Donuts with Dad and Kindergarten Registration

We had a very busy, exciting weekend, especially Cohen!  Friday was Donuts with Dad at school and Cohen was excited about that.  She did keep saying she was ready for Muffins with Mom but she was excited about Daddy's turn too.  She kept telling me she had made Daddy a tie picture but I have yet to see anything so she must still have that at school.  I did get a quick picture of them as they were leaving.

Friday was also kindergarten registration!  After eating donuts Kelly brought Cohen back home so I could take her.  I'm still in denial that this is so close but it became more real for sure!  Cohen was pretty funny as we were going through the stations.  She didn't quite understand that we were at the county's central office not at the actual school she will be going to.  She would point at things and ask me how that "thing" was going to teach her.  At one station I had several papers to fill out and she was given a color sheet and she looked at me and said, "I don't know why we are doing this and not learning."  She is very into learning right now and I had to laugh at her when she said this.  My little nerd :)  Each child is given a little test and they go in a room alone with one of the kindergarten teachers.  She was getting a little unsure while we waited for her name to be called but she jumped right up when it was her turn.  When she walked into the room and I was left to wait for her the tears were starting to come.  I kept trying to think of other things!  I never want her to see me but I am just tore up that my baby is already starting school!  Everything went great though and the teacher told me she was brilliant.  Cohen was ready to do it all again when she came out.  I know she is more than ready and that is what I'll tell myself.  

After registration we were on our way to Charlotte for the weekend.  We had a big surprise in store for her!

High Heels

Kate has a new love...high heel shoes.  She loves to get into the dress up shoe box and while she used to put the shoes on and they would fall right off, she recently has been able to keep them on and she LOVES to wear them.  I will find her regular shoes and socks in the floor and when I find her she has on her "heels".  My favorite is watching her and Cohen go through the house pushing their baby strollers in their high heels.  She will walk by and say "bye Mommy" and I will play right along with her.  Recently I was doing a little shopping in Commerce at J Crew and both girls were with me in the store.  They both went around the display I was looking at and when I got to them I found them looking at the clearance shoes and trying them on.  I couldn't help but laugh!  I'm sure the store workers wouldn't have thought it was as funny as me but I snapped a picture with my phone anyway before making them take them off.  The apples don't fall far from the tree, because I love shoes myself!

2 different shoes, wrong foot, who cares:)

sweetest feet!

Luckily they did keep their own shoes on when trying these shoes on!

This picture has nothing to do with the shoe fetish but I wanted to add it anyway.  I loved catching them both going to town on the beaters from my mixer.  I was making a cake and these two were more than happy to lick the beaters.  Cohen of course was hanging around waiting to have one, and this was Kate's first experience.  I think she is a pro already!

Color Me Lucky Run!

While 99.9% of my posts are usually about my kids, every now and then I have to throw in one that isn't to remind myself I do have somewhat of an identity too :)  JK, but only a little!  Last Saturday was another fun 5K for Dawn and I, and this time her daughter Grace ran it with us!  It was in Anderson, SC and was a St. Patrick's Day themed race.  Throughout the course people would throw green powder on you to turn your white shirt green and at the end everyone was grouped up at the finish line and threw gold powder into the air.  It was a fun time.  I think I was colored on one side mostly.  They had also provided everyone with a pair of sunglasses to wear.  We rocked those I think!  We did have a laugh on how it was warmer in January at the Hot Chocolate run.  This crazy weather can leave anytime and give us spring!  We had a fun time though and it didn't take us long to warm up!  Now we on to looking for our next "fun" 5K :)  Kelly was asking me about some we may want to do coming up and I told him we wanted to look for a lot of fun, interactive ones and he asked me if we were becoming 5k snobs.  Leave it to Hubs, I think he's jealous :)  I'm still pushing him to do some with us, so we'll see how that goes.  We are looking forward to the Kade's parade in April!

Before...I think we're shivering in this picture!

After!  All nice and green

Zoo Day!

