Kaitlyn and Nicole are Movin' On Up (Jefferson Style)

We closed on our house yesterday.  Walton School District.  Basement!!!!  Woo Hoo.  That's the best part.  I can contain the kid mess to the basement...or at least that's the plan.  Guess that also means I need to think of new decorating ideas for their room and the playroom.  We're excited.

I think we're moving Saturday.

Merry Christmas to everyone!!! 

Random Photos - Just Poking Around the Computer

Nicole with Da Da's guitar. :-) Sporting the diaper too.

And here's an oldy but goody...who are these kids!!! Man, they look so different now.

Kaitlyn eating corn on the cobb.

One night after bath.

AJC.com

We went to the children's holiday parade this year in downtown Atlanta.  The girls definitely enjoyed it...seeing a huge Super Grover balloon coming down the street, a huge Elmo balloon, Elmo himself in costume, marching bands with dancers and flags....yes, it was a good time!!!  At one point a man turned at us and started snapping more than 30 photos.  I said to Mike that he had better be with the media or that was creepy.  Sure enough, he approached us and got our names.  He was with the AJC.  And our photo was in the online newspaper.  If you want to check it out on line, go to ajc.com.  Move your mouse over the Entertainment tab (don't click on it though).  Once over the Entertainment tab, the drop down menu will appear.  Go to Photos- Entertainment.  Find the gallery for the Holiday Parade, and we're the fourth photo.  If that's far too much work for you (and I don't blame you), here's the photo instead below:

We're Closed and Sold!!!

Mike and I are officially renting our house until Sunday.  Movers come Saturday.  Heading to a rental to tide us over.  In the meantime, we did finally find something in the Walton school district.  We negotiated on it and are officially under contract.  So, it looks like we will move TWICE between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Joy.  Oh well.

Haven't gotten past the inspection or the appraisal yet though, and don't get me started on buyer's remorse.  So, this may fall through.  We'll see.  I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime though, we will no longer reside at Stoneywood Circle, so don't send your cute holiday cards with your kids to that address.  Still send them though, I love getting holiday cards.  I guess I'll have people send stuff to the rental, so I'll get you that address soon. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We

A Rainy Halloween

But what a blast!!!  We went to Brad and Ceylese's neighborhood since there are far more kids...just a lot more fun.  And Kaitlyn and Nicole joined the pack of kids and ran right along.  They were of the smaller in this group, so they weren't as fast between houses.  It was kind of funny.  Right when they were finally getting up to the door to get their candy, the pack would take off, so they just would too.  They didn't know any better.  They just wanted to keep up.  SO CUTE!!!  They did get plenty of candy though, and they were all about saying Happy Halloween and Trick or Treat.  Good times.

Oh, One More Thing...

Looks like we're moving.  I was waiting a while to post about this to make sure all the wrinkles like the inspection and the appraisal were ironed out.  We've made it past both of those things and are only a week out from closing at this point, so it's looking good.  Nothing is a guarantee though, but I wanted to let my readers (whoever you are...not too many I don't believe) know that we're moving. 

Where to, you might ask?  Well, we figured in a buyer's market that we'd find something no problem.  Not the case when we have so many criteria (basement, great yard, great schools, and did we mention affordable?).  Anyway, we're going rent in Mableton in the interim since we didn't find anything.  We didn't want to buy something just to buy something.  Too important of a decision to rush.  I hate that it looks like we'll be spending Christmas in a rental, but I guess that's the way it will be.  We're still looking though, so who knows.  Maybe we'll only be in the rental for a short time.

Oh....and actually, there's still one MORE thing.  Happy Birthday Mike!!!  Today's the day. 

Photos Finally. Sorry.

The ship from Pirates of the Caribbean.  What a sight...really cool.

Our ship in Port. 

More Castaway Cay later...got some cute photos of the girls playing in the turquoise waters!!!

Castaway Cay

As I said, after the boat ride, we went back to the ship for nap time.  Then, Mike and I did something the ship should never know about...we took our diapered children into the Mickey pool!!!!  We skipped the formal dinner again that night figuring that while everyone was eating, the pool wouldn't be crowded and more importantly, it wouldn't be watched.  We were right.  We had the entire pool to ourselves except for about 10 minutes when this one little boy showed up.  We only swam for about 1/2 hour, but boy did the girls LOVE it. 

Then, we got them cleaned up and into PJs and actually took them to that evening's show (Toy Story) in their PJs.  They lasted about 30 to 40 minutes.  They don't know Toy Story, so I think it didn't hold their attention as much as something else would have. 

Ok, so we wake up the next morning at Disney's private island, Castaway Cay.  We got off the boat and hit the beach.  It was magnificant.  I packed a beach blanket and a few other things that turned out to be completely unnecessary.  Who knew that their beach would have pool chair and umbrellas everywhere....PLENTY for everyone!  We didn't have to get sandy at all.  Yippie!  So, we swam and played in the surf and sand for a few hours.  This was the highlight of the trip.  No worrying about diapers...just having a blast in the water.  The girls LOVED it!  Photos to come later.

