Georgia Sights

As part of of East Coast Vacation, we spent a day in Savannah, Georgia.  The plan was to go to Tybee Island but we didn't make it that far.  We decided to take the Old Town Trolley Tour in Savannah and it ended up taking a lot longer than anticipated.  Totally worth doing, but it meant we didn't make it to Tybee Island.  Aiden did get his nap on the way back to Hilton Head though and we were able to go back to Coligny beach later that afternoon.

Here we are on the Old Town Trolley.  Aiden loved riding the "bus" and seeing all the other "buses" around town.  There were 15 stops along the way that we could get on & off at and even though we weren't able to see everything, what we did see was great.

The first stop we made was at Forsyth Park.  This is The Mansion on Forryth Park which is a restored victorian mansion that is now a 4-star hotel. We went into the lobby and art gallery area as we were told there was a 1 ton, $750,000 crystal cut chandelier and that's it hanging from the gold leaf ceiling in the picture top left.  Adam said it was "ugly and something he'd n-e-v-e-r have in his house" but I don't think I would mind it!

Next, we stopped at the Cathedral of St John The Baptist.  The cathedral has been restored twice since it was built in the late eighteenth century and is amazing inside and out.

After that, it was time to stop for lunch.  We'd heard talk of The Pirates' House Restaurant and decided that we would eat there.  Pirates' House opened in 1753 as an inn for seafarers and became a meeting place for pirates. Even though it is now a restaurant, this old house has been preserved very well.  The brick walls and pine floors are original and there are cob webs hanging in the original wooden ceilings. The photo in the bottom right corner is what leads to the old rum cellar which has a tunnel that leads to the river. The photo next to it is a sign that is posted to explain more about the tunnel.  Years ago visitors could still go down into the tunnel, but now they have it blocked off at the top of the stairs.  In the picture of me at the top, I have a "skull crusher" that I really enjoyed on such a hot day.  You can also see Aiden scored his very own pirate hat but wouldn't wear the eye patch and mustache, so daddy wore it instead.  The Pirates' house is associated with the classic book Treasure Island and the famous Pirate Captain Flint died at the Pirate's House in an upstairs room and its said that his ghost still haunts the historic tavern.  I don't think we could have picked a better place to have lunch that day.

...The pictures top left of the light and shutters and of Aiden and I wre taken on the front porch of the Herb House built in 1734.  Its the oldest house in Georgia and is adjacent to the Pirate's House in Trustees Garden where the states major crop, peaches, were first grown.

...The big tree to the left is the Candler Oak which is a live oak tree said to be 270 years old and is not only huge, but hugely beautiful. The stuff hanging from it is spanish moss which is not actually spanish or moss and hangs from many trees in South Carolina and Georgia.  The spanish moss looks so neat but is how the saying "sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite" started!

...The big statue in the picture in the middle is a monument "To the Confederate Dead 1861-1865" At the top of the monument a bronze soldier in a confederate uniform stands facing north following the long time tradition of placing a statue to face the enemy. What intrigued me about the monument(and blame it on being an Army wife who's survived deployment) is the carving of a grieving widow sitting under a weeping willow tree who is surrounded by 4 winged angels.

...The other photos are just a few that I chose as favorites from ALL the ones we snapped that day! The unique fence outside a home for sale, the welcoming pineapple out front at a big old house and the lamp and brick designs.

By the end of the day we were hot, tired, and over-loaded with lots of new historical information. But for our last stop we got off at the river front and had some ice cream at Savannah's Candy Kitchen.  Before we could even walk in the door we were smacked in the face with the sweet smell of sugar.  The place just reeks of it.  They have just about any kind of candy and sweet treat you can think of, handmade ice cream and gelato and cases of pretzels and truffles and candy apples and fudge and popcorns and taffy and fresh warm carmel pralines! One of my favorites was the candy apple bumble bee and krispie treat bee hive! They had barrels and dispensers and jars  and shelves full of commercial made candies too! I could have left there with just about one of everything (at least!) but instead I decided on just a tin of fresh taffies!

So just when you think I've bombarded you with enough pictures...I must warn you that I still am not done sharing our vacation with you!  Part 3 coming soon, with a few new ones thrown in there too hopefully.  Right now, I'm headed to the pantry for some of that yummy taffy I still have hiding in there! 

East Coast Vacation; Part 2

Life’s a Beach . . .

Well at least for a few days it was!

Here’s some more pictures from our vacation that were taken the first day at the beach.  It was Aiden’s first time in the ocean and my first time in the Atlantic Ocean.  The weather was perfect and Aiden was almost fearless of the water.  He loved venturing out with daddy and we even got out far enough to find some sand dollars.

(P.S. If you click on the collages it will make them bigger so you can better see the photos!)

Mom n Me Monday

With yesterday being Mother’s Day,
how about a Mom n Me Monday today!

