December Performances

Adeline was a sweet little lamb for her Living Navity at her preschool. Just in case you weren't sure, they included a sign.

The 3 year old class processed down the church aisle, next the 1 yr old angel class came in and when a little girl spotted her parents and started crying, the domino effect ensued. Within 30 seconds, the better part of the preschool was screaming.

The Pensacola Christmas Parade

Emma asked to play the Christmas duet with mom, and back in August that seemed like a fine idea. However, one week before the recital, mom started freaking out. This sweater dress, makes me look way bigger than I really appear in real life. But just close your eyes and listen. A father also played with his 2 little girls and another mother played with her teenage daughter.

Indiana Reece and the Temple of Doom

It seems that Reece has transitional phases like that of the moon or maybe more like the coming of Haley's comet. He will be sooo obsessed with a certain toy( ex: star wars or Transformers) then he won't touch the toy for months, while a different favorite takes it's place. Only to have the comet return months later and those toys are again dug out from under the bed or off shelves. As you can see, we are in the Indiana Jones phase. Yes, I know, his birthday was actually 3 months ago, we're top notch parents.

Rick and I paired off to both create a cool game for the kids. Mine was the Tunnel of Doom, made from 4 giant refrigerator boxes, snakes, a strobe light, and a brown spray painted styrofoam cooler filled with spiders, candy and gold.

The line awaiting certain doom, but apparently doom =boredom in Adeline's world and excitement for Jake

Rick's game was a little more complex. Actually he spent the better part of a day, rigging, building, and using physics to create Indiana's dangerous route back out of the temple holding the golden idol, while being chased by the giant boulder. The boulder was a 60 inch beach ball spray painted black and red and the idol was a glass head from Pier One Imports. The line for the adventure begins

Indiana Emma wearing the hat, jumps over the fences with poisoned tips, grabs, the idol and makes it back before the ball knocks her down or the bag of "rocks" came down a zip line to take her down sideways.

The temple of Akator and the cake of doom, complete with crushed

Skor toffee bits for rocks, don't bite into a snake

Happy Birthday Reece, next year just realize, you'll be lucky if we even buy you a balloon, let alone recreate a jungle in our backyard. But, you are soo worth it, little guy. Anything for my only son and sweet boy

Gobble Gobble

Girl Scouts is still having fun and have flown up from brownies to Juniors. Therefore, as Junior scouts we can start some advanced fun, like using floral wire to create these fabulous topiaries. Haley threw down the gauntlet when she came up with the T-Rex in the front topiary, so not to be outdone, the girls created rabbits, stars and jellyfish.

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I had to spend countless hours surfing the Internet coming up with cute turkey snacks and found this. That's a chocolate covered cherry as his body. Yum-o

Adeline's preschool has a Thanksgiving Feast every year, where they come dressed as Indians, pilgrims and this year Mac & Cheese. I guess that's something brought to the 1st Thanksgiving feast by the very 1st redneck pilgrim. The kids place mats had a hand print in a turkey shape and what they were thankful for. Adeline was thankful for her mom and dad, while one little girl was thankful for Brandon in their class. I guess cute boys trump mom and dad.

This is the 1 yr old class and on their shirts they had Indian names painted like " Princess eats no corn" and " Chief Running Water" we later found out that boy washes his hands continuously thru the day.

The following day at NB Cook, since Wednesday was the day the cafeteria served turkey and mashed potatoes, why not have their Thanksgiving Feast that day too. Here are Reece's team teachers Miss. Harrington(the Indian) and Mrs. Cebula(pilgrim) with Imperial Eagle Reece, yes I had to cut alllll those strips on his shirt and hand bead the sleeves and bottom myself.

Who loves their big brother to pieces and who is tolerating the Bear Hug by his little sister?

