"Ruth,why do you even open your mouth?"

...said one of Adam's good friends (who I have known since highschool)several months ago, after I had unwittingly inserted my foot into my mouth.

Another friend reminded me the other day about how I had said something offensive to her. I asked her if she had been a softball player. My intended meaning: you are so fit and muscular- Her intreptation: you are stubby and masculine.

Then yesterday, I saw a lady at school who has brought a little girl to our church Music Camp the past three years. She looked at me as if she was trying to place me. I said, "I know you from our church's Music Camp, you are ______'s grandmother." She said "mother", so I said, "mother" I'm not sure what all I said next, but I started talking about as many things I could think about in 45 seconds, hoping she'd forget my faux pas.

At my 10 year highschool reunion I saw a girl who I had heard, months earlier, was pregnant. I said, "when are you due?" She informed me that the baby was a few months old. Not sure whether to just shut my mouth at that point or try to make it right, I went on, "You are sitting down, and I couldn't tell that you were pregnant, but wanted to ask about the baby since I had heard a while back that you were expecting." UGGHHH!!!!!!

I don't always realize when the words that have slid out of my mouth are offensive. Sometimes I become over-sensitive and make a big deal out of something that could have been taken wrong, but wasn't. It's hard to know when to call someone and apologize and when to let it go.

I will try to work harder, to "be slow to speak", and I ask for grace and forgivness from you friends, if I have ever offended you. 99.999999% of the time, it was completely unitentional!!!!!!

We skipped school....

on Friday, and went to the GA aquarium, then onto Stimart Station to celebrate my Father-in-laws birthday. My sister-in-law, Hilary, scored free tickets for us.

The kids favorite part was watching a Beluga whale eliminate. There were also Whale sharks, penquins, sea otters, etc. etc. I think that it is much better than the TN Aquarium or the Gatlinburg Aquarium.

Sweet Home Alabama

I figured out how to reduce the file size of the video of Jack singing again at Hilton Head, this time at Salty Dog.

As you can tell, he did not know the words to the verses, but sang loud and proud during the choruses!

Not sure how to take this

Joseph just said, "Mommy, you look strong like a man"

That's up there with the time that Jack said, "Mommy, you are beautiful, your eyebrows look like worms"

Now that's some good parenting!

This is Joseph drinking his morning coffee, while sitting on the kitchen counters! OK, so you are thinking, "no wonder the kid never sleeps", but it is very diluted, at least half water, and the kid loves it.

Joseph loves it when Hannah and Jack are in school and he has me all to himself. He calls it "special time". He even convinced me that it took an hour to get really clean.



Oh well, better enjoy it! I only have 51 weeks left until he is in Kindergarten. Off to play Cars.

First Days of School

Well school started back just in the nick of time. I enjoy having my kids at home, but when they spend to much time together, family life becomes frustrating! The last couple of weeks, I've had to break up more fights then I'd care to count!

Don't Hannah and Jack look almost like twins working on their homework the first day of school?

Joseph has looked forward to going to Pre-K 2 mornings a week, but wanted me to stay with him. Detaching is hard in the morning, but he's fine with in a couple of minutes of me leaving.




This one is of Joseph and Davis swimming in Davis' neighborhood. We had the pool all to ourselves as the older kids were all in school.

For my somewhat bilingual friends

Look what I found so close to us! It seems to be a hispanic church connected to Red Bank Baptist with services, bible studies, etc. in Spanish. And also Spanish classes.

I'd like to visit sometime!

My son - the performer

If you have ever been to Hilton Head, you know that it is a great place for families. There are several performers that have been there for years. They are on their second generation of kids. At the Gregg Russell show, there must have been close to 30 adults who raised their hands when he asked, "How many of you adults, attended my show as a child?" One grown man had brought his children and admitted that Gregg had chosen him to sing on the stage when he was really small, Gregg refused to begin the show until after the man came up and reprised his number "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" He seemed to be a shy 30something, but a good sport, he got lots of smiles and applause.

Last year, all 3 of our children desperately wanted to be chosen to sing at the Shannon Tanner show. None of them were chosen. But this year.......... :) Gregg chose both Jack and Joseph to come up (Hannah was not interested this year - she thought she was too big.) And the entertainer at Salty Dog invited Jack up to sing "Sweet Home Alabama" with him.

The video of "Sweet Home" was too big to upload, but if you are a Jack fan, I'll show you sometime. He owned the stage, and thought that the people were there to see him (I don't want to encourage always being the center of attention, but it was cool to see his confidence level in being in front of others)

So here are Jack and Joseph talking to Gregg Russell in front of a couple of hundred people. Jack is going to work on some material for next year and hope to finally be chosen by Shannon Tanner. All of this kid entertainment is free at Hilton Head - so it makes for and unexpectedly reasonably priced vacation!

BTW the Pepsi reference is because Jack wants to be just like his Uncle Aaron who works for Pepsi!

We're back!

we just got back from vacation just in time for the
kids to go to school. Click here to watch our vacation photoshow.