Merry Christmas!!

December Update
Well, the biggest news we have is that we are expecting baby #4 in early July. The boys are very excited. The reaction from everyone else has been: "WHAT???" "Congratulations" "How did that happen?" Most people are hoping for a girl for us but we will be happy with either. Personally, I have gotten used to boys and another one would be just fine with me. I'm not sure I would know how to fix a little girl's hair. With the boys, I just slap on some water and run a brush through it and they're ready to go.

I have decided that Kids First Pediatrics should just draft our checking account each month because we have been in the Doctor's office every other week since school started. Ear Infections, Sinus infections, Strep Throat... oh, my! Maddox is going to have to get tubes in his ears and his adenoids taken out in January. The enlarged adenoids would explain why he is a mouth breather, drools constantly, and sounds like Darth Vader while sleeping.

For Fall Break in October we went to Cherokee, NC and then on to Gatlinburg, TN for a few days. When we left, Preston was recovering from Strep Throat and by the time we got back home Maddox had it. We went to the Dixie Stampede to eat supper one night. It was full of horses, big hair, big dresses, food you eat with your hands, and lots of red, white, and blue. It was quite an experience... yee-haw!

Clint was busy until late November with football season. The Baldwin Braves were undefeated this season and were just two games away from the Georgia Dome when they lost. The Jazz Band is playing on a Carnival Cruise Ship to Cozumel and Grand Cayman during Spring Break. I will not be able to go because they will not allow pregnant women that are past 21 weeks on the ship. And I doubt I could sneak by because I'm always really large when I'm pregnant! Clint is also working on finishing our bonus room above the garage so we can move the computer and office stuff in there to free up a room for the new baby. If anyone wants to drop by and help out I'm sure he'd love some help and company!

Bryce is doing well in school and is still playing drums every week for our Church Service. He spends most of his free time listening to music and playing with Preston. Then they spend their time trying to keep Maddox from destroying all their toys. One phrase I hear many times a week, "AHHHH!! MADDOX!!!!"- then a door quickly closing. Bryce is a good big brother and a good little worker. He and Preston enjoyed the Spring weather this past week by playing in the creek every day after school. The next project I hope to give Clint is building an outdoor shower so I can get the mud off the boys before they come in my semi-clean house.

Preston is enjoying Kindergarten. Every night he prays for his teachers, Mrs. Wood and Ms. Hamilton. He was awarded "Student of the Month" for September. When I asked him what he did to get the award he replied, "I was quiet." He was in a Thanksgiving play at school and did a wonderful job. He was very expressive and the audience could hear him. One thing I spend most of my time saying to Preston is, "SHHHHH! Please don't yell at me. Use your inside voice."
A few new Preston quotes:

• "Bryce, remember when Maddox was born and we looked on his belly button and it had a tag on it?" (11/2008)
• "Mommy where is the fire? Aren't we in the Smokey Mountains? So where is the fire that is supposed to be on top of the mountains? (10/2008)
• "This is God's bathtub. Nobody can take a bath in it except for God!" (talking about the baptistry at church- 12/2008)
• "Mrs. Wood! The toilet is sneezing!" (talking about the urinal at school)
• "The toilet smells like bacon!" (evidently he has a fascination with the urinals at school- I guess the toilet could smell like worse things)

Maddox is quickly approaching two and is our little tornado. He will play with toys for about a minute but prefers toilets, cabinets, and anything messy. He walks around the kitchen counters with his hands up grabbing for anything within reach (kinda like E.T.). One day after Thanksgiving he got quiet so I sent Clint looking for him. He was in the kitchen, had pulled the pumpkin pie off the counter and was eating it with a fork.
On one of our frequent trips to the doctor, Preston threw-up in the exam room. Maddox witnessed the whole thing, so not to be outdone, he started spitting all over the floor from his stroller. Later at my Mom's house, she came in and asked, "Who taught Maddox to spit in the toilet?" And I explained to her that when Preston was sick, I ran with him to the toilet with Maddox on my hip and instructed Preston to throw-up in the toilet. So Maddox decided that he needed to do the same.

