Persephone's Birthday!

Saturday the 20th we had a visit from Papa Jimmy and Nana Susan!

My Dad is a UGA fan and found some humor in giving her a UGA themed gift!  A cheerleading outfit, Harry the dog plush, UGA hairbow and a UGA football.

She's totes cute, but she should be in an Auburn or Florida State uniform (Sorry DAD!)

Sunday was her actual birthday. We drove to Hardee's to get breakfast and she didn't even eat it!  We gave her a few gifts before getting ready for the day.

I got her a cute Minnie guitar from Zulily a while back and a Stitch, Woody and Jessie plush doll during one of the many Disney Store sales.

After a short nap we headed to his parents house.  

She immediately fell in love with her Olaf balloon.

She didn't eat any cake or ice cream - what kid does that?

She would rather have "canny"

Present time!

 Tinkerbell & Friends

Her cool "Let it Go" microphone 

(it sings the Demi Lovato version)

She loves to "wing"

Hardy's parents came back over on Monday evening to give her their gifts that didn't get shipped in time.  

She got this cool Step2 train table

and this Tinkerbell storage shelf

Mimi & Pops are visiting this weekend and we're super excited!

They're bringing her this Tink desk that matches!

 

Hardy's Birthday

On September 15th Hardy turned 32!

I tried to think outside the box this year.  Normally he always gets concert tickets, a movie, video game or cd of some kind.  I saw Groupon advertise discounted tickets for the Bodies Exhibit and Extreme Dinosaurs and jumped on the bandwagon.  We actually went on Saturday September 13th. We got to Atlantic Station right around 11am or so.  Neither of us had been there, but it's such a nice little spot of town.  Very clean and well kept. 

We did the Bodies Exhibit first...very odd and strange.  I mean totally kewl from a science standpoint, but you had to get past the fact that you were essentially looking at dead people.  You couldn't do photos or videos throughout the exhibit and I don't think I would have taken any anyway.

Hardy chose to skip the babies, but I walked through.  It was very interesting to see what an embryo looks like at 4/5/6/7/8/9/11/14/17 weeks.  At 4 weeks, the baby is not even the size of a lemon seed...it's super duper itty bitty.

After that we walked through Extreme Dinosaurs.  It was kind of blah to us, but to a kid (especially one who loves dinosaurs) they would have been in heaven.  They had full scale replica's and some fossils of certain species.

Sunday evening we joined his parents, sister and niece/newphew for dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings (delicious as usual.)

Miss Priss strutting her stuff

The King and Princess

Happy Birthday Daddy!

 

Persephone is TWO!

Dear Persephone,

Today at 3:52am, you turned 2 years old!  You have changed our lives for the better a thousand times over.  I never thought I could love someone as much (if not more) than your Daddy, but I do!  You are such a silly little girl.  You make us laugh constantly and are so so bright.  It’s amazing hearing you say new words or do new things each and every day.  Watching you grow is something I’ll never get over.

The day you were born was sort of a blur.  I can remember being at work and going to the doctor, but once I made it to the hospital everything got jumbled together.  We had so many visitors, I can’t remember much.  Even now looking at pictures of your first few days, weeks home it’s so hard to remember you so small.  I was so intimidated by the little 7lbs of baby that you once were.  I didn’t know what you wanted when you cried.  I didn’t know if you were eating enough.  No one could have prepared me for the emotional changes that came with being a mom.  Looking back I realize how silly I was to be so afraid of you.  Daddy was calmer then, but now the tables have turned.  I’m more relaxed when you fall or get a boo boo and Daddy flips out.  It’s funny how things have changed.

I love you more and more every day.  I’m so happy you’re our daughter and you’ve made us better people because of it.  I can’t wait to continue to see you grow, play and learn in the years to come.  You are a true joy.  Words could never truly express the happiness you give us.

At 2yrs old you’re now 30lbs and approx 32” tall.  You can say a ton of words (so many that making a list is pointless.)  You love to play, love to dance and sing.  Your new favorite toys are trains and cars.

Lets take a sappy...teary eyed trip down memory lane - shall we?

Fresh out of the womb!!

7lbs 3oz

20" long

What a proud Daddy

Our first "family photo" cats and all hahaha

Baby's First Christmas

This will ALWAYS be one of my favorite photos of you

With all of your friends

Your FIRST birthday!

To sell or not to sell?

This year there have been several homes in our subdivision that have gone on the market and sold pretty quickly.  Currently there are 4 houses we pass each day that are for sale and it's grabbed our attention. 

We live in a town home community and it's been a great starter home, but I'm ready to move on.  I want to be detached, I want to have our own space.  I don't want to worry about if my TV is too loud or whether or not we can hear someone else slamming their kitchen cabinets (or kids running like elephants).  I know I want at least 2 bedrooms on main, 2 car garage, 2 bathrooms and a yard of some sort.  I'm tired of the stairs and it's not because I'm fat and lazy, they are truly inconvenient.  Right now all three of us spend the bulk of our time in the living room and the junk that exists upstairs ends up as an "out of side, out of mind" mess.  Persephone hasn't perfected going up/down the stairs on her own just yet either.  I would love for her to play in her room while we cook dinner or do laundry without worrying about her falling down 17 stairs.

