You're Invited!

I hope you're all able to make it to this year's Christmas in the Valley! It really is going to be the best one yet!!! I simply can't wait. And, if you haven't done so already, be sure to go enter the GIVEAWAY! There are lots of ways to do it, but I'd really appreciate if my fellow blogging friends would share about the event on your blogs... then you have an entry to win! This will help us spread the word, and hopefully help you win some goodies! =)

c in the v flyer 2011

A Pic Update

So, I was reminded yesterday that I failed to ever post pics of Pierce's birthday. This one is by far my fav! The party was a huge success (despite P coming down with the stomach virus hours after the party....)

Both kids were terribly cute (even though Pierce was wearing orange & white.. )

And of course, while I'm at it.. I should share these. Can't get enough of sweet Repunzel and Flynn!

What's Up?

Well, other than loving on these sweet kiddos and doing fun things with them... A LOT!

Let's just say that between managing a total of 4 blogs (yes... now you see why this one has been a bit neglected...), planning Christmas in the Valley, planning mom's 50th birthday party (no...it's not a surprise), sewing halloween costumes and other holiday outfits, teaching aerobics (which has become just about a once a week thing), to running my own Premier business... it's safe to say that nap times have been VERY full! =)

The good news is that none of these things can really be done while the kids are awake(except aerobics.. but luckily they LOVE the childcare!) .. so don't worry...they're definitely not getting neglected..

The bad news: showers have some days become negotiable (is it sad that this has been all too common occurence since Pierce's birth?)

All in all.. a lot is "up".. but life is good! I'm actually at this point in time not too stressed at all! (now ask me again on Nov 18.. the day before C in the V and we'll see where I am..) I know my limits, and I try to not overexceed them. That doesn't always happen.. but for the most part, that is my goal! Life with a 1 and 2 yr old is full and blessed and sometimes means losing my mind a bit (i.e. today I was totally a no show for allie's eye dr appointment, because I was happily teaching zumba without a thought in the world). But, when things like that happen... you call, you apologize, you promise to try not to let it happen again... what else can you do?

You find that the once organized, cleaned housed, well-planned, having it all together person that you once were is maybe not the person you should be. Because after all... the carefree, roll with it, sometimes unshowered mom is the much more pleasant one for my kiddos to be around =)

Christmas in the Valley GIVEAWAY!!!

Alright... this year all of the Christmas in the Valley related posts will appear on its very own BLOG!!!!

There is a Giveaway up and posted... so be sure to go check it out and ENTER to win!!!!

Christmasinthevalley.blogspot.com

where are you, Christmas?

Okay... I have officially gone Christmas crazy! I'm ready for it.. I've been making my lists, I've been thinking of gifts to buy (although I don't officially take that plunge until closer to thanksgiving!)

Someone said at church Sunday raise your hand if this is your favorite time of year... I nearly did... not because I'm especially affectionate about fall..(I in fact have a total of 2 fall decorations that I own that I have yet to put out).. but I do love fall simply because it is my "means to an end"... that is, it brings me Christmastime! So, yes costumes are fun (especially this year.. my mini repunzel and flynn rider will especially be adorable), thanksgiving is tasty.. but nothing can compare to the day after! Yes... Black Friday for me is when Christmas officially begins!

Yes, I intentionally wait until the craziest time of year to start shopping.. because who would want to miss out on that kind of fun?! You see Black Friday means getting up at 4 to begin the shopping (which basically lasts for a whole month!), pulling out the Christmas decorations, and wrapping my house in pure enchantment and cheer for the whole month!

So, thank you Fall, for coming, because to me, that means Christmas is almost ready to pop it's lovely head into my life again!

Burlees!

So... I have a new obsession! Usually when I see crafty things... instead of buying I just think... hmm I could make that! Well.. these I think I've decided would be worth buying. I mean.. they look like they take some REAL artistic talent!

