Groundhogs Day (AKA longest post ever)

This week has felt like 5 Mondays in a row.  I thought it would never end but here we are, it's Friday, and we are heading to the beach.  I am so so thankful to squeeze in one last summer beach trip for the year.  Although we will go back during the cold months this trip is different, we are going without Scarlet.  We are so blessed with awesome parents that love to go on grand-baby watch so we can have some "adult time." Get your mind out of the gutter, nowadays adult time means staying up late, not worrying about nap, and drinking copious amounts of wine without having to wake up at 7am.  My mom is picking her up from school today and she will be spending the weekend at our house with little Macon.  I told her they were going to meet Dora on Sunday at The McWane center and she LOST HER MIND!  SO, last weekend Johns parents came and got S on Friday so John & I could go see our close to favorite band.  (Told you we have awesome parents)!  Phish came to Birmingham after 13 years!  We got hippied out (cause that's our nature) & joined about 20,000 others for some great tunes.  My body does not work like it used to.  After 4 solid hours of groovin' (with the Grizas no less) I could hardly move.  To think I used to go to 3 day shows & festivals!  I couldn't do that now if it was free and that shit ain't free!  $11 a beer will make ya think before ya drink that's for damn sure!

(yay I LOVE hippies)

Here we are playing in the lot.  That girl playing with her phone is our friend Mere.  This was her first show & she loved it!  She also LOVED people watching :)  The band put on a fabulous show for us which says a lot after a summer tour!

As always, the light show was great and what made it even better was being on the 8th row!  What what!

Next order of business.  I gave Scarlet a can of shaving cream yesterday in the tub.  Best $0.97 we ever spent.  She loved it.  Please believe we will have this at hand forever.

She is so full of attitude you guys.  Lately we have been butting heads & I hate it.  I want her to obey, I want her to be patient and gracious and have manners but sometimes she frustrates me so bad that I yell.  Then I feel bad.  I try to be patient with her but this age, this age is killing me ya'll.  And she learned the word "doo-doo" at school which she thinks is hilarious.  She just loves to say it & watch me squirm.  Doing my best to ignore it.

SO you heard about that hurricane?  I have some friends that have a condo where ours is but they live there full time.  They stuck around and had a hurricane party this week.  Good shit guys. 

Our place fared well.  The marina next door has cameras that we can log onto online and pan around so it was pretty neat to watch the hurricane coming in on real time.  By the time the rain slowed down and all the water came in from the gulf, the water level was at our docks!

Those are normally a good 6-8 feet above water!  Crazy.  Glad Orange Beach was ok, but sad for parts of LA & MS that got pounded.  

I never intended for this to be the longest post ever but this has been the longest week ever so I'm ok with it.  Hope everyone has a smashing Labor Day.  Be safe, get some sun.  It'll be fall before we know it!  

Beach Trip ups

So the beach was awesome.  We have a great little spot in our favorite corner of the world, Orange Beach.  We took my sis and her fam for a full 6 days on the gulf coast.  I am hear to tell you about ALL of the shenanigans, not the fun.  We had a lot of fun, but the unfortunate stuff that happened is way funnier, so here goes.  After a full day of rain and being trapped in a condo with 3 kids & 4 adults, we decided we would take the kids over to the beach.  You see our condo is on the bay, we have pools, docks, and a perfectly good "beach" with sand and water.  Sister & I thought it would be a "fun family" thing to do to get all Griswold and load up all the shit and drag the kids down the boardwalk to the "real beach."  God are we stupid.  We loaded up and went over to Gulf State Park, walked a mile in the sand and set up camp.  Of course my child wanted to be carried 5 minutes into the walk, while I am carrying a 30 lb bag of toys, John is dragging a wagon FULL of shit, sister has 2 bags, her husband had a baby on his shoulders and 2 bags.  I forgot to mention that wagons don't work in the sand.  At all.  Don't take them.  John basically had to CARRY a wagon with 2 coolers and ALL of our stuff, a mile, in sand.  He was not happy with this.  So we set up camp, play for 4 hours and decide we want to go back & get in the pool.  Pack all of the shit and start the walk back.  This time I have a 30 lb baby on my shoulders & a bag, we are all sandy and wet.  The kids are miserable and crying walking on sand that felt like the surface of the sun.  I get to the shower by the parking lot and was on the verge of tears I was so hot and a smell hits me.  I have no way to describe this other than the WORST SMELL I HAVE EVER SMELLED IN MY LIFE.  I'm talking bodies, rotten fish, diapers, food, and dead people.  They picked a fab time to empty the state park trash huh?  Sus threw up, John ran to the car gagging, I was literally in tears holding my breath, & we still had to load the car & kids.  FAIL people.  Just fail.  Lesson learned, we will never. ever. do that again.  So we had a couple more days of fun, went to The Trak & let the kids play, had lunch at LuLu's, & lots of swimming.  Then came Thursday when we had to head home.  We packed the car Wednesday night but still didn't manage to get out until about 10:00 in the morning and this just doesn't fly with John & I.  We are early leavers.  We don't like to get home later than 3.  So me and sis rode together with the girls, the guys took Harrison.  We stop to get gas and Sus hears this hissing.  I go look and the back tire is POURING air from a hole.  Is this a fucking joke?  No, no it wasn't.  We moved the car & the tire was flat within 20 minutes.  OH MY GOD.  We unpack the ENTIRE Expedition.  You guys know what that is?  Those giant SUV's with a family of 4's junk in it.  OH MY GOD this has to be a joke.  The guys catch up with us and change the tire (there goes another hour) and by the time we are done, its lunch time.  So we stop, again, for another hour.  Shoot me now.  The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful (thank god) but we didn't get home until 5.  5pm.  That's right, calculate that.  A 4 hour trip took us 7 hours.  Not to mention the 36 times we had to stop because 2 potty trained toddlers have to poop and pee every 20 minutes.  What a shit show.  So now that I got all of that out I will say we did have an absolute blast, I just wanted to document the things that had us all laughing and almost crying.  Family vacations sure have taken a funny turn now that we added all of these children but we wouldn't have it any other way!  Here are some pics!

