A day in the Park

One of the days of our vacation we spent at this beautiful park. There was a cute stream running through the park that Kate loved playin in. We didn't get a chance to walk around the park much but there were waterfalls in the area you could walk to but with the two girls we didn't last long, or I should say they didn't last long. We still had a great time. And if you haven't figured out already Lydia is the soundtrack in all our video. She cried every time we had a video recording, I think she wanted you all to believe she cried the whole vacation, which she did cry a lot of it but not the whole time.

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I love pictures of kids being kids. Kate was just so cute exploring this creek. I love her little overalls, she kept telling me she "looks like a farmer"

Diggin for Gold

We also went diggin for Gold while in Georgia. Mostly this gave Kate a chance to play in the sand and get dirty. She loved the whole process though, scooping up the sand and putting it in the sifter boxes and finding "gold". According to her we found nothing but gold and diamonds. I wish. We did come home with a couple of baggies of jewels.

Kate pickin out the bucket she wanted to dig thru

There she is with her shovel

Daddy and Kate looking for Gold and Diamonds

All the gold and diamonds they found

Where do Cabbage Patch Kids Come From?

If you've always wanted to know where Cabbage Patch Kids come from you will want to read this blog.
While on vacation we headed to Cleveland, GA to check out the General Hospital where Cabbage Patch kids are born. They take it seriously here too, once you step in to this place the staff are dressed in scrubs and take the CPK's adoptions serious. There is even a screening process....I kid you not!
Kate had so much fun here, when you put a little girl in a building full of baby dolls you get one happy girl. She was definitely overwhelmed by all the stuff to look at. We told her she could pick out a baby to adopt but she didn't want anything she just wanted to look around or I should say run around.

One of the things they do is let you witness a CPK birth. Here is a video but let me explain, they have you gather around, the doctor then pulls a baby from the cabbage, gives it a spank, swaddles it and then allows the audience to name it. Oh and they do an ultrasound to find out if it's a girl or boy, this one is a girl. The video is sorta hard to watch so I wanted to explain.

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The next video is the same newborn that was just born and they took her to the nursery to get weighed and make sure she is healthy. Oh in the video I say the baby is 12lbs, it was only 1.2lbs. Each of theses dolls are hand made so they all are a little different.

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Here are a few pictures from the visit to the General Hospital. I would recommend this to any kid, boy or girl. It was a lot of fun.

Outside of the Hospital

A field of cabbage patch babies

Kate interrupting the Cabbage Patch Kid's Lunch

Guess which Cabbage Patch Kid we went home with? Even though she was crying we felt she was the perfect one for us!

Kate loving the Cabbage Patch Kid display, the one to the far lower left with the mickey mouse ears was the first one born, about 36 years ago, I can't remember his name

The Spotted Pig

One of our first discoveries that we made in South Carolina was this restaurant named The Spotted Pig. It's a bbq place that doesn't mess around with their bbq! It was fabulous the best bbq I've ever had. Also the best onion rings we've ever had. We aren't onion ring people but they sent us an order by accident and when we mentioned it they let us keep the order and brought us the fries we ordered. Well we were so glad they did because the onion rings were out of this world. We mentioned it to the server and she even said when we mentioned the mess up that she would let us keep the onion rings cause she knew we would enjoy them. We ordered more onion rings. The only downside to this place was they are only open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, that's right only 3 days a week. I asked about that and the server said that a lot of places in the area are only open 3 days a week, that's how far out in the sticks we were. We only got to eat there twice, I could've eaten there every day. Even today I woke up and asked Brock if we could go to The Spotted Pig and he said "let's do it, oh it's 9 hours away huh, oh well better get a move on" we didn't really go but I think of that place a lot *sigh*. I told Brock we should open up a "A Spotted Hog" up here and leave it open 6 days a week, close on Sunday for our day of rest!

