In the month and a half since I last posted, we have:

Decided to move to Texas where I will attend Texas A&M

Celebrated two birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, all to great success

Quit our jobs and found new ones

Not renewed our lease and might have found a place to live

Gotten new sparkly cell phones

Lost our minds

To top it all off, we are currently in route to Shreveport, La. to watch UGA take on A&M in the Independence Bowl. Woo hoo!

Ella's Book

The spelling is mine, the composition is all Ella Grace.

My cat is a very good swatter.


My cat got a toss across the yard by Daddy. (see above)


My cat got his paw stepped on by Ella. (see page about swatting)

My cat bit and scratched Mama. (see page about a toss across the yard and insert Mama)

We may leave this book tied to Thomas when we move. And leave him on the back steps.

Happy Birthday, Ashley Kate!

Today my sweet baby girl turns 2 years old!  I can hardly believe that she is two, much less believe that a whole year has passed already.  So much has happened since her last birthday!

We are unbelievably blessed to have such a wonderful little girl as our Katers.  While she is so much like Ella in some ways, she is quite different in others.  Which is exactly how I like it.  We can tell that Ashley is going to give us more trouble than her sister did because she has a devilish glint in her eye.  (I used to not really believe people when they would say that their child had that kind of look in their eye.  Not any more.)

Ashley loves to be outside, especially when playing with the dogs and cat is in order.  Unfortunately, she has picked up on a few things that we may or may not do in regard to the animals, mainly kicking at them and saying things like 'GO ON!'  In our defense, Thomas is quite possibly the most underfoot cat in the history of the world and I'm always afraid that I'm about to fall and Hank (that's New Dog's name) can't be trusted not to bolt into the house as soon as the door opens.  But Katers keeps them both at bay for us, all while landing zero death blows to the animals.

Our Baby Kate loves a lot of things in this world, but none come close to her rock solid love of milk (yea!) and Rabbit.  Rabbit is Ashley's night time stuffed animal/blankie thing.  She still sucks on the first two fingers on her right hand and likes to use the other two fingers on that same hand to rub the tag of whatever is in her left hand, be it a stuffed animal, blanket, or shirt, which is held up by her face.  Kind of like this picture, from a while back:

We can't convince our sweet baby to keep her shoes and socks on for the life of us, but we hope that once some cold weather gets here she will change her mind about going footloose and fancy free.  Maybe not.  She is her mother's daughter, after all!

Ashley Kate is making great improvements as far as her physical and communicative development goes.  She still has a bit of catching up to do, but considering how far she has come in the past few months we are thrilled.  She has started being able communicate with us well, giving us definite 'yes' and 'no' answers, as well as taking our hand and leading us to what it is she is trying to say or do.  So far she has made two word phrases, but I expect that that will be changing again soon.  About a month or two ago our sweet baby girl began acting like all two year olds do.  And while she was exasperating some of the folks at daycare (and her parents), we kept reminding ourselves that this was big!  It was merely four months before that she had begun to walk and talk, and now she's acting like a terrible two!  YEA!

Katers is moving a little ahead of pace when it comes to the all important potty.  She is interested in it, talks about it, and will tell us when she needs to go poop.  (Sorry, y'all, but such is the glamour and excitement!)  She hasn't actually done anything in the potty yet, but will readily sit on it.  I clearly remember Ella being well, well past two before she would even tell us that she needed to go to the potty, so WAY TO GO, BABY KATE!

Have you noticed that I have referred to Ashley in no less than 726 different ways?!  That's the way we do it around here, giving Ashley an identity crisis at every turn!  And just think, I haven't even mentioned Curly Kate!  Her curly hair, by the way, is one of the most astounding things to me since I never, ever, ever in a million zillion years considered that my children could have curly hair.  Did I mention EVER?  I still find myself in awe of her hair and will pull out her ringlets just to watch them spring back to place.  When will I get over this?  Maybe never.

There is much, much more to Ashley Kate these days but this is just a quick rundown for birthday documentation.  Happy Birthday, our sweet Ashley Kate Katers Baby Kate Curly Kate Ashley!