 First nights dinner! 

 The girls loved the big bath tub and Emma is a pro at the choke hold!

 My girl enjoying the beach :)

 So this is a fountain at Lulu's for kids to splash in, not get in.  I looked up from our table and of course my water baby was in it!

And this is proof.  Oh my god ya'll we weren't even 30 miles out of town.  I am just so glad we caught it at a gas station and we weren't on the side of the interstate!

So that's the wrap up.  I'm sure Sus will post the pleasant happenings and lots of pics so co check her out!  I didn't get my camera out at all!  Have any of you had any "Griswold" like family vacations?

Beach, Bed, vodka, nails & fish

So we are going to the beach this Friday!  I am so ready.  Normally Scarlet has her own bed down there but we are adding 2 more children & 2 adults for the 2nd Annual Macon/Edwards family beach trip.  Sister better cool it on the kids or they are not gonna be able to fit with us!  When Scarlet was a baby we put her pack & play in the master closet and it was great!  She was away from the noise and it was plenty big.  We kept a fan on her and the door cracked.  Well this year I bought this to try out in the closet.

I am not gonna lie, I'm a little nervous.  She has slept in a bed for about 10 months but she knows she can't get out, it is too tall.  This however, is not.  Yikes.  Toddler wandering the condo in the middle of the night?  Yikes.  Oh well I will give a full report after we use it but here are some action pics.  It comes with a electric pump (score) and took literally less than a minute to inflate!  It also holds up to 300 lbs so if you needed to camp with your little you totally could.  (Although that would suck cause its like twin size).  Now we went with the kid bed only because I don't see the sense in getting the toddler one for $10 less since she is obviously going to continue growing and we travel, A LOT.  Hopefully we will get our monies sleeps worth.

 Comes in this nifty little bag.  Like you could ever get it back in there....

 Has raised sides (4" I think) so little ones don't roll out, not that they couldn't walk out.

Fits a twin sheet & daddy approved!

Oh, & we were totally able to get it back in the bag!  

I was not paid for this post, just thought this thing was awesome (hope my kid does too)! 

I'm not done yet!  We have had a lot going on!  

I had a baby shower to attend on Saturday for our friends Erin & Robert.  So my cousin and I loaded up some beers for the ride (who the heck has a dry baby shower?  Is that normal)?  We arrived at the house but there were only about 6 cars there so we sat in the car and finished our beer.  We walk up with pink little gift bags and knock on the door and hear a big, burly, "Come in!"  I was thinking, what kind of rednecks don't answer the door for a baby shower?  Little did we know we were at the wrong house... Yeah we definitely walked into a "man shower."  Man shower meaning, 8 dudes eating meat and shooting vodka...

Here is the dad to be doing what any good man would do!  Try to find the address while providing us with vodka.  Sweet Robert!  We did eventually make it to the shower and it was great thanks to the booze cruise detour we took :) ~ Erin got a bunch of good loot!

Then John made me this for dinner.

I got the big side.  I am a salmon-aholic.  I love it.  This was magical.  Think maple syrup, salt & pepper marinade.  Duh.

I also did a fun mani Saturday night and I love it!  Can't wait to play around with this and do more colors!

It isn't easy, especially if you have a kid because it takes 2 coats of white, then 2 coats of color, then top coat.  It needs to dry for like hours before helping your kid into the car and jacking them up.  Yup, I had to redo 3 of em..  So that's all from our little corner of the map.  What's going on in yours?

Rando's

The past 10 days have been nothing short of awesome.  A little crazy, but awesome nevertheless.

• Scarlet got the croup.  That shit is for the birds.  
• Croup is contagious.  Of course she came down with this 3 days after my sister & her littles arrived for a 10 day stay.
• She spread her sickness all over that house.  3 sick kids is tons of fun.  LOTS of whining, crying, barking, snot, and beer for the adults.  Lots and Lots of beer.  I mean, it is totally excusable when you have 3 kids under 3 with croup.  Right?  Did I mention that shit sucks?
• I love Chobani greek yogs however, it makes my mouth taste like chalk therefore affecting the way my morning diet coke tastes.  I will give up yogurt before I even think about not having a diet coke the second I split my never rested eyes open.  
• We had a birthday party for sisters little Emma and it was great!  After a good bit of "Holiday Cary" (you know how crazy people get around holidays that are hosting?) it went off without a hitch. 
• My house is going to be eerily quiet when I get home today and I am kind of excited a little but my child is going to lose her mind when she gets home and realizes Emma is gone.
• The Olympics have been great to watch but I can't believe MaKayla busted ass last night.  P.S. who the fudge names their kid Muh-kay-luh?  I can't deal with that.
• Sisters mother in law had a bday last weekend and had an Alice & Wonderland themed tea party.  It was so fun and the girls had an absolute blast!  See below for proof.  Oh the kids had fun too. 
• Monday sucks a big one.
• We go to the beach in 11 days, stay for 6 days then get to be on the 8th row at Phish in Birmingham.  Word!  
• Speaking of the beach, I accidentally gained 5 pounds in 10 days.  I need to rid myself of 10lbs in 11 days.  Yeah right.

 Dad & Buddy having a heart to heart

 Best little friends that fight just like me & Susannah did!

 Before croup reared its ugly head.

This really happened.