Parting is such Sweet Sorrow

We lost a member of the family last week. Our poor Accord has gone to car heaven. Not only is this little guy deemed unworthy to drive, he is now our little cash cow. We are the lucky recipients of an insurance check for more than we bought the car for. Wa-hoo! Lucky us. Ok, maybe just a cash calf. But at least it covers our cost and then some.

So now we get to go car shopping again, all too soon, and we are not thrilled about it. We are using it as an opportunity to get out and see the world. This weekend we went to Charlotte to look at a few cars that we liked. Fun little weekend. Seemed like ALOT of driving but I guess I only feel that way when I am driving. BORING! Sierra was a trooper as usual but on the way home she was exhausted from two days of no naps. Such a Cutie!

Remembering New Orleans

No, this is not a pre-Katrina post on how fab New Orleans once was. Joe, Sierra and I road tripped to LA in May and I never posted the highlights of our little trip so here we are. We were super excited for the trip. I had to go for work and Joe and Sierra tagged along. We stayed in the fabulous Omni Royal Orleans (because there is not a Hyatt there) and played while I wasn't working. We had never been before and we weren't really sure what to expect but we stayed in the French Quarter, the least affected area of the city by the hurricane. Check out our travels:

We headed out to explore this fabulous, and surprising really a little chilly for May, city. We walked around everywhere and took tons of pictures. Off we go...

Joan of Arc, Maid of New Orleans (1412-1431). Amazing statue right in the heart of New Orleans. Do you see Joe and Sierra in the pic?

Everything there has something about it that is just a little different. The architecture is awesome. Makes you feel like you are walking around a different country. We saw so many cool structures, gated homes, shutters on windows, people living right on Bourbon Street, statues, churches, gates, balconies...everything about this city was just cool.

One night we went to Magnolia Grill, the best fried chicken in the city, and enjoyed a bite to eat outside. Sierra was more interested in the sugar packets, the bike strapped to the awning (did I spell that right?) outside, the street people going by but she did take a bite out of her "Best in the City" chicken.

Yes, we are terrible people and we took our baby on Bourbon Street. What a trashy, terrible scene. We saw things that I NEVER want to see again but there were some cool parts about it. We were there on a week day and it was a total party. I can only imagine what Mardi Gras is like. Sierra and I had picked up some beans at a store prior to going out on the town so we weren't prodded so bare all for beads. (which we wouldn't of course).

While we shopped for beans we checked out some other really cool souveniers to bring home and add to our collection of 'cool trip stuff'.

Got did get a mask for Sierra. She just gets to look at it though so she won't break it.

We had fun with all the voo doo stuff and Sierra even made a new friend. We didn't bring him home with us though. We did bring his voo doo doll brother home with us those. Sierra is not a fan of it and every time she asks me what it is I say, "It's a voo doo doll baby," and she says, "No, mommy! no!". Funny kid.

We even made friends with this Sex-starved Alligator. This is Sierra puckering up with kisses for the Cook.
We went all over the city on the couple days we were there. Experienced the local food and all that the Big Easy had to offer. One restaurant we left had this little guy out front and Sierra and I couldn't resist stopping to put on our "fish face" for the picture.

SUPER HIGHLIGHT of the trip was (besides discovering that Ruby Tuesdays in AL has the best blackberry lemonade ever) was going to StoryLand! How Joe found out about this place is a mystery (thank you iPhone!) but it was the coolest, most randomly weird place ever.

A sweet little park with ginormous statues of nursery rhyme stories and characters and some Disney stuff, but this place was awesome!

Welcome to StoryLand, come on in!

Old Mother Hubbard was there,

Hansel and Gretel,
The 3 Little Pigs and...

The BIG, BAD Wolf,
Pinoccio and the Whale,
Who is this? One of the 7 dwarves? Well whoever he is, he loves me!
Little Miss Muffet, sat on her Tuffett...While Sierra ate her curds and whey.

She tried to awaken Sleeping Beauty,

And got a ride in Cinderella's carriage.

Story Land was awesome!
We explored a few cemetaries as well. I think that was my favorite part. Just amazing places. The tombs are so old and brilliant and amazing structures full of family history. Not our family but, they were still fun to explore.


I must say that the final highlight of the trip was Sierra falling asleep while eating on the way home from the cemetary. Priceless!

Cutie Baby

Sierra is starting to pick up on words like, cute, pretty, beautiful etc just recently and it is so cute to see how she is integrating those words into the things that she says. I think she has it figured out. On Saturday she and I were getting ready to go out and she looked at me and said, "Mommy, you're beautiful." I have the sweetest baby girl every. It brought a tears to my eyes. She is such a sweetie baby!

Kari Bear

My little neice is really coming along. We love us some Kari Bear.

Toot is right

I was just reading the Paget blog and it reminded me of how silly my family is.

On Friday Joe, Sierra and I were chilin in bed after a long day and Joe decided to share a little something with us (a little toot!). Sierra turned to Joe and said, "Daddy, did you hear Mommy's butt?!"