Going Askew

Tonight, as we were winding up the mountains and mountains of homework that Ella, who is in kindergarten, had on the docket, we found ourselves talking about fire safety. A stop, drop and roll was in order since she didn't get to do it class. "Only Ethan got to," she reported, "Ethan Day."

"Alright, go on over and kiss Daddy Day goodnight..." I told her, knowing that she would think that was pretty funny.

As she walked over to David Day, she laughed and said "I'm going to call you Mama Brittany!" after one of her friends at school.

"What's Brittany's last name?" I asked, preparing to call myself Mama Rodriguez or something similar.

"Areola" Ella said. I really can't help myself as I hid my face in my hands and laughed silently. Areola?! Mama Areola?

I think some clarification is in order.

From Art Class

Ella asked me to guess what this was when she brought it home from art class, and although I had a pretty sneaky suspicion of what it was, I had her tell me.

"It's Daddy!" she said, almost laughingly. I told her that that's what I suspected, since I've been married to Mr. Long Legs for almost nine years. David, on the other hand, knew exactly who it was as soon as he saw it!

We are a little concerned about the lack of a torso (and the slightly monkey-type arms), but we won't let that get in the way of appreciating some fine art.

Exhibit A

When Ella is a teenager and begins accusing me of being the worst mother in the whole entire planet, I will simply show her these pictures and all charges will be dropped.

(Evidence of my fantastical mothering ability lies in the multitude of small braids that I put in her hair so that she could have it wavy in the morning. Thank you, Amen.)

I Can’t Make This Stuff Up

So you’ve heard multiple times that we now have a cat.  Yeah, you get it.  And I realize that.  But would you believe that word appears to have gotten out on the streets of our small town that we feed strays?  It’s true.

This morning, as Mom and I were outside saying our goodbyes from a nice overnight visit, a stray dog marched right up to us and demanded to be petted.  He scared me, initially, since he looked like he had a bit of Pit Bull in him, so I quickly hugged Mom and scooted inside.

And he hung around, y’all, wandering around the yard, sniffing various bits and finally coming to rest underneath the truck.  Once I finally felt that he had moved on, I let Lilly out and didn’t think about it again, until I heard her barking later.  Was she barking at the mean looking, yet friendly intruder outside?  No, no she was not.  Lilly was barking at a school bus as it went past our house.  Oddly enough, however, right as the school bus went past is when David pulled up with Ella.  And there were two dogs running up to greet him.

I called Lilly inside and watched as David petted the dog and the dog wagged his hiney off in return.  ‘DON’T DO THAT!’ I said, fearing that any sort of affection would cement this dog to our front yard forever.  Too late.

But do y’all want to know what the kicker is?  ELLA ASKED SANTA FOR A CAT AND TWO DOGS.  And guess who is getting what she asked for?!

I absolutely, positively mean it when I say that if another dog shows up at our house I will flip out.  And I mean Flip The Hell Out, kids.  And then immediately demand that Ella ask Santa for a pile of money, complete with a picture.

 

Merry Christmas, Ella Grace, Merry Christmas.

(I don’t know how many of you knew our dog Matt from several years ago, but trust me when I tell you that this dog looks a lot like him.  Bob his tail, change his color and give him bigger ears and he would be awfully darn close.  But this dog’s color?  It’s really, really close to Lilly’s color and pattern… If this boy had bigger ears I would swear he was Matt and Lilly’s love child!)

The Cat, part deux

So we still have the cat - yea us! We have finally decided on a name for him, and I kind of love it. Thomas. Thomas the cat. Or Tom Cat, if you love a good play on words like me! Actually, it fits pretty well since we live in the Thomas house, on the Thomas farm, but is still a little odd to call a cat by a man's name!

