artsy fartsy

I almost forgot one of my favorite parts of the trip to Asheville... browsing the art galleries. The art scene is very vibrant and we found gallery after gallery with all sorts of objet d'art - some that could only be described as things that make you go "...hmmmmm." But we did find some prints to bring home, including a cool digital diptych, several quirky natural scenes, and some clouds.

But here is a self portrait by my favorite artist!

Altitude Affects Attitude

After the birthday weekend, Mimi & PawPaw offered to stay longer so Wayne & I could go on a little vacation. While we dreamed of more far flung adventures, we kept it within a 2 hour radius and visited lovely Asheville, NC, for 2 nights. We had a little guilt for missing Miles's actual birthday on Monday but got over that. We stayed at the Richmond Hill Inn which was not far from downtown, so much of our time was spent strolling that area, finding some fantastic food and doing a little shopping. We ate at My Father's Pizza in Black Mountain, Thai Basil, The Laughing Seed & Salsa downtown. Wayne's favorite had to be Luella's BBQ. One of his high school classmates owns it, but unfortunately she wasn't there when we stopped by. The 'que was fantastic, but my fave was their hush puppies side dish. I got more for dessert!

The next photos are of the porch of our cottage and the gardens of the main building at Richmond Hill Inn.


Neither of us had been to the Biltmore, so that was the main stop. We toured the amazing "house" and gardens, and visited their winery. Here is some of the beautiful scenery.




It was a relaxing break, thanks Mimi & PawPaw!

Happy 4th Birthday, Miles!

We celebrated Miles turning 4 last weekend with a little Jumpity Jump fun. Miles wanted a Superman party and I think some of these kids were leaping buildings in a single bound by the end of the afternoon. Here are some scenes of the fun with his buddies. Thanks to all who came to celebrate with us!

we're here

So that virus hung around a lot longer than expected, but I'm finally back on track. I'm still amazed that the kids stayed well the entire time, but I guess my cracked cuticles are testament to how much hand washing I did. So what did we do over the last week and a half? Hmmmm....
The kiddos are bundles of energy from sunup to sundown. Audrey has given up her morning nap, and Miles has pretty much given up his nap altogether. That means we get to go and do things in the morning now, but mommy's "me" time is seriously limited. I can get him to do "quiet time" in his room for an hour which means he flips through 80 books off his shelves, comes out to potty 3 times, and asks "how much longer?" every 4 minutes. C'est la vie.
The last couple of weeks at his school they've been learning about the circus. The even put on a little circus and Miles was a cute little clown. He was pretty funny, doing pratfalls somersaults and rolling around on the mat. And next week Miles will turn 4 years old..... four... IV... quatre... I'm a bit amazed at that fact. He's such a big kid now!
Wayne and I are excited about a little getaway we have planned for next week. Since the grandparents will be in town for Miles's 4th birthday, Mimi & PawPaw have offered to stay a couple of extra nights so we can have a much needed vacay. We found a beautiful place to stay in Asheville, and already have a list of must do & eat in the works.
Hopefully the little princess won't be too much of a pistol for her grandparents. She's still pretty attached to me although much of it is just for my benefit I know. Today I took them to childcare at the gym (for Zumba!!)and she had tears rolling down her cheeks. But as soon as I was out the door she was fine. She's also showing a feisty side, fueled (I hope) by her inability to communicate verbally. She'll get frustrated and flail about, hit, throw things and even pinch. And of course she has learned the power of a forceful "no!". Our favorite move is when she preemptively starts screaming and running from her brother. She already knows how to play the blame game and I try to catch myself from automatically asking Miles what he did to her. Ahh, the terrible twos, here you come again! But look at that cute face, it's hard to get mad at a sweetheart like that.

Back from Nashville

We're finally back home after a long visit in Nashville. We had to be there two weekends in a row so we thought it would be easier to stay a few nights between than to go back and forth over and over. I ended up catching a lovely virus which hit while we were there, so I helped a lot that YaYa & B (& Aunt Elizabeth and the cousins) were around to entertain my kiddos. Thank you all so much for having us visit.
It happened that my brother & his wife were in Nashville the first weekend, so we got to visit with them a lot and even went swimming at their hotel pool. Here we are at one of our two breakfasts at Puckett's that weekend. Saturday was cousin Evan's 7th (!) birthday, so the big kids went to the indoor climbing wall. Miles made it up about 10' and tried a couple more times. Wayne thinks he liked it, until he looked down.

We spent the rest of the week playing, jumping, eating , running, napping & having all sorts of fun. Oh and shoe shopping (see previous post). Wayne came back for the next weekend when we had tickets to see Green Day. What an incredible show! If you're a fan and they come near you, I encourage you to go. As Wayne said, it's got good Return on Investment. Saturday we headed home after a quick lunch with some Alpha Chi friends and their babies. We also stopped in along the way to visit Wayne's grandpa and several of his cousins who were in town from Virginia. It was a fun filled week of visits, but we are glad to be home again!

I literally chased her for 5 minutes trying to take this! Audrey went on her 1st shoe shopping trip today and she Loved it. Picked out just what she wanted, these cute little Italian sneaks. She had her eye on some pink ones, but we'll save those for later.

Wee wee wee.....

Some silly sibling fun from the evening. Listen to where Miles sends the little piggies. It changes every time and I love this round of errands!

Her Paparazzi Shot

Oh yeah, the oversized dark glasses, the oversized bag (with her little pet inside) she's a star, baby!

It's summertime!