Another favorite past time is putting my underwear over his head and around his neck like necklaces. He also likes to carry around bags and purses- but he does like to put Matchbox cars in them. My Mom says he needs to spend more time with his Daddy after witnessing him pretending to put on lipstick. He is a very friendly child and loves babies, other children, and especially little girls. He keeps us running and laughing all the time!

Merry Christmas!!!! May it be filled with much love and laughter!!

What's New With the Boys

Bryce started second grade August 4. He seems to be enjoying school and has even stopped complaining about wearing uniforms. He usually breezes through his Math homework, is very good at Spelling, but doesn't like Reading so much.

Bryce loves to eat school lunch. I make Preston's lunch everyday but Bryce asks to eat school lunch! I asked him the other day if he has been saying a blessing before he eats and he said he did. This is a conversation he told me about at lunch one day after he had bowed his head to say a blessing:
"Whatcha' you doin', Bryce?"(Bryce's friend at lunch)
"I'm praying" (Bryce)
"You don't have to do that." (friend)
"But I'm a Christian so I do!" (Bryce)


Preston started Kindergarten this year. He is learning to write his name which has brought many tears during homework time. He is really struggling with the "s" in Preston but we're working on it!

Some new quotes from Preston:

• Jesus is going to come back to life at our Easter Egg Hunt!"
• "Mommy, why did you choose to live here In Georgia? I wanted to live in North Dakota where it snows!" -Preston (8-08)
• "Pull my fingers and tell me which one is your favorite!" (to his little friends Eliana & Bekah)
• "Maddox has tiny feet but a sure big head!" - (July '08)"
• Mommy, did you get these shells from the beach?" (while we were eating Velveeta Shells & Cheese)
• My favorite vegetable is meat!!!
• Braedon has the chicken pops. Maybe a chicken popped him!!
• While we were camping, I was talking to my Mom on the phone asking her to check the doppler radar to find out when it would stop raining. When I hung up Preston asked, "Was that God?"
• "You smell like meat! My friend Gus smells like syrup!"
  

Maddox is our dancing chef. He loves to dance and play with kitchen utensils. His other favorite past times are eating crayons, looking at books, putting on Bryce & Preston's crocks and tromping through the house. Maddox loves any kind of animal, especially dogs and cows. When he sees a dog he will chase it saying, "puppy, puppy" and willl not leave it alone until the dog finally runs and hides. Then Maddox will hunt it down, stand at the hiding place calling it in a high pitched voice. Dogs now run when they see him coming.

If you haven't been around Maddox lately, I must tell you about a serious problem that he has- drooling. I have to change his shirt 3 times a day because it gets soaked. And I do not mean a little damp but dripping wet!! We kept thinking it was teething. But I think it was my Mom who had an epiphany one day while looking at him all wet and slimy-- he never closes his mouth! His bottom lip just sticks out like Bubba in the Forest Gump movie. And slobber is just always dripping, dribbling, rolling down that fat little lip. So we're all hoping that he will one day learn to swallow or his high school years will be full of teasing and no girl will want such a big, fat, juicy, slimy kiss. Maybe that's good for us, right?

He's such a joy to us all! Here is a little clip of the drooling and dancing for all to enjoy:

Crusin' the Caribbean

Clint and I went (without the boys) on a cruise to The Grand Cayman Islands and Cozumel, Mexico at the end of June. It was beautiful and we had a great time.
Here are my favorite things about the cruise:
* I got to sleep late. No one was at my bed bed saying "I want breakfast" at 6:30 in
the morning.
* I got to watch tv.
* I didn't have to cook.
* I didn't have to do dishes.
* I didn't have to make my bed.
* There were chocolates on my pillow everynight.
* There were desserts after every meal!
* We got to swim and snorkel in the beautiful waters of the Caribbean!
* Riding a "mini-jeep" at 40 mph with no windshield!
* I got to spend time getting to know my husband again!!

