Out of the Mouths of Babes--September

9/3--I guess I wasn't the only one impressed with the Egypt exhibit at the museum we visited in Alabama.  This evening while Whit was working on her craft at Fun Friday she said, "This will go perfectly with my sarcophagus costume."   I didn't even know she HAD one of those.

 A girl who knows her Egyptian terminology.

9/5--Random Whitney comment:  "I can see perfectly.  But I bet you can't.  You don't have eyes like a hawk."

"Mom, can you SEE what Brandon's about to do to me???"

9/5--A little Mormon humor:  Andrew designed an avatar for his fantasy football team that is completely opposite of his personality.  He loves it and told us, "It's so ironic."
Brandon said, "The priesthood?"
Andrew, "Not Aaronic, Ironic."

9/6--We have a little clip-on tie in our dress-up trunk.  Caroline was wearing it today and said, "Welcome...to the church...of the stadium..." in her most authoritative voice.  Cracked.  Me.  Up.

This little princess has a flair for the dramatic.

9/9--We were waiting in line to check out at a store and Caroline looked up at me and asked, "Are you my grandfather?"

 Apparently she misses her grandpas.

9/11--The boys and I are SO excited that football season has started.  Whitney is not.  Today she said, "I don't care about football!  I care about science!"

 Hooray for science!

9/16--Whit hurt her head and came to tell me about it.
Me:  I'm sorry that happened.  Do you want a kiss?
Whit:  No.  Kisses don't make it feel better.  They just make it wet.
Me:  [silent frown]
I guess she's outgrown that phase.


9/21--Caroline and Whit play so cute together right now.  They are in a phase of playing "food" where they cook for each other and eat their pretend meals.   This morning Caroline made me some ice cream out of legos.  When I asked her what flavor it was, she told me, "Umbrella and chocolate." 

 Yummm....umbrella and chocolate.

9/21--Fuming over having to unload the dishwasher AGAIN, Whitney told me, "I wish I was a gorilla so I didn't have to do chores."

9/24--Whit's not the only one who wishes she was a member of the animal kingdom.  Today B told me, "I wish I was a lizard cause I would get a lot of attention and could climb up anything."

Feeling attention deprived?

Act like a lizard!

9/24--Deep thoughts by Brandon Trey, "Can you imagine how much the world would change if everyone took everything literally?"

9/26--Over dinner tonight, I was asking the kids about their favorite parts of the beach trip.

Brandon's?  Magiquest

 Give the boy a working wand and he is a happy camper.

Whitney's?  Finding mussels in the sand at the beach.  

 Are these actually mussells?  That's what we called them all weekend.  

And our kids were dang good at finding them. 

Caroline's?  Snacks.

She'd rather be eating.

9/27--Caroline is going through a phase where she can tell if she has done something wrong and wants to do everything in her power to not get in trouble.  She has two main tactics.  The first is to close her eyes and pretend that no one can see her.  That's what she did at the Wal-Mart register when she opened a bottle of sunscreen and squeezed half of it out.

You can't see me!

Her other method cracks me up.  When we come into a room and she has done something she knows she shouldn't have done, she quickly pipes up, "I love you, Mommy!" before I can talk to her about the problem.  Hilarious.

How could we get upset at a face like that???

9/30--When Care Bear woke up this morning, she told me, "I'm SO hungry and drinky."

The Beach

Ha, Summer.

You thought you'd slipped away from us for another year.

But we found you.

Hiding out at the beach of all places.

We can't blame you.

We love it there, too.

The sun.

The sand.

The surf.

 The splashing.

The shells.

The smiles.

The spells.

The spinning.

What's not to love???

Oh, and don't forget about the things that don't begin with S.

(Or maybe they could if my vocabulary was larger and more creative.)

One of my favorite one dollar investments:  bobbers.

We throw them out in the waves and race to gather them.
Great fun and quite a workout, too.

Flying kites in the breeze.

We had a fabulous long weekend down at North Myrtle.  The temps were in the low 90's both days we spent at the beach and then it rained our whole drive home.  We couldn't have planned it better.  Kept wondering if this was our last trip to the Carolina coast.  Made us sentimental.  If so, this was the way we'd want to go out.

