January

Outside of booger picking (see last blog post), we have attended several birthday parties, gone to NC for a wedding, purchased a bounce house and have taken part in the daily insanity that is Casa de Ussery.

Our first soiree of the month was Camden's 2nd birthday party. We were treated to an awesome day at Island Playground (the indoor bounce house haven of the lowcountry) and to lunch at Moe's. Camden was so cute diving into his cupcake. He was such a fun (and talkative!) little host. If you ever meet Camden get ready to be amazed at this child's unbelievable vocabulary. He's so smart, cute and hilarious. What a great combo. Happy Birthday, Camden! Thanks for letting us share in your day.

Finn wore his party hat...er...plate well. He looked like a kid from Newsies after he ate his cupcake, but replace the newsprint with chocolate and you've got the idea.

Earlier this month we went to dinner at the Reed's. We had so much fun watching the kids play in their back yard. Jack was trying to impress Shelby with his wagon pulling skills here, and the rest of them were cackling so hard. We had a fun dinner and the kids played so well together. After we ate we got a little worried at how quiet the kids were, because that's never good with kids, right? JP had taken his diaper off and had swished it the toilet upstairs. For those of you who are trying their best to destroy the Earth like I am by using disposable diapers, BEWARE. If you over saturate one of those puppies, these little gel beads will spill out like some sort of nasty sludge all over the place. NOT easy to clean up, is it Kim? Just a warning.

On January 17th, Erin Coltrane and Josh Smith got married! Erin and I (and 6 other cool ladies) roomed together our senior year at UNC. There were 3 Erins (The "Trifecta") among the 8 of us, which made for some confusion. Lots of head turning. Two of us married men named Josh. I'm the oddball who married a John. Anyhoo...their wedding was absolutely gorgeous and thrilling to be a part of. Thank you for letting us share in your marriage ceremony! What a blessing. Congratulations, Erin and Josh!!!!! I cannot wait to see you both again.

Here are some of the roomies doing the house dance at the reception. What? You don't have a house dance? What's wrong with you? We were a little rusty, but once we got going it was like riding a bike. We all joked about how we'll bust out the house dance at our own kids' wedding receptions, how our kids will hate it and want to disown us., and how we'll love embarrassing them with our post dance awkward high fiving.

Congratulations, again, Erin and Josh! Your wedding was awesome!

We are now the proud owners of a bounce house. My grandmother (aka Gammy) gave Jack money for Christmas so he could pick out what he wanted. He's known about the money since it was given to him. Although he has very limited knowledge about dollars and money and what not, we're trying to at least teach him that it doesn't grow on trees. Well, on one of our trips to Target, Jack saw a Spiderman jacket that he just had to have. He asked if he could get it with his Gammy money, so I swallowed my loathing of all character clothing and let him get the jacket. It was about $3 on the clearance rack. He made one other purchase of a $1 "baby Speed Racer" as well. So, needless to say, we had a lot of leftover Gammy money. When we went to NC, we of course had to go to Target, just to see if NC Targets were better than Bluffton Target, and Jack saw the bounce house. He wanted to use his Gammy money to get the bounce house. I tried to explain to him that his Gammy money would not be enough for a bounce house, but then a little red sticker on the box caught my eye. It, too, was on clearance and indeed, the Gammy money would suffice. Jack is so Dave Ramsey. On clearance. Paid in full with cash. Atta boy.

Here's another atta boy headed Jack's way. This picture just warms my basketball loving heart. John and I will occasionally let Jack stay up late to watch basketball. Sometimes it's because we want him to have a little one on two with us while Finn's in bed, but mostly it's because a game will start and neither one of us want to pry ourselves away from the TV long enough to complete his 15 minute bedtime routine. Terrible, I know. But this was a 'just for fun' night. On his own, Jack went to the playroom, dragged his chair into the living room, got his duckie and plopped his little butt down for a night of basketball watching.

Jack has been having a rough time lately with acting out and just being a little more obstinate than usual. Thinking he needed some attention, Gigi came and kidnapped Jack for one evening this week. They had dinner together, played and just hung out. It was just what the attitude doctor ordered. He came back a new being! Thank you, Gigi! He also pocketed the orange harmonica seen here.

This morning Jack and I got bitten by the painting bug. He saw me painting and begged to paint something "of my own!" Here is his masterpiece! Apparently blue, orange, pink and red make one funky shade of purple.

John sneaked this shot of Jack this morning with Scout. Out of nowhere Jack laid down with Scout in our bathroom and just cuddled with him like this for a while. We asked him why he was doing that and he said, "I hug him because he's my best friend."

Thank goodness we put the paints up before Jack got the grand idea to mark his legs up with an ink pen. Here he is displaying his body modifications. Check out his shins. This was hilarious watching John take this picture because Jack was all giggles and then he got very serious, much like a high school boys sports team photo. Whatever you do, don't smile. Smiling is for girls and for little boys who aren't cool enough to draw on their legs. Maybe that's what he was thinking.


Last night we attended the bash of the year: Kim's 30th birthday party! We had the best time. Kim's hubby, Pratt, planned and executed the best dance party. I honestly think my feet are bruised from all the dancing (and some rather uncomfy shoes).

Here's Pratt, Kim, Leslie and Gerrit (the DJ of the night). Gerrit did an incredible job keeping the party going with all kinds of fun music, In honor of Kim's love of musicals, all the ladies hit the floor to Dancing Queen, boas and all!

Happy Birthday, Kim!!!! Thank you for letting us celebrate with you!!!


So far the February calendar is a lot less full than January. We certainly won't let that stop us from insane amounts of fun. Hope everyone is doing well!!!