Peyton's T-Shirt Art

I can't believe I forgot to post these last weekend. Peyton sat down at the kitchen table and made new shirts for all of the girls. They were really excited. We've washed them at least three times since Daddy made them. Peyton is so talented. What a great gift from their Dad.

Fayette Library

Pictures from our trip to the library. We were there for over two hours. The girls were very well behaved. Samantha did pitch a very loud fit when it was time to go home. Sabrina started to sing outloud towards the end of the trip. We realized they were getting tired and hungry...but WOW....two whole hours of sitting around reading quitely.....it was SOOOOO nice!!!! Peyton and I are both readers. We love books. In fact, the books on his nightstand were one of the reasons that I knew I was dating the right person when we first met. We don't get to read as often as we used to, but it looks like we are turning the corner on that one. We brought home 29 books on Saturday. Most of them were for the kids, but I would guess at least 3 or 4 each for us. I spent about an hour last night reading Truman Copote's 'Music for Chameleons'. He's the most arrogant writer of all time. I love it that I can see him smugness as I turn the pages. A true elitist, but a talented one. It started for me with Breakfast at Tiffany's. After I read, "In Cold Blood," I was hooked. He fathered the "nonfiction novel." Many of the true crime books today are written in this style. My kids are going to have an incredible love for books...especially Sabrina. She gets so excited when she opens a book for the first time.

Family Reading Night at Inman Elementary

Destiny played "Monkey" in her school reading of a traditional Puerto Rican tale. She did a great job. She didn't miss a single word of her ten or so lines. The Tingle twins were thrilled to be in big kid school. They got to use scissors and glue and to hang out at the reading table. Each of the girls made a puppet and brought home supplies to make more puppets. It was a good

evening. Samantha and Sabrina still struggle to use water fountains. They are a little too short. We are considering putting them in pre school at Inman next fall. We will go through the lottery process. If they are chosen, we'll decide what to do about after school care and wether or not we really want to have our all four of our kids going to school everyday. It's a lot more work than just letting the girls get up when they feel like it. Right now they get to stay in their jammies all day if they like.

Valentine's Day Brunch

I got my roses very early this week. They arrived on Wednesday. Peyton wanted to make sure I had time to enjoy them before the weekend. On Saturday morning, I made a Valentine's Day brunch. It was great. All of the kids helped with the cooking. Samantha and Sabrina made the cheese biscuits. Destiny and Michael helped with the eggs and the sausage. We brought out the 'bubbly' glasses and Peyt made a Valentine's Day toast. The girls each got a card, candy and roses from their Daddy. I got Michael a box of candy too. He is doing so much better lately that I want to make sure we keep him engaged in all of our activities. I have my A, B honor roll student back for the moment. I think he realizes that we are dead serious about his grades. He can keep them up, or he has no life. After brunch, we all went to the library and then to Walmart so Peyton could pick up his glasses. (Maybe it's because it's different, but he is SO hot in these glasses. I'm finding it difficult to keep my hands to myself.) I haven't posted in a while for a couple of reasons. Work has been a nightmare so I haven't felt like sitting down and re hashing it all at night or on the weekends. I've had to lay off staff and I'm heartbroken over it. I've also been on Facebook. It's insane. I got one invitation and before I knew it, I had connected with 60 people...most of whom I haven't spoken to in years. Kim Downing and I had a nice phone conversation the other night and will get together in the next week or so. Sha Moore is planning a reunion for the first Saturday in May for my old youth group. I've even had an exchange with my old youth minister, Brian Foster. I have to find my box of pictures so I can post some of them to our shared site. I realize that I used to have a huge, diverse group of friends. They're all still out there. They're just school teachers, ministers, restaurant owners, bartenders, retail manags, accountants, musicians, writers, stay at home moms and doctors now. It's so cool to see their children. The other night, we got into an instant message session. I laughed so hard, I cried. It's been 16 years since graduation. It took Peyton a couple of weeks to decide to join, but I think he spends more time on FB than I do now. He's been out of highschool for 25 years so it's really nice for him to reconnect. We did go to his reunion about five years ago....so I've met a handful of his friends. I'm sure he has over 40 by now that he's interacting with. Peyton even started a group for everyone who grew up in Camelot. We have one for my old neighborhood too. From the sound of it, our old neighborhoods were both magical kingdoms. We don't have the same kind of connection with people the way we did when I was growing up. I even have parents of my friends on my FB friend list. I hated the idea of My Space and could never quite get behind it. This is different. We both have the application on our Blackberrys, so it's easy to update and post from anywhere...random thoughts and information about your life. No one can see your information until you have selected them as a friend and then everything you post is open to all of your friends. It will never replace the blog. This is all about my memories. Though, there is a link to the blog on my FB page....and strangely engough, Peyton put a link to this blog on his. I'm proud that he would want his friends to read about our life through my eyes.