It was a great trip. I recommend to all couples to take some time, whether it be a weekend or a week, to go somewhere together to get away from the "dailiness" of life for a bit and rememeber again why you love the person you married!! Here are a few pictures:

My Summer of Adventure- Costa Rica

So this summer has been an extremely busy one for me! I flew out of Atlanta, along with my sister, Margaret and friend, Christie, on June 3 headed for Costa Rica. When we arrived in San Jose we made up our minds that when we stepped outside the airport doors that we would pretend to be confident and know what we were doing so that no one would think we were dumb tourists. We stepped out the door into a lightly falling rain and the first thing we saw was a teenage prostitute fondling and kissing all over this big, round, ugly, white American. All our jaws dropped then and there and our cover was immediately blown!! Ralph, my brother, then appeared to pick us up and while we were waiting on our ride he explained that prostitution is legal in Costa Rica.

Ralph's House
We got to stay in Ralph's little "shed-house" as we called it, which was very cute, simple and very Ralph-like. He has a rabbit, Pepo, that hops around freely like a cat and is even house trained to poop on a newspaper. It also likes to chew things at all hours of the night, making lots of rabbitty chewing noises that made us want to put him in a stew. There is a guard booth right around the corner from Ralph's house so I felt pretty safe for the 2 nights we were there. But then I started wondering if I should feel safe since someone felt it was necessary to have guard booths all around the area. When we went to visit the college where Ralph teaches, there was a guard standing in front of the school with a machine gun! I wanted to take a picture but Ralph didn't think it was a good idea. At every door of the college there were armed guards. So I started wondering if I should have brought one of my Daddy's guns for our own protection?!? Ralph kept telling us that the rest of Costa Rica is much prettier and safer than the San Jose area- and we soon found out he was right!

Traveling
One of Ralph's former students, Steven, owns a tour company so we paid he and his wife, Monica, to take us all over Costa Rica in their tour van. We went to La Fortuna which is a town at the bottom of an active volcano, Arenal. We got to see the volcano spewing red-hot lava at night- it was so cool to see in real life what I have watched on TV and read about in books all my life! The next day we went up a nearby mountain & came back down on 20 different zip-lines over the canopy of the rain forest- it was beautiful! We got to swim in a hot river. It looked just like a mountain river in North Georgia but it felt like hot bathwater- it was a strange feeling to be swimming in a hot mountain stream. We went to the beach on the Pacific Ocean which was very pretty and we all stayed in a hotel by the beach with no air-conditioning- HOT!!The last day in Costa Rica we went to see another Volcano- Poas which is not active. It stands at an altitude of 2708 meters (8,200 feet) above sea level. One of the craters measures 1.5 kilometers in diameter (0.9 miles) and is 300 meters deep (900 feet). At the bottom of this hole, there is a medium sized lagoon, that spews boiling sulphurous gases. We actually got to look down into the crater of the volcano!!!! So as we gazed into this massive crater, the smell of eggs was all around us. but it was worth it to see such a sight!! The only thing that would have made it better was if we could have zip-lined from one side of the crater to the other! Words just can't describe how amazing it was looking into the crater of a volcano!

