A Day in the Coop

Just a quick photo for you...

2011-10-10T13:03:00.002-04:00

I know I haven't posted in a while there really is no excise except that I am doing the work of 3 people at the moment and it is keeping me hopping.

So here is a photo of pure joy, and yes there is a great story, and yes I will share it with you, and no I will not take a month to do it. For now just enjoy. ;D

This honestly has to be one of my most favorite pictures. It just makes me smile every time I see it and remember our special Mommy daughter weekend.

Back to the house.....

2011-08-30T11:41:00.000-04:00

You might remember that we had a surprise visit in June for a gorgeous giant white oak tree as it crashed through our roof. Well now I can say that the work is finished and even the swing set has been replaced and is a huge hit. :D

It was definitely a long process but because of the age of the house and good insurance we now basically have a new outside shell to protect all the people living inside. Have a look at the final pictures, now we just need to do a little aesthetic work, and our little house will be simply lovely. :D

So first off the siding could not be matched since the house is 60+ years old, so off it all came, and believe it or not the wood siding underneath was in good shape. Woo hoo!! So brand new Hardy Board went up over the whole house, and this meant new paint too.

It was already starting to look great even without the paint.

This is the side of the house where the tree came down. Now we have a nice graded side play yard for Boogie's new swing set.

Kitchen side of the house and the dog yard. I wish it still had beautiful grass but dogs will do bad things to grass, so we struggle to keep it alive.

Here we are with new siding all finished and new paint. This color is called Aruba Aqua and it looks fantastic. We have the matching accent color to put on the lower bricks.

Play yard side with all the old aluminum siding removed and brand new Hardy Board and paint. The house looks so fresh and clean now.

This is before the swing set went up, but you can see the slide sticking up there above the crazy fence. That is what I am dubbing Jon's attempt at extending the wood fence because believe you me it is definitely crazy. He promises that he will fix it, and when it is properly cut it will look great. :D The window at the top is to Charlotte's little room in the attic. Update on that soon.

Here is the back and side of the house at the kitchen. Just a nice clean crisp look with a pretty new roof. It looks like a brand new house.

Then we had to put up the new swing set for the girls, and its a doozy. We decided that we could get more bang for our buck if we recycled so that's what we did. Courtesy of Craigslist we found a fantastic swing set with swirly slide, monkey bars, swings, climbing wall and little picnic bench for what we could have bought the basic structure for. So we put a little elbow grease into it, with a little plastic paint and wood stain, and we got a fabulous swing set for the girls.

It was definitely a hit with all the kiddos at Boogie's slumber party recently.

PJ has mastered the climbing wall much to my horror, as I just know that she is going to fall at any moment.

She loves to climb and slide though, so I just keep an eye on her and let her have fun. She's my little daredevil to be sure. I miss the shade of that big beautiful tree to be sure, but the girls love the bigger play yard that they have now so I think it was a good trade.

Slow row to hoe...

2011-08-29T13:57:00.000-04:00

Sorry guys I am slow getting back into the swing of things. Between to goings on at home and Corporate tax deadlines looming on the horizon, the blog has suffered. It might take me till the end of September to get back into the swing of things so consider yourself warned. However, I do have some great photos to show you today, and I think you'll love them.

Last weekend I got a rare opportunity to spend the entire weekend doing things that I like to do all by myself. Jon took the little girls and went to the farm for a visit to celebrate Papa Edge's 60th birthday. I packed up the car early Saturday morning and headed out for a short road trip. Woo hoo!! I was headed to Huntsville for some Connie time with a dear friend, but along the way I had plans. These plans included Pointe Park on Lookout Mountain just outside Chattanooga and a rest area on Nickajack lake. Sounds kinda funny doesn't it, but just you wait.

On the way to my first stop Pointe Park, I got a call from another Connie friend of mine....she said and I quote..."You are driving entirely to fast". Huh??? To which she said 82mph is entire to fast...to which I again said huh?? then "Where are you?? Turns out I had just passed her and her husband on their way up to house hunt in Nashville. So lesson learned Don't think that just because you are no where near your home town, that someone you know won't catch you speeding (just a little, and I did slow down). :D

Anyway once I got through the construction in Chattanooga and on my way up Lookout Mountain. Now if you like to drive steep curvy roads (all you motorcycle riders) this is the ride to take, it was fabulous. The views were gorgeous and the atmosphere was amazing. It took my time but made it to the top of the mountain about 10am, and the light was gorgeous. The park had only been open for a short time so there were few visitors which was perfect for me.

Pointe Park is a national historic park that was the lookout, hence the name of the mountain, for the confederate forces during the civil war. Once you get to the lookout areas you can understand why.

These lookouts are positioned straight towards the city of Chattanooga, and out over Moccasin Bend in the Tennessee river below

There was a large battle at the base of Lookout Mountain as well as its slopes as the Union soldiers tried to take such a strategic position. It was like having a birds eye view, so definitely a place you wanted to be in possession of.

The park is beautiful and well cared for. There are walking trails that lead all the way down the mountain to the Craven house which has some great significance to the battle but I am embarrassed to say I didn't make it to on this trip.

There are information plaques scattered around the park to help you understand the role that this position played in the battle of Chattanooga and then also the battle of Chicamagua just down the road in Georgia.

The is one of the paths that leads down the mountain. It was beautiful and lead to a museum at another lookout point.

This old building held a few exhibits about photography on Lookout Mountain (definitely an interest for me), life in the camps and signaling used during the war to alert troops of enemy movements. It was well presented and very fascinating. If you are anything like me then you LOVE looking at old photographs and making up stories, and this little museum was just full of great old pictures.

This is the view of Moccasin bend from the front patio of the Museum, Chattanooga is over to the right.

There were many many photos in the museum of people sitting with their legs hanging over on that rock. I think I would have to pass.

On of the side doors leading back out to the path to return to the top of the mountain. I unfortunately had to go back up so that I could make it to Huntsville in time to relax in the pool. :D

While I wouldn't dare go out on the one rock out crop, I did find a very interesting formation that I just had to have a picture near, so it was time to use the good ole timer setting. Not a perfect picture but better then nothing. :D

There is a very long stone wall that runs round the park, and has look out towers incorporated into it. Definitely adds to the picturesque feeling.

With your $3 entrance fee you also have access to a small interactive museum that tells you all about the Battle of Chattanooga, or The Battle in the Clouds. The painting above and below was commissioned by one of the generals at the battle to show the last day of battle.

Lookout Mountain is in the upper left hand corner of this massive painting. It is absolutely stunning in person, and the attention to detail is amazing. Definitely worth seeing, actually the whole park is a must see if your in the area. It makes for a tranquil couple of hours, with some very majestic views.

Once I left Pointe Park I was heading back North again and stopped at the rest stop on Nickajack lake, which so far in my travels is the most beautiful rest stop. It sits on an island in the middle of the lake, so you have beautiful water all around you. It was definitely a good place to stop and take a rest for a moment.

On the north bound side rest area, you have a great view of this Trussel bridge. This was the main reason for my stop. I had seen it before in the car as we zoomed over the lake, but never got a chance to stop and really admire it. So this trip I did.

There were speed boats everywhere so getting a picture without a boat was a great feet. However it was worth the time.

I then took just a couple of minutes to sit and reflect under one of the large shade trees on the bank. The only other person there was an Asian monk who was also having a moment of reflection. I thought it was a good sign that my weekend was going to be wonderful. I had to take a minute to play with my camera again, this time a self portrait was in order, even without make up. With the timer sitting in my out-stretched hand, I think it came out pretty well.

I finally decided it was time to go and hopped back in the car and made it to Huntsville will plenty of time to enjoy the pool, Orange Cremesicles and then a good dinner and great movie with a fabulous friend. Sunday brought more adventure so stay tune.

Better late then never.....right?

2011-08-09T13:16:00.000-04:00

So last year right about this time my hubby and I got the rare occasion to have a whole night to ourselves, no girls. So we went out and had a nice time, and came home and had a nice time and in May we welcomed our little surprise into our family. She was a BIG surprise HUGE, and one that took a while to get used to, but now I can not even begin to imagine my life without her. She is an angel a blessing and something we had no clue we needed until we had her, so without further ado please let me introduce you to....

Eleanor Savannah

Obviously this is not a new born picture, but I love it so I thought I would start off with it. :D

So now all the nitty gritty details. I had had contractions for days before we went to the hospital, I did the same thing with our other two princesses too. The contractions this time were stronger and more frequent so I thought surely they were leading up to delivery. Well imagine my disappointment when at my 39 week check up I was nothing, nada, zero. No dilation no effacement, nothing. Honestly I was in tears when I left.

I was equally surprised when on Saturday I started having contractions that were getting stronger and stronger and would not stop. I could time them out to every 7 minutes, but you know they like you to wait till every 5 and when I got to that point I told Jon I thought it was time to go to the hospital, especially since we had to call someone to watch the two other girls. I was scared that if I called my OB and told her she would tell me to wait and then that would be it the contractions would stop and I would not be going to the hospital to have my daughter. This had happened before. So finally at 11:30pm we headed to the hospital and got checked in. They checked me and I was 2 maybe 3 centimeters, again the tears were close, and the doctor didn't want to induce at all. I was given the option to walk for an hour and then be checked again. If I had progressed they would have me walk for another hour if I kept progressing then I would stay if not then they would possibly send me home. To say I was determined is an understatement. So at 12:30am we started walking, they checked me at 1:30 and I was 4cm, that's progress, so we walked until 2:30am and let me tell you by the time I got back to the room, I was in a lot of pain. The contractions were really strong and I knew this was a go. Sure enough 5-6cm, and ladies it was time for an epidural. I was in tears by the time the anesthesiologist got there, they pain was worse then anything I felt with the other two, but once that epidural started all was right with the world. :D

This face says epidurals are good. :D

The doc came to tell me that we were definitely going to have the baby today, and she thought that by lunch time she would definitely be here. Well little miss wanted to come a bit earlier then that. So when the doc came back to check me around 8 she was surprised to find we were ready to go. Everyone says that you feel the need to push, but not me, so I had no clue. However Ellie was helpful and after 4 or 5 pushes she was out.

She might not have been happy to be with us but we sure were happy to have her here.

She weighed in at a very healthy 8lbs 9oz. Only eclipsed my Boogie at 8lbs 12oz.

And measured in at 21 inches long, my longest by 1/2 and inch. Matter of fact the girls went up in half inches for 20 to 21.

She calmed down once they got her cleaned up and she just loved the heat lamp.

Once she was all pretty and dressed it was time to meet her public.

First was definitely me since I did all that hard work.

Then daddy and since Papa Edge, Mrs. Priscilla and Auntie Summer were there they got in on the meet and greet too.

Once we were comfy and cozy in the room then the big sisters came to visit.

They loved baby Ellie from the very beginning.

Especially Boogie who is a great big sister.

And of course since they were now big sisters they had to have shirts that proclaimed their new status.

We also had to meet Nah Nah and

Mimi too.

Finally it was time for some more mommy snuggle time.

Our little Ellie may have been a surprise, but it was definitely a good surprise and we are so happy to have another little princess to add to our family.

The house that a tree built...

2011-07-28T10:34:00.000-04:00

Actually rebuilt and repaired, but you get the point.

One night right after I had our littlest princess she and I were sitting in the bedroom, while Jon put Boogie to sleep in her new attic room. The rain was coming down hard, the wind was howling and the trees were bending just a little to far for my comfort. I don't like severe weather to begin with, bad childhood experiences down in Florida, so I was on edge but trying to stay calm, reading a book. All of the sudden..."BAM" scratch "BAM". My heart is racing, rain is pouring in the through the hole in the ceiling and all I can think is Jon and Boogie are up in the attic and the giant tree in the side yard has just fallen on the house. One call upstairs reveals that not only are they okay, but Boogie is still asleep as are PJ and the wee one.

We quickly move everything out from under the hole in the roof and Jon runs outside to try to find something to tarp the roof with. Having found a Bagster dumpster bag my husband climbs onto the roof, in the rain wind and lightning and tries to stop the rain from pouring into our bedroom. Insurance is called and we finally start to relax a bit. Once the rain let us a smidge I got Jon to follow me out to the side yard with the umbrella to take some pictures. and this is what it looked like at about 11pm.

Its bad we can tell that, but we didn't really get the full effect till the next morning... when we got up and saw this...

Boogie's swing fort got upended and twisted up a good bit, the root ball was huge, although very very shallow.

