What I Would Do with $540 $640 Million

Oh, the possibilities!

(how many people are doing this same day-dreaming today?)

I would start packing right away, and move my little family right on up to Asheville, North Carolina.  We'd find a house to rent or buy, where we would live while we built our dream house on a lot next to a creek.  That lot would be big enough, of course, to accommodate our mini-village of vacation rental cottages.  I imagine they would be something similar to these.

The kids would go to public school there, since the schools are supposed to be great.  I don't know, I guess with $540 million we could afford to send them to private school, but I think I'd like them to lead as normal a life as possible, and if the schools are good, let 'em go.  Not that private school isn't normal, but we can fork out the money when it comes time to go to college.

I would hire a property management company to manage all of my family's rental properties and move my parents to Asheville so that my mom and I could find the perfect building in downtown Asheville to open our bakery (of course, we'd have to wait until she and my dad were done traveling the world).

Josh would have his choice of a brew pub in downtown Asheville, or a brewery we can build on our property.  I think he'd go for the brew pub.

Jeff would get his school paid off and a house on the beach, Greg would get this, this, or this and a house where he chooses, and Lauren and Matthew would get a house in Augusta big enough for their growing family, complete with a guest cottage where the live-in nanny would stay.

Steve and Lynn could have their pick of houses, maybe somewhere in between Augusta and Asheville (also with a guest cottage where Nana and her nurse would live).  And they, too, will need to travel the world.

There would most definitely be a shopping spree in store for each member of my family, and then maybe one for me and my girlfriends in New York.  What do you think, ladies?  New wardrobe?

We'd have a lake house and a beach house, of course, but we would have them with a rental agency so they can be rented out when we're not there.  No need to waste an opportunity, right?

And you know I would find a few great charities and do my part to help rescue abused animals and children, provide treatment for sick children, and preserve our wildlife, to name a few.

Once we got our traveling and shopping sprees out of the way, got our houses purchased and businesses started (with great people to run them so that we don't have to be there and away from our family 24/7), it would life as usual.

Just with a lot less worry.

Cannon's Invites

I wouldn't normally do this, but I can't resist a $10 off offer. I just ordered Cannon's birthday party invitations, and Shutterfly is offering me $10 off my next order if I'll post the invitations on my blog (and they'd probably like for me to go on and on about how cute they are, but I'll leave that to you.)

So, here they are. Big man is about to be 2!

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

And yes, the cake will most likely match the invites. Little boy loves him some trains.

Pinterest Project: Rainbow Jello Ring

So Pinterest is the the new big thing. I held out on joining for a long time, and then my curiosity (and boredom one night) got the best of me. So I took the plunge and I'm in. I can honestly say that I am not addicted like I thought I would be, but I'm really glad I joined. There are some of the best and coolest ideas ever! As I'm browsing through them all, pinning this and pinning that, I'm thinking to myself, 'Now if I can just get around to trying any of these.'

Well, I'm happy to say that I've actually tried two of them so far, and Josh is supposed to be getting the materials for a third. The first was this popcorn. I made it with pink, red and white heart sprinkles for Valentine's Day. I tied up individual baggies for Bennett to give out to his classmates.  (It is soooooo good, by the way.)

The next project I wanted to do was these Jello Easter eggs. I ordered the mold and everything (you can get it here for free until April 8th; just pay $2.95 shipping). I decided to wait until closer to Easter to do the actual eggs, but last night Bennett and I created a cool Rainbow Jello Ring using the same idea. The colors are way off (we had a mishap with the purple, the yellow wouldn't fit in the mold, and I didn't think to get blue when I was buying the jello), so it's not really a rainbow. We'll do better next time.

But I had to share with you this video of Bennett stirring our jello. He has a bit of a habit when he concentrates on things like stirring jello. I was using my parents' camera, and for some reason it doesn't record sound.  Oh well.  You don't need sound to enjoy his little habit.

Here's our jello mold.  The boys loved it.

