Five and Five

Happy 85th Papa!

Last weekend while we were in the upstate we celebrated Jay's Papa's 85th birthday. We had cake and then went over to the main building for the Elvis concert.

Celeste, Jay, Astra and Bill

Grandmoney and her girls.

Katie Jo and sleeping beauty.

Enjoying the cake.

Katie Jo gave the cake her stamp of approval!

Bill and Georgia.
Katie Jo and Daddy waiting on Elvis to arrive.
Katie Jo checking out the stuffed toy Elvis gave her.
Georgia enjoyed the concert too!

Upstate trip

Last weekend we traveled to the upstate for a visit. Saturday I got to do something I haven't done in FOREVER. Spend some time shopping by myself. I love to shop and it's usually for the girls which is easy when they're with me since no one has to use a dressing room. Shopping for me with the girls usually involves me picking stuff up, paying for it, trying it on once I get home and returning what ever didn't work. Not so fun. So I packed up and went to the outlets in Gaffney! I spent a whole five hours alone except for Jay meeting me for lunch. It would be too hard to explain what he was doing around that way so we'll leave it at him being in the area. I bought lots of nice things for myself using some Christmas gift cards and found some super sales in the children's stores. So no pics from that since they'd be of the Visa or Am Ex cards! We did get some pics of us before church on Sunday.

Amen indeed!

We celebrated Jay's Papa's 85th birthday recently. A lady at his nursing home has a birthday around the same time and every year her family hires "Elvis" to come in and entertain. It was a treat to say the least. Everyone knows he's coming and they get there early to get a good seat. Here is a video of him singing. Katie Jo loved it but was a little wary of the crazy man in the red suit. He came out of the crowd to had out roses and gave Katie Jo a stuffed animal. She touched his hand and she got all shook up!

Mia's visit

After Jay got back from his golf trip on Saturday we took Katie Jo out to a jump castle place so she could have some fun outside of the house. For a two and half year old she amazes me with her agility and courage. She was climbling, sliding, and jumping with the best of them. She had such a good time and when the hour was up she was begging to stay!
Sunday morning was church as usual. Here is a picture of the girls in cute dresses made by Aunt Jessica. They are two peas in a pod and ready to roll. After we got back from church Mia had arrived along with Aunt Joni. After lunch we headed downtown to the Citadel so Mia could see the campus along with where Joni works. Joni showed us around and we were lucky enough to get into McAlister Field House to take a look around. It was a most beautiful Charleston Sunday and everyone had a great time.

I would like to just point out that even here you can see Jay is checking me out!
The one was taken Monday morning before Mia left for the upstate. Heaven forbid we take a picture without all of Disney and Seseme Street's finest!

Girl time

After coming back from our trip to visit Allison the girls and I had a night to ourselves. In usual "lazy mother" mode KJ got the below for dinner and then some fun time playing in the bonus room.

Just some good ole girl time

A couple of weeks ago Jay had to leave for a couple of days to head to Myrtle Beach for a church golf trip so the girls and I decided to head up to Columbia to stay with our good friends. Allison and Cory have two precious children and Ava is only a year and half older than KJ so those two had quite a good time together. KJ loved all of Ava's toys and especially her castle! It was so good to spend time with Allison, and Cory too! I don't know how much of it was quality time since there were four children under 5 around but it was still a good time! Georgia and Tate just hung out and watched all the action. Alli, thanks again for having us!

WWF

A fellow blogging friend, Kelly, told a story about a battle of wills she had with her two year old the other night. My how I can relate. It made me think of something funny that happened the other day with Katie Jo. We were playing in the bonus room when Katie Jo shouted "Mean Cats, Mean Cats" and came running towards me. Side note: Katie Jo has started pretending of late and it is usually that a mean cat is hiding in her dresser or a rhino is chasing her and we have to climb into Noah's Ark (the play house outside). So anyway, she came running towards me and instead of sitting in my lap to get away from them she ran around behind me, climbed up my back, and began to wrap herself around my neck. In the process she grabbed up two fist fulls of my hair. It all happened so quickly that I was struck dumb by the fact that she was literally on top of me and then secondly how much it hurt where she was pulling my hair. I immediately tried to get her off of me which turned into a wrestling match hence the WWF title (Wrestling With my Firstborn). Before I knew it we were both writhing about like two worms in hot ashes. I was trying to pry her off of me and she was yelling because she thought I was trying to throw her off. She never let go of my hair which just made things worse. Next thing I knew we were on the floor in a heap and I was trying to bend out of her grip all the while yelling "let go Katie Jo, just let go." Finally we came apart and both sat there breathless. I'm sure we moved on to coloring Dora or something but I was quite traumatized for some while. So that might not be a perfect example of a strong willed child but it shows that no amount of parenting books, advice, or research can prepare you for everything!