Choo Choo Chugga Chugga Big Red Car.....

It was WIGGLES night tonight. I have to say we really had A LOT of fun. We had excellent seats (isle seats, 7 rows back from the stage) It was a great show and the look on the kids faces were PRICELESS. Kaitlin really had a ball and just kept smiling and laughing the whole time. She's a huge Wiggles fan. William actually supports her but, gets a little tired when it's her choice for the car movie as we all know what she is going to pick. (the red Wiggles DVD)

All Kaitlin did tonight was dance, eat, dance, sit, eat, dance... all night long. Her food choice was the cotton candy and William ate popcorn while Mommy and Daddy split a hot pretzel. (all our money always goes to food rather than the toys/t-shirts you can buy, we like to eat.... and when I say "all" our money I mean all as we paid $3 just for a bottle of water??? Anyhow, I was very impressed by the show but, most of all how fit the Wiggles were. I mean they've got to be old??? They really looked like they were having fun and involved the audience in everything although how can you not do all the Wiggle dances.

Williams favorite part was at the end when they blew out from the ceiling all the confetti. Kaitlin loved all the dancers. (I kept telling her that is what she's learning at dance and they had "stockings" on. I'm not looking forward to round two this week of trying to get her to wear the stockings) William pretty much sat in Chads lap most of the time as he wasn't to sure about "mascots" but, he was a great seat dancer. He eventually made his way to my lap near the end. Kaitlin stood in the isle most of the time or on my lap when at first she wasn't sure about Wags, Dorothy, and Henry until I reminded her that they were people dressed up in costumes just like us at Halloween. She turned around and looked at me laughing and smiling then proceeded to jump out of my lap and began dancing again. Too cute...

Tonight was the last stop on the Wiggles tour. I think the big red car was all chugged out as Anthony had to "push" it on the stage to move it around. It was rather funny.... overall GREAT SHOW and would go back if they were ever here again....

Dancing Girl....

Kaitlin also started dance this week. She didn't take to kind to the "stockings" she had to wear but, she wanted to put on her tap shoes so bad she finally got over the idea of having to wear them. I snapped a quick picture before we left. On the way I heard her in the back seat saying, uh oh, Mommy I'm pulling it??? I'm sitting there driving down the road thinking what is she talking about. We got to the dance studio and I got out to take a better look at what she was talking about and yep, you guessed it Kaitlin had somehow picked her stockings (after 5 min. of having them on) and was pulling the pick to make a nice big ol' hole in her brand new stockings. All I could do was laugh. I knew they wouldn't last long before getting messed up but, I never would have thought only 5 min. of being out of the bag. Oh, well. If I only had some clear nail polish with me I might could have stopped the hole from getting so big. ha ha (don't laugh I know all you girls have used nail polish back in the day) Anyhow, I looked at it this way.... $6 dollars for stockings, having to drive back to the store to buy several more pairs, watching your child dance around having so much fun.... priceless.... Kaitlin ended up having a ball and I'm hoping she will enjoy dancing going forward. We've now added a stocking fund in Kaitlin's name. I figured that if I have to have a pair per class that's 4 a month x 9 months = 36 pair x $6.00/pair = $216.00 alone for stockings. You don't even want to know how much we've spent already on shoes and tuition alone. We'll send out an email with the recital fund info. at a later date if you'd like to contribute to that one too. :o)

Kenny Chesney Concert

It's been a busy weekend at the Barnes household. Before the weekend started I went to a concert with one of my good friends Tiffany. I must admit I'm not a huge Kenny Chesney fan but, Tiffany was looking for someone to go with her so I said why not. I do enjoy country and he is a good artist. (and did I mention it's a night out without kids :o) We had a great time minus all the people puking, smoking and not just cigarets. I either came out of there with lung cancer or high off of the person smoking pot in front of us. But, minus all that we had a great time and Kenny put on an entertaining show.

After the show we were starving so we decided to hit the local Belmont Waffle House. I got my usual hot chocolate as it's always freezing inside Waffle Houses. Although I have to admit I was a little disappointed when I had to make it myself and it didn't come with the whip cream topping??? As we were sitting there waiting on our food I was looking at the floor under the food area only to be greeted by a little mouse. I didn't scream but as Tiffany said, "my eyes got really big" and she was trying to figure out what all was going on. The waitress asked me if I saw what she saw. Needless to say I was so hungry I didn't even care. I have to admit there's something about a mouse that doesn't scare me as much as a big ol' cockroach.

