NC is the Place to Be!

We've been NC bound over the past 3 weekends.  First, the mountains.  Secondly, the Piedmont.  (Thank you, Mrs. Kinney, my wonderful 4th grade teacher, for teaching me so much about the state of North Carolina.  You were the best!)  Okay, so...here's what's been going on with the Ussery Jrs. during the Fall, y'all....

Brotherly Love....The boys are quickly becoming best friends.  They really have no choice since they've learned that I'm not that much fun to play with sometimes and that Scout eventually grows weary and runs to our closet for some R&R.  Doesn't the book A Tale of Two Cities start with "It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times..." or something like that?  Whatever it's that's from, it could accurately capture any given moment of Jack and Finn's relationship.  But for this picture, it was the best of times.

Much like Jack did at this age, Finley is in the process of becoming a Daddy's boy.  He'll sometimes cry for John when he goes to work, and he'll always ask for his Daddy.  It's really cute and such a blessing to see Finn wanting to be with and LIKE his superhero Dad.

This picture was taken on our way up to Greensboro a few weekends ago.  We stopped in Charlotte to hang with our buddy, Camden.  The boys had so much fun together.  It made me wish for the millionth time that they still lived close to us.  And that we also had a Pottery Barn Kids, too.

More BL going on here.  This picture was taken at none other than....THE HARDEEVILLE CATFISH FESTIVAL!!!!!  (read that in your best car dealership announcer voice.  It's fun.)  Hardeeville is a tiny town close to Bluffton, but not tiny enough to ignore the beauty of a catfish festival.  I would post other...ahem...cultural pictures from that day, but like I said, it's a tiny town next to our little town, and you never know whos related to whom who might read somebody's blog.  We enjoyed the Denton's company and some funnel cake.  A great Saturday if you ask me!

Onto Waynesville....We happened to catch this cute mountain town during a festival as well!  We are into festivals I guess?  While this one didn't have catfish nearby, it did have some awesome balloon animals, neat crafts, Native Americans playing wooden flutes, cloggers (only cool people clog), and funnel cake!  (Count it...2 funnel cakes for the Usserys this month.)  Here's our little viking man...

And here's EleFINN!  Finn loved the festival and riding on his Dad's shoulders.

The Weavers and Galbreaths were with us on this trip, which was so great.  We had quality time in a small cabin trying to get 3 hyper boys to fall asleep in the same room!  They were all great and hung in there for the busy weekend.  Here's a picture of Jason telling Jack and Carter a story about the first time someone ate a roasted marshmallow.  I'm pretty sure their names were Indian Jack and Cowboy Carter.  Hmmm....convenient?

Our Galbreath/Ussery/Weaver mountain trip is one we will definitely have to do again!  Thanks for all the awesome memories!

Next stop....Greensboro!  Usually we make the venture mainly to see family.  This time was to see family AND friends!  Friends from 10 years ago.  That's right.  It was 10 year reunion time for yours truly.  Here's one shot of the gang from our Saturday evening function.  The turnout was great, and everyone seemed to have a fun time catching up and hanging out.  If your reunion is coming up, GO!  Thanks to everyone who came!  It was so nice seeing all of you.

After the reunion on Saturday was Melissa and Matt's Baby Shower.  Look at my poor brother...staring at that piece of paper thinking, "What do I write down?  What was that last thing that she just opened?  It looked like a white bucket with a hole in the top, but did I hear someone say something about a Champ?"  :)  Melissa is due in early December.  They're not finding out what the sex is, which is exciting.  So far, the guesses are leaning towards girl.  I figure SOMEONE has to have a girl, right?  Either way, I can't wait to meet this baby.  The shower went really well, and baby got tons of great stuff.

Another great thing about going home...friends from waaaaay back!  Great seeing everyone!  This is Lisa, my friend for forever.

As this picture shows, the weather was coooold for part of our stay.  So cold that Matt brought out his Snuggie.  He LOVES lounging in his Snuggie.  Can you blame him?  HAHA!!!  I tried the Snuggie on for a while and I must say, Well Done, makers of Snuggie!

