*DANGER* *DANGER* MOMMIE OVERLOAD

So this actually happened this weekend, but I am just now coming to grips with it to the point that I can share. Robin and her daughter, Bayleigh, came over on Thursday and they were so sweet to bring our little princess some of the clothes that Bayleigh has outgrown. There were gorgeous night gowns, shirts, pants and... bras.

Do date, this is the highlight of our little princess's young life. It is official (as far as she is concerned), she is a woman now. So I realize that this is a big deal. She is very sensitive about this and I told her that she can wear them around the house and on the weekends, but not to school. She isn't really old enough for them, but it is fun to "dress up" and "play" grown-up. And she accepted these terms.

So Saturday, the first bra wore was with a tank top. You can take the girl out of the south, but you can't take the backwoods hick out of the girl. This is a great opportunity to talk about acceptable fashion. No worries.

Saturday night, we wore a new bra with our pajamas. It was the glittery one with little rhinestones and it went well with the bunny pajamas.

Sunday morning we are wearing another bra with a t-shirt. She decides that the shirt is not special enough for the bra and changes, four or five times. I start to have a better glimpse of the teenager that she will become.

Sunday night we have yet another bra on with the same pajamas that we wore Saturday night. 48 hours, 4 bras and she comes to snuggle me on the couch to ask if she can't start saving her legs. Tom and I took a quick glance at each other and I ask as though I haven't yet completely understood the question, "Why do you want to shave your legs?"

In her best 'well duh, mom' voice she answers, "Because I have a lot of hairs on my legs and I don't think that it looks good. It would look better if I shaved them off."

At this point, the world starts spinning and gets very black. This is not suppose to be happening now!!! I have 4 more years!! Ok. Mental checklist. 1. Have cable turned off. 2. Cancel magazine subscriptions. 3. Call all of her friend's mothers and figure out who is responsible for putting this idea into my sweet little girls head. 4. Home school her until she is 20. 5. Take those bras away!! That was where this whole mess started. I think they are going to befall so horrible washing machine accident.

Some how words manage to come out of my lips. We talk about how that is something that she is going to have to do... one day. So after talking for about 10 mins, she agrees that she has other things to worry about, her Pokemon game, her clothes, her dolls and of course working on her allowance to save up for her DSi. That shaving doesn't really fit into that picture right now.

Whew. Made it through that crisis, until next weekend...

The middle school "talk".

So now my big man is going to 5th grade, and where we live, that means Middle School. That's right, different school, changing classes, more homework, and changing clothes for PE. Now for those of you who haven't met my son, he is small, a little shy and VERY passive. And about a year ago he went through that phase where he started needing privacy. It wasn't enough to shut the bathroom door. He had to lock it, put a chair in front of the door and announce to everyone not to knock when he went to the bathroom. We all go through that phase. So I understand. But now it is time to not have to deadbolt the bathroom door and realize that you can have privacy and still have shared spaces.

I mention to prince that middle school was going to be different and all the ways things were going to change. When I told him that he was going to have to change clothes, I thought he was going to have a heart attack. His eyes got big, he didn't say anything and I could see the veins in his neck pulse as his heart began to race. "It isn't that big of a deal," I explain. "It seems that way, but once your realize that no one is looking at you, you won't even care. And you will always have some clothes on. Your only going to change into a t-shirt and shorts, and then back into your uniform" He was so cute. He regains his compose your and quickly responds, "I will be fine as long as I can bring a towel."

Well needless to say the conversation took a downward spiral from there. Clearly we need to ease ourself into this conversation. So I tabled the conversation for the next night.

So the next night we were going through his drawers making sure he had enough shirts and socks and stuff for the beginning of the school year. I open up his underwear drawer and pull out a pair of G.I. Joe boxer briefs and say, "You know, I think you might be a little too old to be wearing these to school. Maybe we should just get some plain ones?" He nods and goes back to his Pokemon cards. Hmm. That wasn't a good start. "You know, these briefs are kind of like your swim shorts. So when you change clothes, it will be like always having your clothes on."

A light bulb goes off in his head. I could SEE it. He lifts his face to look into my eyes and gives me this great big smile. Uh oh. "That's it!", he exclaims. "I will just wear my swim suit under my clothes over my underwear." He rejoices.

Clearly I suck at this mom thing. Anyone? I am open to ideas.

How sweet is that?

My book club has inspired me to try a few new things. Despite my lack of culinary aptitude, I made a hard lemonade that I found here.

Not only did we enjoy it at our book club, but I brought some over to our neighbor's house a couple of days later to share while we hung out. Kristi and Nick have the CUTEST 3 year old son are so much fun. We had a great time just enjoying a mild July evening. The lemonade was a perfect summer treat. So we talked about how to infuse the vodka with vanilla to make the lemonade and how much potential that could have for other fun recipes.

Today when I came home, she had left this on my doorstep. She infused vodka with a mango green tea and included an orange and a splash of club soda for a refreshing evening treat.

Thank you, Kristi!

The evils of ebay.

For all of your OCD personalities out there. Don't ever start selling on ebay. Anything that isn't nailed down must go because once you start, you just can't stop.

It started so innocent. I just wanted to clean out the attic and I couldn't bring myself to throw some of the things away. I have been selling on ebay for 24 hours now and have listed the V-smile my kids haven't touched in 3 years, and a pocket camera I haven't touched since I got a phone with a camera in it.

I also listed a few things on craigslist. And by a few, I mean some furniture, a painting and I have already sold both of the car seats.