Ruskin Joseph Bloodworth

The past few days have been very sad. Ruskin Joseph Bloodworth was born yesterday at 5:18pm. He was several months early. I am told he was beautiful, but he wasn't ready for this world. My heart and prayers are with Briana and Ben as they struggle with their grief over losing their son.

Many Faces of Samantha

I am always so impressed with Samantha. She wears these crazy outfits and hats. I was surprised to see these pictures of the girls at the store with Daddy. It was a cold January day and Peyton took them to Michael's for some new art supplies. Beanie decided to wear a dress, with shorts underneath and her cowboy boots. Mantha was proud of herself when she used a marker to paint her face.

Kids Update

Destiny and Michael have been back in school for a few weeks now. The long winter break made everyone a little lazy, but their grades look good right now. Michael is making up his Math 1A class from last semester. So far, so good. They've been playing the Wii in the afternoon and on weekends. Samantha and Sabrina get so upset when they can't make the controls do what they want them to do. They will yell at each other things like: "I am trying." "It's too hard sissy, I can't make it work." And then the tears start. They are still too young for most of the games we have. It's really fun to watch them play the American Idol game. They have no problems working that one. They are also getting pretty good at guitar hero. Sabrina scored 17,000 points last night...she was playing the rainbows, but I still think that's pretty amazing for a 3 year old. I was playing with Samantha last night. Most of the time she only wants to play "Living on a Prayer" (Sounds like her mom, huh?), but last night, she surprised me. She walked in the room and said, "Mommy, I want to play Mr Crowley." Pretty funny that my 3 year knows who Ozzy is. The girls are finally sitting still long enough for me to braid their hair. They are too cute together with their pig tails and pony tails. Everyone is still in love with Pixie. She is a great dog. She is not a yappy dog at all. She gets so excited when I come home from work. She comes running up and follows me everywhere until it's her turn for some attention. Destiny and Sabrina made meatloaf for dinner the other night. I was impressed. If you notice, it's always these two in the kitchen. They all like to draw and paint, but Samantha is really drawing all the time now. She takes her little drawing pad with her name on it everywhere she goes. Her favorite toys right now are her baby dolls and her batmans.

Happy Birthday Mema Lorelei

Today is my Momma's birthday. She was born on January 31, 1955. I took her to North Carolina last weekend to celebrate. We went to Harrah's Cherokee. Mom decided her favorite machine was the Shamrock 7's. They've always been my favorite too. After we lost most of our money, we went to Bryson City, NC. The town is named after one of my mom's great...great...great...great...uncles. Colonel Thaddeus Dillard Bryson. We had lunch and went to the antique mall before heading back to Atlanta. It was nice to get away and spend some time together. We had a great hotel room with a beautiful view of the Great Smokey Mountains. We thought we might take a train ride through the Smokies, but the train was closed for the season. There's not much to do in this part of NC during the winter months, but it is one of the best vacation spots during the spring. I think we'll take my dad and Peyton with us for a long weekend in a few months.