We decided it was lunch time, so we headed up to the covered 'picinic' area on the island.  They had a frozen yogurt machine too.  As I've mentioned, we were having a hard time getting the girls to eat, and this was no exception.  They basically ate potato chips for lunch and frozen yogurt for dessert.  After that, we went back to the ship and the girls napped.  They woke up just about the time we were pulling away from the port.  So, a barely awake Nicole is standing in our room and just pukes all over our bed and the floor.  Oh joy!  Now, you could say that she had just spent an entire afternoon in the hot Caribbean sun and ate junk and dairy products...add to that the sensation of the ship pulling away from port after having been motionless at the dock.  But...we knew better since Kaitlyn had been sick too.  Anti-naseau pill, here we come!

So, this was the evening of the Pirate party.  No one from our family had been to the dining room yet and it was the third night of the cruise.  So, I stayed in the room with a very cuddly and laid back Nicole and Kaitlyn who was fine, thank goodness.  Mike went to dinner and brought me something back.  The girls had room service.  How swanky!  After Mike got back, we thought about taking them up to the Pirate party figuring they'd perk up.  Didn't seem to be in the cards for Nicole, so I took Kaitlyn up and Mike stayed with Nicole.  She's a daddy's girl anyway.  Kaitlyn had a great time at the Pirate Party.  (Photos to come for that too...this is just a narrative post because I'm too lazy to upload the photos at 10:30 at night.)

This brings us to bedtime and to the last day on the cruise...a full day at sea.  Next post.

Disney Cruise - Day 1 Bahamas Port

Here's a photo from breakfast Monday morning.  Surprisingly, we actually got them to eat a bit at this meal.  But let's just say most every meal on the ship was a disaster.  Thank goodness for Pinocchio's Pizzaeria.  The girls "liked" pizza before this trip, but let's just say they "love" pizza now.  We knew it would be hard to get them to eat on the cruise anyway because they don't do well in restaurants currently.  It's the sitting still for that long that causes most of the problem.  But with them both being sick off and on, I'm sure that contributed to our tough time getting them to eat.  Have I already told you about the being sick?  I don't think so, so here goes...(after the photo of breakfast though)

Friday night (we were supposed to leave Saturday morning to drive 1/2 way and then the other 1/2 Sunday...boat left at 4pm and that was too much to do in one day):  Kaitlyn throws up SIX times!!!  The final time was about 11:45pm.  I was crying figuring we weren't even going to be able to go cause whatever she had, I figured Nicole would get next and they aren't going to let you on a cruise ship with sick kids.

Saturday:  Our pediatrician keeps Saturday morning hours, so we got Kaitlyn an appt and delayed our departure until after nap.  The after hours nurses on the phone told us not to bother with an appt because she didn't have a fever and there was probably nothing to be done, but when I told her about our vacation plans, she thought it would be a good idea to get an appt just so we could get the prescription for anti-nausea.  So, we did.  And the dr told us that we were probably out of the woods because by the time we saw her, it had already been 12 hours since the last time Kaitlyn threw up.  Of course we still had to wonder if Nicole would get it.

Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon:  We leave, drive 1/2 way, spend the night in a hotel, all without incident.  Get up Sunday morning, drive the rest of the way, board the boat, exaggerate slightly when we had to fill out the medical form to board the boat because they ask if you've thrown up in the past 3 days (it had been only 2 at this point), eat lunch on board, try to get the girls to take a quick nap, go to the Bon Voyage party and dance and have fun.  Ok, so that takes us up to dinner.

Sunday night:  We had already had a big day, so we decided to skip our dining arrangements and just eat at the casual restuarants by the pool.  We got a table on the back deck of the ship.  We were the only ones there, so it was kind of cool.  About 20 minutes into the girls playing more than they were eating, Kaitlyn throws up all over the deck (and Mike).  Mostly water thankfully.  We all decide just to keep our mouths shut and clean it up and go on our way.  Strange though...it had been almost 48 hours!!!  We thought we were out of the woods or we wouldn't have boarded the boat.  We gave her an anti nausea pill just in case though.  Nothing more that evening...because she was well or because we gave her the pill???  Who knows?

Monday:  Bahamas - nothing to report on the sick front, so again, we think that we're out of the woods.  We go on our excursion for the glass bottom boat.  Literally no exaggeration here, within 2 minutes of getting off the ship, it starts to rain and we have about a 15 minute walk to the glass bottom boat.  Great.  So, that's why we're all wet in the photos below.

The Disney Wonder in port...WOW!!!

And of course, don't you know that...again, no exaggeration...we boarded the glass bottom boat and within 2 minutes, it stopped raining!!!  Go figure.  It only rained for about 15 minutes that entire day and it was the exact 15 minutes of our walk!

So, after the excursion, we went back for nap.  Still everyone healthy.  Yippie.

And I'll finish the rest in the next post.  This takes us through Tuesday morning (above) where the girls woke up in Castaway Cay and cuddled with DaDa for a few minutes.

Princess Gathering

Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)

Belle (Beauty and the Beast)

Snow White

Cinderella (Nicole was done at this point and wouldn't really sit for the photo with Cinderella...oh well.)