Reece's best friend Jake is in a different kindergarten class at NB Cook, but they still managed to both have Eagle Indian names. Here are Bald Eagle and Imperial Eagle

Haunting Halloween 2010

Alright Rick and I needed to recreate a facebook picture that someone had taken last year, only picture the skirt non-existent and the girl much younger and not a mother of three. OK, so can you tell who we are? Hansel and Gretal, only there's no trail of breadcrumbs and no gingerbread house

Reece was sooo excited for his costume of Robin to come in the mail from ebay, only it arrived 3 weeks later from Bangkok and came equipped with puffy muscles. He took one look at it and said " Just put it in my closet." I forced him into it 5 minutes before this picture. Once Adeline's Jasmine costume came from ebay, Emma had to find one in her size cause it was just too pretty to pass up.

Wear your costume to school day, parade down the hall for the church staff to see, then knock door to door to the preschool classes and get candy- yippee- notice the pretty Jasmine shoes that were on for school, but off when we actually trick or treated. She hid them in her drawer and we didn't figure out she was ONLY wearing socks, until 10 minutes away from the house

Half way through with candy getting, and the Parrish's poop out in someones front yard to dig in their treat bags

Post Halloween craziness and Emma has already dumped her bag, formed a circle around herself and sorted her candy into piles.

Gillification October 2010

Rick and Chad have been friends for 17 years now, since becoming roommates their sophomore year at Virginia Military Institute. Even though he lives in Richmond with his wife Ginny, and 4 Gillets, we haven't let distance affect our friendship. We went to Disney with them 2 years ago and have managed to see them at least once a year since college. Here is the Parrish-Gill clan on Halloween with all pieces of their costume on, I won't be able to say this in about 3 houses, when Barrett lost the mask, Cooper didn't feel like the Disco hat and we figured out that Adeline never left the house with shoes, just Cinderella socks.

We took the Gills out on Sea Monkey( our pontoon boat) both sunny days they were there and let the Dads take the kids on a simulated Indiana Jones adventure, here are the kids ready to enter the temple of doom

7:00am morning number two, all the girls are cozied up watching Scooby

Taking the Gills to the Sand Dune, yea the rope swing has been cut down now too many times to count, but the kids still request this place every time we go out on the water. While the Dad's tried to build a fire, cook hot dogs and play frisbee, Ginny and I made sure the boat cushions didn't get too much sun and that the BudLight Lime's stayed cold

Awwww Dad's and little ones,

Reece, Parker, Cooper and Adeline at Flounder's

Flounders is a local restaurant on the water that has a huge outside seating area and playground and is a must visit when having guests. We sat in the open air part of the restaurant that had remove able walls for the warm weather months. But, it still had a glass door that looked odd, when there were no walls next to it. We kept teasing about other people's kids who kept using the door, when our kids just ran out the open spaces like any normal human. Then right after dinner, Adeline started using the door, which made me question her gene pool, then I realized I am her parent and it all made sense.

You can't come to Pensacola and not get Bushwhacked- I think Ginny approved

Nothings Changed

A month has gone by since I posted last and yet for life here in Pensacola things remain pretty consistent. Adeline forces me to take her double jogging stroller with us to Walmart so she can push her babies she had as an underage mother out of wedlock. Notice her cat shades from Sonic

Rick tackles the giraffe pen only to come back with war paint in the form of Poke berry juice

I had thyroid surgery in mid- October and came through with flying colors and a nice scar to create wild stories about such as a knife fight with a fellow soccer mom over whose son is the cutest

Emma is the eternal drama queen and strutted her stuff in the 4th grade production of Beautiful Pensacola in their version of Wipe Out

And Reece continues to make friends and have fun in Kindergarten. Here is his teacher who weighs all of 90 lbs. dressed in the firemen's outfit while on our recent field trip there.

We walked the mile from the school to the station and then the mile back, through the hood, over 2 major 4 lane roads and past abandoned stores to see where firemen sleep, eat and pee. I feel like that trip will sustain me the two years until Adeline makes the same jaunt there.

Soccer and Seafood Fest

September brought with it new sports, cooler weather and school. Reece has never tried a contact team sport before and the first practice was classic. Him crying NOT wanting to put on his shin guards, then realized he also had cleats, so the tears started again. Then when the first game started this weekend, I had to threaten him with going naked if he didn't put on this jersey. We were in the Honda with underpants and socks until we got to the soccer field. The first practice went something like this- Reece refusing to let go of my hand, the coach having the kids run back and forth across the field, so mom ran back and forth across the field attached to Reece. They played Sharks and Minnows, so Mom had to play sharks and minnows still attached to Reece. When he is 20 I hope he laughs at this.