The Chipper Chickie is offering a giveaway for free burlees to adorn your door for the entire year! Wow! I am definitely counting on my "lucky" genes to help me out with this one!! (They do owe me, afterall, after intensely letting me down on the St Jude Dream Home Giveaway)...

But, seriously, go like them on facebook and check out their stuff! It is super cute!!

Disney on the brain...

So, I've been thinking that it would be fun to let Allie experience the magic of Disney World! A few reasons I think she may be ready?

1. We've been teaching her to pray... on a very 2 year old level.. You know.. Thanking Jesus for Mommy, Daddy, Piercey, other family members, food, etc. When driving down the road the other day, I heard her privately praying.. "and, thank you for ariel, thank you for ariel, thank you for ariel, and thank you for snow white..." (every once in a while, she'll throw in a "thank you for the phone...." hmm.. mommy's girl, indeed.)

2. When reading her Bible story to her today about the birth of Jesus, I asked her a few questions afterwards. When I asked her what Jesus' mommy's name was, she replied "Ariel". Then, when I said the Angels sang songs, I asked her to sing a song, and she belted out her best rendition of "Beauty and the Beast"....

3. In the "Mickey Store" today, she proceeded to blow kisses to all of her favorite stuffed animals before I could drag her out of the store.

So, is she ready to fully appreciate the experience? I'd say so! (the fact that we seriously need to work on separating spiritual matters and Disney princesses is a whole other issue entirely...)

Skirkle

Have you heard about Skirkle yet? No big surprise if you haven't... It is BRAND NEW!

Basically, it's a little magic card that will save you tons! It is on the ground floor and for now is in Memphis only, so if you're in the area... you're in luck!!

I like it because it's sort of a combination between the entertainment book and groupon, but in card form. You pay $25 for the skirkle card to be able to use all year long, and it will land you discounts on your favorite local places. Think restaurants, boutiques, local businesses, car shops, etc. The sky is the limit! Check out www.skirkle.com to see the 100+ businesses who are already a part of the skirkle community! Don't see your favorite? Let me know, and I'll pass on the word to Skirkle to try to get that business on board!

And, don't worry, because new businesses are being added daily, so just because you don't see it yet, doesn't mean it's not there. A few of my favorites? Qdoba, Huey's, Abners, Moe's, MAH Creations, Babytime, the Grapevine Tea Room, Wisteria Tea Room, Swanky's, and Smoothie King. The best part? Unless it states otherwise on Skirkle's site, you can still use your coupon book, PLUS your skirkle discount! Go check it out and see what discounts you can use EVERY SINGLE DAY between now and November 2012!

AND, like Groupon, there will be extra daily or weekly deals from time to time that companies will send out to skirkle card holders!! So, really, go check it out! This is a GREAT new way to save... and if you decide that Skirkle is for you, be sure to tell them I referred you when you buy your card (I get credit for it! =))

Inspiration!

Usually I don't have trouble with this sort of thing... I mean normally my poor little brain is planning and scheming months in advance. Yes, normally, it just isn't normal that I'm planning details about events sometimes a full year before they actually happen (I mean really.. I've been worry about our Christmas schedule for a few months now, when I realized that Christmas is on Sunday this year, and we usually have 4 different stops to make NOT counting church....)

But here I was just weeks before poor Piercey's birthday with no grand idea or inspiration or theme of any sort. Poor Pierce. I just wrote it off as normal 2nd child syndrome. Let's just do a simple low key celebration. We'll just go theme-less and have boyish colors... and that'll be that.

Then, it hit me!

The OBVIOUS answer, of course, for a family who is football obsessed and one, in which every person feels very strongly about one of these teams, and for a boy's birthday, who will inevitably fall around this important 3rd weekend of September each year... yes the same weekend that these two rivals battle it out year after year. Of course, Pierce should have a Florida/TN tailgating party. When you think about it, there's just really no other option! =)

So, as you can imagine, once inspiration hit... the ideas quickly began to flow! Of course, Allie is already a "gator girl" at heart, like her mama, so she will, naturally be sporting her cheerleading outfit to the party, but I've generously decided to allow Pierce to go to the "dark side" and sport orange and white, like a true daddy's boy. Especially, since I found him a jersey with a 1 one it! So, stay tuned for the big day, because pictures are sure to be cute! =)

An Exciting Giveaway!