My Companion, Camphylobacter- While at the airport in line for our flight home, I started feeling feverish so I took some Tylenol. The last 30 minutes of our flight I started feeling really bad, shaking uncontrollably, and crying (cause that's what I do when I feel bad). When we finally landed in Charlotte and got off the plane I took some more Tylenol and sat down while Christie and Maggie got our bags. An airline lady came by, ordered a wheelchair for me and suggested I get some medics to check me out. After some discussion I told her that would be fine and so in a matter of minutes I was surrounded by about 10 people all discussing my blood pressure, heart rate, and bodily functions and whether they were going to let me on the plane to Atlanta. They finally agreed to let me fly but then our plane was delayed and I began to feel worse. By the time our plane finally arrived, I felt like I could not sit in a seat all the way to Atlanta & was convinced I had some weird disease and would die on the way to Atlanta like all the medics & & airline people seemed to believe. So Maggie called Clint to come get us and we went to the hospital where they gave me antibiotics, fluid, and a nice bed (but poor Maggie had to make a bed from 2 chairs). Around 3 am, they kicked us out of the room and we had to sit in the waiting room and wait for Clint. Along with us was a man who kept asking for cigarettes, and 3 men dressed in hospital gowns that kept staring at us. Around 4 or 4:30 Clint drove up- our knight in shining white Expedition- and I have NEVER been so glad to see someone in my whole life!! He drove us back to My Mom's house until Dr. Garnto confirmed it was Camphylobacteriosis (which is a bacteria similar to Salmonella) and I finally got to go home on Tuesday night, June 10. I stayed sick and puny for another week. I had to leave the next Monday for a Christ In Youth Conference in Savannah and I really didn't feel better until that next Wednesday in Savannah. But even though I got sick, the trip was definitely worth it! I recommend it to everyone, although you might want to take a few suitcases full of food along with you so you won't bring home an unwanted bacterial companion! I'll fill you all in on Savannah and our cruise next so stay posted... I know it will be difficult waiting, but just try to be patient.....

Amy

Happy New Year!! (A few months late)

So, it's March! I guess I need to do some updating...

Bryce turned 7 on January 4th. We had his birthday party at night around a bon-fire in our back yard. Boy was it cold! The kids roasted hot dogs & marshmallows & ran around with lightsticks all over the yard. They all had a great time.
Bryce always keeps me on my toes as a mother and teacher. I am constantly changing my discipline and tactics with him. I have always told anyone keeping him for any length of time that it's like Survivor- you must out-wit, out-play and out-last him. He has always been so "old" for his years- like a little man in a 7 year old body. I think he might be a lawyer one day since he is so smart and is always giving me counter offers- maybe a lawyer/drummer?
Music has always been a big part of his life. We were watching some old videos of him when he was two years old- playing the guitar and singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." And then making up a song about Preston, who was only a few months old. Once when we were in the car listening to Raffi, I opened the door for him to get out of the Expedition at the Methodist Church for his 3 year old class and he said, "Wait a minute Mommy, I want to hear the violins that are about to play."

Preston still keeps us laughing all the time. He gets tickled over the silliest things, like saying, "Healthy Care High Chair." He will say it over and over and just keep laughing. He stays in "Preston Land" quite a bit. I have a page full of Preston quotes- I will share a few favorites:

"Dear Lord, please help us to eat Uncle Ralph at Bryce's birthday party. Amen"

"Dear Lord... um, no... never mind, Lord." (saying his prayers)

"Hey, stop it!! Quit following me!!"-Preston (talking to the helium balloon tied to his wrist)

"Daddy, Daddy, DADDDDDDDY!! Your little boy is calling you."

"Maddox is praising God!" (on Maddox raising his hands above his head)

"Mommy, why are you always talking to yourself?"

"Dear Lord, please help Guido stop having fun with the chickens and come home."
(our guinea fowl that ran away from home)

Maddox turned 1 on February 8. We had a family birthday party. Maddox had his own cake that he enjoyed tearing up and stuffing in his mouth. I think he would have eaten the whole thing if we had not taken it away. Maddox loves to eat. I think that if we kept feeding him, he would eat until he exploded because he will not stop eating unless you stop feeding him.

He is beginning to walk around pretty well. Everyday Preston says, "Maddox is taking his first steps!!!!" He is still eating anything he can find on the floor- leaves, earrings, lint, paper. He also likes to walk on his knees. I think he might be in the military one day because he has the army crawl and army roll down pretty well.

Monster Truck Jam
Having a house full of boys means many things...

*holes & stains in jeans

*the toilet seat always being left up

*loud talking

*the yard/world is their toilet

...and Monster Truck Jams!!!

The boys were excited about going to see the monster trucks. Once there, Preston decided it was too loud and scary for him (even with earplugs). Here is a classic picture from that night!