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!



Some days...

You just need a cupcake to turn things around!  We had one of those days last week and I treated both of us to a mighty delicious cupcake!  While this was definitely NOT on my diet, it was certainly needed for my sanity!  This 2 year old is really cute and has the ability to be really kind but she also has the ability to drive me NUTS!  So I drove to Cami Cakes (thank you, Jesus, for Cami Cakes)... sanity restored (at least for the moment).

Mint Chocolate for Mommy and the rather large "Shrawberry" cupcake for my dear, precious child.

 Yes, I stripped her down before handing her this massive amount of sugary icing topped with uber healthy fruit

 Don't let her fool ya... she's NOT willing to share this treat

But it was oh so tasty!

Don't worry... she didn't eat the WHOLE thing... And yes, I ate every last little, bitty, tiny crumb of my sanity-restoring cupcake! 

Cute little 2 year old girl - you drive me crazy sometimes but I wouldn't trade ya for anything!  Especially fun little Mommy & Daughter treats like this one!  I love you!



Halloween 2012

Halloween... one of my favorite holidays! 

There is something so fun about seeing little (and not so little) kids dress up and have a great time!

 

We are super blessed to live in a small-ish neighborhood that is filled to the brim with kiddos!  Literally at one point there were something like 10 bambinos born in our neighborhood in one year!  Anyway... the Hawkins family (friends and neighbors) had a Halloween party to kick start the evening and it was CrAzY!  Not crazy like when you were "young and partyin' like a rockstar" kind of crazy but crazy like adults were actually tripping over kids!  Their house house was packed with kids, costumes, parents, food... and everyone was having a great time!  Here's a picture of most of the kids...

Do you see my little bumblebee?

 

After the party broke up, all the cute kiddies went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood!

It did not take long at all for our girl to get the idea of what this was all about... and she loved it!  She would point to the next house and say, "Get more candy there!"  Ha!  It was a lot of fun!

Leaving our house for the party!

My sweet family!

After calling it a night, our girl chose an orange tootsie roll pop as her treat to eat!  She ate the ENTIRE thing and her little sticky hands left sticky little prints everywhere!

 

We also had a cute little tiger stop by for a sleepy visit...

 

It was a spook-tacular Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch 2012

Pumpkins!  Orange is not my favorite color but I love a cute pumpkin!  It's always a debate in our house about how many pumpkins our family of 3 (plus our dog makes 4) actually need.  I love carving pumpkins!  I love roasting the seeds... some salty and some sweet with sugar and cinnamon!  Now that I'm a mommy, I love seeing my girl enjoy picking out her very own pumpkin!  Yes, I did try to "guide" her decision but in the end, she chose her pumpkin and it's perfect!

It was a fun family outing!  She's getting to be such a big girl with so much personality!  I couldn't love this kiddo more!