Happy Thanksgiving to you all

Thanksgiving family meal. Turkey, trimmings and the full works. The morning was spend at CVS for the Thanksgiving early Black Friday sale (that was Tracy and the girls). We ended up with a ton of stuff and a $35 profit. Daddy was working late into Thanksgiving eve so he got to sleep in.

The afternoon was spent outside playing and enjoying the 60 degree pleasant weather. God it is good to live in the south.

I did go to bed with the intention of getting up very early (5am) and heading to the stores to get the Black Friday shopping deals but I had a second glass of wine and was going to have the girls with me - somehow a lie in seemed more appealing! Daddy had to head to work but he managed to get in some Black Friday shopping before work!!

Mama's halo is a shinning

The food pantry at the Loaves and Fishes charity that I volunteered at on Monday. It was all very last minute, I offered to help deliver the food that the preschool had collected and helped to stay and weight the donated food. For tax reasons they weight the donations so that people can claim the tax back on it. Orders from social services are faxed in and there is a set number of items and type of items that are put into the orders for the families, it all depends on the number of people in the family etc. Very well organized and very busy. Everyone is doing food drives and delivering the donations for Thanksgiving feasts. This year there is an even greater demand because of the economy. From what I saw, some very kind people have stepped up to the plate so that others have something on their plate.

Boxes and boxes of sorted items that have been delivered from a central warehouse.

One room of donated stuff that is yet to be sorted out - a mammoth task and all done by an army of volunteers.

Soybean's Thanksgiving school party

Praying!!!

The whole class performed two songs that were very cute. One was "My God is so big, so big and so mighty" and the other was "Eleven fat turkeys are we". Sawyer was very er, um loud and animated in her performance.

Woodland walk

Ian, Freya, Drum and I during "snack break" on our family walk last weekend. The new section of McAlpine Creek opened a few weeks ago so we thought we would give it a go. Lovely. Only did a mile or so out and then back. It starts and ends at the Rea Road Trader Joes, Starbucks, CVS shops - great for toilet access and some coffee at the end of a long trek. We also visited the new bread store / bakery that open - delicious and our new personal favorite. The Cinnamon chip bread is to die for.

The team.

Snack break - the most important time of the day!

Harris Teeter and Bloom triple coupon shopping spree

$13 total, more than it used to cost but Harris Teeter have changed their computer systems so that we can't make money "buying" their products. It is still fun though and you still get a ton of great stuff for very little money. The picture doesn't show all the fresh and frozen items like milk, veggies, yogurt etc that were included in the total. All the (50!!) or so cans of soup and tomatoes are organic. I cleaned out my pantry before this shop and was happy to donate 4 huge boxes of food to the Food drive at school. The rest of it? , we will amazingly work our way through in no time at all. (Darn those children are developing hollow legs and are eating me out of house and home). Although, even we will not be able to work our way through 45 boxes of cake mix.

The Never-ending tinfoil nearly ended

Oh Maren!! Can you see her screaming because I caught her in the process of pulling all the tinfoil off the never ending roll? We might only have a couple of years supply left. What were you thinking girl?

Flyball Demo at the Scottish Farm Sheepdog Trials

Tracy got to spend the day at the farm with her flyball bunch. Drum, Freya and Tracy are still flyball wanna bees (still learning!), but at least I got the chance to boxload (picture above) and start the races. Drum came along for the socializing and got to see his foster daddy Michael and some of the other border collie rescue people.

For those of you who know Freya, you might think that that is her in the picture - it's not! That is Molly - "her twin" lookalike, who is 2 years old and fast, fast, fast. We can only aspire to a turn like hers - sigh. Someday.

Sexy Sadie the Spider and some of her friends - in daylight

These are our Halloween spiders that invade the outside of our house every year. Darn pests. This year they even left marks on the house where I made the mistake of painting their eyes in-situ - oops. Hopefully I'll find some chemical that will take it off.

Sexy Sadie and her friend Romay.

The Amazing Maize Maze

The Girls at the start of the Amazing Maize Maze at Rural Hill Scottish farm (a couple of weeks ago). We did this last year and it was hot and the corn was only about 6 foot high - way higher this year so we couldn't cheat and look over the top. The idea is you are timed, in teams, are given individual flags, enter the maize and try to negotiate your way through it as quickly as possible while collecting puzzle pieces and clues. Great day out with kids.

I can't get this picture showing the correct way up - glitch in the system but ...... It is us at the end of 1 and a half hours of negotiating our way through the corn maze. We even got most of the clues, puzzle pieces and had a snack, all in that time. We are at the top of a bridge leading out of the maze and behind us is the field with lots of flags (teams) wondering around getting lost.

The girls after completing the children's "No left turn" maze.

Romay aka Little Bear the Native American

Romay and MacKenzie (one of our neighborhood kids) at school during the Thanksgiving lunch. Amazing what you can make out of a Harris Teeter paper bag.

Mum and Romay - check out the macaroni necklace.

Romay and her class dressed up in the school cafeteria

Fall Farm Day Trip

Sawyer and Maren selecting a pumpkin - Do you know how long it takes for a 2 and 3 year old to find "the perfect" pumpkin? About 20 minutes, then they grow bored and want a snack.

It looks a bit like the old Wild West but that is the hayride wagon in the background. This farm is only about 5 minutes from our house and we go strawberry picking there in the summer. A sweet little spot.

