Cavana’s—We sat outside, I had the Mahi Mahi with a pineapple mango salsa and awesome mashed potatoes; I’m pretty sure they were mostly butter. Mmmmmm.  There was a live musician playing and it was the perfect temperature and was just so nice!

Then back to the hotel for more girl talk, hair, painting our toenails, and falling to sleep with their bajillion pillows.

Saturday morning we drove out to Charleston proper (we were actually staying in Mt. Pleasant). Jessica called to make us reservations which was so great cause turns out Memorial Day Saturday is in there top 5 busiest days of the year.

It was hop-n!  But we got there in perfect time, got 4 hours of free parking, AND got right out on our horse drawn carriage ride. Those homes are beautiful, and the gardens were incredible!!!

We stopped afterwards to do some  souvenir shopping at the market for our AWESOME KIDS AND HUSBANDS back home--great prices and cute cute stuff.

Side note:  (and GENIOUS IDEA that everyone should do!) 

I have a good friend who purchases a piece of jewelry as her trinket from cool places she visits.

Isn’t that the greatest idea EVER!  Who has a place for trinkets?  And I don’t buy jewelry hardly ever, so I think it’s genius—cause then you have this awesome memory every time you wear it—So smart.  (I actually didn’t get it this time..dumb..mostly I just kept looking for the fams stuff first and then we were done shopping-lame—but next time cause I LOVE THAT IDEA!)

We stopped for lunch—at fancy Chick Fil A—which has just changed my life because now I have tasted Chick Fil A sauce—MMMMM so delicious! (thanks to Shalynn for introducing the sauce to me :)  Then back to the hotel to change, and off to the beach again. 

This time the beach was super crowded, and the weather was a little different.  It started to rain…. Ha! Fun! We just waited it out, but the beach became quite a bit roomier after that. :) 

This time Chelsea and I wanted to play in the water! 

Such a highlight of the trip! I haven’t played in the high waves of the ocean since…ak!  Prolly Monterey I guess.  But it was sooooooo fun.  

The water was perfect. You know when it's too cold and you have to hold your breath as you get deeper and deeper?  There was no holding my breath or anything—just the perfect temperature!  Something about the power of the waves, jumping to miss them, being successful sometimes, other times failing miserably and getting a face-full of water J.  Jumping with the waves and being carried up weightlessly to the tip, digging my toes into the sand to no avail because the water is sooo much stronger then me, diving through the waves, coming back to shore and realizing that the waves moved you way past your starting point.

 AHHH! I love it all. I want to do it again right now.

And seriously, Max was sooooo insanely perfect for this trip on account of he still sleeps all the time.  Plus, he doesn’t wake up till like 8:30 so AWESOME!  He slept the entire 3 hours we were at the beach..through the rain and everything.  He’s so cool like that!

This is us trying to catch everyone in the air--Wowza! Turns out we failed...a lot!  (there were like 12 shots...bwaha ha--we had a little audience by the end of the fun.)

Sunday we woke up, drove to church with the Charleston ward—and enjoyed such a great service!  The lesson in Relief Society was from the talk Boyd K Paker gave in general conference.  “And a Little Child Shall Lead Them”.  That was such an amazing talk!  Anyway, the teacher was superb and had us all in tears wanting to be the most incredible moms ever—and making us feel positive about our current state—that’s a hard thing to accomplish!  She was awesome and we all loved it!

 

We made some soup in the crockpot (Chelsea’s delicious Chicken Tortilla Soup—mmm) for dinner, chatted forever, and then played games outside in their courtyard that night.  

I love games so much, they’re one of life’s great joys!—this one I totally failed at…but I’m noticing something about myself.  When I realize I’m not good at something.  All the competitiveness in me disappears.  So that’s nice. J  No hard feelings!  Also—no one should ever want me on their team for any pop culture.  Just a heads up.  I just have NO memory names of actors,  song titles,  musicians, sport stars…other stuff like that. 

Monday morning—after our breakfast (which—seriously, they had the greatest waffles ever that I had each morning…light, fluffy, crispy, and so tasty) we tried to layout by the pool…got rained on a bit, so back inside to get ready for the ride home.   