The tree started at the side of the house where our Master Bedroom is and went well out past the other side of the house where the kitchen is. It hit the roof and then rolled hit the roof again and landed on the side of the house and fence.

This is from the kitchen side of the house, the tree went out a good 10 feet past the end of the house. Seeing it made me realize that had it landed just a few more feet to the other side and it would have landed on me, the wee one and PJ. Thank you, thank you, thank you God for watching out for us.

This is from the back yard, there is a little house down there somewhere behind all those branches.

This is what you saw out of the little girls bedroom window. PJ loved it because there were tons of finches in the branches and one day the neighbors cat even visited. LOL!!

This was the view out of our room, kinda neat and private, but also wanted to get rid of that tree.

Once the tree was removed and the estimate was in to fix the house, it was decided that the siding on our house was too old to try to match and so the whole house would have to be resided, a whole new roof would have to be put on and of course all of this was done once the structural issues were fixed. It took a little over a month to get the process started. In that time I picked out a new color for our little house. Its the green in the middle of this picture, a nice light color called Aruba Aqua. I was a little timid, but as you will see it turned out wonderful.

So this is our little house before all the work began. Come back tomorrow to see what it looks like all spruced up. :D Oh and in case your wondering, our fantastic insurance also paid to have Boogie's swing set replaced since it was so twisted up. Wait till you see what she got. Remember check back tomorrow to see more.

I'm back....

2011-07-18T14:31:00.000-04:00

Its been a while and I apologize, but I did want to pop in and say that I am back. There will be a new post very soon, I need to introduce you to our newest addition. She is the reason why I have been MIA, but I am back, so until I have a couple of extra minutes, here is a of photo of our newest little princess.

Enjoy!

A Wicked Weather Prayer...

2011-04-28T13:34:00.000-04:00

There is no doubt in my mind that you have seen the pictures and videos of the total devastation that came through the South yesterday. We were on edge all night last night as at least a dozen tornadoes touched down in various parts of Georgia, but thankfully we were not effected. I prayed and I prayed hard, and I felt bad about that because I don't pray often enough. However, I think that God heard me and he kept us safe. He watched out for all our family and friends scattered across Alabama and Georgia, and we are all safe. I prayed mostly for my kiddos, the two little ones that I couldn't imagine life without and the new little one that we have only weeks until we meet. It was selfish of me as a mother to pray to God to keep them safe, but I did it anyway with fervor because that is what moms do. We pray everyday for God's infinite wisdom to protect our children, and I think he understands that. I breathed a sigh of relief at 1:30am when it looked like we were out of the woods in the Atlanta metro area, and I fell asleep thanking God for his protection.

This morning I woke up and felt sad and humble because while God had seen fit to keep my family and friends safe from these storms, there were many, many others that could not say the same thing. Many others that probably prayed the same prayer I did but would not wake up in this world this morning. Many who were spared but lost everything they owned. Many who made it through a terrifying night of wind and rain and hail to see the sun come up and learn that a loved one or a close friend had not made it.

So today instead of selfishly praying for myself or my children, I pray for those that have lost. Lost all their possessions, lost friends and loved ones, lost simply everything. I pray that God can be the strength that they need to pick up whatever pieces are salvageable and rebuild their lives. I pray that no matter what they lost yesterday they are able to find a way to continue living.

That is my prayer today from the bottom of my heart.

Hippity Hoppity...look at the colored eggs!

2011-04-20T10:17:00.001-04:00

The girls have been spoiled with Easter Egg hunts lately and they will have one more on Saturday before Easter is officially here. I missed PJ's official first Easter Egg Hunt, because like every spare moment I have, I was working on getting all this construction done in our house. However I have it on good authority from their Nah Nah that the girls had a great time.

Jon and I did get to go with them on Sunday to what we will call PJ's first officially photographed Easter Egg Hunt, and boy does she know what to do. :D We were running late and just barely made it in time, so I apologize for her hair being in her face and not up and cute, but 2 more minutes and there would be no pictures.

PJ was a pro at picking up the eggs, but don't think that she was letting go of Jon's finger to do it.

This little basket was perfect for her, nice and light, but deep enough to hold a few eggs.

We also caught her standing on her own. She is trying to convince us that she can't do this, but I have photographic evidence now!

I think she knows that cat is out of the bag. What do you think?

Boogie did great too. However I was to slow to catch any of the action. Her group were off like rockets and the eggs were all collected in a matter of seconds. :D

Here are the girls together, getting PJ to look at the camera is no easy feat let me tell you, so if one of them looks happy then I'll take it.

PJ was very happy to show me all the eggs she had collected though. The blue one was her favorite.

This was Boogie's favorite thing...the giant bouncy slide. She would have stayed on it until they deflated it if we had had the time to stick around.

This girl is a daredevil from time to time, and just adores going fast.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the day...look at that height. Go Boogie!!!

Once there was a sufficient amount of sliding done it was time for some good yummy sugar.

Introducing cupcakes....my girls have never met a cupcake they didn't like. I think they come by that honestly.

Although Boogie is more partial to the frosting then the actual cake part. Good thing PJ took care of that other pesky part for her.

There was no concealing the evidence of a well enjoyed cupcake.

After cupcakes there was a Bunny Hop race. Now Boogie has been unknowingly practicing for this in the front yard. The other week I looked out the front windows and she was hoping from one end of the yard to the other in a black trash bag. I guess she knew she would need that skill in the near future.

All the little kiddos looked adorable in their Bunny Hop sacks. Boogie is the 3rd from the right.

Then the race was on. Boogie didn't win, but she gave it a good effort and had a great time.

PJ and Jon or course watched and cheered her on which probably made her the happiest of all.

It was a great day, enjoyed by everyone. Thanks Nah Nah and Bop for inviting us over for a great Easter Egg Hunt. :D

Wordless Wednesday...My Sisters

2011-04-06T10:40:00.001-04:00

Actually my parents didn't give me sisters, just one little brother that I loved to torment as a child. However, when I was deciding to go to college I only looked at two because I "knew" where I was going to go...Stetson University. Just to keep my options open though, I also applied at a small liberal arts college in South Carolina that was an all women's college. No way was going to go there, but the music program was good and they seem genuinely interested to have me there, so mom and I went to check it out. In 1999 I graduated with a Bachelor in Music - Vocal Performance from Converse College, that all women's school that there was no way I was going to.

Those 4 years were some of the best of my life thus far. I have amazing memories of good times in the dining hall, hallway sleepovers and shouts of "Man on the Hall" to announce a male visitor. Matter of fact I had just started dating my husband (long distance) when I started my freshman year at Converse so he shares many of my memories as well. All that said the most precious thing that I received during my time at Converse were my sisters. I think they are why God urged me to this school, yes the academics and faculty were excellent, and class size was extremely small, but God knew that as I moved forward in my life I would need sisters, and so he sent me to a place where a could find a diverse group of amazing women to call my sisters. Many of these women I have known as long as my husband, and just like him, I can not begin to imagine my life without any of them. So as a little tribute here they are, some of the most amazing sisters that a women could ever ask for, and I thank God for them every single day. :D

We are all spread out across the eastern part of the US but somehow we always find a way to see each other. Especially for big events, like weddings.

Divorce Showers/Baby Showers

10 Year College Reunion

Baby showers for twins!!

Revisiting the place where we all met.

4th of July

Kids Birthdays

These are my wonderful sisters that I have had the pleasure and honor to know and love for the past 16 years. I love you all!!

April Fools Recap...

2011-04-04T13:13:00.000-04:00

Friday I woke up and thought..Hhhmmmm its April Fool's I'll send out an email to everyone and tell them that I am in labor. Then I thought no way Jose you will freak everyone in your family out beyond belief. So I didn't because I didn't want to scare everyone, I was good.

Well the universe that had been conspiring against me all week had other plans. About 9:15 I started having contractions, and by noon when the nurse called back they were pretty strong and pretty regular. I counted them out at about 10 minutes apart. I was told to go to Labor & Delivery and get checked out because I was only 33 weeks and well that is just a bit early for a baby if you can help it. So I went, and by the time they got me back and got me hooked up to a monitor the contractions were about every 5-6 minutes. Not unbearable but very noticeable and now I was worried.

It took 5 hours to actually see the doctor, which I thought was just a bit much considering that I was now having contractions every 3-4 minutes and they were more painful. I was checked and there was thankfully no progress but they were coming quick and strong, so I was given fluids and a pill to try to stop them. I think the fluids made it worse rather then better, and I was asked to go leave a urine sample so they could check for a UTI. Now let me tell you, I have had a UTI they suck, and I know what they feel like, but I had no symptoms what so ever, not one. Guess what I had a UTI and it helped to start the contractions. So then I get antibiotics and more fluids, now by this point, really I am writhing in pain because the contractions were so hard and so close together, and I had amazing back pain. This is honestly the pain point with PJ where I got the epidural because the contractions were so strong, but no epidural Friday night, I just sat and waited, and waited and waited.

I saw the doc again very briefly to be checked to make sure I hadn't progressed with the hard contractions, and while I had softened a bit there was do dilation, so I was give the choice to either stay the night or go home. Well this was already an expensive date night for Jon and I so we chose to go home. We could get back to the hospital quickly if we had to, and our bed was definitely more comfortable then what I was in there. So with scripts in hand we headed home at 10:30pm exhausted an thankful that Princess #3 had decided to stay put.

Looks like the April Fools joke was on us! That will teach me to even think about joking about being in labor.

I can finally stop saying..."Please don't fall in the hole"

2011-03-31T13:22:00.000-04:00

This is one excited little girl right here. We absolutely can not keep her out of the attic space even though it is not finished. She would sleep up there already if we would let her, or had a bed up there yet. She just smiles so sweetly and says please may I go up to my room, what else can you do but give in?

If for some reason we have to tell her no, this is what the Boogie Monster looks like at our house. Its not a pretty sight and definitely would scare the bejesus out of me if it were living in my closet. In order to keep this monster at bay we had to finish a very important part of the room build out....

The banister that goes around the stair opening. I seriously had nightmares about one wrong step and down went Jon, or Boogie or myself, so that banister had to go up.

It was not a quick project at all. There were lots of pieces and some fabrication of railings, because HD had some really crappy wood that day, so it took some time. We also decided that at 1.97 a spindle compared to 4.95 a spindle we would make the banister out of pressure treated pine. By the way there are 31 spindles total not including the 4 corner posts, so that starts to add up quickly.

Even using pressure treated porch railing pieces I have to say I think the final result is pretty amazing. Jon did a great job fabricating the hand railings out of regular ole 2x4's and the toe boards are made out of the scraps. Way to use the whole product honey!!

This much of the banister took about 3 hours to measure, cut and construct, like I said it was not a quick project. Doesn't it look great though?

The shape is a little unusual per my dad's design, but it works well. We prefer to say it looks like the rear of a little sail dingy rather then a coffin since it closely resembles both.

Finally with all the pieces cut and put into place it was time to put a primer coat on the finished banister. Because the flooring is still not in we let Boogie help us. Its fun to have her involved in building her big girl room and she of course just loves it. Painting of wood is where my dad and I parted ways on this project, but I have to say this is unusual for me too. I usually even opposed to staining wood, but remember this is pressure treated pine which means the wood is that lovely green color, so would have been hard to stain and poly and still have a nice look. Plus the white will fit into the look of the room perfectly, and Boogie loves it. Sorry dad but just this once I prefer the painted wood.

On the day that we finished up the banister we also went and picked up Boogie's new bed. Dad had volunteered to build her a mates bed with drawers underneath for storage, but he ran out of time. I got very lucky and found one of craigslist with a bookcase headboard for even more storage. Woo hoo!!! It is not as high a quality as anything that dad would make, but it works beautifully in the space and is perfect for what we need it for, plus coming off of craigslist it was fairly inexpensive and we are recycling. Hopefully in some post soon I will be able to show you what the whole bed looks like but for now the headboard lives in the attic and the rest of the bed is in pieces downstairs in the living room.

Stay tuned for the next installment of "As the Attic Turns' entitled either "Jon totally floored me", or "Look who's coming out of the closet. Until then we'll leave a light on in the attic for you. :D

Playing in the Rock and Mud...

2011-03-29T13:27:00.000-04:00

Sheet rock and drywall mud that is.... Jon prefers the other type of rock and mud, but he is good with both of them. :D

Now I am just a little (32 weeks) pregnant and while I think I can hang drywall just fine my dad and husband would have none of it. So the guys did most of the work here. I love it because these pictures really make it start to look like a room.

