Thanksgiving in Myrtle Beach

This year we rented a condo with my sister Teresa and family (Cameron and twins) and Devin's sister Sara and fam (Jon, Lucy and Zachy) and my little sis Katie, who flew all the way out from Utah. It was a blast. Myrtle Beach is about 5 hours away on the northern coast of South Carolina. We'd been there 4 years ago with Devin's family so we knew the area well. It was fun to hit up all our favorite hot spots. And you can't beat the company! I loved hanging out in the condo surrounded by family, something that doesn't happen very often for me these days!





For Thanksgiving we got Cracker Barrel take-out. It was a genius idea and saved us the 2-hr wait. We just had to drive around back and pick up two boxes of food. And the box came in handy as an eating pen for Sophie.

The condo was right on the beach so we had plenty of time to play around. We also had a pool, lazy river and hot tub that kept the kiddos occupied.






We went Black Friday shopping at the outlet mall and it was insane. I spent way too much money and may have bought myself a new Coach purse. But I'll have to wait until Christmas to find out for sure.


This is Eva's best "princess face".



Ok, that's better.


Sophie was in her element roaming the beach and exploring every nook, cranny and dead jelly fish.


Myrtle Beach is famous for elaborate mini golf. They even host the mini-golf PGA tour. This year's choice didn't disappoint!




Picking up some pulled pork from the restaurant that first introduced me to the blessed sandwich. And this pic is the only pic I have of Sophie in her cute Clemson cheer leading outfit.

Movin' On Up

Life in Richmond has been great and it just got a little better. Devin has officially been promoted to Relationship Manager in the Commercial Real Estate Group with Wells Fargo. He's so excited to have the chance to be the main guy when it comes to crafting the deals and working directly with the developers. He's really enjoying his new position and is really, really busy even in this economy. Along with the new position came a new office with a great view of downtown. That's the State Capitol building peeking over the red roof.




He also had to kiss his beloved bus days good-bye. He has to have a car at work now for client calls and such so while we were tormenting ourselves over a mini-van search my parents saved the day and drove "Bampa" out for us to use for awhile. Now we're officially at two-car family.

911 and the Barf Room

Yesterday Sophie called 911 and...

woke up in a crib covered in barf. She went to bed happy as a clam and somehow in her sleep threw-up on literally everything within range. (And somehow it didn't wake her up.) I spent the morning washing everything twice and her poor little doggie still smells like barf. Then to the room. Airing it out all day did nothing. Sprayed down the crib, fans going, air fresheners, lighting matches... nothing. Still smells like barf 24-hrs later. Then there's the problem of Soph herself. She had two baths and a shower yesterday. Then last night we had a little car ride and the car reeked like... you got it... barf. I can't get the smell off her! Any ideas? Devin's family is coming to stay in a mere 8 days and I don't want to have to put anyone in the barf room! Not good, not good...

I realize there is no effective transition from barf to food but here it is anyway. I have a couple more howdoesshe posts for you to check out. I have one more post after Christmas then my regular posting days are over. I just can't keep it up anymore. Eva never naps, leaving me little to no free time and my calling is so busy not to mention my social life! (haha, just kidding.) Basically it all boils down to being lazy and disorganized. But such is the life! Here they are...

Sweet Potato Souffle... A Palmer Gal staple since the mid-90's.



Salted Caramel Shortbread Squares. Dangerous. Don't say you weren't warned.


And Chocolate Sauce that I can literally eat with a spoon right out of the jar.

Quick Sophster Update

Being the second child can be hard. I know, I'm the second child and I was often overlooked and under appreciated. Just kidding. I don't know what people are complaining about. But I do feel a bit guilty for my lack of cyber-documenting when it comes to my little Sophie. So here is a little catch up.

13 month visit stats: 21 lbs. (50th percentile) 31.5 inches (90th percentile)

She started walking around 13 months and now she won't sit still. Church is pointless. I just follow her as she does laps around and around. She has two teeth on the bottom and four teeth on top are all coming in together. She still takes two naps. She is a nightmare on road trips. She derives much pleasure from slapping Devin's face and pulling Eva's hair. (She does it with this silly little grin on her face.) She loves to wrestle and roughhouse. She is still extremely loud and lively and so, so, so much fun to play with. She lets me kiss her all I want and sometimes she'll kiss back. She loves to give Daddy hugs. I'll find little nuggets of who knows what in her mouth that she's been chewing on for hours. She's starting to get picky with eating. She'd rather throw everything on the floor. Sound like a typical one-year-old? We don't know what we'd do without our little Soph! We love you little girl!