Thomas has been steady in hanging out on the back steps, sleeping in the sun. Every now and then he'll venture off and once brought us back some type of rodent and placed it right on the mat so that we would see it as soon as we opened the door. Thaaaaanks, Thomas...! :)

Mr. Thomas almost became the guest of honor at a Chinese dinner the other night, though. Ella and I were outside collecting his food bowls to take inside and fill when he put both front paws (and claws) and mouth around my ankle. I suppose he was just so happy that we were feeding him that he gave me a love nip? And I suppose that I was just so overcome with emotion in return that I gave him a lovely, first class flight to the bottom of the stairs with my other foot, the one that did not look like a pin cushion. Since then I think he and I have come to an agreement: no nipping on his part and there will be no kicking on my part.

There has been more going on at the Thomas/McClure house than just the dadgum cat, I swear! Hopefully I will be able to share more about it soon!

The Cat

The cat is still around, y'all.

The good news is that the funky eye membrane issue has gone away - yea! The bad news is that a) we may have resigned ourselves to being the proud new owners of a cat and b) the prospective new pet is nameless.

(I haven't fully committed to the keeping of the kitty who at this very moment is curled up at the top of our back steps and tries his best to bolt inside as soon as the door is opened.)

We entertained the idea of naming the cat the other night. These were the suggestions:

Ralph (David)
Buford T. Justice (me)
Roscoe (David)
Orange Cat (David)
Lance (that would be Ella's suggestion - after the previous mentioned cute boy from kindergarten)
and finally.... Willie (me)

Ella really liked Willie, seeing as how she's a big fan of Willie the Wildcat from our K-State days. And this is a cat, after all. So David looked out the back door, make a cross in the air and deemed the cat Willie.

Today Ella has decided that Willie is no good. His name should be Cat. Can you even do that?! I mean, I know you can since my dad had a cat that we called Kitty for forever. And a friend of mine had relatives with a dog named Puppy. But really? I don't know... I may go back to pushing for Buford T. Justice.

The Lasershow

Last weekend we joined some friends in heading out to Stone Mountain to see the Lasershow.  We were a bit late getting on the road and ended up arriving within minutes of the show starting.  We knew better, but decided to head over to the lawn to see what the situation was… Yeah.  It was absolutely covered, and what I mean by that is that there wasn’t a single blade of grass showing. 

We had spotted a slightly decent spot to watch the show over by the tram ride, which worked out really well.  Look at all of the space we had! 

The view of the mountain was only slightly blocked by some tree tops, but we got most of the show.  I was able to connect with my Georgia girl roots by looking at those Confederate war heroes craved into the mountain!  When they played Elvis’ American Trilogy I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to emotionally weep or stand up and cheer.  Thank goodness David was there to keep me in order.  (There’s just something about Robert E. Lee breaking his sword over his knee that gets to me.  David, not so much.)

I was able to snap this picture after only 749 others before it!

The Red Phone

Tuesday, Ella came home with this picture from art class, where they were instructed to draw what they wanted from Santa.  This would be a kitten and two puppies, as described to me by Ella Grace.

Since I have not learned my lesson about arguing pointless issues with a five year old, I engaged Ella in a 15 minute discussion about Santa’s available communication methods, since I intended to get word to the North Pole posthaste that under no circumstances was Ella Grace to get anything furry for Christmas.  Since Ella has not learned her lesson about arguing with her mother, she volleyed back and forth with me about the fact that Santa does not have a phone and does not receive mail, so of course I would be unable to deliver the ‘don’t you even think it’ message.

Ah, motherhood.

Fast forward to this evening when David looked out the living room windows and saw a young, very hungry cat climbing our back stairs.  We quickly scooped up some leftover taco meat into a cup and took it outside to the cat.  Eventually, we were able to coax it over to eat and within about .37 seconds we had a new best friend.  A pack of cheap, paper thin lunch meat does down the kitty’s gullet and we decide that a quick run to the local Dollar General for some cat food is in order.

 

This poor guy is so thin and hungry that he puts away two cans of food and some dry food.  We could see a dramatic change in his belly once he was done!

I don’t know what’s going on with these membranes (?) over his eyes, but he is super sweet and wants to rub up against our legs and purrs with his motor on high.  We’ll see what happens in the next few days if he sticks around and Lilly doesn’t run him off, but I have one thing to say:

ELLA HAS A DIRECT LINE TO THE NORTH POLE.

