Sarah Turns 4

It's hard to believe that this kid has been around for 4 full years already, but as of today, she has. Sarah is now 4 years, 1 hour and 17 minutes old.
I know everyone says this, but it seems like she was just a wee tiny infant on her mama's shoulder, posing for the newborn shots. Look how cute and cuddly! She's still like that, but with more hair and sass now.

We had the UnBirthday party for both girls, so we could have a calm, easy real birthday at home with the family. So naturally, I decided to spend 2 days making 8 Princess and the Frog themed teacup cupcakes. Because nothing says "relaxing" like trying to decorate a cake in 60% humidity with temperatures in the upper 90s. Had I been thinking ahead, I would have had these kids in the dry, cold months of winter, when I could store cakes on the porch. Anyway, here are the cakes:

The very last one there, with the daisies and the frog sitting on a daisy, that one's for the Birthday Princess. Kate helped decorate it. Here is Sarah watching her cake arrive on a silver platter, just in time for tea. OK, incredibly late for tea, but the girls didn't care. It's tea time somewhere, am I right people? People?



As you can see, like her sister 6 weeks before her, Sarah also received a Tiana dress, this one from her grandmother. Her aunt made her a lovely skirt with a great non-itchy top in Tiana colors, but it was less formal, so she went with the ball gown. In addition to teacup shaped cake, tea itself was served, by Kate, whose current life's ambition is to be a waitress.

After all that tea, we were a little revved up. Sarah got so stoked she was guzzling her tea straight from the pot. As is so often the case, the party got out of control. When the ladies get juiced up like that, there's only the dancing left to be done. The whirling dervishes cut loose to Sarah's new birthday CD, Michael Jackson's Bad. While I find that one appropriately named, the beat is pretty infectious. The photos were mostly blurry, but here are a couple -

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!(etc)

I know I haven't finished the run-down of all our Camp Atlanta excitement, and that I cut myself off with the near this-Monkey's-gone-to-heaven tale of poor taste, but this is big, big BIG!

Today, after a mani/pedi with Grammy Margie (we all look gorgeous, darling), during a quick trip to the grocery store, Kate's very first loose tooth came out! Yes! And this momentous occasion happened on my Dad's birthday, which I think very nearly makes up for Sarah being born the day after his birthday, instead of on it. Maybe now he stop passive-aggressively fitting that slight into every single public speaking engagement he has. Happy birthday, Dad! I love you and I knocked my kid's tooth out just to prove it!

I did not expect to be making this announcement so soon. Indeed, the state of the tooth was only discovered on Wednesday, during Sarah's first-ever visit to the dentist, which was Kate's, I don't know 6th, or something. I expected a dressing down because I was unaware of the tooth's condition, which clearly disclosed the fact that I had not been flossing her teeth. I suspect I was let off the hook because the girls' lack of cavities. Hooray for good tooth genes!

Anyway, the excitement of the event rapidly turned to damage control - Birthday Princess Sarah felt her thunder was being usurped - and then some up-close time with the floor of Publix when Kate inevitably dropped her tooth and it bounced away. The floor of Publix is flecked with white, off-white and gray. Awesome. We finally had to call off the search when I'd cleared all the lower shelves and one of the employees had swept under all the uprights. Grammy Margie explained that she, herself, had swallowed her first lost tooth, but the tooth fairy was still able to find her. Crisis averted, but lost tooth was literally lost. Forever. Or, rather, until some unsuspecting employee finds it while restocking the shelves.

Upon review of this post, and a few others, I realize my iPhone makes Kate's face look a bit odd on close-ups. So, for future reference, please note, she doesn't quite look like that, really.

Monkey Becomes a Woman

Monkey is a tiny boxer. He is now 10 months old, but still only weighs in at about 40 pounds. This has come as a surprise to us; when we adopted him he seemed like he was going to be huge. We don't mind having such a small chap loping about the house, it's just that we were hoping he would quickly stop fitting into small spaces. He likes to go all cephalopod on us and ooze under our bed to gnaw on the things he's stolen, like underwear, tissues from the trashcan or the cat. Many a toy has been disemboweled in that space. We find the horrific remains when tiny bits of them escape out the sides of the bed and we actually lower ourselves to the floor and peer under there. Oh, the humanity!

The other day was a good one for Monkey. We'd taken a 3-mile walk together, Monkey marked each mile with a celebratory poo for me to pick up. Then I worked from home, allowing him to sit by my side, head on my lap, eyes sweetly pleading with me to play with him, for a very long time indeed. Despite these high points, he was up to mischief in the afternoon. When I realized I hadn't seen the pup in awhile I conducted a search. My bed was emitting a chewing sound. I lowered myself to the ground and, prepared for another eviscerated finger puppet, was confused by the giant cotton balls everywhere.

What the...? Monkey looked guilty. I think that might just be how he looks, though. It didn't take long to realize just what the hell was going on down there. Monkey had abducted a brand new...wait for it...box of tampons. If it weren't for their absurd cost (they have us just where they want us, the purveyors of feminine products, and I resent it a lot) I might have been amused. Instead I was furious. There was yelling. There was me poking at Monkey with the broom until he did his Marine crawl out from under the bed, and then there was more yelling. I salvaged what I could. Then I ranted to Jeremiah about how we need to block off the bed.