Check out my facebook page tomorrow morning for an exciting giveaway!!! If you're not friends with me already, be sure to friend me now, so you can see it!! Good Luck!

BUSY!

I realize that I have been the world's worst blogger as of late... and I guess that deserves a little explanation!

It's not so much that I've had a lack of topics to cover... it's just that, well, in this busy stage I've tried to pick and choose wisely where my time will be spent, and quite simply, the blog hasn't made it to the top of the list lately. So, I'm not really apologizing for that or making any concrete promises to do better. But, I will do my best to still update on what's going on with us, for those who still care to follow!

So... What's been happening??

Work.

I've been investing much of my "free time" ie: naptime into work. I work for my mom, helping her with her jewelry business, which, in turn, inspired me to join in on the jewelry venture, myself! I've surprisingly REALLY loved it, but I'm still trying to get into the routine of being successful, without being pushy; being productive, without stressing myself; finding time to send the kids away to work on it a little, without interupting my time too much with them; learning how to fit this into our schedule, without it overtaking it. ETC. Like I said, I am loving it and I am getting into a routine, but I want to make very strict boundaries to let this enhance our lives and not take away from living. I wanted to do it just for some extra fun money, but I do have dreams of building the business, because I do know first hand how successful people can be at it. I just want to pace myself to get there, because after all, I don't want it to take away one bit from living and enjoying my sweet kiddos.

That brings me to number 2, Kids.

These kids are keeping me busy, full time, for sure, but it is such a wonderful kind of busy! They are both so much fun and growing up so fast! Pierce weighs at least as much as Allie, is more daring than her (minus her jumping out of her crib a few days ago...), and probably eats more than both of us combined! He is ALL boy, and is such a joy. Allie is on the other hand, ALL girl and equally a joy, but also daily a challenge! She is very sweet and loving, but sure does love to push the limits. She always has a song on her heart and happily sings at the top of her lungs throughout the day. My favorite is one she learned from VBS. It's supposed to go: He's wild, God is Wild about YOU! Somehow, she just came away with: He's Wild. God is Wild. Which she loves to sing in her loudest voice as we stroll through stores. Nice. I do admit that while I look forward to nap time each day to actually be productive (and, hopefully shower), I equally look forward to spending time with these two bundles of joy. Children truly are a blessing from the Lord.

Fun.

My true bit of fun these days is the gym. No, I'm not saying this sarcastically. And, I know this is weird. It's the one time of day that I have a little "grown up time" and I really am LOVING working out as hard as I can and coming away completely drenched in sweat. It's just hard to beat it! =)

Another bit of fun has been taking on couponing. Now, don't be too impressed or anything. I certainly do not catagorize myself as an extreme couponer or even a serious one. I don't make any extra trips to the store, or go to any other stores than kroger, and I CERTAINLY don't go dumpster diving (like one of my friends) to find extra copies of the weekly coupons. But, I do make sure to buy 1 or 2 sunday papers each week and clip the coupons that come in the "junk" ads in the mail, and load kroger coupons online to my kroger plus card. And, I somewhat try to combine sales with the coupons (if it somewhat fits in with my list). So, no we're not getting $1000 worth of groceries for free, but so far, our highest savings has been $70 in one shopping trip, and I'll take it!

Projects.

One other project I've been working on has been a fun weight loss competition for my mom and some friends. There's a blog, money at stake, weekly weigh ins, etc. and everyone is staying so motivated, and it is definitely working! It started 2 months ago and runs until my mom's 50th birthday! I'm excited to see everyone's results by the end! AND, so far mom is in 2nd place overall, which is pretty great, since out of everyone in the competition, she started out with the least to lose!