And the living is easy. We've been having a very relaxing summer, doing all sorts of fun things. Miles has been in daily swim lessons for the last 3 weeks and has 1 more week to go. He can swim the length of the pool with only a noodle supporting him and jumps in with much enthusiasm (and splashing). He's getting better about putting his head under. He'll do it, but it's very quick. In class they tossed rings on the bottom for the kids to retrieve and Miles used his toes to grab it. Even bribing with a cupcake didn't entice him to reach down and grab it. But he wasn't wearing goggles on those tries, so maybe next time he'll try harder.
Audrey is dying to get in the water herself. She sits in her stroller, watching & waving to "Miy!". We've been going to the baby pool after lessons and she loves splashing around. She will walk all around the 1' deep area and last time was trying to put her face in the water. Brave girl. She's really opening up, showing us some of who she'll be. She talks A.LOT. I started making a list of the words she says: da-deeee!, bite, cup, nigh-nigh, ohm (home), hive (five for high five), snhoo (shoe, not sure how to phonetically write her sound, it's sort of a snort), huh-bo (hair bow). Oh yes, hair bow. She is quite a fashionista, very into her accessories. She loves her bows, hats, sunglasses and has started her bag collection. And forget about trying to talk on the phone around her, she must have it.
Miles is still a goofball...
This is not Audrey screaming. This is Audrey letting us know that she's ready for another bite of dinner.
We had a fun July 4th, with our friends Jen & Davey, Elise & Daniel and Janna & Rob visiting. Miles got to hold his first sparkler and stayed up waaaaaaay past bedtime. Of course he was still wide awake at 6:30am, no rest for the weary.
Anyway we just had our Saturday family lunch at Chick Fil A and they had about 20 big trucks in their parking lot for the kids to climb in. Miles walked around checking them out, and we got in the Icebears' touring bus and a recycling truck before it was time to go eat.

Audrey is enjoying our pool time this summer. She's very brave, holding the edge at first but then letting go to follow Miles. She's gone under (by accident) a few time but powers on.

Happy Father's Day!

We had a fun Father's Day weekend, just relaxing together. We splashed around in the kiddie pool out side and Miles soaked Wayne with the sprayer. Audrey splashed with her hands, then decided to go all it and stepped over the wall. She didn't like it when she first plopped down, but loved it soon after.

We got Wayne tickets to 3 concerts for Father's Day. Mommy gets to go too, so, yay! We're going to see Green Day in Nashville, the the Wallflowers at the Bijou and the Black Crowes at the Tennessee Theatre. For the 2 here we got the front row of the balcony for both shows. It probably means we're getting really old, but we had those seats for a jazz series when I was pregnant with Miles and really enjoyed the shows without being down in the "madness" (you'd be surprise the madness Dave Brubeck can inspire).
They are blowing whistles in the photo above. These were the "prize" for completing the summer reading program at the library. Uh, thanks Knox County Library, they're loud!!! I though they might give a quiet toy. Be warned if you are working toward your prize though there's also a pretty good coupon book.
Here we are off to the pool again. Miles is in daily swim lessons for the next 3 weeks and is improving greatly. After lessons we've been heading outside to the big kiddie pool and Audrey loves walking around and splashing. It's only a foot deep, so she can stand and play. She did fall under a couple of times, but shook it off and kept going. We may have two water babies swimming around soon.

beachin' it

Last weekend Miles & I went to the beach at Perdido Key, FL (as you could tell by my mobile uploads). We rode down with Erin & Eileen, and Tiffany & Ellie flew through thunderstorms and delays from Dallas to meet us. Once we all finally got there, the kids ~an mommies~ were ready to play.
We were in a high rise condo that also had two pools & a gym (which we never saw). We hit the pool the first afternoon, then Friday headed down to the beach for the day. We had two beach tents which were great to keep us shaded while building sand castles.
The kids were fantastic and got along great. They had the same taste in movies; I think we watched Lady & the Tramp 80 times. And they really liked shrieking together. A lot. We mommies worked on our abilities to tune out all sorts of crazy noise. It's a skill worth cultivating, I tell ya. Screaming:
More screaming:
Being good because he knows there are cupcakes waiting upstairs:
Ditto, but barely:
Fun stuff. Thanks again Tiffany, we had a blast!! {more pictures have been added to the Shutterfly site}

having smoothie on flip-flop day.

the unsuccessful beach photo shoot

I'm all done.

sand & waves are the best

we made it to the beach! Miles & I drove with Erin & Eileen and met Tiffany & Ellie. We're at Perdido for the long weekend.

a surprise visit to Memphis

Memorial Day weekend BeeBe & PopPop came to Knoxville to visit and attend a wedding. Since the kiddos were out of school the next week (and there were other plans a-brewin', more to come) Miles, Audrey & I hitched a ride back to Memphis with them to stay for a while. We got to visit with both great grandmothers, and played all week with all the grandparents. We went to the Botanical Gardens and fed the koi with PopPop & Beebe; then later in the week went to the Pink Palace Museum with PawPaw Don. I thought the Pink Palace seemed a lot smaller than it used to be!
















One fun reason we headed to town was to celebrate my brother's 30th birthday. Kyle didn't know we were there, so I really surprised him when I showed up at mom's for his birthday dinner. I told him that we were going back home on Friday, since Wayne's birthday was that Sunday. Tricksters that we are, we were actually staying, and Wayne was coming all the way to Memphis to celebrate at Kyle's surprise fiesta on Saturday!

We had a great time visiting with everyone and will have to come for a long visit again soon.
Oh, this is Miles "sharing" Baskin Robbins ice cream pie with me. He almost stabbed my hand trying to keep it all for himself!



I added photos to our Shutterfly site if you want to see more.