4th and Forts

Happy Belated 4th of July to everyone!

We had a super July 4th this year. John had the day off, and we spent the morning at the pool as a family. The weather wasn't too hot, and the kids weren't cranky! It was the perfect way to celebrate the blessing of living in the USA!


After the boys napped, we headed onto the island for dinner and fireworks with Gigi, Poppy Johnny, Jackie and Luke. We all had so much fun! We were a little nervous that Finn would scream through the entire firework's show, but he sat there and stared in amazement! We took a boat ride down to Shelter Cove and had the best view.

Gigi took this adorable picture of Jack that night. As the boats paraded by their home, he waved at almost all of them, and screamed "HELLO!" to all the passerby. "Shy" would not exactly describe our firstborn.


Check out the legs on this one! As I've said before, baby shoes still hold the #1 spot in the Cutest Baby Thing List. There's just something about them! It doesn't hurt that the sticks of chub that are shoved into them happen to be the best set of baby legs around.

Finn doesn't really NEED shoes right now, but I thought it would be cute to give them a whirl. He enjoyed walking behind his push toy with them, but then he seemed to prefer chewing on the laces better. Our dentist would be proud.

And this pretty much sums up what a day in the Ussery household is like. When I do the kids' laundry, I sit in the floor of Finn's room and make little piles all around me. The boys really like hiding in the closet, which I let them do in order to keep them from destroying my immaculate clothes' piles. Instead of destroying the clothes, they chose to destroy the diaper stacks and chew on ripped up book pages. Oh, boy. And Finn isn't even walking yet.

What says summer better than icy pops? I bought a bag of the frozen goodness at Walmart a few weeks ago. Let me tell you...Flav-o-Ice has stepped it up a notch from the basic orange, grape and cherry days. They have pina colada, peach (that tastes like real peaches and not artificial peach flavoring), and pineapple. Since I know all the flavors, that means I've had my fair share of them, huh? Jack and Gracen enjoyed their icy pops during our small group cornhole game in the rain last night. They haven't quite mastered the art of pushing the pop up out of the plastic tubing. Instead they push is too hard and it falls out, and then they're upset. And that's when I tell them it's okay to eat it off of the table.

It's been a year and a half since we built a fort in what should be our dining room, so I decided it was time to bring the forts back! Thanks to Jordan and Trevor, we had an abundance of boxes from all the shipped furniture, and the washer and dryer (that are AWESOME and are now in our laundry room! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!) that will not be feasible to fit into their future NYC dwelling space. Those boxes looked so usable and fort-worthy, that we couldn't pass up the opportunity! To the left is a house-like fort with pop up windows, and on the right is what I tried to make a train.

Since it rained during our small group party, the kids were able to enjoy themselves inside. I thought Jack and Gracen would be the only ones to enjoy it, but.....

I was wrong. Finn and Pavin loved crawling around in there themselves.

And this morning, the boys and I played in the train. It was all fun until I realized that coming out was much harder than going in. The door was not made quite wide enough for adult butt. Blame it on the icy pops.

My Hibiscus is a Jerk

Some have a green thumb. I have a gangrenous thumb. It's been proven many times. You could fill an entire plant cemetery with all the ones I've killed. So, you can imagine when my mother in law gave me these beautiful hibiscus plants, that I sighed thinking how the poor plant didn't know what it had coming. Look below to see how I was WRONG!




Want to know how I didn't kill this one? I went out of town for a week and didn't have anyone water it, put it in the shade, put it in the sun, pray for it, nothing. And it blossomed tenfold. Before we left, the leaves were drying and yellowing. I'd pick them off very gently as to not damage the other green leaves and potential buds. The plants were watered exactly as instructed on the card that came with them, and their sun exposure was as recommended. Yet, the plant continued to look like dung. Basically it looked like the picture above minus all of the orange, plus lots of brown. So we go out of town. It didn't dawn on me until midweek that I'd forgotten to ask anyone to care for the plants. Oh well. They were dying anyway, right?

When we got home, and I saw that the plants had thrived, I wanted to kick them and kiss and shout hallelujas all at the same time. But instead I took this picture and have been staring at them for the past few days now wondering if I should let them do their thing or step in and micro manage again. Either way, this blog is here to document that the orange hibiscuses have lived for one month under three weeks of my TLC. A true milestone!