So, there you have it! Consider yourself updated, and please, don't feel slighted that my mind has been in other places than here, because well, I can't promise that it's going to get much better... =)

Just "Roll" With It....

Who knew that a child could be so picky with a pacifier. I mean... naturally a gator pacifier is something to get excited about... but really, Pierce? That's really the ONLY pacy that will work for ya?!

I tried all the popular brands when he was little, but he just didn't care for them. Then, alas, I pulled out a gator pacy we received as a gift... and voila! Pierce was hooked! We had two... then I lost one on vacation. Uh oh... it's a very nerve racking thing to only have one pacifier that will work. Well, amazingly we kept up with it very carefully for the first 10 months of dear Pierce's life, until, inevitably our lucky streak ended 3 days ago. It is gone. Not out and about, mind you... but here in this house! We put him to bed with it, and the next day it was gone. We tore his room apart looking for it... but to no avail. With any normal pacifier... this problem could be easily resolved by running to any local store and picking up a new pack (we surely went through countless packs with Allie...). But no, these can only be found at the sports store at the mall. So, after a very sleepless night, I headed to the mall only to find that IT HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED! I drove across town to the only other store in the area to find even worse news... there was ONE left... but not a gator one. One with a big fat Alabama "A" on it. GROSS. Well, sometimes, you just have to "roll with it", I suppose. After all, a restful night is worth the trade off for this tacky and horrible pacifier, I guess.

On a better note... I found 2 .... assumably the last two in the world (or at least on the internet, any way) on ebay. For a mere $12.94, they'll hopefully be delivered to our house sometime between July 23-25. We will once again be at peace with the world... and will NOT be supporting the crimson tide.

Scentsy!

I'm having a Scentsy party this weekend for a friend of mine from church and am really looking forward to it! I know many of you have heard me talk about Scentsy before in my ruthless marketing of Christmas in the Valley! But, let me just say it again.... I LOVE SCENTSY! I was introduced to it 2 years ago, and since then have not lit a single candle in my house (and I used to be a FAITHFUL candle user). There's no telling how much we had spent on candles over the years... Yankee was my candle of choice, but since they're easily $30 a jar, which lasts almost no time at all, we saved those for special occassions... but even Target and Walmart jar candles add up when you use them regularly. PLUS there's the inevitable safety hazards that come with forgetting to blow them out (like... all night long... yes, been there, done that), etc.

Basically, you have wax scent blocks that you put in these burners, and when the light is turned on, the heat melts the wax, spreading the fragrant goodness all throughout your home! They have three sizes the full size (best for large spaces to really spread the fragrance.. I've got a full size in my living room), the mid size (best for medium rooms), and the wall plug in (best for bathrooms). You get the best deal when you purchase a burner and 3 scents. These scents will last you a LONG time! Each one is normally $5 and easily last over a month and we use it A LOT! So, after you make the initial investment of the burner, these are MUCH cheaper in the long run to maintain than purchasing candles all the time.

The full size and 3 scents = $40

The mid size and 3 scents = $35

Or get 1 full size burner, 1 plug in, and 3 scents for $55!

If you just need scent refills, they are $5 each or 3/$14.

The burner of the month for 10% off normal price.... isn't this adorable!?

One of my favorite full size burners!

Here's the one I have in my living room....

One of my favorite mid size burners...

I've got this one on my wish list for our guest bathroom! Isn't that cute?!Have a birthday present you need to buy? These are sure to please for that person on your list that you never can quite figure out what to get! I've given several of these for gifts!!

With Scentsy, you get the convenience of a plug in with NO FLAME, the decorative touch it adds to a room, the rich, fragrance throughout your house, and all for a FRACTION of the price!

