whirlwind road trip

We decided somewhat last minute to take a quick weekend trip to the Low Country. It was SO NICE to get away from home and soak in some warm weather for a change.

We went down to attend a birthday celebration for some of our college buddies. Three of them were celebrating a milestone birthday by throwing a big party (kids invited) and hiring a guitarist/singer who we all used to go see a lot down in Savannah. It was held in a private park on the east side of Savannah. It was pretty laid back. We all had a good time -- Mercer really really enjoyed playing the African gongon bell (cow bell). And - he did a pretty good job keeping rhythm as seen here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5xjoGam_14 The guitarist, Jude, had a big bag of percussion instruments. Mercer definitely found the one that made the most noise!

We were not in Savannah long - mainly just for the party. We ended up staying out on Hilton Head Island to try to take in a little bit of the beach while we were that close. It wasn't warm enough to get into the water, but it was definitely nice enough to play on the beach, sit with a picnic lunch, kick off the shoes, and get sand between our toes. We packed sandwiches and sun chips, but did not pack enough for our lunch guests - about 30 seagulls and a crow who ended up joining us -- well really surrounding us -- squawking for food. It was sort of funny. It was definitely a unique experience. (No - we never gave in... we did not feed them any of our food.) They did, however, get a little brazen when we all got up to play ball. Several of them kept going near our blanket on the sand... then on the blanket... and then very close to where our out-of-sight (but not out-of-mind) food containers were. Mercer saw them and ran to chase them away. He was very protective of our stuff!

The following morning, we went hiking with (and carrying) Mercer along a trail that went through a wildlife preserve. Many parts of it (vistas across the marsh) reminded me of the trip that I took to Bottany Bay in Edisto last fall. Makes sense - both places are off of the South Carolina coast. We went in search of various "treasures" hidden throughout the preserve. We have a family hobby called letterboxing -- finding hidden stamps in public places. Mercer is seen here with his stamp book in hand. He likes to help push the letterbox stamp on the paper in his book... He likes to scribble a little message in letterboxer's book which is stored with the "treasure"... and he likes looking through his book at the various images we've collected over the past year. He's still too young to solve the clues and find the boxes, but I think he'll grow into it. One nice thing about this hobby - it leads us to places we may not have explored on our own.

As mentioned, it was a whirlwind trip -- but was restorative and just what we needed!

Imaginary Things

I've been spending some time "observing" Mercer. Lately, when I'm putting him down for his nap, I've also been laying down for a nap of my own in the bed next to his crib. I have a habit of waking up 10 - 15 minutes after I fall asleep (sometimes, the power-nap is annoying, but for the most part it's a good thing). After I wake up, I lay there - pretending to still be asleep & get to listen to him talk, play, and sing as he's trying to wind down for his own slumber. It seems that I need that mid-day nap with him on the weekends for the benefit of the quick refresher and i "need" to be around to see these cute things that he's doing. It's really been a pleasure observing him!

- He talks to his toys or stuffed animals that are in his bed. He talks to the froggy. Here, drink water.

- He drives cars along the side-rail like it's a road.

- He has even put some of his toys in time out! (I didn't catch what they did to deserve their punishment.)

- He sings little songs.... most of which I don't recognize. Either he's making them up or he's learning new songs at school.

Outside of nap-time, he uses a bumble-bee rattle and shoots it like a gun, making shooting sounds. He has a olive-wood cross that a dear friend gave him for his baptism. He flies it around like an airplane and makes flying sounds. He "feeds" Todd and myself fake food and makes chomping sounds.

LOVE seeing his imagination coming out! It's something that's been developing over the past several weeks... and I'm excited to see what else comes to life.

Mercer is sporting a new haircut - as seen in these photos. Some of the pictures are random shots around the house and others are at his friend Jackson & Glady's house making valentine sugar cookies.

Yesterday, we went to a movie at the dollar theater called "Despicable Me."

*SPOILER ALERT* if you intend to see it, skip the next paragraph.

It's an animated cartoon about a villain who adopts three girls to help him with one of his evil ploys. They get sent back to the orphanage after he pulls off his feat, but his heart is softened. He misses the girls, so he goes back for them and they live happily ever after as a 'unique' family.

This is the first time that Mercer sat through an entire movie at the theater. (We tried a free movie last summer - Toy Story 3 - but he didn't quite make it all the way through that one.)

He got scared a few times during this movie over the weekend... the cartoon dog on screen would growl at characters in the film... or there would be an action scene or two... but nothing really violent. He would cover his eyes and hide his head in my shoulder. I got to spend a part of the film cuddling and comforting. (yay!)

Overall he liked going. Proof: this morning when he woke up, he asked to eat popcorn and watch a movie on the really big t.v. again : - )

Have a great week ahead~ Candice, Todd, and Mercer

kids say the darndest things...

