School Daze

We spend most of August dreaming about the hours that we will have alone when the kids return to school.  The serene sound of silence that fills our house in their absence and the carpet showing its true colors since all the toys are put away.  
But we forget the lunches that need to be made, the gas being sucked up as we drive to and from the preschool and the precious moments, not hours, we have alone but all we do is feel guilty that we are not cleaning, organizing or paying bills during this time.

It's school time, welcome back!

This year all three of my kiddos are attending!  That means five whole hours to my self a week for nearly 400 bucks!  But, hey I am happy about it!  I have to work on Thursdays to get a discount, but turns out they don't need me every Thursday, so life is good.  Very good.   

Here are my little cuties for the first day of school:

 

I love this one because it is like Garrett is saying to his sister, "Are they serious about this?"  And she is like, "There's just no way they can leave us here!"  It's like they're plotting.

I wish I could say the twins first few days of school were great, but they were terrible.  They hated it.  Garrett would sit down and cry as soon as we walked in the door of the building.  Gabrielle would cry as soon as I walked out of her classroom.  Last Thursday I worked and I could hear Gabrielle crying on and off all day.  When her teacher walked past me in the hall I said, "Man you have a tough job!"  She said, "They are having such a good day today!"  I thought to myself IF this is a good day, I can't imagine what a bad day is like.   
For three years Kiera has never once been in trouble at school.  On the third day, Brie was written up for biting another kid.  I would have preferred it be her brother, but it was another kid.  Turns out the kid tried to take something from Brie.  We all know better, but he didn't.   
Both kids have taken a nap at school and they didn't cry when we dropped them off yesterday.  I am looking forward to a fantastic year!

A year and a half

 

They look so sweet and innocent, don't they?  They are... most some of the time.

Of course, I have sweet things to say about my little ones, but I also will tell the truth.   The one on the right is my biter, pincher, and hair puller.   She has quite the temper and does not put up with very much from her older bother brother.  He is like a little chihuahua.  He alerts us whenever she comes near (for good reason since half the time she comes with her mouth open and fangs ready for his skin).  He is a screamer and likes to exercise his lungs with both of his sisters if things don't go his way which is pretty much all day long!

Life with twins.  Double the blessing, double the trouble.

I'm glad I got the negatives out of the way, because these two kids are so. much. fun!  Two little wombmates could not be any different!

 Garrett Ray

~ 26 pounds

 Nicknames:  Buddy, Brother

Favorite Foods: Bananas, Strawberries, Grapes (are you seeing a theme?) cheese, eggs

Current words:  Mo (more; could also mean drink, yes, food, milk, etc.) Nigh Nigh (good night) all gun (all done) cooka (Kiera) mama, dada,  da (here) bye bye

He is Mama's Boy! 

  He loves his mama and turns out he has a special bond with his Grandma too!   He is a sweet and sensitive little guy.  He loves to hum and knows the tunes of ABC and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (same tune, I know!)  He can start both songs off and but then is gibberish by the fourth or fifth word.  He can do puzzles and will hold a full conversation with you... in chinese!  

He is quite the sleeper and really can go to sleep anywhere:

He is such a joy to have and whether they realize it or not, his sisters are LUCKY to have him around!

Gabrielle Rayne

~ 22 pounds

 Nicknames:  Sissy, Breezy, Brie, Breezola, Bunnies

Favorite Foods: meat and chocolate (you know the important things in life!)

Current words:  Mo (more could also mean drink, yes, food, milk, etc.) Nigh Nigh (good night) awwww do (all done) Reera (Kiera) mama, dada,  bopper (diaper) bye bye, pew pew (poo poo---she says it like we are french)

This is the child that makes you want a thousand more one minute and the one that makes you want to end the family line.  My sister says what ever Brie is, she is all that.  Meaning if she is happy, she is really happy.  If she is mad, she is really mad and you should probably step out of the zip code.   She loves to play with babies and sometimes even let's Kiera treat her like a baby.  Sometimes.  She constantly makes us laugh and she lights up our world.  How could you not just love this little thing:

Even though they have the scars to prove her existence, life would not be near as fun for our other children without a little Brie in it!

We are very lucky indeed to have wonderful, bright and beautiful children.   We love them with all our hearts even when they're naughty which is quite often these days!

The Great Smoky Mountain Adventure

View 

Above is our route to the Smokies!  Over 900 miles and five total days of driving I am happy to report that Kevin and I are still married and not even one kid was beaten during our adventure.  In fact, we had the best time ever!