So, I think I've sufficiently bragged on Scentsy enough for now, so the party is at 2 at my house on Saturday. Feel free to stop by and enjoy a cupcake and hang out with us! If you can't come, but I've succesfully convinced you that you simply can't live without one of these beauties, go HERE and place your order online! It will even count towards my party, as long as you go through that link! =) Oh, and if you're ordering online and haven't smelled the scents... my 3 favorite go-to scents are Honey Pear Cider, Home Sweet Home, & Skinny Dippin'.

Cheese

Allies new smile for pictures... Nice.

Pool fun!

Im not sure how many of you are aware of my insanely unhealthy fear of snakes... but to give you a little insight... I'll say this...3 years ago we had a snake in our back yard. Since then, I could count on two hands the number of times I ventured back into the "wild terrain" off is the deck. Pathetic, yes. I blame it on a visit to my dads one summer when baby water moccasins invaded the house. I think 18 were found in all. Yep, that was enough to scar me for life.

Well, I'm happy to say that a few weeks ago I decided that this fear was certainly not of the Lord, and I overcame it! After all, I didn't want my fear crippling the kids from having all sorts of outdoor adventures! I'm so glad I did!

You know its time to go to the store....

When you clean out the refrigerator and this is the end result.....

Looks like we'll be going out for dinner tonight....  :)

Happy Birthday, Princess!

Allie, I can't even wrap my mind around the fact that you are TWO! It is true that you are our little princess! You light up our lives with your silliness, your laughter, and your girlie girl ways! With your love of princesses, jewelry, singing, and makeup, it was only fitting that you have a Princess birthday party to celebrate your special day! I love you my precious little girl, and I look forward to seeing you grow and become the special girl that God made you to be!





And, of course, every princess needs a handsome prince by her side!

How do I define success?

Success is defined quite simply for me:

Fitting into a pair of jeans that were too tight BEFORE I got pregnant with allie.  :)

Don't be fooled...

It may appear like I have too much time on my hands, but I assure you I don't! Allies birthday party is simply taking priority over cleanliness today (both in my personal hygiene and my house!)

We're Home!

But, we're a little sad to not be waking up to this each day:




Going on any sort of vacation with two kids under two seemed a little daunting to me, but despite the normal things that you would expect would come along with that, I'd say this vacation was a total success! We had an AMAZING time, and I'm already missing that beautiful water, sand, and sun! Allie had a blast! And, while it probably won't go down in my book as the most relaxing vacation I've ever been on... it is definitely one of the best! I am also very thankful we had family there as "reinforcements" to help us out! =)

Love this girl!

Sleeping the day away!

Nice try..

I bought several toys for the car ride to entertain allie....not because she doesn't enjoy car rides.... she thoroughly does. She enjoys seeing just how far she can push her vocal cords and practices all of her favorite tunes at the top of her lungs. And, when she tires of the words, she will simply add in her own.

I thought a whole pad of Cinderella color wonder paper and markers would provide the kind of distraction from singing that we would inevitably need on our 9 hr car ride.

Wrong.

Allie is coloring away and happily narrating in song form .... ie color, allie, yellow, allie; Rella, color. You get the idea.

It was worth a shot, I suppose!

Get ready to be Jealous!

Because this is where we will be spending the next week!! Oh, yeah, and did I mention it's 100% FREE?! Yep, that's right!! My amazing hubs won this amazing vacation for us through a contest at work! So, Fort Walton, here we come, kids and all!! =)

Candace, I hope these pictures are a little less nauseating for you than my previous post!

Need a Laugh?

I discovered a new website today: AWKWARD FAMILY PHOTOS. Words simply don't do it justice, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

(Don't fail to notice the age gap here...)

(in case you can't tell... this is a duster)

Looks can be deceptive...

Tell me that these two cans don't look similar. I'm here to tell you the contents are quite different.

This morning I grabbed what I thought was the scrubbing bubbles, and was feeling quite the sense of accomplishment as I happily gave the bathrooms a long overdue cleaning. I mean, sure I noticed that it smelled a little unusual, but I figured we must have grabbed a new scent at the store.

