June through December

Lot of catching up to do, let's see...

So... we sold our house! (To a single girl who was sweet as could be and looked to be about 13 years old. It was strange to hand her my house key. I guess I felt like I needed to give her instructions or something.) We are thrilled to have sold in this market, but hope to buy in it as well. We are living with my folks in the meantime. The "meantime" is however long it takes us to save some money, and find a house.

In the last few months we have been to the beach, celebrated John Robert's first birthday, started preschool (Caroline), celebrated my 25th birthday, trick-or-treated for the first time, contracted a nasty virus, celebrated Christmas and... I pretty much have forgotten the rest. Here are a few funnies I can remember and some photos:

1.Caroline's teacher complimented her outfit the other day and Caroline looked at her all sassy and said "Home Depot! (like that was where it was from...)

2. We only use nice words around here, especially me, but nonetheless Caroline started saying stupid. After getting in trouble several times for saying it, she decided to create her own bad word. "Stu-kers" sometimes pronounced "sku-kers", depending on the situation I guess. She catches herself all the time about to drop the "s-bomb" and then quickly changes the pronunciation to avoid trouble. It's a pretty fun word to say so we all use it now. This morning she told her daddy that his outfit was "a little bit sku-kers", but once he put on pants and a button down over his boxers and socks she called him her "handsome little boy".

3. Living with my parents has been awesome actually, and if you ask Bo he has the same opinion, which is a good thing. Not just anyone would want to be in close quarters with their in-laws. He's a good sport, but then again my parents are the best. We call their house the "Cantrell Hotel" and it is wild around here. There has only been one major complaint from my children, and it is not that Caroline's room is the closet. It's a "smaller" problem named Annie. She is a 6 pound yappy dog that hates children, and well just hates life I think. The other day she snapped at my mom and it scared Caroline so bad that she yelled "Kill her! Kill Annie like a deer!" Hysterical! My dad deer hunts but that was still shocking to hear coming from my 2 year olds mouth. They have another dog, Lily, who in my opinion is just as bad. The odor that comes from "Lily" is horrendous, the tumor in her neck is now the size of the 6 pound dog, she poops in her sleep every night and we have to scoop it up with a shovel the next morning, she gets stuck in the creek behind my parents house and they have to lift her out in a sheet like she is a beached whale or something (because she is 130 pounds), hummm... what else, loud barking, constant shedding, I could go on! If it weren't for her, our "rent" would seem even cheaper.

4. My dad was leaving for work the other day and he ran back inside because he forgot something. Caroline asked him what he was doing and he said "I forgot my keys". She looked at him like he was "sku-kers" and said "No, Poppy, you forgot your wife!"

5. We carved a pumpkin for the first time together this year. Bo cut his finger and bleed all over it but once we got it cleaned up and lit up it was cute. Caroline called it the "jackalanny".

6. John Robert loves to tickle people. (He finds sensitive places in your skin and pinches you really hard and says "kickle") He also loves to give kisses. He'll grab your face and pull it toward his mouth. It is pretty intense, I love it. He will pretend to talk on the phone and all of a sudden throw his head backwards and start laughing hysterically. He is really starting to talk or at least communicate well. He loves to play with the pretend kitchen and he likes his "baby" which is a soft light-up glow worm. Hopefully next year he'll like dinosaurs and tools.

7. Caroline was doing so well at night and now she has gotten into an unfortunate habit of getting in our bed in the middle of the night (when she knows we are too asleep to care). Bo took me on a surprise overnight trip for our 5th anniversary. My parents kept the kids, so that night Caroline snuck into their room in the middle of the night. She asked my mom if she could sleep on top of her. Mom said that she literally wanted to sleep like one piece of bread on top of the other! When my mom who is not much bigger than Caroline told her that she wasn't going to sleep like that, Caroline said "well can I please sleep in your armpit"!? (I personally don't/can't touch people when I sleep, and I think I got that from my mom - not sure how much sleep she got that night, but Bo and I slept great in our hotel room - not touching of course.)

8. Recent song lyrics by Caroline:

"hi-ho the "dairy queen", the farmer in the dell"

"Old MacDonald had a farm and bingo is his name-o".

"nice to meet you hope of glory" (Christ in me the hope of glory)

"you walk on waves, you run with flags" (you walk on waves, you run with clouds)

9. We were in the car the other day and Caroline had a little situation...slug-like booger nose and the only thing I could find to remedy the situation besides the floor mat was a cloth doll diaper that belongs to Caroline's cabbage patch doll (she calls her co-patch). I started to wipe her nose with it and she let out a scream and said "NASTY mama, Co-patch goes poop in that thing". Her other children's names are Meo and Kia. We may let her name our next child.

10. Caroline can tell the Christmas story as well as anyone with a bit of prompting. She'll tell you that Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem on a donkey and that they didn't find a hotel and there wasn't a bed. They stayed in a barn and baby Jesus was born and the wise men gave him presents. One morning a few weeks ago upon waking up Caroline walked in my room (John Robert was sitting on my bed in his diaper) she pointed her finger up at him and the first words out of her sleepy mouth were "that's a fat baby Jesus". I said "well good morning" and we all busted out laughing.

Caroline's first day of school. Can you see the nervousness on her face? She was white as a sheet and trying to think of every reason why the school was "probably closed".

She loves it now of course.

John Robert's Georgia bulldog first birthday party. See his "Go Dawgs" face below. It was a great party overall, one last chance to pack as many people as possible in our little house and eat lots of food on the carpet that was "under contract".

wish you could hear the snort...