Ready to go with some of his team!

These 3 guys were emcees of the run. They played fun music & kept the kids motivated the whole time. They were great!

Where's Josh?

Maybe track or cross-country running in his future?

One sweet cheerleader giving the kids 5 as they ran by

It was cold that day, in case you can’t tell! It was great, though! Way to go Josh!

One!

Two!

Three!

My sweet Vivi is a big three year-old girl! On her birthday, we went as a family to St. Augustine to spend the day. We played at a playground with a carousel, ate lunch & walked around the downtown area. It was perfect weather & we had a blast!

I obviously haven't mastered taking a pic of myself & someone else yet. This was the best, believe it or not

With Josh-she would not look at the camera!

Yummy popsicles from "The Hyppo"

Some things I’d like to remember about her at this age:

-She’s never been taught to use manners-she just naturally uses them! It’s amazing! We’re blown away by her politeness, she’s such a little lady

-She can count objects in spanish up to 10.

-She can count objects in english up to 15

-She can identify all of her letters. But, it’s kinda frustrating getting her to do it. I have to say “where is the letter A?”, for example. If I say “what letter is this?” she says she doesn’t know. Maybe she isn’t quite confident enough, yet?

-She is a major girly-girl but LOVES to get messy. She sits and digs in the dirt, getting herself & her nails all dirty. She is a messy eater & when she’s painting(which she loves) she will paint her arms up to her elbows! It dries me crazy b/c I don’t like to get dirty But I’m learning to let her be herself & that it’s ok to get messy!

-She is starting to really enjoy dressing up in all the Princess clothes she got for Christmas & her birthday. She identifies herself as a princess & the boys in the family are princes. Troy is her “prince” ,specifically.

-She’s always asking us “Don’t I look pretty?” which is super cute but I try & compliment her in other areas (kindness,smarts,manners,patience, etc.) a lot also, b/c I think it’s important for her to know there’s more to being just outwardly pretty.

-She loves her big brother & asks where he is when he’s at school. She loves playing with him, but is really starting to do little things to annoy him. Typical sibling behavior.

There’s more, I know. She is just a perfect angel & a perfect piece to our family! Love you Vivian!

We all enjoyed Christmas this year. Just being together on that day with nothing to do was great! We managed to stretch out present-opening throughout the entire day. That way, the kids actually played with the present they opened instead of casting it aside for the next one & forgetting about it. Like I said, they got so much, so I’ve put away some things under my bed to bring out when the newness has worn off from the other ones!

posing with brother & dollhouse Santa brought

Josh got Perfection! He didn't quite know what it was but he loved it once we played it. Vivi loves it too!

Excited to get puzzles! She's so good at them!

Vivi's present to Josh-He was so excited!!

Lego books a major favorite!

"Camilla the Cupcake Fairy" book-we read it every night

That’s not all their gifts-just the good pics. I took a lot of videos this time. Here are the kids opening their gifts from Aunt Debbie/Uncle Harry & Grandmom Hope. They love their gifts, guys! Debbie, yours are the 1st 2 videos

We put away most of our Christmas stuff yesterday-the house looks weird because we had gotten so used to seeing all of it Let the countdown to Christmas begin

Last week for the 1st half of Christmas break, we went up to Atlanta. We celebrated Vivi’s birthday, Christmas with my family & Troy’s family.

The birthday party was a lot of fun! My mom had the house decorated super cute with princess stuff & had her a Princess Tiana cake. I brought my new favorite recipe for parties/get-togethers-jalapeno popper dip- which everyone LOVED! I promise you, it is so good & easy! Link  to it

Vivi got lots of great gifs. Including, lots of Princess dress-up clothes! She loves them!

Sleeping Beauty

She looked so funny! I love her

Thanks for hosting the party, Mom & Dad!

We also got to finally go play in some snow!!! I have been wanting to go to “Snow Mountain” at Stone Mountain for a couple of years now. My kids will never see snow falling from the sky, any time soon, anyway. So, the next best thing is Snow Mountain. It is real snow! The kids had fun building snowmen, sliding down small hills on plastic sleds & throwing snowballs. For the bigger kids & adults, there are huge, long snow slides you slide down on tubes. Our daredevil, Josh, was not scared of them at all. So fun! It was a really pretty day to go,too. mid 60′s but when you were in the snow it felt wintry.

That was the last pretty day-it rained the rest of the time. That was ok, though, we went to the GA Aquarium!

Josh

these are called "blubber jellies" the kids got a huge kick out of them & their name!

We think they're new to the exhibit, we don't remember seeing them before.

best i could get!

Something random happened right after this picture. There were a couple of young Japanese girls taking pictures, I could tell they were friends so I offered to take a pic of them together. I took the pic & then they asked if they could have Vivi in the pics with them because she was so cute! I said yes and they took like 5 pics with her, smiling & holding her up. I was flattered, but I know I’d never ask someone if I could do that. It also happened in Disney standing in line for Dumbo. These young Brazilian girls asked to have their pic made with her. Strange

It was a good trip, seeing our families & taking it easy. I was SO happy to be on “break” I was looking forward to not getting up at 6am for 2 weeks! I’m relishing these last few days of  break, for sure. I’ll do a Christmas Day post soon!

