UGA vs. Auburn

This past weekend we traveled to Athens to celebrate E.W. (Worth's dad) birthday and to attend the UGA vs. Auburn game. It was a rare weekend in which all the stars aligned and my parents were able to keep all 3 children, and Worth and I were able to do this trip without children. Believe me, I missed them terribly, but it was soooooo nice to actually hold a conversation with someone and not have to stop every other word to chase/discipline/protect a child.

Friday night was E.W.'s birthday, so we had tickets to see Kip Moore at the Classic Center. Kip is a country singer that is making his way up the music celebrity ladder. Kip went to high school with Worth and I and was on the golf team coached by E.W. Worth and I aren't big country music fans but it was fun to go see someone we went to high school with perform on stage. It was really strange and funny all at the same time. I think Worth and I were just secretly proud of ourselves for staying out WAY past our normal bedtime. I didn't know if I would make it when we were waiting  between acts for Kip to hit the stage. I was the grandma in the crowd going " I mean, it's almost 10:00! Why isn't he on stage yet?" But I rallied and we had a great time.

Saturday, we slept in and had some quality time with my nephew Bo. His personality is really starting to show and he was great Saturday morning entertainment! He is such a precious little boy, and I can't wait to meet his little brother who should arrive around Christmas Eve. After finally getting ready, we headed to the tailgate early that afternoon.  It was very cold, but we were wearing several layers. Game time came and I almost chickened out because it had gotten so bitterly cold at the tailgate. I decided if I was in Athens with no kids - rain, sleet, snow or shine, I was going to that game. Once in the stadium it honestly wasn't that bad. With several layers of clothing, a ski jacket, ski gloves, hand warmers shoved in every bit of clothing, people sitting beside you in their big jackets, a blanket, and a hot chocolate, I was almost comfortable. It did start to get cold at the end of the 2nd half but we decided to leave at that point because UGA had such an awesome lead over AU. We were so proud of our Dawgs!

All in all a great weekend. We were happy, however, to get home to our munchkins and 70 degree weather in Valdosta on Sunday. I wish I had taken more pictures over the weekend, but I mainly took videos, and I'm too lazy this week to download them all to you tube to get them on the blog. Maybe later?

Kip doing his thing. This picture looks far away but we were actually pretty close to the stage. 

Tailgating in 40 degree weather. We made the Bulldawg Illustrated web page! 

Gymnastics updates

Here are a couple of videos of the girls at gymnastics recently. Ellie is improving a ton! Ellie has especially gotten good on the bar, but the bar is so far away from where the parents sit, I haven't been able to get a great video of it.  Emma is surprisingly pretty good in her preschool class and seems to not have any fear of anything they want her to do. They both love it, and I'll have to admit, it is an excellent way for them to get their energy out on a Thursday afternoon!

Halloween 2014

Last night we had a great time with friends and family celebrating Halloween. Despite Worth being under the weather (we are pretty sure he has the flu now, and yes, he got a flu shot) we pulled off a great party and some awesome trick or treating that involved a hay ride in our neighborhood. I made the parents dress up as well this year, and we had some interesting costumes. The only way I got out of being Elsa, was if I was a witch. So, my costume was not very creative, but very easy to put together. Ellie and Emma were Elsa and Anna (of course.) Worth was Bob the Builder, and Mack was supposed to be Willie from Duck Dynasty, but his costume lasted less than 10 seconds before he ripped it off. These are just a few pictures from our night.

Video Entertainment

Children can be so entertaining. Especially, when they are not making you want to pull your hair out. I took some videos of them the other night because they all 3 had me in stitches. Who needs a television, when you have a 6, 3, and 1 year old.

This first video occurred because Emma came in for dinner and just began blurting out what she had learned at school earlier that day about the pledge of allegiance. She told me all about it and then proceeded to recite it at the dinner table. After dinner I wanted her to do it again so I could film her and Ellie decided she wanted to join in and explain why we say the pledge of allegiance. 

The next video is a video of Ellie singing and dancing. This is not something that is unusual in our house, but what is so funny is Mack joining in by dancing at the end of the video. I'm not sure where he's hearing the rhythm but he was obviously feeling the beat!



The final video is a video Emma requested to do after Ellie sang and danced. I'm not sure what songs she's singing, but I do believe it is a Frozen medley of some sort. She is not usually the ham that Ellie is, so I thoroughly enjoyed seeing her perform for the camera.

Dash

Meet the newest member of our family. He's been hanging around for a couple of months with Aspen and Freddie. The past few weeks he has allowed us to touch him and he comes in with the other cats to eat. We'll see if he decides to stick around after his visit to the vet this week! I guess we are a family of eight now! 

Getting Ready For Fall

Although the nice fall weather has not arrived in south Georgia, we are trying to get ready for the Halloween/Thanksgiving season. I finally got all of our Halloween decorations out and we are slowly decorating with them. The girls and I made some fun pumpkins this weekend that were actually pretty easy to make. It involved melting orange and black crayons on white pumpkins. I would advise if you try this at home to have 2 people with hairdryers and it will go a lot faster. It took us FOREVER to get the crayons to melt because you can't use the hairdryer on high or it will splatter crayon everywhere. Luckily, we had enough people to do it in shifts so it ended up not being so bad.

Ellie did a good job heating the crayons when she was actually aiming the hairdryer at the crayons

The black kind of took over, so I would advise doubling up on the orange crayons 

Emma kept us straight by making sure we were following the directions 

Finished product. Turned out cute, very easy, and inexpensive.

Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious!

Emma's 1st UGA game

This past weekend we headed to Athens to cheer on the Dawgs against Tennessee. The game was at noon on Saturday, so we thought it would be a perfect time to take the girls. Ellie had been to a game before, but this was Emma's first time in Sanford Stadium. She has frequented many tailgates but has never been to an actual game.