The space isn't huge but for Boogie its absolutely perfect and she just can't wait to get up here. Because the space is a bit tight all the 4x8 sheets of drywall had to be cut and brought up the stairs so there are lots and lots of seams to mud in. Just more work to do 3 or 4 times to make it all nice and smooth.

After pricing windows we decided to replace the aluminum storm window that was up here with a nice vinyl double pained window to match the rest of the house. Surprising enough it went in super easy, and I think it looks much nicer then the old window.

Jon being the wonderful patient dad that he is indulged Boogie and let her help him dry mud (mud the seams in the walls and ceiling. This was her first go at this task and she had a great time. I also figure that we are teaching her a marketable skill just in case. :D

Her technique is a bit unusual though. She would scoop up the mud on the little spreader and then scrape it off with her hand and plop it on the wall and THEN smooth it out. LOL!! She also managed to miss all the seams on her piece of drywall. However she had a great time and it all got fixed.

She had to admire and critique her work when done. Once it passed her inspection then she could move on.

The next few photos are of the dynamic duo working together. They sure do make a good team.

I'm telling you it may look like child labor, but this is one happy little girl. Anytime she can do something with her daddy she is just about as happy as a fly in honey. :D

Up next....I can finally stop saying "Please be careful and don't fall in the hole."

"And she's climbing a stairway to her bedroom....."

2011-03-28T12:26:00.001-04:00

Okay so the next step in getting the attic ready is actually getting to the attic. With the closets torn out it was time to demo the scary 1950 attic stairs and put in some real fixed stairs. Dad is awesome and after measuring the space and looking at standard tread height this is what he was able to make out of a regular ole 2x10x12. This is what our stairs now rest on. Thank goodness it was a beautiful weekend because our house is not big enough to fabricate this in side.

Once it was screwed into the studs through the drywall it was time to actually put the stair treads on. We took our time at HD and picked out boards that had pretty or interesting grain to them as we are just going to put a light pine stain on them and then polyurethane. Dad routered the front lip so that it has a nice curve to it. I think they look pretty good.

This is definitely better then going up and down on those pull down stairs. They seriously had a warning from the previous owner to be careful how much weight you hauled up and down them. SCARY!!

On a side note please ignore my feet in this shot although at 32 weeks pregnant I am pretty stoked that I can still see them. :D

Once the treads were on it was time to put the front face plates on. The under part of the stairs will also serve as part of our closet, so its a good idea to put an additional piece of wood across the front. I need to keep my insane shoe fetish a secret for as long as possible.

Jon and Dad taking a much deserved break on the new stairs. I am telling you that they worked their butts off in the three days that Dad was at the house. The space is starting to come together. You'll notice that the walls are framed out and that there is the beginning to insulation and drywall.

This is under the stairs in our new expanded closet. In a small house, you really don't want any space to go to waste, so we will use as much as we can.

Boogie was more then excited to be able to easily get up and down the steps into the attic. She also figured out that her Papa had hidden her keyboard and microphone up there, so she entertained everyone while they worked.

I was excited to see that the hole that once housed the 1950 attic steps was closed in. The drywall still hasn't been replaced, but it will be. I am just glad that there is a solid floor there now and I don't have to worry about those creaky, scary stairs falling as I am carrying up boxes and boxes of little girls clothes to store in the attic.

Continue to follow the saga tomorrow's installment....Playing in the rock and mud.

It has to look worse before it looks better....RIGHT????

2011-03-25T16:43:00.000-04:00

So my Uncle left bright and early last Thursday after installing our fantastic new unit, and my Dad showed up that night to start working on the big stuff, you know everything else. So once he arrived at 10pm we spent an hour looking at the space and going over a game plan for the next three days to accomplish as much as possible. Jon was working the next day, but I took the day off to offer dad and extra pair of hands.

So Friday morning I got up bright and early and ran the girls to daycare, got home and dad and I decided what we needed from HD and headed out. In the Durango, without a trailer...I promise this point is very important. Dad and I picked up 4 sheets of drywall, 5 packets of R-30 Insulation, 3 rolls of R-19 insulation (please remember that we are in a Durango with no trailer) 8 2x4x8's and 2 2x10x12's. Yep, all that but no trailer, so we got some rope and prepared to tie it to the roof of the Durango. I then had the brilliant idea to see if someone could help dad lift all that stuff onto the roof and the guy said sure and I'll plastic wrap it up there as well. Plastic wrap, shrink wrap, well that sounds convenient. I drove slowly and we were two blocks from the neighborhood when we heard a snap and two sheets of drywall flew off the top of the car. Well of course I slowed down to turn around and when I turned everything else slid off of the top and took out dad's passenger side mirror. *Sigh* We got it all cleaned up and put back on the roof with ROPE this time and went back to make sure the drywall hadn't hit anyone. Didn't see any collateral damage anywhere so we headed to the house, mirror hanging off the car and came back for the drywall later. I called Jon and told him our tail of woe and he told his boss something along the lines of I really need to get home before my wife and her dad tear the house to the foundation, they have already tried to wipe out Atlanta traffic with drywall.

(This is said Durango and you will be happy to know that Jon was able to find a new mirror to replace the one that I broke and it was better then the original, so woo hoo)

Well Jon made it home in record time and that is saying something for Jon, and he and dad started the double D's....Demolition and Destruciton.

This used to be my linen closet and beyond that where dad is standing was my cubby for the dresser, but not any more...

All these walls and ceiling had to come down all the way to the exterior wall which happens to be in what used to be my closet to make way for the stairs that go up to the new attic room.

Dad was a little perplexed when we came across a faux wall built to allow space for the drain pipes for the AC. He and Jon took care of it lickity split and they were back on track.

Once part of the ceiling was out you could see up into the attic and Jon needed to make sure they knew where the pipes and wiring was located for the AC so that they didn't get busted. He looks a little mischievous up there doesn't he. :D

I ran out and picked the girls up from daycare and we shared a super yummy fruit smoothly. Of course once PJ got a hold of it there was no getting it away from her, period.

This little smirky around the straw smile was all for her Daddy.

I got a big pretty toothy smile from Boogie as she snacked on her Cheerios.

Dad and Jon got back to work fixing the hole where the opening of the dresser cubby use to be, and continuing the destruction of the ceiling/attic floor for the staircase opening.

This is looking up into the attic through the staircase opening inside of my closet. Let me just tell you it looks a heck of a lot different now.

There was one other small incident that night...Jon managed to step off of a rafter in the attic and through the ceiling in the living room. The hole is not huge but now we have to add that repair to our list as well.

The work is going well and I have tons of progress to show you, but I don't want to bore you to tears so the next installment will be titled "And she's climbing a stairway to her bedroom", with the awesome guitar solo and everything. Stay tuned!!!

Changes are coming to our house

2011-03-24T09:09:00.000-04:00

I posted a while back that we were remodeling our attic so that Boogie would have a place to sleep once Princess #3 arrived in May. Well I am happy to report that the process is well underway and so I don't bore you all to tears I will break in down into multiple posts.

The first major portion of the remodel was to have the AC unit replaced. I am very fortunate that my Grandfather and my Uncle own a Heating and Air Company in Florida and offered to come up and put in a new unit for us, for a very very reasonable price. So last week my Uncle and a friend made the trek from Crystal River, FL to Smyrna, GA will everything that they might need to undertake this big project. Let me tell you folks for such a small house these projects are huge. It took 2 days to get everything pulled out and replaced with new stuff, and I am talking all new stuff. I have never thought an AC unit looked so beautiful in my whole entire life, but look at the beauty of this one....

Okay so you do have to ignore the cups, but wow what a beautiful thing, especially since its energy efficient and should bring down our power bill.

Here's the finished product all put together and running. It did take up some of the space that I was hoping to use for room space, but eh we made it work. I mean look at how wonderful it looks in its new home, who could complain about such energy efficient beauty?

With the old unit removed and the ducting redirected under the eves look at how large the space looks. Boogie was so excited she just had to see what her room looked like. :D

I just can't take enough photos of this AC unit, but I promise this is the last one, for now.....

This is the opposite side of the room, it will become closet space, shelves and Linen storage once we're finished and we are getting there.

Next post....let the demolition and destruction begin when Dad rolls into town.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

2011-03-17T15:02:00.000-04:00

Atlanta has an amazing St. Patrick's Day parade, and becuase the company that I work for is based out of Dublin, Ireland we participate every year. This is the first year that I can remember where the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so I loaded up the girls, met up with Jon's sister and we headed down town. I wanted to try to be on the float with the girls, but we had a prior commitment and made it to our sitting spot (and what a spot it was) just in time to see the begining of the parade coming.

We were front and center on the corner where the parade turned so instead of getting a sideview we got to see everything head on. It was fantastic.

The girls seemed less then excited at first but they were decked out in thier green to be festive.

Pipe and Drum bands are my absolute favorite, so I loved it that one started off the parade.

There is also nothing like a strapping man in a kilt. So what do you think we're they wearing them correctly?

These ladies were having a blast, and the SWAT driver seemed to have trouble guessing his turning distance as this vehicle got up very close and personal to us.

This is the GA State Troops group, and a very nice looking group if I do say so. The little guys out front stole the show though. He took his mascot duties very very seriously.

This guy was brining of the rear and was absolutely adorable.

As you can tell there were lots and lots of police units represented.

Sharp looking old police car from NYC.

Be still my heart another great Pipe and Drum band.

You can't have a parade in GA without big trucks...this is what Jon wants to upgrade to in a few years.

Boogie was starting to enjoy herself and goof around with her little sister. PJ was still people watching.

This is one of my favorite marching bands, they are in almost every major Atlanta area parade. The are called the Feed & Seed Marching Abomination.

Their band uniform is um...very creative.

A loyal Irish braves fan for sure.

Percussion is where its at apparently...

Everyone is very fashionably dressed.

And in a very festive mood. :D

An example of people who start to look like thier dogs. Secretly I wish my hair would curl this well and stay.

I think PJ got a bit bored and so started playing with Boogie's disguarded skirt.

Boogie was just hanging out in the middle of the street enjoying the parade.

This little one was the cutest little lepraucan all day long.

There were kings on horseback with swords....

Of course where there are kings there have to be knights too.

I think PJ liked the King and the Knights becuase she finally smiled.

Boogie gave me a smile too, but it was filled with chicken nugget.

The little dancers were fantastic....

They really seemed to be having a great time, and were just full of energy.

Then finally we saw some familiar faces....

Our float was great this year and we were giving out tons of swag, but unfortunately they moved quickly by and I could only get a couple of quick shots.

Loved this VW, the driver woudl speed up and then slam on the breaks and the cute little bus/truck would do a headstand. Boogie thought it was great too.

Jugglers are always a hit with the crowd.

This is my graduation present to myself when Cooper Princess #3 graduates high school.

PJ got a lift from Auntie Summer so that she could see everything better.

St. Baldrick's is a great foundation, they help raise money for Children's Cancer Research. Every year they do a fundraiser at an Irish Pub in town where participants shave thier heads for donations, and in support of their children. Its a wonderful organization.

There were lots and lots of Star Wars guys. Boogie was in awe, and she really loved that Darth Vader said hi to her. LOL!!

PJ decided to get up and try out her legs a bit. Boogie was there to give support. Aren't thier little matching skirts adorable. My grandmother found them at a yard sale.

Boogie had to do a little, okay a lot, of dancing.

She tried to get PJ in on the action, but well PJ dosen't walk yet, so it was a little touch an go on the dancing.

That didn't stop Boogie though, she is definantly a dance machine.

Tyring out a little high stepping.

PJ just wasn't to sure about all that dancing stuff.

Soon it was time for a cookie break and to enjoy the last of the parade.

Cool little electric car

The "old" World of Coca Cola sign

At the end of the parade a beautiful smile from PJ.

Once we were back in the car and headed to the house, the girls didn't make it 5 minutes before they were both snoring. Then they proceeded to take a 2 hour nap at the house. Thank you St. Patrick's Day Parade.

It was definately a good day!!

Rainy Wordless Wednesday

2011-03-09T10:36:00.000-05:00

You will have to forgive the quality of these photos. Unfortunately my phone doesn't take the best pictures, but I had to show these off (please ignore the glowing white leg)....

These are my completely awesome, comfy and warm rain boots. They are a little bit of sunshine on an otherwise rainy and dreary day. Sometimes you have to find sunshine where you can, and these helped this morning. Thank you zulily.com for such a great buy.