In the car that hit me was an older couple. The man was driving. They were nice people, thank goodness. I called Troy, who came to get Josh from school. The school had him waiting in the office because I’d called them. We waited on the police. Of course, it was my fault because I had a stop-sign, but thankfully, the officer just gave me a warning. The driver of the other car wouldn’t admit he had his blinker on, but he didn’t deny it either. He said it was “possible”. I’m sorry, but, people driving with their blinkers on is one of my biggest driver peeves!  So, after all is said & done, the minivan isn’t totaled & will be back to us on the 14th. Luckily, we only have to pay the deductible!

So, on Tuesday we went and got a car! We have an old blazer we were getting ready to sell & we’ll be getting the minivan back. We got a Dodge Journey:

This isn’t our actual car. I’m too lazy to take a pic right now. This is very close to the color, though. It’s a 2009 but it only has 28,000 miles on it. I’m married to a finance guy-so he never buys new cars, he prefers to buy with cash so he doesn’t have any payments. We did have to get a loan this time, though.

I really like the new car! I’m also very thankful nobody was hurt in my accident & I hope the other guy has learned to turn off his turn signals when he doesn’t need them.

Her best friend is Savannah so she named he doll after her So cute! The doll looks like Savannah too-blonde hair & brown eyes!

In fact, I went out with some friends for my birthday to a place down here that has ladies night & karaoke every Thursday night. It’s so much fun to watch people sing, good & bad. Great entertainment.  Courtney, being the great friend that she is, offered to be my DD for the night since it was my birthday. I decided that at the end of the night, I’d go up & sing “What it Takes” by Aerosmith. A few of the girls went up with me-thank God! Even though I’d had quite a bit to drink, I was still nervous!

pics:

Rock on. From left-Robin, Me, Ali. Courtney's hiding in the back

lol!

Crystal & Maryann were too chicken to get up there with us. It was so much fun! I know it was horrible, but I enjoyed it. I think Robin & Ali enjoyed it, too. Courtney was only up there to be supportive. She didn’t sing one note, ha ha. The only thing I really want to happen to my life is to SLOW DOWN!

The highlight of the trip for me was Vivi getting to meet her favorite princess (at the moment), Tiana from The Princess & the Frog! Oh & Tiana’s song in her movie is “Almost There”, so that’s where today’s title comes from.

She calls her "Tinana" instead of Tiana-so cute

She didn’t squeal uncontrollably, like she did when she 1st met Mickey & Minnie, but she was in awe!

It was precious how she kept touching Tiana & hugging her!

So fun! Tiana LOVED Vivi, too. Who wouldn’t?

We rode everything again & again! Josh even got to ride Space Mountain with Daddy & another time with me!! He wasn’t tall enough in February but has grown TWO inches since then, so he could do it! He was soooo excited! He loved it, of course! We were nervous b/c it’s a very intense ride-but we were quickly reminded of his love for extreme rides. He wanted to ride it over & over, it didn’t phase him!

Pirates of the Caribbean was another favorite again. Josh is really into pirates right now-he’s being a “pirate skeleton” for Halloween. So, he loved that, too.

Tough guy pose

The weather was awesome. Crowds were bigger than I expected, but wait times were still close to what they were back in February. We saved who knows how much money by bringing our lunch each day! We brought Josh’s backpack  in the park to carry everything-it was a lifesaver. I’m so glad I thought of it! It was a great trip & I’m sad we won’t be back for awhile. The new part of Fantasyland is opening next spring or summer, I think. It would be so awesome to see it. Hey,  I guess I could win the lottery!

Myself & Vivi met up with Maryann/Jackson & Courtney/Savannah one day to tour the Fire Station…

Us w/Maryann & Jackson. Savannah wasn't in a good mood this day & didn't want to pose.

Vivi was the only one who was interested in anything, really!

somehow I got roped into trying on the gear. It was very heavy & hot! Much respect to the Firemen

Josh had a little cold one day a couple of weeks ago, so I kept him out of school. Of course, he wasn’t acting sick. He is a very energetic boy. If it gets to be too much we turn on the Wii & let him sword fight or do a practice round of sword slicing. All he has to do in the practice round is slice objects as fast as he can. It burns that energy & he really enjoys it! Here he has sliced 301 objects!!! I believe he got to 400 & quit that day.

Accomplished

DO YOU SEE THE SWEAT? That’s a good workout for him!

Sweaty Hair

One day after school, I took him to see Lion King in 3D. That is my favorite Disney movie of all, including Pixar movies. He loves it too! We have the dvd so he watches it a lot. We went on the Friday that it opened.

awesome movie

Last Thursday, I went out to eat w/Courtney & Maryann. It was Ladies Night at a place we’d never been. They also had Karaoke going on. We didn’t do any but it was funny to watch others! Love hanging with these girls!

fun times

At Josh’s school, each Kindergartener is assigned a “Big Brother” or “Big Sister”. He has 2 brothers & they are 8th graders. He really thinks they are so cool. Throughout the year, they have special afternoons where they do activities with their “siblings”. Last week, they hung out in the cafeteria playing games. Apparently, they traced Josh’s body & decorated it to look like him. Josh specifically wanted it to look a little evil. Note the spikes on his feet & his teeth

it's hanging in our computer room

Yep, it’s in the computer room & it spooks me when I see it out of the corner of my eye. I think it’s a person-ha ha.

The day Josh was sick, we walked up to the playground & I snapped a pic of my babies on the climbing thingy. Love them!