I Heart Yellow Grass

There is a BIG reason why I love living in the south.... that is the lack of snow and the very mild winters. I am a summer girl. I LOVE the heat. I love that we get to see the grass year round, even if it does turn yellow in the winter time. I was so so so excited to get my yellow grass back today.
This is what we went to bed to last week....
This is what we woke up to...

We got 6" of snow at our house but it didn't stop there. The snow turned to a light misty rain that then put down an inch of ice on top of all that snow. Then the weather stayed below freezing for days. This did a perfect job of shutting down Atlanta (this big metropolis has no way of dealing with this kind of weather) which meant we were all stuck snugly inside our homes for 5 days.

This equaled a lot of movies, books, computer stuff and a 2000 piece puzzle for Ryan (I helped with the border!) and LOTS of picture taking for me!
Aiden helped by breaking up the puzzle.
Nikita helped by eating puzzle pieces. (She ate 4 1/2 total - we saved one!)
The ice...
We also took Aiden out in the snow a couple of times. He LOVED it the first day while the snow was still soft and then he only liked it after that if I held his hand because the icy layer on top scared him to break through on his own.

He also loved eating it...
Nikita liked it...
And we liked Nikita on the ice! We enjoyed messing with her. We would throw food out over the hill in the backyard so she would chase after it and slide down the very icy hill. VERY entertaining.
This much snow also meant this for Ryan...

I loved that all this snow meant.... LOTS and lots of Dada time. :)
Please stick around yellow grass until it is time to turn green! I don't want to be stuck for days again without you.

Aiden's Big Treat

What made this cute little face so happy??
Dada + thing with wheels = pure bliss for Aiden
For those of you that know of Aiden's obsession with cars you will understand why this was such a HUGE treat for my little guy. When he saw Dada with it outside he said "CAR!" and immediately demanded to go outside to join Dada. He rode around with Ryan for 30 minutes and LOVED every minute.
(In case some of you are wondering why Ryan was mowing the lawn in January... he was trying to use up the little bit of gas left so it didn't go bad in the mower! Also, these pictures were obviously taken before the huge snow storm hit us this week!)

My Surprise Visitor!

My BFF ,Chelsey, from high school called me up and surprised me by saying that she was coming to visit. I was sooo excited! Her little boy was just born in August so I was finally going to meet him too. We mainly just talked and hung out but we did do a few activities.

I introduced her to Chic-fil-A and now she is also an addict of their Peppermint Chocolate Chip milkshake.
We decided to go to the World of Coca-Cola while she was here.
(Aiden saw the polar bear in the above picture from faraway and said "Teddy!" He was so excited that I took him over to get a picture with it. When he saw that it MOVED -there is a person inside- he decided he wanted nothing to do with it.)

TASTING THE YUMMY (some not so yummy) FLAVORS OF COKE!

Aiden entertained himself by pushing his umbrella stroller around the exhibit. He only stopped twice... once to stare and point at the yellow Coke Car (of course, it's a car) AND the other time to pull on a lever that made cool fizzing noises.
We had lunch at Mimi's Cafe and made a stop to get another Peppermint Chocolate Chip milkshake.
Aiden loved playing with Chelsey and Mason.
Her birthday is later this month but I wanted to celebrate with her so I made her Triple Chunk brownies for a cake. I couldn't find normal candles and I only had the 1 and the 2 from Aiden's 1st and 2nd birthdays so Chelsey was able to turn 21 again. She was perfectly happy to do so! :)
We went to the dollar movies and saw Life As We Know It. Thank you Ryan for watching both boys so we could get away!
Thanks Chelsey and Mason for the great visit! We miss you guys already!

My Sleeping Boys

I love every second I get to be with these two... even if it's just watching them sleep.

Christmas Weekend

We had a good Christmas and were able to celebrate 3 times. We spent Christmas morning at our house opening presents. It felt like the week before dragged on because I was SOOO excited to watch Aiden open his presents. I was not let down. Aiden LOVED opening presents and let us know that we could not get his toys out of their boxes fast enough.

My sister's amazing gift to us! She drew this awesome picture of Aiden.
Aiden's BIG gift from Baba. He plays with it every day.
Christmas evening we spent with Ryan's mom and siblings and Grandma. We had yummy food and opened lots of gifts. It was a madhouse with so many people there and kids running around playing and it was just what Christmas should be like with family. Thanks for hosting Amber!
The day after Christmas we went over to Doug's house for our Christmas with them. They got a new game from "Santa" for the Wii. It is the Just Dance II game and is HILARIOUS to watch and also a super good workout! We got a good showing with the guys competing and then the little kids trying to play. We did more presents and food and had a nice time.
Since it snowed all day Christmas we had a white Christmas! The next morning we took Aiden out in his new galoshes and let him play. He loved the snow and was very upset when we took him in because of the cold.
Monday afternoon Ryan's mom and grandma came to visit and spend the night with us. Aiden got some good Baba and Grammy time and was even able to take part in the marshmallow gun war. He and Nikita were really good at picking up all the marshmallows and eating them!
Thanks family for the great holiday!

FRIENDS!

Nicole came back! It was too short of a visit, but we look forward to seeing her again soon!