Our big girls

I know, I know...it's been forever.  What can I say?  Lots going on, as usual! 

This has been a huge week in the Reeves' household.  Two big milestones.  First was Carrie's first day of Pre-K on Monday.  She had been going to her new "big girl" class for a week, but without the curriculum and without the uniform.  Monday was the first day of at least the uniform ("official curriculum" doesn't start for another week, but you could have fooled me!).  Here's a picture of the newest member of pre-K:

I can't get over how freaking grown up she looks.  Boo.  And here's the rest of her class as well:

Love that they have such small class sizes compared to some other schools!  What's crazy about this class is how calm it is.....Anna gets dropped off first, and of course the 2 year old class is chaotic at best.  But even Carrie's old classroom, which had pretty much the same children in it, was nuttiness at times.  This class, not so much.  You go in at any point in time, morning or afternoon, and they are CALM.  I don't know how her teacher does it.  Benadryl, maybe?  I kid.  But seriously, another mom and I were talking about this the other day.  Just two weeks ago they were running around like wild banshees, and now they are acting like they know what they are supposed to be doing in the classroom setting.  It's amazing.  Too bad that doesn't carry over to the home environment, where Carrie seems to forget how to use her ears!!

Anna turned two as well, and we had her birthday party over the weekend.  I still can't believe she's two!!  I don't know why - she certainly has the attitude to go with her age :)  I think she tries to overcompensate to be sure to be heard over her big sister.  We had cupcakes in her classroom on her birthday to celebrate the big day, and they were a big hit:

The birthday party was great fun, and it was nice to see my family from Atlanta who made the trip.  Today we had to take both girls in to get them up to date on their vaccines.  Never a good trip.  Carrie knew what was coming, and she had to get two vaccines.  Anna only had to get one. Both girls were unhappy to say the least, but the tears magically disappeared when the stickers came out.  Turns out Anna has grown three inches since her last visit in March.  I knew she was hitting a growth spurt, but good grief!  I told the doc that at this rate there's a very good chance we'll end up passing on hand-me-ups instead of hand-me-downs between her and Carrie!

Hug your kids tight

I think I'm in a bit of shock right now.  I just learned that a co-worker's 2 year old grandson drowned last Friday in the family pool.  This just absolutely breaks my heart.  My co-worker used to tell me all sorts of stories about his grandchildren, and how this particular little one kept getting into so much mischief because, after all, he was a 2 year old boy and mischief is in his job description, right?  He was so proud to talk about his grandchildren and it was easy to see how much he loved them. 

My heart breaks for his family.  It also makes me realize how quickly loved ones can leave us.  Give your kids (or any other family member/friend, for that matter) an extra squeeze tonight at bedtime.

What the.....?!

I either should have paid more attention in my developmental psych class, or taken more of them, so I would know when to expect certain things to come out of my childrens' mouths and know when they can make certain connections.  We were sitting at the dinner table last night and I had forgotten to turn off the TV, which we usually do.  The nightly news was on, and a story came on about Glen Campbell, who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.  The anchor was delivering the story and mentioned something about the fact that Glen had been noticing he had short term memory loss for awhile, but that the Alzheimer's diagnosis had been in the last six months. 

I kid you not - Carrie stops mid-chew and exclaims "Short term memory loss!!!  That's what Dory has in Finding Nemo!!" 

I texted Jerry to tell him what had just happened (he was at a business dinner...at Lady & Sons....which I have been begging to go to since we moved here.....but that's another story).  He called me back and thought I was making it up.  No, m'dear, not making it up.  Can't make this kind of stuff up!

Huh? 

How do they remember stuff like that?  Especially since I can't really remember the last time we watched that movie, as everything is all Princess, all the time right now.

Complete Photo Gallery!

Kate emailed me last night to let me know all of our family pics are up!!  Here they are if you are interested....

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Kate is a great photographer and I love that she's now done pictures for us 4 times.  She's soon moving to Atlanta, but perhaps I can convince her to do some shots of us whenever we come up to visit family! 

Family Pictures

It's always LOADS of fun getting everyone ready for family photo shoots.  It generally involves someone pitching a fit, clothes not looking right, and overall confusion (and not necessarily all from the children!).  We had our pics taken this past weekend with Kate Carmack, who's been taking pictures of Carrie since before she turned 1.  I am always happy with her work - she is an amazingly talented young lady, and I hope she'll keep coming back to the Lowcountry once she moves to the big city at least once a year so she can chronicle our little family growing up. 

She's posted a new picture of the fam on her blog: 

There's also a couple of pictures of the girls sprinkled into her home page slideshow (and one of Anna from last year, so that's entertaining!).  You can view the slideshow here. 

I'll be sure to post when all of our pictures are available!

