PCB 2011

The last couple of weeks, our days have looked a lot like this:

Here is the scene - I was running out the door to go see The Help with friends (FABULOUS!), and Turner said "Why Burke Burke get all the peanut butter?" I looked up and saw this animal. Ughh! And he was kind enough to spread it all over the den carpet. He definitely smiled with pride when I grabbed the camera, and tried to wave. The weasel!

Needless to say, we needed a beach trip. We went last week to Heath's parents' condo in Panama City, and our dear friends the Bennetts stayed next door at Splash - the condos with an indoor water park. It was fabulous!

The Bennetts (in the lazy river) were brave to hang with us.

Part of the Splash park

We did a lot while down there...

Played at the splashpad

Rode the water slides with Daddy (John Burke trembled when I tried it with him, but jumped to do it with Daddy. Go figure),

Practiced swimming with floaties and without! Turner has almost mastered swimming - he loves to be underwater any chance he can. Good, but scarier for me :)

We went for walks,

and ate a lot of Thomas doughnuts.

We spent some good time with Granny Fran

and went to Back Porch and the bouncy houses at Pier Park.

We danced to our favorite show, Sid the Science Kid,

we ate, played football and attempted family pictures in Rosemary Beach

and did a LOT of swimming in the hot tub back at the condos (until the nice security guard kicked them out for being under age).

This little wildcat fell in love/obsession with his goggles, or "gossles" as he calls them. This is how I found him when I woke him up from his nap...

Ridiculous. And yes, they are upside down. He prefers them that way?!

Kissing Daddy. John Burke preferred Daddy the whole time, and even learned how to say "Hey Mama" and "Hey Daddy", but only when he is not prompted. Last night he brought a bottle to Heath and said "I want some" and I overheard him say "Hey Dee" and "Hey Kina" to them at school yesterday. Again, only when he can sneak it by me. And then he looks at me and laughs, because he knows it drives me crazy that he won't talk when I ask him to!

Don't worry MeMe and Pap, we did our best to clean up for you. I mean, how messy could we be? Ha! See peanut butter picture at top.

Ahh, so fun! I miss it already!

Last Week and a Recipe

Last weekend my cousin got married. I want to say little cousin, but he is not so little now! Interesting fact (that I didn't tell him because I was pretty sure he wouldn't think it as interesting) is that his birthday is the day before mine - May 18th. He was born when I was one day shy of 7 years old, and I vividly remember it, because I thought it would be cool for us to share a birthday. Anyway, then he got married on July 30th - one day shy of 7 years after us (July 31, 2004). See? He is 23 and newly married, he won't be as in to my interesting fact! I wish we had gotten pictures of at least one part of the wedding - I stole this little one from facebook.

Congratulations Holder and Abby Nevins! Your wedding was beautiful and so Christ-honoring! (side note - I felt every bit of 30-and-pregnant-with-my-third-child in a sea of 23 year olds at the reception..that is really sad).

Anyway, we had a weekend full of wedding events from Thursday until the big night. But, we did have time on Saturday to sneak away to the lake with some friends. They have a place in Gadsden, and we always have a ball when they let us come with them!

Looking big

First sea-doo ride

John Burke wasn't too sure...but

ended up letting William drive him around (with Daddy)

Swimming with Sarah Beth

Then, a neighbor from down the road drove up and hung out with us a little bit. We have met him before. He is very friendly and loves the kids. He introduced himself as "Wayne. Just Wayne." Just Wayne took us down to his lake house to see his big fish!

Wayne's Lake House

Wayne's fish - they were huge! The secret is the loaf of bed stuffed in that white tube...he showed us.

The catfish Sarah Beth caught

Those whiskers make me miss Gordon :(

Heath got to ski (one of his favorite things)

And John Burke did one of his favorite things - walked around with a broom he stole from a neighbor's deck. Thankfully they weren't home.

Changing the subject, I had to post this picture of Turner with his friend Rutland. They are the same age, Turner just looks like he could eat Rut-dog. But, he can hold his own and they are fast friends!

Doing what we do - playing at the church with our girl Kina. The 2 year olds in swim diapers were cracking me up!

No words, I wonder why he is so spastic? :)

And a random summer recipe I will leave you with. I saw this on a friend of a friend's blog and I love it now! It is calzones. I just bought the pizza dough from the bakery at Publix (everyone else seems to do this already, but I just learned about this. They have delicious, fresh dough in a bag for about $2.50). I bought 2 bags because my kids love pizza. Each bag of dough made 2 calzones or mini pizzas for the kids.

The directions even come on the bag of dough. It says to let dough sit at room temperature for about an hour. Then roll it out (or use John Burke's bottle if you can't find a rolling pin), to get all the bubbles out. Then just fill it with whatever! For the kids, I had some Publix pizza sauce and then put mozzarella, cheddar and baby pepperoni on there. Then I cooked it for 15-20 minutes at 425 degrees.

For our calzones, I split one bag of dough into 2 calzones. For mine, I didn't use sauce (I don't like it much) and filled it with mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach. I pinched the edges over and then brushed some olive oil on the top and sprinkled with some coarse salt. I filled Heath's with pizza sauce, mozzarella and pepperoni, folded and sprinkled again. Again, I cooked for 15-20 minutes at 425. They tasted like Mellow Mushroom, and were pretty cheap! I wouldn't have taken a picture, except Heath raved about it! And it was so easy!!