On our way, we passed through a little town named Rayne, LA which is Gabrielle's middle name.  Spelled the same way (we combined our middle names Ray and Anne to create Rayne).  We chuckled to ourselves for what the city is known for:

Our goal for the first night was Meridian, Mississippi.   We pulled in when it was dark, so we weren't quite sure what the park looked like.   The kids were in dreamland upon our arrival, so when Kiera woke up and looked out the door, she said, "Whoa, how'd we get here?"  It was a very nice park.  In fact, we stayed at the same one on our way back home.

Happy little traveler:

After two full days of traveling, we arrived in Knoxville, Tennessee just in time to enjoy a dinner with my brother and his family.  It was very enjoyable company and so nice to be out of the car.    We headed up to the Mountains after dinner and swore off getting in the car for at least two days.  We were ready to enjoy some nice Mountain scenery and cooler weather.   The Smokies never disappoint:

One of my favorite things about camping is playing games!  Here we are playing some Chicken Foot with my Aunt and Uncle.

Our RV site in the mountains sat on rolling hills.  The twins had a fabulous time learning to walk down the hills.   But, most of their time was spent just being happy little kids.

Food is simply delicious when enjoyed outside with friends or family.  Of course if my brother comes, then it is done professionally,  He came with ribs, pulled pork, pork roast and even chaffing dishes and of course an outside favorite: watermelon!  

My brother is quite the jokester!  Kiera asked him to hold her baby so he decided to nurse the baby.  I couldn't quite catch a picture, but I did get his evil little grin!

Even though Kevin is on vacation, he finds projects to work on.   This time he has a little helper or is that a little hinderer?

On the first Sunday we were there we drove up to Virginia and rode down the Virginia Creeper.  It is a 17 mile (mostly downhill) bike ride that replaced an old railroad.  It crosses the Applachian Trail.   It is beautiful and the weather was in the 70s.  We did run into some rain, but that did not affect our fun!  The kids LOVED it!  The babies sang and napped in their trailer.

   The views are amazing!

 We stopped at an old (and still open!) post office.   It was also a train station back in the day.

On Monday, we got to go to the lake on my brother's boat.  We always have fun with him and absolutely love the lake.

We talked Kevin into jumping off a cliff.  He wasn't very happy, but the good sport he is, he did it!

Monday night, we went and watched Courtney play volleyball.  She is quite good and we thoroughly enjoyed watching her! Here she is about to spike the ball.

Kiera and Daddy had some fun up in the mountains!   She went ziplining by herself (we didn't get any pictures ) and went to a aircraft museum.

On one of our last days in Tennessee we went to a popular site called Cades Cove.   There is a 12 mile loop around the cove that is very beautiful and quite serene.  Supposively there are 1500 Black Bears in the cove.   While looking at the old churches and log cabins, we kept our eyes peeled to the windows trying to spot a bear.  Even though we had tons of fun wading in the creek as we left, we were quite disappointed there was not even one bear spotted!

After Cades Cove, we decided to take a little drive around the RV site and up in the mountains right above the RV park and that's when we spotted a BEAR!!!

After 10 fun filled days in the mountains, we had to say goodbye to all the mountain fun and head home.   But this time, we decided to take our time and drive the long drive home over three days.   Our first goal was Mississippi once again.  Kevin had wanted to stop right outside of New Orleans in Picuyune, MS and show us the 40 acres his parents had owned when he was a boy.   I have heard about the land many times, but never had a complete picture in my mind of what it looked like.   It was absolutely beautiful and the new owners (who are pilots!) are pleasant as pie!  I love the south!

 

Garrett was enthralled with the planes.  

His little shirt that read "This is your Captain speaking" was perfect!

 

The best part of visiting the land, was Kiera got to take her first small airplane ride from the runaway named after her grandpa:  Simpson Field

What a great memory!  She absolutely loved it!

We had a picnic lunch on the land before heading out to Louisiana.

For our last stop of our trip we pulled into a beautiful state park in Louisiana.   

They had moss hanging from all the trees which Kevin thought was beautiful, but I thought was sort of creepy...sort of Scooby Dooish. 

It was a truly beautiful park, though:

Before pulling out, we had a little playground fun!

This was our home for two weeks and we had a blast!  I cannot wait to go again.  We are already planning next Summer's big trip:  The Ozarks in Missouri!