The weather was nice Saturday morning at the tailgate. At the game however, our seats are in the sun and it did get a little warm. Despite Ellie continually asking, "Did we lose?" throughout the entire game and Emma being ultra whiny (for Emma,) we had a great time. (We do think Emma may have been coming down with something, because she was running a fever when we got home Sunday.) This of course making me feel like a terrible mother forcing her to endure a hot, crowded football game!

We stayed with Kate, Jay and Bo in their new abode in Athens. There was a lot of cousin time that involved tee ball, chasing, screaming, renouncing (Ellie's version of the word announcing) and fun. I, unfortunately didn't get a ton of pictures, but here are a few from our weekend.

The girls got their faces painted by Ms. Lollipop. Ellie, of course went with the face paint that the UGA cheerleaders wear, Emma chose a bulldog paw. 

They were really frustrated that we weren't walking to the game yet in this picture.  Ellie kept saying "We are missing the game!" Even though the game didn't start for another 30 minutes

A smile

They got to share a coke as promised. You can't go to a football game and not have a good coca cola! 

Ellie cheering on the Dawgs

Emma throughout the 1st quarter. I should've known she didn't feel good. I took her to the bathroom at one point and asked if she didn't feel good or if she was just tired. She said "I don't feel good." I asked her what hurt, and she responded, "My barrette." So I adjusted the barrette, and she perked up to rally for the rest of the game. 

E.W. got E & E another sweet treat. A red icy for Ellie and a blue one for Emma.  Good for a hot game!

Emma and Mack fighting over Bo's cozy coupe

Ellie turns 6!

It's hard to believe that 6 years ago was Ellie's birth. She came into the world kicking and screaming and, well, not much has changed in the past 6 years. She is still quite the bossy pants she has always been (which proves to be a great big sister skill.) She is hard headed, smart, sassy, and FULL of life and energy. Since she has started kindergarten, it is eerily quiet around our house. Emma looked at me when she was eating lunch a couple of weeks ago and said, "Mommy, I miss Ellie." I shared her feelings! Ellie definitely adds an element to our household that is terribly missed when she is not around.

Since I've had a gazillion things going on, I am just now posting this. Ellie's birthday was last Friday, the 19th. She was so excited this year about turning 6. Worth took doughnuts to her class for breakfast on Friday morning. For dinner that night, we went out to the Wooden Nickel Pub (Ellie's request) for dinner and followed that up with frozen yogurt at The Mix.

Saturday, was the birthday party. Ellie had been planning this party since her birthday party last year. We had a gymnastics party this year at the YMCA. Ellie made her list of who she wanted to invite and helped me get the invitations together. She had requested a Mary Poppins party, so it was kind of hard to come up with invitations, etc. There isn't too much out there for Mary Poppins. Thank goodness for Etsy, which came through for me with Mary Poppins paraphernalia. I think she and everyone else at the party had a great time. It was the easiest birthday party I've ever done. The Y handled everything, down to cutting the cake and writing down gifts! (I did ask party goers not to bring gifts, but some kids did anyway. Most of them hand made cards, which I thought was such a sweet gift!)

The pictures are kind of scattered. Our main camera broke (thanks to Mack, AKA: The Destroyer) so I have been using a combination of a small Canon we have (which is terrible,) my phone, and borrowed pictures from Worth's mom's camera.

The morning of Ellie's birthday. Emma and Mack gave her a Mary Poppins doll

Proof that Mack was there celebrating with us that morning. Clearly, he wasn't happy about the attention not being on him. 

Hard to get over the fact that she is 6! She was dressed in her Lowndes Viking attire for spirit day, complete with a Viking tattoo on her cheek. 

Saturday morning, Grandma and Papa came by to give her their gift before the birthday party.  Freddie wanted to see what she got as well. 

Grandma did the whole, box in a box wrapping trick on Ellie

The last box led her to their car which had another box in it. 

The other box.See video at bottom to see what was inside!

Ellie and her Mia at the birthday party. This time with a Frozen tattoo instead of a Viking

Playing with the parachute. The girls that did this party were great!

Mack pointed Ellie out for Grandma

Beam walking

Emma showing off. 

A brief moment.

Mack wanted to do gymnastics as well. 

Silly girls

Mack and his E.W,

The cake. The lady that made this for us did an awesome job!
 Publix, unfortunately didn't have a Mary Poppins cake:(

Mack liked the cake as well. Even though I had to chase him around to feed it to him. 

Opening some gifts. 

Below are 2 videos of some big gifts Ellie got for her birthday. The first is the gift Worth and I gave her and the second video is the gift my parents gave her (after she opened all the different sized boxes.)

Lil' Viking Cheer Camp

Ellie had her first experience with being a cheerleader this past Saturday. She went to a 1 day cheer camp that the local high school cheerleaders put on. She learned some cheers, did some stunts and learned how to scream and yell (because she has no idea how to do that) for the Vikings. She had a blast though, and will perform what she learned at a pep rally bon fire for the Viking football team on Sept. 18th. She came home and informed me that she wanted to be a cheerleader when she grows up.

It was an odd experience dropping her off at the camp. You see, the Lowndes Vikings were one of our biggest rivals when I was in high school. I had an urge when I was leaving her there that morning to turn around and say "Go Big Blue!" to all of the smiling crimson clad cheerleaders. Worth and I were Tift County Blue Devils. Last night, I had to pull out the old yearbooks and reminisce of the old cheering days. Ellie and Emma had a fun time picking out the pictures of their mama.

Here are 3 videos I took of Ellie's performance yesterday.