Brock showin off the ribs here

I love this picture of Kate, I can almost see what she will look like as a young woman in it...we were at The Spotted Pig when I took it

Going on a Safari

We took a week off and went on vacation in July. It was fun to get away and the girls did great on the drive. We went to the western part of South Carolina, in the rolling hills near Lake Hartwell. It was quiet and peaceful which is what we wanted out of a vacation this year. For normal families this would've been a day trip of around 9 hours, for us we broke it up in two days, traveling a lot of it at night so the girls would sleep. It was nice to break it up, but still took forever to get there because of all the stops we took along the way. Potty breaks, feedings, more potty breaks, more feedings it's amazing how it all adds time to your traveling.

Along the way to Carolina we stopped at the Virgina Animal Safari Park, here we got to drive through the safari while the animals come up to you for food. You weren't allowed to get out of your car but you were allowed to open your doors on your minivan and they allowed your children to sit on your lap up in the front. I have to admit I was more freaked out by the animals then I thought I would be. They come right up to you and stare at you, it's really creepy but it was also really cool to see them up close. We had so much fun here we spend over 2 hours here and would've stayed longer if we had the time.

They also have a zoo area where they have a lot of unusual animals. There was a kangaroo walk where you walked down a path and could see the kangaroo's up close, so close in fact that we had to walk around one of them because he was in the middle of the path! Apparently he is a domesticated kangaroo, the rest were behind a wired fence. They had giraffes (you could feed we didn't have time so we just saw them from a distance), spider monkey's, Galapagos turtles, reptiles, and these little monkey-like creatures that would stick out their tongues at us (don't remember the name of the little critters)

I would recommend this experience to any one, we really had a great time. It's located right next to a KOA campground if you wanted to camp in the area. Also there is a natural bridge that you could hike to in the area. So it would be worth a trip down for the weekend for all my Virginia friends.

Oh and I should mention that there isn't a whole lot on conveniences in the area, we were hungry so went to the only restaurant that was nearby. I really enjoyed eating here, the food was good, cheap and the atmosphere was unique. When you eat at a place with the name The Pink Cadillac Diner, you know it's going to be an experience!

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Animal peeking in the window

Here's a view from our window, it felt like we would run into the animals but they moved away as you drove by. We saw baby buffalo and ostriches, those were the cutest animals we saw. We were fascinated by the zebra's they were so cool to see up close and such beautiful animals

Animals come right up to you for food

At the Pink Cadillac Diner

Lydia giving us a silly grin at the restaurant

Happy Mother's Day Mom

I know Mother's day in mid-June, crazy right! Oh no not for my two year old. She always tells me "Happy Mother's Day, Mom" just like that several times a day. This has been going on since Mother's day. I love it, and hope it never ends. I know it will so I'm making sure to blog about it now so I don't forget. I'm not thrilled she calls me "mom" either. I'm mostly mommy, but sometimes I'm mom.

Oh so the Potty Project update, it's now day 3 and things are still going well for Kate. If we are out and about she wears a pull-up aka diaper that looks like undies. And she always wets them. The trick seems to be to keep her in big girl undies and she has way more control over her actions. But overall she is doing great, I really am proud of her. It's made my life so much easier for her to be this easy going.

Lydia had a great night last night. She seems to be on a schedule which is great considering she is 3 weeks old. I know that might change, but it might not! She seems to go to bed around 8pm I dream-feed her before I go to bed (she sleeps through the feeding) then she stays asleep until around 2am wakes for a feeding (still very sleepy) and then she is back down until somewhere between 6:30-8am where she wakes, eats, and stays really sleepy. I think I must be the most well rested mommy because her night wakings don't really bother me. I just think she is so cute I love to go get her at night. Also after waking about 6x a night while pregnant to go to the bathroom waking once a night to cuddle my newborn isn't so bad.

Lydia's 2weeks stat (the percent is percentile ie: 75% means 25% of babies are bigger then that)
As of 6.4.09
8lbs 9oz 75% (birthweight was 8lbs 14oz)
20 1/2" 75% (shrunk, down 1/4")
Head 13 3/4" 50%

9 Days Old

My sister and I took the babies to get pictures done. They turned out so cute. Babies grow out of the newborn stage so quickly I wanted to make sure to get it captured. I thought I was crazy for taking the baby out to do this but the photo session went really well. I would much rather take a non-mobile newborn to get pictures taken then a willful toddler.

This is Rowan and Lydia, 1st cousins 2 days apart