Oh, and did I mention that my wonderful husband called to check in and see if we were on our way home and if we had fun. I said yes we'll be home soon. That was before we decided to go eat at the Waffle House. So I called back and told Chad we decided to stop and eat that the food wasn't that great at the concert and we were starving. It was about 11:40. He then said great would you mind stopping at the Wal-Greens across the street and pick me up $20 worth of school supplies. He needed them for work the next day? Hello... it's almost 12:00 at night. The moral of this story was if I had just gone straight home I wouldn't of had to stop but, since I wasn't "tired" enough to come home he had me run his errands in the wee late hours. Now that's a great wife..... You know I'd do anything for you babe..... ilu :o)

Happy 80th Birthday Granny!!

We had a GREAT weekend with the Barnes Family. Everyone but Greg was able to make it in town for Granny's 80th Birthday celebration. (Greg, somebody has to work :o) we missed you) The kids had a lot of fun together and to put it mildly they were ENERGETIC.... They kept us entertained with balloon fights, running around in circles chasing each other, eating at least 2 cupcakes a piece and if you were my kids you had 3 or 4, yikes... The food was so yummy. We had BBQ, Chicken, potato salad, slaw and some yummy rolls. To top it off the German Chocolate Cake and Banana Pudding were out of this world. I think we gained 5 lbs. in one weekend. It was nice to see everyone and celebrate together. We hope everyone made it back home safe.

Happy Birthday! We Love You Granny and wish you many, many more!

Sneaky Kaitlin

I must write a brief note about last night and our sneaky Kaitlin or as she would say her name is Kaitlin Barnes Princess. We went to put the kids down to bed last night around 8:30 and did the nightly routine. After about 15 min. Kailtin who now climbs out of her crib came into the rec. room, said she couldn't sleep. So Daddy took her back to the crib around 8:45. Chad and I stayed up and watched some of the Olympics. It was about 10:15 and Chad said lets head on back. I agreed as I was tired. Chad went on back only to turn right around and told me to come here. In his words he said, "this isn't going to be good" I was like, "what?" He said our bedroom door was shut and the light was on. So we went back and checked to see if Kaitlin was in her crib. NOPE.. So Chad opened the door and there we found our little princess laying in the bed, covers over her, blanket and two pappies looking at us smiling with a big grin saying I just watched Blues Clues and now Oswald is on. Yes, she had turned on the TV to her cartoons. All we could do was laugh. She was so cute. We tried to put her back to bed only to notice the lights in the hallway blinking on and off. This little girl will not go down for nothing. She finally gave up as it was about 10:45 and I think she didn't have anything left in her. She tried to do the same thing to me today at nap time but, I quickly put up the baby gate at her door. We'll see how long that keeps her in. I'll give it about a week before she figures out how to climb over that. But, for now it will do...

Happy Birthday Amber and Sweet 16

I need to first start this one off with a big "Happy 30th Birthday" to my sis-in-law, Amber. Yes, I have to admit once again I failed to be on time for another b'day this year. Amber celebrated her b'day last Friday Aug. 8th. Paige and Michele you can sympathize with Amber I know. Sorry as my world these past couple months has been tough with all the news with Chad, my Grandparents, and missing my babysitter (MY MOM) who is in VA taking care of my Grandparents. All I can say is that when things get back to normal I hope to do better.

Amber and Ben:


Next I'd like to give a big shout out to the Merita Sweet Sixteen Doughnuts by Hostess.

I can't tell you how many bags of these we've been through these days. My kids love them and the first thing they ask for in the mornings is their doughnuts. Of course we add in the egg, cereal, or oatmeal/grits but, who can resist these wonderful powder sugar loaded doughnuts. There's only 230 calories in 3 doughnuts. YUMMY!!!

Kaitlin and William enjoying their morning doughnut:

Our Little Cowboy...

We had a GREAT weekend. Every year at this time we help sponsor the Gaston Co. 4-H Blazing Saddles Annual Summer Night Horse Show. The night before the horse show they have a pre-show cookout with food, bluegrass music, carriage rides and horse rides for the sponsors. A good friend of Chads at work has a daughter, Margo that is a part of the 4-H and shows her horse, Cisco. This year she asked if William would like to be apart of the line-lead event. This is where he rides her horse and she walks him around and then they get ribbons at the end. One of the requirements was that he dress up like a cowboy. So thanks to our wonderful "redneck" friends of Belmont the Satterthwaites hee-haw...we got a GREAT little cowboy outfit. (hat, belt/buckle, boots, and bandanna) I know many of you probably thought the belt buckle was mine but, I hate to disappoint you by saying I threw in the Wranglers back in '97. (all 6 different colors/styles) I will say though I did keep my hat but, that was part of my 21st b'day present from my Dad. William could wear it but, the one he wore looked better than mine that has a colored band around the rim. Anyhow, we were so proud of William. He had a lot of fun and now says his favorite animal is a horse. We just hope he doesn't want one some day. If so we decided that we'll send them over to the Lee's (Margo's parents) and let them take care of his needs since they got us started in this. ha- We do want to thank Margo and Trisha for letting our kids come out to the barn to meet Cisco before the horse show and allowing William to be apart of the horse show. The kids had a blast riding him but, I think the best part was giving him a bath that night.