Today we had a fun day off from school and spent it at the Greenville Zoo.  Luckily the rain held out and we ended up having a beautiful day.  We loaded up at Stacey's house, picked up Caron and headed to Greenville.  We let the kids have an early lunch at McDonald's then headed on to the zoo.  The kids loved seeing all the animals and would run from each one so excited.  Its so fun to watch them have such a fun time and be so excited about each animal.  Kate really loved the monkeys and Cohen didn't really say what her favorite was but she always enjoys the giraffes and we got to see the baby giraffe, Kiko this time.  We had the most excitement with the lions.  The first time we went through to see them they were resting on the rock like they usually are.  We walked on to something else and happened to look up and see the lions pacing in front of the glass. I walked back up there just to let the girls see them up close and a lady was with her family and was laying on the ground taking a picture.  She told me that the zoo keeper had told her that if she laid down it would get the lion's attention because they would think she was something to eat.  Kind of scary...yes!   We ended up rounding the kids back up to go see if they could stir those lions up too.  We knew they would get a kick out of it.  Well we definitely had the lions all stirred up!  They would pace back and forth and one got real frisky...jumping up on the glass, licking the glass, showing his teeth and gnawing at the glass.  We have lots of photos, and of course I didn't have my good camera again so it was all up to the phone!  Kate decided to lay on the ledge in front of the glass which must have really got the lion going because he was all over the glass in front of her.  You can see in one picture he looks like he's biting her head!   Rest assured she was totally safe and actually oblivious to the big lion!  It is a little freaky but we had ourselves a great laugh!   We finished seeing everything at the zoo, spent a little time on the nice big playground, and then headed home to get ready for dance & baton class.  It was a fun day with friends!

Group shot!

Another of the sweet group

Love the giraffes!

The first time seeing the lions...see how they are on the rocks being nice?!  Now here is where the fun with the lions starts!!

laying down getting the lion all stirred up!

the stare down...

As you can see, Kate is more interested in her Cheerios than this lion's big teeth!

FREAKY!  He thinks Kate is a snack size meal!

Still clueless even when he beats on the glass with his paws

I think he wanted in our picture!  Down Kitty!

Kate was trying to stir up the leopard but didn't work:)

fun on the swings!

UGA Basketball AND Gym Dawg Fun

I have been a slacker on the blog lately and we really haven't been up to much.  I feel like we stay busy but with our normal routine.  I know one thing, we are on a countdown to permanent springtime weather!
Cohen did get to have a lot of fun last week.  On Thursday night she had a special date night with Daddy.  Kelly got tickets for them to go to the Georgia vs. Kentucky basketball game.  Cohen had been to a women's basketball game a couple of years ago.  I was taking some photography classes at UGA so while I was in class one night, Kelly took her and Brock to the game.  She LOVED it especially all the dance music that they play and she was on the T.V. camera!  So getting the chance to go back to a men's game was exciting for her.  She really gets into all the music they play.  Kelly told me she would ask "Who's winning?" every  time someone would make a basket.  She did get to see something that doesn't happen all the time...Georgia beat Kentucky and by 10 points!  She was very excited about this and she called me as soon as they were in the car to tell me that Georgia had won by 10 points and she had got a pretty pom-pom.  I loved hearing her so excited.  I asked Kelly to take a picture for me while they were at the game and he sent this one to me.

Saturday night a group of us went to Athens to watch the Gym Dawgs!  Cohen had seen them for the first time last year and she still has talked about that.  I had told her we would be having a special girl's night out and she thought that was something special!  We headed to Athens on Saturday afternoon and we all went to eat then headed over to the Colliseum.  Cohen again loved dancing to all the fun songs they play.  I wonder how much of the gymnastics she takes in because she's too busy dancing to all the songs.  Its nice that there is always something going on to keep the kids entertained.  She & her best friend, Josie had a blast dancing to all the songs.  It was such a fun time for both of us.  I enjoyed the girl's night out as much as she did!
I have really been slack on taking my camera with me so I'm relying on my phone to take any pictures. They may be a bit blurry but its better than nothing.

The whole big group of kiddos!

a blurry one but one of us together

Day 5-Our Last Day at Disney World!

Wednesday was our last day so we had to make the most of it!  We decided to go back to the Magic Kingdom for the day and do some things we had not been able to do yet.  Cohen had a few more princesses she wanted to see and we had some things we had not gotten to do on the other days.  We had washed all the hairspray and other hair products out of Cohen's hair, much to her disappointment.  She asked me to put it up like it was so I had to do a very loose version of something probably not even halfway close to how it was, but when she saw her hair was up she was happy and as long as the crown was in we were good.  You will notice a new, bigger face jewel on her...Brock and Kelly had been at the hotel's arcade the night before and Brock hit the jackpot on tickets.  He was so sweet to pick out something for Cohen and Kate and Cohen's prize was a face jewel.  Just what we needed!  She was so happy about it and sported it proudly!
Everything was going great as we headed over to the park but when we got there and it was stroller time Kate had an even bigger melt down than the day before and I think Kelly & I both were tested to the limits on this one.  At one point she laid down on the ground with her blankie and just curled up.  Poor girl I know was tired and she had been a trooper throughout everything but if any of you are like me I was about to go crazy!  We finally headed on into the park with her screaming.  Cohen & I were going to Fantasyland to do Enchanted Tales with Belle.   When we got there I took her and Kate while Kelly & Brock went to ride a roller coaster.  We had about a 40 minute wait and thank goodness for my phone because that seemed to keep Kate calm.  Unfortunately I had to hold her the whole time.  I was bound and determined not to let her spoil the fun of this because so many people had told me how good it was.  When it was finally our turn Kate did great, thank goodness and it was well worth the wait.  I love Beauty and the Beast and used to watch it so much growing up.  I think I enjoyed this as much or more than Cohen!  Everything was really magical!  The kids act out the play for Belle herself and when she walks in the room they were all just amazed...and I was too!  It was one of the cutest things at the park in my opinion.  Cohen played the part of Belle's father, Maurice, and she had to "shiver" behind the bars.  At the end each child is announced to Belle and they get to have their picture made with her.  It was just precious!

the talking wardrobe

Lumiere

Cohen holding her bars ready for her part!

