Garrett's First Birthday...

We spent this past weekend up in Georgia for my nephew, Garrett's, first birthday. His party was Friday night, so we left Thursday after DW got off work in hopes that our sweet girl would sleep for most of the trip. She did so good. She only had one meltdown, and it was around Macon. She'd had enough of her carseat, and to be honest, so had I! So we stopped at a Wal-Mart and got a few things we needed. Such things included; Gerber fruit snacks, juice, and Johnson's No-More Tangles spray. AB's hair is getting so long and it's super curly when it's wet, so it was time for the detangler! We let her walk around and stretch her legs for about an hour and then headed on. Not long after she went to sleep and slept the rest of the way.

Garrett's party was at the creek on Friday evening. (My two aunts live next to each other and behind their house is creek. They've built a screened in pavilion and fire pit and have lots of tables and chairs and swings and toys for the kids down there. It is honestly, the perfect set up for gatherings and parties.

Kristy had printed pictures of Garrett's first year and they were strung up on jute twine using clothes pins around perimeter of the pavilion.
Kristy had a cake-lady she knows do the cake and the fondant monkey on top was beyond adorable!

The Birthday Boy with his Daddy & Momma...

All the kids had so much fun just running and playing together outside.

Garrett seemed to love his party, but most of all he loved his CAKE! He dug in for sure! He loved chewing on the monkey that was on top! His Momma took it from him after a while, and after we noticed that a whole corner of it was gone! We thought little man was going to be on a sugar-high for sure, but he was just saving it for later.....we found it later, in his high chair.

He didn't really get into his presents much, he just wanted more cake! Ha... There was one present he really loved though. It was from his Mom & Dad. It was a "My first" welding set. How cute! AB got in on the action, and LOVED the helmet, too!
After cake and presents, there were s'mores by the fire pit! Yum!

It's hard to believe that Garrett is already a year old. Time flies.

On Saturday, I got to have lunch and do a little shopping with my cousins. AB was the only kid that went and she showed out big time. She had gotten up the night before for a solid 2 hours. She was so excited to have Momma & Daddy in the same room with her, that she just couldn't go back to sleep. She wanted to talk and play. Every time we'd tell her to "Shhhhhh" & "go night-night" she would growl. It was hilarious, but not at 3:00 in the morning. She also hadn't gotten a morning nap and by lunch time she was just awful. Honestly, it's the worst she has ever been. I was mortified and so tired from the night before, that by the time we sat down to lunch, I was doing whatever it took to just keep her in her highchair and not fussing. I know, great parenting technique, right??? When I say "whatever it took" I mean even letting her have her own ketchup, which she drank. It was desperate times, ya'll! She was none to thrilled when I took it from her, as evidenced in the photo below....

On the way back from shopping, she slept about 30 minutes, and it wasn't nearly long enough. I just knew our trip home was going to be miserable with her not having any of her regular naps. We went to Beau & Kristy's to say goodbye and see them one more time, and then around 4:00, we headed out. Little Miss went right to sleep and slept until around 7:00 when we stopped (again, in Macon) to eat. We let her walk around outside and get her tummy nice and full (I even let her have sweet tea...it was another "whatever-it-takes-restaurant-moments"). We got back on the road and after a couple episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, she was back asleep and slept the whole way home. Thank you, LORD!

Our trip up was really short and good... seems they are always like that!

~amw~

The Pits...

Florida is flat. I used to come home from my summer vacations (at least 3 weeks, usually more, of which were spent in the North Georgia mountains) and that same thought would always come to my mind. Florida is just flat. Not that there's anything wrong with flat, because let me tell you, I love me some Florida and I love me some flat land. (That is especially true after having just spent the weekend in Georgia trying to keep a 16 month old from rolling down the hills!!!!)




I'd never even seen much of a hill in Florida, until I started dating Devin. On one of our weekend afternoon adventures on the farm, he took me to the "limerock pits." I'd seen limerock pits before, but never like the ones he took me to. The moment we drove up I felt like we had been transported miles from home. The landscape had totally changed and right there in the middle of a cow pasture on flat land were mountains!! Maybe not "mountains", but to a Florida a girl, a big "ant-bed" looks like a small mountain! ha...

