Callaway Gardens - Valentines and another quilt

Isn't this so cool. I loved seeing the stages of bananas growing. We went to Callaway Gardens with my parents on Valentines Day. It was free to get in for the Month of February. There is not a lot growing, but it is still pretty and fun.

Isn't John so cute. Here he is by the vegetable garden.

Celia and I by the vegetable garden. We really did have a great day. My parents are so fun. Funny story, we saw this cool rock formation by a stream. It looked pretty slick as it was a rainy day, but fun. Mom decided to climb on it and check it out. She slipped and dad helped her and I screamed. John laughed at me and said, she was fine. Still funny that the love for adventure is ever present.

Mom and dad in the butterfly garden. It was so pretty in there and even though there were not a ton of butterflies, there were enough to interest us. Especially the names. A few were called common mormon butterflies. The prettiest were of course the blue morpho butterflies.

Some of the indoor gardens. We just loved the way this looked.

Celia and her Daddy. They have so much fun together and I love these opportunities of having fun and doing stuff as a family. We really should go back with bikes during the spring or summer it would be a blast to ride around and enjoy all the beautiful nature.


My sister Rachel is awesome....she made this quilt for our friend Joanie Campbell. She is having her 3rd little one and said this is her first baby quilt. I helped only a small bit, but it is still awesome.

Snow Day

About a week ago, I took these pictures on the digital camera or our flowers. I also took some with my camera, we will see how those turn out. They were just so beautiful and I wanted them to last a little longer.
Imagine our surprise when just a few days later we leave church to kids talking about snow and have a little snow storm. Our area was hit pretty good, my parents didn't get as much snow. We certainly enjoyed it while it lasted. When I was I kid I lived in California and where we lived it never snowed, it might have left a light layer, but never even an inch, nothing you could play in. So Georgia was the first place I experienced the snow. I love the way it snows here. Just every once in a while so you can play in it and love it, but not enough to ever get sick of.

Celia kept eating the carrot nose. She really loved carrots that day.

Dad and Celia. I believe this is the first time they've been able to really play in the snow together. Last year he was in Texas when snowed and before that she was too long to play in it when it snowed (less than 1).

Celia took this picture of John when he was getting ready to go back to base.

I took this because the trees looked so beautiful and I love how big the snowflakes were as they fell.

Celia took this one, I took one with my camera. This is John leaving in the snowstorm. Others might feel like this is a little silly, but it had rained for two days before the snow hit and their was ice on the ground everywhere. The snow isn't what worried me, it was the ice. Plus tree limbs were falling everywhere. It took him 2 hours to go 20 minutes and shortly after that he didn't have any issues. Course a little after he left (about 3) we lost power and it didn't come on until about 10. It was fun and we didn't have it too bad since our stove is gas and I have enough candles to light a house, plus a few flashlights. I did realize our heat was run by electricity and I will need to prepare with wood for fires for next year. It got a little cold, but we have enough quilts to keep warm.

This is our girl snowman. She has hair and yes those are some of the branches our tree lost, it couldn't support the snow.

The next day we still had plenty of snow to play with so we made 4 more snowmen, including a girl and a dog.....it was fun. We also made a snow fort. I am in awe that anyone makes igloos and such. It is quite a bit of work. I certainly hope they have more than just one adult and a 4 year old. We had fun demolishing the small fort.

Celia and the snowman we built to kill. Yep, we kicked it down the hill. It really did get to be a big snowball and we both couldn't push it anymore.

Dogs are so silly. Maze wanted to help us decorate our snowman. Thanks, but no thanks. Next time we'll do the decorating without him. Maze really loved the snow and played in it, peed in it, and ate it (not the stuff he peed in I hope).

Stuff

So, I am making a public vow to get my knee back into shape so that I can get into shape without having to take a break to get my knee to stop hurting. I know all the physical therapy stetches and stuff I need to do, I just need to do them everyday and ice and all that stuff. No more excuses. The occured when I got my hips fixed through physical therapy. Once they were better and I don't feel the run in my hips anymore, it has affected the rest of my legs and my muscles are not strong enough to help my knees out and so it just causes pain. I have also put on a little weight and even 5 lbs add an extra 25 lbs or more of pressure to your knees. So there are two things I need to work on.