Happy Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday - Spring

2011-03-02T08:43:00.001-05:00

Spring is coming and to me these little beauties welcome it in. I know we still have a couple of weeks were we could get a bit of a chill in the air, but for the most part I think Spring is coming to GA with great speed. Yay!!

My lovely daughter picked these for me, they smell like Spring. There is nothing like a home grown bouquet.

Its Electric Boogie, Boogie, Boogie....

2011-02-28T16:02:00.002-05:00

So this weekends big project for the attic rebuild was to have a new larger breaker box put into the house. Jon has a friend that is an electrician and he was going to come over and help us out. I mean this is Jon and large amounts of electricity and well that is not a safe thing usually. Jon is a bit accident prone and we have been to the emergency room for things like 3rd degree burns and almost sawed off fingers. With that track record having an electrician come over to do this project was a definite must. The only thing is that the electrician never showed up and Jon decided he could do it all on his own. *Sigh*

So it was off to the big HD we went to get our supplies and then home to hopefully no burn the house down or electrocute ourselves.

The first thing to be done was to cut out a hole for the new electrical panel. Most of these things live in a closet somewhere but since this is an old house there is no such panel which means it lives in the middle of my hallway. You will obviously notice that the new box, is considerably larger then the old box. Ce la vie....

You will likely notice that the hole has grown just a bit, but not unreasonably since Jon had to chase wires. I could live with this cut and Jon lured me even further into his thinking by promising me a new outlet on that wall. The old one was put in in 1950 when the house was built and pulled out of the wall every time you unplugged something.

The other tantalizing promise that he made was that he would relocate these wires inside the wall rather then through the back of the girls closet. Well he did get closer, now they at least enter the wall through the baseboard and not the middle of the closet.

Then things started to take a turn for the worse. You will notice that the new box is in place, but Jon forgot to feed a wire through the side into a breaker and sooooo the wall had to be opened again. I was assured that this would be a very easy and seamless fix....Oh brother....

Then there was the hammer incident...while pulling off the baseboard to put up the new drywall the hammer slipped and took a chunk out of the wall. Jon decided the "easiest" thing to go was to just replace the drywall on the whole wall. *Sigh*

Another view of the carnage that was suppose to be an easy installation. Notice that my telephone nook is missing, it came back. I made Jon promise me that he would put it back, its one of the little charming things that I LOVE about our house.

Here is the new outlet that was suppose to help me get over all the carnage that became my hallway. It was really not quiet enough, but I have other ideas for Jon in the future that will make me feel a bit better about all of this.

At least nothing blew up and nothing caught fire and no one was electrocuted. The power came back on and everything works so at least the prime objective was accomplished.

The girls and I ran to get groceries and when we came home, Jon had put up the dry wall and got it mudded in, so at least the hallway was starting to look sort of normal. It will stay like this until we are ready to do all our painting as we will have to remove the attic steps here and replace the drywall in the ceiling as well as reposition the light. Seems like the best idea is to do all of that at once.

So for now my hallway looks like this with its giant electrical box in the middle and cute little telephone nook back in its proper place. The spackle is unfinished and needs to be touched up but by the time this project is nearing an end this hallway will look spectacular.

My only issue is what to hang over that electrical box?

THANK YOU!!!

2011-02-25T11:46:00.000-05:00

That is really all I have to say. For an extremely long time I have been wishing for people to stop by and read my musings and just type a few little words of hello. My dear SIL is very good about this, and keeps my spirits up with her glowing yet I am sure unbiased praise of her favorite (only) nieces, but its been a little lonely around here from time to time.

I can not tell you how excited I was this morning to open my email and see....comments sent to me from my blog. Woo hoo!! If I wasn't 28 weeks pregnant I might have done a cart wheel, never mind the fact that at 34 I still don't know how to do a cartwheel, for you I would have figured it out.

So thank you all. I know a comment, or following a blog may seem like a very small thing, but in my small little world it was a gigantic gesture. Thank you!

Spacial Insanity....

2011-02-24T10:19:00.000-05:00

If you have visited my blog recently you know that we are unexpectedly expecting another little Princess in May. It took a while to wrap our heads around this idea, I think I have said that before, but we are not anxiously anticipating our new addition. This go around things have been a lot different for me as my other two pregnancies were, but this one has been really pretty easy.

The first trimester should never count, because your just getting into the swing of things, your body is completely screwed up with this new little invasion in there and so it does horrible, horrible things to you in retaliation. However once I hit about 12 weeks or so I started to feel pretty good and now that I am almost at 28 weeks I am feeling pretty great. Grant you my iron is low and I do get tired, but I also work full time and have two children, a husband and three dogs, not to mention a house to keep up so that might have something to do with it too.

All in all though I have to say that little Princess Trifecta has been pretty good to me. I feed her and she takes all my weight, I drink as much water as I can force myself too and she attempts to no jump on my bladder that much. Its a give and take relationship that we both seem to be pretty comfortable with.

So now that Jon and I are physically pretty ready for her to be here and mentally prepared for her to be here, we are in no way spacially prepared for her to be here. This is where I feel like a horrible procrastinator, we have to physically make room for this little one and that takes lots of planning and time, so its a slow process and we have about 8 weeks to get it all done. With both of the older girls I am pretty sure that there was a nursery up and ready to function by this point, this go around we don't even have a bassinet ready (we do have a car seat though) and it makes me feel uneasy. We are getting there but it is again slow going, and well with nesting instincts starting to kick in a bit, I am not really into slow.

So to keep me a little more focused and less crazy about the speed of the Attic remodel I am going to post photos of our progress for you to see each week and tell you what we have had done. Might not be extremely interesting, but it might keep me from going insane. So without further ado here is the introduction to this project.

We are converting 1/2 of our attic space into a kinda loft/extra room for our 4 year old, otherwise she would have to sleep in a tent in the back yard when the new baby arrived. So today I just wanted to show you what we are starting with.

We will call this "Some place Dusty and Dark"....

This is the current and original 1950 opening into the attic. It squeaks and its a little scary to say the least. This will disappear in the future.

Since we live in such a small house we use our whole attic space for storage. We have since this photo cleaned out the entire space and re boxed the important stuff and did away with the unimportant stuff. It looks much bigger now.

There used to be two boys that lived up here at one point so there is some outline of a room but we are going to completely revamp it starting with the AC. You will notice that as it is now it is really really in the way, so it have to be repositioned.

The room has decent head clearance, and great floor space, especially for a child. Boogie will probably end up with about 300sqft of floor space once we put in the bed, a little seat and a closet. She should have plenty of room to grow a bit.

This is something that we thought we were going to have to move which would mean doing drywall work on the ceiling in the living room. Now we are just thinking we might make it a little seat or something and disguise it a bit. Its just the beginning but at least the project is going. Hopefully this weekend we will be updating the electrical, and doing some demo on all that beautiful paneling.

Have a great day everyone!!

Wordless Wednesday...Light

2011-02-23T09:00:00.001-05:00

While I really love the light in these pictures, they are some of my favorite of my girls. What I really meant by my title is that these two, and soon thier sissy are the light of my life. So no matter how they are lit, they make everyroom they enter just a little brighter.

Me thinks Spring is a comin....

2011-02-21T13:28:00.001-05:00

This weekend we were blessed with some absolutely gorgeous warm weather, so of course we took advantage of it for a little while. The last time we took the girls to the park PJ was about 2 months old, so it was definitely time to go again. So late in the morning we loaded the girls up in the car and headed up to this great park in Smyrna. Not only is there a fantastic playground, but plenty of beautiful green space and a nice little walking trail as well.

I think that everyone had a great time and really enjoyed the warm sunny weather.....

Okay there was one moment that we had to get through when Boogie realized all the swings were taken, but it rapidly got better.

Seeeeee here is how it rapidly got better, a swing opened up. LOL!!

Even PJ got a turn on the swings, and I think she might like to try it again.

Boogie really really just loves to swing and the higher the better, you can't go high enough for her.

See this says swing me higher then that...

This says...Oh yeah daddy, rock on!!

This is just a favorite picture of mine....

This is what happens when you have too much fun and stick your finger in a light socket. (JK)

Once we were done on the swings it was time for a nice leisurely stroll....

Yep nice and slow around to the fountain...no way does it look like PJ is saying "Whoa horse, I say WHOA!!!"

An of course once we got to the fountain she just had to get out.

Still had to fix the shoes and then WALK over to the fountain.

Practice, practice, practice...

Whew we made it

Big sissy joined us and we all did percussion on the fountain top. PJ thought it was fantastic.

Then after a while of playing she went and got all serious on me, and it was time to load of the stroller and head back to the play ground, for just a bit more fun.

Boogie insisted on pushing, but that didn't last too long.

I would really like to know when those long thin legs got here. I know where she got them from, just look at her daddy,but where are my little girl's chunky legs?

On the way back we had to test out the grass with some marching.....

and twirling....

and of course flying, there must always be flying.

We had just enough time left to do some sliding, and boy can Boogie slide.

She loves the super fast slide....

I like all the movement and her expression going down the super fast slide so its a win-win. :D

PJ decided that she wanted to get in on some of the slide action too, and soon....

It was a friendly competition between sisters. I have to say that Boogie looks the most concerned about the outcome of this race.....

In the end though, we called it a tie.

This was definitely a great way to welcome Spring!

One is the loveliest number...

2011-02-15T15:04:00.000-05:00

Well my little PJ is officially 1. *Sigh* Where does the time go? She's not walking yet, but before you know it I'll be chasing after her, while balancing her new baby sissy in my arms. It just seems like this year has flown by.

Anyway enough mushy stuff...

We had a nice little get together on Saturday to celebrate and the weather cooperated wonderfully. If you don't know we live in a cozy (small) 1950 cottage. It gets really really cozy (claustrophobic) when you put 12 children ages 1-16 and 12 adults give or take into it. Not that I am complaining, because it is wonderful to have so many family and friends to celebrate with, but I was exceedingly glad that it was sunny and 62 on Saturday.

We decided to do a Ladybug theme for her 1st birthday and I decided to attempt to make the cake myself. I have never done anything but a regular old round cake, and maybe a bundt cake from time to time so I was excited when the ladybug cake came out so well. Actually I was pretty proud of myself.

Here is the birthday girl, just hanging out before all the real excitement began. She slowly made the rounds and said hello to everyone.

No walking yet, but crawling got her where she wanted to go just fine. I also have to say that she is getting pretty darn fast too.

Mimi flew up to visit from Florida, and our Atlanta weather was just a bit to cold for her Florida blood.

We of course had to have a pinata with all the kids that were coming and the birthday girl had to get a swing at it.

All the kiddos got a turn of course but L was the slugger that sent the treats flying.

That in turn sent the kids flying. Not sure how happy the parents were with all the treats but the kids were in love for sure.

Auntie Summer surprised us with a visit which is turn led to one of maybe two photos that I have of her and Jon. They photograph well so I need more photos don't you think?

With the pinata done it was time for the real fun to begin...the smash cake. I was so excited, Boogie just dug into hers we cleaned icing out of that child's nose for weeks. PJ not so much...

She would pull off a spot and eat it, then pull of another spot and eat it....

This went on for quite a while, people were starting to leave the sun was starting to set, something had to be done.

So some kind person shoved her had down in the cake and well that look of delighted surprise just says it all.

Not that she went crazy and face planted it into the back of that cute ladybug, oh no, but the snacking did pick up a little bit. Boogie was certainly happy, because she wanted to get on to the presents.

I was practical in my gift requests...if someone asked what they should bring I of course said nothing, she has everything. Once you have one girl the one that follows really does usually have everything from her big sister,so it wasn't a lie.

However, if someone insisted that they just couldn't come with out a gift I suggested. Shoes, Spring clothes, Food, or Diapers. All things that she will need.

That still did not go over well with some, my mom insisted that that was not a "fun" gift for a 1 year old. So she also got a couple of dolls and a couple of books.

PJ simply loves books, so she spent most of her time looking her books while Boogie and Jon opened the rest of the gifts.

This book seemed to be her favorite...

She just would not having anything to do with anything else...

until...someone took my advice and got her food. Then it was all about the puffs and she was back to opening her own gifts thank you very much.

Ah more puffs...her little eyes were just a sparking as she thought about all the yummy goodness. See people I told you that food was the perfect gift for a 1 year old party.

Once all the gifts were opened and the puffs were pried out of PJ's little hands it was time for everyone to head home. It was a great day, full of family, friends and laughter. What more could you ask for?

Happy first birthday my little Love bug!!

My, my, my how time does fly....

