Life Lessons

I would like to openly thank any and all people that leave their christmas lights on until 7am. The kids love seeing them on the way to school, they shout out everytime we see a decorated house. Hearing Cash shout "greesgas lighs!!" makes me grin everytime.

Also Yuliya learned a very important life lesson today....

If you try to climb in the car with your hands in your pockets there's a VERY good chance you will be kissing the floor board. The more amusing part of this situation is that she actually tried to wiggle up in the car face down on the floor board refusing to take her hands out of her pockets like a scene from A Christmas Story. Strong willed little girl....Smooth sailing after she listened to her momma and took her hands out of her pockets....imagine that :)

Movember

Look who's participating in movember this year. Compliments of Green Goodness.

Thanksgiving.

Spent with The George's, it was a wonderful meal. Great turkey and sweet potatoes. I made a cornucopia out of bread! Not so perfect, but I will improve it next year.

Yes it's a little dangerous to have chubby cheeks in the George family.

cuddling with Grandmami.

Boys and their toys

Yuliya's latest trick when a camera is pulled out making a not so desirable face.

Well...there IS a no smile Tax. :)

 Cash eating one of his Dada's quadruple chocolate chip cookies....looking a little mischievous

For your enjoyment purposes...a FEW of my many pictures of how Yuliya and I often end up spending our time. 

Who needs serious?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Alert....Guess who came to Texas?

Well besides Davy Crockett....

 Grandmami!

And how excited everyone always is to see her. Cash took about two seconds to warm up again. Huge smiles, Yuliya thought because the yearly christmas calendar has pictures of her and Cash in it it meant it was hers. She then recreated the face she was making in every photo for us and told us all about how she remembered when each picture was taken. She pointed to any picture where two people were side by side and said we were all married.  Here are a few of them...

Notice what they all have in common?

Yep, that's right....Fathers lock up your daughters, if someone's ear touches her's its binding!
She authoritatively announced to us that if your ears touch in a picture you are married. Check back later, I will be busy for the next few days  checking all my photo albums...oh the husbands and wives I may have......

Ghost tour in galveston

Have you ever done the ghost tour in Galveston? Well we did.....here are our reviews 

Heather: Probably wouldn't go again, but enjoyed the company...aww.

Amy: Boring

Keith: Dull, but interesting historical district.

Myself: Would have enjoyed it more on our own, but really enjoyed the buildings and history attached.

Yes I know, not fantastic reviews....but pretty consistent.

We all still had a great time cracking each other up. Although when you're on a ghost tour, no one else besides your immediate group thinks it's very cute to call passersby apparitions...just a word of advice. :)

These are just pictures I took along the way. To the left is our group, Heather and Amy, ghost nuts, and Keith and me.

Just a few pretty things....most of the time my camera wouldn't work for some reason....a lot of others seemed to be having the same issue with their cameras

orb in the window?

I would love to look at the buildings and architecture more in the day light

Change of clothes

So Cash is potty training.....slowly but surely. He generally wears pull ups. A couple of weeks ago we went to the zoo and Mr. Cash had decided to take his pull up off before we went to the zoo. Yuliya, my great helper, had been quick to inform me of this before hand. I surveyed cash before we left the house....his pants were on, surely he couldn't take his pants off over his shoes, take his pull up off, and then put his pants back on over his shoes. ...right?

So we left.

At the zoo in the bird section Keith says...I think Cash needs to potty. Having two boys he is more experienced with boys signals to go than I am as of yet. I shrug it off and say...I think he's fine.

Oh...look at that bird Cash...... HAS A HUGE WET SPOT ON THE FRONT OF HIS PANTS! Now being accustomed to pull ups/no accidents as well as we have no chances of running in water on this trip...I did NOT bring a change of clothes for Mr. Man.  So.... Cash's pants rode front and center and I had a pantless two year old in a long sleeve button up walking around like a mini flannel version of Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Classy.

After we left the zoo we had a wonderful lunch at the hobbit, a Corcorran family favorite. One Miss Yuliya George enjoyed her Gingerbread pancakes....and one Ms. Toymomma snuck bites of Gingerbread pancake from an unsuspecting Cash Sawyer as he was probably demanding crackers at the time or coloring. And of course there was milk, tons and tons of milk to be had.

For future reference

This morning on the way to school

Yuliya proudly announced, "Momma, one day I'll be a momma just like you, and I'll have babies."

Me:"You will?"

Y: "Yes, I will have a house too and you can come see them at my house."

Me:"I can?

Y: "Yes, but they have to stay at my house."

Me: "Why's that?"

Cash: "WE'RE HERE!!!!!"

THE END

P.S. For your viewing pleasure, Yuliya manages to get a bow in Cash's hair while they were supposed to be asleep for the night....ah, sisters.

Off the Grid

A few months ago Keith and I were able to visit an off the grid organic farm. They hand built most of the buildings out there, including a yoga studio, (cob and straw roof) outdoor kitchen, (coke walls) guest house, (cob and light weight concrete) and guest outdoor kitchen(straw bale and light weight concrete roofing) farm house for the workers(straw bale), root cellar, ect. Above is a picture of one of the guest houses they had built, this is a picture of viewing the hand sculpted bathroom from the outside.

This is the shower from the inside looking out, it was very open, with the toilet on the left of me same curve concept and the open slat windows.

Here is the wall made of wine bottles, beautiful in the sunlight!

Hello Pony

Here is the only structure the owners themselves didnt build by hand. It's their house! He mentioned that when they first moved out there they were unaware of the organic building you could easily do yourself. They had this house designed and built for them to accomodate a low/no energy lifestyle, built higher to catch the wind. The family have been living on the 70+ acre property for 20 years, completely off the grid, using solar energy and hand dug wells for water. The water supplies their family of 4, the farm workers (6 plus family) all of the organic farming, pool, and animals.

Talk about living off your land :) They sell their produce to local restuarants as well as Austin and Houston Farmers markets.

It was pretty neat learning how they make this work, from organic septic solutions to living off the sunlight and groundwater. Inspiring to say the least.

Charleston residual

So this is the last post on Charleston I believe.... :D I just wanted to share some last pictures and thoughts I had on it.

This was our last day there, unfortunately Jack was back in school but Keith and Sam were able to pose with their new mustaches. :) Not only are Jack and Sam now the proud owners of these rad mustaches, but Cash has one as well. Yuliya is now the proud owner of a cute little hand stitched butterfly coin purse.

We also went to Hyman's seafood, where I was able to experience shrimp and grits, and fried green tomatoes with crabsauce. Both were delicious....and that's saying something since I am not really a shrimp fan.

Outside of Hymans was a neat bench rocking chair that the boys, Keith and I rocked on for a little bit, see pictured above

In Charleston I learned.....you can find the best hats! This is just one that I found and loved. I also realized, to buy a hat in Charleston, you need to have about $100 to blow....time to scour ebay.