A Georgia Visit

My cousin/sister/for-real life-long BFF, Stephanie, came home from England for the summer. I let Georgia and everyone there have her for the entire trip, except for this past weekend when we planned a visit to see her before she heads back across the pond. 

Mom, Dad, me and the girls headed out Thursday afternoon. We planned to have a good two days of being there so we could get in visits with all of our favorite Georgians. 

We got to Aunt Kay's around 8:30 that evening. The girls and I stayed there and mom & dad went to Beau & Kristy's. 

Friday morning, "Tettie" (who was just ours all weekend, since Henry was having a weekend with some of his friends) picked us up and we headed for Cleveland- home of the Cabbage Patch Kids & Babyland General Hospital.

 I can't tell you how many times we visited the old hospital when we were kids. We took AB to the new one a few years ago, but she didn't remember it. I knew both the girls would love it and they did. 

We toured the nursery, styled doll hair in the salon, and  played in the Babyland Boutique... 

Finally, it was time to gather around the big tree

to see "Mother Cabbage" deliver her baby...

of course that was after a large dose of "imagicillin" and an "easy-otomy"! 

This was the first time we've ever been and there be a male doctor on-call.

He was great though and played the part so well.

He took the baby to the nursery for her check up and then let the little visitors hold her. 

After all that excitement, I let the girls get a little something to take home. DW told me to get them something small & to not come home with any of those (and I quote) "creepy dolls".... I wonder if this baby falls into that category??  

The soft faced originals really are kind of scary- but the plastic face ones are so cute. I love a CPK doll.

They came out in 1983, which was a great year to be born. ;)

My first Cabbage Patch baby came from Babyland and I think on our next visit, we'll let the girls adopt their first ones, too. This time it was tiny dolls and a puzzle that got picked, though. 

After all the fun of Babyland, we met Aunt Kay, Becky & Amy for some lunch. That afternoon, we went by Beau's and got our Garrett, who was having a fit to see his Annabelle!! She was pretty excited to see him, too! :)

Friday night, we all met up at Beau & Kristy's house for supper and some boiled peanuts & homemade ice cream.

My mom boiled the peanuts of her life that night. They were perfect.

It was such a great night and I loved seeing and hearing all of the kids running around playing together. 

It was sweetness. 

That night, the girls were all going to come back to Aunt Kay's to spend the night. The power went out and we had to sit around with candles burning, but that didn't stop the little girls from doing nails...

Saturday we spent the day with Steph again- running some errands and then we went through Aunt Kay's attic to add to my "bring home" pile. Her house is seriously like a magazine and I was happy to take some "treasure" off her hands! :)  (my dad on the other hand wasn't too happy about all the loot we had to strap down and haul 400 miles home!) He did it, though, bless his heart. :)  

AB got to spend the day with Amy & Anna and had the best time playing at their house. :)

Saturday night, we went to a Family night Festival in town because Beau had gotten a bunch of tickets through his work. The kids got to ride rides and I had my eye on a funnel cake, but the line was too long.

The kids all had a great time. What is it about kids and carnie rides? They're crazy about them. :)

Saturday night, AB spent the night with my parents at Beau's. We hit the DQ drive thru on our way back to Aunt Kay's and did you know the little chocolate pieces in the new S'mores blizzard say "DQ" on them like a Hershey bar? Super cute...

Steph & I challenged Katie & Lindsey to some old cousins vs. the young cousins games... A few rounds of Headbandz and Catch Phrase had us laughing for sure! 

Sunday we said our goodbyes, which still to this day always leave me tearful. 

It's always precious to see those we love so much-- and I wouldn't have missed seeing my Steph before she heads back to England for anything. 

~amw~

America's Favorite Pastime

This year for DW's birthday, I planned a trip to Atlanta to see a Braves game, with Adam & Lauren.

Adam ordered our tickets and booked our rooms, because while I can book a hotel, I don't have a clue when it comes to tickets. 

We left early Saturday morning when Grammy & Pop got to our house to stay with the girls. 

We made it to Atlanta in time for a late lunch. 

Thanks to some googling and Lauren's "Seen on TV" food app, we picked a great spot to eat. 

It already had us at the name- "Daddy D'z" - Daddy D for Devin, who's trip it was, after all. :)

I'm not going to pretend like I wasn't a little skeptical when we pulled up.

Luckily, I kept in mind the "we ain't pretty, but we're good" that I read on their website. :)

The minute we walked in the door, though, we knew we'd made a good choice- the smell alone was enough.

The ribs were so good and the fried okra was the best.

After lunch, we checked into our hotel and rested up for a few minutes before walking to Underground.

After some quick shopping for DW a new Braves hat, we caught the shuttle to Turner Field. 

This passionate fan was on the bus with us. I love it when people go "all out"!

Except, some people who may take it too far... Exhibit A:

Ha. :) Lauren found this Chuck Norris beard hat at Lids when DW was getting his new hat.