I couldn't stay up any longer tonight or I would have also posted the Yughi-o cards, the camcorder, 3 rattan chairs and the 4 area rugs.

Callie earns her keep.

Our office put on a fun little contest, Cutest Pet. The employees submitted photos of there furry friends and Callie, despite the monster she can be got third place! I will post pictures of her eating out of her trophy later.

Vacation Day 8

So for our last full vacation day we went back to Ship Island.
















The seagulls know that were there is a crowd, there is a free meal. They followed us for an hour, all the way to the island.















And just to make sure you know that we were actually there.
















I just love the top Fort Massachusetts. It just looks like part of the island.















Ever since we caught a fish in a bucket, our mighty hunter is convinced he needed a net. It was his downfall because he didn't catch a single thing since he got it.
















Poor little ghost crab runs from 7 little girls to find sanctuary under Tom's beach chair.



So what did those 4 hours on the beach look like? Just keep hitting repeat.



Our fearless daughter loved the waves.



And we got to see the dolphins, twice! Once while we were swimming and again while we were on the boat getting ready to leave.

More Vacation Pics

Our fearless captain calling the gators.















The million dollar swamp tour picture.















And this is just so amazing, this little turtle with those huge elephant ears in the background.















We did get a couple pics of the Fort on Ship Island. Almost forgot about these.















Standing in one of the windows where they fired the cannons. You can see the scorch marks on the wall.















Our favorite pastime was putting on sunblock.

Vacation Day 7

Today we drove over to Slidell, LA to go on the Honey Island Swamp Tour. If you ever have a chance, I highly recommend. Our cajun tour guide, Pirate Jack, actually... Captain Jack took us up and down the West Pearl River to show us how people lived and some of the highlights of the wildlife found there.

So this is the swamp. Just what you would expect, but I love those Cypress "knees".
















The had a few stow aways.
















This big tree in the middle of the picture was the oldest tree in the swamp. Captain Jack is guess about 500 years old.




















We all got front row seating.
















Tom and our little prince enjoying some redneck air conditioning.
















There were 4 turtles on this limb, but I was fast enough only to catch a pic of the bravest one.
















The swamp gets its name because the indians use to collect honey from the bees in the trees of this swamp. The dark spot on the bottom "Y" branch is the entrance to this hive. I had to use binoculars, but I could see the bees going in and out.




















The environment is constantly changing down there. I just needed this pic of a huge fallen tree that had floated down during the wet season to find a new home on the cypress knees, where it will be forever.




















This is a blue herron fishing carefully next to the shore.
















I can't believe I actually caught this picture. This was a white heron that watched us carefully come up the river. We didn't get very close before she spooked and flew off. Her wingspan is 6ft.




















I just love these birds. They look so statuesque. And they were everywhere.















And there was no shortage of gators. This little 5 footer was not interested in any marshmellows Captain Jack offered.















This was Captian Jack's favorite alligator. She was a 200lb, 13 ft, 50 year old female. In retrospect, I should have videoed this, but I was so excited I just took as many pictures as I could.















She came RIGHT up to the boat. The best part... WE GOT TO PET HER!!!!
















Here is Captain Jack picking up her foot to show off her claws.
















Let's not kid ourselves. It was all about the hot dogs.
















And pretty soon we had other smaller gators wanting in on the action.

Vacation Day 6 Part 2

It rained again today, just kind of off and on. So we drove around Pass Christian and Gulf Port just to check out the area. While we were driving through, there are several trees that fell victim to Hurricane Katrina. The city hired an artist to make the stumps into artwork. So we took pictures of the kids with these monuments.

The dolphins.




















The eagles.

Vacation Day 6

Most people sleep in on vacation. NOT US!!! At 8am this morning we were out walking the beach. It was a good thing too. We discovered stingray heaven.






The downside, the kids are scared to get in the water now. A bird pooped on Rena and she didn't want to get close enough to the water to wash it off. After I walked out to about knee high and didn't drop dead the decided it was safe enough to get their feet wet. Then we discovered we could catch jellyfish. This one had pretty little red edges.
















This one had tentacles.
















And if we can catch jellyfish, why not real fish? To my surprise, THEY DID!































Crab castle. I didn't get the best pic of this, but this crab actually built up a wall on one side of his hole.
















And some footage of one of the many schools of fish hanging out in the waves.

Vacation Day 5

At 7:30am I got up and made his highness' favorite breakfast, pancakes. At 9:30 I made sandwiches for lunch because they were starving and then we were off to the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center.




















I highly recommend this facility. It wasn't as large as the Children's Museum in Indianapolis, but it was spectacular. We spent the whole day and if they served food, we might not have left. I tried my best to keep up with the kids, but I went through 2 memory cards and almost lost battery power in my cell phone. Here is what I did get.

The outdoor exhibits were fantastic. There were several tree houses of different layouts for the kids to explore.






















































There was the bubble station.
















The submarine where they both banged their heads against the ceiling of the ship. I think we realized that we are getting a little too big for some rides. NAH.
















Let's not forget the outdoor Pelican Cafe where the kids got to cook for the onlooking parents. I am going to try this at home now that I know the kids think I would eat it.



The inside of the museum made creative use of the space available. Of course there was a climbing tower from one level to the next. And a tea room fit for a princess.
















The news room where the princess ran the show.
















The green room where his majesty showed us how to row a canoe.
















The train station.




















The shrimp boat.



































The construction zone.




















The Winn Dixie where I did at least 8 weeks worth of shopping here. Her favorite station was the seafood counter.







































The art center we created some masterpieces using sand.

































































The body discovery center.