Family Photos!

In 2012 Hardy and I tagged along with his family to visit the Unclaimed Baggage place in Alabama.  During our visit, his sister snagged a pretty awesome deal on a Canon camera.  It takes beautiful photos.  I asked her to take our family photos last August and since Persephone has changed so much I asked her to take some more this weekend.  I'm so happy with the results.  We choose to do outdoor photos because the scenery is perfect and the lighting isn't something you could recreate no matter how advanced you are.  You may have already seen these on Facebook and/or Instagram so don't feel like you have to scroll through them again.

Here are some of my favorites from this Saturday!

Her dress came from Cracker Barrel

She loved pointing and looking at the horse (this one was named Driggs)

But she wasn't so sure about petting him

The only way we got her to get near this tub was to beat on it.

Using it as a drum....

We took the photos on a farm across the street from Hardy's parents church in Gillsville.  The family there was so kind and generous to allow us to use their property.  In this photo you can see we're actually sitting on pieces of an oak tree the gentleman had made, as well as the table.  It was so neat.  Looking at the photo though, I almost look like an outcast, I could easily be cut out of the photo hahaha.

I absolutely love the smile she gets with her Daddy

LOVE love LOVE!!

Pointing at the chickens that pecked her just moments before.

How cool is this antique tractor?  Made of cast iron.

I googled it and it's worth close to $500 brand new.

Water baby

We have a true blue water baby.  She's not actually blue...but she does love water.

A couple of weekends ago when the weather was nice, we set up a sprinkler and let her play in it.  She was in heaven.  She didn't care if it sprayed her in the face...in fact she was trying to DRINK FROM THE SPRINKLER.

She may be part dog, I'm still trying to check that out...

Easter!

We attended church this Easter at Hardy's parents church.  Persephone was surprisingly pretty chipper after only getting about a 30min nap.  She was well behaved, it was 45min into the service when she finally decided she was bored. 

This was after she "read" the hymnal, waved at people and tried to sing along with the choir.

Do you think God will smite me for taking a bunch of pictures during church?

April, eggs and sunshine

Sunday April 13th we headed to Hardy's parents church for lunch and an egg hunt.  We tried to attend the actual service, but Persephone almost ALWAYS goes down for a nap around 10am and we felt it would be cruel to wake her up.  She did wake up in just enough time for us to make lunch and the egg hunt.

I was feeling nostalgic and decided to put her in one of my many dresses from my childhood.  This particular dress I wore in a few pageants as a babe.  

This is me in the dress 

It fit her like a glove.  

I wish she would let me put bows in her hair, but it's hit or miss most of the time.

The luncheon was to honor our nephew who just returned from South Korea with his wife and son.  They're headed to Washington (state) at the end of this month.  After the yummy lunch a ton of eggs were scattered for the youth to find.  Persephone really could care less about looking for them.  When she did pick one up she would yell "ball" and proceed to throw them.

She also has a bad habit of holding chocolates in her hand until they melt.  They passed out some big bubble sticks to all the kids though and she loved that.

Aside from not having white shoes (ok Mom...I get it) isn't she just ADORABLE?!?!

I just LOVE the look on her face in this one.

No one showed her to hold her skirt..haha

Right across the street from his parents church, well actually in two different directions there are farms.  At the picture right above you can see tall grass and a pretty red barn.  I decided to take Persephone over there for an impromptu photo shoot.

They would have turned out better without a lollypop, but you do what you have to do....

Twenty nine - XXIX

Yesterday was my birthday.  Good ole' 29.

This was me...fresh out of the oven.

April 8, 1985

2:56pm

Isn't it kind of strange that most babies look pretty much the same at first sight.

To me they do anyway.

I'm not afraid of that number.

I'm not afraid of aging, especially since you can't stop it.

I actually do think I get wiser with age, so how can that be a bad thing?

I started getting gray hairs when I was pregnant...so I can't even list that as a problem.

I've always loved naps, so getting older gives me a valid excuse to warrant a nap.

This year Hardy got me a new shower head.  This is one of the first times he hasn't gotten me a cd, movie or concert ticket.  I was impressed.  Not that I don't enjoy those other gifts, but he definitely thought outside the box.  What was even more impressing is that he remembered to buy seal tape so it wouldn't leak.  Way to go!  I love the new shower head.

I also decided to use $20 of my birthday money on scratch off tickets because I've never spent that much on them before.  Today at lunch I purchased 5 $2 tickets and 10 $1 tickets.  Guess what I won?!?!

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$2.00 and 2 tickets - - - FML    Never.Again.

Visiting Papa Jimmy

My Dad lives in Monroe, which isn't too too far away, but it is a little bit of a drive.  I haven't been out there in a long time, which means Persephone hasn't ever been there.  Maybe this summer we will make a trip.  We've been trying to get together for the last two months it seems, but thinks just haven't worked out.  So finally, yesterday we were able to meet up in Hoschton and play at one of their several parks.  It wasn't until after we spent our time at West Jackson park did I realize that have a playground in the downtown part of Hoschton - I definitely want to visit that one next time.

