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

It's been far too long.

This week has been a long week. I made a post on Tuesday and everything after that was just a blur until today. I started getting a little cold/allergy "thing" about that time so we'll blame my lack of post on that! :)

Helen is learning her body parts and is able to point to some of them now! She definately knows her eyes, nose, hair, ears, and belly button (which we refer to as a "boley holey.") I know it's a normal developmental process of a child to eventually learn body parts, but to see it in action makes me glad God knows what he's doing and allows little me to be a part of it.

She's also learned how to climb just about everything in our house. This week, I think it was Thursday, I got Helen up and got her ready so we could go to work. I put her down so she could go play in the living room while I was fixing her breakfast and getting our bags ready. Next thing I know, there's no noise in the house, except the noise I was making.......UH OH. Never a good sign. I come around the corner in the living room, and don't see Helen. (Ok...) I checked my bedroom, and she's not in there. Well, I come back into the living room foyer and what do I see....

Yep, a second attempt at the octopus painting. I put it up on top of the table in the dining room where she "couldn't reach or see it...." Well, we live and learn. I knew it wouldn't be long until she started getting up there. It was so cute seeing her standing up there just working all by herself. Just a big (little) girl. I hated to make her leave it, but we had to go to work.

I have decided that climbing and exploring are her two favorite things. She doesn't care for TV, she doesn't make a fuss for any toys, she likes to flip through books and look at all the pictures, but other than that, she'd rather be outside. I saw this in a One Step Ahead catalog this week and I'm hoping we can get one. I don't know if we'll really get it because it's a little pricey, but I really like it. It's for 1-3 year-olds. And two can be on it at the same time. She can climb and swing and I don't have to worry about her falling to her death. What do yall think?

Friday we came home and about the time I got home and was about to put dinner on, we got a call from Korey and Amanda asking us out to dinner!!! YEA!! It was a welcomed escape from the blah dinner I had planned. We went out to Sonia's Mexican Restaurant here in Winder and YUMMY! It hit the spot! I love that place. We came home, put Helen to bed, and then I went to bed. I know, in bed that early shouldn't be allowed, but I was beat.

Saturday Brian and I got to babysit Nathan our nephew. Here he is all vogue with his beautiful parents...

We decided to take he and Helen to Conyers to the 27th Cherry Blossom Festival. We had heard on the news that it was going to rain in the afternoon and be a little cool. So we dressed accordingly. (Stupid weather) It was warm and sunny and we didn't bring a drop of sunscreen! We started shedding clothes long before the first hour was passed. We had the kids in the strollers and they had a blast. Unfortuately I didn't bring my camera, I know, very stupid. I completely forgot it. But I got a few pics on my phone, so I hope I can get them off of it and post them for everyone to see a few shots.

They had a whole section set up just for kids. They had 10 BIG moon-walk jumping things. They were all in different shapes and sizes, some were slides and some were obstacle courses and some were just to jump. I thought Nathan would be all about those, but Helen liked them so much more. He only wanted to do one of them, and the rest of the time he just wanted to ride the little train. We couldn't stay very long because unless you are a bigger kid, jumping and sliding gets old after about the second or third one. And if you are a parent that goes in with the little kid, you get tired after the first! (I'm so getting old. I can't believe I just admitted to that)

The festival was mostly for grown ups, but the coordinators of the Cherry Blossom Festival really worked hard making it suitable for kids. Most of the stuff was just booths set up for shopping and food and knick-knacks. I could have bought up the entire place of funnel cakes, but I restrained. I didn't even eat one.

Lastly, before I close this post, I wanted to share with you a gross and yet, hilarous picture of my nutty daughter eating a slice of bread. She was enjoying it so much (or maybe just starving) that she started shoving huge pieces in her mouth. She didn't choke or anything, but she was hilarous. Kind of like Noah and his muffins, Jenny. Anyway, here you go. It's not very lady-like, but seeing the stuff in between her teeth is just funny....

Boortzy

Politics and government are new passions for me. I had not realized just how behind and uninformed I was until I began listening to talk radio. Neal Boortz is one of my favorites. Despite his tendancy to be rude and opinionated, he really makes me think and makes me analyze what is going on around me.

Tonight, at the Avenue West Cobb Barnes and Noble, I will be standing in line to see Neal and get his second Fair Tax book " Fair Tax: The Truth: Answering the Critics" signed. I CANNOT wait. My loving husband is going to take me and we'll be going to dinner and all beforehand. He's so wonderful to me. He knows how much I want to meet Neal and how much I adore his show.

If any of you would like to do something great for your children and your grandchildren, you can do two things: Get involved with this country and the politics going on, and SUPPORT THE FAIR TAX. Other than fighting Islamic radicalism, it is probably the most important thing that could happen to our country. I am so passionate I can barely stand it. Check out the links. Even if you HATE Neal Boortz, take a moment to look into it. It wasn't his idea, it was the idea of a team of independant thinkers and businessmen, and merely made public by Neal and Congressman John Linder

Enjoy your read. I hope you all have a fabulous Valentine's day! XOXOXO