2011-02-10T09:56:00.000-05:00

One year ago today right about this time (9.30am) my husband and I were loading up our then 3 year old and getting ready to drop her off at daycare. Not unusual except that my husband was usually at work by now, and the 3 year old had an overnight bag, and so did I. One year ago today our family went from 3 to 4. We checked into Northside Hospital around 10:30 and at 6:26pm we were holding our little Addison.

She came into the world weighing 7lbs 12.2oz and 20.5 inches long!

She was nicer then her sister and instead of 2 hours of pushing like with Boogie, she was here in about 3 pushes.

Her daddy was proud and at some point snuck down to the gift shop to buy her first UGA dog. It is now a tradition. Boogie has one too. :D

Soon Nah Nah showed up to have a look at our new little addition.

And after all that hard work and attention it was time for a nap.

There was lots of snuggle time.

Lots and lots and lots of pictures.

Visitors that just couldn't get enough of her...

Conversations with mommy of course..

Oh that pretty face and those alert eyes, and finally....

Big sissy made it to the hospital to welcome her little sissy.

She was simply transfixed by this little person

All she wanted to do was look at her baby sissy.

Finally we got all suited up and it was time to go home...

And we were greeted by family, friends and a pretty dusting of snow when we got there.

Things have changed a little in a year, you've really grown up, but

Your big sissy is still transfixed by you.

Your eyes and little face still brighten my day...

Your a little mischievous, which I am sure you got from your daddy.

You have to examine everything, especially close up.

You love your daddy to distraction and have him wrapped tightly around your little finger.

You, like your sister, are the love of my life and the joy of my heart. I never realized that my heart could open so much and be so full of love until we added you to our family.

Happy 1st birthday my little Addison!!

Wordless Wednesday - Stairway to Heaven

2011-02-02T08:42:00.000-05:00

I have been waiting and waiting to post this picture. I didn't doctor it at all just a crop to get rid of some of the silhouette on the bottom. I just think this is one of those moments when God shows you true beauty, if you stop and take the time to look.

I was leaving my in laws house and was so sick, but how can you not take a picture of this? It was just a column of clouds that tapered off into nothing, once you got away from this vantage point it looked different, but here it reminded me of a staircase. A stairway to Heaven.

The Eyes have it...

2011-01-31T14:47:00.000-05:00

I remember when I was about 12 looking at my mom and just wishing and praying that I would wake up and my eyes would magically be blue just like hers. I mean who wants to be a blond with hazel green eyes, how ordinary. My eyes were the bane of my teenage existence. Well they never changed blue, but I learned to love them. On days when I am sad or very happy they are bright mossy green, on days when I am mad they are golden yellow and flashy, on any given day they can change a multitude of colors. This is the joy of having Hazel eyes, there are so many colors in those eyes why be tied down to one. My husband says they remind him of sunflowers, now if that isn't the nicest complement ever I don't know what is. I have really come to love and embrace my beautiful hazel eyes over my lifetime.

I say all of this because one day PJ is going to look at her big sister with her pretty blond hair and her crystal blue eyes and wish and pray to wake up with them. Grant you she can dye her hair and get contacts, but I hope instead that she will look at these photos and see how truly gorgeous her own chameleon eyes are.

These eyes remind me of a black hole with all the diverse colors swirling around the center.

They are innocent,

full of laughter

Mesmerizing

Alert,

Full of questions,

and uniquely and beautifully hers.

Happy Birthday Disney Princess...the Finale!!

2011-01-20T14:13:00.000-05:00

So here we are back after an interesting Wordless Wednesday to finish up our first full day at Disney. It was tiring but after naps all around it was time to make it to our last event of the day, dinner with Cinderella and friends at 1900 Park Fare. I made a reservation for 7pm thinking this would give us plenty of time to get dressed and get there using park transportation and it ALMOST did.

First thing to know when booking this event is that while not as popular at Cinderella's Royal Table in the castle, it is still a popular meal so reservations MUST be made as far in advance as possible. Unlike Cinderella's Royal Table you do not have to put the price of the full meal on your credit card at the time of booking, so the reservation can be cancelled within a reasonable period of time without any type of penalty. This is also the only meal where you will see Cinderella, Prince Charming, Lady Tremaine, Anastasia and Drizella all in one place and it is a great experience. Like many of the other character meals you are paying not only for dinner, but also for the time to interact with the characters so it is a bit of a splurge but one that I thought was well worth it, and I didn't even get to eat that much!

Now on with the photos...

This is the little picnic table and porch off of the cabin. Boogie doesn't look to thrilled in this photo but trust me she was excited. It takes her a while to wake up after a nap and until that time has passed she can be a bit of a sour puss. You should know though, that I only had to do minor repair to her do after the nap, so the stuff they put in there is super strong.

We took our golf cart from the Cabin down to the Marine and waited for the boat to the Contemporary Resort. Its a cute little boat and the ride was very unique Boogie really enjoyed herself as did my parents. We were running a bit behind and I mentioned that to my husband and the captain overheard me. He told me not to worry that when you make a reservation you have priority seating and they will sit you when you show up. This turned out to be a really good thing for us, because the boat ride went very smoothly but the monorail was another story all together.

Once we got to the Contemporary we just followed the signs for the Monorail and got in line. If you taking a child in a stroller you should know that the escalators to get to the train platforms are not wide enough for a stroller and you will have to calapse it momentarily. On the way back down from the train you have the option of taking an elevator so no worries there. The monorails only run one direction so you can not get on the wrong train just follow the signs, and wait will about 150 or so of your closest friends for it to arrive. Ours arrived in a timely manner, but then we got stuck, on the tracks, three times, for a long time and didn't make it to The Grand Floridian where 1900 Park Fare is located until very close to 8pm, I was very worried that they were going to tell us so sorry but there is no seating. Luckily that was not the case, once we finally found the restaurant. To me it was not clearly marked in the lobby, but a friendly cast member was more then happy to point us in the right direction, and we finally made it.

Once we got in and got seated, with only one run in with a very very rude mom who pushed us aside and went in front of us, the characters came around immediately. Just as inside the Magic Kingdom they were fantastic.

I really think that Boogie liked the Step sisters best of all. They really were fantastic and so over the top. They would yell across the restaurant at each other, Lady Tremaine would scold them. They fawned over Prince Charming, and pouted when he danced with Cinderella. They really did steal the show.

Despite loving the Stepsisters, Cinderella was really who Boogie was waiting to see, and I think she was just a bit star struck when she showed up. She just kinda froze and didn't know what to say to her, it was cute and Cinderella was fantastic with her.

Love this photo it is one of my favorites.

Prince Charming Boogie wasn't real sure about, and said she didn't want to meet him, but once he got to the table, she was quite excited.

Boogie would not stand with Lady Tremaine unless Jon stood with her first. She insisted that daddy HAD to stand with her.

Once he did though, she was all smiles. Also if you'll notice all three of the characters where the same characters that we saw in the park. Here is where Disney gets an A+ from me for attention to detail.

Once we saw all the characters it was time to sample the buffet. Grant you there was plenty of time in between characters to get food, but Boogie wanted to make sure she didn't miss anyone.

I have to say that while some people were rather blah with their reviews of the dinner at 1900 Park Fare I really enjoyed it. There was a very nice selection, it was all fresh and replenished often. The kids had their own section to chose from and the dessert offerings were great. The food combined with the character interaction made for a very enjoyable meal and one that I did not feel bad paying $225 (4 adults and 1 child).

We were just finishing up dessert when there was a surprise. Prince Charming and Cinderella came out to dance a waltz. Once they were finished they chose other people to dance with, and Boogie got to dance with Cinderella. Another wonderful Disney moment and such a nice way for her to celebrate her 4th birthday.

Once the dance was over then it was time for the parade around the restaurant with all the kids, dancing and clapping, and Boogie got scooped up by Anastasia. I am telling you she loved these sisters.

I'm not sure but I think that she was having a great time. What do you think?

Don't be afraid to encourage your child just to jump right in there. It was a lot of fun, and everyone was encouraged to participate.

All the fun did have to come to an end and although we were sad to leave we had to head back to the cabin for some birthday cake and to meet up with my brother and his wife.

On the way back across the lagoon we were lucky enough to catch a bit of the Electric light parade that goes on every night, and the fireworks from Hallowishes at the Magic Kingdom. The evening was a delight from start to finish even if we did get started a bit late.

Once we picked up Uncle Joe and Aunt Erica it was time to get into Jammies and open up presents. Boogies hair finally came down, but we still found a Birthday Princess crown to wear.

Once all the presents were opened it was time for the cake. This cake DID NOT come from Disney, there is a Publix fairly close by and for about 1/2 of what Disney charges we were able to order and pick up the cake there. Now if you don't have transportation it would be difficult, and they I would say use one of Disney's great bakeries and keep in mind that cakes can be brought to your table at most sit down meals.

I have to say that I was very happy with the job that Publix did on this cake. It was very cute and tasted fantastic. I got the smallest one they would decorate and we still didn't eat it all during our stay.

Now for a public service announcement. Please note that when ordering this cake the Fairy Godmother is holding a WAND and NOT a candle. My dad was lighting the candles without his glasses and melted the poor ladies wand before we could stop him. Boogie will still point it out to me and ask me if I remember when Papa did that.

Boogie at one point while watching the Planning DVD said she wanted to have a big bunch of Mickey Balloons like the little girl at the beginning of the DVD. Well people those balloons A) don't exist like you see in the DVD and B) cost $10 a balloon. So I took a quick look at EBay and for 20 Mickey Latex balloons and two big mylars of Mickey and Minnie it was $35. Saved us a ton of money and Boogie got her wish. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that they concierge at the check in desk would fill them all for us. Jon looked hysterical bringing them all back from the front in his golf cart. He said at one point he had 6 or 7 little kids chasing him down the road asking for a balloon. I wish I had been able to get a photo of that.

So there you have it our 1st day, and Boogie birthday at Disney World. I know it took three posts but I hope that I provided some good information along the way. The next two days at the parks should zoom by compared to this one so hold on tight and thanks again for joining us.

Wordless Wednesday - Pictures of small children

2011-01-19T09:57:00.001-05:00

Okay however said taking a photo of a group of small children was easy, clearly was only photographing sleeping children. My wonderful in laws requested a photo with all their grandchildren when we were all together over the holidays. I agreed, and this is how it went.

Finally a photo that everyone was happy with

It only took about 35 photos to get the one above, and the dramatic crying child may or may not belong to the photographer. Still these photos will definitely make me laugh in a few years.

Happy wordless Wednesday!

Happy Birthday Disney Princess...Part 2

2011-01-18T13:42:00.000-05:00

I must sincerely apologize for taking so long to get back to this, we had a bit of a weather issue here in Atlanta last week and that has thrown everything into a tailspin. Who knew that 5 inches of snow could close school for an entire week. Yep you read that right an entire week, then add on MLK and the kiddos in the area just started back to school today. Good gravy!

Soooooo all that is to say that things are finally getting back to normal around here and I can pick up where I left off which was, having the guys and PJ finally join us for some fun in the Magic Kingdom.

Jon made it with PJ and I was trying to get a cute shot of him with his girls, but PJ was having none of it..

Here Boogie even gave up, soooooo

I thought maybe the professional photographer might have better luck.

Almost but not quite, oh well we tried. Maybe in a couple of years we'll have better results.

These photos were taken by the photopass photographer, so again it is definitely worth the price to use the service. The photographers are more then happy to take photos with your camera for you, which is great. Its especially nice if you are normally the person taking all the shots.

We next headed back towards the train depot to get a snack I think and saw Snow White hidden over to the side of the Emporium. There was a small line, but definitely worth the wait, she was fantastic, and Boogie just loved her.

She really took a lot of time with Boogie, which is probably one of the most memorable things for little kids. These are their hero's, their fairy tales in real life, so to get to meet them and hug them and talk to them, has to simply blow their minds.

While Boogie went to get a cold treat, PJ and I waited to see this guy.

PJ wasn't quite sure what to think of him, and kept trying to grab his nose, but she also wasn't scared of him. I was worried that she might be but thought an open area might be a good place to test it out. At least then we could make a quick getaway if we needed to.

We didn't need to though, and PJ got to meet her very first Disney character.

On our way back up Main street towards the castle we were lucky enough to catch this little show. If you happen upon the trolley definitely stop and watch, its a cute show and they do one of my favorite songs Clang Clang Clang Went the Trolley from Meet me in St. Louis, great musical, and here a great performance.

