Siblings

Beach Buddies





Be sure to check out the Boukater blog for the complete pics of our visit with the cousins at HHI. It was loads of fun for adults and kids alike. Here are some select shots.

Baby Beckham

Yes, if Kit is White Chocolate aka Jason Williams, then Elsie is Baby Beckham.

Some of you have asked about pictures of Elsie's soccer, and really, there is no need for photos. Just imagine Elsie running up to a young boy her age like Hart Tedder and saying "chase me Hart-chase me." Then imagine her taking a water break. Then imagine her running up to another young boy her age like Andrew and saying "chase me Andrew-chase me." Then imagine her taking a water break. Then imagine her running up to a random boy her age and saying "chase me Boy-chase me." Then imagine her taking a water break. Then imagine David telling Elsie to put down the soccer ball and to kick it with her feet. Then imagine her taking a water break. Then imagine us going home.

This is pretty much how her "soccer practices" went. After our twenty-something combined years of soccer experience, David and I had all sorts of input. After our years of soccer experience, we realized that it didn't matter if Coach Rosie, Coach James, and Coach Katie were SCAD soccer stars. What they really needed was our brief experience with two and a half year olds and no experience with soccer.

And the only connection between Elsie and Beckham is that he is almost certainly the kind of boy she would run up to and say "chase me-chase me." We hope to break this habit before her teen years.

Check out the Boukater Blog for some beach pics. We'll include our own soon!

White Chocolate

So Mike Boukater pointed out this weekend that Kit bore a surprising resemblance to Jason Williams, aka White Chocolate. We'll let you decide if you agree or if you think Mike should lay off the mint juleps.

If you are keeping track of the numbers, here are Kit's stats at 4 months:

Weight: 14.14 in the 77th %tile
Height: 25.3 in the 83rd %tile
Head: 39.5 in the 13th %tile

Neighbor Nights

So I know we need to get some pics up of the cousins beach weekend. In the meantime, here are some photos to hold you over.

You will see that I was honored at a recent opening night party for the Sand Gnats thrown by our neighbors/my boss. I got a Half Ass. Dean award from him for my time as Interim Assistant Dean--as did Teresa for her time as Interim Assistant Dean while I was on leave. Together, we added up to an Ass. Dean. It was a prestigious award, and I just hope to live up to Mark Finlay's Big Ass. Dean example. (And for those of you trying to place Mark--you know him as Rubber Man/Double Ds from David's party. Check out his hot-off-the presses book: Growing American Rubber.)

The other photos of the kids are from another Neighbor Night with our old neighbors, the Finlay/Applegates and Lynches. This Sunday, we picnicked in the park. Kit was clearly starving and couldn't relax! ;)

K at 4 months

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extremely rare shots of elsie quiet and comtemplative...

sister act

mommy and daddy love their little bear

a family affair

some shots of gran ann, pop roy, aunt meredith and charles, cousins madeleine and buck, uncle tait and rebecca, grandad david, uncle richard and aunt judy, uncle benji, and great grandmom dorothy. oh and happy birthday granny!

wedding day

so elsie wasn't asked to be the flower girl but quickly proved that she was up to the task, taking the discarded flower basket post-ceremony and delicately dispensing them throughout the yard. the bride, cousin madeleine, and groom darren looked smashing. and david got the rare opportunity to join his siblings in a group shot. what a great looking family.

We're off to see the Wizard Noz

Elsie talks A LOT. She says lots of things and things in funny ways. She sings "Old Miss Donald" for "Old MacDonald"--our budding little feminist. She'll whip a burp cloth around calling out "Look Mommy, I'm a rodeo cowboy!" And she was so excited to see what she understood was the Wizard Noz when we showed her YouTube clips of the Wizard of Oz in preparation for our big movie night in the park.

Last Friday, we headed downtown to Forsyth at 8pm--past her bedtime--to see the giant screen set up with giant speakers in the park. Elsie couldn't believe all the people were up past their bedtime. And as she told my mother on the phone in anticipation, "we'll sit on a blanket and eat snacks and Mommy will drink wine." That did happen--we sat on a blanket and ate chocolate covered strawberries and Mommy and Daddy and Nathan and Allison did drink a bottle or two of red wine. And we lounged on the blanket and watched the Wizard Noz and it was a gorgeous night.

I remember years ago when my mom had one of those early movie disk players, pre-VCR. She would rent things like Grease and Flash Gordon and the Jane Fonda Workout. I have fond memories of summer when her best friends, Donna Davis and Jo Turville would come over with their kids and we'd camp out watching movies--one week it would be movies based on the Bible, the next week it would be musicals set in Paris, the other week it would be Judy Garland movies. I came to love movies in this way. And then, I also remember watching movies like Wizard Noz and imagining that I would always watch movies like that even when I was grown, even when I had a little girl, and here that moment has arrived.

Yes, that night at the park made me feel like we had arrived at something. Warm little Elsie buried in my lap entranced by Dorothy, "scareman," the "wion," oh and "whasshis name? the silver man, the tin man, that's right." She'd scootch over to D's lap after a while, long after Lillian had drifted off in Allison's lap, up way past bedtime. Here was a peaceful parenting moment, a perfect parenting moment. After all the hard work of parenting, with the newborn and the potty training, the messy tearful hard work of parenting with its little spots of joy, here was one of those moments that I imagined parenthood would be like. Here was one moment where the imagination and reality aligned right there "somewhere over the rainbow."

aunts uncles horses oh my!

the flight to alabama for a family wedding paid off. e got some long over due time with cousin yana, aunt jamie, aunt mere, and uncle benji. more pics to follow of the wedding weekend....