We spent most of Mother's day in the house since it turned out to be an overcast chilly kind of day.  I woke up to my Aiden giving me a card, followed by my husband giving me a card as well.  Then they disappeared from the room so I slipped back to sleep for a little while until I was awoken with pancakes with blueberry syrup and a glass of milk in bed! We all hung out in our jammies most of the day and when Aiden woke up from his nap we had an early dinner at Ruby Tuesday.  Daddy snapped the picture of my baby and I right before heading out to dinner.  If you're confused, by baby I mean the picture of me and Aiden.  Lately, he's been pointing to older pictures of himself and to other children and saying "baby."  I guess he's not a baby anymore when he realizes that there are many differences between him and an infant.  ::Sigh::it was bound to happen someday, right?! You might have also noticed in the picture that it looks like he's taller than me...which I'm thinking is just a sign of things to come. It's hard to think that with me being as tall as I am, that my "baby" will ever be taller than me.  The more he grows the more proud of him I grow. My guys gave me a very nice Mother's day full of hugs and feeling special.  

And before I go, here are a few more pictures from our recent vacation. Since the trip was for daddy's birthday he got to choose something to do on the first day and he wanted to go miniature golfing.  Aiden didn't use his club much, he chose to get the balls to the hole by just simply throwing them.  Daddy got first, mom-mom second, and well, Aiden didn't really have a score after about hole 3!

Happy Mother's Day

These are quite possibly faces only his mother could love...

But I'm pretty sure there's a few other mother's that love it too...

Happy Mother's Day to You...

Grandma, Nana, Gigi and the Aunt Jess's...Love you lots!
What Did I Do Today?


Today I left some dishes dirty;
The bed got made around 3:30?
The diapers soaked a little longer,
The odor grew a little stronger.
The crumbs I spilled the day before,
Are staring at me from the floor.
The fingerprints there on the wall,
Will likely be there still next fall.
The dirty streaks on those windowpanes
Will still be there next time it rains.
Shame on you, you sit and say,
Just what did you do today?

I held a baby till he slept,
I held a toddler while he wept.
I played a game of hide and seek;
I squeezed a toy so it would squeak.
I pushed a stroller, sang a song,
Taught a child right from wrong.
What did I do this whole day through?
Not much that shows, I guess that' s true.
Unless you think that what I've done,
Might be important to someone,
With bright blue eyes and soft brown hair,
If that is true...I've done my share.

East Coast Vacation; Part 1

If you hadn't heard, we just took a family vacation to the east coast for some fun in the sun.  I will have to post our pictures of that fun in parts since we took so many! Now you know, if you didn't already the reason I get called the "mom-arazzi"!  I hope you enjoy seeing our adventures half as much as we did having them! 

Aiden was such a big helper while I was packing for the trip.  I was in the closet finding some clothes to take with and he was sitting on the floor playing with his sand toys that were set out to take with...but before I knew it he was in the suitcase!  Who would have thought packing would be so much fun!?!


It was decided that we would pack up and drive for this trip, like we do most others.  It would take us 16 hours to get from Missouri to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.  It s a good thing daddy likes to do the driving!!  Aiden is used to making the 6 hour trip to the Quad Cities so we made a stop about 7.5 hours into the trip...which just happened to be Nashville, Tennessee.  With so many things we could have done we chose to explore the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere.  Unfortunately, it was crowded with field trippers and  Aiden became hungry so we didn't get to see everything.  It was still nice to get out and stretch out legs for awhile though.  Here's a few of the things we did enjoy at the zoo...

Soon after we finished our exploration of the zoo and got back in the car to continue our journey, Nashville got hammered with a nasty storm and had lots of flooding.  We were lucky enough to escape even a single drop of rain and later that night we had made it all the way to Hilton Head Island where our vacation would begin the next morning!

Taking a Break

Recently we've taken a break...
I've taken a short break from blog world, but I'm back now.
Adam got a short break from classes...but we'll be back at that again come Monday.
We also took a family break from our day-to-day...we got back on Tuesday night and it was wonderful and much needed.  (And thanks to Lindsey, the dogs got a break from us and much needed playtime with their doggie bff's!)

Adam's birthday was Monday and we spent the day as a family on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina!  Now that I've found my way back to the blog, I will be posting pictures of our 4 day East coast adventure soon.

And before I go, I thought I would share something that made me smile this afternoon!  I've recently found this amazing craft blog I am Momma, Hear me Roar.  If you're interested, check her out.  She's made some really cool shirts for her boys and I've used a couple of her ideas to make 2 (so far!) for Aiden.  I shared pictures of the ones I made, with her and she featured one of them on her blog!! How exciting for me to just be reading through her blog and come across a picture of something I made!  You can check it out here.  The shirt I made is the red one with the baseball and bats on the back.  Cheri is very creative and I enjoy getting ideas from her!  These are the shirts I've made for Aiden...

A "not me" Monday

The idea for this came from Mckmama.  It's refreshing to read about the things that another mom wouldn't do and there's plenty of things I don't do...so why not give it a shot!  Sure, Why not. I wouldn't do something like that.