Boogie loved the dancers, so we watched the little performance which was maybe 10 minutes. Also know that when they are not using the trolley, or carriage or cars that drive down Main Street periodically, you can hop on in and they'll drop you off at the other end. Another fun experience for young and old alike as there are some great vehicles that they bring out for this.

Our next stop was Adventureland and as you can tell we have covered a lot of territory, so here is a big, big, big tip; bring your stroller. The ones that you can rent are perfectly fine, but if your kiddos are comfy in their own stroller then find a way to get it there as they will more then likely spend a good deal of time in it. PJ even took naps in ours which let us extend our day in the park a bit. Be courteous of course, but we found that there was plenty of room for everyone and plenty of stroller parking. We also never had any issues with stuff coming up missing, but never left anything that we would really miss if it was gone. So repeat after me, BRING A STROLLER! Trust me it will improve the quality of your time in the parks.

Once we got into Adventureland we headed for Aladdin's Magic Carpets, we did have to wait a bit as it was getting a little more crowded but honestly we waited in line longer for lunch then anything else. Please note that PJ is also in line for these rides, most rides unless a height restriction is posted are fine for little ones. Depending on their temperament of course, but PJ rode this, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin without any issues at all. So don't shy away from some of the calmer rides just because you have a smaller person in tow, they should be fine.

We really have to work on PJ's posing skills Boogie has it down pat.

We were all smiles once we were strapped into our carpet. Unlike Dumbo that only holds two people per car, the carpets hold four, and there are controls not only in the back but also the front, so fun for all no matter where you sit.

Once we got a bite to eat at Pecos Bills, which sadly I can not recommend as the wait was horrible and the food was very very greasy. We headed over to Pirates of the Caribbean, one of my favorites. Boogie swears that her Papa is a pirate and has a pirate boat, so I knew she was going to love this ride, which she did. They have updated it a bit and there were a few more thrilling parts that I forgot about, so if you have a child that is a little timid or scared of the dark, this may not be the ride for them. Also I have no problem with giving a small child a little flashlight to get through a ride, however please be engaged enough to know when they are shining it in the eyes of the people directly behind them. Being blinded by beams of light kinda takes away from the rides a bit. LOL!!

Boogie just loved meeting Pirate Goofie too. Again all the characters were just great, and many of the bigger ones get right down on the child's level which I think makes the experience all the more special.

Boogies big request was that she wanted to ride the roller coasters. Yep my 4 year old LOVES roller coasters and to say that she loved Splash Mountain doesn't even begin to describe the experience. Boogie is a bit petite (unlike PJ) and so we were very worried that she was not going to make the height requirement of 40 inches for either Splash Mountain or Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but she just squeezed by.( I think the bun helped a bit)

You will also note that we have a wardrobe change at this point. The Cinderella dress simply got to itchy and so a clothing change was in order. I just packed another cute Disney themed dress and when she was ready we changed. This is another thing that I would stress along with the stroller. If you have to you can buy a change of clothing, but unless you have planned that into your budget I would simply pack something for all small children, adults are on their own.

My dad did a great job at watching out for us, and caught a great picture of Boogies very first ride down Splash Mountain. I honestly thing my husband was more nervous then she was, she squealed at every drop.

We then headed over to The Haunted Mansion, and as you can see, no wait what so ever. We literally walked up and walked in. Here is where I reiterate that if you can visit Disney between say Mid September and Mid November you will be more then pleasantly surprised at the crowd levels. Only on Saturday did we have issues with the crowds and then if there was something that we wanted to ride we easily got a fast pass and were in. The weather was simply gorgeous each day, and the cast members were fully focused on entertaining the guests that were there. Lots and lots of personal attention. I am glad to know that our school system has a Fall break right around this time each, year and I can tell you where we will be. :D

Once we finished up with the Haunted Mansion which was one of the only rides that Boogie didn't care for, we decided to head back to the cabin. However on the way out we got side tracked and boy was it a good one.

This show in front of the castle is great. Lots of characters, dancing, singing, fireworks. What more cold you ask for, we were lucky we arrived when we did and got a front row seat. Boogie and PJ were both mesmerized, and I have to say I really enjoyed not only watching them, but the show itself.

Cue the grand finale!!

Once the show was over we once again headed toward the gates, only to stop again. The parade was starting in 10 minutes, so we grabbed some shade and a couple of snacks and waited. Please note that we also brought a towel, sometimes Splash Mountain can get you a little wet, we didn't need it this time, but it made a great place to sit in the shade.

First they send out a band, we sat right at the corner by the fire station and that is where the parade starts, so we got to see everything first and then we got to turn and head on out. The band was a tease though, as the parade didn't start for another 5 minutes or so, and that is a long time to a 4 year old.

Jon and PJ however just hung out and enjoyed the shade, waiting patiently.

Finally the parade came out and who did we run into but this cute guy...

Can you name this chipmunk? Its Chip of course, you can tell because his nose looks like a chocolate chip.

I was so happy to see Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Boogie wanted to meet them so badly. I have a picture of me at her age with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and she wanted one too, but alas this is the best I could do.

Still it was enough to make Boogie happy so I was happy.

Our very favorite wicked step family. Who we happened to see again that night at dinner. You will notice that all the characters are exactly the same from this bunch in picture after picture. I have to give Disney Kudos for this, some kids would notice if the Step Mother that they saw in the park was not the one they saw at dinner, so I appreciate the attention to detail here.

Prince Eric and Princess Ariel, who is appearing as her human self while her grotto is being completed. You can find her on the porch to the right just as you enter under the Adventureland sign near the castle. There was no line when we were there, but Boogie didn't not want to meet her so no pictures this time.

Finally once the last float had made its way around and the music began to die away, it really was time to head back to the cabin. I looked at my girls in there carriage and noticed that PJ was up to something.

She was trying to scavenge popcorn. She kept checking out the box to make sure that Boogie hadn't eaten it all, not that she ever got any.

Instead she got a bit of this delicious treat, a frozen lemonade, which seemed to be just as good.

We easily got onto a boat back to the Cabin and headed off for a little rest before our day ended with a very special dinner.

You can see it was smiles all around so I think our first day in the Magic Kingdom was a hit.

I will say that we arrived early and we left fairly early. Mickey's not So Scary Halloween Party was going on that night so we had to be out by 6pm at the latest, but we finally got back to the cabin about 3:30 and that was a perfect amount of time for us. We did not get to do or see everything, but we did accomplish a lot, and everyone was still in good spirits so I would say it was very successful. So my recommendation here is not to push the day to hard especially if you have time to come back. We left when everyone was happy, no one was grumpy and that made the rest of the day just perfect. It wasn't the original plan, but it was the plan that worked best for us.

Tomorrow the end to our day...Boogie's special Birthday Princess Dinner with Cinderella and family. Stay tuned.

Snowlanta

2011-01-14T14:05:00.000-05:00

Now I know you guys from up North or out West are just going to laugh your butts off, but we have been paralyzed by 5 inches of snow here in Atlanta. Seriously, yesterday was the first day that I was able to make it back to work, and schools have been closed for a week now. Our interstates looked like sheets of glass for 2 whole days and then yesterday, sheets of glass with holes. Taking the girls to daycare was seriously a lesson in ice driving as I had to get enough momentum at the bottom of the hill to make it to the top without having to touch the gas or breaks along that journey. It was interesting. Luckily today the sun is out and our temps are above freezing so the ice is starting to melt. Whew!

All that being said I absolutely love, love, love the snow. Could not wait for it to start, tried not to get my hopes up in case it turned into just a couple of flakes, but woo hoo at all the fun snow we got. Boogie was more then excited to wake up Monday morning to about 5 inches of snow, and Jon even got to stay home with us for a couple of days and play, it was wonderful. However by day three I was absolutely ready to come back to work, so yesterday we ventured out and I finally made it in by 10am. Now life should get back to normal, but wow what a great snowcation.

So to walk you through all the excitement down here in Atlanta here are some photos. Come on you didn't think I'd leave you hanging without photos did you.

The snow event started off pretty tame, although by Friday night Kroger (local grocery store) was completely out of bread. Anyway nothing really started happening until late Sunday night, late enough that Boogie only got to see the very first flakes start to fall before she scooted off to bed.

These pictures were taken about 9:15pm after about 10 minutes of snow. By Atlanta standards it was coming down pretty good.

After about 45 minutes we were getting a pretty good coating

Please remember this is Atlanta and snow like this doesn't happen often

Doesn't my little car look so cute in the snow.

Pretty good snow fall

About 11pm just a couple more photos for posterity

Told you it was coming down pretty good

Oh and that I like the snow

Then it was time for bed, to dream of what we would see in the morning. I mean of course if the snow was coming down that heavy there would be a snow day right?

You bet your behinds there was a snow day!!

Just look at how much snow we got.

It was so pretty.

Even Jon's grandfather's old truck and boat look pretty

Boogie's little play house.

Imagine how excited Boogie was to wake up to all of this. PJ wanted her bottle first but Boogie wanted to put her snow pants on and go play. Yes we own snow pants. I pick up a pair every year just in case, I got this years for $3, so if it didn't snow it wasn't a huge loss. PJ even has a cute little snow suit that my MIL picked up for $1, just wait there's a picture.

Boogie just loved the snow and was beside herself with excitement.

She had to inspect my car and later we cleaned it off together.

PJ wasn't to thrilled by all of this, but look at that cute little snow suit.

She just kept looking and looking, and not a me of course..

until finally this face said please take me in where it is warm!

Once PJ was warm and down for her nap, it was time to go back outside and break up the snow.

By whatever means necessary, and to Boogie that meant full body plunges.

We don't own a sled or a disk or anything like that (Atlanta remember), so Jon went out to his shop and made one for Boogie.

It was a bit hard to keep upright and balanced so she wasn't squealing with glee yet, but once she got the hang of it she was.

I am so glad that my hubby is such a creative think outside the box type of man.

Once the sledding was done, Jon had to pull out the 4-wheeler and have a cruise around the neighborhood. Of course Boogie had to go with him. They definitely had rosie cheeks when they got back considering it was only about 26 degrees.

Still once the 4-Wheeler was parked it was time to get back to breaking up that snow and ice.

Boogie tried to make a snow angel, but the ice layer on the top of the snow wouldn't budge. The snow wasn't good for making snow men either, so a bit of a bummer, but she didn't let it get her down.

Not without a fight anyway.

She knows that she has to stop every now and then and let mommy get a pretty picture.

Then its right back to the task at hand...

This girl is all action

Then pause...

and roll, and smile. I have her trained well.

She had to stop for a moment though to collect herself because....

Gee from next door was coming over to play in the snow too...

These two have been friends their entire little lives, their so cute.

Finally after a couple of hours of playing in the snow it was time to go in and warm up. We definitely made it back out in the next few days, but this was the best day. Suffice to say I think that Boogie has my love of snow.

Hope you enjoyed our adventures in Snowlanta, we will return to our Disney discussion on Monday. Until then have a fabulous weekend and thanks for stopping by.

Happy Birthday Disney Princess...

2011-01-07T13:55:00.001-05:00

So our first day at Disney started off very, very early. Originally it wouldn't have been so bad as our first reservation was at the Contemporary, and we're just going to walk over to The Magic Kingdom. However, things change money gets tight and for much less we could stay at Fort Wilderness and tack another night on, so we switched and I am very glad we did. Now don't get me wrong I still plan to stay Club Level at the Contemporary one day, but I think I want my girls to be old enough to really appreciate that, so for now the Fort is a great place for us. Anyway I digress, the day started off at 6am for me and mom and we got Boogie up at about 6:30 to get her into her surprise princess dress and slippers for the boat trip across the lagoon to the gates of the happiest place on earth. Now I know you are wondering why in the world we would be up so early when the parks don't open until 9am, but that was my surprise to Boogie. I made her an appt with her very own fairy godmother in training at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and that was at 8am. This meant we had to catch the first boat leaving the Fort for Magic Kingdom that morning. So in the early morning darkness we trekked to the bus stop with a bleary eyed Princess to catch the bus...and missed it. Yep we missed the bus that would get us to the first boat that would get us to Magic Kingdom in time for Boogie to meet her Fairy Godmother. I should mention that on this trip I was also 10 weeks pregnant, so just a smidge emotional and this was almost my undoing as I just knew that Boogie's birthday would be ruined. I was over reacting just a smidge as another bus was at the stop in just a few minutes. We still had time to catch that boat but it was going to be close....

Mom and Charlotte patiently waiting for the 2nd bus.