Family Beach Trip 2008

It's that time of year again! The time when we load up the car and head north to "the beach" for my family's 256th annual beach vacation. Even though we live at the beach, we don't actually make it out there very often, so we definitely enjoy our time spent on the sandy shores, especially with family. Last week was a lot of fun! So, blog stalkers, that's why we've been MIA.

Here's the week in review:


Sorry for the fogginess. I didn't let the camera defrost after bringing it into the sweltering temperatures from the AC. Anyway, you can see enough to find John, my brother, Matt and Jack in the picture. John and Matt had their 3rd annual bocce competition. The first to win 10 games wins. The loser then treats the winner to dinner on the last night. So, Matt...you're welcome!

Jack and Finn loved spending time with their cousins! Anna was such a great helper with Finn. She loved playing with him and made sure he wasn't getting hurt.

This is my uncle, Brian, my cousin, Owen and my Grandad. Jack was basically Owen's shadow whenever he was around. He trailed him everywhere and copied everything he was saying. It was great for them to spend time together. We only wish it could happen more.

Jack has taken up the air guitar recently, so he was more than thrilled when my parents gave him this guitar that my grandmother from Greensboro sent along. It's his new favorite thing to do.

Just a good picture of Matt and my mom.

Midweek we decided to take Jack to the Family Kingdom, which is a park with rides, games and funnel cake. You know...every kid's (and some adult's) dream. Jack had so much fun, he could hardly speak. Literally. He was reduced to pointing and staring instead of the usual chatterbox we have. It was so funny. He rode the cars, the boats, the monster trucks, a roller coaster (yes), the carousel, the swings, the motorcycles...if he was tall enough, he went for it. Little did I know, though, that someone (who will remain nameless) was slipping him sips of COKE in between rides. That fortunately didn't kick in until the ride back to the house where the emotionless wonder we experienced at the rides turned into a freak show. I didn't know anyone could move so much while strapped into a carseat.

The swings. It was so cute watching Jack ride the things that we remembered riding as children. John said that he lost a flip flop on the swings as a kid, and I couldn't help but to remember that I always worried my swing would come loose and that I'd go flying into the parking lot.

Another good picture. This is my sister in law, Melissa, Matt and John enjoying the spectacle of the Family Kingdom. Mesh tank tops, "I Love Hot Moms" T shirts and trucker hats were not in short supply. We LOVED it, and look forward to going back. Thank you, Brian and Jennifer, for treating Jack to the rides for an early birthday present. He could not have had more fun!!!

This is Jack on the airplanes. It took him a while to realize that the steering bar would raise and lower the plane. For a while he was the only one riding low. That's okay. Where would we be without crop dusters anyhow?

Jack put on his flat Coke face for the camera. I couldn't believe that I was watching my baby do such big boy things. It was only 3 short years ago that I was waddling around those places huge preggo with that boy. And now he's taller than the little hand that points to "You Must Be This Tall" signs. AHHH!!!!!

This picture is hilarious on all accounts. Finny Finster had fun watching all the lights and people, and of course playing with Poppy.

On our last night there, we went to Broadway at the Beach for dinner, and guess what? MORE RIDES!!! John and I tried to shield Jack's view of them when we arrived, but to no avail. So we ate dinner, caved, and found ourselves going in circles on the carousel. This time, with Finn in tow! And he loved it, too!!!

When Jack was getting on this car ride, I asked him if he wanted me to go with him. He said, "NO! You're too big!" True. So, I buckled him in, started walking away, and then he redeemed himself with a "Mama!!!! Ride the cars with me!" Twist my arm. OK! Maybe my knees did bang into the front of the ride, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun.

Matt and Melissa took care of Finn while John and I took turns on the rides with Jack. Thanks to all of our family for helping with the boys all week! It would have been very difficult without you!

So...that's what we were doing last week.

The Rat Race

Along with instruction manuals, boys should come with a stock pile of riding toys. They love anything on wheels. We have a scooter, a tricycle, a wagon, a push car, and a battery operated Power Wheels. Some days they're happy to take a spin in one of them. Other days they ride them all! On this particular day, the boys raced.


Jack doesn't quite have the art of steering down. After bottoming out on several neighbors' driveways, he finally got a better handle on things. Finn loves the red push car. He knows how to beep the horn, and he enjoys bouncing up and down while we push him. If Jack pushes, he gets more of a joy ride and a lot more wheelies.

What a great picture of these two! Don't I have a handsome husband?

Nothing's more fun than a strategically placed blade of grass. Finn did this all by himself.