Cohen & Belle

Kelly met me outside at the stroller and we left to have lunch at Belle's castle.  We had been told this was great to do and at lunch it is a quick serve so no reservation was needed.  We waited about 30 minutes which wasn't too bad.  We ordered, sat down, and Cohen and I went to look around and go see the magic rose.  Everything was going great until the food came and Cohen decided she would have her own little meltdown because her sandwich just didn't look right.  I think at this point I was praying for God to give me the patience I so quickly had lost!  I know kids get tired so easily and I think we adults try to make everything so special that when one thing goes wrong it is easy to lose it.  We finally finished up and left.  It was really beautiful inside and I enjoyed getting to eat there.  On the way out I was taking a picture of the glass and Kelly laughed and said, "do you want a picture of all of us to remember how fun this lunch was."  We laughed at how everyone was all smiles for the picture and I know we will not forget that lunch!

Inside the ballroom...this was before the meltdown

The magic rose...I loved this!

All smiles!  You would never know anything was ever wrong :)

 Luckily, everyone was happy again after we left and we headed out for more fun.  Cohen really wanted to go meet Jasmine but we had some time before we could do that.  We decided to go meet princess Tiana first.  When Cohen saw her it was so cute because she had seen all these princesses but she was still amazed at seeing another one and she just looked at me and said, "she is just beautiful."

waiting on Princess Tiana.  Kate loved the mulch and pine needles.

Telling her she was 5 years old!

 After meeting Tiana we went to ride the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster.  This was Cohen's first big roller coaster and she was so excited.  She never hesitated on riding any rides.  She loved it too.  She told me it took her stomach but she wanted to ride it again!  Cohen, Brock and I had rode together the first ride but we had gotten a rider switch ticket for Kelly so they were able to go in the Fast Pass line and ride the second time.  It worked out great because we didn't have to wait long at all and then it got crowded again but with them going in the Fast Pass line it was a short wait again.  Kate had fallen asleep for her afternoon nap so I was able to get a picture of them riding the roller coaster.  It was so cute seeing Cohen in between Kelly & Brock.  She didn't have her hands up on the ride but she came off the ride with them up!  She wanted to ride again but we said no that it was time to go see Jasmine.  She was happy with that and off we went!  We were able to be at the front of the line for Jasmine and Aladdin.  While we were in line Cohen did a little shopping.  She wanted a little Jasmine dress up doll set.  She had her own money so that's what she chose.  Jasmine is one of her favorite princesses too.  I don't even know if she's watched the entire movie of Aladdin though.   Its funny how little girls are very familiar with the princesses themselves because they are pictured on all kinds of Disney products.  We even have some books that she loves on the princesses but as for knowing all the stories and movies, I think I know them better because I watched them when I was growing up.  We are going to work on that :)

Sleeping beauty herself!

Check out the last car...that's Kelly, Cohen, and Brock

Meeting Jasmine and Aladdin!

We had finally met everyone she wanted to meet!  Cohen wanted to ride a couple of other rides, the teacups again and a smaller roller coaster.  On Monday while we were at Magic Kingdom we had ridden the tea cups at night.  I had to hold sleeping Kate with one arm and turn the tea cup with Cohen with my other arm!  All the while Cohen is screaming "faster", "faster".  This time I sat with Kate while she slept and let her ride with Kelly and Brock.  I got to enjoy a yummy Dole Whip pineapple ice cream which was heaven!  I had earned that moment!!  I think I would go back for the ice cream alone, it was that good!  When Kate woke up I took her to do some last minute shopping.  Of course she was done with the stroller so I had to carry her.  We decided to head to Epcot for the evening.  My Mama wanted to watch their fireworks display and Cohen had begged to do "Turtle Talk with Crush" one more time.  It was such a fun trip with lots of memories made!  I think we learned a lot too!  We will definitely go back again sometime!  I can't thank my mama enough for taking us!  We had a magical time for sure!

Cohen & Bebe!  

On Friday after we had gotten home, Kate woke up with a fever so we had to go see Dr. Setia.  She had an ear infection!  I'm thinking this might have had a little to do with her meltdowns!  I'm glad it happened after we got home.