Callaway Gardens

My birthday is December 7th. Being born in 1976, I turned 34 this year. I decided I wanted to do a birthday get-away with my mom. . . and of course I wanted my sidekick to go, too. The three of us drove down Saturday morning. We took our time getting there; we had to stop along the way and do some Christmas shopping. What should have been a 2 1/2 hour trip turned out more like four, but that was the fun of it all. There were no "men" to hurry us around. ;)

I booked everything through Callaway, and the package included our one night's stay at the Mountain Creek Inn, the Fantasy in Lights show, a Christmas ornament, the breakfast buffet, and all day garden entrance. It was worth every penny we spent.

We arrived in Pine Mountain, GA, around 3:30pm. Once we checked in, we wasted no time getting to the Christmas village, a super large tent with shopping, food treats, gingerbread house with a train circling it, crafts, and even Santa himself! Even though Rocco had already seen Santa on his pre-K field trip to the mall, we encouraged him to sit on his lap again. A little reluctant, Rocco agreed. He was later glad he did so, because when he was finished Santa gave him a candy cane. I love his cute smile here. He's not wearing his cute Christmas clothes. He thinks he is supposed to wear a "play shirt" all the time. Play shirts, according to him, are all short sleeves and cotton comfortable. (So much for the cute outfit I bought him.)

Right outside the village there was a fun playground we took advantage of. I found a lot of pine cones lying around; I collected a big bag for my Aunt Katie who plans on doing some craft with them. We also found a mini putt putt course; this was right up Rocco's alley.

After the village, we went further up the mountain to view one of God's beautiful sunsets. It was very cold and windy up there, but the sight was breathtaking. Then, we ate supper at the Country Store. By the time we finished eating it was time to bundle up in our many layers and prepare for the trolley ride along the 5 mile trail of lights. Nothing I've ever seen even compares to the Fantasy of Lights that we saw. The trolley held about 60 people and was pulled by a big Ford truck. A speaker played a narrator's voice and neighing horses. It made it feel like you were in a horse-drawn sleigh. All of the lights were synchronized to music and many of them moved. It was beautiful. Many of the lights reflected off of the large ponds off of the golf course. Honestly any picture I took did not do what we really saw justice. We traveled through about 14 different scenes. My favorite was the Winter Wonderland scene. We were entirely surround by white lights and snowflakes; it was like a dream.

When the trolley ride ended, there was more! We stopped to watch "Twas the Night Before Christmas" light show and then "The Christmas Story" of Jesus. My mom treated us to some hot chocolate and funnel cakes afterwards.

Rocco loved it, and so did my mom and I. He kept saying, "I've never been to this place before. I love Callaway Gardens. I want to stay here forever!" I explained to him it was only a short time that we'd be there. "I don't like short vacations," was his reply.

The day we packed up to leave, we decided to spend some time at the gardens since it came with our package. The weather was so very cold, so we bundled up and visited the butterfly house, birds of prey show, and the many gift shops. The greenhouse we visited had a tall Christmas tree made out of poinsettias... and animals shaped from various plants. I'm so thankful we took this trip. It turned out to be one of my favorite weekend get-aways of all time.

Gingerbread Train

Each year Rocco and I try to assemble and decorate a gingerbread house. This year was no exception...only this year we found a gingerbread train. We had so much fun adding icing and candy to this thing. He kept wanting to eat all the decorations on it.

This is what we started with...

By the time we added some leftover Halloween candy, we had the train covered in yummy, sugary treats. We even had a little candy bench for the passengers to sit on. Check out this cute little guy posing for his picture...

What's up with this expression?

Here we are together.

4 years 8 months old

Rocco is growing up so fast. He will tell you that his birthday is March 29th and that he will be 5. "Let's not rush it!" I tell him. I want him to be 4 for as long as he can.

He is such a loving boy. Sometimes I'll say, "Let's just cuddle." And he says, "Ok!" He still loves to snuggle with me ( and he continues to rub the mole on my face ). The other night I had a hair trimmer near my face and he shouted, "Mommy, don't cut your mole off!" When I kiss him sometimes he'll say, "I just put that kiss in my mouth." And when he goes to sleep at night, he'll sometimes tell me, "Mommy, I just want you to stay in my dreams."

He's learned so much at school. He came home this month using the word aint. We quickly told him this was not a real word. It's hard to convince him when he is surrounded by friends at school that are real country. Now there's nothing wrong with being country, but we do want our son to learn how to talk proper. One morning I ate breakfast with him at school. I overhead a little boy in his class telling someone, "Go up ere' and gitch ya one." Oh me. His little sheltered world came to an end when he started pre K (not to mention all of the pooting sounds he thinks are so funny now.) Thankfully, we haven't heard of any misbehaving at school. He saves his newly learned "knowledge" for when he gets home.

One good thing he has learned at school is that exercise affects his heartbeat. The PE teacher, Mrs. McLean, taught him this. When he's been running, he'll stop and say, "Hey mom! My heart is beating fast!"