"The sun crashed our snowman. That NOT NICE!"

On the way to school one day after telling Mercer that Daddy was at work... "Mommy, you not work. You stay home. You stay home and clean my stuff."

And the final one which is a "doozie" - as he was looking through an advertisement in the Sunday paper, he came to an ad with women in bikinis. He said "they need to put clothes on" and he covered them up with something. Then he took the covering off and pointed at the bikini top of one of the women "boobies."

Todd and I about lost it at the breakfast table! We tried not to laugh, but it was hard!!

Tonight, we were playing with Play-Doh as a family. As we were opening the package & unwrapping all of the car / truck / airplane / helicopter / dune buggy parts that stick into the squishy dough... he kept saying "wow" "wow" "woooowwww"

After squishing around and making some jumbled-up creations, he would make airplane noises and car noises. "Nrrrrrrrrooooolllllllll.........Brrrrrrmmmmmmm....."

He would also grab whatever Todd or I had in our hands and say "here, I need to do something" or "I need to show you something." Then you could see the wheels turning inside of his head as he was trying to think of what to show us or what to do once he held the dough & pieces in his hands.

This doesn't flow with the story - but it should be on the record that Todd was holding back some anxiety at the colors being mixed & smooshed together. I think they look kinda cool & swirly.... until at some point we end up with this homogeneous grey color... but kinda fun right now!

We have been holding our annual soup night event. Tomorrow night is the 4th in the series -- the last soup night for the year. So far, the first three events have been smaller than usual, but it's been nice to catch up with some people that we haven't talked to in awhile and really wanted to catch up with - so that's been great - getting to spend some one-on-one time with folks. This is why we hold the event.

Mercer thinks it's pretty great to have a party at our house every Saturday night. He's enjoying the event.

We're still continuing his swimming class (because of our concern with life safety/ the pond in our back yard). We'll keep that one up. He's doing well and can float on his own for a little bit... and is able to pretty much climb out of the pool now.

We also enrolled him in a parent-tot tumbling class for this winter quarter. Don't know how long we'll do this one, but right now it's great because he's getting to blow off some energy on Saturday mornings and is learning to do flips, walk on a balance beam, even do a backwards flip on the uneven bars with the teacher's help & my "spotting" him. He's enjoying it for the most part, but is having a hard time waiting his turn to do the activity / standing in line. Hopefully the class will work on his patience a little bit??

That's about all that's going on. Have a great week.

'Til next time...

(This is Mercer trying out his first chocolate-covered strawberry... and another pic of Todd & Mercer watching football together. The J-E-T-S gave it a good run this season~ maybe next year Todd will go to the superbowl to support his team??)

It's a new year~

Just before the new year, we got to visit with some of our friends from the west coast - Bob, Jen and their baby girl Zoe (who is almost 1 1/2 years old and we were just meeting for the first time). We were ALL shameless & kept prodding Mercer and Zoe to hug. She seemed to be more interested in his "big kid" toys, though. Oh well. Hopefully it won't be another 1 1/2 years 'til they see each other again!

Mercer almost made it to midnight on new year's eve... he & his friends were up 'til after 11... we finally heard the last peep come out of their room around 11:45. The following morning, he hit a milestone: he gave up his pacifier. (we prodded him on this too... "throw away your pacifier and you get this big new toy." he really had no choice~) Here he is enjoying his criss-cross matchbox car set & he's been enjoying it ever since. I don't think he regrets his decision. The first few nights, he asked for the pacifier, but we reminded him that HE threw it away in exchange for the car set. He seemed ok with that. So - we're closing in on 2 weeks without it. Woo hoo! Now... to work again on the potty training...

The big news around here -- SNOW -- and lots of it for Atlanta & the metropolitan area. 5" + ice on top. (This picture is taken from a weird angle - the snow is not all the way up to the stop sign!) The snow has pretty much shut down the whole area for quite some time... and 4 days later... there's still most of it around. The city is not equipped to handle it. We went sledding the first day. All was good for awhile 'til he started to bawl "I want to go home I want to go home." Once home - we discovered that his little gloves were not keeping his hands warm & they were bright red and freezing cold to the touch. Poor guy!

The next day, we went out & put 2 sets of gloves on his hands... and this seemed to do the trick. He was out for a couple of hours building a snowman with Todd and helping him to shovel the driveway.

Inside, he got to play with more white stuff... icing! It was the perfect time to make cupcakes and practice icing them. This was his first time practicing this new skill - dipping the knife into the tub & slathering it onto the cupcake. I only had to smooth it out for him - he really did pretty well - until we caught him licking his finger and made him wash his hands.

We saw snow while driving at Christmas, but didn't get to stop & play in it. I'm glad he got to experience snow this season. Now... we are all ready for the next thing!