That evening, Jeremiah saw a very long cord sticking out from under the bed. He was momentarily taken aback, until he realized it was the cord from one of the window blinds. Then he was just ticked. Bad Monkey.

Monkey, looking a little crampy.

Camp Atlanta - Wednesday, Because I Worked Thursday and Am Pouting About It.

Wednesday was World of Coke and Centennial Park fountains day! Because the wee ones don't really know what soft drinks are and because I wasn't interested in pumping them full of Coke from around the world, Jeremiah took the teen-agers to the World of Coke while I hung with my little homies for a bit.

The pictures you see here were all straight-up stolen from Abby and Mikey's posts in facebook (hence the sometimes tininess of them).

The cool weather we'd been enjoying since the 3rd took its leave of us the day before and it was feeling more like Atlanta in July at this point, so running through very cold water at the fountains was perfect. At first, when we all ran into the spouting water, Sarah was a little afraid. As soon as we got her in there, though, she was all over the place, and the very last one to come out. None of us had a camera handy while we were at the fountains, so you'll just have to imagine all the fun we had inside your own head. Feel free to imagine me a few inches taller.

Back to the 9th

The Friday of Camp Atlanta 2010 I had to work. Workin's for suckers! Anyway, that day Keith arrived, just hours after Chris and Sonya flew in, with a gift of hermit crabs from the Winchester Provosts to Kate and Sarah. Kate and Sarah were thrilled. Jeremiah thinks Keith is evil. Kate and Sarah named their crabs Serena and Annalise, respectively. Annalise, I'm sad to report, bit the big one the other day. I think she was depressed and offed herself in her shell, but no autopsy was performed so we'll never know for sure.

While I worked, all the girls went to get their nails done and the boys went to pick up the ginormous bounce house/ water slide. That bit about picking up the bouncy thing doesn't actually sound all that fun, so I guess being at work wasn't terrible...

Once I escaped my office, I went directly to Steve and Joy's house where all the peeps awaited me, along with some wine. We had a lovely dinner and then had to say good-bye to Mikey, which was sad. Sadder still was the ferocious storm that moved in just as she was to board her plane. She was supposed to fly home at 9:30 but instead left around midnight. Ah, but who doesn't love a few uncomfortable hours of solitude at the airport? Perfect for reading a good novel.

The UnBirthday Party

I will work through the week backwards. Yesterday was Kate and Sarah's shared UnBirthday Party. We rented a giant combo wet slide for this event. We could have rented out the entire McKoy Park Pool for 2 hours, after the pool closed for the day, or, for about the same price, we could rent this behemoth from Friday through Monday. Mikey left us the night before, and endured some hours in the airport while her plane was diverted during a thunderstorm that was cruelly positioned directly over the Atlanta airport. We did, however, have Keith, Chris and Sonya in the mix now so that was some comfort. Sonya, Ro* and Abby refused to partake in the bouncy water slide (fools) and instead hid out in the TV room watching Wonderfalls all afternoon.


The uncles knew a good thing when they saw it. Steve and Joy arrived with super soakers and we'd provided small squirt guns. When you put that many guns on the street, violence is inevitable. The children ganged up on "Sarah's Uncle Keith!" first, and he held his own for quite some time. Then Brendan (who brought a little mini-keg of Oberon with him, which kept the majority of the adults in the kitchen, close to it) and Steve got in the mix. Brendan rallied the children together against Steve. Ultimately, many of the adults (and I'm not saying there's a causal relationship here, but it was primarily the ones who'd helped drain that little keg) ended up in the bouncy thing, going down the wet slide, weight limit be damned.

Then there were cupcakes. I ordered a couple dozen from The Atlanta Cupcake Factory but I wanted to partake as well, so I made a couple gluten-free dozen in chocolate with cream cheese frosting and stacked them like a layer cake and used those straw-looking cookies as giant candles. It took on a very Dr. Seuss look nearly immediately, but the unbirthday girls were thrilled.

The last of the kids departed around 6 or so and Kate, Sarah, Jeremiah, Chris, Steve and eventually Abby, played in the giant bouncy water slide until around 7:45. Kate began playing out there as soon as it was set up around 1, so, she was pretty tired. She wept when we told her it was time to stop bouncing. Then she and her equally exhausted sister passed out.

The rest of us realized we were starving, had planned nothing for dinner, and ended up ordering sushi at 9:30 at night. The little girls know how to throw down.

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I'll be back here with more photos and details. The difficult thing about blogging about all the fun you're having is getting to the blog when you're busy having fun. Today the big girls are providing some patriotic economic stimulus down in Little 5 Points (or just Little 5, if you're cool like that), all in their specially-made Camp Atlanta t-shirts (artwork by Kate Drueke). When the dust settles, I'll provide more details on the aquarium, the World of Coke, the fountains at Centennial Olympic Park, Atlantic Station, dinner by Ro* and her excellent kitchen assistants, the beautiful 4th of July weather, and so on and so on...