Rock On!

Time for Sweet Shot Tuesday.  It was simply impossible to choose my favorite shot of the week  1) because  we had a VERY busy week with birthday parties and tubing on the Chattahoochee River and  2) because this wild child stood in this spot, on the playground at Joe's Crab Schack, lip-syncing and dancing to almost every song they played and I think I took 20 pictures of that alone.  At one point, he was using a shovel as his microphone and had a few other children improvising on air drums and air guitars!  He is the funniest little thing.

I love Joe's Crab Shack!  This was the first time we had taken the kids there and they ate so good and played really hard and got along so well with the other kids; it might have to become a regular hang-out for us.  It was so nice to be able to eat our dinner together while they played.  They played while we waited for our food and they ate and then they went back and played and then they came back and ate some more and then they played some more.  And, all the while, Brian and I watched from the comfort of the outdoor seating area and cracked crab legs and sipped sweet tea.  Aaahhhhh...

 

 

I look ridiculous but I don't care.

So, an update on my neck...if you're interested is:

That apparently I have irritated a disc and Sunday morning you would have found me screaming in pain when I had to sit up or get out of bed and especially when I had to get back into a lying down position.  Excruciating.  Now I am a vision of loveliness in a cervical collar.  Can you imagine if I have to wear this ridiculous thing to the beach this weekend?  Someone on facebook suggested that I Bedazzle it!  HA!!  Maybe I could substitute it for a tightly wrapped towel.  I'm definitely going to need an outrageously floppy sun hat to cover it up.  Those would be some kind of tan lines wouldn't they?  But I feel much better today and I am optimistic that Brian will get me fixed up enough that I won't need the collar by Friday.  

Did I mention that I'm glad he's a chiropractor?  I just can't imagine our life without chiropractic.  I've been thinking about it a lot lately.  A few weeks ago we were eating dinner at the kitchen table when Landon was being silly and shaking his head around and generally being a goofball when he suddenly cried out in pain and clutched his neck.  Still crying, he jumped out of his chair and ran to me and I told him to go in my room and Daddy would give him an adjustment.  Brian went with him and adjusted his neck and not 2 minutes later my baby emerged skipping and laughing and sat back down and ate his dinner.  Later the very same evening, I was helping Anna clean her room before bedtime when one of my ribs came "out of place".  Has this ever happened to you?  It's awful.  It's like your rib is stabbing you every time you take a breath and you can't move because it hurts so bad.  Brian fixed me up and I was immediately able to finish what I was doing.  Amazing.  

I love what he does and that he does it so well.

Anna getting an adjustment.

Weekend Recap (6 Days Late)

I have a good excuse though.  My neck has felt as stiff as a redwood tree all week and I have barely been able to move it all week.  You could drill a hole in my neck and drive your car through it and I would never know.  Does the Redwood Forest charge admission?  Maybe that could be a nice little side job for me.

Saturday  (last Saturday, as in 7 days ago) - Brian took a much deserved weekend off and stayed in a hotel and did whatever a 39 year old guy wants to do when he doesn't have a wife and 4 kids to think about.  Basically?  He got to relax.  While he was gone the rest of us split up - Mom with Anna and Landon to fireworks and Cameron, Parker and I to a friend's house for games, food and fun and then fireworks afterward. 

Adults and kids alike played four-square. 

I may never learn how to take good fireworks pictures.  I laid on my belly trying to use my elbows to keep the camera still and I hurt my neck somehow while keeping my head still watching the fireworks and taking pictures. Brian has had to work on getting it back in shape every day this week.  I'm still not back at 100%.  It's getting there, though, and I have never been more thankful that he is a chiropractor and not a plumber.

Sunday we went to the Duttons' and lit firecrackers in their cul-de-sac and ate Stephanie's scrumptious peach cobbler and Marc's delicious ribs...well, not Marc's ribs (that would be cannibalism) but some animal's ribs that Marc cooked... you know what I mean.  Landon, of course, was the only one to get hurt but it was only one of about a dozen times in 3 days that he was injured in some way.   I really should invest in stock in Johnson & Johnson so I can get some of my money back from all the Band-Aids we use on him.

 

 It's kind of been a long week and I'll post something tomorrow about our adventures from Monday - Friday but for now I just have a confession to make:

I'm kind of ready for school to start.   It's hard to believe that there are only 3 more weeks of summer for us, especially when I realize that other schools around the country just started their summer breaks a couple weeks ago.  I think we've done a pretty good job this year of keeping the kids busy and also giving them time to just chill out at home.  Brian wrote a sweet post about it the other day and I honestly don't know what our summer would have looked like if he hadn't decided to take Thursdays off for the summer.  He's a huge blessing.  

And that is the understatement of the century right there, folks.  Talk atcha tomorrow!

 

Birthday at Tanglewood Farm

 

We had so much fun at Tanglewood Farm yesterday!  Cameron, who is nine years old, groaned about how "boooring" it was going to be and was mad when I wouldn't let him take his Nintendo DS with him.  I think he enjoyed it even more than the rest of us.  He was the only one that didn't ride a horse but he's so much more cautious than the other three.  Tanglewood has tons of animals including (but not limited to) horses, miniature horses, goats, sheep, tiny pigs, donkeys, llamas or alpacas, chickens and turkeys. I really wanted to put the brand new baby goat in my pocket and bring her home with me!  SO  CUTE!!!

This sweet gal to the left is Michelle, the owner, and  I kind of wanted to bring her home with me, too!

 

 

 

 

 Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!  

I love your sweet, busy little self so much!

 

Chairs

My Anna is 5 years old!  Daddy asked her what she wanted to do today to celebrate.  Her answer was so cute:

"I want to go to the store and get some shoes, I want to go to the farm, I want to go to Jiello (J.J. Biello park), to the gas station to get a snack and I want to go to Dunkin Donuts to get doughnuts for breakfast tomorrow."

So, guess what I found while we were at the farm?  Chairs!  And of course I have lots of pictures of their hands (which was one of the other You Capture options this week) petting the animals but I'll put those in a separate (very long) post about our trip to the farm instead.

 

 

 

 

Slow and Steady

I knew immediately when I saw this wonderful couple that I had the subject for my Sweet Shot.  It was just a matter of getting a great picture of them.  They had been standing there, on the top of Stone Mountain, with their hands clasped tightly together behind them and just before I took this shot of them they curled their arms around one another.  They stood there looking out over Atlanta for a long time talking quietly to one another before they went closer to the edge.  When they started back toward the SkyRide building they were helping one another navigate the rocky terrain and making their way back at their own steady pace.  

And I want to be just like them.