Big G’s school pictures today, and one year ago.

Back during the summer, the fam was out late at a local park. The sun was disappearing. Time to be heading home. Gabby was busy on the swings. She wasn’t hip to leaving. She wanted to stay!

GABBY: Why do we have to go home?

ME: (Thinking fast) Cause the freaks are coming out soon! (Singing) The freaks come out at night! The freaks come out at niiiiight! The freaks come out at night ..

GABBY: (serious) Freaks? What are freaks, da-da?

ME: Scarrrrrry people. Monster people. You don’t want to see any freaks do you?

GABBY: (kinda laughing, kinda not) Noooo.

(We go to leave. Gabby walks up to Gavin)

GABBY: Gavin. We have to go home! Cause the freaks come out at night!

On the way home, Gabby kept singing, “The freaks come out at night!,” which bothered/creeped out the Teen. I was reminded of this recently when, again, we were outside at the house and it was getting dark outside. I told Gabby it was almost time to go in, to which she responded, “Cause the freaks are coming, right da-da? The freaks come out at night. The freaks come out at niiiiiight …”

I take Big G to the base of his obsession. I have to goad him into describing what he does when the windmill is “broken.” (ie. the times when, for some odd reason, it is not spinning). He came up with this story on his own.

Gabby spent last week at her third VBS of the summer. The theme here was “Boomerang Express.” The commencement was Friday, which opened with the week’s theme song. As expected, she got really into it.

As for that football purse, Gabby brought it on her own. Her teachers told the class whoever sang the loudest would get some candy. So Gabby came prepared – with a bag.

I didn’t think to take too many videos while at the beach (I hear water and cell phones don’t mix). Here’s one of the few, as I try to get Big G to go into Cool G mode at the oceanside pool.

Excerpted from the never-to-be-released book, “Free Time with the Kids: How to have fun when time AND money are tight.”

Chick-fil-A has it all, really. A playroom. Bathrooms. No pressure sales atmosphere. Free balloons. And, if you do get hungry, one heck of a vanilla milkshake. (with cherry!)

This is a favorite place to go when the kids are restless and need to burn some energy. The local Chick-fil-A boasts a slide, play car, play plane, random bits of plastic that spin and one of the creep-ist talking animal walls you’ll ever be haunted by. It’s voiced by a woman that was either –

1) Forced against her will to submit her voice to the display,
2) Just awoken from a 26-day coma, or
3) dead.

Awful audibles aside, this low-cost locale is top of the list when the kids are rowdy and it’s raining outside. Gabby now regularly requests we go there. When we arrive she becomes a comet in a closet. Gavin is no less excited, but much more restrained. He’s content to climb the steps to the slide, sit like he’s about to slide, then get up and go back down the steps. Repeat. Rinse.

It’s also a great place to make new friends. Once, the Gs and I arrived to find one other girl about Gabby’s age playing alone within the room. They two girls became quick cohorts. When the new friend’s parents came to tell her it was time to go, Gabby ran to her and delivered a giant hug. Then as she turned to return to the slide, she shouted, “Bye friend! I love you!”

Chick-fil-A. Can you feel the love?

Behold the masterpiece created by my wonderful wife – the long awaited and highly anticipated Spider-man bithday cake! My wife mixed red velvet cake mix with white mix (dyed blue) for a neat red and blue swirl effect. She spent more than two hours on the icing, tracing a design on wax paper. Freezing it. Then applying it on top of the white frosting. Then again outlining it in colored sugar. Yes, it was a big hit.

This was last night after dinner. Big G got a soccer ball brownie cake! And, of course, Gabby had to help with the candles. Not sure if you can make it out, but Gavin is singing, “Happy birthday to me.” The big party – with Spider-Man cake – is tomorrow. (The wife and a friend were working on the icing design for more than two hours last night).

One gift, from his Mam-maw, a Spider-Man light!

Been spening a lot of time at parks lately. Both Gs love running around aimlessly. This is from last Thursday at the “big” park. We heard frogs around the pond. They thought it was cool.

The Gs and I went to a mountain festival Saturday. It was a fundraiser for the local Montessori School. While there, we found facepainting. And, well, ain’t she cute???

The facepainter was a parent volunteer working her first public event. (She has a still underdevelopment website). Her work of art needed just seven minutes to go from dab to fab. When done, as Gabby went ouncing around, I kept thinking, “My little girl is a Road Warrior.” My mental snapshot was further enhanced when, after walking back to the car in the rain and later having a brief cry over a stubbed toe, he paint job was smeared down her cheeks. She looked like Animal after a half-hour tag match.