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Meet Ed, the Snow Guy

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We wound up getting more than a dusting of snow today. Not MUCH more than a dusting, but enough to make Macey want to get out and play in it a bit. Mickey can never resist playing in snow either, so the two of them set out this afternoon to enjoy what little snow we got before it melted. They had been outside maybe 20 minutes when I heard two snowballs thud against the front door. I figured they either wanted me to open the door so they could pelt me with snowballs OR they just wanted my attention. Thankfully, they wanted my attention. (Whew!!) They also wanted me to get my camera. The two of them had built a really TALL snowman. I grabbed my camera and my zoom lens so I could stand in the front door and still shoot good pictures of their lovely creation.

Here they are putting the finishing touches on the snowman:

Love this one – can you see Macey? She discovered that I had come out with the camera:

Posing with their TALL snowman:

Mickey shows just how tall their snowman really IS:

Snowman huggers:

An adorable Miss Macey having fun in the snow:

You might wonder where Mariana was during all the snow fun. She was inside. Somewhat surprisingly, she wasn’t interested in going out to play in the snow today. She’s a little like her mama that way. We already played in it once this season, after all. 😉

Macey and Mickey had a ball building this big snow guy. When Macey came inside as I was uploading photos, I asked her the snowman’s name. She didn’t hesitate before she said “Ed.” So, he’s Ed…the tall snow guy. Hopefully he’ll still be standing tall in our front yard in the morning. I’ll keep y’all posted.

Summer Mini-Vacation Photo Recap Part 1 – Nashville

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Be prepared for photo overload. That’s all I’m sayin’. 😉 These are some of the highlight photos from our trip to Nashville, TN. We went up on Thursday, June 18th and stayed in Nashville until Saturday, June 20th. We had a wonderful time. Nashville is GREAT!! Love it there!!

Our first adventure was dinner at Rainforest Cafe. Here are Mickey and the girls heading in:
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Here are the girls in front of the sign:

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The girls LOVED Rainforest Cafe. They loved all the animals and decor of the restaurant. It was a lot of fun!! After dinner we hit Build-a-Bear Workshop and each girl got to create a stuffed animal. Macey chose a frog which she named Freddy. Mariana chose a HSM bear which she named Gabriella. We walked around Opry Mills a bit and then called it a night. Our first evening in Nashville was quite fun!

On Friday we got ready to head out to the Nashville Zoo . We stopped at a Shoney’s near our hotel and had their breakfast buffet and then went right out to the zoo so we could be there when they opened. That was a wise plan because it was already HOT first thing in the morning.

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We really enjoyed the Nashville Zoo. It was beautifully laid out and had so much to see and do! Here are some highlights from our visit:

Hyacinth Macaws:

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Mariana looking cool in the play area:

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Macey in the snake tunnel:

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Macey talked her sister into coming into the snake tunnel too:

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How cool is this play structure?!
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There were flowers and plants all over the place. So pretty!
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There was also beautiful scenery such as this wagon near the old plantation home and barn:
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We got to see so many animals. I won’t post pictures of all of them, but here are a few.

We all thought the girafffes were cool and, of course, we thought of Grammie (Mickey’s mom) when we saw them. She loves giraffes!
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The elephants were so pretty too:
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Alligator Cove had quite a few gators in a pond. The girls were very fascinated with them.

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I thought this stump was pretty cool looking:
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Macey pointing up at the gator that was floating “above her head”

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The girls got a souvenir cup with fun straws. What is better than a cool drink on a hot day?!
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Loved the lamps in the Asian section of the zoo:
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The photos don’t cover nearly all of what we saw and did at the zoo. Our visit there was SO much fun and I’d highly recommend the Nashville Zoo to anyone visiting or living in that area. We would love to go back and may visit again in the fall when it’s a touch cooler.

On Saturday evening, we went to Aquarium for dinner. Another hit with them – they loved it!! The atmosphere there is what really makes it. The food is okay (somewhat spendy), but it’s a lot of fun to see all the fish, etc. My camera battery went kaput when we got there, so these are the best photos I have from my phone.

The view from our table:023

The girls thought it was VERY cool when the SCUBA diver swam by our table:
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Here are Mickey and the girls as we were getting ready to leave after dinner:
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After dinner, we went to Stingray Reef to feed the stingrays and ride the carousel. The girls weren’t altogether too sure about feeding stingrays, but they liked it when other people did it. The stingrays literally come right up to the edge of the tank to be fed shrimp. It’s cool to see! The carousel was a hit with the girls too – they always love carousels. Our second night in Nashville was a lot of fun!!

On Saturday morning we went to breakfast at the “famous” Pancake Pantry in Nashville. Our friend Christie had recommended it and said that we’d probably have to wait in line, but that it was worth it. So, we tried to get there early in an attempt to beat the crowd. I have to say that we did NOT beat the crowd, but we only had to wait about 10 minutes and we did beat the “big” rush. The lines was super long just after we got there and was even longer when we left. The food was fantastic! I asked our waitress about the sweet potato pancakes and she recommended them highly, so I got those with some traditional buttermilk pancakes too. DELISH!!