In his defense, he was semi-aggressive for his first soccer game and actually enjoyed it thoroughly. He kicked the ball a few times. Ran after it to try and score a goal and was able to kick an out of bounds ball back in. He was in desperate need of a haircut here, but still cute

After soccer we head straight for the Seafood Festival in Seville Square a Pensacola Tradition. The kids activity area is the draw for my kids, God forbid they actually try some of the seafood. This year though, I pulled out Bizarre Foods Jackie and forced them all to try Alligator kabobs on a stick. Adeline actually had thirds and Emma liked it. Reece acted like I was feeding him ferret feet. They made sand art, Adeline didn't grasp the concept that you could use lots of colors and filled the whole thing with red

Emma got a butterfly on her face covered in glitter, then 10 minutes later wondered what was itching her face, only to have her rub it off accidentally and cry about it

getting in the spirit of fall and asking for a pumpkin- we did sneak in a quick hair cut between soccer and seafood fest, can you tell? After the kids area we ran over to the bleachers to watch Splash Dogs compete. While there found the next dog we are getting. A chug, it's a cross between a chiwauwahu and pug. Soooooo adorable

Happy Birthday Reecer Monkey

Even though you are getting taller, smarter and more witty with your jokes, I can still call you Little Guy. I'm not sure at what age, I'll have to stop that, but when I see your smiling cheery face come down the stairs in the morning and walk up to hug me in the kitchen, I can't help but still think of you as "little". Yes, the Lego phase of all American Boys has struck this household like a plague. This is the process: he brings the box to either Dad or I, we go thru the piece by excruciating piece while Reece does somersaults or pretends to help, then I follow step 1 thru a billion to make his creation, just to have him carry the thing upstairs and break off the wings, propeller and wheels. All accidentally, of course.



It wasn't a far stretch to make Reecer Monkey, monkey cupcakes to bring in to Kindergarten on his birthday. When the teacher passed the monkey's out at lunch, little girls were hugging him and telling him they love him and his mom.

I'm diming out Rick and his "blob" cake as he called it. He used 2 different size cake pans and then 2 cans of frosting to make this Jabba the Hut like turd of a cake. Yes, that's Indiana Jones running across the top of it, probably afraid at any minute the trapdoor on the cake will let loose and he'll fall into the bowels of the chocolate.

Reece, I kept telling myself, your not going to grow up as quick as Emma, b/c your birthday misses the school cut-off and I had you with me at home for one extra year. But, I can't say that anymore and now as I realize from here until you are 18, I will only see you afternoons, weekends and summers. My gentle souled animal lover, quiet by nature, but yet all boy, who before I know it will be asking me not to hold his hand while walking him into school, not eat lunch with him as it's not cool to actually have a mom, or sit up in your room holed away listening to angry music and befriending strangers on FaceBook. When I find the magic to stop you from growing up, don't think I won't use it. Happy Birthday Little Guy, I love you

We are all a little crazy

Ouch ouch this flaming ball of gas in my hand is soooo hot

Happy Birthday Mom- we had cupcakes from Oh Snap! Cupcakes- Hot Mamma, Dalmation, Red Velvet and coconut

Someone's in the kitchen with oatmeal, someone's in the kitchen I know...... OK who wants oatmeal cookies, and whoopie pies? Rick cut the bottoms out of all the quaker oats containers, Reece and Adeline dumped the oats in the tupperware and I cleaned up the rest that ended up on the floor.

Moxie decided to try the rope swing over the pool while no one was looking, or so she thought. We all saw her from the dining room and ran out to snap a quick picture

Jabba the Hut is wishing Reece a Happy Birthday

When there are 8 kids in one house and your bored, grab shopping bags and start creating robots. We kept trying to find the "dance" button on these 2, so we could watch them get funky over and over again