We Got Out of Dodge

Sometimes you just need to get outta dodge. That's what we did last Friday. The boys and I loaded up the Denton crew and headed over the "big, big bridge" to Savannah. Afterall, it is our new favorite wandering spot. The trip wasn't perfect to say the least, but since that didn't seem bother any of us, you could assume we needed the little getaway pretty badly. We had a difficult time finding parking and finally surrendered to a parking garage. After parking on the 6th floor, unloading the kids and passing out Ritz crackers to the masses, we discovered that the elevator wasn't working. Unpack the younger kids from their strollers, convince the older ones that the stairs are FUN, and there we went, dragging our strollers and our children down 6 flights of stairs. Jack and Gracen were crying because the rails were too cold to touch. It was hilarious and maddening all at the same time. We hit the streets in search of lunch only to get the "Sure, you can eat here if you're willing to wait 2 hours" talk from Paula Deen's restaurant. No thanks. Fuddruckers here we come. The kids screamed the entire time, but the food was good, we didn't have to clean anything up and it was a change of scenery. Thank you, Lord, for options!

Onto our next hunt: cupcakes! If you didn't know already, cupcakes can change your life. Or your day. And that's what they did for us last Friday afternoon. What started off as a series of unfortunate events turned into a sugar high bliss. We entered the doors of Mabel's Cupcake Emporium (Yes, "you want to go to there"-Liz Lemmon), and everything got happier. See?


The kids were sticky from head to toe, but it was worth their good moods, the photo opportunities and the bystanders' comments on what cute children we had and what fun parents we were. Little did they know our inner OCD, clutter/mess-hating personalities were screaming on the inside, counting down the seconds until we could whip out our wet wipes like a gun at a western shoot out.


Gracen and Jack were all smiles as soon as they entered the gluten/sugar/trans fat haven that is Mabel's Cupcake Emporium. Jack gave it his thumbs up approval. That's equivalent to a 5 star hotel rating or a 4 star movie review.

Jen and I gave the parking garage attendants a thumbs up approval as well for ending our little excursion on such a high note. One of them retrieved the car for us so we didn't have to make the 6 floor trek in the uglier direction. How does that country song go, "there are angels among us?" If you're in need of meeting any, there are 2 that work at the parking deck on the corner of Drayton and Congress in downtown Savannah, GA.

John is a great dad. I was gone the other morning for a little bit and I returned to him playing with the boys in the driveway. It's nothing super special or out of the ordinary, but it's what I love about coming home whenever I'm gone. My four men! (counting Scout)

Remember those magazines called Highlights that were in every doctor and dentist office in the country? (Do they still publish that?) Well they had a game called hidden pictures in every volume where there were ...guess what...hidden pictures in one busy looking scene. Wait...I just realized that this illustration is not going to work, but I really want to leave my shout out to Highlights in here, so I'm going to move on. Anyway, you'll notice that something is missing (not hidden) in the following picture. If you're having a hard time, here are some clues....Vision....Crossed Eyes....Lenses....Rims....Ralphie. Indeed, Jack took a 4 day hiatus from his glasses wearing. During his Friday afternoon naptime, he didn't want to nap and got bored, I suppose, and thought that popping his left lens out of his glasses was really fun and cool. We looked for that lens for collective hours. Jason and Lauren helped. We took the sheets off of his bed, we looked in books, we looked for it in places that it would have been had he decided to swallow it. (not fun or cool) Never found it. Still haven't found it. Jack got a replacement set of lenses in his old frames on Tuesday. He immediately burst into singing "I can see! I can see! The leaves are green! The leaves are green!" Maybe this new appreciation will keep him from playing his $130 game of hide and seek again.

This cake was made last night to get pumped for the UNC/Duke game. It was also made to entice me to eat again, since my appetite has been low for a while. Not sure exactly the cause, but I think it has been because of the game, which is the dumbest thing in the world. Outside of duke basketball in general of course. Do you really think that me posting the day after the UNC win last night is by coincidence? We've all noticed my lack in blogging lately, so of course I had to say a big, fat GO HEELS on this thing. Since this was the first game of at least 2 this season, I know well enough to save the trash talk until we win the 2nd. So, game well played. UNC just happened to play better last night and I wanted to say congratulations to them.


Funny Jack Story:

Some children have imaginary friends. Our oldest son has an imaginary word. Not in the sense that we don't hear it when he says it, but in the sense that the dictionary doesn't recognize it as real. The word is "schupang". Pronounced "SHOE-pang". We don't know if it's a noun, verb, or exclamation. So far, when asking him what shupang is, we've gotten these responses:

-"it's a poopie loopie, doopie" which we assume is just the beginnings of potty talk for our 3 year old
-"schupang is for the bed" which was said while sitting in his bed
-SHUPANG! which was yelled after banging his knee into the table.

We don't know what it means exactly, but somehow, oddly, it seems appropriate in many settings. Let's play a little blog Balderdash...What does schupang mean to you?