Bon Voyage Party - Disney Cruise Day 1

I have lots of photos to share and of course some dialogue about the trip, but today I'm just going to quickly put some photos out there for you to enjoy.  More to come...

What's Up?

First, check out the link to the top right of the blog for the professional photos we had made.  There are a lot of them.  We are SO pleased.  If you enter my email (alyson.barbree@yahoo.com) you can click on just my favorites so you don't have to go through all 170+ of them. 

Well, it's been a while.  Sorry.  So unlike me.  I guess the only excuse I could possibly have is that I've been busy, which is of course good and bad.  Let's see.

Labor Day weekend:
-We went to Six Flags Friday night.  It was season pass appreciation day, so the park wasn't crowded at all.  In fact, I would expect that from here on out, the park won't ever be super crowded.  It's open through Halloween, so I anticipate that we'll still go a few more times.  Last year, we didn't even buy our passes until school started back in August, and we still managed to go 3x.  So, this fall weather is perfect.
-Saturday was College Kick Off.  Woo Hoo.  We went down to Centennial Park to join in all the hoopla with ESPNs College Game Day being down there.  I bought the girls Alabama cheerleader outfits and they wore them down there since it was Alabama playing in the Dome.  They were SUPER cute!  I have photos that I'll post later.  (Mike was raised an Alabama fan for anyone who was wondering...and Georgia fans, don't worry, they will own UGA cheerleader outfits too.  I just haven't seen the one piece dress in stores yet.  I've only seen the 2 piece, and Kaitlyn probably couldn't hold the skirt up, and I just didn't like them as much as the 1 piece I've seen on line.)  We didn't do much of the Game Day stuff.  We mostly ended up on the playground, but they had a blast!!!  And they got lots of cute looks, so mission accomplished. 
-Sunday, I headed off to an out of town wedding with my mom, so this was a BIG NIGHT for Mike.  Of course he's watched them plenty on his own when I'm out and about, etc.  But...he's never had them overnight all by himself!!!  I hear they had a great time.
-And Monday was me and my mom driving back and stopping at the Locust Grove Osh Kosh outlet to buy plenty of cute falls clothes for the upcoming season.  I just LOVE Osh Kosh.

Weekend after Labor Day:
-We hit the East Cobber parade over in E.C. on Saturday afternoon.  The parade is followed by a festival, and they had TONS of inflatable jumpy things.  You buy tickets to go in, so we bought some and the girls had a ball.  They really, really love jumpy things.  The one from their birthday that I posted photos of is my brother's and he says they're not that expensive, so I do think we'll have to own one at some point. They just enjoy it so much.  We'll wait for the bigger house before we buy that.  (Oh, and no luck on the 'selling the house' front if anyone was curious.  Oh well.)
-Then, this was the final weekend for White Water.  We went to White Water Sunday morning.  The weather didn't cooperate, so we were only there for about 1 1/2 hours.  They loved every minute of it though, and had they not been shivering and turning blue, we probably would have let them stay.  Thank goodness good parenting prevailed.  But...we felt bad since they were enjoying themselves so much, so after nap, we hit Six Flags!!!  Holy Cow!!!  That was a big day.  We took them on their first roller coaster...the Wylie Cyote Canyon Blaster.  I didn't know they were tall enough, but a friend told me they could ride as long as the adults rode too.  Sure enough, they let us on.  Good stuff.

SSSSSOOOO...as you can see, we have been very busy!  And what are we up to this weekend.  Are you ready for the BIG TA DA!!!  We're heading to Port Canaveral to board a Disney Cruise!  Woo Hoo!!!  Check back next week for photos of our trip.  We anticipate having the times of our lives!

Photo Shoot

We hadn't had the girls two year portraits made yet. I was waiting until we got haircuts (yeah, see previous post) and until we were up at the lake again. I think I had this idea that a photographer in Young Harris would be cheaper than in Atlanta, so I asked my mom if any of her friends had recommendations. Sure enough, they did. I was also thinking that Lake Chatuge in the background would be really pretty. Well, it turns out I was wrong on both points...not that the lake wouldn't make an awesome background, but that we didn't have our photos taken at the lake.

We went, at the photographer's suggestion, to Crane Creek Vineyard in the area. It was beautiful. I think part of me still wishes we had used a lake site. Oh well, next time.

And as for the cost...not so much. I had searched numerous photographers in Atlanta, and I do mean numerous. I also had considered that if I was going to spend the money to do this right that we would have had our photos made in Hilton Head in June. I called numerous photographers there too. All in all, if you want professional photos and want some one good, it's gonna cost you. I thought a small town would help, and maybe it did, but not to the extent I was hoping.

Anyway, while they were taking their photos, I was walking behind with our camera. We don't have the professional proofs yet (hopefully later this week), but in the meantime, enjoy the photos I took.

Oh, and Mike told me after that he thought it was so funny that we hired this lady to take pictures and I'm standing behind her with my camera. Probably right. However, I have a feeling that when we see her photos compared to mine that we'll understand why we hired her. I have to say, though, I don't think my photos are that bad. Can you imagine how much better hers will be? I'm so excited to see them.