Just Say NO to Gustav!

There are no words that can express the knot I've had in my stomach all day and night after hearing there is another hurricane threat for New Orleans yesterday.
As I write this, the tears are flowing and my emotions are high.
It breaks my heart to think that only three short years after Katrina, this city is going to have to endure another one.
When I first arrived to New Orleans. I knew nothing about it, other than the fact that it looks like a boot on a map and is located in the South.
As I opened the door to our car (which, is sad to say went down with Katrina) the humidity hit me like a ton of bricks, the air smelled like mildew and I saw my first (and in no way my last) Cockroach.
I wanted to get back in that car, and drive the 2000 miles back UT where I felt safe, where I felt needed, and was where I wanted to be.
I won't lie to you. It took me about a year to call it HOME and begin my love affair with that city.
I won't go into all the reasons why I love this city but the biggest reasons are: this is where I feel Nate and I first started our married lives. This was the first time we were living for a long period of time with no family close by.
I learned how to cook, how to peel a crawfish (YUCK!), catch the eye of a Krew member so he'd throw me a 25 cent strand of beads, ran my first 10K, Nate's band and the concerts they played at Tipitinas, lets not forget magazine street, and most importantly it's where I gave birth to my oldest Son.
This is what really gets me. I can't stand the thought that there might not be a New Orleans. That I can't take Liam back to where he was born and tell him the story of his birth and the first few years of his life.
How he went to his first Mardi Gras parade while still in the womb, and again before he turned one.
How we spent most days taking walks on the levee looking across lake Pontchartrain and seeing the causeway stretch for miles and miles as far as your eyes could see.
Walking to Sals to get a Sno Ball with the ice cream in the middle. And eating at Lebanons for the ump-teenth time and still wanting more the next day.
Telling him about how we met some of our best friends there, (some of which who are still there.) and all the fun we had while living in the BIG EASY!
So it is with a humble heart tonight that I am saying a prayer for the city I love and the people I love!
In my heart I hope that it doesn't make a direct hit and that this time the levees will hold, that this time, no one will die, and that peoples whole lives won't be turned upside down in an instant. Everything they own swallowed by the wave of Gustav.
To our friends,
Be safe, be smart and know there is always a place in Hershey waiting for you if you need it!

Farewell to Summer...

AS we say goodbye to summer (is it really over already?) I thought I'd do a clip of our summer highlights. This includes Liam learning how to help mom cook (or eat the batter which was my favorite thing to help my mom do.) Swimming, playgroup, Hershey park... What do you do in the summertime?

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

3 going on 30

Seriously Liam just keeps the laughs coming.
Tonight I was helping him change into his P.J's and when I was pulling his shorts off, he says. "No peeking Mama."
I wanted to say, "Kid, trust me I've seen you naked more times in the last three years than you even want to know about."
Instead I just laughed. Who wouldn't???
The real question I have is where did he learn that from?

Liam Laughs

So here are the latest Liam laughs to date.
One of my really good friends out here is having a baby soon and so we threw her a shower not too long ago.
I made a diaper cake and when I was making it, Liam really wanted to help and or not help by taking off all the decorations.
I kept telling him it was for Molly's baby shower and that he couldn't touch it.
Then when I was leaving with the cake and other supplies, I told him that I was going to Molly's baby shower and then I'd be back later.
A few days ago we went on a walk and at the end he really needed to go potty. Molly's house was closer so we went there.
He walked inside and saw the Baby nursery with the diaper cake on display then walked into the bathroom.
All a sudden I hear him yell, "Yook Mama I come to Ollie's baby shower too!" (And he was pointing to the shower in the bathroom.)

Second
Nate and I were having a heated discussion in the car the other night. I was being a "little" animated and all a sudden Liam says, "MAMA. Please don't talk to Dada, it hurts my ears."
We just laughed and laughed.
Third, Liam loves to finger paint. SO I got him out the paints and we were painting while Owen napped. I walk in to find him laughing cause he decided to paint with his nose.
I love how the mind of a three year old works.

DA DA DAdaDADADA....

Can I tell you just how much I LOVE the olympics? No. I can't because there are NO words to describe it but these pictures are worth a thousand words.


Not sure how that got in here?