On Thursday we headed to the NC State Fair.  Jamie came with us, thankfully.  Otherwise I would have spent my afternoon at the Lost Child stand.  We wore ourselves out at the fair....rides, slides, facepainting, eating...you name it.  We did it.  Or it felt like we did anyway.  Here we are atop the ferris wheel.  This was Finn's only ride of the day.  But as Jack would tell you, "Finney was vewy, vewy bwave."

Here's Capt. Brave himself....

This one is a little crooked, but if you're a parent, you know this look.  It's that 'Can we ______?!?!?!?!" Fill in the blank with "ride this ride again" "eat more pizza" "get another drink" "play that game" "buy that toy"....etc.  This was what I saw most of the day, but can you blame them?  It's the FAIR!

I guess the look worked some of the time...They played this fishing game.  It was one of those 'everyone wins' games.  And since I don't want my children facing failure at such early ages :) I let them play.  We're now the proud owner of a knock off yellow Snoopy and itchy frog.  Worth every penny.  All 400 of them.

This is the slide that the kids cried over.  They're used to playgrounds where you can slide an unlimited number of times for free.  This wasn't that kind of place.  But they enjoyed suiting up in their potato sacks and plummeting to the bottom.  (So did I.)

And here's why most people come to the fair.  Atherosclerosis!  Any takers???  I had always heard the rumors about fair food...fried candy bars, fried butter, chocolate covered bacon and what not, but there was part of me that thought there was no way.  Well, apparently, there is a way.  I didn't see fried butter or the chocolate bacon thing, but pretty much everything else is available in fried fashion.  We had to try something, so we went for the Snickers.  We didn't even know what to expect, but it was basically a warm, gooey snickers wrapped with funnel cake (That's now the 3rd funnel cake reference in this post) and powdered sugar on a stick.  Don't turn your nose up.  Because it was good.  We avoided heart attacks by splitting it among the 4 of us, but note that all 4 of us could have inhaled our own.  Jack later told his Mimi that he really liked that chocolate corn dog that he had at the fair.

After the fair, we headed to NCSU to see Aunt Jackie.  We stopped by her house long enough for the boys to work their magic on Jackie's roommates.  It was so good to see these sweet girls and spend a few minutes with them.  Oh, to be a college student again!

But I guess if I were a college girl again, I wouldn't get to live with Spiderman....

or Snake..face...man?.......

Other events not pictured....multiple great grandparent visits, dinner with college buds and their children, church, and lots of car riding!

Happy Fall to everyone!

We have a nephew!!!!  Let me introduce you to Austin Webb Smith, born September 6th at 5:30 am.  8lbs 9oz. and 21+ inches long.  He is so handsome and so healthy.  We could not be more excited to meet this little guy.  Congratulations, Jordan and Trevor!!!!

It's so funny...John and I are parents, but this whole aunt/uncle thing is a completely new role for us.  Will we be the fun aunt and uncle that Austin wants to visit and stay the night with?  Will we take him to movies and let him get popcorn AND candy?  Since I'm already imaging these potential scenarios, the answer must be yes!  We love you, Austin!  Your cousins are so excited to meet you, too!

Sorry this blog has been so overdue.  We have been busy.  The Peanut Paintshop had it's first home show, which went very well.  Because it went well, most of my 'free time' has been spent painting.  Here's a quick look at my dining room morphed into an art gallery....

The pictures took so long to hang that I convinced John to let me leave them up for the rest of that week. That was over a week ago.  Oops.  We'll get around to it...

Onto who you really care about....the boys!

Jack is no longer taking a nap, which is bittersweet.  I'm bitter and he's sweet, basically.  Bitter because my 2+ hours of kid freedom in the afternoon is no longer.  He's sweet because I'm not forcing him to sleep and be quiet and threatening to take his toys away if he doesn't stop pulling at the blinds in his room.  (That is what he liked to do instead of nap).  Awesome.  So...instead of naptime, he has transitioned into "quiet time".  Quiet time is 1 hour of being quiet in our new playroom/guest room (blog and pictures to follow later) and a TV show afterwards if he remains quiet the entire hour.  So far, we have two days under our belts, and our afternoons are much happier!  Do I wish he still napped for 3 hours?  YES!  But he's just not one to sit still.  I mean, look at him!.....

