Narrows of the Harpeth River

Sometimes I feel like I'm not taking advantage of all the awesomeness that Nashville has to offer.  I'm really excited about moving to Dallas but its not going to compare even a little to the natural beauty of Nashville.  Luckily it'll make up in proximity to family and amazing food.  Sunday we drove about 20 minutes from our house and took short little hike to see a fun waterfall and have a picnic dinner.  I'm usually not brave enough to take my kids by myself on adventures like this so we've been enjoying Shawn's sports rotation and all the free time he's had in the past few months.   Enough talk I'll just post the pretty pictures we took.

The van was out of gas so we took the car and the kids thought it was the coolest thing ever.   We then realized that our family will never again be able to all fit in there again, well starting in August.  It made me a little sad.

Just a view of the trail.  The trail wasn't hard but the first half made me a little nervous.  Its not really wide and on one side is a fairly steep bank that if you roll down you'll end up in the river.  Naturally we were a little nervous considering how clumsy we are.

I love how pretty the hike was!  Tennessee is beautiful!

Taking short break while Shawn checks things out ahead.

More awesomeness.

Our final destination. It only took about 15 minutes to get there, the kids loved it.

And me trying to hide my girth behind Caroline.

I'm really going to miss Shawn when he starts a busier rotation.  We LOVE having him around.

This makes me laugh only because a few minutes before this Shawn told the boys to stop throwing rocks into the pond and then he went ahead and showed them how to do it properly.  I guess boys of all ages just can't resist throwing rocks into water.  We loved having family time and Shawn and I were talking about how we think our family is pretty great and Caroline piped up and said, "Yeah we only fight sometimes."  Thanks Caroline, way to bring us back to reality.   

Funny Stuff

Does anyone ever think they are handling things pretty well and then get a wake up call and realize maybe your not as great as you originally thought?  I had that this last week.  We were sitting down to dinner and I couldn't remember having a moment of silence in several hours and just wanted to sit and have a nice peaceful dinner.  Before we even say the prayer the kids are all talking over each other and Devin spills water all over the table, not a huge deal but I really needed to lay down for just two minutes so I didn't go mental on my poor kids.  So I just left the table and went upstairs.  The kids knew I was irritated but I didn't yell just left and told them to start without me.  I thought I was being so great leaving before I lost it, I came down a few minutes later and felt much better and we even watched some nature show on PBS.  I thought it was a pretty good evening.  Then as Graham is saying family prayer that night he says, "Please bless mommy to not be so angry."  I hung my head a little lower in shame, and tried really hard not to laugh.  I guess I still have lots to work on. 

 Then today we went outside to ride bikes and enjoy the nice sun.  After we got the bikes out I had to get a wrench to fix one of Graham's training wheels.  As I'm heading back to the garage to put the wrench away I notice the garage door is closed.  I swear I did not close it!  I check the front door and sure enough its locked too because after living in the ghetto of Houston its become a habit to lock myself into my house.  Oh and Shawn is on call at the hospital and told me he'd be home between 2-midnight.  By some miracle I remembered my cell phone and was able to call Shawn and let him know we were locked out.  We had just had lunch and it was only 80 degrees outside, I really wasn't that worried but when Devin found that he couldn't get inside he flipped out.  Jumping up and down and crying kind of freaking out.  Yes I know he totally get's that from me but I'm not kidding we had been outside for maybe 10 minutes.  It was not that bad people.  I still couldn't figure out how the garage door got closed because if you start walking though the opening while its closing the sensors usually make the door stop.  I really think Graham was the guilty party here.  When I asked him he had a look on his face like he didn't want to fess up but I"m almost 100% sure it was him.  Anyways Shawn was able to run home really quickly and open up the house for us and then head right back to work.  He's a good husband.  Anyways that's what's been happening around here, hope everyone else gets entertained as well as I do!

Field Day

I felt like field day was a little bit cooler this year.  Still not nearly as cool as when I was in elementary school but better.  Really the only reason it was better is because they had some fun inflatables that I really wanted to play on.  The kids always want me to come to this stuff and then totally ignore me when I come so I try not to stay for that long because well I don't feel like standing around watching them play with their friends for two hours straight, 20 or 30 minutes sure but 2 hours no thanks.  Go ahead call me a bad mom, whatever I really don't care.  

Devin waiting to get on the bouncy house.

And with this buddy in the three legged race.

They were not the most coordinated pair but that's ok, they had fun.

Caroline was too busy to pose for a picture.

She waited until the bounce house time was over.

I liked this station.  

Nice action shot!  

Steeple Chase

Amidst my breakdown last week I totally forgot about the wonderful Saturday we had the weekend before.  Shawn and I have made a Nashville bucket list, well in our heads, in an effort to enjoy all the fun things right here in Tennessee before we head out.  Yes we have a whole year but between having a baby having lots of family visit in the fall (right Fernash) and then selling the house I'm a little worried this next year is going to fly by faster than I'd like it to.  So two weeks ago the kids and I did something I have never done and will probably never do again.  We went to the horse races!  Every year Nashville puts on a snazzy horse race only a few miles from our house.  This year we got in for free and got to see what all the fuss was about.
I was a little surprised how fun it was.  I wasn't expecting it to be much fun but if we have the chance to go again before we move I'm definitely taking it!  We parked the car and took a shuttle to the race section.  The kids signed up for a stick horse race and got to keep their stick horses, and we even managed to see the horses run.  We were even able to get pretty close to the race.  It was awesome.  It was really hot and I was totally unprepared with water but we had to leave about 45 minutes into it because Caroline had a soccer game so it actually was pretty great because I didn't have to feel like a negligent mother for too long.

