THAaaat one died a long time ago...

Happy new year. Sorry I've been absent for a while. We had a great time celebrating the coming of 2010 by spending New Year's Eve with some of Corin's oldest (strike that: most enduring) friends, who came in from Chattanooga to attend the Chick-fil-a Bowl (ahem, the PEACH Bowl)* with us. The game did not work out so well, considering these are friends of Corin's from his days at UT and UT got, how shall I put this...squashed...in the game. But we had a great dinner, a fun time with friends, and then a late night playing some Wii. Oh, well. Go VOLS! anyway.

All the while, the kids were at Camp GranNan and Poppy having a grand old time.

(Clockwise from top left: Poppy and the kids watching a movie; Evan building with K'nex; kids watching t.v. from their "little tables" while eating dinner-or so it would appear; Evan building with the Tinker Toys Poppy thought he just had to have; P talking to mommy on New Year's morning.)

Then, on New Year's Day (after sleeping late and eating breakfast/lunch at The Majestic - yay for grandparents!), we headed over to the home of some of my oldest (correction: longest suffering) friends for a traditional new year meal of black eyed peas and greens. Not collards. Kale. I gotta hand it to Jennifer: She managed to make the least offensive kale dish I've ever had. And I mean that as a sincere compliment. I think she would agree, but luckily she's way too busy and successful to have time to read my blog. :o)

Since then, we've set about trying to keep the kids entertained before they headed back to school (however briefly if this "blizzard" actually comes to pass). Anywho... Mom and I took the kids to Fernbank on Tuesday for the last hoorah. We'd already done nearly everything else I could think of to do in this frigid weather. The kids really enjoyed it. Pressley went from glass case to glass case saying (loudly) and THAaat one died a long time ago....and THAaaat one died a long time ago. Over and over and over. Really. Like 50 times. It was cute.

We also [Kerry, look away] met a real live snake. A corn snake. Named Mazola. If not for a very strict no-touching-the-snake-unless-you-are-at-least-four policy, Pressley would have been all about petting this guy. Even holding him, I bet, if given the opportunity. She asked lots and lots of questions. When the man told her that the snake eats mice, she said "But I don't see any mices around here!" The man assured her that they would get one for him. E seemed to like the snake a lot too, but he was much quieter and stayed a little further back. He did not seem to be interested in touching the snake, despite the fact he met the age restriction.

Later, in an effort to watch just one second of television that is not animated,** I turned to the cooking channel while the kids were not paying attention. Do you know that they both came and climbed up in my lap and watched Paula Dean with me and were mesmerized. Who knew? (Also, who knew that I like to use italics so much?) Paula was making some "light" chicken salad to stuff in some tomatoes, and every couple of steps, Evan would say, "That doesn't look too hard to make." It was super cute. I mentioned to Corin that night at dinner that Evan thought the chicken salad didn't look too hard to make - several times - and he took offense. He did say it more than once, but at least I conceded that he didn't say it nearly as many times as his sister had said "THAaaat one died a long time ago!" earlier in the day.

Two post-scripts:

*Just so ya know... I love me some Chick-fil-a, and I appreciate Mr. Cathy's generous contribution to my scholarship fund and all, but must everything be "sponsored"? Why can't we just call the Peach Bowl the Peach Bowl? And the...well, dang, I've already forgotten what the Outback Bowl and the Tostidos Bowl used to be called. Citrus maybe for the Outback?

**Also so you know...we don't watch a ton of TV around here, but I've been sick and it has been COLD, so it has been on more than usual. Please don't call DFACS. I promise to appropriately stimulate my children as soon as either I feel better or it gets warmer. Preferably both. That's all.