Happy Birthday: The High Risk Age

I haven't posted in a little while. I went from being sick to settling into my new role at work. I really thought my new title was just a title change. I was wrong. I'm delving a little bit further into sales and sales/account management than what I have in the past.
Peyton took me to see Craig Morgan at Cowboys for my birthday. We met on Friday afternoon at the Marriott in Kenessaw. Had chinese for dinner and then went to Cowboys. He even bought me a pair of cowboy boots from Horsetown. I am the luckiest girl the world. The show didn't get going until just before midnight. I was out too late, drank too much and FELT my age on Saturday morning. I can tell you that this is the first birthday of my entire life that I dreaded. Every time you talk to your doctor, they always say that the risk or this or that is higher in women over 35. Taking birth control, your risk of cancer is higher in women over 35. Diabetes, risk is higher in women over 35. Well, bring it on. I hit the big 35 on Monday. It's funny. Peyton was 35 when we met...it seems like ages ago.
I'm leaving tomorrow morning to celebrate my birthday with my mom. Her's is next week, mine was this week. We are taking off to Cherokee, NC for a day or two. We haven't really decided yet where we will go or what we will do. We're just leaving town. I haven't been out of town with my mom alone since I was 2 years old. My sister was born when I was 3. I can't wait. Gotta go pack.

Tingle Family Cold

We have all had our share of the cold that Samantha caught last week. It went from Sam to Beanie. Then Peyton and I both got sick at the same time. Michael has avoided it all together and Destiny has just had the sniffles. I have coughed so much the past four days that I have barely slept. I left work at about 1pm yesterday and didn't go in today. I try to save my sick time for when the kids are sick, but I just couldn't make myself move today. Sabrina seems to finally be turning a corner tonight. Peyton and Sammi are both doing much better. I am still lingering. I don't think, even with being home from work that I've given myself enough time to rest. I just hope we are all better before this coming weekend is over.

A Look Back....New Year's Eve 2002

I remember welcoming in 2003. This was my first New Year's celebration as a Tingle. Peyton and I had been married just under 6 months. We spent the evening at Mango's in Alpharetta. This was the tapas bar that Carlos and Melissa Masonette (center, top picture) owned. Sadly, Mango's is now closed and Carlos and Melissa are no longer together. I can't find our group picture, but think I remember that we hung out that night with Josh Eldridge, Jason Callus, Russ and Tracey Ramsey (I think this was before they were married), and Eric McDonald. Eric and Carlos were tending bar and the Sangria was flowing.

Happy New Year 2009

The girls were asleep just after 10pm last night. They tried to stay up. Destiny is old enough to understand that the big moment is midnight, but when she's sleepy, she's sleepy. Peyton stopped and bought them the movie, WALL E. I took them to see it over the summer and they loved it. Last night, it couldn't keep anyone's interest. They all fell right to sleep. Samantha was not only coughing her head off, but was also covered in hives again. I noticed last week that her meds for breakouts had expired and asked the doctor to refill them when she went in for her cold on Tuesday. I picked them up yesterday on my way home. I am so glad I did because she would have been miserable without the medication. I was actually researching one of them on the internet at midnight last night. I looked down just in time to see it was exactly 12:00. I woke Peyton up for a quick New Year's kiss and we were both back to sleep. Nothing like the days of partying at the Bred or at Mangos on New Year's Eve. I even made an effort. I stopped at Kilroy's in Riverdale and bought three bottles: Svedka, Kaluha, and Amaretto. I made it through two drinks. Today, we are both sick with Sammi's cold. I think Sabrina might be catching it a little. Michael spent the night with Blake. It sounds like they had a good time, hanging out in Blake's garage bedroom...it's really more like an apartment over there. A 15 year old's dream house. I made the girls a tray of party foods today and gave them real champagne flutes filled with sparkling grape juice. They had their own little New Year's party. Sabrina asked me several times who was coming to her party. Is Mema Lorelei coming to my party? Grandmother Tingle? Are we going to get dressed up for our party? I think in the end, they enjoyed their private New Year's Bash.