Manpost Minus the Man

Whenever Devin manposts his team crashes and burns. Clemson still has a few more games and an ACC Championship game to win so I'll spare him the curse-inducing writing. Last weekend we took a trip to S.C. to visit friends and watch the Tigers play Wake Forest. The game almost killed us a few times. I often wondered what the collective blood pressure of the entire stadium was. But somehow we came back to win in the last 7 seconds making the score 31-28. This makes their record 9-1 and they are headed to the ACC championship game in December. (And since Devin already had tickets to the game he was especially tense... as an understatement.)

Here I am with Jackie and Alisha. Yes, we were on the very top row of the stadium. But, we didn't mind, the entire stadium is full of energy and we could actually see everything quite well there. Plus we had an awesome view of the surrounding area. :) And, thanks to our friend Melissa who scored awesome tickets and was willing to share a few extras, we got to sit here for half of the game...

Yep, the 3rd row! I think the coolest moment for me was when Wake Forest kicked a field goal, missed it, and the ball went straight for us. The guy two rows behind us caught it.



After a win everyone runs onto the field and swarms the players like they are one giant boy band. Then everyone hugs and sings the Alma matter. The music started up and these two frat boys shouted, "Somebody hug us!" So Devin went over and put his arm around him and swayed with them while they sung. It was presh.


Touching the giant tiger paw.


I have no recollection of taking this picture.



And don't forget the amazing golf game! I wish I had pics of our kids playing with all their old friends. They were basically babysat the entire weekend and had a great time playing.

Halloween 2011

This year we decided to dress up like the Tangled movie. Basically because Eva wanted to be Rapunzel and she got it in her head that we would all be dressing up with her. Not having the heart to disappoint her... well, here we are. We will never get a group picture where these monkeys are happily posing.



Flynn Ryder...

Rapunzel... (Who switched to a ballerina for trick-or-treating an abandoned us all.)

Pub Thug Extraordinaire

Pascal. (My mom sewed the cool tail for her despite thinking it cruel to make Sophie be a lizard for Halloween. But this is my last year to pick her costume before enduring years of princesses so she can handle it.)

Every blog needs a trip to the pumpkin patch!

It was a charming afternoon. Usually I go to the grocery store and pick the pumpkin out of the fake patch they have set up. Not this year. I'm slowly turning into a "real" mom. Firstly, a themed birthday party, second, pumpkin patch, third coordinated Halloween costumes. Now all I need to do is send out Christmas cards and I will feel like I've made it. Anyway, the patch. So it was this cool place with a hayride out to the acres and acres of pumpkins. For $20 you get as many pumpkins as you can carry. So we loaded up our friend Joe. :) Eva searched high and low until she finally found a green one. Sophie just squirmed the entire time to try to get down into the dirt. Now I feel like fall can come.


The tale of the Binky Fairy. Eva spotted this castle at Target and I told her that is what the Binky Fairy brings. So she went home, gathered up all her binkies and put them by the door for the B.F. She was so excited she could hardly sleep but finally fell asleep. The next day she got her princess castle and was elated. She was too excited to even think about a nap. Then night time came and she was tired and she wanted her binky. We put her to bed and hear this slow, mournful cry, "biiiiiiiiiin-ky, biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin-ky, BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN-KY!!!!" She couldn't fall asleep. She stormed out of her room crying. "I HATE my castle!!! I don't WANT my castle! I WANT MY BINKIES!!!" I was just happy to displace her anger from myself. But anyway, after about 3 hours and the most fervent prayer I've offered in months she finally fell asleep (a couple minutes after the prayer. How's that for a testimony builder!? Coming to a Relief Society lesson near you....) Then in the morning she came out of her room all happy saying "I'm not mad at my castle anymore." We went through this for about three days but now she doesn't ask for it anymore. Bad news is she will not take naps anymore. She was a consistent 3-hr/day napper... Gone. I miss nap time terribly.


As a little treat we took her to a Yo Gabba Gabba concert with Myla and Kim. These two were so incredibly excited. They wouldn't stop dancing and cheering for even a second for a picture.

We had to grab them and squish them together to get them to hold still for this shot.



They had so much fun dancing to the music. Eva was distraught when it was over. She sat stone cold staring at the stage for about ten minutes when it was all over.


The scream: I'm hoping someone will have some advice for me. How do I get my one-year-old to stop screaming? This isn't a normal baby scream. It is loud, incredibly high pitched, ear splitting and comes frequently and without warning. When Sophie screams whoever is with me runs to her like she's being attacked by a pack of wild dogs. The problem, aside from the fact that I'm going deaf, is that it scares the living daylights out of people when I'm in public. She'll be sitting quietly in the cart and an unsuspecting shopper will walk past her and get blasted off her feet or she'll be sitting quietly in church then all of a sudden she'll belt out and all the old ladies will be cradling their hearing aids. Any advice?