His number sense amazes me. The other day he made a joke when we were listening to a song, "Route 66." He said, "No, it's route 55. 44. 77. 88." He has the sense of humor of a gifted child. When I say, "I need to do this, but..." He'll say, "Butt! Did you say butt?"

He was working on the computer at his nana and granddaddy's house one afternoon. When I picked him up I couldn't believe what he had done. Without any help or ideas from anyone, he typed the numbers 1 - 100 on the computer. He did skip the 80's, but I thought that was pretty impressing coming from a 4 year old. There were no spaces between the numbers, but you could clearly see that he had typed all numbers 1 - 100.

One day, we was sitting in the back seat of the car and I overhead him counting by 10's. "20, 30, 40, 50, 60, ..." He went all the way to 100. I couldn't do that until 1st grade.

Okay, I'll stop bragging now. I'm blessed though. Extremely blessed to have such a handsome, sweet, and smart young boy.

Shutterfly

Photography is one of my favorite hobbies. And especially since I have been blessed with the cutest little boy, I have a great subject to photograph. We had to wait 10 years into our marriage before we had him. So believe me, I don't just trust my photos to anyone. I use Shutterfy's on-line service for all of my picture development. There's several reasons why...

1) I don't have to go to a store and wait in line to use the photo machine. I download everything from my own home computer.
2) They store your pictures for free. There's no limit either. This gives me peace of mind knowing that if my computer ever crashes, I can rely on Shutterfly to hold on to my memories.
3) They have the neatest gifts! I've bought and or received mouse pads, coasters, desk organizers, Christmas ornaments, notepads, cards, calendars, prints (from 4 x 6 to 11 x 14), magnets, and even photo books.
4) They are always offering discounts, free shipping, and other incentives to shop with them.
5) It allows me to have my own personal website for photo sharing. Leave me a comment for the password.

My favorite gift idea has been the photo books. They are easier than scrapbooking. I made one of our foster children and gave it to their birth mom. She loved it!

This month Shutterfly is giving away 50 free Christmas cards if you blog about how Shutterfly has helped you with your photo needs. I've already purchased my Christmas cards from Shutterfly. I can hardly wait for the orange package to arrive in the mail.

I can always use more Christmas cards to send to our church family, so I'm looking forward to getting 50 free. Thanks Shutterfly!

Talking Smack

Seems that our little Rocco can really talk some smack. He and his daddy were playing the bowling game on the Wii game the other night. Whenever Rocco would get a spare or knock a lot of pins down, he'd turn to his daddy and say, "How ya' like that?" Then, he'd wink at his daddy.

Jason commented that he sure wished he could get a strike. Shortly after that, Rocco himself got a strike. With a sly grin he asked his daddy, "Is that what you need right there?"

Rocco is Reading Sentences

Rocco informed me that he had science homework tonight. Even though this was all pretend, I turned the computer on to the typing screen. He used the keypad to type several letters. He was so proud of his "homework".

I sat down with him at the computer to work on reading some words. A few days ago, Jason taught him that r-o-a-d spells road. He also knows the at word family. Many months ago we taught him all the names of the immediate family members. To add to all of this, I introduced a few simple verbs like have, am and love so that we could begin making sentences. And the rest is, well, history! He took off. We were beyond thrilled. He even yelled, "Mommy, I am too excited for this!"

You can see the sentences that he read in the picture above. He also read the sentences below.

"Rocco is sad. Dad is sad. Mom is mad. Nana is sunny.Granddaddy is glad. Drew is a cat. I love a big, fat cat. Mimi is fun.Papaw and I have a ball."

After we let Rocco read to his dad, we called Granddaddy & Nana Carolyn, his teacher Mrs. Caldwell, and his Mimi on the phone to tell them the great news. They were super excited.

He only stumbled a little. One of the greatest things about it was that he would stop to sound out the words. B (buh) i (ihh) g(ggg)...big! He was figuring out words that I would randomly throw in there.

This is major. Major! Rocco is reading! Thank you Lord for our 4 year old Rocco. He's handsome, sweet, funny, and smart!

4 years 7 months old

At 4 years 7 months old, Rocco seems to be as picky as a teenager when it comes to clothes. Tears often come streaming down his face if it's not a "play shirt". He has certain short sleeves shirts that he likes to wear. If we put on a shirt with a collar, buttons, or even a long sleeve cotton shirt, he gets bent out of shape. And as soon as he gets home from school, even if he has on comfortable clothes, he goes straight to his drawer and pulls out a "play shirt" and his favorite red shorts. We have to keep them washed up because that's what he thinks he has to wear all the time. Oh me, I hope he grows out of this phase! I've bought him so many cute clothes, matching sweaters and shirts in the past, but now I have to really stop and think before I purchase anything. In order for him to wear it, I have to convince him it's a play shirt - and that's not very easy these days!