What a fantastic day!!

My day started off with a shot when I woke up late and had to leave relatively early. I needed to be up and out with Helen and all of our stuff by 8:00AM because today I was meeting Trudy in Commerce for a girls day! Carol Leah wanted to meet us, but the drive and length of day was a little too long. (Can you blame her?) If you're reading this, we missed you...truly we did.

Commerce, for those of you not familiar, is a town about 40 miles north of Atlanta on I-85. If you've travelled that way, you may remember it as the "place with all the Tanger Outlets." Yeah....now you know. Well, Commerce is about half-way for Trudy and I to meet periodically for a girls day. Sometimes these visits are for an hour or two, other times they are for several hours (all day).

Trudy, Carol Leah, and I met at Faulkner in 2000. I could go on for some several hours about random events involving the three of us, but to sum up our relationship: we just enjoyed laughing together. Separately, we are very different people with relatively different interests, families, backgrounds, and lives. But together, we really complement each other's personalities. (I think so anyway) I believe that's what makes our friendship so great and why we clicked so well from the very beginning.

That being said, we've tried several times to get together since we all moved away, but for one reason or the other could never get the trio together. CL lives in AL, I live in GA, and Trudy lives in SC. That doesn't make for an easy trip especially when Atlanta is basically the center. (To me, Atlanta isn't the easiest city for a quick, one-day visit.) Today, only Trudy and I were able to come together in Commerce. It wasn't as fun as if we had been able to get CL there too. No offense to Trudy because she feels the same way. CL is muy fabulosa!! Not to mention little Thomas would have been there to play with Helen. What a fun thing that would have been!

So we met at 1:30 for lunch at Sonny's BBQ and it was good. Helen hasn't seen Trudy since she was very small (only a few months old) but she took to Trudy as if she were flesh and blood! They had loads of fun from the start. Here's a pic at Sonny's with Helen trying on Trudy's very stylish specacles...

so professional!

From Sonny's we started at Tanger. We went to several different stores most of which I had to fight the intense urge to buy for Helen. Most places I resisted, but Old Navy had socks on sale for $0.49 a pair, so I got 8 pairs in different colors! What a deal!!!! I think I did pretty good. Trudy got Helen a really cute dress at Carter's with little green shamrocks and polka dots! I LOVED IT! (she totally surprised me and she bought it while I was in the store...duh) Here's a picture of the BEAUTIFUL Trudy and Helen in the dress.

click to enlarge :)

Why, you say, would Kristy put Helen in the dress she just received from Trudy? Why not wait for another day, say Sunday or a nice spring day to wear such a cute dress? Well, let us keep going with our story....

We spent most of the day burning up because we both expected it to be cool and rainy. (sunny and warm) I guess most of the stores did as well because every one of them had no AC on except KB Toys whici was a nice break. Around mid-afternoon we were parched, so we bought two Mr. Pibbs to quench our thirst. I knew Helen would probably be feeling the same way so I gave her some grapes and some water and we strolled on through the stores. She got grape juice all over herself, the stroller, her clothes and shoes! (yeah...) I had an extra outfit in her bag, so I changed her out of the stickiness, wiped her down from head to toe with wipes, as Trudy tackled the stroller with GermX wipes, and re-dressed her in the spare.

It's a good thing you had the extra, you say? Yeah, I thought so too, thanks! I thought I might be moving up the mommy ladder thinking in advance like that. Keep reading...

So we finished our shopping and decided to grab dinner at Applebee's! Mostly we were just going to get dessert and call it a day. Well, we got there and decided that those appetizer's looked pretty.....appetizing! :) We ordered a sampler and Helen, Mac and Cheese and brocolli. Before our meals arrived, Helen had fun with her cup of water. She only wanted to drink it this way(notice where her straw is...or rather isn't):

And when I took it away from her because it was getting her all wet, she screamed and cried in a way that made me think I'd mortally wounded her. (She never reacts that way) I thought, "well maybe she's really thirsty." So I gave it back to her with the straw and she continued to take the straw out and drink the water away in the above manner. More on her than in her.

Now, as I was ordering for her, in the back of my head I knew she would never eat mac and cheese AND brocolli, but she likes them both so I would just take them home, right? Little did I know! She ate nearly every bite of that mac and cheese and a good bit of brocolli! I was SHOCKED!! She never eats that well. She usually picks at food. Well, she fed herself the macaroni with lightening speed and by the time the meal was done, not only was she coated from head to toe in noodle goo, she was completely soaked in water. Cue in the third outfit of the day--but wait, you didn't bring a second change of clothes Kristy, you only brought the one! Yep, and it's a good thing Trudy bought her the cute little dress earlier today. So I go out to the car, grab the wipes, a diaper, and the dress and more socks (just happened to have a pair of Nathan's I meant to give to Leslie Sunday night) and I headed back into the restaurant. For the second time today, I'm stripping my wiggly and wired 15 month old daughter in the bathroom, wiping her from head to toe with wipes and fighting with as much energy as I can muster to put more clean clothes on her.

When we got back, the chocolate Tripleplay (AKA CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH ICE CREAM) was waiting on us. We ate it and headed to the car. All of us where tired. We had a quick self-photo shoot in the parking lot and loaded up and went home. Trudy to the north, Kristy and Helen to the south. Bye-bye Trudy...Helen was even disappointed.

All in all it was a great day. The Lord blessed us with a safe and fun-filled day that I really needed. Here are some of the last shots of the day. Enjoy:

Helen wouldn't be still for anything.

Awwwwwwwww