Merry Christmas

And here we are finally to Christmas morning. I promise after this (well maybe one more) I will start posting some recent stuff. I just had to show the girls on Christmas morning.



Rainey was more excited about the oranges and the stickers in her stocking than her new bike.





Likewise, Carlisle REALLY liked the fingernail polish. Santa might be going a lot cheaper next year if this is all it takes to make them happy.

Still living in the past - prelude to Christmas

So here are a few more holiday shots. Mom came down on Carlisle's actual birthday and all the girls (my mom, me, Carlisle, Rainey, Charles' mom) went to see the Nutcracker. Mom brought the girls actual nutcrackers (as you can see in the picture) and Carlisle absolutely loves them. She is insisting that we display them year round - and they are still out, but relocated from the mantle to a less conspicuous place. A few more weeks, and they will be quietly relocated to the attic until next year.

We also made it to south Georgia for the Spurlock family Christmas. The group shot is all my cousins on that side of the family. Also my dad and the girls from that trip. They were making a man out of pinestraw in the middle of the road - gotta find some way to entertain yourself at family gatherings.



And finally, here are some videos of Carlisle's Christmas show at her school. Not the best quality, but you get the idea. Most of the time she looked like she would rather be shot than singing in front of a group. But she did step right up when it was time to say her lines.

Back in time part 2 - Why you didn't get a Christmas card

Back in time part 1 - Carlisle's Birthday

Okay, I promised some catch-up blogging, so here it is.

Carlisle turned 5 on December 6th. She wanted a jumping party, of course. Apparently I took no decent pictures. But here's what I have.

I'm back

Sorry, sorry, I've been ignoring the blog completely. I've gotten many emails, facebook comments, and calls requesting that something be done about the cross-dressing Nutcracker - begging me to post anything to get rid of it. I agree, I usually go to our blog once a day to look at the feed of who has updated their blog - but it has gotten where I don't even like to pull up my own blog because of that nutcracker.

The delay started innocently enough - I wanted to post pictures and stories from Thanksgiving - and well, that never happened. And then it was Carlisle's birthday, and I wanted to post those, but first I wanted to go back and do Thanksgiving. Then came Christmas, and same story. I still am planning to go back and update with some pictures from the holiday season - including my e-chirtmas card. So those of you who think you got left of my Christmas card list - you didn't. I just didn't do cards this year. I'm going to claim it was in the interest of being "green."

But I need to get some work done this morning - so in the interest of a quick post, here is a picture of Rainey's face painting from a birthday party yesterday afternoon. She actually still has her face painted because she refused to wash it off. I'm sure her teachers were thrilled when I dropped her off this morning.

Also, how about a funny Rainey story from yesterday as well? Rainey and I were at the grocery store getting snacks for her class. We were discussing what all we needed to get, and she informed me that she would choose the juice because she is an "expert" on choosing juice. I asked her what else she was an expert on, and she said, "well, you know, I'm an expert on closing doors, and playing dress-up." Okay. So I asked her on what she thought mommy was an expert. To which she replied, "You're an expert on washing clothes and dishes." At least someone notices that I do that stuff.

Oh I have one more Rainey story I just remembered, it's funnier. Right before Christmas Rainey and I were at Kroger, yet again. (You're probably starting to see a pattern in my life here.) The Salvation Army guy was ringing the bell outside and Rainey wanted to put money in the bucket. I gave her a few dollars and sent her to deposit the money. As we were walking to the car, I started discussing with her how it's important to give your time and money to people who don't have as much as we do. She is only three, but I thought surely she could understand what I was saying. She listens to me preach for a minute, then replies, "Oh Momma, I always want to give money to the Kroger so they'll have plenty of money."

Cross dressing nutcracker

Cross dressing nutcracker
Originally uploaded by sscopela

Seriously, just saw this at Target.

A few more Disney Pics

I might faint

I might faint
Originally uploaded by sscopela

A little tax deductible fun

Two posts in one night, I'm on a roll baby!

Several months ago Charles, me, and 8 of our friends won a wine tasting at a charity event for the Mississippi Children's Home. Well, we "won" it during the auction portion of the evening, so we really bought it. (Right Lyn?) It took about 6 months for everyone to agree on a date, but we finally had the big event last weekend.

Breck and Lyn graciously hosted everyone. Scott from Colony Wine Market brought some great wines and good knowledge to share with all of us.

I just loved these pictures. Well, I love the group shot, not really the one of me and Jessica. See what happened is ever-prepared Breck whipped out his handy tripod for the group shot, then I saw the group shot, became horrified at how big my arm looked, and then Jessica and I decided to do a little tricep workout to remedy the situation. Lyn was dying to post the pictures of our little workout on her blog and I told her absolutely not. The only internet ridiculing of me will take place on my own blog. :)

Obviously, this all took place after we had "tasted" all the wine Scott had. But hey, it was all for charity!

A few Disney pictures

I know this post is very belated - but I'm sure most of you know I live by the "better late than never" motto. And since Charles is working late (and by "working late" I mean eating and drinking it up at Ruth's Chris with clients while the girls and I ate at Picadilly), I decided that instead of doing housework I would blog. Unfortunately, I don't actually have most of the Disney pictures on my computer. I have some that were taken with my camera. The rest of the pictures are on Charles' camera, and I have no idea where it is, and even if I could find it I wouldn't know how to extract them. So until he has a free minute to help me, you'll have to do with the small assortment I have here.

We really had a great time. Although it did take Charles and me about a week to recover after we returned from "vacation." I'm pretty sure the ideal trip is 4 days in Disneyworld with the kids, then somehow they are magically teleported home to the grandparents while mom and dad hop the next plane straight to a secluded Caribbean island for a week to physically and mentally recuperate.

Our girls are a little skiddish. Well, mainly Carlisle - but when she pitches a big enough fit it starts to rub off on Rainey. Neither of the girls were terribly thrilled at first with the characters with big heads on their costumes. You have to keep in mind that to kids this age, these aren't people in costumes, that is really Winnie the Pooh - and he's huge, and he can't talk. So we went to all these character breakfasts (because I read everywhere how much kids love them), but of course my kids are hiding under the chairs. (I guess I should have seen this coming after the twinkie incident in Kroger a few months ago - the girls and I were at a new Kroger in Madison where they apparently decided to have some people dress up as a giant twinkie and the Cheetos Cheetah in celebration of the grand opening - anyway, Rainey caught one glimpse of the duo and absolutely went into hysterics - I was afraid she would never step foot in a grocery store again). Anyway, back to Disney.

Rainey got over it pretty quickly and started posing for pictures and hugging them. Carlisle finally managed to give poor old Winnie a hug on our last day there. They both really loved the "face characters" - meaning the ones that don't wear big costume heads - like all the princesses, Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins, etc...

The rides were also another learning experience. I just envisioned them loving all the rides, can't get enough kind of attitude. Wrong again. There were pretty much terrified of all the indoor rides except Small World. They didn't like anything where it got dark, at all, even for a second. To be quite honest it was pretty annoying - I mean the 5 year old across the street told us his favorite rides were Tower of Terror and Space Mountain - and our kids were afraid of the Peter Pan ride. To be fair to them though, by the end of the trip they were much better and more willing to try rides. It just took a few days for them to get used to it.

They loved the teacups and Dumbo from the start though. They also enjoyed the parades and shows - but again it took us a few days to realize that was the kind of stuff they really thought was "magical"(to use a little Disney lingo).

I'll post some more pictures whenever I can get them from Charles.