Snake skin is in

Look what was left for us! Right at the front door so we would be sure to see it!

(Again, don't ask me what's on our door. I don't know. It was there when we moved in.)

Good glory, that will give you the heebie jeebies!

Hopefully this skin belonged to the very friendly king snake that was residing under our house, eating its way through the bounty of mice that our rural house provides. If so, someone should really clarify with mister or misses king that our mutual understanding indicates that s/he will remain under the house until death do us part. Or we move.

The snake is not allowed to come out from under the house, and under NO CIRCUMSTANCE is s/he to tarry on our front porch long enough to shed his or her skin, leaving it as a blatant sign of the complete and utter lack of respect for our agreement.

Take note, snake: YOU HAD BETTER BE UNDER THE HOUSE THIS VERY MINUTE, EATING EVERY MOUSE THAT ENTERTAINS THE THOUGHT OF ENTERING THIS HOUSE. If I see evidence of a mouse in my house, which indicates that you have stuck your forked tongue out and are blowing raspberries at us, you're going down. Count on it.

How quickly the tides can turn

The conversation started innocently enough.

"Mama, tomorrow morning after I eat breakfast I want I'm going to brush and floss my teeth."

Sure thing, I say. "Because I want my teeth to shine and sparkle when I smile." Very good. I'm on board.

"Because I like to smile at Lance. And he smiles at me." Mmmmm.

"Lance told me that I was pretty." Really.

"And that my dress [which was only worn because no shorts were clean, because she doesn't like dresses anymore] was pretty." Hmmm.

"And he gave me flowers at recess."

"And I want to wear a dress tomorrow."

I think it's cute!

David does not.

First Day of School

Last Monday was Ella's first day of school and perhaps I haven't quite recovered from it in order to post. Nah, I'm just teasing, but I think it was such a momentous occasion that I would earn Bad Mother of the Year title if I didn't post about it here.

The obligatory FDoS pictures on the front porch. Watch as the frustration sets in...

Yay! Standard shot on the front porch! Don't ask me what's on our door. I have no idea.

Now with the book bag over your shoulder, honey!

Um, yes, the blue beads went to kindergarten.


An over the shoulder look, trying to capture the essence of the book bag.

Fine. I'm done.

There it is! The book bag is from Mercy Regional Health Center, a gift from the hospital when she was born. WHO IS A CHEAPSKATE? That'd be us. I wonder if her teachers feel sorry for her, having to carry a hospital book bag instead of a princess one like all of the other girls. Yeah, that's what I thought.

She had (and has had) a really good experience at school. On the first day I was walking her to her classroom and may have gotten a bit caught up in all of the buzz and what seemed like trillions of little children milling about everywhere. I was instantly taken back a few decades to walking the halls of my elementary school, mentally checking off where the lunchroom was, which hall my classroom was on, and the way out to the buses. I looked at her with my eyes all ablaze and said 'Look, Ella, at all of these kids! There are so many new friends here!' To which she replied, in a very exasperated tone, 'Mama, I'm not as excited as you are!' And so it begins.

Once I sat through one hundred and eleven hours of car rider waiting, I pumped Ella for all the information she could give me after the first day. Bologna sandwiches for lunch, some kids were naughty, she was nice, and she didn't take a nap. A boy near her during nap time tried to tell her to go to sleep, but she didn't pay attention to him because 'He's not the boss of me.' Exactly, little girl, exactly. (As your daddy will explain to you in great detail in a few years, boys are dumb and you never, ever, EVER do what they tell you to. Ever.)

Now that a week has passed, we have moved on to the homework stage of kindergarten. Who knew?! One assignment was to review the letters of the alphabet and match little cards with the letters on them to their place on a chart. Easy, peasey, mac and cheesey if you're Ella Grace. Therefore, the obvious thing to do when Ella can already do the homework assignment is for her to act as the teacher and make Mama do the assignment. Obviously! I have tried and tried to tell her that I do, in fact, know my letters, but that doesn't matter. I think the drive to be the boss and play teacher is too overwhelming, and there I sit, matching letters to charts and calling out their names during an exciting round of flash cards. When will Ashley Kate be old enough to sit through this in my place? Or where in the world is her father?