It was a weekend filled with 

relaxation, 

fun, 

food, 

GREAT conversation and 

fantastic friends.  

I’m soooo thankful for a husband who could and would watch our 3 big boys so I could do this. 

Thanks baby-you’re nice.

Cari's Mud Run Video--WOO WOO!!

Here's the YouTube link if this one below doesn't work :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq8m5x1TgUU

Boys Mud Run 2012

KIDS MUD RUN 2012

This was the 2nd year the boys got to do the Marine Mud Challenge. They love it so much.  It's a mile run through mud and obstacles with their friends. What could be better then that? SOO FUN!.

That's my boy!  All the way in!

Kade at the final wall!

Luke finishing strong!

YAY!!! GO BOYS!

Cup Stacking, Baseball Games and..you know, May stuff.

Kade made his first batch of cookies ALL BY HIMSELF! I only had to step in to make sure he didn't use the metal bowl to melt the butter in the microwave.  He separated yolks from whites in the shell even--he's rad.  And they turned out AWESOME. Butterscotch chocolate chip cookies.  (I didn't make him do the dishes this time--it's kind of a buzz kill :)

Kade signed up for a cup stacking tournament for Relay for Life.  Once we got there Luke wanted to do it too...soo...sure! It's for a good cause. It was a fun little event put on by his P.E. coaches.  Here's Coach Allen helping Luke remember the specifics of the Full Cycle.

The boys took it on themselves to help the schools booth and sell the candied..puff balls?  It was cute to see them so excited to be behind the counter taking money.

Max

Luke's part in the Kindergarten Program made me laugh so much.
 "Goldfish and hamsters and little white mice, and even the little seed in the styrofoam cup, they all die. So do we". 
What? 
Turns out it was in the poem, "All I need to know, I learned in Kindergarten" or something like that.  

Anyway--he's adorable and I LOVED his program.

The boys got free tickets to the Green Jacket's Baseball game for doing a reading challenge at school (plus Mrs. Armstrong sent home 2 more--woo woo). They also got free hats so that's cool.  It was a really nice night for a game and we saw friends there. It was a really fun night.  Short because they had the mud run the next morning, but fun.

Snacks make everything better.

The boys were invited to run on the field in-between games (double header)..but we had to wait in line with all the kids from the county who did this reading challenge for FOREVER and Luke got hungry. So Kade ran (1 second of fame :) and Luke and Jess got food.

And here's one last picture--it's super random I know, but it's such a great one!  

It's my Grandma and Grandpa Tadje.  

How chic and stylish and AMAZING do they look?

I love this pic. 

That's all.

Luke 6

Luke's favorites:

Food: Macaroni and Cheese (when he makes it--it's called Luke-aroni and Cheese)

Least Favorite Food: Broccoli (and potatoes and beans)

Books: Junie B. Jones, Garfield and Calvin and Hobbs comic books

Favorite Chore (if there is such a thing): unloading the silverware.  (especially compared to Kade having to unload the dishwasher--it's a breeze!)

Least Favorite Chore: Folding his laundry.  (it doesn't help that he'll unload his drawer to get a certain piece of clothing, and then take all that he's taken out and put it in the dirty clothes pile---learning natural consequences is rough!)

Color:  Pink.

Least Favorite Color: Green, he calls it his 'arch enemy' because it's the color of broccoli.

Now that he's six, he tries to answer our questions during scripture study instead of letting Kade field them all.  He's started to make his own sandwiches for lunch. He LOVES helping me when I'm cooking.  He doesn't like most sweets--only recently started eating chocolate again.  He still loves playing games!  

Every time he comes across a fake plastic bug in the toys, he sneaks into our room and puts it on my pillow to hear me scream :)  

He currently has a chart for Jess; every time he does something nice, Luke puts a heart on the chart, and when it's filled up, they get to go to ice cream--ha ha--way to be proactive on getting ice cream Luke!