Scout loves our evenings outside because that means he gets to come out with us and run in his psycho circles around the yard. He continues to be so good with the boys. He just sits there and becomes their furry jungle gym.

9 Moons

Finley is 9 months and 1 week old today. There's nothing significant about that age, it's just that he had his 9 month check up today which reminded me to blog about him. These past 9 months have flown by! He's already outgrowing some 'baby' things like pureed foods and his baby sling, and he's becoming more of a little boy who interacts and plays. His check up went well, and we're so blessed to have a healthy, happy boy.



Last night John and I witnessed Finn take his first steps. It was exciting and horrifying all at the same time. The poor child lives with constant bruising of the forehead already, and he's only a crawler. Social services may be at our doorstep if he starts walking soon! That and whoever the Loony Bin hires to come pick up distressed moms.

Aside from taking a few steps, Finn is growing to be the daughter we never had (or may never have). Twice today he was mistaken for a girl. Once by one of Jack's preschool teachers who greeted us with a "Oh, Jack's sister looks just like him!!!" and once by the lady while we were waiting for our oil to be changed. I'm blaming it on two things: His stunning good looks that some believe are too fabulous to be male and the Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit that he had on today. I packed the boys' clothes this morning for a week long vacation we're taking soon, which left only the frou frou rompers and such that John nor I are not huge fans of. Hey, some can rock the smocked look. Some can't.

Jack has been LOVING school. Every day he asks me if he can go to 'reeskoo'. Today when we were getting out of the car to drop him off, he asked me what Finn was doing, meaning' why are you getting him out of the car because you usually leave him in the car' (running with air on, of course). He couldn't understand my answer that I realized none of the other moms with babies were doing that, so I didn't want to look like a Britney Spears type mom anymore. So I told him that Finn was making sure Jack got to school safely. Jack, still assuming that Finn would be attending school as well, said, "MOM! He's too little for preschool!" and then he politely added..."And Mom...you're too big."

Jack loves singing the songs that he learns there! His favorite is about a firetruck, and he sings it ALL THE TIME. He's gotten into making up his lyrics, too. Today he sang the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but with only one word as all the lyrics: 'Shelby'.

Happy Father's Day....

to the BEST DAD in the UNIVERSE!!!!



Maybe we're biased, but we (Jack, Finn and I) think John wins the dad of the year award. In fact, he's won it the past 3 years in a row. What qualifies you for the DOTY award? Take a look:

1. Letting your 2 year assist you while you work on your Jeep.
2. Changing your 9 month old's (whom the church nursery refers to as the 'Bomber') diaper without complaining and without attempting any hand offs.
3. Learning all the words to the "Wonder Pets" theme song and singing them around the house.
4. Mustering up enough energy to entertain 2 boys after a long day's work.
5. Teaching your 2 year old to say "I'm a MAN!" whenever anyone asks him if he's a 'big boy'.
6. Consistently telling your sons that you love them, that you're proud of them and that you're glad they're your boys.
7. Never saying no to Mommy when she needs to escape for a breather.
8. Voluntarily attending the first day of preschool drop off so you can hug your boy goodbye.
9. Bedding your sons down at night with prayers and story telling.
10. Wanting to wake your sons up in the morning before going to work because you just HAVE to see them!

Thank you, Dad, for everything that you do! We love you!

Jack, Finn, Scout and Erin


AND...A Happy Father's Day to our Dads and Grandads. We thank you for all that you do for us. We love you so much!!!

Trevdan

All cool couples have merged names these days so it seemed only fair to give Jordan and Trevor their own. They have been in town this past week, and it has been great getting to hang out with them! Jack has loved the attention.

On Sunday night all the Usserys (minus Jeff who's playing baseball in NC this summer) met at our house for some brinner (breakfast dinner). It was such a good time! John and I decided that we should do that more often. "That" referring to having family over and brinner, because we love both.

Jack enjoyed a lollipop while sneaking some snuggies from Poppy Johnny and Gigi.

Finn was in a particularly foul mood this evening, but they didn't seem to mind. John and I hope that Finn's attitude problem didn't ward off any future plans for Baby Trevdans.

Dinner isn't reason enough to gather for an evening! In typical Ussery fashion, before the first bite of pancake was even consumed, a bracket had been drawn out and teams assigned for the after dinner Cornhole Marathon!!! Cornhole is basically bean bag toss, which is what the box this cheapo Target version of the real game says. We had so much fun playing. I loved the competitive natures that started to surface as the night wore on. SO FUN!!!

