Jump City

Since winter is still very much in the air and playing out doors has become more work than fun (once you have layered on your coats, scarves, hats and gloves), I was looking everywhere for other alternatives and activities for Kailyn and her little friends to do. While doing this I stumbled on the simple most glorious thing. It’s a place where Kailyn and her little friends can run, jump, slide and be just plain crazy without all their winter gear on. They can even do all this without shoes on! And here is the best part, I can just sit and read a good book, have a conversation or simply do a bit of work on the computer. I am not constantly saying don’t go too far where I can’t see you, maybe a stick isn’t the best idea for a magic wand to hit each other with, make sure you keep your gloves on and all the other numerous warnings. This wonderful winter playground is no other than a place called Jump City. They have places to jump, an obstacle course, and Kailyn’s favorite a really, really big slide. Sometimes when we go that is all the girls do…up and down, up and down for hours! The best thing about this little place is that it is never really busy. Most times it is just us and maybe one other person. The girls absolutely love it! Not to mention, sometimes we either swing by the swanky new library down the street to grab a few books or maybe have a picnic (weather permitting). Needless to say, it has been a great lifesaver in these cold months!

Valentine's Day

This year was Kailyn’s very first year exchanging valentine cards with all her little school friends. About two weeks before we went shopping for valentine’s and quickly found the perfect ones. They were Disney princess valentine’s with tattoos inside…fun! Anyway, we bought them and addressed and signed them all, eagerly awaiting the fourteenth of February! I think if I said Kailyn liked Valentine’s Day it would be a drastic understatement…she loved it! When she got home from school, we poured out all her cards and piles of candy. She was flabbergasted! “Is this all for me?” I reassured her it was and that she was very lucky to have so many wonderful friends. She eyed her “loot” for about a minute and then in a hugging motion grabbed it all toward her and sighed saying, “I love Valentine’s Day!” Now, as if this wasn’t enough, the best was yet to come. Earlier in the week she had received a valentine package from Baba, Grandma, Jacqueline, and Jasmine. Not only did she get stickers and a toy, but money from Baba and Grandma to buy something special for herself (which was used to fuel her pony addiction and purchase more ponies for the upcoming “pony wars”). In addition to that, when Tony got home from work that night, he came bearing numerous gifts, candy and flowers! All in all the day was more like Christmas than Valentines Day, what with the surplus of presents and candy, but it was a huge success and so much fun!

Bonfires!

This fall Tony dug out and created a fire pit for us and built us benches made from an old tree. When he did this, I don’t think he or I was prepared for how much Kailyn would want to use it and how much she absolutely loved bonfires! Our first bonfire was a bit of a bust due to the fact that we didn’t have much wood, but it was a bonfire nonetheless. After a few other bonfires, in which we were prepared with plenty of wood and hundreds of marshmallows, I noticed something one day. We were out back playing in the yard and Kailyn and Carrie were sitting patiently on the benches Tony had made. Each of them had a stick in hand and were staring at the center of the fire pit. I approached them and asked what they were doing. “Having a bonfire. We are cooking our marshmallows and dinner. “Carrie, bonfires are my favorite and they are the best!” “YEAH,” was Carrie’s simple but happy answer. They sat there for about five more minutes and then pretended to tend the fire and after that proceeded to throw a few sticks on the pile. This little scene was simply adorable to me, and no matter how many bonfires we would have, during the day this was one of their favorite games! How cute!

Snow is my favorite and my best!

If you live in the southern states, snow is something uncommon and beautiful. It is something, we in Georgia rarely see. Every five years or so, we down south get a glimpse of the winter wonderland you northerners get to enjoy every year. Whereas it would just be another day in most places, if it snows down here everything closes and people, young and old, rush to the streets to pelt snowballs at each other and roll in the snow. We look at the snow as a true blessing from God. Our everyday lives are put on hold and we sit in awe of the beautiful blanket of white draped so softly over all we see. I do believe the last time it snowed in Augusta was January of 2002; we were definitely due for some snow!

This winter, Kailyn has been infatuated with snow. I don’t know if maybe it’s the fact that practically every Christmas show she watched featured this white wonder, or simply the curiosity of what exactly it was, but she was hooked! We actually had several long talks about my we didn’t get snow and that not every Christmas is a white Christmas. About two weeks ago, I was picking Kailyn up from her Mother’s Day Out program and all of the children were playing outside. I noticed Kailyn lying in the sand moving her legs and arms back and forth. I asked her what exactly she as doing and with wide eyes she looked at me and answered, “It’s snowing, mommy! I am making a snow angel!” She looked so very happy! In that moment I never wanted snow more! There was our darling girl playing in the sand as if it was snow…and she so happy! Not only did she show me her beautiful snow angels she had made, but also the snow angels of all the other children who had been making snow angels in the sand simply because she told them it was snow. She had even attempted to pile sand up and make a snowman…or is that sandman! Needless to say it was precious and I thought that was as close to snow as Kailyn would ever get…little did I know! Last night Kailyn and I had decided to make some chocolate chip cookies, around 6:30 we got a call from my brother Bob. All he said was, “Are you seeing this?” In a few seconds I had the front door open and low and behold it was snowing! I rushed into the kitchen and told Kailyn it was snowing. Instantly, she ran to the front door looked outside, turned to me and said, “Snow…it’s my favorite, Mom!” I don’t think I could put on her coat and gloves on fast enough! We ended up walking to my parents to play in their yard and then proceeded on a walk around the neighborhood. Each place we stopped Kailyn would attempt to make a snowball or a very small snowman. We ended up stopping at one street where there were at least fifty people in the street and numerous snowball fights going on! We ended up playing there for about an hour and then headed home, soaking wet and frozen! At home, after a warm bath, we fixed hot chocolate and ate a few of our cookies we made. While we were defrosting, Tony asked Kailyn if she had fun playing in the snow. All she said was, “Yeah,” and smiled from ear to ear. It was so wonderful to get snow, but even more amazing to see a dream come true for Kailyn!