And just so this won't be a boring post, here is a scene from today:

Turner just walked in my room as I was writing this. He found a (maxi) pad in the bathroom in one of the cabinets. He brought it in and claimed it as "Daddy's diaper." I am going with it.

Summer Array

Okay - I am ready to get back to blogging. It's not like I am clockwork with it anyway, but I figured I am just going to dive back in. I don't want to look back over this summer in blogs and see nothing! We have had such a fun summer - lots of trips and playing outside. I tried to think of a creative way to tie together all these random thoughts and pictures...

Because this is a random smorgasborg blog, I need to share this picture first. My uncle sent it to me - he and his wife live in Los Angeles and gathered from past blogs that I am obsessed with albinos. They saw this on a trip to England last month and sent it to me. Now, that is love!

Regular British peacock :)

Amazingly awesome albino peacock - tell me that's not just a little fascinating!!

Turner went to a Braves game for the second time a couple of weeks ago (we went once last summer). We traveled up to Atlanta and stayed with Jay and Kate.

Hanging with MeMe and Pap in ATL

Jay let Turner ride his tractor with him...Turner is a tiny bit obsessed with the tractor

MeMe and Pap took everyone to the game, but Kate and I stayed back with John Burke and Ellie. While it would have been fun, we thought they might not be able to handle the game quite yet! Side note - we took Burke Burke and Ellie to Target and some other errands. While he was standing in the buggy, Mom of the Year here watched him flipped head first out of the back. He landed on his head, and amazingly was fine - just a little shaken up. It assured me that I was glad he wasn't at the game. He is TOO WILD!!

Turner had a BALL!! He took his glove, though he didn't catch any balls. He got to ride in "Uncle Jay's car", which he was as excited about as the game. Yesterday Heath took the boys to Chick-fil-A (surprise, surprise). I asked Turner this morning where he went with Daddy last night and he said "The BRAVES game!!" Um, no. But at least it is still fresh on his mind! He is loving baseball this summer - any chance to watch it on t.v. or play catch in the yard. He tries to play catch in the house, but yeah right!

Brooks and Turner

John Burke and Read - they are partners in crime...short, but quick and dangerous

The next week we went to the beach with Jami and Brooks and Read. Some of our favorite babysitters, Sarah and Layton, went with us. It was fabulous!! They were wonderful helpers and we were able to tackle the kids 4 on 4! It wasn't the most relaxing trip (due to the 5, 2, and 2 1-yr olds), but we were able to laugh a LOT and read and chill out during nap time! We had so much fun playing in the ocean and the pool every day. The weather was gorgeous! I didn't take many pictures, because we were too busy packing everything else in the house for the beach/pool. I just knew the camera would break.

I wish you could have seen the amount of sand on his face...when we walked in the ice cream shop in Seaside, everyone in there did a double take

That weekend, Jami and crew left and we stayed with the Hendersons through the weekend. The whole family came down, and we took some fun pictures as the WHOLE family on the beach and at a local state park. It was sad to leave the beach, but we were blessed to stay a while, so we were ready to get back to normal life.

Hanging with Ellie between shots

Henderson men

Blowing MeMe a kiss - he is a sweet boy

Family picture - stolen from the photographer's tags on facebook. Her name was Amy Nichols and she knows the Hendersons in Andalusia. She did a great job and was very patient:)

Turner walking on the beach

Turner has been cracking me up in the car lately. I like to call him "Nurner-kins" (there is no telling where I come up with these - to be a fly on the wall in our car. Wow.) and I have started to call John Burke "Bur-burkins". This drives Turner insane. He will laugh and say "I not Nurner-kins. I TURNER!! Thomas Turnerson." Close.

On the way to the beach to take pictures - the park ranger took us in the back of his truck. I wouldn't say he had the best attitude about it, but it was an adventure

P.S. - Rollie Starr anyone?? Just sayin'.

I also like to call this guy "Fatterson" or "Fat-tastic." It is all in good fun. But, I don't realize how often I say it until Brooks' grandmother told him that might be hurtful. Yikes, she is right. I need to be more careful. Fatty knows I love him, but others may not say it in jest! I'll have to work on another name for this cat.

He is obsessed with his white blanket. About a month ago, he found it in a drawer. It is a minky blanket that someone gave Turner before he was born. I never used it with Turner, but John Burke will not let it out of his sight. I tried to buy a smaller version at an overpriced local children's store, but he is not having it. He is too smart for me! He just gets it so disgusting!!

And he (in combination with the growing baby inside of me) is wearing me out!!

And, he is starting to say "Ma-Ma" all the time. He will say "teek-yu" (thank you) every once in a while, and "Da Da" when he sees Heath. Otherwise, he mostly says "Bah-bah" for bye bye. And he still loves peek-a-boo. If you say, "Where's John Burke?" he puts his hands over his face, waits a second and pulls them away. Then he laughs and laughs! And Turner cracks him up. Well, when he is not standing up for himself and sometimes even initiating fights like this one, captured on my phone. Good job, Burke Burke - you have to defend yourself!!

Lastly, I need to give a shout out to my new niece, Morgan. She is adorable!! I called her "Baldy-cat" last night - she is growing some hair though. She is so sweet, and John Burke is obsessed with trying to touch and be close to her.

July 12th - the day she was born!

Look at her beautiful little features - I love her!! But Kate loves her the most, she is the sister/mom

A sweet, still moment captured