It's always fun to watch a young guy who doesn't have children of his own complete some sort of everyday thing with a kid. Jack wanted to 'pee in the bush' since he was outside, so Trevor got stuck with the aftermath of pulling his pants up. Thanks for being a good sport!

This picture was taken tonight. Finn has a habit of pulling at the sides of his hair whenever he's eating. Mix finger feeding and long hair and you've got a huge mess somewhat reminiscent of one of those troll dolls from the 80s.

No, you're eyes are not deceiving you. That is Jack chasing the wild turkey we found in our front yard tonight. Much to Jack's dismay, the turkey did not respond to his "Comere, turkey, turkey" calls.

School Days

Jack survived his first day of preschool yesterday! We decided to enroll him into the summer program at Bluffton Academy to get him (and us) used to the routine that he'll be following in the Fall when the regular school year begins. Over the summer they'll do fun projects and activities where the regular school year will be more preschooly with numbers and letters and such. Yesterday's theme was sea creatures. This is the response I got from Jack when I asked him what he learned at school...."Fith lib inda water...den dere's eggth....den....BABY FITH!" Translation: Fish live in the water. Then there's eggs. Then, baby fish! His crafts included sponge painted sea creatures, a paper bag octopus, and a small aquarium made out of an empty baby food container, glue, blue plastic wrap, sand and plastic sea creatures.



Finn enjoyed a nice break from the big brother mayhem. We were able to run so many errands in so little time, but we were both all smiles to pick Jack up when school was over. It was kind of a bittersweet day for us. John still thinks he's too little to require the use of a back pack, but does it really count as a back pack if it has a tail? Surely not!

Lakin' It

When the boys and I left Greensboro, we headed to Lake Tillery where we met John for a weekend of fun and relaxation. The boys had a great time being on the water. Jack especially enjoyed riding in the kayak and the ski boat, which he called the 'big, giant boat'. He may have a heart attack if he ever sees a cruise ship.




Even though the time at the lake was vacation time for us, we did get a lot done! On Saturday we took a cruise around the lake and got gas in the boat. Then we headed into town and visited with Ida Mae. Her claim to fame is that she was the only person on the planet who could get colicky John to stop crying as a baby. Here she is with Jack:


While we were at Ida Mae's house we discovered that she had a snake under the awning of her screened in porch. Everyone was pretty freaked out except for Jack who tried to bail out the front door of the porch to get a better look. Only a boy would do that. We all made it out alive, except for the snake who died a quick and painless death. It had some sort of pattern on it, but none of us were sure what it was. We said it could have been a copperhead, but I think we justified killing it with that excuse. Who knows? Here's a look at our snakey friend.



John was such a good entertainer throughout the weekend. Boat captain by day and story teller by night!



I'm pretty sure if it were up to Jack we would move to the lake house for the rest of our lives. Snakes and all!


***John's Eye Update***

John just called from Charleston to say that the doctor's continue to be pleased with the healing that is taking place in his eye. They said that the infection is almost if not completely gone and that there is just scarring left. He has to do the drops twice a day for this week, once a day next week and then no drops for 2 weeks followed by another visit with the doctors! Hallelujah! Thank you to everyone for your continued prayers! We are so thankful!

Last Minute Trip

On Memorial Day we woke up with the grand idea of traveling back home with the boys to NC with my parents for the week. John encouraged me to go through with the quick plans because otherwise my OCD, planning nature would have changed my mind for me. We spent the morning packing instead of enjoying the beaches like most of the Memorial Day crowds, but it was well worth it. We headed up 95 and spent a fun week in my hometown.

Here's the photo slideshow. I'm sorry if they zoom through too quickly to read the captions. I tried.



I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked, but the days were busy with loading and unloading the kids from relative to relative's houses. We saw so many people in such a short time. It was great. As always, we would have liked to have fit another visit or two in. Jack enjoyed his cousins so much. He keeps asking if Adam is coming over or if we're going to Anna and Owen's house. We spent some time with Uncle Matthew, Aunt Melissa and "Cousin" Fergie, which was great. Jack will not call him Matt anymore, but Matthew, and he'll correct you when you say otherwise. It's fun to see his little quirks developing.