Home Sweet Home

our travels looked something like this: GA --> NC --> DC --> NJ --> VA --> GA

(all in about a week)

We had a great time at each of our destinations, but packing & unpacking, sleeping in different beds, and riding in the car for 1800 miles is hard on all of us... especially when mother nature throws us a curve ball such as a major snow storm!!

Our trip started in North Carolina - visiting my mother's family. Literally, as soon as we go out of the car & inside, Mercer spotted a "low-rider" car that played music and immediately went into dance. We haven't posted a video in quite awhile - but enjoy this one & notice Mercer's signature moves: a cartwheel... him going into a wind-up with his arm... and a kick over the car! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N4KayeiTo0

Mercer "got it" this year and enjoyed opening presents more than playing with the bows and boxes. We didn't take any group photos at this family gathering. Uncle Eddie's son, Michael, posed for the only picture while others who I won't mention (Uncle Mel) hid behind stuff to avoid the camera. Shout-out to Michael !!

We also got to see my dad's mother, Edith, while in town. Mercer is always a star at her nursing home as the residents and workers there enjoy watching him. He brings energy there and makes lots of people smile. Notice grandma is smiling at Mercer as he is "digging for gold." Ha! Near grandma's nursing home is an interesting development called Fearrington Village. Mercer & I paid a visit there last year and he ran around these sculptures in the field. This year, he was a little more interactive with the sculptures that were decked out for the holidays.

We continued our journey up the road - stopping in D.C. to visit Todd's brother and family. While there, Mercer's cousin, Marley, doted on him and played with him 'til it was time for him to go to sleep. She even read him his bedtime stories! Check out their awesome hats!!

The following morning, we continued our journey up the highway to New Jersey. At one point, we got off of the highway to avoid some holiday traffic. We ended up driving through the town and campus of Princeton - which is really beautiful. This was a nice diversion for us while Mercer was in the back seat napping. The following day, Todd's sister and Mercer's cousins arrived. More arrived on Christmas day & the house was full (9 adults + 9 kids under one roof). Mercer had an absolute blast playing with his cousins. At some point, a full-blown game of Nerf gun war was "on" and everyone was running around the house shooting nerf pellets at one another. Mercer hung right in there with them!!

We got a little bit of a later start on journey southward after Christmas. Overnight, New Jersey was to have gotten hit by snow - so we waited 'til daylight to see what the conditions were. Things were fine & we made it out. Later that day, however, NJ and many other states got buried by the white stuff. We drove through some beautiful postcard-like farms with a dusting of snow covering the rolling hills. Some farms had silos attached to stone farm buildings. Some farms had dilapidated wood structures that added a lot of character to the drive. If not in a hurry, it would've been great to stop and shoot some pictures. (Maybe we can explore that part of the country at some point in the future??)

We had to stop in Virginia to stay the night because as the sun set, the roads were getting slick. We were only a couple of hours from my mom's house in North Carolina, but we called it a night, then drove to her place in the morning - encountering some rough roads. Unfortunately, we lost about 1/2 a day, so we couldn't stay for a visit with my mom. We headed back to our house & when we made it home. When my head finally hit my own pillow that night... it was pure bliss!

Merry Christmas to All

Here are some pics I meant to post before we left town, but didn't have time.

Mercer and I tried making a gingerbread house this year. Unfortunately the little staunches that were to hold up the roof fell right off & the whole thing collapsed. Mercer had fun anyhow. He discovered that red hots are actually hot. He ate one and it took him several drinks from his bottle before his mouth wasn't burning any longer. Also, he discovered that he enjoyed eating gum drops more than sticking them in the icing on the house. Here, he is acting like he's about to put it on his house, then last minute pops it in his mouth. He thinks it's funny to trick us now. (Is this devious or cute?)

A week ago we had a little Christmas celebration at our house. Mercer's grandparents sent an art easel down & he enjoyed playing with this. He ran right to it and drew all over it. Later, he opened a Toy Story toy that we had gotten him and a little nativity set we got him as well. We're now on our trip to NC and NJ. I'll blog about that later, but wanted to get these pre-holiday pictures posted.

Merry Chirstmas to All.......

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

We are in the thick of baking, packing, wrapping, and sending cards. Yes - Christmas is upon us. Don't have a lot of time to write, but mainly here to post some seasonal pictures. Enjoy!

We made it to the lighting of the tree up on the square. Santa and Mrs. Claus come to this event every year and stick around for a little while afterwards to talk to little boys & girls. Since we were having a slice of pizza with friends (as seen on the previous blog) the line to see Santa was short by the time we made it to the square. He actually got to spend a little time with him Mercer didn't say anything to him because he was being shy, but did sit with the big guy for a minute.