Christmas at Stone Mountain

Stella and the Snow Princess

Mailing her letter to Santa

Sophia on the train

Part of the lights on the train ride

Mmmm....hot chocolate!

My girls

Waiting in line to see the 4D movie-The Polar Express

The Bubble Man

We love bubbles!

Watching the show on the train

So tired!

We had a great time at Stone Mountain. The lights were amazing, but the pictures didn't do them justice. I was so excited about Stella riding the train at night. I thought she would think it was so cool because she loves it every time we go. Think again. She buried her head in my chest for the entire time. The only time she removed it was when we stopped and listened to a story-the meaning of Christmas. I think this will be a fun family tradition until the girls start rolling their eyes and being teenagers. Maybe we will still force them to go just to torture them.

Stella has been really trying my patience with potty training. I won't go into the details, but I am doing a LOT of laundry. Yesterday, she had an accident on the couch, so I sent her upstairs to get cleaned up while I stripped the couch covers off of the cushions. I went up to check on her-she gets side tracked easily (ie: This morning I sent her upstairs to get her flashlight and she came back down with a wrapping paper roll and a medicine syringe) and smelled a familiar, but disturbing smell. She was painting her nails on her rug in her room. Hot pink nail polish-some on her nails and some on her rug. As I as cleaning the rug, she was waiting patiently and pointing out the spots I had missed. Deep breaths....deep breaths.....Carrie asked if I had taken a picture so I could laugh at the memory. Take a picture? I had a hard time keeping myself from running out the front door screaming-never to return. You know the moms that just leave to go pick up some milk at the store and never return? I have thought a lot about that recently. The only thing that has stopped me is Josh. Thank goodness he keeps me sane. I am not sure he really knows what my days are like, but he knows he wouldn't want to do it!

But on a positive note-Stella had her first dentist appointment this week and she was awesome! She made me proud. I almost cried I was so proud. I asked Josh if I was going to get teary eyed every time she made me proud-dental appointments, showing good manners without prompting, making at 3 pointer in the big game, an "A" on a research paper, etc. He said "Isn't that why people become parents? Because of those kinds of moments?" Yes, I guess it is the reason. So for every couch soiling/rug painting memory, I hope to have a dentist appointment memory to go along with it. That sounds weird, but it makes perfect sense to me.