Festively Fall

Indeed today was much colder, but the rain lasted about 5 minutes early this morning. A much more fall-like day with a hint of winter in the air. The perfect day to decorate those pumpkins we so carefully selected yesterday.

Caroline chose to make scary faces on her pumpkins -- one for her, one for Maroline. 

She even scared herself with her own pumpkins . . .

After reading several October issues of women's magazines, Mattie needed to get creative with her pumpkin. She chose a beautiful white pumpkin and decided to paint it.

Here's a sideways view of her very trendy polka-dot creation. I'm quiet envious - I wish I had also chosen a white pumpkin!!

We managed to grow a couple of pumpkins in our yard, so we added them to the collection. Our porch is festively fall!

Pumpkin Patch!

Our Saturday started busy with golf at 8:30. The girls have lessons, and I have been going to the driving range. After lunch at home and some time to relax, we headed to Sanford, NC to meet friends at the pumpkin patch today. We opted for today because it is supposed to be cold and rainy tomorrow. The flip side of that is that it was hot and sunny today! 

We did have a great time. The girls bounced and bounced on the big jumpy thing - I don't know what else to call it. They also enjoyed the cool new slide. Then we all went on a hayride and finally picked out 4 very lovely pumpkins.

After the pumpkin patch, the girls and I did a little shopping and found Mattie some Sunday shoes. We also found Caroline some Croc-type shoes that fit. FINALLY!

We ended our outing with a delicious meal at Waffle House.

Good day - looking forward to a great week!

13 Days

Most of you know that our first 13 days have been less than stellar.

Last Thursday, not even 5 days into D's trip, I came home and found that Cebu had passed away while I was at a doctor's appointment. He did us a big favor by dying peacefully. I am very thankful he was never in a great deal of pain or discomfort, and I am also thankful that Derick and I didn't have to choose to end his life. I think that would have been even more difficult.

The house is much cleaner and quieter with our two guys gone . . . after all, Cebu was Derick's only male counterpart here!!

I was at the doctor for a reason - I had a terrible cold and was losing my voice. Luckily, he gave me some medicine that eventually cleared up the congestion -- I didn't lose my voice this time. But all 3 of us were sick with the cold. Then it moved on to my stomach and, eventually, Caroline's.

The bright spot in the last 13 days is that mom and dad felt so sorry for me they traveled to Pinehurst to help me celebrate my birthday!! That was great. I got to spend the day with some of my favorite people - and end the day at my favorite Pinehurst restaurant...

Unfortunately, I did not feel well their entire visit. And before they could get out of town, Caroline got sick. She's missed 2+ days of school this week! I am hoping she's finally getting better.

While I've promised myself that I will not wish my life away, I am anxious to make it to the 2-week mark on Sunday morning so that we can reset this whole deal with a fresh week...

First Day of School 2012

It was pure bliss to send our girls back to the same school as last year. They weren't nervous, and I didn't boo-hoo. They both claim to have had a great day. I can tell you that we are all exhausted from our super early wake-up. The tardy bell rings at 7:30.

Posing for mom . . .

 First day of 5th grade! What the heck?

First day of second grade!

Wow!

Girl Scout Party, Church Picnic, Back to School Dessert

We saw absolutely not reason to sit around all weekend waiting for the first day of school!

The girls' Girl Scout Troop had a back-to-school swim party on Saturday night. Here are our bathing beauties . . .

And afterwards in the jeep. Yes, it was chilly!!

Sunday afternoon we enjoyed a church picnic. It was held at a lake, and both girls enjoyed swimming out to this dock. Mattie jumped off of that thing a million times, but Caroline was more cautious. She stood and watched the others jump. It was a good swim, so I'm proud both girls had the skills and courage to get out there.

We weren't yet exhausted enough, so after the church picnic, we went straight to Cold Stone to continue our family's back-to-school tradition - dessert on the night before school starts!!

We ALL enjoyed a treat.

Everybody raise your milkshakes to a great first day of school!

Meet Your Teacher 2012

Tonight, the girls met their teachers . . .  

Caroline has Mrs. Judge for her SECOND GRADE teacher. Caroline was really excited to see familiar faces in her classroom.

Mattie's teacher for FIFTH GRADE is Mrs. Reed. Mattie is so excited to get started with the school year, we can barely contain her!

Our Week at St. Simon's Island August 2012

We spent a fun week at St. Simon's Island with mom and dad, Cope, Tara and Ramsey. We went on a dolphin boat excursion, hauled stuff to and from the beach, played in the pool, ate a lot of yummy food and watched fabulously ridiculous (yet addictive) TV.

Here's a pic of Mattie at what well may be her favorite place on earth - St. Simon's Sweets. They have pretty much everything a sweet-tooth could want, need or dream. Of course we went there on the very first night.

We headed to another favorite spot, the bay-side playground, to watch the kids work off the calories . . .

The oak trees are perfect for climbing . . .

Grampy treated us to seafood one night . . . here are the kids sitting out front waiting for our table.