Atlanta vs. DeLand

So we have left the big city. There are definitely pros and cons to living in a big city vs. a small town. We were never socialites and we didn't have a ton of friends that kept us busy with outings. We didn't have a sparkling night life, but we had everything we needed/wanted within 10 miles of our house... Church, shopping, zoo, aquarium, airport, chiropractor, doctor, parks, restaurants (every kind you can imagine), skyscrapers... and then there is the smog, trailer trucks and fire engines whizzing by our house, police search lights from helicopters lighting up the sky on a random Tuesday night, Boulevard between Freedom Parkway and Ponce De Leon Ave, Rubber Man Tires, The sock man who sold socks and rims for your car...

But we have traded all of that for...

90% of our family within a 1 1/2 hour drive, Gramma and Papa 10 minutes away!, having a "little" birthday party for Anson with 26 people(mostly family!), a quaint little downtown with shops and restaurants, a BBQ restaurant that I went to once and on the second time going, they remembered me!, being able to meet my Mom, Aunt and Uncle, Cousin and her son for the Wednesday morning farmers market held at the fairgrounds, having Gramma willingly take the kids to her house for the afternoon and Toto coming for the day to entertain them!, hearing the crickets at night instead of the hum of traffic, the St. Johns River right down the road and the Atlantic Ocean 25 minutes away, seeing beautiful Florida sunsets from our second story windows, and even a palm tree in our front yard! So yes, it may take two weeks to get our foreign car fixed and two hours to find a store with just the right thing we need (but they could call another location and get it here next week!)but, culture shock and all, we love it! We are glad to get to raise our kids in a small town and glad to be near our family!

Asa's Baptism - Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend! Dusty's parents came up for the weekend and took Anson and Ella to the cabin for the day on Saturday! They had a great time together and Dusty and I had a nice date at a restaurant we had wanted to try for a long time. (The Shed) Asa was a good little tag-along guest! I was also able to clean out Ella and Anson's room while they were gone for the day (looking ahead to packing up). On Sunday morning, Mother's Day, Dusty and Anson and Ella cooked me and Toto breakfast in bed! We had sourdough french toast and strawberries Romanov, coffee and OJ. Yummy! Anson was really into it this year and made me feel very special! We then got ready for church. We didn't realize it at the time but this was our last Sunday at the Church of the Apostles. (We really miss our church!!!!) Asa was baptized during the morning service and it was a very nice ceremony! It was great to have Toto and Pop there! After church we ate at our favorite Malaysian restaurant, Penang, and our dear friend Cyrl joined us for lunch. That afternoon we started packing up for our first trip to FL to work on the house. We ended up only making two trips down before the big move. In hind sight, we could have used one more week to finish things up but us Rollins' like to keep things interesting!! :o)

We Have Moved!

Hi All!
We have moved and are settling into our new (old) home in DeLand, FL! So much has happened over the last six weeks so I am trying to play catch-up with the blog. Over the next week, hopefully I will be able to get some posts and pics up about:
Mother's Day/Asa's Baptism
Our first trip to FL to work on the house
Our last week together in Atlanta
Our second trip to FL to finish the house
Our actual move down
Our new house
and
Anson's 5th Birthday!

Stay Tuned!!

The Cabbage Patch and Lollipops

Babyland General

The "babies" in the nursery

The Cabbage Patch

The kids and I took a trip to Cleveland, GA (up in the mountains) today to take some pics of a job for Dusty (He flew to Orlando for the day to do an estimate down there!) And while we were in the tiny town of Cleveland, we stopped in to see Babyland General where the Cabbage Patch Kids were born! It is free to go and it was so cute! I LOVED Cabbage Patch Kids when I was a tot and it was a big deal when I got my first one! Anson and Ella loved walking around looking at all the babies growing up from the cabbage patch. I was so sentimental seeing Ella pick up and love on the babies that I was about to plunk down a very large sum to "adopt" one for her but then when she was just as excited to see a lollipop in the gift store, I decided against it! :o) The babies in the picture are life sized and are only sold there. They were really cute. We did end up getting a little doll AND a lollipop!

So on the way home Anson and Ella are sucking on their lollipops, chatting away about how Anson's has gum in the middle and Ella's has a tootsie roll, and this was their conversation...

Ella: Does a person live inside my lollipop?

Anson: NO!

Ella: Why not?

Anson: Because lollipops don't have refrigerators!

