Springtime is Finally Here - and After Only 2 Years

About 4 years ago, Bryant first experimented with growing a beard. He had been on a long weekend, guys camping trip near Helen, GA. He of course had not shaved, and when he got back, I was sick as a dog, so there was no urgent prompting from me to get him to shave. He decided to let it grow. For those of you who have never experienced first hand, the growth of a full beard, it is an interesting few weeks. Now, Bryant and I knew nothing about beards, so we just figured all you did was let them grow. But something just wasn't right. He would ask me how it looked, and while at some times, I thought it looked OK, for the most part, he just looked like a hungover guy who hadn't been able to get home to his razor for a while. Neither of us could figure it out. Then I went to Memphis on business. Bryant was coming up a couple of days later. He wanted to shave the beard off because he was convinced that in post 9-11 airports, he may just look suspicious enough to be dragged away and questioned. Well, he didn't shave it, but when he walked off that plane in Memphis, he looked like a new man. He had shaved his neck! That was it! That is what keeps a bearded man from looking like a marinated Grizzly Adams! So, long story short, the beard stayed. This was in October. That spring, he shaved it off, and things remained that way until the following October. The beard reappeared. No big deal, we could live through another winter with a beard, after all, Bryant was a beard grooming professional by now. But spring arrived. Easter came and went. We celebrated Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, and the beard was there - through everything! It never left, never hibernated, never went north for the summer. That was in 2004.
Fast forward to today, last night actually. We have dinner with the Smiths, Egelstons, and Halfords. Spencer has always been Bryant's Beard Buddy. Difference being that Spencer shaves his off in the spring. Well, something clicked. Maybe it was the warm weather, maybe it was seeing Spencer's clean shaven face, maybe it was the Miller Lite. Who knows, but the clippers came out last night, and the razor and shaving cream appeared this morning. It's official, Bryant no longer has a beard! Reeves didn't recognize him at first, but then he heard his voice, and all was well. Likewise, Preston didn't recognize him either. "Mommy, whose that man?" Oh, Bryant has not had a beard the whole time Preston's been alive, but he has for all of the years he would remember.
Anyway, shaving the beard is actually kind of fun because you can do it in increments. Bryant let me take pictures of each stage last night.

Last Picture of the Bearded Bair

Goatee - Hhhmmm, Not so Much

Still Bad From the Side

My Name is Earl

There He Is!

Reeves' First Easter

Almost a week overdue, I am finally blogging about my child's first Easter. Easter Bunny decided to take this year off and chose instead to have his cohort, Me, spend the money on his 10 month portrait. We were very lucky and were able to go with Preston to have a couple of shots of the two of them. We went to Portrait Innovations and, of course, gave in to the overwhelming urges and got one of the packages. How weak am I!? Oh well, at least I got the CD with the pics on it. It is like Sophie's Choice. You choose the one pose, and the rest of those darling pictures of your precious child are deleted, gone, clicked away, not even into purgatory, but all the way down to the seventh level, never to be seen again. Oh, the inhumanity! I have yet to be able to walk away with the one pose package, and to those of you who can do it, I salute you. Anyway, here are some of those pics. I wish instead of 5x7, 8x10, 3x5, and wallets (oh, and the poster size, which always goes on the fridge), they would come out with a wrapping paper option, because that is what we are going to have to endup doing with all of these leftover pictures. Lord knows, I can't throw them away!

So, back to Easter.... We went to the 11:00 church service. Reeves was good for about 15 minutes. - I am still a virgin nursery mom. I need to get there! - Then he decided to go ostiechthyse on me. I have a newfound respect for those fish mongers. Luckily, it was happy movements, but disruptive nonetheless. So this is how Reeves spent most of his first Easter church service.

We went to Morn and Casey's for Easter dinner. This was truly a milestone event because it marks the first time any major family holiday dinner has moved to a house belonging to one of our generation. Everything went great. The house and the yard looked wonderful. Despite the lack of sod in the backyard - who would have ever predicted the immigration march and subsequent strikes would have hit so close to home?

Our first family Easter picture.

Poor Leeze wasn't feeling very well, but she was still as charming as ever. She has learned two new faces.

Cold (imagine a bit of shaking going on here)

Mean (to which Morn always replies, "I've seen meaner." Leeze thinks this is hilarious.)

Reeves got a pretty good nap, despite Miller's best efforts to keep him awake - ie, slamming the front door with his foot! Haha! And as luck would have it, his nap fell during dinner. It was so nice to be able to truly enjoy the meal. Of course, the food was all too good, and we all ate way too much. We couldn't have asked for a better Easter, except to have had Reagan and Sarah there. They were truly missed.

After dinner, Miller and Lol had convinced us to walk/run the bridge. What a great idea, and I just happened to have the clothes in my car. I am so glad we did this. It felt so good to go to bed after some exercise rather than a gorgefest.

