Help for mommy, new teeth, and.......Elvis?

We were supposed to go and visit my grandmother this weekend, but because I was sick (I found out it was a sinus infection and the beginning stages of bronchitus, by the way) we didn't go. My wonderful mother and step-father came to visit to watch Helen so I could rest and recover. They live 3 hours away, so that's saying something! Thursday night and Friday was restful. I missed my monthly Bunko night, but I think everyone there was glad I stayed home because I was contagious!

Thank the Lord for good parents...and antibiotics.

This picture proves how bad I felt. I'm smiling, but only on the outside.

Grammy kisses tickle....

Hey mommy, I'm doing OK. Go back to bed.

Papa Tom builds them, and I knock them down. I love this arrangement!

She's cutting both incisors. Those two little white specs are actually teeth cutting through, not the glare of the flash. She wouldn't let me take a picture, so we had to flip her upside down.

No, she's not trying to fill up her diaper. She is actually excited because she was finally able to get the top on that plastic bowl! She'd been working on it for a few minutes.

She was playing with her princess bag and put it over her head. I hope DFCS doesn't take her away from me. I only left it on her head long enough to get the picture (20 seconds, max). I know it's a suffocation hazard, but it was hilarious that she was peeking out of the clear part and walking around like that!

Here's Elvis! Until my parents arrived in Georgia, Elvis belonged to Papa Tom. You press his hand and he sings "I'm All Shook Up" and dances. Well, Helen fell in love with it so he now belongs to her. Spoiling at its best!

Daddy and Helen dancing to Elvis the bear.

Pure enjoyment....the joys of childhood. She still loves it and she's played that song at least 50 times. It's actually not annoying....

(BTW, this is my second post for today. Check out the next one too)

As promised...only a week late.

Here are some pics from the Saturday Nathan was with us...(see April 11th post)

I'm not sure why he likes to cover up the car with the blankets. He did the same thing last week. Pretty cute fella.

This is Nathan's helicopter that his Nana got him. You push the button on the top and the propeller spins and lights up. Helen loves it as much as Nathan does. (Just don't let the one see the other with it!)

They were crawling onto the couch and there was body parts flailing all over the place! This was just before she got mad at him.

What the living room looked like until nap time.....Peek-A-Blocks and books were everywhere!

I've been a little busy blowing by dose

Does anyone know where I can buy one of these?!!!!!




I'm sorry to all of my frequent readers, I've been sick these past few days. I have intended to get on here to post some pics since last weekend, but alas, the schnoz has prevailed. I've gone to bed early every night. Sorry folks. My wonderful mom is in town tonight, so maybe I can get something posted that has a little more gusto! Yall take care! If there are any of you out there that have the same thing going on...I'm praying for you.

Last week was Brian's Bday and this week it's Leslie's Bday. So, we've swapped babysitting duties for Friday night! Ty and Leslie went out on a date and we kept Nathan overnight! He's been a pleasure! We took he and Helen to Mickey D's for dinner and then to the park for a bit of playtime. We told them they could play in the "Play Place" but when we went to go in, a sign said it was closed for repairs. (bummer) It took some convincing to get them into the car and to go to the park! They played and played and ran and climbed! I think Helen's favorite part was the slides! Nathan got a kick out of the wiggling bridge. (a swinging bridge) He may have been on one before, but he acted like it was a new thing! I told him to jump on it and he thought that was great too! He liked that it wiggled after he jumped! He also liked the climbing obstacles. Some of the things he was climbing on looked a little too much for such a small boy, but he tackled them like he had disjointed body parts! He's grown so much since they moved here! It's amazing how time flies and how fast they grow. I've been so caught up in Helen and keeping her on a daily basis I've missed out on getting to see Nathan like I used to.

After the park, we came home, had baths (with bubbles of course) and they splashed and washed and played! They were both in there at the same time, but some how there was enough room for all of Helen's bath toys and them too! They didn't seem to mind.

Helen was ready for bed by nine and Nathan could have gone for much longer. By the time I got Helen in bed I was gearing up for getting him settled too! We read his books and I gave him his milk. He is now sleeping soundly on "Nathan's bed" in our sitting room off of our master. I think he likes that bed. (It's a futon that is actually comfortable.) Hopefully the rain and all the energy expelled will allow them both to sleep well into the morning.

Tomorrow will be a fun day. Maybe the rain will have passed by the morning and we can do some things outside. Rainy days are no fun on a Saturday! Rain or no, I'll have some pics for you on the next post!

Brian's Birthday and a few other pics

Brian jumped the big 30 hurdle this weekend. He ages well, still looking not a day older than 29! ;) Leslie and Ty babysat Helen over night Friday so that we could go out for dinner and a movie and still get to sleep in on Saturday!! (How cool are they?!) We had Longhorn's Flo's Filet (the best steak in existence) and saw 21, a movie about some MIT students who go to Vegas and count cards. It's a very good flick. Pretty clean, rated P-13. It's like Ocean's Eleven meets Rainman. Interesting combo huh...

Anyway, it was a fun night. He also was given a fabulous gift: the entire Seinfeld series on DVD.

Saturday was great. We got up around 8:00 and had pancakes for breakfast. Brian went outside and worked in his shed and I worked feverishly to clean the house. Most of what I did was clean baseboards and scrap white paint flecks off my hardwood floors at the baseboards. (Side note: we moved into our house a year and a half ago, and I've yet to get to this. Either beacause of keeping up with Helen or sheer lack of interest....) I had to scrape them all up with my fingernails. Yeah... But it's all clean and fleckfree and I feel GREAT! After that I mopped the hardwood and then Brian used our orbital and buffed it to a beautiful shine! (Thanks ORECK!)

After cleaning, we got ready and went to Ty and Leslie's for dinner and cookie cake! MMM!! Here are some pictures of the kids playing while we were there.

I know it's a little out of focus, but he's still got the cutest dimples! His mommy has them too!

Helen being a goofball.

She turned the gliding ottoman over and was pushing it with mad fury but with a huge smile! I wish I had a video instead of a still shot because this was hilarious! See Brian in the back laughing at her! She was going as fast as her little arms would let her!

Partners in crime, Leah and Rudy. Mimi's puppies!

This is from Friday night when she stayed over with Leslie. She always gets the best pictures of Helen. I love this one!

Helen on Nathan's trike. She can't reach the pedals, but she still knows how to make it go! LOL!

They had a blast playing the floor with Nathan's Shrek blanket! They put it over each other's heads and walked around, then they started wiggling all over the floor on it! Too fun.

Mommy shot! Good picture Leslie! You can't even tell she took it! Isn't she pretty!?!?!

These last shots are for Mimi. She bought these kitty pajamas for Helen. I tought her what "the kitty says" and she went around saying "Eeeooow." She was on fire that night and would NOT hold still for me to get a shot. These are some of the best ones. Enjoy!

I love this one!

She looks like she's dancing the jig!

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