Like, Duh! A person couldn't live in a lollipop without a refrigerator! :o)

These kids crack me up!

By the way, Asa was an angel on our outing! He ate, slept and smiled in between! Such a sweetie!

Asa's First Laughs - 3 months old!

We just wanted to share Asa's first laughs with you! I was trying his baptism outfit on him so I decided to take a few pictures. When I propped him up on the arm of the chair he started laughing! Melt my heart!! By the way, he is being baptised on May 9th, Mother's Day at The Church of the Apostles. You can watch live online at www.apostles.org at 10:30am Eastern time! We were glad to get him baptized by Dr. Youssef before we move to Florida since the other two were baptized by him.

A Work in Progress...

Dusty was working on our house in Florida this week! They got a ton of things done! Dusty managed to get in some fishing too, surprise, surprise. Well I guess it actually turned out to be just kayaking since he didn't catch any fish, but he did have fun! And now at least he knows that he likes kayaking!

Here is a pic of the house with the new porch columns and the addition being attached to the big house now. They also ripped out the old HVAC system, ducts and all. We are going to be installing an alternative air/heat source other than central. The floors have all been sanded down and look like new! The last thing we will do is stain and poly them (when all the dust is out). They ripped the entire sub-floor out of the addition and added support columns under the floor because there were NONE. So now we get to do laminate flooring out there because the old vinyl flooring is gone! (Yea!) The addition is where Dusty's office and the master suite is. It is really going to be a fun place to live!

"Symonyms"

It is a rainy day here and we are doing some "work" at the table. I was just explaining the difference between "here" and "hear" to Anson. He has flash cards with simple words printed on them and he practices writing them on his paper. We came across the word "here". I said "it's like, 'come here'." And Anson said "or it could be like, 'I hear something'." Pretty good on his part! So I said that hear and here are synonyms. He said, "yea, like M&M's, only different!"
And to top it off he says "symonyms". So cute. I hope he doesn't grow up too fast!

Tell the Truth

I have to write this before I forget... classic Ansonism.


Anson came running into our room the other day and the following discourse took place:
Anson: Daddy, Ella just hit me and I am telling the truth! I don't always tell the truth but I am this time!
Dusty: (Trying to hold back a smile) Well, when don't you tell the truth?
Anson: (not skipping a beat) Well, mostly on Thursdays, Fridays, and Wal Mart days.



Dusty then hugged Anson to his chest so he could not see us both dying with laughter!! Where does he come up with these things? And he is so quick about it! At lease now I know that when we were in Wal-mart and he told me he wished he didn't have a mother, it was just a Wal-Mart Day and he wasn't telling the truth. :o)

Picnic at Grant Park today

Does Anson look like Gavin in this picture, or what?
When did Ella get so tall?

Picking flowers

Anson looks so tall too!

Brother snuggles

Little dreamy blue eyes

Happy Boy!

The Picnic

While Dusty is in DeLand, slaving away working on our house, we are sitting around in Atlanta having picnics! It was beautiful outside today! We found butterfly catchers at Target and decided to have a picnic and try them out. They used them to put their picked flowers in as there were no butterflies to be seen. And after running areound on the playground, they are all napping now!!

Anson's Bedtime Prayer Tonight

"Dear Jesus,
Please help Ella to have a good night sleep and not be afraid of the dark. Amen
Oh, and please let it not rain again. Amen.
Oh, and please God, Oh pretty please, if it has to rain one day only let it rain a little.
Amen."

Background...
Ella had just been complaining that it was too dark in their room. So I said, "Anson will tell you that when you pray, Jesus will help you not to be afraid", hence his prayer. And this afternoon when he was playing outside, it rained on him. :o)

Naptime at our house is interesting... Anson plays "quietly" in his room, Ella sleeps like a rock in Asa's room, and Asa sleeps in our room. But since naptime is the time I use to get work done, I am usually on the computer or on the phone. Asa used to be able to sleep through my noise but not anymore, so this week I tried putting him, cradle and all, in my bathroom for naptime! It worked well! But today Dusty was going to come home during nap time and need the use of our facilities so into the closet went Asa! No sooner had I put his cradle into the closet (don't worry, it's a big closet) Anson walks in and asks where Asa is. When I told him he was in the closet, he chuckled and said "Now that is a strange place for a baby!" His tone was almost to say "Mom, don't you know babies don't go in the closet!" What a kid!