new year...last year

So, the new year gives us all sorts of chances for a new beginning, a fresh new start, a brand new me, and so on...what will this year bring?

Last year brought us a few "new"s:
We have a new little guy in our family.  Welcome aboard, Thelonious Ingram Price.
We moved back to Atlanta - mentally.  We very nearly moved out of state for work and CHOSE to stay here and keep building the community/family/place that we have/are here.  Nice.
We found a school for Julian, that helps him learn and grow how HE sees fit.  Huzzah!

Stella is continuing to enjoy her days at DeKalb Elementary School of the Arts, while I equally do NOT enjoy the non-fabulousness that is public education these days.  It is quite sad actually.  This is her second year there and the school has lost funding galore - there is no longer dance for the kindergarten, no art for the first grade, and don't get me started on the poor excuse they offer for drama for those grade levels.  I volunteer every week, but I am not sure how to make it a better place.
Julian is now 3.5, he started attending his own school in January and we all love it.  Stella told me the other day that she wishes she could go to his school.  Harvest Montessori = amazing.

Gram is 8 months old, crawling like a pro, cruising upright when he gets a chance, and working on tooth #4 this week.  At 26.5 pounds I think he might even be growing faster than JGP did.

July

I am hopeful for great things in July.

We wrote to the local television station about the giant pile of tires in the yard beyond our back yard (so far filing complaints with the code enforcement folks hasn't gotten rid of them).

We gathered a pint of blackberries from our vine and picked rotten peaches off the new tree.

We hula-hooped and made important phone calls.

We read books to ourselves and to each other.

We had tacos and schedules a few meetings.

We changed the locks next door.

We registered a domain name: www.lollipickle.com

We have a new project

or two. . . .

Now it is time to check on sleeping babies and not-so-sleeping older sisters.

July, I believe, will be grand

and...we're back

For 2010, we will have at least one post. We shall see what gets accomplished beyond that.

Ben started teaching at AIM last night

Now he's at a band meeting discussing the possibilities surrounding the potential meeting with Wayne from The F Lips

we shall see

water pouring down

I should be writing my final bracelet article right now, but I have to mention that this is the second time in the past year that we have had flooding from the floor above. . . except these happened in two different houses.  

So, is there some connection between Fort Wayne, the Price family, upstairs flooding, and who knows what else?  Or does this happen to most people on a frequent basis?

Okay.  Back to writing (which really needs to be paying me more since I'm not getting any byline credit for the freaking work.  Grrr).

Visit with Santa

Tomorrow is Stella's lunch visit with Santa at Sweetwater.  She's pretty excited about it.  The battery in my camera is completely dead (and apparently unable to recharge) so I'll have to make do with camera phone photos and I'll upload them as soon as possible.  We're going to bed so that we can be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the visit  : )

Snow

It snowed like crazy today!  I don't even think it was in the forecast, or maybe I still have some missing gene that absorbs weather reports.  It is beautiful, and the whole world seems quiet and peaceful.  I love it. 

We bought a tiny little Xmas tree - 3 feet tall - just the right size for Ben (completely allergic to xmas trees, by the way) to dispose of by himself while Stella and I are gone after Xmas.  We're heading down south to pack up the rest of our belongings and visit with family. 

I am not looking forward to the packing of boxes once again, but it must be done.  We'll probably have to give the house a thorough cleaning as well - three boys living there for a year with at least three animals probably leaves the house a little dirty if I had to guess.

I am loving looking at the snowy field. . . enough so, that I'm done blogging about it & I'm just going to enjoy it.  I wish it snowed like this in GA at least once a year.  Right at Christmas would be perfect.

I made a turkey

Yup. I roasted a turkey, and I have to say it was not as hard as it seems from the kid perspective. Maybe it was because this one was relatively small, but really we just washed it and put it in to cook. That was it. I always thought making turkeys for Thanksgiving was a huge ordeal. Now I know. Well, I suppose the ordeal is in the aftermath of dishes for days on end (we don't have a dishwasher - well, we do: us).

Sylvia, Ben's mom, taught me how to make her fancy chocolate pie and we made a pumpkin pie after we put the turkey in to roast. Then I made a ton of mashed potatoes, some green bean casserole, and we cooked some of the super-wonderful-delicious corn we'd frozen from the summer. Once the turkey was done Syl made the gravy and we got everything on the table. Mmm, mmmm, mmmm. One of the best Xgiving dinners ever, if I do say so myself.

I have since used the carcass to make what the cookbook calls "turkey frame soup" - I wonder why they don't call it "turkey carcass soup". . . sounds totally appetizing, don't you think?

Today it is snowing and snowing and snowing. Some day I'll get used to it, but today I'm wondering if I'll go to my appointment tomorrow afternoon - I'm such a chicken about driving in the snow. : )