Guilt Free

So in my pregnancy fog a month or so ago I "tapped" the wheel of Jack's Radio Flyer tricycle with the car when pulling into the carport and bent the wheel. It still worked okay, just required a little more effort from Jack when peddling around the yard. About a week later I backed over the same said tricycle when running to Sonic for Happy Hour and seriously bent the same wheel. I also made Mac furious for about 1 minute and then he just laughed at me. It was pretty pathetic watching Jack try to push his tricycle around the yard getting really frustrated.

Luckily the weather here has been pretty hot and humid, so we haven't done much tricycling in the yard, so I was able to keep it hidden from him. I found out that you have to order parts directly from Radio Flyer, not just anyone carries the part, and ordered new wheel last week. I figured that I would have to take it to a bicycle shop or something to get it fixed. This is frustrating because I probably would have had to take it Florence (30 minutes away) to find anyone to work on it. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was able to fix the tire myself. Yes me! It was actually fairly simple and all the guilt I felt for smashing his toy was for naught. As of tonight I successfully switched out the tire and we are good to go! Now hopefully he doesn't figure out how fast he can actually pedal. These days it doesn't take much to out run me!

"FREE"style

"THE SHEAR GENIUS"

Ok, just a quick post to note that Marley has once again struck with the scissors. I thought she was old enough not to do this again. I guess she forgot our chant "only a professional can cut my hair" that we recited for weeks after the last incident a few years ago! She snipped a section of hair right in the front, but just shy of the front hairline, so I think I will be able to hide it until it grows out a little. The exciting addition to this every few years occurrence is that she moved from herself to Jack. I noticed last night before he went to bed that he had a little chunk of hair missing as well! It took me all day to get her to tell me WHY she did it. She was really creative at attempting to explain HOW it happened. You know, you have the scissors in your hand and you are looking at your desk and it happens to cut your brothers hair! Ya, totally believable. Or those crazy scissors just cut your hair while working on your sticker project and then the locks somehow crawled under your bed. Wow, even better. She certainly has an imagination.

I will not post pictures of the offense, but I will post a nice picture of my kids so I can remember when they had good hair days, rather than one showing the bad hair days ahead.

I also found out that you can be so mad that you can't even think of a proper punishment for the offense. I am still working up a plan. I have informed Marley that she is going to be punished, I just haven't come up with anything adequate yet. I told her she could never use scissors again, to which she replied with deep concern for any 1st grade school projects she might have to do in the future. I also told her that if she cut her hair again I was going to shave it all off. She attempted to say that is what she wanted was a short haircut, but that line of defense didn't last long. On a positive note, she did empty the entire dishwasher yesterday by herself, which she has never done, and helped me clean up the kitchen. Here I thought she had turned a corner on her chore issues, but no. She informed me that her doing these chores could be her "punishment". Needless to say, the official punishment is still to be determined!

"Clippity-do-da"

Shout out to Grandpa Rxe!

Marley's last day of school is tomorrow, so she brought home all the journals she has been keeping this year. Last night I was thumbing through them and came across this entry from April, a week or so after we returned from our visit to Utah. I thought it was cute, especially because she put "Rxe's" for his name. Although the picture is a little vauge, I think it is her listening to music. They both have ipods and love music.

WE LOVE YOU GRANDPA RXE!

Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice!

IT"S a GIRL!

We found out yesterday that #3 will be a girl! We are pretty excited. I am looking forward to getting Marley's old clothes out and seeing what I can still use!

Marley is really excited. She wanted Jack to be a girl. She even cried at his ultrasound when she found out he was a boy. She was much happier this time around.

The name we have picked out (for now) is ....

CALLIOPE RAE WILLIAMS

(Ca-lie-o-pee nickname Callie) --- Rae after Mac's grandpa Raymond Buckner

Most people have an vocal opinion about this name choice, but for now the only thing that will change is the middle name. I think having a girl named after the muse of epic poetry, the music maker on a riverboat & at Disneyland, and my favorite Mardi Gras parade (Muses) is very fitting. She won't know anything about New Orleans, but at least she will be connected to it in some way!

Only 3 months and 22 days to go!

Busy Week for Marley X

Marley had a pretty busy week. She was awarded a Terrific Kid award in February and they honored the kids from the past few months in an assembly. She was chosen to say the class "motto". Marley did a wonderful job. She spoke loud and clear and remembered all of the words. Later in the week they had a talent show (mentioned in previous post). Her original ideas were scrapped and she ended up in a group of her classmates singing "YMCA". It was also "Dress up like the career you want to have day" so we had a bit of a struggle locating enough firefighting gear to be worth wearing to school/dressing up for the talent show. Marley reasoned that since she wanted to be ballet teacher on ice, she could wear her tutu, tights, and Cinderella slippers to school as well as during the talent show. I tried to explain that the original singers of the song dressed like a construction worker and a policeman, but she was completely confused about why they would dress like that (luckily she was confused about the meaning of the song she was singing as well!), so she opted for the ballet teacher garb. She looked cute, but obviously from the picture I couldn't get very close to take a good picture. You can take it on faith that her Y, M, C, and A where quite sharp and the kids in the crowd loved it!