Here are a few pictures from the night before (pre-show cookout)

Day of the Horse Show:

Our Little Cowboy and "Princess":

Time for Toddler Bed...

It's with great sadness that I must report as of yesterday morning no longer does Kaitlin call for me in the morning to come get her up. She is now a "big girl" and climbs out of her crib in the morning. I guess she is 3 but, since William never climbed out I was really hoping I'd be that lucky with Kaitlin. My freedom/control is now gone.

She started this about a month ago when Chad had her in time out in her crib. She was screaming at the top of her lungs then all the sudden it got quiet. We went back there to check on her and she was on her floor playing with her princess castle. She was so proud of herself. It was all we could do to keep from laughing. Instead I tried to explain how dangerous it was and when William was little he tried the same thing and landed on his head. I guess it worked for about 4 weeks. We knew the time was coming as she's been climbing in the crib for several months now.

Our babies are growing up.....

Philly and the "Lost Luggage"

We've been busy lately. I just got back from visiting with my G'parents in VA and right before that Chad and I had a little trip to Philly to visit with our friends Michele, Dan and their little one, Chase. It was a great trip even though the Braves once again blew another one. We enjoyed drowning our sorrows in the good food there that is after we drowned at the game. We got stuck in the biggest lighting storm/rain that I've ever seen. It probably wasn't that big but, felt that way since we were standing in the stadium around all the metal as the lighting/thunder crashed and the rain/wind blew all around us. We ended the night with a late night dinner that consisted of the best meatballs and sauce that I've ever had. "Chef" Michele taught me an awesome recipe she has. Although I'm still waiting for my recipe in the mail???

We went to a great restaurant/brewery where Chad and Dan had a taste test of all the beers. (11 different 4oz glasses of beers) I think their favorite was the lemon beer (tasted like lemon dish soap). So Nasty!!!

On our last day we decided to do our own food network taste test to find out which Philly Cheese Steak is the best, Genos or Pats. Our final decision was Pats.... A long time favorite of the McGarry clan. It was a great trip filled with lots of fun. We really enjoyed getting to finally meet Chase. He's such an awesome/mild manner kid. I only hope that they get blessed with an energetic one next time ha ha-

Our trip was coming to an end and we were ready to get back to the kids. We knew they were well taken care of by Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw and had a fun time with "baby" Ben. ( I wonder when Ben will no longer be labeled as "baby"??)

Everything was great until we arrived back in Chlt. We had a direct flight to Chlt. from Philly and wouldn't you know our luggage didn't make it. They delivered the golf clubs the next day at home on our front door steps while I was out running errands but, our bag of toiletries and dirty laundry were missing. After 2 of the 5 phone calls of frustration was made to the 1-800 number for baggage claims to USAirways on Tuesday I realized that I was calling overseas somewhere. You could tell they were reading off the cu-cards as each time I got a different story based on whatever my situation was at the time. One time they even told me that the on-line site I was using to check on my bags wasn't updated correctly even though it said two bags were in they only received one??? Don't they scan these bags?

I decided that I had enough for one day so tomorrow I would just go back to the airport and start my outrage in person. Once I was at the airport making my complaint about the 1-800 number and asking where was my luggage the gentleman was so nice to suggest that I should report a stolen bag claim to the police of Gastonia. They insisted that both bags were delivered the previous day and someone must of stolen our black bag, (remember that one was full of dirty laundry and toiletries) over the golf clubs off the front porch. I found that really funny that they honestly thought someone would rather have our dirty clothes over some golf clubs. That's what I would steal wouldn't you??? Anyhow, after A LOT of frustration on my end at the airport and screaming kids in the claim office for an hour and 15 min. I finally received my bags that night around 8:30. They were delivered to the wrong house by the courier. Our bag ended up at a Chris Barnes house that lives in Murphy, NC. They flew in on United and not US Airways??? Go figure. I'm just so glad to have my dirty laundry back. I was only hoping that when I received them that they were kind enough to wash everything for us? No such luck. Guess I better go do some laundry.