Us in the wagon, going to visit to animals. Man, those hay bales are prickly to sit on but they do help cushion the bumps.

This was me trying to get a good picture of the girls - I gave up after a few minutes. It was just not going to happen!

Soybean's birthday

Sawyer's party at Space Kidets. She is officially a Space Kidet. Lots of kids, bounce houses and a totally frozen cake. The lady at
Sam's club assured me that the cake would defrost fast and it would be ready for the party. Wrong!!! It was so hard we had to dig a hole to get the candle in. The kids and adults didn't care as we had Will's cake as well and just used all of that instead. Everybody had a blast and came home nice and tired. Happy Birthday Soybean - Age 4.

Sawyer and Mum also managed a day out together to the movies (Beverly Hills chihauhau) and lunch at Wolfgang Puck (her choice) and a visit to the toy store. Funnily enough, her best present was a bag and teeshirt with "Camp Rock" on it. Shane Gray and Mitchie - you have a lot to answer for. She knows the songs and words off by heart.

Sexy sadie the Spider

Darn, too dark. I'll try to get a better picture of "Sadie" in daylight. We also have big spiders stuck on the side of the house and had sound effects playing in the yard. It is amazing what you can do with some trash bags, leaves and weed fabric - oh, and a roll of sellotape.

Halloween and Trick or Treat

We were Remy, Emile and Linguini (or Colette) from the movie Ratatouille. This was at the neighborhood street party (from 5-6pm then straight to trick or treating). Hundreds of little kids and adults dressed up and taking part in the great American tradition of Trick or Treating. Great fun for $2 for adults and $1 per child. Hot dogs, chicken nuggets, chips, drinks and cookies.

Romay at the last minute decided not to be a rat but instead she would be a cheerleader. Suited her and was perhaps a vision of things to come? This is a picture of Romay, Sawyer, Maren, Andrew, Dorian, JD and Tommy. Just some of the gang.

Maren eating off the road like a true rat. Yes, all three plates were hers!

Sawyer and Maren getting ready for the off. They practised "trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat" the whole way to the party.

Romay girl crew that she gets the school bus with. Really nice bunch of girls and sisters. Rose and Rachael (on the right hand side) have a Scottish dad as well so we have lots in common with them.

I specifically told her not to put it up her nose

Every time I hand them out to the girls I tell them the tale of how my school friend Roy Anderson got one stuck up his nose and had to go to the nurses office. So, we were at the beach last weekend and I hand them one each. I again tell the tale about Roy and I also say don't choke on them because Granny Barnett would be worried about that. I say that about most candy and stuff because Granny Barnett is worried about that - Ian calls it my families' disaster planning scenario gene.

Anyway, we are loaded in the car, all safely bucked in. We pull the car out of the parking spot. Ian is driving, the music is on, A/C blasting and we hear the scream. You know Sawyer, this is not a low key scream, we are talking full on mega volume. She is screaming - "It's stuck up my nose!, It's stuck up my nose, help me".

Ian and I exchanged a quick eye roll and I dive out the passenger door, pull open Sawyer's door all the while yelling "I specifically told you not to put it up your nose".

I got to Sawyer in time to see the orange TIC TAC disappearing up her left nostril. Yes, a tic tac. Bullet shaped, small and not meant to be up your nose.

I had visions of explaining this one in the emergency room at Hilton Head (we know where it is on Hilton Head because of an incident a few years earlier with Romay).

I'll not get into the gory details but I managed to extract the TIC TAC before she panicked any more and before it got stuck further up into her nose.

I don't get it - I specifically told her not to put the tic tac up her nose and what does she do? Sticks it up her nose!

The picture above shows Sawyer. I've titled it - "Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth but tic tacs melt in her nose".

(Orange snot came out of her nose later, because the tic tac melted some while it was up there).

We bought all this just to get free ketchup

Do you see that one little thing of ketchup - well, we bought all this just so I could get the ketchup for free. In total, I actually spent $1.10 so the ketchup wasn't entirely free!

For rent cheap, real cheap!

For rent- this beauty of a house, many careful owners, until the last one that is. Live in this and feel like the inside is part of the great outdoors - because it is part of it. Missing walls and no windows.

Since I took these pictures the council has boarded up the house and secured it. We are all hoping that it will be torn down in the not too distant future. All the reports we have heard say that it was arson - something that no one in the neighborhood seemed in the least surprised about. It really is suspicious to have this big a fire in the middle of the day in an unoccupied house - 6 fire engines.

The girls playing in Carson's firetruck - a slight difference in size!

Some of the first responders on the scene - the police, Romay, Sawyer and Carson!

The house 2 down from use was badly damaged in a fire last two weeks ago. We were all lucky that the fire didn't spread to any neighboring houses as things are very dry here with the drought.

Maren's Birthday July 26th

We celebrated Maren's birthday while we were at the beach in July. The English cousins and Granny Sandra and Co were there but they had other plans so it was just a table for "Party of 5". She loved the M and M carvel ice cream cake that I organized but bit into the candle while my back was turned. I think the words she used were "cake no nice". It took a bit of persuading to make her understand that the candle was not an edible part of the cake!

Kids Cafe breakfast date

Maren, Romay, Sawyer, Joe, Meredith, Meg and Patrick. A very motley crue for breakfast at the Delancey street cafe (? spelling). Oh, yeh, the Moms Katherine, Alisha and Tracy were also there and they had to pay the bill for the date. No fair.