They were very excited to get new horses.  Those are nice right?

Other than being really hot, Caroline had a great time.

Devin didn't feel like wandering down to see the race up close but Caroline and Graham loved it.

They were so ready to go.  For some reason I decided the boys needed to wear pants, that was really dumb of me.

They were very happy to have ac on the shuttle bus.

They still play with their horses everyday.  In fact Devin and Graham played baseball with theirs yesterday up in their room.  Devin would throw a stuffed animal at Graham and Graham would hit it with his horse.  I think we need to get them a bat and ball.  Never a dull moment with these boys.

Reality check

Last night was really embarrassing.  Like I want to hid my head in shame kind of embarrassing.  Caroline had an activity that parents were invited too, but it was a little more geared to moms and daughters.  Shawn had journal club and would just pick the boys up from the church on his way home.  I thought that would be fine, and I didn't want to miss out because Caroline is already probably going to miss out on the father daughter dance since Shawn is on call then.  So we get into the van and arrive at the church.  Just keep in mind I have food on my shirt from dinner, don't have any makeup on.  So the lesson starts and the girls leaders start talking about inner beauty and all that good stuff.  Lots of moms are getting choked up and all I can focus on is a terrible smell that is coming from Devin's direction.  He had some very bad gas and every 5 minutes it smelled like rotten eggs.  Not exactly fitting for the environment we are in.  Then about 15 minutes in to people talking Devin says, "This is boring."  loud enough for everyone to hear.  He also keeps accidentally turing the light off with his huge melon like head.  So I'm feeling like maybe this wasn't the best idea to bring the boys to this activity.  Then we go into the hallway to write nice notes on pictures of the girls that were taken earlier.  I thought it would be great to have the boys walk around, well while I was walking around looking at the pictures I see Graham punch one of the pictures in the face, because I guess that's what a 4 year old feels is appropriate to do.  So I grab him and put him in timeout at the end of the hall and tell him to stay there. So for about 30 seconds I have some time to catch my breath, then he looks at the wall and decided that it was a good time to turn off the lights, right while people are trying to write on poster boards.  At that point I just put him outside the church.  I could still see him and was right on the other side of the door but I felt it was the safest place for him at the moment.  For whatever reason I couldn't take it anymore and just broke down.  And once tears start coming I don't have the right balance of hormones at the moment to stop them.  I looked like a mess, remember food on my shirt and no make up on. Luckily Shawn arrived about 2 minutes later and told me to just take the boys and leave so I could get myself together.  I cried the entire way home, and laughed a little too because come on its kind of funny, but mainly cried.  I felt so bad I couldn't do one thing with just me and Caroline and realized its just going to get a lot crazier seeing as we are adding yet another boy into the mix here.  I really felt bad for her being the only girl and living around smelly, crazy, little brothers.  So Shawn knowing I was not doing well suggested I take Caroline out for frozen yogurt when they got home.  He's my hero, I have the best husband ever.  The second they got in the drive way I jumped in the car and we had a great time just the two of us.  It was just what I needed.  We had a great time and told her to make sure she tells me when she needs a little girl time because I probably need it just as much as she does.  Note to self, never EVER, bring little boys to a lesson on inner beauty, its just not their thing!

Devin's Teeth

This Sunday when I was sitting in church I was talking to Devin and noticed something.  Onc of his permanent teeth was poking through his gums!  I was wondering when this would happen, Caroline was already loosing teeth by now so periodically I've been checking Devin's teeth to see if any are wiggly.  For months I have felt NOTHING.  No teeth seemed even close to being loose.  So I was a little surprised to see a permanent tooth coming in.  It looked really weird, kind of like shark teeth.   I couldn't stop looking at it, I may be a little weird like that.  Luckily the boys had a dentist appointment today so I wasn't too worried and I had fully prepared myself to have to pay to get it pulled out.  And guess what, instead of having just one tooth pulled he got two pulled!  I don't think any kid has been more excited about getting teeth pulled.  He jumped up and down when I told him he'd be having it done.  He's such a funny kid.  The office was even able to get us in the same day so we just stayed a few extra minutes and now Devin is very excited to have the tooth fairy come tonight.  He was even pretty tough about it too.  When the numbing medicine was wearing off he said, "At least it doesn't hurt as bad as my elbow did when I broke it."  I love that he already has some perspective on things, kind of sad but it makes me smile.  I'm sure he'll be very excited to show his buddies at school the new gap in his mouth. We don't seem to have the best luck when it comes to dental matters, a little over a year ago Caroline had to get an extra tooth pulled.  At least this was much cheaper.  The office must really like us seeing as we give them plenty of business.  I was reassured that we are at least taking care of their teeth because they didn't have any cavities, so I guess we have that going for us.  And I have been fortunate to have some baking orders this month which have pretty much covered this cost so really we've been quite lucky!  I'd still be fine if we didn't have to shell out anymore payments to the dentist though.

My cute gap toothed child!