We met up about 1pm and Persephone played non-stop on the playground.  She loves to swing, also loves to climb.  She likes throwing/kicking her ball up the slides.  She's finally saying "catch" so that's cute to hear all the time.  At the playground in our neighborhood she's iffy about the slides unless we go down with her.  For some crazy reason yesterday though she opted to go head first down one of the slides and repeated it with the other slides for a good 150 times.  Ok, not that many times...but close enough.

Readers Digest

No...I'm not boring through books, but I have turned into something I never thought possible.  I hated HATED reading in school.  Unless it was a book about Hanson or one of R.L. Stine's Fear Street series books, you could count me out.  I pretty much failed 9th grade English for not reading How To Kill A Mockingbird and talking too much...go figure.

But, post high school...I've become quite the nerd.  It started with The Twilight Saga in 2009.

My boss at the time lend me the first book.  Hardy actually read it first and then we decided to buy the series ourselves we liked it so much.  After reading the entire series, I went into like a book depression.  I tried and tried to read books, but couldn't get Twilight out of my mind so I was stuck.  The actual story wasn't the BEST BOOK EVER, but it was the first series I had read in my adult life that I grew attached too.  It was sort of hard to let it go.


I eventually matured enough to part ways with Twilight and began the Hunger Game series which I loved as well.  Much darker storyline, but captivating.  Had the familiar love triangle I had been drawn to before.

When I was pregnant, I had several friends who were reading Fifty Shades, but I never thought to borrow it.  Last spring, my friend brought the series into work for me.  H O L Y  C O W.  I was hooked by the time I finished the first chapter.

I heard a lot of controversy surrounding the book, some calling it "trash", "mommy porn" and that it "gives women a false impression of men."  There were even reports of women cheating on their husbands to find someone like Mr. Christian Grey to sweep them off their feet.  First of all, if any girl/woman could ever think a fictional character is truly out there, you have some loose screws.  The thought of leaving Hardy NEVER crossed my mind.  If anything, reading the book made me want to be closer to Hardy.  I don't feel guilty for reading it. And I don't feel like it's anywhere near equivalent to a man watching porn.  I left the series satisfied with the ending and was happy I gave it an opportunity.  I was a little upset I hadn't read it sooner....felt like I had missed out on the whole Fifty Shades wave.  But who am I to follow a crowd?!?  Pssshhhh

As soon as I finished that trilogy, I moved on to The Crossfire Series. 

It took me almost 1/4 of the book to want to give it a real chance.  So many parts of this series reminded me of Fifty and I didn't want it to taint my appreciation for E.L. James.  A billionaire with a dark past and a young woman with just as dark of a past fall for one another...the series follow them facing those demons together.  There are still two more books to follow and I am definitely interested in finishing them!

Once Crossfire was over...I hopped onto a stand alone novel Beautiful Disaster.  A sweet sweet love story about two kids in college, total opposites who can't resist one another.  In fact, I used it in a giveaway last year.  I loved the story so much, I had to share! 

There was a companion novel released last year too called Walking Disaster.  It's the same exact story only told from the point of view of the male lead. 

I found after reading that little teaser at the end of Fifty Shades Freed where we get a taste of Christian's mind and then reading Walking Disaster - I totes love companion novels!!  McGuire has since released a third novel in the "Disaster" books as I call it - it's called Beautiful Wedding...and well...obviously now you know someone gets married.  I haven't yet read it and based on the Amazon reviews, I don't know if I want too.  I'm not sure I want to change my thoughts.

My next adventure was the Slammed series by Colleen Hoover.  I can't give away too much about the story, because the twist in the first book is what brings these two love birds together.  Give it a try!  It's so innocent and beautiful :)

Shortly after I finished these two, Colleen Hoover released a companion novel from the male leads point of view - winner in my heart!

Once I finished this, I hadn't picked up another book to read until this February.  Hardy bought Divergent after seeing the trailer for the movie on TV so often this winter.

He blew through the first one in a week, then proceeded to buy the sequel and shortly after the last book in the series.  Once my brother finished Divergent, I picked it up.  I finished all three books in 2.5 weeks.  It was fantastic.  I've actually come to enjoy reading about a dystopian future, makes you really appreciate what we have now even if there are days that leave us miserable and down.

I was itching to read another book after finishing Allegiant.  I flipped through my Kindle library looking for something...anything.  Because old habits die hard, I pulled up Fifty Shades and started searching for similar books others have bought.  I stumbled upon another trilogy The Fixed On You Series, I mean just look at the cover....it was more like The Crossfire Series than Fifty.

Two troubled pasts, man is a millionaire, they partake in a lot of sexual activities together...etc etc.  The only part that kept throwing me off was how quick this whirlwind romance happened.  Then again, it is fiction so who cares. So I guess..besides some young adult action novels, I am now addicted to "new adult romance".  So remember that if you're online or shopping for books on your Kindle, these hot steamy new love stories are called new adult romance.  Hey as long as I'm reading and exercising the mind, what difference does it make what the content is?   

Just call me a naughty book nerd.  If you're looking for something new and interesting to read, give any or all of these a try.  You might be surprised you like them and you might hate them.  I also highly recommend Aeastas Book Blog and her Facebook Page for recommendations/reviews/updates on series and stand alone books within this genre and other romance genre's.