He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake...

Couldn't resist.

We stayed up till 1a.m. working on this Christmas tree for the kiddos.  It was totally worth it when they immediately wanted to play with it the next morning.  And again this morning.  (Vintage Santa from Andy's childhood made it into this photo.)

Brusha, brusha, brusha

Sweetness

Love these two.

Poor Bailey

Since Bailey is the only brother these two girlies are going to get, he plays the part well.  They force him to play dress up with them.  Covering him in necklaces.  Lock him in their rooms with them.  And occasionally pretend he's also their horse.  Sophie yells, "Yah, Bailey!!!"

I think they're pretty lucky he loves them (and their crumbs) so much.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

This is Sophie without Kinley:

This is Sophie with Kinley:

No lie Sophie has cried for me to hold her the entire time her sister has been at school this week.  She immediately perks up as soon as I tell her it's time to go pick Kinley up.  Then she transfers her overly attached self to Kinley.  Which Kinley isn't so fond of after a day full of school.  It's been interesting to say the least.  

Some days I regret putting Kinley in only 4-day Pre-K but not on days like today.  We love our laid back Fridays. 

 The girls can practice their skills:

Like climbing things they shouldn't.

And being a "flagger".  She's obsessed lately with this flag.  I think she needs to add a UGA flag to her Christmas list.  I CANNOT stand the NFL.  Or birds.  She needs a new flag.  LOL.

The Cumming Fair

We headed up to visit with the Wimberly's on Sunday.  We thought the kiddos might enjoy going to the fair together.  Sophie stayed home with Andy since she probably wouldn't have enjoyed being strapped into her carseat and stroller all.day.long.  Kinley and Camy rode the first few things together.

I so wish I'd had my camera ready the first time these things popped a wheelie.  The squeals of glee from these girls was  priceless. 

 Kinley pretending she's on a roller coaster.  She had most of the other kids raising their arms too.

 I am an expert spinner.  That's all I'm going to say.  Those two little boys thought they were going to out-spin me in the teacups.  Hahaha.  The only downside of that was again no photos or videos in action.  Another priceless memory.  They laughed and yelled the whole time.

 Pony ride for Ms. KB.

We also saw two shows.  Gators and Horses.  Kinley was in awe during both.  All in all it was a great day.  Next year we'll have to go on a day when rides are unlimited for one price.  Thank goodness Kinley is still young enough to get in free and didn't complain when I said we were all out of tickets for rides.

 The end of a long day for No-Nap Kinley.  No worries I took this in a parking lot while dropping Granny off at her car.  :) 

This photo also marks another momentous occasion for our Little Miss.  She finally weighs enough to ride in a booster.  Yay!

Horses, Pumpkins, and Tortoises, Oh, My!

We are enjoying this nice weather while it lasts.
We went to Locust Grove for the day on Saturday with the Fenders. We started out at Tanger where we managed to introduce Porter to our Tanger bribery ritual:

(Earlier last week)

My kiddos expect a ride with each visit to Tanger if they behave while we shop.  We had to let Porter in on it too while Erin finished her shopping.  ;)

Then we moved on to pumpkins.  Erin's attempt at photographing the pumpkin picking:

3 kiddos are hard to photograph.  Two isn't much easier.

Ah, semi-success.

This is at Locust Grove United Methodist Church if anyone else is looking for a fun spot to just pick pumpkins and not pay an entrance fee like at some of the local farms.

We finished up our day with a picnic and tour of Noah's Ark.  Photographing them from behind was easier.  :)  Little Sophie wanted to hold hands the whole way through.

Kinley Bell loves these tortoises.  I can't tell you how many times we visited here before I knew they had habitats up near the visitor center.

She talks to them like they are her long lost pals.

Thanks for managing to get some photos, Erin!

862

That's how many files I just transferred from my phone to my computer.  Maybe one day I'll catch up.  Until then, here's a video I mentioned in a previous post but didn't share on here.

No Nap Kinley

is no joke.  We've reached the end of an era.  My child who sleeps insanely well and needs lots of sleep is on the verge of giving up naps.  It's a sad day.  We may have to start putting her to bed at 7:30 to make up the difference in total sleep she gets.  For now I'm still battling every.single.day. to get her to stay in her room.  Here's how today's battle ended:

We will likely move to just "quiet time" soon, but I'm very hesitant.  She still acts so stinking crazy on the days that she doesn't nap.  Most days that also equals waking Sophie up too.  She definitely still needs her nap.  Good times at the Bell house.  At least we get a good laugh when we check in on her and find that she has in fact sat still for too long and succumbed to sleep.  You can't tell but her knees are up and her arm isn't relaxed.

Sparkles

This girl loves her some sparkle.  

Her sister likes to photo bomb.

And take her things.

Some Serious Krispy Kreme Lovers

Way Behind

I finally figured out how to get Instagram photos up on the blog.  Yay!  Here's a teaser until I have more time to catch up.  It captures the spirit of our entire vacation for the whole family.  :)

And one more.  I can't leave out this cutie patootie.  

2 and 6

I'm a sucker for my niece and nephews.  Merritt in sticking with his character selected a party theme that wasn't easy to just go out and buy supplies for.  Julie had to special order a sheet to put on his cake.  I volunteered to make Ninja headbands to fit in with the Lego Ninjago theme.  They were really quick to make and super cute on the kiddos.