These pits were blasted with dynamite decades ago and the limerock inside was mined out and used as the base for roads. While the company still has active pits where limerock is mined, these particular ones, aren't used for anything more than fishing and as a natural watering hole for the cows that graze beside them.

Last Saturday, we went fishing at the limerock pits for a couple hours. I'm not really a big fisherman, so I just took pictures and kept Baby Sister entertained!

See Belle's tiny car at the bottom?

We blew bubbles, ate snacks, tried on our sunglasses,

and our sunhat....

and watched everyone fish!

My Mom & Dad went with us and enjoyed having some fresh Brim to cook for supper.

Devin & my Dad fishing....

Grammy brought one of her catches to show AB. Her face is hilarious. She wasn't too sure about that thing Grammy was holding!

While we were out there, Momma told me about what my great-great aunt used to say about the size of a "keeper"--- "if it's the size of a postage stamp it'll fry!" Ha... My Granny would have called the bucket of fish we ended up with, a "good mess" and we didn't even have to keep any ones the size of a postage stamp!

~amw~

Easter

Am I the only one who is blown away by the fact that Easter has come and gone? Where is this year going?!?!?

Sunday morning, Little Miss woke up to see that the "Bunny" had visited our house!

Her basket was filled, but the only thing she was interested in was the candy in her Daddy's basket! She wanted an Almond Joy egg for breakfast so bad! (She is my child for sure...the apple & the tree!) After we wrestled the Almond Joy out of her hand, she decided to size up the goodies in her basket....

After digging through hers and seeing there was no candy in it, it was back to Daddy's... this time drooling over the Reese's Egg.... and yep, we let her eat it. DW said, "It's Easter!" and with that, I unwrapped my own breakfast which consisted of a Cadbury Cream Egg...the best known Easter candy! :)

While we were still on our sugar-high, we got ready for church and headed out....

I'm not naming names, but someone was a little "un-cooperative" (could it have been the sugar??!!?) when it came to Easter pictures this year! :)

This year, we planned to go to church with my Granny on Easter. She's still a member of my childhood church (also the church DW and I were married at). It was so sweet to get to see everyone there.

after church at my parents'

After church, my Mom had cooked a big lunch and we ate at Granny's. It was a slim crew this year--- just us, my Mom & Dad, Granny, & my aunt, uncle & cousin. Emily, who's 11, and Annabelle were the only "egg-hunters" this year, so DW and I hid the eggs for them.

AB assessing the "goods" in Emily's basket

After egg hunting, we enjoyed some bubbles (AB's Pop got her a bubble machine that blows "millions of bubbles"... not sure if it lives up to it's "millions" claim, but it does make some big ones!)

Granny "oohing" over the bubbles inside bubbles!

When the heat started to kick in, AB changed into her bathing suit and jelly shoes (courtesy of the Easter Bunny) and played on her splash mat.

What a good Easter!

~amw~

Good Friday-Good Friends

What better way to spend Good Friday than with Good Friends?


Annabelle & I met up with our BFF's today.


After lunch at the Ivy House, we made a stop at the park in town.




Annabelle and Allie Claire had a big time exploring and playing on all the "equipment"...

They climbed...

They went down the slide...

They played peek-a-boo....

and they had lots of fun on the "bus"....

Belle drove Allie around first.

Then Allie drove Belle around.

Then they decided to take a song break and sit in the back of the bus. We sang their favorite, "If you're happy & you know it".... Hello, we should have sang "The Wheels On the Bus"... The song-leading Momma's clearly weren't thinking.

Then, they found some shade in the Choo-Choo train & took a break.

After their cheeks were good and pink, we decided it was time to call it a day! Not before we exchanged some "Easter goodies" first though! After we'd "oohed" and "ahhed" for a minute, we headed out in hopes of two little girls getting a much needed afternoon nap!

