Merry Christmas!

Sorry this is a day late...

Hope you and your family enjoyed celebrating the birth of our Savior!

too much...

Sometimes I feel like life becomes a bit... too much. 

My whole family has been sick for nearly two weeks... 

too much sickness means too much laundry and too many tissues and too much coughing and too much medicine and too many trips to doctors and too much nastiness floating around my house.

My sweet hubby had (minor) surgery on top of our sickness...

seriously too much to handle.

But then things like the tragedy at a sweet elementary school happen...

too much sadness.

too much sorrow.

and I know that I have too much to be thankful for.

My heart and my prayers are with all the families affected.

Cookie Party

Earlier this week, we celebrated my birthday... sort of. 

I invited 5 cute little girls and their mommas over, along with Meme, to bake lots of Christmas cookies!  This is how I decided to celebrate my birthday this year.

I wanted to break my "rule" about mixing my birthday and Christmas! 

I wanted to invite sweet little friends over. 

I wanted to make a mess in my kitchen with love and sugar! 

I wanted to hear my girl giggle with little buddies as they took care of their "babies". 

I wanted to see icing all. over. their. faces.

I loved every minute of this sweet, fun time.

My girl was really excited about baking cookies!  She enjoyed these mint chocolate chips too!

 Little helpers!  They were so interested!

Miss Molly and her momma baked "reindeer" cookies for us!

Mary Cakes and her momma helped make "reindeer" cookies too!

 We made Christmas crafts... Snowmen and Santa Claus!

 Yay for Christmas fun with friends!

 Mint chocolate chip cookies... be still my heart!  These things are super simple and crazy, addictive good!  Bake at your own risk!

 Meme made each of the little girls (and big girls) Christmas tree shaped cakes!  They were delicious!

 The only "man" at our girls get-together!  Baby T is so sweet!

 Emma girl LOVES chocolate!  Maybe that's why she is such a sweetie?!

 Even our littlest friend was happy about the Christmas cookie chaos!

 A finished "reindeer" cookie!  No, reindeer do not have to have the same color eyes... nor do they need a red nose!  Creativity is beautiful!

 We were happy to have Miss Kate join the party after her school day was done!

 Sampling a reindeer... they clearly passed the inspection!

This little lady's smile makes all the mess worthwhile!

 

I was inspired by Laura's week of birthday kindness so on my birthday, we will be delivering all the cookies we made to local firemen, police officers, and other random people!  I can't wait!  

Family Game Day

Not too long ago, my hubby and I took our girl to Georgia Tech for a football game!  To say she was excited, is an understatement!  She was beside herself! 

 This little lady LOVES Buzz!  She was so excited to see Buzz everywhere!

 A very proud daddy with his little girl in front of the Wreck!

We were waiting for the band and cheerleaders to parade into the stadium.  Our girl was a BIG FAN of all this!

 We decided to forgo actual tailgating and walked to our girl's favorite place, The Varsity!

 She was anxiously awaiting her red dog (ketchup only), fries, and of course - frosted orange!  Healthy?  Not so much.  Crazy yummy?  Completely!

 Cheering on her daddy's beloved Yellow Jackets!

Even though this girl missed her nap, she had a GREAT day!

 

I pray that God allows her to remember these fun experiences with mommy and daddy as she grows up.  I pray that these times remind her of just how much she is loved.  Love isn't about stuff... it's about people... and I love these two people!  Such a memorable day!

Thankful

I am thankful for so much but especially for my sweet, little family. 

I love my husband more than I could ever really say and we are parents to the greatest little girl in the world. 

God has blessed us abundantly and we are very, very thankful.

Praying you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with those that mean the most to you!

The Art Barn {again}

A few weeks ago we had the chance to go back to The Art Barn with some of our bestest friends and my girl's Meme!

My girl LOVES The Art Barn and talks about it a lot.  She remembers Farmer Sue and some of the animals' names and the art activity.  It is totally worth the money and the drive.

 My girl is showing Cakes what to do... Some might call it bossy but I prefer to think she's a natural born leader!  :-)

 These girls are so funny... so different but they L.O.V.E. each other!

 Even The Art Barn is more fun with Meme!

 This is Strawberry the miniature pony.  My girl loved her from afar but was a little apprehensive up close!

 No, she did NOT ride this horse.  She sat on this horse for .2 seconds.  She was not a fan.

 But she was pretty happy on the tractor!  Buttons to press and a really big steering wheel!

 Love these sweet girls!

The Art Barn is lots of fun!  I'm sure we'll be back soon!

Santa!

Yes, I know I just bought our Thanksgiving turkey today...