Finn is forever the chatterbox, but now he's taken a likin' (yes, I'm from NC!) to singing.  Here are his favorites:

1.  "Behold, Behold...I stand at the door and knock, knock, knock."  ...a CBS classic
2.  "Beautiful Mess" by Diamond Rio
3.  "Love Story" by Taylor Swift
4.  "Hottie" by Toby Keith (I don't recommend the ideals behind that song in any way.  He just likes it because it has the word 'cowboy' in it.  In fact, he calls it "The Cowboy Song")
5.  "Jesus Loves Me"...a classic for sure.

We had family pictures taken a little over a month ago by Abri Kruger Photography.  They did an amazing job despite our children who fell into tidal pools and threw sand at one another within the first 10 seconds of arriving at the beach that night.  But despite the detour in the plans, they were able to take some amazing pictures that we will cherish forever!  We're so blessed to have so many awesome photography friends with such awesome talent!!!  Here are a few more favorites....

John has been busy with work AND play.  He was able to take a trip to the Bahamas with some friends for some good ol' male bonding.  I think they fished the entire time they were gone.  The boys and I held down the fort, and really, we had a lot of fun together.  We were all ready to see Dad come home, though.

Okay, so nothing too exciting other than the birth of our precious nephew...but I wanted to let you all know that we're alive and doing well!

2nd for the 2ndBorn

Finn celebrated his 2nd birthday on the 12th, and we couldn't leave Finn out of the blog birthday tributes, could we?  Here we go!!!

Happy Birthday to the toeheaded 2 year old who...

-proved us wrong and showed us that, indeed, our capacity to love could double in size just like that!
-isn't afraid of anything except a dark bathroom.
-freaks his parents out with the combination of his small stature and insanely large vocabulary

-told me last night that he wanted to go to the Island Playground in the morning for his birthday.
-fits perfectly in our arms.
-can cause you to quickly forget the economic crisis, an illness or the war in Iraq by putting his head on your shoulder.
-can dance to the beat of the rhythm
-is a fan of "koby keif"

-rivals his brother's potty talk passion and throws his own made up terms into the mix like "stinky doo dots" ????
-likes to sing Jesus Loves Me before bedtime and makes you sit down when you're singing it.
-will enter a room by asking "What's going on here?"
-doesn't let his small size stop him from doing ANYTHING
-enjoys feeding imaginary Rita's ice to anyone, anytime

-can pick up on others feelings.  If I'm having a rough day, he'll crawl up in my lap and say, "Is-kay, Mom."
-will ask us to be nice to him after we have to discipline him :)
-greets us every morning with a kiss and a hug, and follows his brother out the door when we leave to send us off with more of the same.
-has us wrapped around his tiny little finger.
-is pure joy in our lives.
-pronounces "crayons" as "cwowns" (rhyming with crown)

-knows the difference between a burrito and a quesadilla
-rules the roost!
-knows how to work a female audience already.
-couldn't make us more proud, more surprised, more in awe as parents!

We can't imagine life without you, little buddy.  Happy Birthday, Finny Finster!

4th for the Firstborn

Jack turned 4 on Sunday. My hands and brain felt very uncoordinated typing that sentence. Jack is 4. Jack is 4. Jack is 4. Nope. It's not getting any easier. The biggest cliche' of all time (at least in parent world) is that time flies. But it's still unbelievable. Sometimes I look at my boy and wonder what we did so well that God would loan him to us, but I'm quick to realize that I could do nothing 'good enough' to earn him. God is in the business of grace, and we are eternally thankful for the gift he gave us 4 years ago.

Jack, you came to us as a surprise and you never fail to amaze us with a little something new every day. Happy Birthday to the boy who...