Whenever we leave Bluffton to go to a larger city (which is basically whenever we leave Bluffton), it seems to spur on a nice game of "We Wish Bluffton Had _______". The list usually involves kid-friendly places and good food. In no particular order, here's a sampling of what we have come up with:

1. Bojangles: Even though we didn't visit the beloved Bojangles on this trip, we drove by several of the beautiful red, orange and yellow establishments along the way. We love their tea, biscuits, dirty rice and the orange stuff that's on their fries, and of course the chicken. We also like saying it like Bo-HAN-gu-lez as if it's in Spanish.

2. Krispy Kreme: Duh. I should have taken it as a sign that I shouldn't go through the drive thru when the "Hot" sign was turned off. I ignored that, threw caution to the wind, and there we sat staring at the menu board like it had fallen from heaven. In my last attempt to score some hot donuts, I begged through the fuzzy drive thru microphone for them to please tell me that they had some left. Like they keep them in a special vault for nutsos like me. No vault, no hot donuts, but that didn't stop us from pounding them. Yes, Jack had his fair share over the week. He calls them yummy cakes. And with good reason.

3. The smell of Spring/Summer: Bluffton doesn't really have a smell. Occasionally I'll walk outside to a faint hint of marsh grass...just enough to remind me that yes, we do live at the coast! But North Carolina just smelled like summer. It's the smell of soccer grass (whatever the grass is that they put on soccer fields), trees, sweat, popcicles...all things summer! I love it!

4. A Minor League Baseball Team: The Greensboro Grasshoppers' games are so fun to go to. We didn't make it to one this go around, but my parents were going the night we had to leave, and I was jealous. Jack would have loved it!

5. Garden Ridge: It's a cheap home store that has a lot of cool stuff. Finn especially loved looking at all of the bright lights and colored items along the aisles.

6. Southern Accents: Bluffton has accents, all right. They're just not from the south.

The list could go on, but it gets a little whiney and unappreciative sounding of Blufftonia. And that's not the point at all. We love Bluffton. Where other places may have Bojangles, we have Cahill's Market. They have the smell of Summer, and we have the ocean! I'll trade a Krispy Kreme for a Truffle's Blondie, sure. It's just a fun game to play. Both places are amazing, especially when you factor in friends and family. We're blessed to live and have lived in really cool places with really cool people.

Oh...one thing I now LOVE LOVE LOVE about Bluffton is that it's in the lowcountry. Never gave this land title much thought until I attempted to push 52 pounds worth of children up and down hills in the jogging stroller. Holy cow, it was TERRIBLE!!!! Here I started thinking that I was turning into quite the avid jogger. Getting as confident even as trying to talk on my cell phone while taking a short jaunt. Who did I think I was?!?! As I ran around one hilly North Carolina loop after another, my pride was all that kept me going. All the physically fit passerby looked at me with shame, horror, concern and amusement on their faces. So you can see why I was excited to jog once I got home....only we returned to 96 degree weather! I have a feeling my jogging days are numbered.

Memorial Weekend

My parents came for a visit over Memorial Day Weekend. Contrary to what you may be thinking...I actually took pictures of the kids with other people in them! Gone are the days of the same up close Jack and Finn poses with different backgrounds! On Saturday night, we had a cookout at our house. Before we ate, though, the boys made use of the golf course.


There were 3 other attempts to get all 4 of us looking in the same direction. Does it say anything that this was the best of them? My dad looked like a rodeo clown trying to get the boys to smile. Thanks for the effort!

Jack didn't seem to care that the point of golf is to get the ball into the hole. He enjoyed chasing the balls that John and Poppy hit and running them back to them. We're hoping that he doesn't settle to be the ball boy later on. Oh dear...

Finntastic enjoyed crawling around in the grass. He's usually not a big grass guy, but the shorter golf green grass (say that 10 times) was more like carpet I suppose. He took a good crawl every now and again to work off his latest Cheerio overload.

Get a load of Finn's face. Doesn't this picture scream brotherly love!?! More like brotherly torture, huh? Jack would have nothing to do with the hat unless it involved cramming it down on top of Finn.

Mimi and Poppy and their grandbabies

Poppy smooches

John tried his best to show Jack the object of the game. But...to no avail. He's still a ball chaser. (One heck of a ball chaser if you ask me:)

Remember earlier when I mentioned something about a Cheerio overload? Just kidding:) We've yet to experience the vomit-in-parent-mouth scenario. Whew.

Hope you had a great Memorial Day. Thank you to everyone who has served and is serving our awesome country! We are blessed! If this blog had music, you better believe you'd be reading this post to the awesomeness of Neil Diamond.