Happy New Year

New Years Eve, what a fun time! Staying up late, playing games, watching movies, snacking, sparklers, grape juice (if you can’t ring in the New Year with Champagne), and fireworks! Who in their right mind wouldn’t love a night filled with all this grandeur? If you’ll remember from last year, Kailyn didn’t even make it past 10:30. This year, however, she made it until 2am! Talk about a trooper…or maybe she just didn’t want to miss anything! When planning for this New Year, we decided Kailyn would be old enough to stay up if she liked. Now, she has NEVER stayed up…or maybe I should say been able to stay up past 11pm. No matter where we are, if it’s getting that late she will usually just pass out! So, we decided to spend this New Year’s with my parents and siblings. We thought that we would start the night off by attending Mass and then making homemade pizza. We got plenty of snacks (most of which me didn’t eat), sparkling grape juice and a few treats for when the clock struck twelve. We also decided that since Tony had just received Guitar Hero III from his dad (THANK YOU SO MUCH) that we would transport out Xbox 360 to my parents house. Since it was going to be a late night anyway, we decided to eat dinner at our own pace and not rush anything. Having said that, it is no surprise that we didn’t eat dinner until 8pm! Just a bit late! Once dinner was cleaned up and the snacks lay out, we thought we would play a few songs from Guitar Hero. Thus it began. Tony started us off, just to show how it was done- actually he just wanted to showoff how AWESOME he is! No really, he is pretty darn good. Before we knew it, we had everyone playing- even my mom. We took turns, each and every person getting their turn to “rock.” My dad managed to try, despite the fact that he is missing a finger and a half on his right hand…it was a little funny to watch (sorry dad). He tried, but his efforts were in vain, he just couldn’t hit the keys! Valiant effort, daddy. As we played on, we had no grasp of time or how quickly it was slipping away. In fact, we might have missed the New Year altogether, if it wasn’t for my dad coming and informing us it was 11:50. Already! We had managed to play for about three hours! Well, it isn’t really that hard to get sucked into the game it is really fun!

Consequently, we gathered our chairs, blankets and sparkling grape juice. Out we headed into the cold and dark night. Let me just quickly insert here that Kailyn was not showing even the faintest bit of sleepiness! As we began to get situated, Kailyn quietly asked, “Umm…what are we doing?” I told her, “It’s New Year’s, baby! Yippie!” Now I am sure the title meant little if anything to her. All she knew was we were having a party and that was enough. She didn’t care for who or for what, she was just happy because it was simply a party. As excited as she was, all that soon went away. As soon as my dad and brothers began the loud barrage of fireworks you became frightened instantly! After I explained to her that if she looked up she could see the pretty shapes and colors, she decided that it would be worth it to endure the noise for the beautiful sight. As it neared midnight, we began to count down 5…4…3…2…1…Happy New Year! We toasted in the New Year and cheered at the still ongoing fireworks. Now at this point in the evening one might say, “Yeah that was fun. Let’s clean up and head home.” No, not us! Back inside we headed to open the little party poppers full of surprises! As we each opened our little party poppers, we got a loud surprise and a few little presents. Guess what Kailyn got…a whistle! For the next thirty minutes you could randomly hear her running about shrieking and blowing her little whistle as loud as she could. This of course was going on while we began to strike up Guitar Hero again! After an hour of that we decided we would pull out the cards and play a few games. A few hands into the game I glanced down at Kailyn sitting in my lap, her head resting on my chest. Slowly and softly her eyes began to shut. At exactly 2:05am she drifted off to sleep. Shortly after that we went home. I had asked Kailyn shortly before she fell asleep if she had fun and if she liked the party. She happily replied, “I love this new party.” (Just in case you were wondering she slept until 12 the next day…way to go sweet girl!)

Go Tech!

Whilst our little home is a buzz with all the basketball games surrounding March Madness, we forgot to mention that Kailyn attended her first college ball game! In January, we took a trip up to Atlanta to see her very first college basketball game and to visit daddy's old campus. We shopped around town for a bit, ate lunch and headed to the campus bookstore to get our future Yellow Jacket a game shirt. Let me take a moment to say that our daughter is a true Tech fan! The bright gold shirt with three little bumblebees on it as become her most prized possession. She asks to wear it everyday, wants to wear it to bed every night, and when I tell here it is in the wash she waits impatiently for it to be clean...how very cute! Needless to say she loved the game! Tony took Kailyn to get a few snacks and came back with not only nachos, but popcorn, a hotdog and soda too...I guess she wanted to try a bit of everything and truly experience a basketball game! She actually fell asleep right before tip-off, and awoke with five minutes left on the clock. Immediately she started cheering and taking in all the excitement around her. After the game ended, the band spread out around the stadium and played their instruments for a few minutes. A horn player stood right behind us and Kailyn was fascinated, she couldn’t take her eyes off of him the entire time he played. When they finished she had the time of her life climbing in and out of seats and burning off some steam doing laps around the aisles. The game was enthralling, the atmosphere invigorating, but the reactions from Kailyn throughout the evening were priceless! We can’t wait to see how she’ll do next year!