Oh Tiddlywinks!!

Guess How Much I Love You?

So this morning at breakfast Jorja got something on her and I leaned over to wipe it off - while I was reaching over she reached out her arms to give me a giant hug and then proceeds to say: 

"I love you SO much. To the moon and back"

Oh man! Be still my beating heart. I think I literally melted into a big puddle of goo right then and there. I can not tell you how much this sweet little girl melts my heart every. single. day. 

 I am the most blessed momma around! :)

Ready? Set. BOWL!

A few weeks ago our play group decided we would take the kiddos bowling. Now, I have to tell you, I was EXTREMELY excited about this because not only do I love to bowl now but my own childhood memories are chalked full of nights spent at the bowling alley! My parents were in a bowling league when I was growing up and I have many memories of hanging out at the very smokey and (ahem!) white trash Brunswick Bowling Alley in Lubbock, TX. I spent many nights in the day care and just hanging out talking with my parents friends - I learned magic tricks from their friends and I even remember some nights learning cheers from one of my parent's friends who eventually became my cheer leading coach in HS. She says I even did cartwheels down the lanes but I'm not sure I totally remember that! (wink, wink)! :) I also remember when I was in early elementary I actually joined a bowling league for the summer. The first day I was the only one who scored a... wait for it... big fat ZERO! How does someone grow up in the bowling alley and the first day of your own bowling league only throw gutter balls?!? Seriously?? That incident only scarred me for a little bit because I still have a quite a bit of white trash love for the sport of bowling! :) But, enough about me - you are here to read about Jorja...

 

Jorja was really excited to bowl and couldn't wait to get started. In fact, she really never even wanted to take turns with her friends - she couldn't understand why she got to bowl twice then wait forever to do it again. However, I do actually think more than the rolling the ball down the lane and knocking over the pins, she was really excited about carrying around the bowling balls. The balls we played with were 5lb balls and while it scared me the whole time that she would drop it on her foot, she did awesome picking it up and bowling with it! 

Of course, in the beginning, I had to help her just a bit to share my vast knowledge of & enthusiasm for the sport but she quickly got the hang of things! ;)

Towards about the 7th frame I think Jorja was a bit over bowling and ready to go play in the game area. Therefore, I had to help her get re-focused so we could go out with a bang. So, in the 10th frame, we decided that Bear (Jorja's lovey that goes everywhere with her) should help her bowl. And would you believe that in the 10th frame Jorja got her first SPARE?!? I'm thinking Bear may be lucky! (and sure, I was in like 4th grade and only bowling gutter balls and she's 2 1/2 and bowling spares - go figure) :)

And it wouldn't be a play date if Jorja and her BFF, Cole didn't have some quality time together!
 They followed each other around the game area for a while and my favorite was their motorcycle ride: I'm thinking maybe Cole was driving that motorcycle a bit too fast for Jorja?! HA!

 

(How adorable is Cole in this picture?? He so loves Jorja and while you can't tell from this picture, she really does love him too!) :)

 

And I just had to post this because I couldn't get over how stinkin adorable Jorja was in these itty bitty {not-so-little size 9} bowling shoes!!! 

I'm thinking our first bowling experience was a success and I can't wait to make even more fun bowling memories but now with Jorja!

Quote of the Day by Jorja Mae

So, a few friends have mentioned to me how much they LOVE hearing all the crazy, random and hilarious things Jorja says and it got me thinking about how I SO do not want to forget the things she says. So, as I'm trying to make an effort to keep up my blog I thought I would begin a section called "Quote of the Day by Jorja Mae" (see, it rhymes and everything - cute, huh?) :) At this point there are SO many things I could write down but I guess I will just start with something she said today...

PREFACE: 

If you've ever seen Jorja you know she has the most BEAUTIFUL curls I've ever seen on a kid (maybe I'm biased) and we get comments on them ALL. THE. TIME! Well, those bad boys aren't the easiest thing to manage and when she wakes in the morning she has the biggest mess of tangles! So, naturally, I have to spend a good amount of time each morning wetting down the curls, spraying them with de-tangler, combing it out very gently and then topping them off with some moose and a lot of scrunching... Also, it should be noted that Jorja is OBSESSED and I mean, OBSESSED with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She wears the shirts, plays with the toys, has the stuffed Characters, has the Characters for the bath tub, has the coloring books and markers, has the band-aids, has the fruit snacks, has the plates & cups and place mats and watches {several} episodes a day - I swear, her favorite episodes she has memorized. :) If it has anything to do with Mickey and the Sensational Six, she is ALL about it!!

SETTING: 

Jorja is sitting in her booster seat and I am fixing her hair: 

CONVO:

J: "Ouch, that hurts"

Me: "Oh, baby! I'm so sorry. Mommy's trying to be as gentle as I can. Your curls are just SO tangled"

J: "We probably need to get a Mousekatool to help comb it out - OH, TOODLES!"

For those of you that don't actually watch MMC I suppose I should explain that a Mousekatool is a "tool" that will help Mickey while on his various adventures and Toodles is what brings the Mousekatools to Mickey! (Toodles is in the pic w/ Mickey)

Happy Noon Year!!

I know, I know! Shocker of all Shockers - I'm actually posting a blog! I won't bore you with any excuses as to why I took an unintentional hiatus nor will I promise that I'm back in full swing! :) We'll just take this one post at a time and see how it goes, okay? I am overwhelmed with all the catching up I must do so in order to help myself out, I'm just starting with the New Year and will post moving forward and when I have time, I will back track! So, here ya go:

happy NOON year

Jorja & I, along with about 20 other moms and kiddos, were invited to our first NOON year party on New Year's Eve. There was utter chaos happening in that place but it was OH. SO. FUN! I can't wait to make it a tradition every New Year's Eve. Since all of our sweet kiddos wouldn't make until midnight to ring in the New Year, we decided 12 noon would work just as great. So, we counted down and when the clock struck noon we blew our horns and partied like it was 1999. I'm pretty sure Jorja was completely oblivious as to WHY we were celebrating but any excuse for her to wear a "crown" and any excuse for me to hang out with super fun moms - we'll take it! :) Of course, ringing in the New Year just wouldn't be the same if Jorja didn't spend it with her BFF, Cole. Here are a few pics of how they rung in the New Year together...

It all started out very cordial:
(check out Cole with his hand on J's leg) :)


and very quickly turned into this:


we aren't really sure what happened to Cole but something got him VERY upset.
Which, of course, then led to
THIS:

I'm sorry - but THAT is funny!! Every time I see these pictures I CRACK. UP. LAUGHING.

And here is the best group shot I could find:

(notice Jorja has calmed down but is now sucking her thumb and holding Bear. Apparently the meltdown & all the excitement was just TOO much for her to handle on her own)

Will this bring me back to life?

I realize I have been gone from the blogging world for an embarrassing amount of time. I think a lot of it has to do with my time management skills - some of it has to do with how extremely busy Jorja and I really have been and since I take pictures of EVERYTHING we do, I begin to get overwhelmed when I think about blogging - and a lot of it has to do with how frustrating Blogger can be in trying to upload pictures and what not.

I have some friends that have amazing blogs and I'm always so envious of what they do. I really do want to be better at this - especially so I won't forget ANY of this precious time I've had with Jorja. So, in order to help me out - I discovered a new blogging tool called Blogo. It is a program designed for Mac users to help make blogging simple. This is my first time to use it. Let's see how it works out for me... will this be what pulls me out of my blogging slump and bring me back to life??? We shall see... ;)

oh, and just because I need to see how easy it is to upload pics and so you can see the CUTEST girl alive... here are some pics as well...