OBX - day two

day two the norcrosses explored duck while we hit digger's dungeon. Q really loves digger's house.

quentin was concerned that digger was "naked". i think they took the body off this truck so it wouldn't blow away in the hurricane.

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quentin compares his digger to the real thing.

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the color-coordination with grave digger was not intentional. - even pickle loves digger. -

Q was very surprised and excited to see the superman truck. -

he totally remembered this truck from our last visit. -

fam shot. -

quentin is not interested in posed pictures for mommy. -

and neither is caroline. -

Q talks about this digger all the time. it's coming out of the ground, you know. -

Q and daddy went on a monster truck ride. pickle was not big enough so we watched from the sidelines. -

then we ate lunch at digger's diner. the food was surprisingly good. -

we had to sit on the stools at the counter. pickle insisted on the green one. -

this was an ideal restaurant for Q. there was monster truck stuff everywhere, including on TV. -

nothing quite like playing with your monster trucks in the shadow of an actual monster truck. -

later, after nap time, caroline models her new pink digger shirt. -

see. gross stuff washed ashore. still pretty though. -

so pretty. -

Q is a beach bum. it didn't matter that it was dark. it was still fun. -

action shot. reminds me of fantasia. sandtasia? hmmm. -

OBX - day one

finally getting to the vacation. hey it's only been two weeks since we've been back. - our much-awaited OBX vacation was cut a bit short. perhaps you've heard of hurricane irene? yeah, the saturday we were supposed to check in to our awesome rental house was the day that the outer banks got pummeled by dear old irene. we had to just sit tight and hope the rental agency would give us the ok to come down (note to self... next time, buy the darn travel insurance.) after days of wondering if we were up a creek without a paddle, we finally got the a-ok around 5 p.m. on monday. we quickly packed up the car and caravanned down to north carolina with the norcrosses. it was a brutal drive and we arrived in OBX at 3 in the morning. of course, all four kids slept the whole ride so they were ready to party and the adults just wanted to pass out. somehow we managed to get a few hours of sleep in.

day one was a lazy day, as we recovered from hurricane-related stress. it was also the best day at the beach. the beach definitely took a hit from the storm, but at least it was clean the first day. all kinds of debris washed ashore soon thereafter, leaving a strip of grossness along the shore for the remainder of our time there.

the kids selected beach toys from our house's garage and we made the super-quick walk to the beach.

caroline did not appreciate her daddy taking her into the water and spent the remainder of the beach time huddled in my lap. lilly was not impressed that this wasn't her beach (ocean city) so she and krissy went back to the house.

but ginny and Q had a grand old time playing in the sand.

(also a note - caroline is allergic to something. several times recently her face has swollen up all weird around her eyes and nose. this was one of those days.)

transition

when we got back from vacation, both kids had transitions at school. caroline stayed in the same classroom, but all but two of her friends and both teachers moved up into the fish room, leaving her with all new friends and all new teachers. the first few days were a little rough. i think she felt a little abandoned since everyone else was together in the fish room. but she's settled in and is once again ruling heron room, having adjusted to new (old) friends and teachers. quentin's transition has not been as smooth. this is the first time he's switched rooms since starting at school almost a year ago. and he missed the entire transition period which conflicted with our vacation. he skipped the next room up and went straight into the pre-k room to get ready for (theoretically) kindergarten next year. unfortunately, he's the youngest in the class, by far. some of the others in the class are already 5, having barely missed the cut-off for kindergarten this year. he's just not ready to sit and listen all day long. he also hasn't adjusted to his new teacher. she's a wonderfully sweet lady, but she just doesn't know quentin. he's a unique kid who takes some getting used to. she knows nothing about monster trucks (that'll change fast!) so she kinda glazes over when Q starts discussing the finer points of a particular truck's performance. sadly, i think he's getting to the point where he knows when people are just humoring him and not really trying to understand and it frustrates him. he knows a handful of the kids (thank god!) but he's never met 2/3 of the class as they've always been a class or two ahead of him. i think not having his close group of friends from frog room is impacting him too. it was just awful dropping him off there this morning. we take caroline to her room first so i can spend a little more time getting him settled, as he gets used to the new class. while i was unloading his bag into his cubbie, he disappeared. i heard the door to the bathroom within the classroom close and assumed he was going potty until i heard sobbing. i found him huddled on the floor in the corner of the bathroom with no light on, just crying. he was saying something about how kids aren't nice to him and not liking school anymore, but he was so worked up it was hard to really understand. it was heartbreaking. i sat with him a while and eventually got him calmed down and he eventually wandered over to one of the computers to play a game, but it really shook me up. this is my fear for the rest of his school career - that he is always a little behind and unhappy, and he gets labeled as the bad kid or the slow kid. i know a lot can change in a year and maybe by next summer i'll feel differently, but right now i really think holding him back a year is the right decision to give him a chance.

