Grass, plastic eggs and two laps around the parking lot

Today was Sam and Jack's Easter Hat Parade at school. You must know, there was quite the build-up to today with Sam giving me the play-by-play each day of how he was painstakingly creating his holiday chapeau adorned with foam, grass and plastic eggs. Jack, on the other hand, was more introspective as usual: "Yeah, I'm making a hat," he said. And there you have it.

Below are some pics from the public unveiling. I wasn't disappointed. :)

The boys in the photos with Jack are the famous Jakey-poo (his name is Jake obviously, but Jack insists it's "Jakey-poo" since that's what the teacher calls him) and Keldan (who Jack calls "teeny tiny." Like anyone that age is that much smaller than Jack anyway.) They are adorable little boys and Jack's buds.

Life imitates art?

So my little town of Suwanee is all a buzz about our new City Hall that's about to open its doors next week. The new Hall is across from the old Hall (where I visited once to pay a traffic ticket -- oops) in the beautiful Suwanee Town Center Park. The building is pretty -- marble facade (actually I read it's marble veneer which is lighter than plywood -- gee, I hope it stays up), but it didn't arrive controversy-free. The building cost 7.2 million dollars and is set to house Suwanee's City Council -- all 150 of them -- in 23,600 square feet! Doesn't that seem a bit much? A bit showy, even for one of Forbes' 10 best US cities to live? Of course there's more planned for the space -- traffic court will now be there (something I hope to avoid even though Suwanee police seem to be out in force lately. Maybe to offset some of the $7.2 mil perhaps?) But really, that's not even why I chose to dedicate some blog time to this today.

Take a look at the below two photos. One is life (our new City Hall), and the other is art (if I have to tell you what this photo is, you obviously didn't grow up in the mid-late 70s, early 80s.) Is it possible the architect was also a child of the 70s and just had this building subliminally imprinted somewhere in his brain? Anyway, the similarities are astounding. We even have a fountain in front of our building -- just like Metropolis.

The best part is though, I've convinced Sam and Jack that the building is actually called The Hall of Justice...too funny. I guess we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled for Superman and The Green Lantern.

How cool!

Below is a wordle. I stole this from my sister-in-law's blog because I thought it was too cute. A wordle is a random word puzzle of any text you like. My wordle is essentially words from this blog. I can envision some cool applications for this so I wanted to share. Now go make your own!


http://www.wordle.net/

Gotta love Atlanta in the Spring

Today we visited the UGA campus for a Diamond Dawg baseball game. Although I have no photo evidence that we were actually there for the game, I did come home with a wicked farmer tan (burn) and pink lemonade stain on my white shirt from when Jack wiped his mouth on me in the third inning. Nice.

Anyway, today was one of those gorgeous Sundays in ATL (75ish and sunny), so a jaunt to Athens seemed like the perfect choice - particularly since just last weekend we had hail and snow and the biggest flakes I'd ever seen in my life. (My kids were not as easily impressed: Been there, done that Mom - we were born in PA remember?). Below are a few shots from the day, including my favorite part of the university - North Campus.

Pre-game

Post-game

Family Time

This weekend Bill, the boys, my niece Shea and I went to visit Bill's sister (Shea's mom) and family in a little town outside of Columbia, SC. Basically, we've been hanging out, watching movies, making yummy desserts and laughing -- mostly at me. It's been fun just sitting around and being with each other (I worked too, but managed to tear myself away at least for today.)

Patty and Steve moved from Roswell, GA, shortly after this past Thanksgiving, and we miss having them closer. We were lucky to have them so close for about 9 months, but Steve was called to lead a church in this tiny town so of course we support him/them whole-heartedly. They're lucky to have him.

So today, we visited a little state park for some outside time. While the boys played, I snapped these shots, then ambushed everyone on this waterside swing. Luckily, there were no gators lurking nearby. (All black and white this time - sorta just happened.)

Taste of Spring

I love living in the South. At home in Philly, February usually means cold and snow - although not as snowy as March and April seem to be for some reason. But anyway, whatever the month is prior to May up North, you usually don't get 71 degrees on February 7th or 72 degrees on February 8th.

That's what we had here this weekend after a few consecutive days of stepping outside and wondering whether or not I had been mysteriously transported back home. Of course the boys wanted to take full advantage of the nice weather and went barreling into our growing leaf pile in the backyard. And of course, it deteriorated into a leaf fight and free for all shortly thereafter.

Are all Sams beautiful?

Well I know mine is, and this little guy below certainly is as well.

"Little Sam," as my guys call him, turned 1 in January. The last time I photographed him and his family, Sam was crawling and easier to contain. Fast forward just two months and his mother, brother, grandmother and I chased a walking (sometimes running) Sam around the house for these shots. I love the one of those great big blue eyes.