It had been raining off and on all afternoon, but by the time we got to the stadium, it was pretty steady. We were early, so we just walked around and tried to stay dry. 

I was so happy to see a picture of the Braves team from the mid-90's-- those are the Braves (David Justice, John Smoltz, Tom Glavin, Chipper Jones, Greg Maddox, etc.) that I remember from G5 channel 6. My grandparents had one of the massive satellite dishes back then and they were huge Braves fans. After church on Sundays you could bet Papa would have one of us turning the satellite to G5 and changing the channel to 6 so he could watch the game on TBS. :)

We had great seats for the game and at 7:00 the rain stopped. It was perfect timing for the 7:20 first pitch.

The game was slow moving at first. I forgot that about baseball. It's just slower and more quiet than the football games we're usually together at. :) 

Things got really exciting through, in the 7th inning (I think) when the Braves came back and scored two runs to tie the game.

By the bottom of the 9th it was still tied and so we got some "free baseball"--- we ended up getting 6 innings of "free baseball"... And honestly by that point, we were just ready for somebody to score and what seemed like the never-ending game to be over- even if it meant the Braves lost. My shoes had gotten wet earlier in the night and my toes were freezing. I was pretty sure gangrene was fixing to set in. 

It started raining again in the 13th inning, it was after midnight and we (at least Lauren & I) were over it. I think the guy, in the corner of this pic was probably over us, too! ;)

In the end, the Braves came up short, but it was still an exciting and great game. It was such a fun day... Just LONG. We caught a cab and got back to the hotel around 1:30. It's been quite a while since we've seen that hour. 

Sunday morning, we headed south back to the land of heat and humidity. 

It was quite an adventure even if it was just for one night. We didn't catch a foul ball, win the 50-50 drawing or even see the braves win, but we ate good, laughed a lot and made a few more memories. Good times for sure.

~amw~

The First Day of Pre-K

All I keep thinking is that I can’t believe it’s already here.

The first day of Pre-K!

I’ve been both excited and nervous about this next chapter.

I’m excited for AB, because I know she’s excited. (And believe me, if she wasn’t, there’s no way I could have actually gone through with it). I think it’s going to be great for her socially, to interact with other kids her age and to make new friends. Plus, it’s going to be a good transition into Kindergarten.

I’m nervous, because while she is such a “big girl” these days, she’s still our BABY. She’s only four – and the thought of her somewhere without me is A LOT. Then, there’s the thought of her being “in the world” – we’ve tried to provide her with a comfy, happy, safe little nest and I just keep wondering if it’s too soon to send her out into the world where kids can not only be mean, but where some of them, even by elementary school, have seen and heard more than I ever want her to. Have we made sure she’s equipped and ready for the “real world”??  But I’m pretty sure you feel like that no matter how old your kids are. I am sure all the mommas I saw in Target yesterday, who were buying cleaning supplies, lamps and groceries for their kids’ first college apartments were probably feeling exactly the same way. And so, this morning, I took a deep breath, and reminded myself that all we can do is the best we can and we have to pray and trust the Lord with it.

We opted to the do the half day Pre-K program, and its from 7:50-10:50 every morning. The having to get up so early is going to be an adjustment for all of us.

Because this morning was special, we did a little Back-to-School breakfast.

We’d invited everybody to drop by and see AB before her first day and to have some breakfast.

I did all of AB’s favorite breakfast things… heart shaped pancakes, bacon, sausage, strawberries with whipped cream and Dunkin Donuts Powdered sugar Munchkins. DW got up early and cooked the bacon and sausage while I got the other stuff ready.

We woke our girl up a little before 7:00 and she was not excited about getting out of bed! I think by Thursday, she’s going to be done with this getting up early business. I KNOW I will!  :)

After breakfast, and all her guests had dropped by, we took a few more pictures…

The school drop off was crazy busy- there were cars parked EVERYWHERE.

We got there right at 7:50, so I can’t imagine how crazy it was earlier than that. We got to her room, and she hung her backpack in her cubby. Then she got her nametag and hugged us all goodbye.

DW and I lingered as long as we could, and then we stood outside and watched through the door. :)

As we were pulling off, I told him that I was pretty sure if she’d acted the tiniest bit like she didn’t want to stay, we would have been Pre-K dropouts on the first day.

Mamie and I counted down the minutes until it was time to go back to the school to pick AB up. We were 10 minutes EARLY and that’s saying A LOT for me. :)

AB was all smiles when we got there and was excited to tell us all about her first day. She said her favorite part was seeing the lunchroom. Apparently they took a tour of the school campus and the lunchroom made quite an impression. Last night she told us she was most excited to play on the playground. Sadly, for our girl, she won’t get to do the lunchroom or the playground, since all that happens after her 10:50 check out time. I think there’s going to be lots of other things she loves about school though.

It was a great first day and I know there were lots of family and friends praying me through it this morning. :)

After lunch, we went to be fitted for new ballet slippers, because dance starts back this afternoon, too!

I think we’ll ALL be in bed early tonight!

~amw~