We missed Miller on the bridge. I can understand, walking with all those chicks - but Reeves was there. We'll get you next time!! And we still love you!

And you had to be tired from all that climbing! I could never do it - too scared of heights!

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

Now I Know

I bought this cute outfit for Reeves at Marshall's the other day. It was an 18 month, but when I looked at it, it looked pretty small, so I decided to bring it for Reeves to wear on Easter afternoon, after we took him out of his Sunday best. All went well. The outfit fit perfectly with a little room to grow. Also, it has two buttons at each shoulder, so it doesn't pull like outfits with only one at each. I was quite pleased with my purchase. Then I went to change his diaper. Apparently the reason I'd gotten it for such a steal was because the maker hadn't bothered to put any access between the legs for changing a diaper! Why waste time and money on snaps, just sew it together!! I had to completely disrobe the child to change his diaper. At this point, I am cursing the aforementioned buttons. Loved them when they only had to be dealt with once, not such a big fan now. Needless to say, this has taught me a valuable lesson - always check the crotches!

Girls' Night In

This is a belated post, but I wanted to mention what a great time we had at Nancy's BDP on Thursday night. It was a perfectly wonderful Girls' Night, although we missed CFS desperately. First of all, Super Mom kudos to Dorothy for being able to bring herself and Baby Anne out at nine days old! You are my hero. We shared wine and stories before dinner. In addition to having to listen to all of us go on and on about our babies, Top Story Award goes to Ann for her rendition of Urban Coon Hunting - Why it's better from your bedroom window. I think Jeff Foxworthy might need to borrow that. You might be a redneck if… You've ever stalked and killed a racoon from your bedroom window. Do you need a license for that? When is racoon season? I assume Ham was in his cammo pj's. The best was his disposal method. "Trash pickup is in two days. It won't be smelling that bad by then." I'm still laughing.
Thanks DuBose for a delightful dinner, organizing it all, and particularly for handling the clean up. All husbands can take good hints from this. Happy Birthday, Nancy!! Thanks for being born so that we could all come over Thursday night!!

The Digital Age

I fought it for so long, but I am now so glad I finally (a year and a half ago) did succumb to having a digital camera. I never think about it until it's time to get the prints. I just ordered prints last night for the first time since early February. It cost me about $20. I got roughly 125 prints. Cost-wise, it's not only less than developing 5 rolls of film, but I don't have to buy the film, and these are 125 prints that I actually want! I don't end up with 10 or 12 pictures per roll that I just can't bring myself to throw away, so they end up cluttering up the backs of closets. For better or worse, I am a true believer in taking a picture 4 or 5 or more times until you get the perfect shot.

Try...

Try...

Try...

Almost there...

Got it!

As you can imagine, with a film camera, this got quite expensive, particularly now, with a child. But no more! I love it.
I know you all are already well aware of all of this, but it still makes me so happy!

St. Simons Island

What a wonderful getaway! We had a great time in St. Simons. The weather was perfect. It was warm, but not hot, and the pool felt great. We stayed at the Grand, which is right on the beach. It was so nice to visit with the Martins, and it was particularly special to watch Reeves and Madelon play together. She is 4 months older than he is and is already walking, but luckily, he crawls fast enough to keep up with her! Knox and Riley, their two older boys, are perfect gentlemen, and they were such a great help with the little ones. If we work hard and are very lucky, Reeves will grow up to be like these two boys. They truly are a testament to good, consistent parenting. Becky had surprised us with an appointment at the Shooting School at Sea Island on Thursday afternoon. It was such fun. I had not picked up a shotgun in months, but it's like riding a bike. It comes back pretty quickly. We then had dinner at Blackwater Grill - a cajun restaurant which served the best shrimp and grits I have ever tasted. They were sinfully rich but worth every bite. Unlike beach vacations before kids, our late night partying consisted of a glass of wine and in bed by 11:30.
Friday morning, we woke, fed, dressed, lathered, and Becky and I were down at the pool with the kids by 9:45. Bryant and Bopper went and set the tent up on the beach and never returned. We took Reeves and Madelon to play on the beach, but sleepy time was nigh. Around 11:30, Becky and I took the little ones up for lunch and their naps, then we sat on the deck and had a beer and watched B&B relaxing on the beach. Luckily for us, they had to come up and make sammies for Knox and Riley. We jumped at this opportunity and left them in the condo to wait for the little ones to wake up. She and I headed for the big kids pool. What fun! After a while, we went for a walk on the beach. When we got back to the tent, the tide was coming up, but we had some time, so we decided to crack a couple of cold ones that B&B had so kindly left on the beach. It is great to be a guy! Every so often, we would look up to the deck of the condo and see B&B sitting up there, wondering, we were sure, when we would be coming home. What a life!
That night, we had sitters for the little ones and we and the boys went to dinner at The Lodge, which is on St. Simons, but is owned by Sea Island. What an amazing evening. We had drinks on the porch overlooking the golf course and the ocean. A bagpiper started playing. The sunset was gorgeous. We could not have asked for a more perfect setting. Dinner was equally stunning, and that evening, Becky and I forwent our glass of wine and headed straight for our beds. The guys stayed up for a bit longer, but they were basically done for as well.
Sadly, we had to leave on Saturday. We packed up and went to the 4th of May Café for lunch. It was delicious home cooking. We walked along the shops at the pier. Hit the toy shop pretty hard - a book, eggs, and an octopus. Got Reeves a SSI t-shirt. The kids played on the playground. Strolled through the artists' bazzar. And finally, reluctantly made our way back to the cars. It was such a perfect long weekend. Just the perfect amount of activity coupled with the equally perfect amount of rest. St. Simons has certainly made an impression on us, and it will forever be remembered as Reeves' first time on the beach. (Who knew that wouldn't be on Sullivan's?!) Thank you, Bopper and Becky, for having us!