(he also likes playing with Photo Booth on the computer and has some 'special' ones :)

His favorite body part to dance with is his bum--it's a shaking all the time!

Plus, the fact that his new favorite color is pink makes me so happy.  At the first of school he liked that color, but wore a pink shirt for picture day and came home in tears  saying that his friends made fun of him and he never wanted to wear pink again cause it was a girl color.  But now he loves it and says it's okay that others don't.  At a conference with his teacher a month ago she was complimenting him on how he doesn't have to follow a crowd and that he's his own kid and others look up to him for it. That makes me smile.

He loves reading on the toilet.  But he'll stay in there FOREVER so he now has to ask if it's okay first. Ha ha--he always tries to show us the red marks on his bum, or he'll start complaining about the pins and needles in his legs.  He's funny.

He has a heart of gold and wants to just LOVE everyone and everything. He loves playing and being silly and trying to be like his older brother.  We love him like crazy!!!

He wanted to go to Adventure Crossings for his birthday. We only do 'friend' parties every 4 years (I know, I'm a fun hater) so we went as a family and he got to invite one friend.  He picked his adorable little friend Mara. She's so sweet!  After playing a round of mini golf, they were off to their favorite thing there--the Go Carts!

Here they are on "The Caterpillar of DOOM", which is actually called, 'wacky worm'.  

Ha ha--it made me and Jess laugh so much by the intense speed...or lack thereof.  

But the kids loved it and that's awesome.

So turns out, Luke gets motion sickness just like me--poor guy!  What's even worse, is that we didn't realize how bad it was until AFTER he got on this spinney gross ride.  As soon as they started moving, he ducked his head like in this picture and didn't move it the whole time.  It was so sad to watch.  Luckily it was the last ride of the night. 

The plan was to have cake when we got home.  He was so sweet and kept saying we should have cake without him.  But we decided to have cake the next day and let him go to bed as soon as we got home. Which he did.  Poor kid!

Here's Luke the next day--feeling much better! 
(He wanted a Ben 10 cake--I attempted at first to do Ben 10's face...but that turned out to look more like a handicap Frankenstein...so we went with the omni-matrix instead. :)

Happy Birthday Luke!

And Life Continues...

So now we have 4 boys--and Max is already a month old! woo woo!  Here are some more recent pics of the young one taken by my awesome friend Shalynn.

(don't you love her wallpaper!)

Just a totally natural picture from when the crazy kid fell asleep in the water pail. Always being crazy that Maxwell :)

From my technical weighing of the lad (holding him while I was on the scale :) he weighs 13 lbs now!

My awesome mom was able to come out to help me with Max. We had a great time!  THANKS MOM!

We went on a walk through our trails. Luke convinced mom to ditch me and Rhett and we got home like FOREVER later then them. That boy can move SL-OW sometimes.  Plus he stops to play in the puddles--that's cute though--I like that :)

Max is getting more and more alert.  We are loving it.

When Max was the ripe old age of 2 weeks, the day was PERFECT for the zoo; so off we went!  We decided kind of late in the day..and a lot of the animals were sleepy and hiding...but the boys got slushes so overall I think it was a success :)  

(except that on the way home, Max was mad and Rhett decided to scream with him...so...that was loud....)

Luke has a lot of personality :)

During Spring Break, Luke decided he wanted to have a lemonade stand.  So he made a sign, and made the lemonade, and there you go!  As the morning went on, he gathered more and more help.  We had to talk him down from $1 a cup--ha! to .25. But even with that most people spent a dollar on it--sweet neighbors and friends!  

Egg decorating for Easter 2012

Our great friends had an Easter egg hunt.  Rhett picked up his first egg and was happy. Then he opened it and gave me one of the candies--it was super sweet! But he got the hang of it and pick up more later. I love egg hunts!

Eating the bounty!

Big news! Rhett's in a TODDLER BED. He totally rocked it too.  I don't know how we're so blessed, but all our boys so far have transitioned so well into beds.  It's like they don't know they can get out of them by themselves. When he wakes up he still calls for me before he gets out.   

Walked outside to find him this way :)  Ha!