Dear Beaumont

Dear Beaumont,
It's so very hard for us, but today we had to say goodbye to you. There aren't really words to say just how much you were loved, and still are, but I'll try....

It all started when Jerry decided that getting a dog while a freshman in college was a GREAT idea! I don't know all the details since I hadn't yet met him, but I know he had the best of intentions (as well as a goal to meet more girls while hanging out with you at the park!). I'm also sure that this idea was probably met with some groans of "what the heck are you going to do with a lab puppy while at school?" but he went ahead with his plans anyways, and made the adoption that would change the Reeves family....for the better, I might add.

I'm not sure exactly how long you lived in Atlanta, but thankfully Whizzy & Pop Pop took you in at Cedar Bluff. The big city was no place for a dog like you, Beau. You needed a place to run and play, and Cedar Bluff was just the place. Tons of room to run, your very own river to swim in - what more could a pup want?! I know Jerry was sad to leave you behind at Cedar Bluff, but it was the right thing to do, and you have been there ever since.

You weren't too sure about me at first, buddy. Jerry and I joke about it now, but I really do think you thought I was trying to take your spot, literally. You were so used to Jerry sleeping in his own bed at home, so whenever I came to visit and slept in that bed, you would just sort of stand beside it for a few minutes like "Look lady - I think you got the wrong place. That's my bed with my dad; beat it!" Thankfully I think I grew on you, and you realized I was pretty good with the belly rubs and throwing the tennis ball for you too.

Your love of tennis balls is legendary. We even brought our dog, Bailey, to Cedar Bluff so you could hopefully teach him a thing or two about playing catch. I'll never forget watching you and Bailey race around for the tennis ball whenever we'd throw it. Bailey didn't have a prayer those first few years of catching you - you would outrun him every single time. I think it was good for Bailey to get schooled a little bit! To this day, even though you couldn't run around much lately to catch the ball, you seemed to have one nearby at all times. It's sort of like your security blanket I guess.

One of my own fondest memories of you was when I was training for the marathon.  We were visiting Cedar Bluff one weekend, and I was scheduled to do a 13 mile run, so Jerry and I took you along and thought we'd let you go as long as you wanted, then Jerry would take you back.  Jerry was on his bike and I was just pounding pavement....and there you were, running right beside me the entire time.  There were several times that Jerry would bike farther up the road, and even sometimes disappear, but you stayed right there with me the whole time, like you were taking care of me.  You did 8 miles with me that day.  I sort of think of that as the "turning point" in our relationship, Beau.  I like to think that was your way of saying "Well, okay, if you're gonna be sticking around for awhile, I guess I'll hang out with you."

Our girls really love you, that's for sure.  Whenever we were over visiting, they loved coming up to you and laying on your belly and scratching your ears, which you took in stride.  To be such a big dog, you sure were a gentle giant. 

Even though you haven't been able to move around too much lately, the other pups at Cedar Bluff still recognize you as the alpha dog.  Tucker would try to steal the ball from you sometimes, but we always tried to sneak another ball to you when he wasn't looking....

Beaumont, I know you lived an incredibly long life, but it's still incredibly hard to say goodbye.  We know it's time, though.  It's not fair to you for us to be selfish.  You have been an amazing friend to Jerry, but I promise to take good care of him for you.  Know that any dog we ever have will always be compared to you.  Goodbye, buddy. 
Love,
Kristy

We're all here!

Yes, it's been awhile since I posted.....I went back to work in the office full time last week, so that was an adjustment to say the least. I've been doing the work at home 3 days/week thing since early March, then was at home for two straight weeks after the surgery. While I certainly enjoyed my time away from the office, I have to admit it is nice to have some adult interaction during the day again.

The knee seems to be healing nicely, at least from what I can tell. I am still using my crutches (for the most part!) and using the brace. I go back to the doc on June 1st, and I am really hoping he tells me I can ditch the crutches and just use the brace. PT is going well - my therapist is a good friend, so that makes the torture at bit better.

So things are just moving along as usual in the Reeves' household. I did come across this fun little critter on my way to the grocery store the other day:

You may have to look closely at the photo to see our little gator friend, but let me assure you that he was NOT small....brought 4 cars to a stop on the main drag of our neighborhood as he was ambling slowly across the road. Of course all the stupid humans are snapping pictures as quickly as possible (at least I stayed in my vehicle, unlike the others who were actually getting out of their cars to get a closer look - NO THANK YOU).

Here's another funny picture:

I swear she is a little boy in a girl's body. Besides the fact that she has the scraggliest hair ever seen (or at least since I was growing up, cause she's definitely got my hair), this is the dirtiest kid I've ever seen. You turn your back for five seconds and she's diving in the dirt in the backyard. And utterly happy about it.