Here is my plate before:
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And…after:
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What can I say?! Those were some DELICIOUS pancakes! If you’re ever in Nashville for breakfast, definitely give the Pancake Pantry a try. Get there early, but still expect a line. 🙂

After breakfast, we went back to the hotel for a bit. Mickey took the girls to the pool while I got us packed up to leave. Our next stop was Chattanooga. And, that will be tomorrow’s update.

In case it wasn’t clear by the pictures, we had a ball in Nashville. There is so much to see and do there. We hope to go back in the fall, as I said above. Great city!!

Stay tuned for more pictures tomorrow…

Praise Reports…

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I am going to do better about updating my blog.
I am going to do better about updating my blog.
I am GOING to do better about updating my blog.
Seriously…I am.
I hope. 😉

In all honesty, I have every good intention of writing more here, but the days are so busy lately. Life is good, in fact I’d say its mostly GREAT, but also very busy.

I have some praises to report since my last update.

  • Macey had a wonderful week of dance camp at our church last week. Two of her friends from school attended also and they all got to be in the same group. They just loved it! Friday was their recital and it was entirely too cute for words.
  • We got to spend all day Saturday with some great friends and we absolutely had a ball. We were as tired as could be on Saturday night, but it was the good kind of tired that comes from having FUN FUN FUN all day long!
  • On Sunday evening we got a house full of company. My best friend Terri came up from South GA with her two daughters. Also, our friend Hannah came to visit us from Missouri with her three daughters. So, we had a house brimming full and it was just incredible!! The girls ranged in age from almost-six (Macey) down to seven months old (Hannah’s baby girl) and they had so much fun playing together. Terri and I get together several times a year when I am in South Georgia, but neither of us have seen Hannah in several years. So much has changed in our lives, but the friendship has remained. God sure blessed us with a wonderful time together over Sunday evening and Monday morning.
  • This week Macey is attending the afternoon VBS sessions at our church. They are doing “Camp E.D.G.E.” this term and she is having a blast! In her crew, she has four friends from school so that is also exciting. She comes home each day telling us about what they did, what she learned, etc. It’s such a blessing! And, from what I have heard, over 900 (!!!) kids are in attendance. All those seeds of faith getting planted just makes my heart sing!
  • I have joined a Wednesday morning Bible study at our church. I have been wanting to do this for quite some time and it finally worked out. I am LOVING it! Our group is so sweet and we have all ranges from moms of young ones to grand-mothers and maybe even some great-grands. It’s absolutely blessing me more than words to be there!
  • We have a great babysitter that is watching the girls this summer so I can do things like go to Bible study. Her name is Kayla and Mickey and I have known her since we were Youth volunteers at the church several years ago. Kayla is fantastic with the girls. She is so much fun and so creative. Today she did tie-dying with them. How cool is that?!
  • The weather has been beautiful and summer is officially upon us. That is always a praise in my book as I just love summer. We’re getting a bit of rain today, but that’s always needed around here.
  • We have also planned a mini-vacation for our family. We are going to Nashville, TN for a couple of days and then back down to Chattanooga, TN for a couple of days before heading home. We are SO excited about this trip! I have used some online sources like Hotwire and Expedia to score some really great hotel prices as well. Can’t wait!!
  • This coming weekend is the Father/Daughter dance at our church. That will be Saturday evening and Mickey is taking both girls. This year it’s going to be a sock hop and the girls both have their cute poodle skirts, tees and scarves ready to go. I have been asked to take candid photos, so I can’t wait to see it all!

Those are just some of the many things I have to be thankful for in my life. I just had to share.

And, if you’re reading along, please  hold me accountable to posting. I need to and want to, so I should make time for it.

Blessings,
Kelly

What’s Happening??

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Wow. I have really been neglecting my poor blog lately. I don’t mean to, really, it’s just that life is so busy these days. It seems like things are GO GO GO which is good,  but doesn’t free up a lot of blogging time.