We're thankful for such a fun day with our friends! But, today we are most thankful for the greatest Friend of all and for the sacrifice and gift He gave on this very day so many years ago. To think of the brutal and painful death that Jesus endured to pay the price for my sins so that I could have eternal life is almost too much to think about. As Christians, though, we know, as my blog-friend, Rebecca put it, "Sunday's coming!" NOTHING offers more HOPE, JOY and PEACE than that!

~amw~

A "Pretty" Post...sort of....

Now that I've gotten all that out on my last post, it's time to move on to a new "pretty" one.



Since the last post only had a picture of poor 'ole Quasimoto, I figured I better get some cute ones of my girl up fast! (* Speaking of Q, Just a side note- since I didn't allow comments on my last post, I've had a few people email me to tell me that I don't look like Quasimoto and that in fact, if I wanted to peddle chicken wings in hot pants and panty-hose I could. Yall are sweet, but I promise I don't think I'm quite as bad as Quasimoto (bless his heart). I was just trying to prove a point, and certainly wasn't "fishing for compliments" to hear that I was 'cute'! That's why sometimes on posts like that one, I disable my comments. But again, yall are sweet to want to reassure me.) :)


We recently took TWO trips to see the Easter Bunny at the mall.



Let me just say that the bunny in these pictures is not the pretty part. Said bunny had to be the scariest one the mall has ever had. He was an orangy-brown color, had an awful navy blue vest and bowtie on and was so stick thin, he looked malnourished. If I was a kid, I'd have probably been scared he was so hungry he might eat me. You know what they say about the "apple and the tree", because my little apple was bit scared of The Bunny.


AB was fine with the Bunny as long as someone was holding her. She was smiling and waving and saying, "heeeeeeyyy!", but the minute we put her down on his lap, she got the look. Her arms went straight out reaching for someone to safely grab her up! We (me with our camera) and the girl at the mall snapped a few pictures as fast as we could. Here's the best pictures I got (it's the classic AB "I'm fixing to cry, but it looks like I am smiling, kind of-pose":

The mall-girl didn't get any that had AB's eyes open or that didn't have her arms stretched straight out, in the "you better pick me up right now" position. I figured we could try it again another day, since The Bunny would be at the mall for another couple weeks.

A week passed and last Sunday afternoon, we ventured up to the mall to try it again. The girl remembered us. She looked at DW and said, "Yall back to try it again?" I'm sure she only remembered us because of how cute our girl is, and NOT because we are THOSE people with THAT kid, RIGHT???? Right. Surely.

We were standing in line and I just knew that it was the day we'd get to buy our overpriced, poorly printed picture to add to our collection, because AB was all smiles. This time, she was

even blowing The Bunny kisses. I was sure she'd remembered him and remembered that he hadn't bitten her with his big bucked-bunny teeth last time, so she was safe this time. We were on deck. As the family in front of us moved on to view their pictures, DW eased up close to The Bunny. AB was loving it. She was petting the Bunny, and "talking" to him, but the minute DW tried to sit her in his lap, she turned it on. The nose crinkled, the lip pooched out and the hands went straight back up toward her Daddy. Me and Mall-Girl snapped as quick as our cameras would snap, and here's what we bought. Yes, friends, this is our $17.00, 2010 Easter picture. I, myself, think it's hilarious and that one day she'll look back and this picture and have a good laugh.

The kicker, is that the day before we took her (the first time) to see The Bunny, was opening day for Spring Gobbler hunting season. DW killed a big one and AB wasn't the least bit scared of it. She even TOUCHED it. Ewwww, I know...

And lest anyone get the idea that this is such a "pretty" post, let me keep it real and "transparent". My girl has a turkey feather in her hair in this picture. And it was taken right after she'd just spit. Yep, she's in a camouflage jacket and she spit. A "trick" she's picked up from her Pop, who thinks its hilarious. Me? Not.so.much.

Looking like Quasimoto is the least of my worries! Ha....

So have yall been to see The Bunny yet this year and were your kids scared of him?????

~amw~