Her Royal Highness Duckmaster Carlisle

I'm sure most of you have seen or at least heard of the ducks that swim in the fountain of the Peabody hotel in Memphis. They march from their home on the roof, down in the elevator, through the lobby and into the fountain each morning and return the way they came each evening.

This past weekend Carlisle and Julianna (Charles' cousin's daughter) traveled to the Peabody with Charles' mom and Aunt Nan, so that the girls could be Duckmasters. Which means they got to walk the ducks from the fountain to the roof on Saturday afternoon. They made a fabulous weekend out of it. Shirley Temples, the Rendezvous, a carriage ride. I'm a little jealous.

Envirosax

I promised to post about my gift from the Dirty Santa party with my college friends. Well Beth had already announced that the gift she brought for the game was a "statement" gift - which I think scared most players off. Katie was brave and opened the gift. Turns out it was something I had been thinking about purchasing lately, so I quickly stole it when my turn came.

It was a fabulous One Eye Toad T-shirt (although that wasn't the statement part) AND a set of five Envirosax, which are reusable shopping bags that fold up really small and hold about as much as two grocery sacks each. After spending about eight weeks total in Europe over the last year, I have become more conscious of my consumption practices. In Europe you really don't find Super Walmarts where you go and load up on gallons of milk, cases of diet coke, then fill up 42 plastic bags with your groceries. Most people carry their own reusable bags to the store. So especially since we have been home, I feel so guilty each time I return from the grocery, put away the groceries, ball up all the bags and stuff them in the trash.

I am thrilled with the bags, and encourage you to get some for yourself. Just think of all the plastic waste that would be reduced if we all used reusable shopping bags.

Catching up

Well, it's Christmas Eve. I haven't posted much the last week or so, but we've been busy with holiday bustle, as I'm sure most of you have been.

Since I last posted we have gone to Jackson to get Charles settled in his new job, returned to Oxford to pack for a couple of days, gone to Jackson again, which is where we are now. Carlisle also took a trip to Memphis this past weekend with Charles' mom (aka DeeDee). I'll make a new post with pictures from her trip.

I think we are finished with our shopping, at least all we're going to do - since it's almost 5 o'clock on Christmas Eve. Rainey is pretty sure that Charles' dad (aka PopPop), and not Santa, is coming down the chimney. I'm not really sure, but if he does, I'll be sure to take pictures.

The day after Christmas, the girls and I are headed to Georgia to visit with my family. So everyone wish me luck on the 7 or 8 hour car ride with the girls by myself. However, driving that far with them will definitely be better than the alternative - which would be going back to Oxford to continue packing our house. You would think that as many times as Charles and I have moved (this will be the 7th time in 7 1/2 years of marriage) that we would manage to not have a lot of junk. Not the case. Packing is a nightmare. Once we get settled in Jackson, I may never move again. It also doesn't help that the girls can unpack a box faster than I pack it - so I actually think we're making reverse progress - just a bigger mess.

Merry Christmas! Hope Santa is good to you all.

Here Comes Santa Claus

On Friday night I had my annual Christmas get together with my Chi-O friends (wait, I think I'm supposed to say "Chi Omega" according to Sarah, Chi Omega's newest employee!) The picture from the earlier post was sent from the party, as I demonstrated "mobile blogging".

Anyway, we had a fabulous time. We all spent the night at The Alluvian , played dirty Santa, ate a delicious dinner at Giardina's, and drank way too much champagne and wine.

The last picture obviously isn't from the girls night. That is Honey and Carlisle playing Christmas carols for us last night.

I will blog later about the fabulous gift I got from the party. I love it and I have enough to say that it deserves a separate post. And I don't have time to write now because we've got to head to Jackson. Charles starts work tomorrow (yikes, back to the real world), so we're headed down to work on decorating his office. I'll take some pictures when we're finished.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!
Originally uploaded by sscopela

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Just thought I'd keep with Charles' clever Christmas song title theme.

What I hear is the Fat Lady singing. That's right folks - we are both FINISHED with law school. Although I do say that a little tentatively. Grades won't be out until January, and I am not feeling so great about the exam I had today. I think if I fail it was a subconscious act of self-sabotage, which could have the potential to delay the "real world" a bit longer....

Edited: Okay, apparently Charles and I are posting at the same time. Sorry for the redundancy.

Cross your fingers

Susan and I are finished with exams and therefore lawschool. Cross your fingers that we passed all our classes this semester. That leaves the BAR exam and then we will officially be lawyers.