A Hump Day Chuckle

Let me preface this by saying that Bryant and I never eat breakfast at home during the week.
As I'm getting out of the shower this morning…
B - "Do you want breakfast this morning?"
Me(shocked) - "Sure."
B - "Cool. What are you going to make?"
Me - "Well, THAT's going on the blog!"
Guess what? No breakfast.

Anne Hanckel Lancaster

Well, I just got the news from Caroline, my new baby correspondent. Dorothy just gave birth to another baby girl - Anne Hanckel Lancaster. 6 pounds, 8 ounces - not sure of the length. And we all need to be super sweet to Doro because she did it au natural. She's amazing! How did you do that? Congratulations to all four Lancasters!! Gregg, just ask almost all of our dads for advice on how to deal with a house full of girls - Caroline, Nancy, me, Julia. You're in good company! Can't wait to meet little Anne!!

Beach Baby

We are going to St. Simons this weekend to visit with Reeves' godfather, Bopper, and his family (2 boys, 9 & 7, and a girl, 1). Reeves is very excited about the prospect of watching all these older children play. He knows he will be able to learn many new things and hopefully some cool tricks, like advanced drawer opening and getting out of a childproofed area. In anticipation of warm, sunny weather, we have raided the "bigger clothes" storage box. Sidebar - I can't believe he is big enough to wear these things! I remember buying them "for next summer", not even being able to fathom that this time would ever get here! Anyway, one of the things we found was Reeves first bathing suit. What fun! After he pretzelled up on me, I was finally able to get it on him, and off he went. Oh, what a big boy he is! Crawling around the whole house, checking himself out in the mirror. He is hot stuff! And he is ready for the pool. We took out a second mortgage and bought his dermatologist recommended sunscreen. It's actually pretty cool. It's Australian (about as authentically Australian as Foster's) - Blue Lizard - and the bottle turns blue when it is hit by UV rays - just in case you were wondering if perhaps today was the day that the sun decided not to emit its harmful rays, and you could get away with not coating up! Thank heavens for the UV ray detector bottle! Lord knows, we've been needing something like that! Anyway, Bryant and I are both desperately looking forward to some time away and 4 full days with Reeves. We're also super excited to visit with Bopper and Becky and the kids. We hate to miss all the fun here this weekend, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make!










FYI, there is a mirror on that wall. Reeves is checking himself out.

A Surprisingly Kid Friendly Restaurant

Friday night, we were lucky enough to have Julie and Troy bring Reeves to our house, saving us a trip out to pick him up. As we were all going to be walking the bridge the next day, we wanted to get a quick bite, and then go to bed. We loaded up in their Sequoia and took off to Caraba's. The wait was 90 minutes! I wouldn't even wait that long for table on a date night, much less with the kids! So we drove back down Rivers looking for someplace to eat. Everywhere was jam-packed. Wait a minute. What's this? TJ and Tommy's Guitar Bar looks empty. Haha. Yeah right, we're gonna go there. Guess what?? We've heard about it on the radio, and it couldn't be that smoky since no one is there. Let's check it out. We asked Preston what he thought about going to a guitar bar, to which he responded, "I love bars!" We pulled up in the parking lot and sent Bryant in to determine if it was kid friendly. He came out and waved us in. We were the only ones in there! They put us at a table in the room where they have the stage. Preston immediately ran to the stage and started singing and dancing. The waitress came over, and Julie and I realized why Troy and Bryant were so happy to be there. Their faces went green with envy when she leaned down and gave Preston a hug. Long story short, it was a great place to go at 6:00 for dinner because it was empty, Preston was entertained by entertaining us, Reeves loved watching Preston, and we loved that there was no one in there to be annoyed by anything our children did. I never would have guessed it.