And yes, I realize that my tree is not up; much less decorated...

But, yes, we have already visited with Santa!

 She was serious about telling Daddy what to write on her Wish List!  I was a little concerned about her liking the big man with a beard this year but much to my surprise...

 She was REALLY excited to see him!  At least while waiting in line. 

 There were no tears shed but no real smiles either.

 This was her idea of giving Santa a hug.  Maybe next year!

 And if you ask my girl what she wants for lunch after seeing Santa, she'll tell you "Barsity, Mommy!" So we said bye to Daddy and headed to The Varsity.

 Life is just sweeter when you add a Frosted Orange to the day!

Here's the "official" Santa picture for 2012.

 

Now we can get ready for Thanksgiving!  Gobble, gobble!

One of THOSE weeks...

It has been one of those weeks around here.  The kind where it would be nice to just stay in the bed but that wasn't an option.

It started off with a little Operation Big Girl Room.  I had been to IKEA for some shelves for our girl's bathroom but as my sweet hubby was putting them up... he hit a wire in the wall.  Thankfully, he is very smart and his uncle is smart about this stuff too so... After Meme and Papa came over to assess the wire/wall dilemma... it was decided the wall had to be opened up so they could fix the wire.  A hole.  In the wall.  And so it begins...

Then my over 2 year old child decided that 1:45AM was a perfectly acceptable time to wake up that night/morning.  And not go back to sleep until nearly 4AM after some very intense squalling and poop {a completely different post for another day...}...

After little sleep, a bit of rushing to get food ready to take to our church leadership AND get my girl to PMO on time... I hit the side mirror of our car.  Not like a little oops.  Shattered.  Mirror still attached but shattered.  My girl is crying because Mommy might have let a few colorful words fly... 

She had a ROUGH day at school and I had to pick her up early.  My usual 4 hour break was reduced to about 2 hours.  Who really needs to go grocery shopping for Thanksgiving anyway?

The next day was a breath of fresh air!  Literally!  My girl ran a few errands with me then we met sweet friends at their neighborhood park for a picnic and play date!  Praise God for great friends and sunshine!

The following day was fairly uneventful which was a blessing because the one after it... plenty to think about and react to...

Let's just say... we have had lots to pray about this week.  Lots to think about.  Lots to schedule.  Lots to consider.  Lots to evaluate.  And lots to be thankful for.

 I rearranged our living room {again} while my hubby was out of town and made a little spot for our girl's crafty goodness!  Thank you, Laura for the storage ideas and the nudge to get this done!

 I did {finally} get our Thanksgiving Tree painted.  Now we just need to catch up on our hand print leaves and what we are thankful for...  Thanks, Andrea for this whimsical take!

 I bought sunflowers!  You can't help but smile when looking at these beauties!

My girl helped me make break-n-bake Gingerbread Spice cookies for a sweet friend!  Can you see the sugar sprinkled on top?  Oh these are a favorite!

No matter what may come our way this week or next or in the coming months or years; we know that our God is greater...

Our God is greater, Our God is stronger

God You are higher than any other

Our God is healer, awesome in power

Our God... Our God





Spend the Night Party!

We are "those" parents.  We have never been away from our girl.  At least we hadn't... until a couple weekends ago.  Yes, it took over 2 years for us {read - mommy} to come to terms with leaving our girl with someone else for a spend the night party. 

She didn't just get to spend the night with any random person... she went to spend the night with Mama Mary, Aunt Tedda, Aunt Cay, Papa Paul, and Baby Will!  To say she was loved and well cared for might be the understatement of the century! 

Our girl was SO EXCITED about her "pend the night party"!  And honestly, after I got over my anxiety about it... I was pretty excited about getting an entire day and night with my hubby!

 We're on the way to Mama Mary's!

Family picture before the big STN party!

 

Hubs and I hit the road back to downtown to do... whatever we wanted!  We had one official plan {GA Tech football game} but other than that, we flew by the seat of our pants... just because we could! 

 It was fun to join the masses on The Flats!

My hubs is a die-hard Tech fan so getting to experience this with him is half the fun!

 We saw friends we haven't seen in too long!  Even this little friend was cheering on the Jackets with his dad... super sweet boy!

 My hubs loves taking me to places in Atlanta I've never been... thus we walked to The Vortex for a burger after the game!  It was a definite experience and a really yummy burger!  Thanks honey!

This little lady did NOT want to leave Aunt Tedda when we picked her up Sunday morning.  She had such a great time with everyone that she sobbed when I pried her away and put her in the car to head home. 

 

Thanks for loving my girl, Leslie fam!  She had so much fun at her first spend the night party that we might have to repeat it!  Soon!