February in Pictures

Well, well.  Look who has found some time to blog!

I can't put up my first two posts in almost a month and not include anything about Precious Girl!  We went for her one month check up last week and she's only 9 pounds and almost 1 ounce!  I'm used to 12 pounders by now!  Somehow I'm thinking she won't meet their 2 month weight of 16 pounds either... :)

Anyway, here's our February, in pictures:

^ A very, very common occurrence.

 

^ This is more Cannon's style.

^ All three kids are listening to this story; Kate's just hearing it from under the nursing cover.  

 

^ This is Bennett and his bud.  This little puppy goes with him everywhere.  He adores it.  If Kate's not in the swing, the puppy is - all strapped in and everything.  And I'll have to see if I can get a picture of Bennett nursing it.  Yes.  Yes he does.

 

 ^ Cannon and Maria loving on each other.

^ Everybody disturbing checking on the baby.

 

^ He loves these headphones!  I don't have the heart to tell him that they make his face look even fatter...

 

^ All seven of Steve and Lynn's grandchildren.

 

 

^ Pure satisfaction.

^ Pure LOVE.

^ Kate says, "See Ya!"

The Circus!

You may remember that we took Bennett to the shirt-tus last year.  We were fortunate enough to be able to go again this year.  Josh's company has a suite at Philips Arena that they use to treat their customers.  An employee has to be present to host each event, and you can request to host certain events.  Josh has hosted a few so far, including the circus the past two years.

We had four tickets.  We obviously wouldn't take Kate, and we thought about not taking Cannon for another year either.  He's not even two yet.  He doesn't have a very long attention span and has to be watched like a hawk.  I knew it could either be really good, or really bad.  But we ultimately had to take him.  It breaks my heart every time he sees Bennett get to go somewhere or do something that he can't do.  Of course he wouldn't have known about us going to the circus, but I would have known and I know I would have regretted leaving him.

I don't think the boys even knew there was a show going on.  All they wanted to do was eat!  Being in a suite, there's always lots of food.  There were chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, chicken and steak sandwiches, veggies with dip, fresh fruit, popcorn, cookies and brownies.  I couldn't get either of those boys to eat anything other than blueberries, popcorn, and cookies.  Bennett must have eaten his weight in popcorn.  Hey - it's the circus.  I'm just glad I got out of there without having to buy any cotton candy or a $22 spinny toy.

We wound up being the only ones in the suite (we went on a Monday in the middle of the day) until about an hour into the show when one of Josh's customers showed up with his wife and little boy.  Thank goodness it wasn't any more people than that, because I spent my time chasing after Cannon, who wanted to climb up and down the stairs and over into the adjoining suites the whole time.  I'm not going to say I wish we had left him, but it was definitely a struggle.

We did have a good time, though.  I hope we'll have the opportunity to go again next year.  Bennett will be 5 and Cannon will be 3.  I think that would be pretty fun.

Cannon did stop roaming long enough to shake his booty a little (literally):

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The Book Road

Today has been a little trying. Josh stayed in Atlanta last night to celebrate Derek's birthday, so it's been me and the kids, battling it out since 6:00am. I suspect Cannon may be getting some molars in, Kate may have a little reflux and has been fussy and uncomfortable all day, and Bennett is, well, four years old. I feel like all I've done all day is nurse, burp, break up a fight. Nurse, burp, break up a fight. Nurse, burp, clean up a spill, break up a fight.

When I finally got Kate satisfied enough to fall asleep, I took Cannon upstairs with me and let Bennett have some alone time downstairs. Cannon played upstairs while I cleaned, and after a while I started thinking, 'I should probably check on Bennett.' Then I thought, 'Well, he is four. He's not likely to be into anything he shouldn't be. His name's not Cannon.'

We went back downstairs before too long, and I found out what Bennett had been working on (and you can see here the attitude they had toward each other all day):

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We certainly don't make a habit of walking on our books. They get used a lot, but not usually by our feet.