Speaking of Ella Grace's father, he's not too keen on the latest chant that she has brought home from kindergarten. 'Missed me! Missed me! Now you've got to kiss me!' Oooooh noooo ho ho, little one, don't go repeating that at our house! David is not a fan of Ella telling people they have to kiss her. Even if it is an irrational and unfounded fear. That doesn't matter. There might be boys who take her seriously and then where would we be?! In trouble, that's where. Which is exactly where I found myself after making an innocent comment about the potential cuteness of a new friend who is a boy. I remarked that new friend Lance was at open house when we were and oh, by the way, as I recall he was kind of cute. Swiftly, from the back seat, I was told 'We don't say things like that at school.' Case closed. David was rather pleased to hear about this conversation, to say the least.

Overall, school seems to be fitting well with Ella. I figured that it would, since she is definitely 'a rules girl' (to quote Andria about her daughter Dellaina). She thrives on being good and doing all of her homework on the night that it is assigned. She is empathetic to the children in her class that aren't as prepared for kindergarten as she is, and has commented about how she will help them learn. 'It's not their fault that they don't know... they just haven't been taught yet.' Awww... so sweet!

I Knew This Going In

Quote of the day from David:

"I don't have opinions, I have FACTS."



If there ever were truer words (at least in his own mind), I've never seen them.

Over The Jeff Hill

Happy 40th Birthday to my brother-in-law Jeff! Jeff's last name just so happens to be Hill, so that lends itself quite nicely to be made fun of, especially on your 40th birthday, Mr. Jeff I'm over the Hill!

Because Jeff is a cattle guy, I'm tossing this up here (even though his specialty isn't dairy cattle, but who's counting?).

Aaaand because I happen to know that Jeff has been known to have a beverage or two, I'm tossing this up here (even though he's WAY, way past 30 - it's still fun).



Happy Birthday, Jeff!

On Monday...

The implications of this piece of paper are something that I may find myself unable to handle come Monday morning. And Tuesday. And maybe even Wednesday. It's going to be touch and go, people, touch and go.




MY BABY! MY SWEET, LITTLE, TEENY TINY BABY! GOING TO SCHOOL!

She'll be meeting new friends, learning new routines, adjusting to new teachers, going through the lunch line all by herself, carrying a book bag, and bringing home homework!

This can't be happening.

It just can't.

I have a feeling that I will be clinging tight to Ashley as we walk into kindergarten, afraid that the Lamar County School System may want to claim my second born as well.

Can I drink beer at 8 AM? Is that allowed?

This one is just for my mom

Susan is the only one brave enough to call me out for being so slack (has it really been a MONTH?!) and to that I say Kudos. Somebody needs to give me a kick in the pants, that's for sure!

To get back in gear, I offer this from tonight:

I stepped into the living room to find David and Ella tied up in knots tickling each other. Each is as ticklish as the other, so it would be a fair fight... if one wasn't 31 and the other 5. Even with the odds stacked against her, Ella continues to struggle, yell, laugh, struggle some more, laugh and land a tiny, glancing tickle here and there. Meanwhile, David knows he should show her mercy, but it's really not in his nature to do so. So he doesn't. And Ella cries out 'I'm going to pee my pants!' at random intervals, and I'm not convinced that it's just for effect.

Thinking that I might need to even out the odds a bit, I tell Ella that if she were a smart girl, she would ask for some tips or tricks from someone who might know a thing or two about tickling Daddy. (David, under his breath: 'Even though Daddy asks her not to and she does it anyway...')

'Who's that?' she asks.

'Who do you think?' David replies.

Ella searches her brain for the most logical answer, given the fact that she's having a tickle fight with her daddy, and guesses 'Grandma? Grandpa?'

'No...' David says, '...who is the meanest person in this house?'

And Ella, filled with the conviction of a 5 year old who knows the answer, says in a most loud and most clear voice: 'MAMA!'

