pitiching, spiders, santa, and nails

saturday morning dawned early and foggy. matt headed off to work, addie, frankie, and lexi turned on a lifetime movie (yay) and christian, laney, and i headed to richmond. we ran into some traffic early on from an accident on 234. visibility was really bad.

driving in fog is weird anyway, but bridge crossing in fog, yuck.

we got to richmond around 11 and checked out a pitching machine for the boy.

it looked good so we made a deal. we got a juggs jr pitching machine (circa 1985) and a 60 foot long net for a batting cage. woo hoo!

chris set it up in the backyard and called mike and david over as soon as we got home.

they had fun batting around.

so about that net. they balled it up and squeezed it into the space for the 2 seats next to laney. a few minutes into the drive we found a small spider that christian took care of. then about 30 minutes later, another small guy. then, about an hour into our drive home i looked at my window and there was a big black spider on the inside. i hyperventilated a little, but chris managed to get it out the window without us crashing,  then a few more small spiders. something wasn't quite adding up... we started suspecting the net. christian turned around to really look at it, and sure enough, 4 more small spiders were busily spinning webs in the net. then another large spider on the roof, then another on laneys window. and we still had a half hour to drive! we put our hoods on (so as to prevent spider hair) and christian kept a vigilant watch on the net and laney. he killed several more little ones that got close to laney. he kept saying "get away from my baby sister!" and "it's okay, laney, i got your back."

it.was.so.gross.

we got home, checked lanes for spiders (she was clear, phew!) and i made christian take the spider infested net to the backyard. hopefully they'll go find new homes.

blech!

(crossing back over the nice bridge, still foggy on the way home)

from there we hurried up to the clubhouse to see santa!

enter addie huge fit #4 (for those keeping track).

not sure what she was mad about, but she did not want to see santa.

i stupidly thought i could talk her into it, but she was not to be deterred from her bad mood.

who is this demon child and what did she do to my sweet 4-year-old?

frankie, on the other hand, loved santa. :)

i think he might even be her "best friend in the whole wide world."

after that i still (stupidly) thought she could get it together. chris and lex went home and i coaxed and waited and timed out and ignored. she was having none of it. she didn't want to go home. but she didn't want to ride the sleigh either. it was awesome. :(

i am just at such a loss as to what to do. she wouldn't move, i had delaney, i had to seriously threaten her to even get her to walk home. then we had a talking to, spank, and time in her room till she could act like a normal person.

in the meantime, frankie, laney, and i walked back to the clubhouse for our long awaited sleigh ride around the neighborhood.

too fun.

and cold up there!

after the fun sleigh ride i decided to give addie another try so we went back home.

this is how i found her.

maybe she's just been tired?

so then frankie and i went back to the park, (3rd time) this time on her bike.

she finally rides!

she used to just let me push her.

3rd time around we checked out the fire engine.

she didn't love it.

she wouldn't even pose in front of the fire engine.

so laney had to do it.

 

at least i have one that will pose for pictures for me. ;)

this is her regal wave.

then we played and played at the park.

we came home and made chili, and while eating dinner lexi reached into her pocket for something.

then she started screaming.

a few weeks ago she slammed her finger into the car door of the mccombs big suburban (er trip #2 for october) and her nail has been barely hanging on since then.

so when she reached into her pocket she snagged her nail and pulled some off even more.

warning

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gross picture ahead

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feel free to skip it

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i can't really handle it either

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after the nail fiasco, i took lexi to peter's, chris went to mike and david's, matt finally got home, i got girls baths and to bed, matt did homework, and that was our saturday.