OMG, I need to stop leaving my kid with my husband all day long. He's brainwashed her and now she thinks I'm the smelly kid in class when in fact it is her other parental unit.

The Funny Things She says...

Sierra is really a talker now and everything just comes flowing out of her little month.

Funny Things for today that she said to her Daddy when she woke up:
"I have big snots in my nose, I need Mommy blow it!"

Funny thing from yesterday when we were reading a book together:
Mommy reading: "I'm getting tired Shimmer, I need a break!"
Sierra: "Mommy, I'll take a break on your face!

What the...she is so tough! I come to find that her and Joe have a "break" when they read that book where they take a break from reading and touch foreheads and say, "awww...". And here I thought my baby was being antagonistic with me! Little Punk!

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

What's a birthday without cake and candles. This little monkey got it all. We had a great time at her little party at home. She had already had a party with her friends so it was just me, Joe, and Papa Ron singing to the little lady.



She is a great little smiler and actually looks half was decent for this pic. Her grimace isn't as bad as it usually is. We had strawberry cake covered in purple (her new favorite color) marshmellow fondant.

She had a blast serving it up. Something about this kid and knives...she's a nugget. But after we all had a piece she decided to go all culinary on us and made quite a mess.

Her Majesty was served on her Sierra Birthday plate that I made last year and I love it! So cutie!

After cake it was presents time and for us it meant an hour of watching Sierra rip little pieces of wrapping paper off all her presents and handing them them to me one by one. It was awesome and I loved it!

I loved watching her open the photo albums I FINALLY put together for her. She LOVES looking at pictures of herself and we went through two books to showcase all the highlights of her first year of life. We look at them everyday and talk about all our fun times.

Her big gift for her 2nd Birthday was a little kitchen for her room. Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Joe spent hours putting it together and Si just loves this thing. It's awesome! Her Grampy hooked her up with plates and cups, silverware, and 99 pieces of the best plastic and cardboard food product out there. She loves this thing! The microwave is her favorite and she stashes all the food in the oven. She serves us drinks and shares the hot dogs with us. It is priceless! She is priceless and I'm loving this baby of ours. She's so cool!

Birthday Highlights

Sierra has the best 2nd Birthday ever...almost. We had a fabulous day. Joe and I got to spend it with our little monkey. Check out the highlights: parks, museums, cakes, presents. Every kids dream come true.

We started the afternoon at Centennial Olympic Park. I thought it would be fun to play in the Olympic Foundtain. Water shoots up out of the ground and kids play in it. Good times to be had by all. I should have worn my bathing suit becuase I got soaked anyway and Sierra and I would have had alot more fun if I wasn't worried about getting wet. She wouldn't go into the fountains or run around by herself. I had to go. But the water has got to be a bit scary to a Little Bit like Sierra. There were kids everywhere and that freaked her out a bit today. EVERYWHERE.

Joe had fun videoing our apprehension as we surveyed the scene.

We had lunch after we finished roughing the masses and we got ready for the next event...the ImagineIT Children's Museum. Sierra was all decked out, complete with her "I'm 2!" button so everyone would know that it was her special day!

The museum was fun but a bit rowdy for my baby. She was the youngest one, by far, there running around and there were summer school groups there and day care centers and kids EVERYWHERE! Why are there so many kids everywhere!? Geez! It wasn't as cool as I thought it would be and we probably would have had more fun if we had some of Sierra's kid friends with us but we had a great time anyway. She may be a bit yound still for all the cool things the museum has to offer but she made a good effort at all the play stations. Of course we spent the most time in the supermarket/home section playing with our plastic food. Yummy! We packed our basket, we used the conveyor belt, we drove the grocery truck to deliver groceries. We did it all!

Sierra loves, Loves, LOVES to buckle her seatbelt so she kind of monopolized the truck. Some older kid tried to tell her to get out of the truck and got really nasty to her so she looked at him and said, "No boy! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" and he left crying! My kid is awesome! Way to stand up for yourself in a lady-like manner Sierra!

She had a great time running all around and got only mildly frustrated when bigger kids ran into her. She got pushed, knocked down, and yelled at but that was nothing compared to the barrage of homeless people soliciting money from us on the way home. Yikes!

As we were leaving the museum we committed to the Peach Lady that we would only buy and eat Georgia peaches for the rest of the summer. We signed our life away and got a peach. Sierra was all smiles!

Happy 2nd Birthday Sierra!

Happy Birthday to Me!
Happy Birthday to Me!
Happy Birthday dear Me!
Happy Birthday to Me!

Sierra surprised me and woke up before I left for work so I snapped a few shots before heading out. I had put balloons in her room and in the living room and kitchen the while she slept so when she got up she just wanted to collect all her balloons and watch Blues Clues! (it's a treat to watch BC right when she wakes up because we don't like her to watch too much tv). So she curled up on the couch, gave me her best camera smile, and held tight to thos suckers!

Happy2nd Birthday Baby! We are in for a fun-filled day. Yeah for half days!