bad choice- no one to blame but myself

Alright, I am always telling the kids to make good choices-I must say this was not a good one. For Frances' birthday we got her a cuckoo clock (by we- I mean I picked it out so no one to blame but me). The thing is loud and since I work from home a great deal it scares me to death all the time. It cuckoos and then meows. Brilliant!!!

wow two pics

Yes, it is a very unusual thing to see a pic of me with my kiddos. They will probably look back and wonder why it looks like they don't have a mom. I mean I rarely take photos with them (usually there is a reason for that- I am taking the pics and I am not a huge fan of being in pics), but I do think every once in a while I need to jump in one or two so they can look back and see they did have a mom :)

A few more pics of the house

I forgot to post a picture of the crane. I had mentioned the first crane wasn't big enough so here is the one that did the trick.



Thomas thinks my folks house equals pancakes (he thinks that Rusty's folks house=mac and cheese). When he visits the house he thinks he should have these foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner so since we were at my folks for over a week...he had a lot of pancakes.



Granddaddy hanging with Hannah





This tells the state Rusty was in (he is doing a little better now)

Kindergarten!!!

I don't know who is more excited..Frances or mommy. We definitely will miss Mt Pisgah and the great head start it gave Miss Frances, but free school sounds good to me. We are zoned for one of the top schools in the county and we are very excited. Of course, I can't wait for her to tell them on the first day of school that we live in an apartment and mommy drops her off in a neighborhood for school- that doesn't sound sketchy. Anyway, we went for registration (yes, can you tell this is our first- we both went). I am sure they loved watching the two of us on our phones (Rusty was working on his iphone and I had both of my phones out working while they were observing Frances). The next week we went back so that the incoming kiddos were able to go to a kindergarten class and then.......ride the bus. So exciting! No barfing from Miss Frances, but we will see if that keeps up.

This time not my fault...

Ok, I have a lot to post so here we go.....I have to say that it is not my fault this time that there has been so much time between posts, a tree hit our house.

I am going to start with a few pictures from Easter. I am still trying to get a good picture of the three kids, I am beginning to think that won't happen until we get a professional in here at the end of the summer.

Easter was so much fun. We started off with the usual Grant Family Easter Egg Hunt at his Aunt's house. Tons of kiddos 6 and under and there will be 3 more there next year. So much fun! We went to Easter at our church with the folks. The kids got to play with chicks. Then off to the club with the folks for lunch and to Rusty's folks for dinner. A great weekend!

The next week was when there were big storms. I stayed up to about 11:30 until the worst of the weather past (to may sure we didn't need to head down to the basement). At midnight we heard a loud noise. By the time I was out of bed, Rusty already had Hannah in his arms (he never hears anything so you can imagine how loud this was). I ran down the hall and grabbed Frances and then to Thomas' room to get him (yep- they slept through it). We all ran to the basement. We thought maybe there was a tornado or something going on....little did we know that we had a 30,000 lb tree on the house. Yep, if you want to get a good picture imagine that the first crane was not big enough and they had to bring in the big boy. One piece alone was 16,000lbs. The tree hit Thomas' bathroom and a little of ours. The ceiling came in at those two rooms. There is major damage in the doorway of Hannah's room and then a lot of vertical cracks around the upstairs and a little on the main floor. Before the storm, I was going to bring Hannah in our room because she is on the backside of the house......I mean I am never sleeping again. We are very fortunate that no one was hurt. Big prayers go out on that!!! The structural engineer came out and we are waiting for the first report. We know that the roof/roof structure and a bunch of the upper level will have to be repaired. Basically they said once they start peeling back layers, they will be able to see if there is more damage. Awesome! So far we have been told this is a 4-6 month project at least.....

Next, Miss Frances turned 5. She was so pumped! We had her birthday at a chocolate factory near the house. The kids had a great time making chocolate lolly pops, pizza, etc (sorry to all the folks because the kids got to taste all the chocolate between each project and finished the part with cupcakes so I am guessing nap time didn't happen for a lot of them).

For Mother's Day dad preached at Johns Creek so we headed up that way. We ate at the folks and then went to Rusty's Parents for the kids to play and then out to eat. Another fun and busy weekend.

Also, just found out that Christine and Bob are expecting #3 in December......fun times! Hannah is thrilled to have a friend (Frances has Ansley, Thomas has James and we will see who the last and final grand kid for the Rev and Mrs will be).

The kids have started to settle. Thomas refers to our house as the "crack house" - lovely. Hannah is now sleeping in the closet and Peanut is hanging at the parents' house. Rusty is handling it pretty well too.....
















as good as i could get


still hoping for a good picture- one day - i mean are you kidding me?