We had a friend, Mary Ferguson come over last Friday to discuss our selling options.  If we are to list our house it would hopefully be snatched up pretty quickly since the neighborhood has been a hot commodity.  I will admit Hardy and I are super nervous.  We want to move on to bigger and better things, but it's all so overwhelming.  The house is in need of a serious cleaning and de-cluttering.  However, this is good motivation to get the house in tip top shape. 

 

You may have also noticed the Disney counter is no longer on the left side of the blog.  I pulled up my VERY uncomfortable big girl pants and cancelled our trip.  With the possibility of moving we need the money for more important things (who am I kidding - DISNEY is important.) 

I did all but cry when I made the cancellation request...the CSR even said "I'd be happy to help, but I'm actually sad to cancel this reservation for you."

So cross your fingers/toes or whatever you feel like crossing and keep us in your thoughts as we start this nerve racking journey.

Custom art!

I just bought my first piece(s) of art and to top it off it's Disney!

I'm SUPER DUPER excited!

Please visit Andrea's Facebook page to view more of her work

Who doesn't love a little Peter Pan??

I also plan to order another custom piece featuring Walt & Mickey soon

Some people are worth melting for...

Those are some great inspirational words from Olaf.


But I'm using them in reference to our first official, public, inside a store meltdown.

We went to Toys R Us Saturday to spend a $5.00 coupon Persephone got for her upcoming birthday.  We also needed a few other items.  She started off in the buggy, but skydived out of it when we went past the Thomas the Train isle.  Holy moly!  She had a fun time playing with her uncles trains the other weekend while we were at Mimi & Pops so she remembered them well.  It's sweet to watch her play pretend...it reminds me of the fun times I had playing pretend.

We tried to deter her and get her to look at other toys - that was a JOKE.  She pitched a fit and even let out a loud high pitched squeal.  Finally we set her down in the Despicable Me isle and she returned to her happy self temporarily.  She was so sweet pushing all the buttons to get the dolls to sing/dance.  We wanted to get her the minion with the fire alarm on his head who says "Bee-do bee-do bee-do" because she loves to mimic him, but that stupid thing was $50.00.

Eventually we ended up back by the trains where she played some more with a little boy.  She pitched a fit some more when we tried to get her interested in some other toys.  Ultimately she grabbed a Minnie Mouse grocery cart off the shelf and started strutting her stuff throughout the store.  The cart barely came with anything (go figure).  I love DISNEY, but some things are just a rip off and this was one of them.  I would have rather spent $15.00 at Wal-Mart on the no-name shopping cart loaded with pretend goods.  But we weren't going to rip it out of her hands because she was going to scream bloody murder.

I ended up grabbing another small basket of food/boxed items to add to her collection.  She would not let us help her carry/push any of it.  She got mad and wailed every time I tried to assist her.  She even screamed when we wouldn't let her push the cart across the parking lot.  Mega super duper drama queen...and I have no idea where she gets that from.

Here we are being the best parents and breaking the rules by letting her play on the pirate ship bed.  I would TOTES love to have this even as an adult.  I mean obviously with an adult size bed.

Waiting to check out like a big girl...

Birmingham ZOO!

In all the years my mom has lived in Birmingham, AL we have never visited the zoo.  We have visited the Botanical Gardens and the McWane Science Center and even Dismals Canyon way up in W Alabama...but never this gem of a zoo.

Since we were visiting for a long weekend, I suggested we do something affordable, but outside of the box.  Despite the muggy, uncomfortably hot day, we traveled to the zoo a little before lunch on Sunday.

Our first stop was this super cute Auburn sign 

(don't worry, they had an elephant for those pesky Alabama fans)

Then we hopped on the carousel for a ride. 

 Persephone got the...Cheetah? Leopard...hell I don't know

and I chose the Ostrich, but as ush..no pic of me

Mimi had a rabbit - although from behind it looked like a Donkey?!  

Pops had a bear

Next up was the children's area of the zoo.  They had a cute barn with your normal farm animals you could pet (pigs, chickens, goats, pony) and some other animals you probably didn't want to touch haha.

Like this ferret 

Or corn snake

She was fascinated by the Rooster cock-a-doo-da-doodling

Piggies taking a much needed nap

I was surprised Persephone went in the pen with me to see the goats.  They were kind of minding their own business walking around.  She just stood around checking the place out.

Then we walked through Alabama Wild, had a butterfly exhibit - which I totes skipped because I don't like butterflies.  They had a pair of Bald Eagles, they were shot in 1980 and couldn't fly, so they've been at the zoo since.  They did say they're a successful breeding pair, so their children have gone on to be released into the wild. 

There was a cool zip line course in the trees throughout the Alabama Wild walk through.  We didn't pay to do it this time, but certainly at a cooler time of year I want to check it out!

On our way to the train we got to see some Flamingos (did you know they don't start turning pink until around 2yrs of age?!  They also get their color from their food.)

Have you ever seen an elephant from behind?  

What about some rhino's?

I wish I knew how old this guy was

My little giraffe

A beautiful giraffe

These vultures were unreal!  

They looked like something from a cartoon.