Friday was "Crazy Hat and glasses day" See below. If you look close you can tell she is missing a tooth on the bottom! Saturday, Marley had a birthday party for one of her friends. Her friend is adopted from China, so they had you donate money, rather than bring a gift to help support the kids from her orphanage in China. It was at the Coker Boathouse on the lake (minutes from our house), so Marley had a good time trying to catch tadpoles with her drink cup. This picture is before the party. Thanks Grandma Jackie for the new clothes. She looked lovely.

Picture Teaser

While in Utah (post pending detailing our trip) my Sister-in-law Erin took some photos of the kids. She put a few up on her blog. If you would like to check them out here is a link to Erin's page. She did an awesome job!

In like a Lion...out like a Lamb

Well, as I suspected would happen, I have gone quite awhile without posting anything new to this blog. Not that things haven't been noteworthy, just taking the time to sit down and type things up has escaped me. Now even worse I started this post a week or more ago and haven't gotten around to finishing it. I wanted to add more pictures and details, but I guess those will have to wait. Here is what happened to our family in March:

• Mac chaperoned an International Student Organization Spring Break Trip to St. Augustine for the first week of March. Poor Mac, right? Well, this isn't really a picture of where they stayed, it is just where I imagined they were having the time of their lives while I was alone in SC with two crazy kids! We managed to survive here at home and actually enjoyed ourselves at the local hangouts of Pizza Hut and McDonald's. Two places Mac doesn't like to go because he worked many years at both places!
• Mac's Grandpa Buckner passed away. This was a sad event for all of us. In retrospect he was 95 and had outlived everyone he knew. His quality of life had deteriorated in the last few months and I am grateful for the knowledge that he is in a better place. A place he worked his entire life to be worthy of. We miss you!

• We travelled to Asheville, North Carolina for Grandpa Buckner's Funeral. Even though the weather was not so nice and the circumstances were not ideal, it was good to spend time with Mac's Mom and Sister. Asheville is a pretty place and the cemetery had a gorgeous view of the mountains. It was like being on top of the mountains. For someone who is used to being at the bottom of majestic mountains, this was a unique experience.

• LaLa came to visit for her Birthday. Even though Jack prevented us from enjoying our dinner at Bizzell's to the fullest, it was great to have her here at the house spending time with the kids and trying to relax.

• Plane rides (to & from Utah). If you ever wanted to feel like you have failed as a mother, take your talkative 5 1/2 year old and your 21 month old (in your lap) on an airplane for longer than 1 hour! Jack did not like being held in place during takeoff and proceeded to scream and flail for about 15 minutes. In my head I used every Motherly phrase invented I thought of grounding him, sweet talking him, threatening him with no snack if he didn't shape up, it was crazy. I even wanted to yell "If you don't stop crying I am going to turn this plane around!" Wouldn't that have been nice if it would have worked. Finally, he gave up and fell asleep, but that is when Marley started. I cannot remember the number of times I asked her to be quiet. She even said to me "I think you are going crazy" because I was so frustrated by their behavior. Needless to say we made it home without making it on the news! My dream flight below...

• Talent show -- Marley informed me that her school was having a talent show. I asked her what her talent was and she said that she was going to stick almonds in her nose and then shoot them out into her hand! Wow, although I think that takes talent, I was pleased to find out that she decided to sing/dance to "You are my Sunshine" with her friend Takayla instead. Talent show happens next week, so hopefully I will have something to report
• Marley saw a commercial for a MAC computer and since she can read the word on the screen now, she was very excited that whatever was being talked about had her Dad's name. I told her that it was a type of computer and she replied..."No wonder my Dad is so famous!"
• "DWINK!" second most often screamed word in our household by Jack these days. Today he looked at a bottle of lotion and yelled it, he also picked up the mouthwash and yelled it, he also yells it first thing in the morning and I think every time he is bored. He has also decided that he is a Yankee. That is he yells "Ma" to get my attention. I fully expect him to add the "Hey.." to the "Ma" shortly.
• Jack discovered jazzercize...Marley's shoes...and Marley's socks!

• Marley lost a tooth. I didn't get any picture of this for some reason, but she did ask me a million and one questions about what the tooth fairy did with the teeth and how she got in the house. Luckily, this person is a "fairy" so things are easily explained by the supernatural and awe inspiring.
• While in Utah Mindy had a baby shower for Kayden. It was a lot of fun to see my relatives that I don't usually get to see when I am in Utah! Thanks Mindy for waiting to have the last shower until I was there. As a side note, we talked so much about the shower before it happened that Marley asked my Mom if we were going to have the "Shower" in the bathroom!
• STITCHES! -- Jack fell off a toy at my parents house (right next to me) and hit his chin on the border between the carpet and the wood floor. It didn't bleed a lot, but it was pretty deep and pretty gross. My children have not had to go to the ER in their hometowns, but each has had something ERish happen to them when on vacation in St. George. Jack was surprisingly good about the stitches and didn't really pull on them or act like they hurt. He was more angry about being held down during the stitches than anything else. Thanks to Grandpa Dusty for rushing us to the Insta-care and keeping me calm throughout the process.

• I actually celebrated my birthday at home for the first time in probably 15 years! My Mom took the day off, I got my hair done, "the girls" went to lunch and were surprised by my Aunt Jeri at Paula's, and we had Ice Cream cake that night. Pretty fun and great company. Turning 32 (sigh...) turned out to be fun!