Morrigan's Birthday

Morrigan turned 5 yesterday (August 29th.) We had her birthday party at the Club on Saturday. [Full photo coverage will be available in a few days. I've exceeded my file capacity this month!] After much negotiation, I was able to sway her from her original plan, Chuck E. Cheese. Wasn't too hard really. Just let her know it would be a luau and she would have a hula skirt (or as she calls it, a tula skirt.)

It might have been the easiest birthday party ever. All the kids played in the pool (read: no games organized by me) and everyone seemed to have a good time. The weather was perfect, 95 degrees and sunny. Maggie skipped her nap to be there and did great. Morrigan was a good hostess and didn't bat an eye when the other kids helped her open gifts.

Speaking of gifts...most were dead-on. Princess dress up clothes, Barbie cars and the like. A dear friend of mine Ann, however, gave her a huge thing of Playdoh. 24 mini containers to be exact. Her exact words were, "I love to give gifts I wouldn't give my own kids." Now I do feel her pain in that she has two boys so buying for girls is tough. (I have the reverse, not knowing what to get boys. This year, they all got King Kong.) But let it be known this will not be forgotten. Glitter & glue sticks for Mark & Luke next year!

I did feel bad that the girls both had on swimsuits that were looking a bit stretched out. It has been a tough year for swimsuits. I didn't realize how bad they were until it was too late. But they didn't seem to care. On the way home, both girls agreed that this was the best birthday party ever which is worth quite a bit of Playdoh in the carpet.

New Boots

Couldn't resist these boots at Target for the girls. Though they seem pretty fall to me, they insisted on wearing them immediately. They ran into the gym yelling "We're cowgirls!!!" Morrigan did request a matching cowboy hat.

My Chatty Children

Eion has really started talking allot. Now this would be great if any of it were useful. We do get some "hi" and "bye" but much more "I did it!" Generally this means "I opened the dishwasher & emptied it" or "I climbed on to the island in the kitchen" or one of my person favorites "I unrolled all the toilet paper." Now can he be bothered to learn to say he is hungry or thirsty? No. He just screams until I figure out what he wants. At which point I get to say "I did it!"

Maggie has been talking for some time of course. But she was cracking me up the other day as we were walking into the gym. She was skipping ahead of me singing, I kid you not, Ridin' by Chamillionaire. [For those not familiar with the lyrics, here is a sample: "They see me rollin. They hatin. Patrolling they tryin to catch me ridin dirty. Tryin to catch me ridin dirty."] What a good little rapper she is!

What I Am All About This Week

I have to warn you upfront this particular blog will be even more self indulgent than previous ones. You are warned, proceed at your own risk.What I am all about this week:

Under Armour: This is the greatest workout gear ever. If you do any sort of physical endeavors, you should really check this stuff out. It has been around for years but I never bothered to upgrade my crappy Target workout clothes. Now that I have, I will never go back.

SexyBack: Yes, I am ashamed to say I am talking about the Justin Timberlake song. Make fun of me all you want. I really like this tune. I shared my shame with my friend Ann Heerens who also fessed up to liking it. But she figured Mr. Timberlake would be mortified that people like us dug the song and that cancels the whole thing out.

Over My Head: As long as we're on the topic of music, I can't stop listening to this song by The Fray either. But I'm not as ashamed to admit it.

What I will lump together as Geeky Sci-Fi Shows: I really love Blade: The Series, The 4400, The Stargate shows and the new Battlestar Galactica. Thank god for Tivo as they are all on past my bedtime. I realize that this is quite a bit of dorky tv but Tim works alot of nights!

And also in the category of tv, House is a great show. Dr. House reminds me a great deal of what Tim would be like if he didn't have to be concerned about losing his job.

School: September 5th is the big day the kids go back to school. Goodbye children!

Now that I have all that out of my system...Mom & Dad were here this past weekend. They had fun picnicking with the kids and taking them to the pool & zoo. And of course spoiling them too! The girls greeted Arlene this morning with "Look at all our new toys!" But they had lots of fun & were sad to see them go. Morrigan and Maggie have already started counting down to our trip to Detroit in November. Chip, a friend of the family, works for Nestle & sent a huge bag of chocolates for us with my parents. Going to need to run a few extra miles!

I'm getting ready for Morrigan's birthday party this weekend. She is turning 5. Really hard to believe she is that old already! We're having a luau at the pool. I'll give you the full update later this week.

Pirates!

Pirates seem to be everywhere these days. Maggie went to a pirate themed birthday party this past weekend. Both girls want to be pirates for Halloween. [Well, they want us to be pirates too. Nar, we'll be a salty lot!] Clearly they are my kids as they are planning their costumes in August. Halloween always was my favorite holiday. For those who have known Tim for a long time, you know this warms his pirate loving soul. For he was pro-pirate long before the Caribbean variety appeared!

We continue our morning dead mouse checks. Much to the children's disappointment, we have only caught one more. But it is a hoot watching them run downstairs each morning yelling "Mice, mice! Let's cut their heads off!" Sorry PETA, no future members here.