So, there I was drenching the entire bathroom in this stuff, when hubby, who can smell the fumes from the other end of the house rushes in to see if I've gone insane.

Apparently I have.

This I can say with certainty.... our entire house may wreak... but we should be bug free for quite a while!

Have You Ever....

• Burned more than 2000 calories in one day?

or

• Sweated so much, that your ponytailed-hair was soaking wet literally from root to tip?

or

• Worked out for 8 hours straight (well, there were a few breaks in there)?

Until today, neither had I. I am now officially a certified Turbo Kick instructor, and I've even got the t-shirt to prove it... oh yea and a certificate, which should be coming in the mail in a few weeks.

And so it begins...

I love Pierce's face of pure delight as he sneakily reaches in for a fistful of hair right before the picture!

Allie was not amused.

Here's to years of playing together and lovingly annoying each other! =)

An Interesting Development...

Well, I know I told you about joining my wonderful gym back in January...

There's a new development to that situation. In two short weeks from Saturday, I'll be certified to TEACH Turbo Kick!

Yes, you can laugh. It won't hurt my feelings one bit. I'm laughing a bit too each time I think about it... laughing... then really really hoping I don't look like TOO much of an idiot (because, let's face it, I'm sure that it's inevitable that I'll look like an idiot at least a little bit).

It all started back when one of the instructors from the gym talked about how they go on "teaching vacations" for FREE to all inclusive resorts.. Naturally, my ears perked up at the idea of a free vacation. But, I quickly closed my mind to the idea, because after all, ME becoming an aerobics instructor!? Well, I then found out you only have to go to a one day 8 hour workshop to do this... hmm... and THEN, I found out that such a workshop was coming to OUR gym on April 9. It was tempting, but I had decided against doing it JUST for the sake of the free trip.

Then, someone from church suggested that I do it and help start an aerobics program at Faith. I realized that this would be a terrific ministry, because it has been such a WONDERFUL encouragement to me to have a Christian environment with women only where we can fellowship, workout, and pray for each other!

Well, I decided to look into it a bit more, and here we are. Starting in June, I'll be teaching Turbo Kick at Faith on Saturday mornings. There will also be a Pilates class offered on Tuesday mornings.

So, back to the part of that story where I said all you have to do is complete a one day, 8 hour workshop.... hmmm... I think that will be MUCH easier said than done. Here's to hoping my poor body will be able to handle 8 hours of Turbo Kick.

I'm gonna try to really kick it up a notch between now and then to hopefully be in as good of shape as possible!

My Best Friend's Wedding

We had a crazy, busy, fun, exciting, and very special week last week as we celebrated Steph and Stew's wedding! I've been dear friends with Stephanie since middle school, and it was so exciting to stand by her side on her special day! She even asked sweet Allie to be in the wedding!



I know I may be a little biased, but I mean, really, isn't she the cutest flower girl ever?!

And, lest you think that Pierce doesn't ever get any blog space (ahem, Cheryl...) he even got all spiffed up for the day! Isn't he a cutie?

meltdown

Today was one of those dreaded days when you are that mom. Picture yourself going for a peaceful shopping trip to Target, happily going about your business, looking at the wonderful summer clothes out and daydreaming about the hopefully soon-coming weather where you can wear them, when all of the sudden both kids decide at precisely the same moment that they want to go home - NOW.

Yes, if you were at Target today and heard two kids having an all out screaming at the top of their lungs meltdown and wondering from across the store, who is that woman that cannot keep her kids under control... it was me. And, when I say meltdown, I mean MELTDOWN... one that, for Allie, not even uncensored access to Cinderella lipgloss could fix (which, trust me, if you knew her, you would know that this is saying ALOT!)

