Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Life Lately: Hurricane Irma Edition

Whew!  You guys, it has been a week that felt like a month!  Hurricane Irma came through and really put us through the ringer!  Here's what our life lately has looked like:

In preparation for the hurricane, I got my book stash ready.  When I showed Matt, he asked what I was going to read after the first 24 hours - haha.


Despite the grammar and spelling mistakes, I saw this on facebook and it made me laugh so hard.  This is what it has felt like lately!  Did you see the news about the tiger in Atlanta??  You can read it here!

We were tracking the weather pretty hardcore starting about the Wednesday before the hurricane was supposed to hit.

Ya'll - the hurricane memes were cracking me up!



Grammy and Pop took Cooper to lunch at Chick-Fil-A on Friday, and they said there were quite a few people from Florida there.  A family from Florida was sitting next to them, and they had their pet bird with them.  Cooper is usually pretty skeptical about birds, so Matt and I were so surprised when we saw these pictures!



Unintentional twinning at Friday recess!

We were supposed to go to the football game Friday night, but it got cancelled.  They closed all south bound lanes on the interstate and made them all north bound to help the people from Florida get out faster.  This meant that the team we were supposed to play (from more north in Georgia) couldn't get into town for the game!  Instead, we decided to go to The Mill for pizza and games.  Cooper has been earning stickers based on some issues at school (someone has decided that he's too busy playing on the playground to stop and go to the potty), and he had earned his reward.  We knew he wanted The Mill, so we decided to surprise them and go!

He's got his money for tokens!


He scored big on the tickets!

LL enjoyed benefiting from Cooper's earned prize.

Grammy and Pop bought us some donuts -- and Matt and I decided they were considered "perishable" and needed to be eaten first.  :)

Oh - you know.  Just heading right for us.

We spent most of Saturday at home getting some storm prep done.  We cleaned up the yard and put away everything that could possible be damaged or go flying during the storm.  We also picked all of the sweet potatoes from the garden that Matt planted in the spring!

We were supposed to have a big family lunch at Grammy and Pop's house on Sunday.  Since the storm would be hitting late Sunday afternoon, we moved it to Saturday at dinner.  We went over there as soon as Cooper was up from his nap, and we were in for a BIG surprise.  LL finally decided that she wanted to learn how to ride a bike!  LL is definitely one of those kids that has to do things on her own time and when she's ready (I can't imagine who that sounds like).  Matt and I realized a long time ago that we were probably not going to have a bike rider in LL.  We had tried so many different times before, and she was just completely not interested.  Grammy and Pop bought the kids new bikes about a week ago, and they told LL that they were not buying her one with training wheels.  Well, she got it in her head that she was going to learn, and she literally was riding by herself two days later!  Here's a video of her learning to ride!

Look at this girl go!

I may have had to save her life a few times - haha.  But she's doing it!

I felt like this was going to be me after eating all of our hurricane snacks.

Both kids absolutely adore Aunt Roiane!

Cooper has been allllll about putting some puzzles together lately!  It is his favorite thing right now!

Sunday was all about some storm prep.  We were pretty confident that we would lose power late Sunday/early Monday, so we did as much to prepare for that as possible.  Step one: move LL's mattress to our master closet.  It's the only room in the center of the house, so I just felt safer moving the kids in there.  LL's room has a huge window right next to her bed, and I was pretty nervous about something flying through it.

I also tried to cook as much as I could while we still had power.  First up: cookies!  (I ordered these from Amazon after hearing lots of people rave about Swig cookies.  They weren't lying - these were amazing!)

Next: mini muffins!

Last: a ham!  Last year we split a pig with Zach and Emily.  We've had this ham in the freezer for forever and decided to cook it up.  I'm crazy and didn't realize that it wouldn't turn out like a HAM (because - duh - it hadn't been cured and all that).  But I cooked it in the crock-pot, Matt pulled all the fat and bones out, and it made some amazing BBQ!

These Swig cookies did not disappoint!

I saw this on facebook and thought it was so neat/creepy!  Maleficent has showed up to the Magic Kingdom!

I snuggled with the kids for a little while before they went to sleep.  They were excited about their sleepover in the closet!

Ha!  Truth!

I checked on the kids before I went to sleep and they were out!

Our power went out at 4:00 am and it woke both me and Matt up.  With it so quiet in the house (no ac and no fans), I couldn't go back to sleep and just laid there listening to the wind.  Around 4:45 Cooper woke up scared because it was waaay more dark than he's used to.  I crawled in with the kids and laid with Cooper until he went back to sleep.  We spent the rest of the day at home (duh - we weren't going anywhere).  Thankfully, I had a list of things to pull out for the kids to play with during the day - coloring, puzzles, playdough, etc.  LL took over this corner of the living room and made it her own.

The next morning most of the wind and rain was gone, so we decided to get out of the house.  Grammy and Pop didn't have power either, but they had a generator for some of their appliances, lights, and the tv (priorities - haha).  We unloaded our freezer and took everything there so it wouldn't go bad.

After we had been there for a few hours, some neighbors posted to our neighborhood facebook page that the power was back on.  Woohoo!  After 30 hours, I was ready for a SHOWER!  Matt and I left the kids at Grammy and Pop's to go home, shower, and get the house back to normal after the storm.

The boys had previously scheduled haircuts and since the salon had power, we kept the appointment.

So much better!

Even though we had power, lots of people around us didn't.  Matt had to head back to work, but school was cancelled again that day for all of us.  The kids and I stayed home and just hung out for the day.


Still working through my goal of 100 books in 2017!

Cooper's school opened back up on Thursday, but school was cancelled again for me and LL.  We dropped Cooper off at school (a rare treat for us!).

After we dropped Cooper off, LL and I went to the gym and then the library before picking him up again!

Once again, Cooper had school on Friday, but LL and I didn't.  Matt took Cooper to school because they were having Donuts for Dads!

Is this not adorable??


The kids sang two songs for the dads.  Here's a video of the "Tootie Ta" song, and here's a video of a song called "How Big You Are".

I'm in love with the picture that Cooper drew of Matt!

Saturday morning snuggles in bed!
We spent the day around the house again on Saturday.  This picture cracks me up.  Lovie (the cat) was under the chair and Cooper was playing with her - haha.

 I woke up on Sunday feeling pretty crummy, so I spent most of the day in bed.  I did make myself get out of bed for a little while in the afternoon to find that my boys had washed my car!

Hurricane Irma really threw us for a loop and it turned out to be a pretty crazy week!  But we were really blessed that we were safe, we didn't have damage to our property, and our power was out a lot less than some around us.  


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