Catelyn's new Do

Tonight I finally decided to cut Catelyn's hair. She's only ever had one trim before (besides cutting her bangs often). I don't have a measuring tape here at the house but her hair reached almost down to her waist.
I put it in a ponytail and snipped it all off!

She now a has a cute little bob. I hope it grows in thicker now.

Part of living in the country

The place we are renting out here in North Carolina is an amazingly beautiful and large home on 22 acres of land with woods and meadows and a pond (not to mention the in-ground pool that was swam in almost every day during the summer). It's spectacular and we are enjoying every minute of it. Just to give you an idea of where we live, this first picture is of the "rose garden lawn" over by the driveway, the second is taken from the front of the house, looking out at "the pond" and the third is of a deer over in the "lower meadow" on the right side of the house.

Well I just wanted to share with you all a part of living out here in the country.

The Sunday before last we had an incredibly windy afternoon and evening. In our big house we didn't think much of it as we are pretty secure here in our "Meadowsong". (Yes we named the "estate", it's that much like living in a manor house)

Right around 6:00 in the evening we get a phone call. I answer it and hear a recording saying something along the lines of "we are aware of the fires on so-and-so road in Louisburg . Please do not call the County Fire Dept to report these fires as the dept is responding at full capacity and we do not want the phone lines tied up, etc, etc."

I turn to Martin and say "Whoah, we just got a reverse 911 call about some fires in Louisburg." (our nearest town of any consequence, about 12 miles away) I open the door and sure enough I can smell smoke strongly. We turn the news on and I jump on the internet to see what we can find out. Turns out that there are fires reported in every county in North Carolina as well as up in Virgina and other surrounding areas and that the worst fires are in our county (Franklin). And in case you didn't know, North Carolina has 100 counties!

A few minutes later we hear fire trucks headed down the road headed towards Louisburg. In the back of my mind I wonder if we should be concerned about fire breaking out someplace closer to us but I can't think of anything that would spark a fire, especially since it wasn't a thunder and lightning storm. Ah well, we send the kids to bed and don't think much more about it.

Jump ahead to the next morning and Cooper complains that he doesn't feel well and wants to stay home from school. Martin gets up and leaves for work. Two minutes later I hear him come back in the house. He says "You'll never believe it, walk out on the driveway." Well first of all, you can't see the road from our house as the driveway is curvy and there are a lot of trees. Every day I have to walk out to the end to pick up Cooper from the bus because, again, you can't see the road from the house.

Well this is what I found. (Keep in mind it's winter now so all the leaves have fallen)

We were totally and completely stuck. Martin couldn't get to work until we could get a neighbor out with a chainsaw and a big pick up truck to haul the telephone pole sized tree out of our driveway. Insane! What's even funnier is we had been trapped by a fallen tree on our driveway earlier this past summer!!! Oh the thrills of living away from civilization.

Peekaboo Lydia

Here's a little video of Lydia playing peekaboo. She coughs at the end, and it sounds bad but she was perfectly fine.
She's such a smart girl and loves interacting with people. Her first word is "Dada" and I'm sure her second will be "Hi" just like Cooper's was. She reminds me so much of Cooper when he was little. She even has the same gap in her teeth. :)
PS. Uploading videos from this dial-up connection is excruciating so I don't think I'm going to do many more of these. (If I can even get this one to work)
Yeah, that just took over 40 min to upload... I hope everyone enjoys my cute baby as much as I do.

My husband

I'm trying to catch up on all the blogging I should have been doing for the past few years. Working my way backwards I thought I'd do a little tribute to my husband since Valentine's Day was just two days ago. I found this little ditty on my friend's blog and thought I'd tag myself.

• How long have you been married? This August it will be 10 years. I don't feel that old.
• How long did you date? Er, he doesn't like me to tell this story. He used to make fun of people who only dated/knew each other for such a short time before getting engaged. I guess he needs to apologize to all those people he made fun of because we met in March and were engaged in April. (Here's a picture of us back in the day)
• Who eats more sweets? Hmm, we both eat our fair share. Maybe him because he'll come home from work some days and eat a bowl of ice cream before dinner.
  
• Who is taller? Definitely him. He's a whole foot taller than me.
• Who can sing better? Good question. We are both musically talented and enjoy singing together. I'm going to go with I'm a better alto and he's a better baritone. :)
  
• Who is smarter? He absolutely is. It's a big part of why I married him.
  
• Who does the laundry? Me. I'm not even sure if he knows how to operate the machine.
  
• Who pays the bills? Me. Considering I'm not the most organized person I'm not sure that's a good thing.
  
• Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? The right side when you are looking at the bed or the right side when you are in the bed? Why does it matter anyway? What seems to happen is I'm the one who sleeps closest to the door.
  
• Who mows the lawn? The groundskeeper. Lol.
  
• Who cooks dinner? Me. I hear rumor from his mom and siblings that he used to know how.
  
• Who drives? Both. Depends on who's up for it.
  
• Who is more stubborn? Uh, me? I always seem to get what I want anyway.
  
• Who asked who out first? He was sly and positioned himself so that I would invite him out.
  
• Who kissed who first? That would be me. He kept me at bay until our 3rd date.
  
• Who said "I love you" first? Me again. He knew I wanted to say it, but again, was sly and waited for me to say it first.
  
• Who proposed? Um, it was more of a "discussion" in which I convinced him we needed to get engaged. Refer back to "how long did you date" as to why.
  
• Who has more siblings? He wins that one but not by much.
• Who wears the pants? What does that mean anymore? He's the bread winner, but again, I get everything I want.

I love you Martin. Thank you for the lovely Valentine's Day.

The meaning behind the name

In case anyone was wondering about the reasoning behind the name for my blog I'll let you know. I have on occasion in the past been referred to as "Sister Martin". People have called me that to my face and people have printed it up in programs. Considering that is my husband's name and not our shared last name I do not find being called that very endearing. Luckily I am a very easy going person and do not get offended or my feelings hurt easily. At least I can laugh about it now...

Cooper's new smile

I've decided that even though this blogging is going to be a hassle w/ only dial up Internet it is just something I HAVE to do. So I'm biting the bullet and jumping on the bandwagon.

Last night Cooper lost his 4th tooth. It's the second tooth he has lost in one week. He now has a new smile. He used to have a gap between his top front teeth. He now has a gaping hole.
It took us about 20 minutes to get that tooth out. He finally got it out himself. He'd been too afraid to pull out the other teeth himself but after this tooth being so mobile for so long he got the guts to pull this one free. Good job buddy!