pickle's room

similarly, caroline's room is also close to done. just some small craft projects to finish up. her room is less theme-y than Q's - it's flowers, ladybugs, butterflies, bumblebees, hedgehogs, turtles, etc. and of course, very girly.

the chair is one of the projects. i'd like to reupholster the cushions with these fleece blankets. but that's not really a skill i have, so i am scared to try. -

halloween costumes i found at goodwill -

this cabinet in its green-only form was in our kitchen in richmond and in the nursery in checkerboard form in boston. -

the tree is a gazillion wall decals and some added wooden butterflies from michael's. it's supposed to look like it is blowing in the wind. -

hedgehog beanbag. caroline's favorite thing to flop on.

Q's room

as previously discussed (i mean seriously previously), Q's room in the new house has gotten a baseball makeover. it's not quite done yet and i need to get some better photos. but you get the idea! -

the blue curtains are a matching set of vintage MLB logos bought at two different thrift stores in two different states, years apart. amazing. i plan to sew valances out of some other MLB fabric i have, but that takes time. the set of four prints above the bed were free at dunkin donuts a few years ago. -

i put the pottery barn national league quilt on his bed. we can switch it out with the american league one every now and then. and when we finally convert his bed into the bunk beds, he'll have one of each. -

these prints are all from etsy: philly and boston skylines and red sox and cubs pooches.

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jeremy and i went through my baseball card collection and selected the awesomest ones to make the collage. we're particularly proud of "steroid row" -

the pennants go all the way around the room. there are a handful are vintage 80's and 90's and the rest are new. i wanted to go all vintage but the lots that would come up on ebay kept selling for like $75 for 8 pennants. that doesn't work when you need a couple hundred. - the blue and red bins look like locker baskets and are used to hold books.

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Q loves his philly phanatic pillow pet. i need to get him a wally too.

excuses for not posting

oh yeah. of course i have them. since the beginning of august we have had:

• unexpected visitors and an impromptu birthday party
• a new cousin born
• a monster jam birthday party, complete with late night grave digger cake issues
• a trip to upstate NY for the nascar race
• an earthquake
• an epic hurricane
• a computer meltdown requiring 20+ hours on the phone with tech support to repair
• a delayed and then frantically packed-for trip to the outer banks
• a trip north to massachusetts to meet aforementioned new cousin and see monster trucks at the fair
• a broken iphone
• oh and full-time jobs to do

and now i am one-week in to some sort of of plague (perhaps as a result of the above stress) that has left me wiped out and useless, with a horrible, hacking cough and the inability to stand or walk with feeling drunk and dizzy.

so yeah, excuses.

cake!

what a difference a year makes

at lilly's birthday party today i was reminded that caroline was sporting a fresh dog bite at last year's event.

it's healed quite nicely. she of course has a scar, but it's not nearly as bad as i feared. in the pic below you don't even notice it unless you really look for it.

she's also grown some hair.

coulda been awesome

if the camera didn't suck so bad.

yup. she's a girl.

this is how she went to gym class yesterday

i know my camera sucks. it's fairly new too. except it got wet somehow last year. don't remember how exactly, but i do remember putting it in a bag of rice to try to dry it out. hasn't been the same since. are you listening, santa?