Andrew's New Job

HUGE congratulations to Andrew!  As of last Tuesday, his responsibilities at Avery have changed.  He has been managing the Human Resources for several manufacturing plants here in the U.S.  Now he will be in charge of HR for the U.S. Sales organization.  He is excited for the new challenge.  We definitely feel blessed with the opportunities he has been given at Avery.

To celebrate, we went out for Japanese at Bonsai.  Yum.

Cheers!

We discovered that the kids like scallops.

They have much more adventurous tastes than their mother.

Caroline loves Japanese food.

She kept asking for leftovers for the next three days.

Too bad they only lasted for one.

So, what does the new job mean for our family?  The amount of time that Andrew spends traveling will increase.  The kids are getting old enough and independent enough that we both feel OK about that.  While we won't be relocating immediately, it is probable that we'll be moving to Dallas early next year.  The kids might just get those cowboy boots they wanted.

Labor Day 2010

I keep putting off my Labor Day post because I can't think of a good commentary.  So instead, I'm just putting up our pics for documentation's sake. 

Except for Saturday's.

Because I forgot to take my camera to the water park to capture our last day there for the season.

It was fun, but just a few degrees too chilly.

Battleground Park

(Who am I kidding?  I have to add a captions.)

We can feel the history in the air here.

Up close and personal with the local wildlife.

We're convinced Caroline is going to be a track star.

She is always running.

Geocaching at Piedmont Environmental Center

Andrew had never been before.

An he found the first (and only) cache!

Love the greenway.

Also love taking pics of my kids jumping off things.

Awesome hair, Whit!

Caroline was drinking out of a big girl water bottle.

No sippy cup.

I think she's wearing more water than she drank.

Backyard cook out

Another cub scout requirement:  Help prepare an outdoor meal.

A hallmark of summer:  al fresco dining.

Mmmmm....s'mores.

Farewell, summer.  You are such a fun, laid-back, adventurous season.  We'll miss you.  See you next year!

Fire fighters

You gotta love fire fighters.  For one of Brandon's cub scout requirements, we visited our local fire station.  The guys that were working were so great with the kids.  We loved it.  The kids keep asking if we can go back.  Maybe one of these days, but we should let them have a break for now.  We don't want them getting sick of the Sweat kids hanging around all the time.

They showed us all of the equipment.

Our favorite piece was the thermal imaging camera.

They use it to detect body heat in smoke-filled buildings.

But they taught us that it is sensitive enough to pick

up the heat left behind if you write your name

on the floor of the station with your finger.

Amazing.

The kids got to sit in the driver's seat of the truck.

And try on some of the equipment.

And now B is one step closer to earning his Wolf badge.

HUGE thanks to the Pinecroft-Sedgefield Fire Department.

You guys rock!

Tooth pullin' contraption: take two

Whitney's teeth are dropping as fast as the fall temperatures.  Her right central incisor was just barely hanging in there.  She decided to follow big bro's example and try the string-tied-to-the-stairs technique.  Here's how it went.

The quality is less than stellar.  My camera apparently wants more lighting than that.  Movie-making is ALL about the lighting. 

She was super brave!  She is saving her tooth fairy money until she has $49 to buy an expensive toy.  Only she doesn't have a specific toy in mind.  She wants to walk around Target to find something worth saving for.  Interesting.

And here she is in all her toothless glory:

Ta da!

First Friday Downtown

My friend, Kelly, told me about First Friday a couple of months ago.  It is series of free outdoor concerts downtown.  Well, our last experience with a free outdoor concert did NOT go well, so I had my hesitations.  But on her recommendation, we gave it a try. 

Loved it.

All of us had a blast.

 We ate red vines.

Relaxed on the lawn.

Listened to a couple of bands.

A little on the hard rock side.

Just enough.

We liked em.

Visited the craft table where the challenge was to
get creative with a paper plate.

Whit was up for it with this feather-laden mask.

While Caroline carefully cut a fringe all the way around hers.

She's a fan of scissors.

Whit had some cute one-on-one time with Daddy.

Brandon challenged complete strangers to lightsaber duels.
All the cool kids were doing it.

And everyone tried to console Caroline when she
inadvertently took a lightsaber to the eye.

Other than her minor injury, the night was a huge success.
We hope to go again next month.
Anyone care to join us?