Away in a manger

No crib for his bed?
This is Baby Jesus in his manger (aka Sock in a juice box) according to Discovery Day School three and four year olds. This may explain some of the religious confusion as well as the sudden burst of curiosity Carlisle is having.

Merry Christmas

And more birthday...

Carlisle celebrated her birthday for 3 days - the day of her actual birthday, the next day, and the day after that (which was her party). On the day after her actual birthday she went to see the Nutcracker with Honey (my mom). The picture in the pink coat is her all dressed up for the night at the ballet. The other picture is from her party. The cake is "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast (for those not up on their Disney Princesses like we are around here.) Aunt Bonny made the cake, another impressive one.

Everyone keeps asking what Bonny is going to do when she graduates in May, I think maybe she should be a professional cake decorator.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Carlisle! She turned 4 today. I can't believe it.

Happy Birthday to Frannie too! Four years ago was the weekend of Frannie's engagement party and wedding showers in Memphis. I was supposed to go up and spend Friday night, but didn't feel so up to it on Friday. It's a good thing I didn't, since I went into labor first thing Saturday morning. I got to talk to Frannie, and all our friends who were at the shower, from the hospital. I also got wish Frannie a Happy Birthday that my daughter now shared with her.

Ah, memories...

Religion according to Carlisle

In honor of Carlisle's big 4 year birthday tomorrow, I thought I would share some of the stories that have kept us in stitches lately.

1.) Jesus is in my bottom
I won't go in the full story, but due to an adamant belief that God is in her heart and therefore no room for anyone else, she decided that Jesus must live in her bottom.

2.) Don't worship Noah
Carlisle really likes me to sing "You are my Sunshine" to her before she goes to bed. She insists that I also sing the second verse - you know the verse, "...I dreamt I held you in my arms, when I awaken, I was mistaken, and I hung my head down and cried..."

So afterward she always wants to talk about why the person in the song was crying. She has decided that it is because they don't have any children. So she asks me, "Mommy, why do some people not have any children?" Of course I go in to a multitude of reasons for why all people don't have children. Then she interrupts me to say, "Maybe everyone doesn't get to have children because they don't have God in their hearts. Maybe they have Noah in their hearts."

3.) Can Jesus have his cake and eat it too?
This is priceless. Yesterday Carlisle was explaining to me how everything has to eat to live. I agreed. Then I see the little wheels turning in her head, and she announces that maybe Jesus didn't eat enough and that is why he died.

So I explained that no that wasn't the reason, and tried my best to explain on a 4 year old level why he died. Then I thought I should take advantage of the opportunity to remind her what Christmas is really about (besides Santa and Reindeer). We discussed how Christmas is Jesus's birthday.
She thinks a minute and then asks, "well, is Jesus still dead?"
"Well, yes, but..." I start to explain some more.
But she interrupts with, "Well, how is he going to eat his birthday cake if he's dead?"


And on that note - it's back to the kitchen to put pink frosting on the pink cupcakes to take to her class tomorrow.

MPRE Results are in

Just in case anyone was worried, Susan and I both passed the MPRE. The MPRE is the ethics portion of the Bar exam and you basically have to pass to become a lawyer. We took the exam 5 weeks ago and were both sure we failed. I have never been so certain about anything in my life. I was wrong. Well I would head right out and celebrate, but I still have 4 days left as a law student with 3 more exams. I'll be doing my celebrating at the library (books not beers).

edit by Susan: I'm sure what Charles was also dying to mention in this post is that he scored 10 points higher than me on this exam. Go figure.

edit by Charles: Well since you brought it up... I thought I would add a little visual.

It's Raining Men!

Well Carlisle and Rainey are going to have lots of younger boyfriends. Seems like every one of my friends either just had or is having a baby boy.

Congratulations to Paul and Lindsay in Birmingham who just had baby James on Friday. He is absolutely gorgeous, with a head full of black hair like his dad. Mary Morgan just found out she is also having a boy. Breck and Lyn will be having their baby boy very soon (if he isn't here already). Our friends in Little Rock, Bo and Heather, will be having a boy in '08 as well. Of course three friends (Megan, Claire, and Meg) all had their little boys in September/October.

I have a lone friend, Caroline (who now lives in New York) that joined the two girls club with me last week. And the jury is still out for my friend Lain, and my cousin Fain. Oh that's cute, it rhymes, Lain and Fain. Hopefully we will hear what they are having before Christmas!

All these babies. Maybe if Charles and I are going to try for that boy we should do it soon before they all get taken!! (just kidding - no one hold their breath on that one)