And don't y'all forget it.

Playing in the creek

I promised more playing in the creek pictures, and I'm going to deliver!  Boy howdy, am I going to deliver.  To the point of driving you nuts, I think, but you would probably all agree that since I have been slack in reporting things as of late, it's okay.  For now.

Since Marisa and I are good little girls, we went and spent a nice little afternoon with our dad on Sunday.  One of Daddy's favorite things is to get in the creek that runs through the back of his property when the weather turns hot.  Marisa and I used to play in the creek all the time when we were little, so it was quite a treat for Daddy to have his grandbabies out in it!

Ashley Kate didn't bat an eye at the cool, rushing water or all of the moss growing underneath her feet and bottom.  No, she immediately commenced splashing around like she does in the bath.

Um, Katers, what's with the Chicken Dance pose?

"Did you just call me a chicken?"

Ella and Papa striking the same pose I have seen in pictures from the past...

All it took was the promise of a milkshake and Ella agrees to lay down in the running water.

(Don't mind Daddy's painted on shorts.  Or his sock line.  That's how the McGraw's do it, you see.)

Aw, sweet sisters

Aw, sweet cousins!

Speaking of sweet cousins, they don't get much sweeter or cuter than Anderson!

I mean, just LOOK AT THIS FACE!  I'm dying over here!

I have more pictures, but won't subject you to them just yet (because it's another photo series! gasp!).  All in due time, all in due time. :)

Ella's Father's Day gift to David

For Father's Day, Ella gave David a deep feeling, way down in his gut, that he's going to have BIG TROUBLE with the boys. All it took was this picture from our trip to my dad's (to play in the creek - more pics to come) to seal the deal.

Nothing says Happy Father's Day like an ulcer, don't you think?!

The Water Gun Fight or The Longest Photo Series Ever

Since we are fortunate enough to have plenty of room and plenty of shade in our back yard, we made good on a promise to Ella that she could FINALLY have a pool. As much as Ashley loves splashing water in her baths and during water play at school (they had to cut water play short one day purely because of the mess that my baby was making!), we knew she would be a big fan of a pool too.

Yesterday, I picked Ella up from preschool early, telling her that she was going to go help me with something - but I didn't say what. We went to Chick-Fil-A and got her a milkshake because, after all, this was special 'Mama and Ella' time and nothing says special to Ella like a milkshake. (Side note: CFA's milkshakes are so stinkin' good that you feel positively naughty when you drink one. I highly recommend it.) Then we eased on over to WalMart and once in the parking lot I told her what she was helping me find... I don't think I have ever seen Ella Grace as excited as she was when I uttered the word pool. And I mean ever - not even Christmas morning beat this particular level of excitement!

We found what I had picked out online (and for only $35!) and made our way back home so that she and Ashley could get in it STAT. Only 30 minutes with the hand air pump later and we were filling our 10 ft. long pool with ice cold well water! The girls didn't mind one bit that the water felt practically arctic and played in it for quite a while. Finally Ashley tossed in the towel and started requesting 'Out! Out!' but not before Ella and David engaged in a little water gun fight:

David filled Ella's with ammo first so all things are not equal here

And so you can imagine what Ella decides to do

Which is awfully brave of her (Ashley makes like a tree here, which is very smart)

The battle begins and Ashley is still quickly scooting off

Ammo is flying (notice that Ella has taken a step back here)

And another step

Ella's giving lots of ground

She's been hit!

RETREAT! RETREAT! David smells blood

Sneak attack! Ella tries the behind the back maneuver

But David is too quick!

This is what you call running for it because your opponent is brutal

Brutal, I say!

How does he still have water for this kind of extended attack?!

Surrender!

Ella knows of her daddy's love for revenge so don't go feeling sorry for her. Maybe she also knows of her daddy's love of complete domination when it comes to things like this so that's why she got in the cheap shots while she could? Probably so, probably so.

(You should notice that I won't be getting into any water gun fights with David until we are properly armed with Super Soakers. None of these piddling guns for us... No, if we're going to fight, we're going to FIGHT!)