Well our earlier luck held out and the first boat was just ....pulling away from the dock as we got there. OH LORD THIS WAS NOT STARTING OUT WELL. There were other people waiting with us and they were hopeful that another boat would be along any minute. The round trip for the boats is 30 minutes so if one didn't come soon, Boogie would miss her appt. To pass the time and calm my nerves I took some pictures....

I told you it was really, really early.

Mom did a great job snapping a picture of me and my princess just as the sun was starting to come up

The lagoon was pretty as the sun was rising

Then we saw it, the boat that would take us to The Magic Kingdom, and the day was saved. :D

We made it over to the gates and through security, yes they check bags, but are quick and efficient. Since we had a reservation we just walked right through the gate and under the train station and came out on Main Street. There is just no way to explain that feeling, especially the first time you get to see it on your child's face. I seriously teared up for a moment. Then I collected myself and took a picture.

Boogie's very first picture in the Magic Kingdom.

For all those taking kids for the first time I highly recommend getting either a reservation for your Princess or Pirate early in the morning, or making a Breakfast reservation for the Crystal Palace to meet Pooh and friends. This guarantees that you are one of the first people to walk down Main Street in the morning and it is wonderful. Look how few people are behind Boogie, it was almost like having the park to ourselves. Another thing that I would recommend is that if it is your child's birthday let the cast members know. They go out of their way to make them feel special, and the characters in the parades are more likely to show them special attention.

Mom caught up with us right after we took this picture and we were off towards the castle. I don't know who was more excited me or Boogie. The light was simply amazing so I took a few shots along the way, and as it turns out we hand plenty of time, since the Boutique was not quite ready for us....they were still getting Cinderella ready.

Here are a few photos of our trip down Main Street and the beautiful early morning light.

One of my favorite pictures of the trip.

The park was all decked out for Halloween since we were there the week before

Another favorite of mine, I just secretly wish one of her slippers had fallen off. :D

We waited patiently with two other princesses inside the castle for the doors to the boutique to open, and right at 8am they did.

There is a royal proclamation right as you walk in and then you get to meet your Fairy Godmother in training. The packages for girls range from $49 to close to $200 if you get the whole shebang. I opted for the $49 package which included Boogies choice of hair style, make up clip, crown and sash. I then bought her dress and slippers elsewhere, and I can honestly say it didn't matter a bit that we didn't buy them at the boutique. One other note I will make is that while the dresses are cute and well made they will more then likely not make it through the whole day on your princess so definitely bring a change of clothes. Boogie made it about 6 hours.

Her FGM got right to work and Boogie was simply mesmerized.

I swear if I pulled on her hair the way this wonderful lady did she would have fallen on the floor in hysterics.

They put TONS of product in their hair, I mean globs of gel and then hair spray too, but the do made it through the whole day including a nap, and it washed out very easily at bath time.

Not sure what this face was for, but I am glad I am not on the receiving end of that look. Maybe the photographer was over there. I'll hit on the Photopass in a minute.

See told you it was early

Soon the do was done and it was time for the Pixie dust.

Another FGM did her make up and then it was time for her Birthday Princess Sash to complete the look.

Once they are all finished and beautiful they turn them around for the big reveal. Boogie just stared at herself it was so cute. The photopass man got a much better picture, but I was just soaking in the moment.

Then we had to get her FGM to autograph her book. She really did a wonderful job and made Boogie feel so special. Absolutely worth the $54 with tax. LOL!!

The girls also get to bring everything home with them, make up stickers and magic comb.

The other great part about this experience especially for me the photographer was the Photopass photographer. If you sign up for this before you head to Disney they will send you a photopass card in the mail. You just hand this little card to any photographer and they scan it and take your picture. They will also take photos with your camera if you ask them too. It is a wonderful feature and we really took advantage of it. We also pre-ordered a CD of all our photo pass pictures and split the cost with my parents. It worked out to be $50 for each family and we got well over 120 photopass pictures in our three days at the park. You can also add multiple cards to the same account and there is not limit on the number of photos that can be taken, so if you are there for 5-7 days or even longer you could really rack up the photos. I was very happy with our pictures and definitely feel it was worth the cost. You can read more about this service on the Disney website or over at http://www.allears.net/.

Okay so once we finished up in the Boutique we headed straight to Dumbo, and I have to admit in the many many many times that I have been to Disney I never rode this ride. What a lost experience, it was so wonderful, I will say that even first thing in the morning it was the longest line that we waited in all day long, so if you have kiddos that want to ride head there first.

Timothy presides over the ride...

A close up of the clip they put in Boogies hair, nice and sparklie.

Just about the get on the ride...and yes I am holding a 40lb child.

One last shot before we start...

Here we go........

The ride was definitely a lot of fun, but over very quickly, so again to avoid the super long lines get there early and make the ride really worth the wait.

Next we headed to Prince Charming's Carousel...

My Princess loves a carousel

and making funny faces....

She knows how to make that horse look fast doesn't she.

The carousel wait was non existent, and if she had insisted we could have just stayed on and rode again, but across the court yard we saw some people that we could not miss.

When you are dressed up like Cinderella right down to the hairdo and the crown you do not miss an opportunity to snap a picture with Lady Tremaine and her daughters.

These are some of my favorite photos and to be honest I believe these three were my favorite characters to encounter. They were truly themselves and kidding with the crowd standing in line, making all the kids laugh, it was wonderful.

Boogie loved them too. I would say if you have to chose between these three and a princess go for these three it is well worth the missed opportunity.

Boogie took a breather at Cinderella's fountain to adjust her shoe and gather her strength.

She also obliged her mom with a cute photo and a pretty smile.

On our way around to ride the newly reopened Its a Small World, Boogie had to try her luck at the Sword in the Stone. She couldn't get it budge but she was sure that since her daddy was the strongest daddy in the world he would be able to do it. Unfortunately we never made it back for him to try, just another reason for a future trip. You may or may not know but a couple of times a day the sword does pull out of the stone. I don't know if someone watches and activates a release or if it just does it at random times, but you just never know, so give it a shot.

The guys and PJ were still MIA, we gave them permission to join us later. Since I know that my dad has no fond love of IASW we spared him this trip and mom and I took Boogie on her first trip. The ride had been under renovation and was not suppose to be open until the Saturday of our trip, so we were surprised when the cast member waved us in and we walked right onto a boat, in the front so Boogie could see everything. It was a great way to introduce her to Its a Small World and dad really appreciated being spared that one ride. His aversion might have something to do with my insistence at an early age that we ride it over and over and over again. All you have to do is hum the tune to send him running. LOL!!

The hippo was my favorite. I just have this thing for cute hippos.

She looks like a deer in the headlights I know but I think it was just a lot to process and so she just tuned out for a minute. Boogie loved it through.

That is another thing to remember, as much as we as adults love Disney it can be a little over stimulating for smaller kids I think. Take moments for downtime just to process and breath and not be bombarded with things. One of the best ways that we found to do this was to just stroll over to Tomorrowland and hop on the Wedway People Mover. Kinda fun, not to fast, but not throwing images at you every two seconds, and getting on takes hardly any time at all. A win win all around...

By the time we got off of IASW we had a call from the guys saying they were here, and where could we meet. As they were still coming through the gates we suggested meeting in front of the castle so that Boogie could stop and talk to this lovely lady.

Mary Poppins was always a favorite of mine, and Boogie adores singing (or trying to sing) Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious (bare with me on the spelling here)

This has to be one of the prettiest Mary's that Disney has, she was really wonderful with Boogie and I am so glad that we saw her before we met up with the guys. It was a great way to end our morning of girl time.

Since this post has gotten very, very long I am going to stop here and fill you in on our afternoon later. I don't want you eyes to glaze over as you start staring off into space humming Its a Small World. So tomorrow I will hit on our lunch, not what I had hoped it would be, and what rides some kids may not like, as well as Boogies first trip down Splash Mountain.

Thanks for checking in with me, hope your enjoying the info and pictures thus far.

The first expereince with Disney magic....

2011-01-06T10:00:00.002-05:00

I started a post about our trip a while back and then realized that I could not find a lot of the pictures from dinner on our first night, and many of the pictures from the 1st day which I really needed, so I went on a hunt. It took me until New Years Day to find them hiding on my MIL's computer, but thank goodness they were there, because that was my last resort. So now having found those photos I can finish our trip review, and what a trip it was. I am just itching to go back, soon, but alas I am afraid I will have to wait at least until the Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon in 2012.

To recap from our day at Sea World which is how we started Boogie's Birthday Trip Extravaganza go here..http://littledeucecooper.blogspot.com/2010/11/hi-ho-hi-ho-its-off-to-disney-we-go.html. I've added a few new photos here as well.

Anyway back to the Disney magic, we were checking into The Ft. Wilderness Cabins, but check in wasn't until 4pm so we decided to get dinner 1st and slowly introduce Boogie and PJ to the Disney Magic. Boogie has really been into bones and dinosaurs lately so I though what better place to eat then here...

If you have a child that loves dinosaurs this is a must do...although I will say that it is loud inside.

The giant skeleton outside is a real show stopper, and is identified, although I can't remember exactly what it is (Sorry)

There are different themed parts of the restaurant, and with our 5pm reservation we were seated right away and the restaurant was fairly empty. We sat in the ocean area which I though was kinda ironic since we had just come from Sea World and this fish tank was directly behind us. Boogie was mesmerized.

They encourage you to get up if you want and walk around and look at everything. This is the Ice Cave. Every 15 minutes or so a meteor crashes and the animatronic animals come alive and the ice cave changes color. I have to admit that I loved it. Again it was noisy, but not noisy enough to bother our 8 month old, so even with small children, unless they have a problem with loud noises you should be fine.

No photo that I could take could do this guy justice. He is huge and sits over the bar. If you look at the bottom center of the picture that is a fish tank that encompasses the whole back of the bar, and people this is one big bar. The eyes on the octopus also move from time to time.

This is the guy that meets you at the very front of the restaurant. Again animatronic so he moves and roars, a great crowd pleaser. I can not stress enough that if you have children that love dinosaurs, this is the place to eat at least once on your trip. Just prepare yourself for the noise and I say pick an off eating time. Our dinner reservation was a bit early and we were right in and seated, there was one stroller in the stroller parking. When we left the line was around the side of the building and I could barely find our stroller. Repeat to yourself...early is better, early is better.

If your really worried about the noise and how it might effect your little ones. You can see that PJ just really didn't care, when it was time to sleep it was time to sleep. Daddy made a nice comfy place to rest her little eyes.

These two photos are outside of the restaurant. Just a prop, to show the attention to detail which is one of the things that I think makes Disney so amazing, and a dig site. Boogie loved this and while they have to take their shoes off to go in and excavate, its not sand in there so no worries. It is finely diced rubber, so wipes right off of little feet. There is also a sink station and hand sanitizer for little hands when their finished digging for fossils.

I did not take any photos of our food, I think I was too hungry, but it was very good. The portions are huge so to cut down on the cost two people could easily split an entree. We had an appetizer for the table, 3 adult entrees (Salmon, Ribs and a Quesadila) as well as a kids meal, one soda and two "adult" beverages and the bill was right about $150. Higher then at your local place, but for Disney and what we ordered not bad. I scouted the menu online and read reviews on Allears.net so I knew what to budget for and was prepared. That is my biggest suggestion, be prepared. Disney is expensive, it just is, your going to pay $3.50 for a 16oz soda that's just all their is to it. So look up the menus for the places you think that you would like to eat, and budget. By preparing a bit before we left I was able to stay right on budget even having added an extra night to our stay late in the planning.

After such great food we wanted to walk a bit and so wandered around the shops. The prices are a bit less here then in the parks and we found some good deals as well. The stores are just interesting to look at as well, and fun to take pictures in front of. We only bought a few things, but we were able to replace to autograph book and pen that we forgot at home, so World of Disney saved the day there. We also picked up some pins for Boogies lanyard for her to trade. This is really a lot of fun, and Boogie ended up with some great pins. Every employee (or at least all that we saw) had Disney pins that they could trade. I stocked up for Boogie on EBay as it was much less expensive then buying them new. I got a lot of 25 pins for $10 plus shipping and that came in well under her Happy Birthday pin that I ordered for her from Disney at $14.95. So once you have your pins and your lanyard you can start trading with anyone that you see. Just say "hello can I trade a pin with you, and your on a roll. Boogie had some that she really liked so we left those off her lanyard, but the ones she didn't care for we traded for new ones that she did. It was a ton of fun, and I definitely recommend it as an inexpensive way to get some new mementos from Disney. She still takes her pins down and looks at them ,and we are almost 3 months out from the trip.