I wouldn't let my child watch a dvd on repeat play when there are so many other things he could be doing that would stimulate his busy little mind.  Even if it is only 20 mins. long and about the only thing that will keep him sitting quietly for any amount of time. And even if the only way to shut up his asking is to turn it on for him again & again, I still wouldn't do it.  Not me, no way.

Speaking of that wonderful petting farm dvd my kid dearly loves that we've seen 95638465212 times, I did not just tell him that he can't watch it again tonight just for the fact that I would rather jab a sharp stick into my eye than have to watch it one more time today.  Even though he loves is so dearly and its by scholastic so its educational, I still wouldn't do that.

I also wouldn't make tasteless healthy muffins for my family from a clean eating cookbook.  But even if I did, I wouldn't let my kid gobble them up and wait until he's not looking to drizzle maple syrup on mine to make it taste better.  That would be deceiving him that I'm eating healthy so he should too, and I wouldn't do that. Nope, not me.

And lastly, I won't be sending my kid to bed tonight without a bath just because I'm too exhausted to let him play in the tub for awhile then chase his naked butt around begging him to finish getting ready for bed.  Even if he took a bath last night, he surely won't have to sacrifice being clean for my tiredness. (I also must mention my husband who could give him a bath, but he's not laying on the couch right now dozing off & yawning as I write this.) That's just not something this loving mom would do, not me!

Weekend Snapshots

The last two weekends around here have been pretty busy.  We've done quite a bit of yard work, taken mower rides and put up a flag pole. We've created with play dough, played at the park, done lots of swinging, grilling, watering, laundry, homework and watching the Scholastic Petting Farm dvd!  Aiden will now bring us the remote, point to the tv and say "moo, moooo."  Which is code for "can I puh-lease watch the petting farm dvd!" Sunday morning we broke the record of times watched in a day with 4 times.  Thank goodness its only a 20 min. movie. Aiden really likes enjoys  loves to be outside! He would much rather be outside exploring than anything else. Well, I think the one thing he would rather do more than spend all day outside is look for BUSES!  The child can't get enough of a good school bus and luckily it seems that everywhere we go we find one, or more! (The school bus driver in our neighborhood even waves whenever he sees out and it just makes Aiden's day.)  Here are some snapshots of the last two weekends...I hope you're enjoying Spring as much as we are!

"Check this out! Mom made a play dough bus for me!"

"Mom's helper"

"It is truly a gift to have a son like you who grows more precious with the years!"

That's my Boy!

When I walked into the living room one day last week and found Aiden watching TV like this...

IT TOTALLY MADE MY DAY!!

And of course, it made me smile. 

That's my boy all curled up in a Cubbies Blanket, by choice!!

The Cubs and Cards both won their home openers last night so all is well here...at least until May 28 and the first Cubs/Cards series begins!  I don't really mind if the Cards are winning (as long as the Cubs are too!) because I know it makes Adam happy...its when they play each other that things tend to get nasty!! We're excited baseball season is here again and we're heading to Wrigley Field in July this year!

What have we done to our child??
He sure does have a tough decision to make!!

P.S Adam is playing ball this year for the hospital team on Ft Leonard Wood...I will try to get some pictures to share of the all-star at some of the games!

Egg-xtra Special

We were a little late coloring eggs this year, we finally managed to get them done Easter night.  I was thrilled that Aiden would be old enough this year to help and I came across this really great idea to use rubber cement in the process. Yes, Adam did make quite the face when he saw me using it! But did admit when they were done that they looked neat. He's getting pretty good at putting up with my crazy ideas! I got the idea from here.

They didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, but of course I hid the mess ups when I took the pictures! They didn't last long anyway...Aiden also liked helping to take the shells off to turn them into egg salad.

.Here's some pictures of the fun we had.

Easter Memories

We had such a wonderful Easter this year!  We decided that it was important for Aiden to spend it at home and at our church so Nana  drove down on Friday to spend the weekend with us and Grandma came down Sunday morning.  We were still surrounded by love and felt very blessed to have family to celebrate with.  We couldn't have asked for much more on such a beautiful day.  We ended up with so many pictures but I've made a scrapbook of a few of our favorites. Enjoy!

Takin' Notes

A few weeks back after the weather had started warming up, we had a couple of cold days sneak back in.  On a Saturday, we got some freezing rain and some parts of Missouri even got snow.  Adam found something that needed worked on on his truck but decided to wait 'til Sunday so it he wouldn't have to do it outside in the cold.  He told Aiden that he could help him with it the next morning.  But again, on Sunday it was too cold for Aiden to be out.  We found a way to compromise so that Aiden could still see what Daddy was doing in the garage.  Our inside garage door has a large window in it so I set up the step stool where Aiden had a front row seat! It worked out so well for all of us...Daddy could get what he needed done without having Aiden in the way and worrying about him being safe; Aiden could see every move his dad made and didn't have to stay inside and scream at me because he wanted out there; And it kept the little man entertained long enough that I was able to get some stuff done.  I did take a break to snap a couple pictures though!  Aiden is a momma's boy for sure, but the older and more curious he gets the more Daddy is able to teach him and the stronger their bond grows!

Happy Easter