So, what have we been up to? Here’s the abridged version. 😉

  • On May 14th, our sweet Mariana turned three. THREE! Eep! Our baby girl is three. It’s surreal. This is a milestone age in some ways because it’s around the age that Macey was when Mariana was born. Whenever Mariana was an eensy baby and Macey turned three, we’d just marvel at how “big” Macey was at the time. And, now Macey is going to turn six in a few weeks and Mariana is three and – woah – it just flies by, doesn’t it?!
  • Mariana’s last day of preschool was Friday, May 15th. I helped with the end-of-the-year picnic and party which was really fun. I thought I would cry, but I didn’t. I was nostalgic about Macey’s last day with the same teachers just three years ago. Macey’s preschool ended on Friday, May 12th that year and I was HUGELY pregnant with Mariana and delivered her two days later. Again I say, time flies.
  • We had Mariana’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese’s on Saturday, May 16th. Let me just say this, if you are EVER going to have a Saturday party at CEC, do yourself a huge favor and book the 10am slot. Seriously. I booked online and we received some extra tokens for that. Then, we got DOUBLE tokens for each child for booking the 10am slot on a Saturday. Score!! It was great because it wasn’t crowded and the kids had a ball. They played until around 10:45-ish and then ate pizza. Played a bit more, then had cake. It was perfect. Mariana said it was the best party ever. She really loved it all.
  • Macey wrapped up Kindergarten in May. It was a fun month for school. She got to sing at a PTA meeting, we had a Mommy & Me tea in her classroom and they had field day. Also, on the last week of school we got to go to an ice cream social in her room PLUS we had a picnic lunch the day before school ended. It was so sweet and we enjoyed it all. Poor Macey did NOT want school to end. She loved Kindergarten so much. She had the best teachers in the world and the best class too. She had so many friends, learned so much and just really loved it! Poor girl got off the bus in tears on the last day. She was so sad. So, I did what I could do to remedy that sadness. I packed the girls up and we went south to Nana’s (my mom’s) for the weekend. That was a fun start to summer.
  • At Nana’s, the girls got to paint, play with bubbles, go shopping with Aunt Liz and splash in mud puddles with Nana. Plus we went to the zoo one morning too. It was great and they had a ball!! When we were heading home, we stopped to have lunch with my Grandparents and they loved that too. (That Macey can tear up some turnip greens, let me tell y’all!!) So, it was a really great trip and got Macey back to being happy about summer.
  • I turned the big three-five on May 26th. Halfway through my thirties already. TIME FLIES, PEOPLE!! 😉
  • This week Macey is participating in dance camp in the afternoons at our church and is having the BEST time. It’s a great camp. When they get there, they are fed lunch and then they do warm-ups as a group. After that, the girls are broken up into age/grade groups for ballet and jazz. They also do crafts. It’s great and we love sending her because Macey loves it all!
  • We’ve been spending time with friends too and always love that. So far we have been to paint pottery and have lunch and also been to the zoo with friends. (Mariana and I went to the Georgia Aquarium with friends too while Macey was still in school.) We are planning on many play dates and pool outings this summer.
  • Speaking of the pool, ours is open and in full swing. It took Macey about 10 minutes (if that) to rediscover her swimming skills. She’s a regular fish again. She loves to jump in, cannonball, practice diving, swim underwater, get dive sticks, swim on her back and more. The girl just loves the water. We are hoping to get Mariana some private swim lessons, but for now she’s getting more confident in the water with her life vest and arm bands.

I guess that is a good overview of the basics from here. I’ll try to do better about maintaining updating my blog. If anyone is still reading.

Blessings,
Kelly

Winding Down…

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  • We are winding down here after a busy weekend.
  • Yesterday, of course, was a “honey do” day with Mickey and me working on home improvement projects.
  • Mickey worked SO hard in our kitchen getting the popcorn ceiling down and then having to sand and scrap the texture that was left. That was the dustiest job I have ever seen. Seriously. I cleaned up last night and there is still dust today. But, at least the hardest part is done. We hope. ;)The ceiling still needs to be repainted, but that little project can wait for now. We may have to re-sand part of the ceiling and we are just not ready to tackle that again yet.
  • I worked in our half-bath downstairs yesterday. That bathroom had been just one of those rooms that I really didn’t like, but didn’t deal yet. The walls were this off-white/yellowish color and just look dingy to me. So, we did away with that. We repainted a nice chocolate brown on the walls and even on the ceiling. The trim is all white.  The vanity has double doors in the front and I painted the inside panel of each door brown and left the rest white. We took down the huge wall-mounted mirror over the vanity as well as the outdated light fixture and towel ring. We replaced all of the older fixtures with brushed nickle fixtures and they look SOOO good with the chocolate colored paint. Yay! I forgot to take “before” photos, but I’ll try to remember to take “afters” once we finish up the little details like touching up the paint in places it’s needed.
  • The girls spend the day with Papa & MiMi  (my dad and step-mom) at their house yesterday and had a ball. They have talked and talked about it since they got home.
  • Today hasn’t been all that busy, but it was busy enough.
  • I knocked out a Wal-Mart run with Mariana’s help. Mickey worked on mowing the lawn and Macey was here with him. Those were our biggest home accomplishments today. And, that’s enough.
  • Wait. I did try to remove some paint that I splattered on the carpet. So far most of it isn’t coming out, but I’m making progress. Does anyone know how to get latex paint (dried) out of carpet? Ideally, I’d just say let’s ripe out the carpet and put down new flooring, but…well, not right now. LOL!!
  • It was a gorgeous weekend here, weather-wise. That is changing rapidly though. It’s been rainy all around us today, but we have missed most of the rain in our direct area. However, the temps are taking a nosedive. We were in the 70s yesterday and today, but tomorrow the high is supposed to be 40-ish. And, it’s supposed to be windy. Brrr. Come back, Spring!
  • Well, it’s almost time to put the girlies to bed. Mickey and I are going to just chill out and watch a movie tonight. I recorded Baby Mama on our DVR, so we are going to watch that since there is no Amazing Race tonight.

Hope everyone has had a great weekend,
Kelly