I knew there was only one thing to do... RUN. No trying on clothes, no browsing, no stopping to go to the bathroom (which I DESPERATELY needed to do..) I barely had time to go through the checkout and pay for the lipgloss that we had already opened! (but, I figured we shouldn't repeat the hobby lobby shoplifting incident... which by the way, I have since resolved) You see, people already stare at me when we go out.... they see Allie in the front, then see an infant in the back in his carseat, and just simply think I am insane. And, that's when they're both being good. So, I decided I had better get out of there fast before people started just being downright nasty. The minute both kids were successfully loaded in the car, the crying subsided. Hmmm..

Upon getting in the car, I was flustered to say the least. But I was promptly reminded that if these sort of things are the worst "trials" that I am currently experiencing, then I am certainly blessed. Was reading this precious little girl's story this morning and with tears in my eyes was overwhelmed with gratitude for hectic days such as this one with my two precious healthy kids.

Vlogging...

I ran across a new term the other day... "vlogging". It means: video blogging. That's right... apparently it's the new thing to sit in front of your video camera and chat it up.. just like a blog post, except you're essentially just sitting there talking to yourself. Seems a bit weird to me. And, who knows, maybe some people could pull it off and not come across totally awkward, but I think that would probably be the rare exception. So, don't worry, I will not be giving vlogging a try, because I can say with strong confidence that I would look and sound very awkward and be completely unable to find any interesting to say in such a situation.

Yesterday, however, in my car the thought came to my mind to vlog. There I was riding happily along, listening to K-Love, hearing Allie in the back intermittently singing "Jesus Loves Me" and her own rendition of "Rella, Rella, Rella" (since, you know, she's on a nickname basis with Cinderella) at the top of her lungs, while Pierce, who is normally a happy camper in the car decided that yesterday he simply was not and screamed as loud as he could for a solid 20 minutes. I kept thinking, surely he will scream himself out. He didn't. So, yes, the thought crossed my mind, that if I wouldn't be a danger to everyone else on the road by pulling out my phone to capture this scene on video, that maybe it would be an interesting vlog titled: a day in our completely insane life.

It wasn't until I had 2 that I became one of those moms who is able to somehow tune the craziness out (at least sometimes). I had to laugh and think, if anyone else was in the car with us right now, they'd probably be about ready to go insane.

No, thank you!

The aquarium in Atlanta was amazing! From getting to pet sharks and sting rays, to seeing the begula whales, to seeing the shockingly large whale sharks, which measured in at a hefty 25 feet long- it was pretty incredible!

This guy had a good 10 foot wing span! Can you imagine running into one of those in the ocean?? Well, for a mere $295, you can swim with these lovely creatures for a few hours! Yes, that's in the same tank with the 4 whale sharks!! Umm, no thank you, Georgia aquarium. I think I'll pass on that!

Free at Last!

I love my kids. Honestly, I truly do! I adore them and couldn't and wouldn't want to imagine life without them.

Despite that fact, I realized Eric and I haven't had a "getaway" without them since before Allie was born, and I am SOO excited to say that this weekend we are heading to Atlanta, KID FREE! We are celebrating our 5 year anniversary! And, while, we are only going for 3 short days(because, I mean, really, that's already quite a lot to ask of our parents), I intend on those being some pretty terrific, fun-filled, and RELAXING days! Can't wait!

Easier Said Than Done

Yesterday Allie was looking awfully cute in her Valentine attire that Mimi gave her, so I thought, well I need to get a cute picture of her. Well, let me just tell you... it's tough getting a cute pic of this on-the-go little thing!

At first, she was totally appathetic to the idea...


Then, I tried to make it fun by jumping in myself, hoping this might entice her. However, looking back, even if she had attempted a cute smile, I'm afraid my makeup-less face would've negatively impacted the picture anyway...

Then, she at least gave it a try, but of the course the snap of the camera was a few seconds to late, resulting in this:

Finally, I got one that at least looked sweet!

And, then, hours later, just before bedtime, I FINALLY captured her in all of her cute, smiling goodness! Happy Valentine's!