-Rocks a pair of glasses way cuter than Ralphie or the kid from Jerry McGuire ever did.
-Can Kung Fu like none other.
-Thanks God for his food, drink, and everyone at the table before every meal.
-Never wants to get older or bigger. He'll tell you as much. I like his contentedness with life.
-Has a serious imagination.
-Played "Going to Mimi's House" with me this morning, and after I (who was cast as Mimi) had to break character to threaten punishment, he replied with, "You're not Mimi anymore."
-Always asks for another lollipop for his brother when given one at the bank.
-Loves all things Potty Talk.
-Loves to call his Dad a Knucklehead.
-Goes by the nicknames Jackie, Peanut, Doobie, Beanie.
-Loves sugar in any form, any time of day and in any amount, but will ask for the sugar free ice cream at Ritas because I once told him too much sugar was bad for him.
-Has the biggest feet I've ever seen on a kid.
-Will light up a room with his smile.
-Loves his house, his room, his toys, his clothes, his things. He'll share them (most of the time), but he loves familiarity.
-Can sing on pitch and loves to prove it.
-Likes to do things well. (and gets frustrated when he can't)
-Enjoys movie nights with popcorn.
-Isn't afraid to let go of our hand to try something new or to be ashamed to greet them with a huge hug when we return.
-Tells me I'm beautiful every day.
-Prays to Jesus to "feel me better" when he's having a rough day.
-Loves his family more than anything.

Happy Birthday, Jack! For what it's worth, we don't want you to grow up either.

We celebrated Jack and Finn's birthday on Saturday with a few friends. They had a super hero themed party and had a great time. Thank you to everyone who came! Sorry these pictures are small! I can't figure out why or how to make them larger. Just know they are awesome. Here's Finn sporting his super hero cape on the swing.

A very serious look before descending the ever so daring 3 foot slide.

Jack in his hero gear...

Of course I HAD to try one of these things on. They had been sitting in my laundry room for a few days. They were so CUTE! And of COURSE John just HAD to try one on, too....(Clearly, I made him do it.) But the capes were fun. Our kids ditched them at the party, but have had some fun with them at home. Thanks to Superfly Kidz, we had some cool party favors. They make the cutest capes.

If Finn's resemblance to me doesn't prove that he is my son, then this should:

Happy Party Day to Finn. Your actual birthday is coming soon!!!

On to the normal day stuff....Today was actually not a normal day for us. The boys and I were at the house the ENTIRE day. That is a rarity. We revel in things outside of the house. We always love returning, but there's something exciting about a venture out, even if it's just to Target. Our oven broke last night so we were here waiting on the repairman to come fix it. I painted some, we played Batman and Pirate. That's right. Batman and Pirate. Refer back to the imagination comment above re: Jack. And then I broke down and let the boys paint, too....

Finn is potty training...and this is how he feels most creative.

Happy Anniversary to Us!!!

John and I celebrated 6 years of marriage on Sunday, and we had a really fun day. It started with church and ended with a sleepy family, tired from a day on the water!

After church we went loaded our family along with Jackie and Jeff onto John's parents boat. We cruised the Calibogue Sound, around Daufuskie Island and anchored near a sandbar where we dodged all the jelly fish that washed ashore.

Here's the tiniest mate...

Jack with his Lennon-esque sunglasses.

After about 45 minutes on the water, Jeff noticed that Finley had gone limp in his arms. He was out like a light. We docked the boat at Daufuskie and dined at a local dive. Marshside Mamas. It was the kind of place we didn't have to worry if the guys had shirts on or not. Jack had a taste of soft shell crab sandwich, and Finn slept in my lap. It was so sweet. I couldn't help but to wonder if that was one of the last times he'll do that, but I figured our anniversary was a bad time to bring up the whole baby fever conversation :)

It's unorthodox to spend your anniversary with your children, but we had such a fun afternoon with everyone.

Just a cute picture of Jackster.... We love him so.

On Monday night we hosted the Denton kids for a sleepover. Jack and Gracen were so excited about the "sleepover party". To them that meant good snacks and a movie. And they were right. We watched Kung Fu Panda and ate popcorn with M&Ms in it. Yummy. Everyone got along, and there were no arguments or freak outs. It was nice.