Due to my extremely poor planning, the girls are at different camps this week. Morrigan is at the zoo from 9-12 and Maggie is at Raleigh Court Pres from 9-1. So I get nothing done and spend half my morning in the car. But as Tim loves to remind me, camps are about the girls having fun, not convenience for me! And they do seem to be having fun. Maggie ran up to me when I picked her up & told me that she had the "best day ever" at camp. Thank goodness because she was screaming when I dropped her off. It was great. Maggie was very excited about camp until we arrived. Then she started screaming. While comforting her, I set Eion down. He went off to play. Then finally I had to leave screaming Maggie so I picked up Eion & he threw a fit because he had to leave. Fantastic. The one who stays is crying about staying & the one who leaves is crying about leaving.

And Today's Topic Is...

I opened the silverware drawer this morning to find mouse droppings. Great I thought. I was ticked that the mouse trap under the sink must not have worked. But in spite of finding several cupboards and drawers, the little bugger did meet his maker last night. The kids were fascinated by the dead mouse and all he left behind. So while I was cleaning out all the placed he visited, we got to have a lengthy discussion about mouse poop, mouse death and mouse decapitation. When Tim got home from work (he was working a night shift) I told him we were going to need more traps and poison. I was at war. Having made the fatal error of mentioning this in front of the kids, they added to their mouse conversation repertoire how we were going to kill all of the mouse's friends and cut their heads off. Where this fixation on decapitation came from, I do not know. I have yet to behead a mouse.

So everywhere we went today, the girls told tales of mouse death and dismemberment. We stopped to get bread at the new Panera (Roanoke finally has one) and a sweet old lady told Morrigan and Maggie how pretty they looked. (As always, they were dressed to the nines in their gowns.) They replied, "Yes and we're going home to kill those bad mice and cut their heads off." Sweet, pretty girls indeed.

The Beach

Ahh, the family vacation! For the first time in two years, we ventured outside the Roanoke Valley with the kids. Eion had never been more than 10 miles from his birthplace and the girls have been within that same radius for two years. Clearly, we're a bit timid about traveling with them. But this last week, we went to the beach in Garden City, SC. We went with two other families so we had 6 adults and 8 kids (ages 1-11) under one roof. It was a bit chaotic, but really fun.

Our drive down went really well, all things considered. What is normally a 6 hour drive took almost nine. [How were we supposed to know that you HAD to leave at six am?] And the brand new DVD player broke 2 hours into the journey. And then there was the detour in North Carolina. We missed our turn and Tim decided to "wing it." We spent about 45 minutes wandering backroads. At about 11:45am, Tim said that if he didn't find the road we were looking for by noon, he would bend to my will and get a map. I kid you not, he found it at noon on the dot. Just some anecdotal proof that there must be a god and he is a man. But overall, the kids did great and the ride was not really that bad.

We were in Garden City which is near Myrtle Beach. It was kind of a cheesy area - lots mini golf, tshirt shops and other touristy things. Fortunately for us, this worked out great. Maggie was afraid of the ocean and wouldn't go in. As you may know, there was a huge heat wave last week. She would just get overheated on the beach, limiting our time there. So we went to the pavilion (a small fun park), the aquarium, and a water park. All were big hits with the kids. I was a bit nervous about the pavilion as it was in its "farewell season" (read: we have stopped doing maintenance as we are shutting down at the end of the summer) but we all survived and the kiddie rides were perfect for all the kids. Even Eion liked them, insisting on riding on one ride 5 times in a row. There were practically no lines, probably due to the 100 degree heat, so he could stay on as long as he liked. Morrigan even rode some "big" rides. Maggie loved the Tilt-a-Whirl.

Morrigan and Eion both liked the ocean much more than their sister. Morrigan wanted someone to hold her hand but would get out in the waves. Eion wanted to be on his own and loved getting tossed around. Luckily for Maggie, there were often tidepools that she could play in to beat the heat. And digging big holes was popular with all the kids!

Tim & I ate lots of locally caught fish, drank lots of beer & relaxed as much as one can on a family vacation. We played lots of games with the other adults in the evening like poker, trivial pursuit and my personal favorite, spoons! Things actually got a bit rowdy that night and the 11 year old asked us to quiet down. The house we rented was also close to a Krispy Kreme and honestly, those things are like crack!

We also got to visit friends who were nearby in Litchfield and had three more kids in the mix that day. They have two girls and a boy whose ages line up perfectly with our crew so it was fun. Even got to go out and do some shopping with the girls that day. We also celebrated Leigh Anne's birthday that night & went to girls only dinner at The Gulfstream Cafe. It was very nice and conveniently located within stumbling distance of the beach house.

The ride back was much better. The Myrtle Beach Best Buy has replaced the broken DVD player and the ride was only 6 hours. For full photo coverage of the beach, click on the lower Flickr badge on the right.

Since getting home I have been in a mood to clean things out & get rid of junk. Tim goes back to work tomorrow so I'm sure my progress will slow. We went back to the gym on Sunday to work off those doughnuts. I am so sore today. The short few runs I took at the beach just couldn't keep pace with the beer & food!