I of course couldn't leave this cutie out since she was celebrating her special day too.  While she's cute as a ninja, her favorite is Elmo.  So Elmo she got: 

Love those sweet kiddos.

Busy week

We've tried to fill our week with as much excitement as possible in order to make the days pass more quickly while Andy's away.
We started out with having Camy visit.

(There might be a video of Kinley and Camy "pushing" Sophie in the Cozy Coupe with the Jeep.  I caught enough flack about it on facebook, so I will not be sharing it here.  I thought it was hilarious, the girls thought it was hilarious, and they all survived just fine.  That's what matters right?)

Saturday night, the Fenders came over.  Four children four and under.  Erin said it best: "controlled chaos".

I'm stealing Erin's photos.  This one might be my favorite from that night.  

We just might manage to turn him into a Georgia boy.  His favorite color is RED.  

Sunday, I braved Publix with 3 kiddos.  The toughest part was finding space in the car for them, the groceries, and Nate's birthday balloons.  I should have photographed that, but I was pretty sure the guy loading my groceries already thought I was crazy.  ;)

We celebrated Nate and Julie's birthday with a pool party.  I have no photos.  I'm a slacker.  My sisters slack on sharing their photos.  If ever they manage to get them online, I will share them.  :)

Monday I treated myself to a babysitter and a pedicure.

Tuesday morning we were up before the sun because of these two.

If they weren't so darn cute, somebody might have gotten hurt.

Since we were up already and it was overcast and "cool", we headed to the zoo.

And Five Guys afterwards.  

Kinley ate more peanuts than anything else, and Sophie managed to eat every bite of the grilled cheese the two of them shared.

Wednesday we had another sleep over this time with Merritt.  No photos of that either.  I tried but they were all too blurry.  We had fun swimming, swinging, going to the movies, and swimming some more.

We've also been spoiled by grandparents this week.  Today will be the first day we haven't seen at least one of them in a week.

Today's excitement will be horseback riding (If the weather cooperates.  Last week it didn't.), and a trip to the airport.  Kinley's very excited!

Prepare yourself for the heebie jeebies

...

Ready?

I warned you: 

Pretty sure this was a black widow.  She had quite the web full of babies under our diving rock.  We've been noticing the growing web there for awhile but have just been avoiding sticking our hands under there.  Today when I saw the massive amount of baby spiders in the web, I couldn't ignore it any longer.  I soaked those babies with some bug spray.  By the time I came back from putting it away, the mama was trying to escape the wrath of the spray by coming out into the open.  Stacy squashed her just to be sure she was dead.  Zooming in on her is even creepier.  Note to self: keep up with cobwebs in the future.

Now that the grossness is out of the way, I'll share some cuties.

Kinley dictated what to "send" to Andy today.

 She thinks it's more fun to write capital E because then she can add all the extra lines.  ;)  I have no idea how she came up with the 19.  It was today's date, but I think that might have just been luck.

Luck is not on this child's side.  Here she is showing off that she can drink out of a straw finally and the teeth she has doubled today.  Yep, doubled.  Poor thing.  

She was Sophie two-teeth for so long, then she earned a half tooth on the upper side, and today the other upper side tooth has broken through along with two back molars.  She's pretty cranky about it too.  

Hard at work

With her trusty purple crayon.

For Nana

(And for those of you like Uncle Stacy:  The photos that look like there is something wrong with my camera are from Instagram.  It adds filters to your photos to look old and funky. )
I've posted a lot of these on facebook, but Nana will definitely appreciate them.  

I had to start with this one.  Sorry Judy.  ;)  The good news is they survived.  

Kinley took a self-portrait of her and her B.F.F.  Look at all those gray hairs!

They were wearing matching bead necklaces.  You can see a little bit of Kinley's.

What happens when you tell Sophie no:

So tenderhearted.  

Or dramatic.  

You decide.  ;)

Two and a half teeth are good enough for eating cole slaw.

I only fed it to her because she was begging for more food after I'd already shared my catfish and fries.  Plus she'd eaten her own food.  I DO NOT eat cole slaw.  I cannot even stand to smell it.  She isn't my kid.  Or it skipped a generation.  I believe it was a side dish to nearly every meal my dad ate.

Back to the 2 1/2 teeth.  Leslie captured the new half tooth here:

We had a rough week last week.  Our fridge and A.C. went out.  I didn't feel well, and the kiddos were extra crazy.  KB sweetly crawled into my bed for a nap on Thursday afternoon.  

Moments like that make you forget all your troubles...the afternoon nap might have helped too.

Then Friday, Saturday and Sunday they were different kiddos.  Playing extra happily with each other.

Note to self:  Kinley can dress Sophie:

And do her hair:

Speaking of hair, Sophie likes to put bows in her hair.  Not necessarily keep them in.

Today we were back to screaming (Kinley) and hair pulling (Sophie) firs thing this morning, so we loaded up and headed to the zoo.  We were there right at opening and could play on the playground in peace and the weather was nice and cool.  We also went to a bird show.  I've managed to avoid that one during our previous visits.  The parakeet house usually exceeds my limits of birds.

Aside from the gigantic owl flying directly over our heads and perching right behind us...twice.  It was fun.

There are a couple more photos and a video of Kinley swimming over on Picasa.