Here's the nutty bunch eating breakfast the next morning. Everyone slept until 7:45-8:00, which was awesome. I considered it a success when Gracen said she didn't want to leave. I guess good snacks will get you a long way.

Cheez-It

It was difficult coming up with a title for this post because there's so much crammed into it. Nothing witty on this Sunday morning. Sorry folks. So I turned to the boys for inspiration...of which they are never lacking. The picture below is one of our favorites from the summer. Very appropriate for this Cheez-It and picture lovin' family. Onto the blog catch up of the month...


Hilton Head is truly a hidden gem of the east coast. Wide beaches, beautiful homes, hard-to-see signage...seriously...it's awesome. When we went to the beach one night a few weeks ago with the Reeds, however, we were reminded that even serenity has it's fair share of weirdness:

Here's Kim with her handsome boy, JP. I love this picture. Don't you think he looks just a LITTLE bit like his Mama? We had so much fun that night! Kim brought kites for the kids which they LOVED. Thanks, Kim!

Here's the Goof Troop. You can see that Jack was in a fowl mood at that moment.

But he perked up with a one on one with his girl, Shelby. They still look like siblings.

Last week we spent some time in Greensboro. Genie, Jackie, my mom and I attended the Deeper Still women's conference on Friday and Saturday. It was AWESOME!!! If you ever have a chance to go, you definitely should. Since I had driven so far and the boys were with me, we decided to hang out for a few days. We saw lots of family and were able to squeeze in a quick visit to see the Halls. Erin was one of my roomies at UNC. Here's her little girl, Charlotte, who may very well be my daughter in law one day:) The kids were so active while we were there that this is the best picture I got of those two. I do think at one point they hugged, so that was a step in the right direction.

On Tuesday we went to the Asheboro Zoo. Between 3 adults we had 5 children under the age of 4. All of the kids were boys I might add. But we trekked the entire zoo without any injuries or major meltdowns. Which equals success!!! The zoo was a lot of fun despite the warm temperatures. We'll definitely go back.

Here are two of our playmates for the day: Tucker and Jack P. (sleeping). They were so much fun and SO worn out by the end of the day.

Here's Tucker wearing a kid leash. If you've ever said you would NEVER put your child on the end of one of those things....you must not have children yet. They're lost prevention.

Here's the first of our favorite animals of the day: the chimpanzees! Doesn't this look like a little old man sitting there? He and Jack had a moment. He kept looking at Jack and then would point to his own eyes, like "Hey man, you've got something on your face." This chimp was so interactive and cool. If I was super rich and world hunger, AIDS and cancer were under complete control, I would buy a chimp. No question.

Here's our second favorite animal of the trip. The elephants came pretty close to us and we definitely felt connected to this one in a special way after he/she used the little pond as a giant toilet in front of all of the innocent onlookers. And since we had 5 boys, 3-4 of which are in prime potty humor stage, we had to stay and watch, and then talk about it every day since. It was honestly disgusting, yet amazing all at the same time. They are big animals with big colons. I'll leave it at that.

So we left Greensboro after a few days and came back to the zoo of our normal every day lives. It's the zoo we know and love. Jack started his 2nd year of preschool on Thursday, which he was excited about. I took his picture on the front step since that's what I had done last year and it seemed fitting to repeat. It's crazy how much he's changed since last year. The most obvious change is his eyewear. He ditched the goggles look and is now going for a more trendy look. He's still 100% boy, 100% active and 100% a reward to our family from God. We love our sons beyond what these fingers could ever type. It's exciting to see our firstborn learning and making friends. We are blessed.

Last year...

Last week...

John was off yesterday so we went out to breakfast at The Sippin' Cow. It's in downtown Bluffton if you're ever here. Stop by (after stopping by to see us!). We saw several of our friends there and were able to get this fun shot of the 4 older kiddos chowin' down on their pancakes and french toast. Love this shot. Love our friends.


And Happy Anniversary to my hunky husband of 6 years today. Happy 27th birthday to Jordan as well!!!!!!!