The other thing that I suggest is to let you kids save their own money for the trip. Now this was Boogies birthday trip so she did get a kick in from the grandparents for her spending money, but without their help she was able to save about 3/4 of her money on her own. We counted everything the day before we left and took it to the bank together to cash out, and then I told her how much she had. If she wanted something she had to buy it from her money and once her money was gone that was it no more souvenirs. She did great, and after figuring out that money would go pretty fast she really started thinking about her purchases. It was a great lesson in saving and prioritizing your money, and she still does it post trip, which is the best souvenir of all if you ask me.

So anyway we did walk around and see all that Downtown Disney had to offer, and there is a lot, just take your time and soak it all in. Here are a few shots from our wandering.

This is our first Disney trip picture at Disney.

Inside the Pin Traders store...

The Lego Lagoon Monster

Playground outside of the Lego store

Jon an Boogie making their Lego creation...

It got serious and she had to sit on the table.

Here's the finished project...just kidding, but this guys was awesome!!

Boogie with some of her Canine Lego friends

You have to watch out for Stitch over one of the doors at World of Disney, he spits. No really, its funny to to sit back and watch people who aren't paying attention, its not a little stream of water either. LOL!!

It was fairly late by the time we left and we were more then ready to check into our cabin, so off we headed to Ft. Wilderness. I unfortunately was more excited to get into the cabin then to take pictures of the Fort. So I don't have anything to post here, but I will say one thing, this is a very unique Disney experience. In my opinion it is a wonderful place to stay if you have children. The cabins are nice and roomie with a full kitchen and a little sitting area. There is a set of bunk beds, and a Full size bed in the bedroom and then a Murphy bed in the sitting area, so you can sleep 6 in each cabin and not be falling all over each other. There is also a nice deck with a grill outside and you in the woods, so its pretty peaceful. Other then the cabins you can also tent camp or RV camp at a fairly practical price, and really the best part, your still on the Magic Kingdom lagoon, for a discount price. We took the boat to Magic Kingdom each time we went and just loved it. The electric water pageant goes by each night and the music is turned on on the beach, and you can see the fireworks from the Magic Kingdom over the lagoon. A really really great place to stay. Plus if you build a down day or two into your schedule, it is very easy to occupy your whole day at playgrounds, fishing in the canals, bike riding, archery, swimming at one of the two pools, horseback riding or caneoing. There is a ton to do without even leaving the Fort. A great luxury place to stay at a moderate price. We really loved the Fort and have not a bad thing to say about it at all.

This post has gotten very very long so I will leave you with our arrival at the Fort. The next post will be Boogie's first glimpse at the Magic Kingdom, and I will tell you I cried a little.

Wordless Wednesday - Doing Disney

2011-01-05T09:40:00.000-05:00

Here is just a sneak peak of my blogs to come. I am back tracking a bit and the next few blogs will be all about taking a toddler and a baby on a successful 1st trip to DISNEY!! For now enjoy a few photos of our fun.

1st up Downtown Disney

The Lego Lagoon Monster

Huge fish tank behind our table in T-Rex (highly recommend this place)

Boogie with some of her Lego Canine friends

1st full day in the parks = Princess Birthday @ The Magic Kingdom

A very early start, but good job Mom with the picture.

Ah the castle in the early morning Florida light

If I pulled on her hair this hard there would be a tantrum of epic proportions

The happy princess on Prince Charming's carousel

Love this picture, they all kept calling her a travel size Cinderella

Its a lovely holiday with Mary...

The whole gang minus Mimi and Papa

Day 2 late start = back to Magic Kingdom (but a very abbreviated trip)

Getting ready to board the boat again for MK

Not an exceptionally happy camper, should have seen this sign

Pretty fairy makeup, but the fairy is not the happiest

Minnie's house was hit, but....

The line for the Princesses was too long and it was the beginning of the end

We did squeeze in a ride on the Wedway People Mover, but it was definitely time to go back to the cabin.

That night (after a good long nap) it was time to roast Marshmallows and meet up with some friends.

Day 3 last day in the parks = Another early morning and Animal Kingdom

On the bus heading for Animal Kingdom, it was early but everyone was well rested

Boogie and her Mimi waiting in line for the Safari

PJ decided to take a snooze while on safari (no clue how she did this)

Next we came across some great drums to beat on

We were also lucky enough to catch Winnie the Pooh and friends before they went for a honey break

We ended up having them all to ourselves, see Tigger patiently waiting his turn to see us. :D

PJ took another nap and Pocahontas wanted a sleepy picture with her

Mimi and Papa were invaluable on this trip, I highly recommend grandparents for Disney.

Another friendly face showed up in the parade

Then it was back to MK for the Main Street Electrical Parade and Fireworks that night

You would not even believe me if I told you how far back I was standing to take this photo and without a tripod too. (love my camera)

It was definitely a good day!

I hope I have peaked your interest especially if you will be traveling to MK in the near future. We learned some really good lessons that I would love to pass on, and there will be more great photos. All in all we had a marvelous first trip to The World and can not wait to go back.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-12-29T08:57:00.000-05:00

Jon being the wonderful, loving, amazing husband that he is got me a new fancy, smancy camera for Christmas. I love it, and can't wait to master all the fun stuff it can do. In the infancy of my experimentation, I offer these two little jewels for your viewing pleasure. :D

Our very own Christmas Elf

and her sister our personal ray of sunshine!!

Merry Christmas 2010...in parts..

2010-12-28T13:18:00.001-05:00

Whew!! The holidays are coming to an end and what a festive time of family and fun it has been. We have eaten and unwrapped and eaten some more and then swapped gifts and ate a little more. Thank goodness for pregnancy, but my doctor may get onto me at my appointment next week. Tonight we have one more Christmas celebration with Jon's family, so that means more gifts, more food, more fun and more family. Yay!!!

We started all the festivities this year on Christmas Eve with my parents down in Florida. My brother and his wife brought my nephew over for a little play time with the girls. They were just too cute. Boogie and J just love each other to distraction, and get so excited to see one another.

J had to get into his PJ's to open presents since the girls were in theirs. It was really cute.

Before he had to leave there was a picture in front of the tree with his Boogie. :D

Gigi and Poppie were there to enjoy the fun and food. Mimi and Papa must have been hiding since I didn't get one picture of them.

The girls got some great gifts from Santa's early visit.

PJ mostly loved the boxes and trend that would carry on into the next morning

Boogie was overly delighted with her new Zhu Zhu pets.

PJ wanted to help Boogie color but was having a hard time getting there.

PJ However did just love her little Alligator

All good things must come to an end though. J and Joe and Erica had to head on out, Gigi and Poppie needed to make sure that there was Milk and Cookies at their house, and we needed to hit the sack so that Santa could come.

However before bed there had to be pictures in front of the tree in the Christmas PJ's and Santa hats

PJ somehow managed to get a bulb off the tree. She is very, very hands on.

Boogie had to give PJ her good night kiss....

Which of course made PJ insanely happy.

Then it was time for this cute little Christmas monkey to go to sleep.

Boogie insisted that she had to sit up and wait for Santa....

She was a little worried that the fire would deter him from coming down the chimney, but we were able to calm her fears and soon...

"The children were nestled all snug in their beds..."

And Santa did indeed make it down the Chimney to bring each one a toy, or 8...

Merry Christmas...and of course there is more to come. LOL!!

Well its official.....

2010-12-17T13:45:00.002-05:00

Let me just say that my BIG doctors appt did not go "exactly" as I had thought it would. I wasn't anything horrible, but Jon did get stuck at work and missed the big reveal. *Sigh* I had to text him the news once the Tech told me and the doc confirmed it. This was not what I has picturing in my head for our surprise little Cooper. Still what can you do a job is a job and in this economy I am not going to complain out loud about it to much.

Sooooo the text that I sent Jon said that we were 100% going to be welcoming a new baby GIRL into our family in late May. We are both very excited as we both were hoping for another girl. Jon is a fantastic little girl daddy, so one more princess to melt his heart is just what he needs. I love the spirit that my girls have and I so look forward to watching them grow into strong intelligent women.

So now we will begin negotiations about names. I am kinda set on a first name and possibly a middle name, but there is some room for negotiation. Hopefully we will have that little hurdle resolved quickly and Princess number three will have a beautiful name just like her big sisters.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-12-15T09:14:00.000-05:00

Every year we get a special ornament for the tree. We have no plain bulbs because we have so many special ornaments, but it sure is nice to remember getting each of them. So here are our ornaments for 2010....

For the past two years I have gotten a Hippo Ornament, but they didn't make one this year (booooo) so I went back to my pretty angels.

Boogie got her birth year ornament and I have to say I will be sad next year because they only go up to 5 and then their done. (boooooo again)

PJ get her very first ornament, which is so pretty, and I love it

Jon got his car/truck/motorcycle/boat/tractor of the year. Boogie picked this one out for him.

Then Boogie got her special ornament, see the glowing sparkle in the center, she loves it, but thank you Hallmark it does not sing. (woo hoo)

So with this new assortment of ornaments I am sure you can imagine what our tree looks like. It is not pretty and stylish, or fancy and themed, it is covered in memories of our lives and lit brightly we lights of every color. It is eclectic just like our lives and we love it.

The Jolly Old Elf himself and other random thoughts

2010-12-13T13:35:00.000-05:00

It is definitely the holidays, and I know that because we have not stopped doing things for the past two weeks or so. This weekend was definitely no different. I always feel a little off kilter at this time of year because of the whirl wind of activity, but I also LOVE IT! So we jumped into the excitement with gusto this weekend.

Friday night we met up with our next door neighbors to bake cupcakes and let the girls watch Polar Express. The girls love spending time with each other and when it gets cold they don't get to see each other as much, so this was great evening together.

Our very silly girls.

While they were entertaining themselves and watching the movie, I brought something for K and I to do. Make hair bows. Yep you heard me right, I said make hair bows, like out of ribbon and hot glue and floral wire and clips. I know, I know I had to take a Benydryl to ward off the hives, however for a first try I don't think they turned out horrible.

Not happy with the white ribbon, but the rest is okay. Its a definite learning curve so the next ones will be better. Oh and I am happy to report there was only one hot glue burn and as of today, it is gone. Hot glue gives me hives too. Just Kidding, well not really.

The bows had to be done on Friday night because we had an appointment with Santa on Saturday morning, and Boogie specifically requested bows over her pony tails, so I made bows. The girls looked simply adorable in their matching outfits, yes I did it, I made them match, but I also dressed Boogie up as a duck one Easter so you shouldn't be surprised.

PJ refused to remove her bib or look at the camera.

Boogie is always ready for a photo an no you absolutely do not see my child eating mini marshmallows at 9am.

We finally got out of the house, after Jon met with the Cobb County Police for about an hour. Thank you Cobb County for sending out an officer so fast. Its another tale for another time, but once we know the ending I'll fill you in. Anyway we got to the Santa Breakfast and well Santa was a popular guy this year. So we waited.....

and waited.....

and waited a little more with Ice Man...

Until finally we saw Santa's elf and then Boogie wanted to know why she was wearing Santa's hat and not Santa. We told her the Elf was cold and Santa was sharing.

Finally it was time to see the big man himself and the girls were great.

PJ loved Santa's beard and was not the least bit scared. Boogie loved having PJ there.

Boogie also got some one on one time with Santa so she could tell him what she wanted for Christmas. It was only one thing...a scooter. Santa asked her if there was anything else that she wanted and she told him to just give her what he though she would like. Hee hee. I love my Boogie.

So then it was time to head home, and get some out door decorations up before this hit.....

Yes folks that is snow in Georgia on December 12th. It didn't really stick close to Atlanta, but boy was it cold. Now this was on Sunday, but when Jon and I left to pick up the girls at 9am it was 43 degrees when we got home at about 12:45pm it was 30 degrees and snowing. Sunday was definitely a day to stay inside so we did.

We put up our Christmas tree with our new ornaments, and enjoyed some great family time in our nice cozy house.

Boogie dressed up like Jessie and she and Bullseye road around the house.

PJ snuggled with her daddy and made funny faces for mommies camera while showing off her big pretty eyes.

She and Jon also gave me some nice big smiles

Not only did we show off the big ole eyes but also those pretty teeth.

Once all the picture taking was done it was time to hit the bed. It was a long weekend and we all deserved a good long rest.