Angry Bird, Happy Boy

After what felt like months of trying different approaches to get Matty to listen and do things the first time he was asked, rather than the 12th (a lofty ambition for a 4-year-old I realize), I initiated a simple board where he would earn stars for tasks. I told him when the board was full he could pick out a treat. And it worked better than I could have imagined! 

Each time he earned a star I wondered to myself what the heck I was going to do when he filled that page. Then last week he came home from an outing with Daddy to MicroCenter and he knew exactly what he wanted - the green piggy from Angry Birds! Goes well with the red Angry Bird the Easter Bunny left him not so long ago. 

He had only 2 more stars to earn and soon after we found our way back to MicroCenter to find him that piggy! Very proud of him and pleasantly surprised how well the baiting for listening worked! 

It's amazing what a little positive reinforcement can do! 

Happy Beachster

What a wonderful time we had last week. We went down to St Simon's for the last half of Hudson's spring break to hang out with Jen, Kevin and Hud who've just moved to the beach! (Jealous? Yeah, me too). I'm so excited for them, I can't believe people live this way. By the end of the week I was asking Ben if Georgia Solar would consider relocating!

We spent our days just as it looks. Taking it easy and soaking up the gorgeous weather. Hudson has a crab trap he dropped into the water at the Pier or the marsh daily. Pelicans who have very little personal space issues hung out with us a lot, too, as you can see.  

Thursday was the best beach day and luckily we soaked it in while we could. Matty and Hudson spent no less than 6 hours in the water that day and Matty much of it without his parents hovering over him. He and Hud were responsible to stay in shallow waters but Matt was entirely fearless. Quite a leap from even just last summer at Amelia. I wish I had taken the pics of them in the water, but at the time I thought we would have another beach day. Turns out Thursday was the only day warm enough.

But since everyone managd to get too much sun anyway, it was just fine to stay in the shade on Friday. We met up with a friend of Jen's from Nashville days for some shopping and Matty once again was just one of the big kids, feeling a little too at home among the tweens and teens if you ask me! He had them in stitches at lunch!

Saturday was my favorite day I think. Jen had been spending the week studying up for her boat licence and chartered us a boat for Saturday morning. We woke bright and early, headed to Starbucks and the marina for a lovely morning going with the flow on the Intracoastal.

Fort Frederica.

Some birds. I do love me some birds.

The lone palm tree. I felt bad for it at first but then figured it must be rather tough to live all alone out there!

Matty loves his Unca!

To the left: Oh Captain, my captain.

To the right: We'll just see about that.

Two cousins, the best of friends!

Family photo time!

Just gorgeous. Argh, I am green with envy!

So I told you Hud was dropping that crap trap into the water daily. He was getting one here, two there but they were waiting til he drew in a haul to boil them all up. But Saturday he did bring in a huge blue crab and we figured what the hell, Jen needed to start somewhere with the crab boil thing. Here is Huddy with the first crab they cooked!

Loving Mom and son.

Uncle Ben, the eternal boy scout and lake lubba, shows them how to clean the crab. It's a boy crab so it was easy to do we learned by lifting the key to remove the apron.

(Warning: Crudeness ahead)

Jen: "So then how do you get in a girl?"

Ben: "A lot of liquor?"

 Their new cat, Jingle Bell curls up with Matty on our last night.

Not only did the Easter Bunny find us at Aunt Jen Jen's, but we even saw him in the backyard!

Our sweet boy with his haul. Can't wait to go back again soon :)



Matty Turns 4!

The years are officially going by too fast now, because I feel like I just posted that Matty turned 3 and now it's time to celebrate him turning 4! And it was an event, in classic Browning fashion. Not only did we have a lice scare (negative!) the day before his birthday mere hours before Mama P arrived, but his birthday party was the party that almost never was.

I took off work for his actual birthday, Friday March 30, and we played with Mama P, went to the park, practiced his tricycle skills, had a nice lunch complete with a Happy Birthday Whoopie Pie. We sat in the warm sun playing in the backyard until we were starving, then we topped off the day with pizza and ice cream. I mean, come on, what's more perfect than that?

Then as luck would have it, fever struck Matty in the middle of the night. I was hoping for a fluke, but by morning the fever was not relenting and, yes we even got a visit from the throw-up fairy. Really, it's his freaking birthday! Then a few hours later, after I had called a few folks to cancel the party, he rallied in a big way. Fever broke and he was jumping off our couch like a little dare devil. Since I had no way of getting in touch with the rest of the parents, it was cross our finger time that it was just something he ate.

And I guess that was all it was, as no one else ended up being afflicted, and the party went off without a hitch after that. Matty and his classmates had a great time at The Little Gym in Smyrna. To quote his free t-shirt, he jumped, tumbled and sang his way to the best birthday party ever! I only hate we had to disinvite a few folks in a panic beforehand but I guess better safe than sorry since those Mama's I could reach were also very pregnant!

I would recommend this place to anyone who's never been. For a pretty reasonable price you get the whole facility to yourself for an hour and a half and the staff goes out of their way to make it fun and also very easy on the parents.

Under the parachute, his classmates sing happy birthday to a very shy Matty, not knowing what to do with all the birthday attention!

Part Spiderman?

I love this picture! The kids were singing again and he was just beside himself! I commented I was suprised his hand didn't end up in the cake as it typically does at Jake's birthday parties!

All the DCA kids had a great time! And by the end of the day, several parents, including us were signing their kids up for dance or tumbling. I can't wait for him to start class!



A Walk In the Clouds

So by now everyone knows of my love of Highlands. Something about the air up there, the cool and quiet of the wooded mountains just takes me to a place of calm relaxation I cannot seem to achieve at home, with work and everything that always seems to be pulling at me. Well who knew I could get that same peaceful, easy feeling just a few minutes from home? 

The three of us went to Kennesaw Mountain yesterday after lunch. One of the things we always talk about but never did before. After meandering around the gift shop and grounds for a bit we tackled climbing the mountain. The trail was very similar to Highlands-Cashiers' Whiteside Mountain, said to be the oldest mountain in the world. Matty did great for quite a while but about half way through started to stall out. But with much prodding and "finish what we start" discussions he did make it to the top! Please worry not, we were hardly putting his health in danger. We were passed by twin 2-year old girls at one point. 

What a gorgeous view, and what a great feeling to be out amongst nature. We will most definitely be doing this again soon. At least I know I will. Matty might need some convincing. And Ben promises to never carry him down a mountain again.