Snow in SC!

Looking at the pictures below may lead one to believe otherwise, but YES, we are in South Carolina!! We have had 2 fairly significant (for here) snows in the past few weeks and it's been AWESOME, in my opinion.

The first storm arrived on Christmas night. We had spent part of Christmas afternoon with some good friends in Greenville and, while we were there, a light snow started. By the time we left after dinner, it was sticking on the ground and the kids were getting EX-CI-TED!!! At the same time, we were a little nervous as Nana and Pat were racing down from Maryland, trying to beat the snow. They arrived around midnight, and there was already about 2" on the ground, which became 3" or so by morning, enough to make a snowman! The girls enlisted Pat to go out with them and they got to work!

We'd only been back in school after Christmas vacation for a few days when the weather forecasters started talking about another storm, more significant than the first. It started snowing very early Monday morning and snowed most of the day, dumping about 6" of pristine, powdery snow on the ground. So yesterday, we went out while the snow was still falling and played a bit. It was such dry snow, however, that it was hard to do too much WITH it!

Yes, I know this is a farmer's shovel ...

Last night, we could hear the sleet falling all night and we awoke to a good 1/2 inch of ice coating everything! So today was a very "crunchy" day to play outside but actually more fun than yesterday. Tire tracks on our street made perfect sledding paths ... our neighbor contibuted a cookie sheet and off Cady went!! A lot of the fun was just pulling up HUGE ice chunks and throwing them down to shatter on the ice sheet that is our yard.

Baylee came out for a while too!

Looking forward to more fun tomorrow, since school is canceled for the third day in a row!

the cake says it ALL

The cake DOES say it all but, for posterity's sake (for the day when I have all these blog entries made into a book), I'll just say a little more!

This year, my birthday fell on Thanksgiving so our dessert menu consisted of pumpkin pie (thanks to the Felty's), creme brulee (thanks to Ray) AND birthday cake. Ray, with his usual good humor, decorated the cake and gave me a sympathy card instead of a birthday card. The message was actually quite fitting!

Maddy sums up how I feel about turning 40

Miss B

Our little Baylee Rae turned 4 months yesterday. She is really getting FUN!! She smiles all the time and wriggles in glee when I come into her room in the morning or after a nap. Her legs are getting CHUNKY and I just want to give her a big squeeze every time I see her. She weighed in at the doctor's today ... 16 lbs., 11 oz.!! 95th %ile!

She has a variety of nicknames but the most used ones are
Miss B
Bay Bay
Miss Baylee Boo

We love our sweet girl ... and I love that she has NO interest in the pacifier. Finally, a child who does not require me to hunt high and low for the paccie at those frantic bedtimes. She happily sucks on any of her fingers, really, but her thumb or pointer/middle finger combo seem to be the favorites.

We think she may be teething. Ray cut 4 teeth when he was 4 months old so she apparently is genetically predisposed to get teeth early. We'll see!

UPDATE (12/20): Two big Baylee milestones ... last Wednesday 12/15 Baylee rolled over front to back for the first time. And on Saturday 12/18 she cut her first tooth!! She's following in her Daddy's footsteps ...

Day at the Museum

For the Thanksgiving holiday, Ray's parents came to town and on Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving) Grandma Weezie took all the girls to Greenville to the Children's Museum of the Upstate. Cady had been once before and did a great job selling it to Maddy so we were all excited! And it was a perfect day to go because, since it was a vacation day for schools, there were no herds of children there on field trips. Just lots of kids with their parents and grandparents, just like us!

This place is chock full of hands on things for kids to play/experiment with but the favorites were definitely the mini-grocery store and the mini-farm.

Maddy, shopping like a pro!!

The cow with a working udder (with water) was a huge hit!

I can never get enough "sister pictures"!

It was so much fun, Maddy konked out on the way home ... can you see her sunglasses under there?

Halloween 2010

Maddy and Cady decided a few months ago that they wanted to be characters from The Wizard of Oz for Halloween. Maddy was the first to claim the "green witch" and so Cady got on the bandwagon and decided to be Dorothy.

Today was the big day because, due to some unfortunate coincidences, the girls missed nearly every other Halloween festivity that they could have attended. Last weekend, when we were at the beach, was our ward's Halloween carnival and on Friday, when her class had their party, Maddy had a doctor's appointment. So there was MUCH anticipation heading into today. And on my part, STRESS!!

I procrastinated buying a costume for Maddy so, as of this morning, we had a broom, hat and green make-up but no dress. I thought maybe I could scrounge one up at church but to no avail. So during naptime, I frantically adapted one of my old black t-shirts into a witch dress. I was so worried that Maddy would throw a fit, especially since Cady's Dorothy dress was a glittery affair from Halloween Express! But she was as happy as could be, and didn't realize that she looked like hybrid of Yoda, a cistercian monk and the Wicked Witch of the East! There was more complaining from Cady, who had gotten some paint on her dress while painting pumpkins at her class party.Yay for candy!!

They donned their outfits and headed out to trick or treat with Daddy, returning two hours later with the fruit of their labor! Lots of candy, of course, with a toothbrush thrown in for good measure. I stayed home with Baylee and was ready to hand out candy but we had a grand total of THREE trick or treaters. Thankfully, Cady was home for the last 2 and literally gave them a huge handful out of our now over-flowing candy bowl!

Indian Summer at the Beach

Last weekend, we were lucky enough to sneak away from Spartanburg and spend a few days at the beach (Garden City, SC). We were planning to leave on Thursday evening but couldn't quite pull things together so we got up SUPER early on Friday morning, put the still pajama-ed girls in the car at 6:30 a.m. and hit the road!

We couldn't have asked for better weather in late October. The girls spent all afternoon on Friday and Saturday on the beach, playing, digging, flying our kite and jumping in the water (brrrr!).

On Friday afternoon, Grandma Weezie was able to join us on the beach for a while and then we all went out to dinner together. Then Ray took the "big" girls to the arcade!!! Apparently, the won big playing Deal or No Deal and got a bazillion tickets = a LOT of trinkety crap. I find it ironic that Ray often complains about all the "trinkety crap" the girls have but whenever we go to the beach, he leads the charge to the arcade and gets some more!!

Cady photo-documented some of their "booty"

On Saturday morning, we spent some time with the girls' great-grandmother Tutta and introduced her to Baylee. And on our drive home Sunday, we stopped in Camden to visit my Aunt Louise. I'm so proud of the big girls and how they love these elderly ladies. Seems to me that I was a bit afraid of "old people" when I was their age but they are just so happy to see them and give hugs. It was wonderful to see them both!

Baylee was there, too -- just laying around!!

It was a short but sweet trip ... Farewell until next year, beach!! *sigh*

35 (a day late)

Yep, that's how old Ray is now. Although according to Maddy, who doesn't clearly annunciate the "TH" sound, he is 45.

After a very "regular" day of school and work, we all went out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse to celebrate. Baylee cooperated and slept through dinner. We came home for cake-eating and present-opening. Due to Ray's extreme picky-ness about his cakes, he actually (I'm ashamed to admit this) made his own birthday cake this year. Two days before his birthday. It was, after all, his birthday so he figured he could do what he wanted!! He frosted it too ... and lit the candles. I did carry it to the table though, and led the singing too, so I contributed a little. I have to say the cake was AWESOME!!

Ok, we both had a piece before the actual birthday day.


Ray's motto for the upcoming year!

I think I'll go have some right now.