Triple Falls

On Saturday, the weather was beautiful and Amy Noll and I took the kids to Brevard to go hike in Dupont National Forest.

Three miles, five waterfalls.

It was amazing-seriously. The trails we hiked have a back story that is connected to Young Life and unfortunately, a good guy lost out on a lot of money. But--I am really glad he did. Or we would never have gotten to visit these waterfalls. Way to go North Carolina!

The kids did a great job and we had a really nice time in the 70 degree temps walking in the woods together.

I can't believe that this hike is only 20 minutes from my house!

Enjoy!

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians

While we were in Columbia during Christmas, I had to get a little bit of work done-like you do and I left the kids to their own devices one morning.

They were playing very nicely with each other while I filled out my expense report and I began to hear things like, "Just use this color" to which I said, "You guys are drawing on paper right?" They answered that they were and I left them alone.

Then I heard,

"You're an INDIAN"..."No, I'm an INDIAN"...then I went to investigate:

ahem:

I, of course, then told them (then and there) that they would from now on refer to themselves as Native Americans.

And then threw them into the shower for a scrub down that made them yelp in pain.

Like good little natives.

Christmas Photo Shoot

As you can tell by my new header (or not if you are using Google Reader), I took the kids out on a little adventure for a downtown Asheville photo shoot prior to Christmas.

We got all dressed up and danced around the Flat Iron for about 10 minutes in the middle of needing to do downtown Christmas shopping. The kids couldn't have been better about this and I am super SUPER grateful for these pictures. The Flat Iron is one of my favorite Asheville landmarks and the kids will probably get their picture taken in front of it for the rest of their lives if I can help it.

Click on any of the pictures to see them bigger. Oh and the dress Lucy is wearing? One of my high school girls made it. MADE IT. In school. For my Lucy. How sweet is that? Lucy LOVES wearing it.

Umm. Guess who's growing up every single second right in front of my eyes?

Just down the road...posing with iron people. They were in hilarious moods.

To be fair, Lucy did get a bit tired near the end...poor widdle baby.

Mean mommy MAKE you take pictures. Ugh.

It's Wristband Night

Matt and I have had one night together in the last two weeks, so what do we choose to do with it?

Take the kids to the Mountain State Fair of course!

We started out at the animals.

Doesn't this look like a cow version of Slappy the Weiner Dog? Weird...

Our state fair is A LOT like the story of Charlotte's Web (which is one of the only reasons why I love it) and so the animals are a must visit part of the fair.

We spent the entire time convincing the kids that this was the coolest part of the fair and NOT the cotton candy or the toys that were hanging enticingly just outside of the animal section.

After the animal section, we moved onto the "I need to get my camera out" section:

My favorite part of this picture? The "metal hands" in the background.

It's always comforting to see this guy is still around...18 years after Vanilla Ice.

No comment, except in all fairness:

The Pig Ears are courtesy of Texas Pete at the Pig Races.

And well...we stayed here all night.

So we hunkered down and let the kids ride all the rides they wanted. Which meant five rides.

The first one was the Bee Ride.

They were so excited!

Until about 12 seconds into the ride, when Asher started to lose it cause the Bee went up AND down. This was horrifying to him and caused everyone to have their ride cut short by about three minutes.

All was redeemed by the car ride.

And then the motorcycle ride.

But for some reason, I had a hard time trusting the reliability of this one:

Take the time to notice BOTH words

Throw caution to the wind mom! Everyone else has!

A bite of cotton candy and a light saber ended the night. But we had to hide the cotton candy or else we were never going to hear the end of it, so Matt hid it in his shirt. (We still didn't hear the end of it)

Yes, we totally got ripped off by the light saber.

It was close to broken before we even made it home.

It's always fun to see how much your kids can cry before bedtime after you spend that much money in one single night.

Baby-Splosion

I have about 20 friends right now that are about to have babies in the next few months. I know that many of you out there have kids that are just reaching the toddler/preschool/actual school age that have made it through the first year on the cheap. And I mean REAL cheap.

I wanted to pass along a few tips.
1) go visit babycheapskate.com at least once a week. Whenever you need to buy diapers, formula, toys or clothes for yourself or friends. Especially around November, the blog author gives you the heads up on the best deals on presents for your kids or other peoples kids!

2) some things are just pure crap. Don't buy it. Don't register for it. My girlfriend Hannah took me, Natalie Knauer and Ellen Troyer with her to babiesrus to help her register. The three of us all found different things valuable and "necessary" in the first year. We got to help Hannah wade through if she needed a pacifier keeper or not.

3) Diapers. You go through a lot of them. After the first 6-8 weeks, I switched from Pampers Swaddlers all day to generic store brand diapers during the day and name brand at night. If this is your first baby, you might think that you want them to always be in the best things money can buy. Your money can buy a lot of diapers. A lot of expensive diapers. To hold poop and pee. My experience has been that Walgreen's premium diapers and Wal-Mart's White Cloud diapers are A LOT like Pampers. I really love the Walgreens store brand diapers. And, if you register online with Walgreens, you get coupons in your inbox.
I was able to double up savings because I had to get Asher some Pull-Ups for bedtime. I had a Huggies coupon, they were on sale (thanks Baby Cheapskate) AND I had get $5 off your $20 purchase. I ended up getting my diapers for FREE after I bought Lucy two packs of store brand diapers at the same time. Maybe you are not convinced?

Pampers: Size 4 $12.79
Walgreens: Size 4 $5.59

Hmmm. I think that Lucy can handle store brand diapers since I go through a pack a week. After four weeks, I have saved $29.16. After a year? $349.92. It doesn't seem like much per week, but it adds up to real money after a year. Also, about once a month; Walgreens has BOGO on their diapers. So I end up saving even more than that.

What about you? How have you saved money in the past on things that you already HAVE to spend money on for your kids?

My Precious Kids and I want a new camera

I was inspired by the amazing weather and evening light to take Asher and Lucy outside, even if just for five minutes with my camera this evening.






















Also, here at some pics that I took at the lake with the cousins over the weekend.





So you might ask, why would I want a new camera? I think that I have maxed out what my camera can do. Also, I am disappointed in the sharpness of the pictures. I think that there are flaws with this camera that I can't work out and it makes me less satisfied with my work right now. I would love to move up a level. Anybody at Canon wanna give me a new fat camera to "demo"?