Sorry Frenchies. Maybe next time you'll "crush" us? Oh wait we could do that with our little pinky.

A Feva...

"I've got a feva, and the only cure is more camping..."
So I don't know if I got bit with the camping bug when we did the girls trip, but since then that is all I could think about. We even went back up for another day trip to G.P. (well mainly to get back the little red wagon, which the extremely nice lady kept hidden under her desk for a week so the families checking in to their cabins couldn't play with it. Thanks to her!)
Nate had a week of vacation and we had a bunch of plans for that week. However due to a bunch of things we stayed around home and had a fun relaxing week of family time that went by all too quickly.
I unfortunately didn't document any of these activities cause I forgot my camera when we went to Hershey park (and you've all seen us there a hundred times.) Nate and Liam spent many a morning down by the pool while Owen took the longest naps due to the extremely quiet non liam singing house. So no pictures of that either. However an important note, Liam has graduated from his swim tube to floaties.
But to make it feel like a vacation, Friday we went camping with our great friends the Banzhafs. (this time I brought the camera, but left the memory card in the computer. Duh. So these were some of the pictures Eden took. Thanks girl. Oh and BTW she is an awesome travel agent. Everyone needs a friend like her who plans and books YOUR family vacation.)

We went camping about an hour away at a state park called Pine Grove Furnace.
This was beautiful. Tons of trees, two lakes, a good little hike for Liam, and a flat place to put our tent. I highly recommend site #20.


Here is a list of things that I have forgotten about camping, or forgot to bring camping.
-Tennis shoes. It would have been nice to have my feet covered. Instead I wore flip flops.
-A jacket for me and the kids for the cold morning. It was 90 degrees when we got there.
-A spatula. We were in charge of breakfast so we decided on pancakes. But soon discovered that I'd forgotten the spatula. But no worries, I found an old CD in the car that did the trick. Yes I am that crafty.

-non flushing toilets. YUCK YUCK YUCK. So I love camping but not the outhouses. I cringe even writing this. But lucky for us they are in the middle of upgrading to new flushing toilets and showers.
-Firewood. We brought one pack and that wasn't near enough. Good thing we had three 3 year olds to help look for sticks. And Nate and Mike "found" some logs at a guys house back in town. (Thanks guy. Hope you found the note and $10)
-Newspaper to get the fire started. Lucky for us there were dry leaves that night. A little smokey but they did the job.
-Nate's guitar. But the neighbors may have been more annoyed by this than the three boys screaming and running around like crazies or the two babies taking turns crying when wanting to be pushed in their strollers to fall asleep.
-It ALWAYS rains when you camp. No matter what the weather forecast. Our new tent did great and we stayed dry, but Mike on the other hand was running around at 3 a.m. trying to put up his rain fly during the down pour.
-Liam's swim suit. But lucky for him he is so skinny that he was able to wear his brothers 6-12 month trunks. They were a little John Stockton-ish, but hey it was better than swimming in his lightening McQueens.


The boys loved it. (well I know for sure that Liam did, he could tell me. Owen I'm not so sure but he didn't complain so I'll take that as a yes.) I didn't get ANY sleep due to the fact that the rain sounded likequarters on a metal floor and the airmattress had lost it's air after the "Terrible Three" were done with it and I wasn't going to go to the effort of putting more in so I slept in the middle V while Owen and Liam slept basically on top of me. Next time I'll go to the effort.

Liam learned a lot this trip but most important was using his "plumbing" how God intended it to be used. (anywhere anytime. No seat or paper needed.)
Liam has never peed standing up and although there have been other attempts made, he has always gone sitting down. (don't blame him. I hadn't enlightened him on the standing up option. I think all boys/men have lousy aim and should always sit down.)
I didn't want him sitting on the gross seats in the outhouse. So I told him to pee on the tree. That was all he needed to get over the standing up fear. I didn't even have to ask him again he'd just find his tree and go.
But when we went swimming at the lake the following day and I couldn't find him. To my horror, he was peeing on the side of the pavilion with people walking by.
Not his fault AGAIN. We should have explained when and where peeing outside is acceptable and made sure to do so when we returned home to our house. I didn't want to find him going on the dishwasher or something.
The trip I think was a success and I can't wait for another trip to the great outdoors.