I am going to do some runs and I am getting ready. I know I will have more time now that my daughter is going to pre-k. I will just send her to school and excercise my butt off....Hopefully literally. I am not waiting for that, but I am trying to look forward to that kind of stuff and not think about my baby being big enough to go to school....she even wants to ride the bus. Mom might not be ready for that.

The near future also holds a surgery for me, another on my long road of infertility issues that will hopefully have a successful resolution. I have known spiritually that I have needed surgery for a month or so, but getting doctors and that kind of stuff to agree is another issue altogether. The surgery is the only way to figure out if I have endemitriosis. It is also a way to treat it, just a temporary solution to something I will probably battle the rest of my life. However, I feel like I am doing what Heavenly Father wants me to do and nothing brings me greater joy than knowing that.

Celia's second set of tubes and third surgery

My little sweetheart and me waiting for surgery to begin. Since this is my third time with it all and I knew it would be a very short surgery it wasn't too bad. John was unable to be there because of course he is still in training with the army. Luckily my dad was working close by there and was able to be there.

Celia absolutely loves her grandpa. She misses him sometimes and wants to call him or see him. She was so happy he was there.

After surgery is a lot less happy, but she did pretty good and was just hungry because it was lunch time and she didn't even have breakfast. So after she got some liquids in and got ready to go we went to lunch and I even let her stay in her pajamas and pick out where she wanted to go. She wanted to go to Sweet Tomatoes because she likes the ice cream. She goes with her grandparents sometimes when we meet them at the temple after they work so we can go and they take Celia with them.
Not too long after getting home she is fine and just playing away drawing with some chalk. No long recovery here. Plus I finally don't have to have the volume so high on everything that I feel deaf. Course now my allergies are acting up and I have fluid in my ears and want to turn up the volume. At any rate, I am glad we did it and that she can hear again. I can hardly imagine what her PreK teachers would have said come July 30th. Yep that is one of the other things we did this month. Register her for PreK for next year.

It has been a busy month. Our car died, then we borrowed 2 different cars from a friend (funny story). Then finally our car is alive and well and my husband is the hero of the moment. It has been an adventure and I am just glad that we are getting through it all.

Lena's Blessing Day

I was unable to take Lena's pictures until a little later, unfortunately she was cranky and her outfit was soiled. So this is what happens.

I really wanted to take a picture of the shoes. They are shoes that our grandmother made and all four girls in my family wore them to their blessings...course we were all summer babies.

Here is Erin loving the car. She really enjoyed playing in the big car.

I love random silly pictures...so here is Izzy or Isabelle picking her nose.

This is Heath's sunday outfit. So fun, I just had to take a picture...ok so I took a few.

Kyla, Celia, and Rebecka played dress up. They are so beautiful. Celia loves playing with her cousins and is always so excited to see them.

New Year's Day

New Year's eve we spent the night at my parents house. The next day we went to a new local park. It was lots of fun. Mom climbed the rock and was so proud of herself. She did awesome.

John spun himself so dizzy and then ended up on his back, but was hilarious to watch.

Erin was as cute as ever.

They also played a little teeter totter. Sometimes it is so nice to just play and be a kid and have fun. John is pretty good at that, one of the reasons I love him. He has always made me laugh, even the way he says things is so creative and fun.

Christmas

We started our celebrations Christmas Eve by doing our annual building of the gingerbread house, which over the years has gotten better and better and it took less time than other years.
Then we followed with the annual tradition of opening up a present - yep pjs every year. Celia really liked hers.
Christmas morning, this is what Celia woke up to and she really enjoyed herself. She had a much better response than on her birthday which made me very happy. We all had a fun time. John was very happy and excited about his car parts. I will have to do a post sometime about Stinky - John's project car.

This rather ugly looking thing was our dog's, Maze, christmas present. It had a picture of a rot on the tag and it said it was a toughness of 9. This is what it looked like less than an hour after we gave it to our dog. He is a very strong chewer. It didn't even last a day.

Lena, the newest Duggan on Christmas.

Celia looking oh so cute with her flower she picked. I decided to use the opportunity as a photo shoot.

The last few years Jared and Alicia have sent all the nieces and nephews $20 for Christmas. This is what Celia got with her money this year. She loved everything she got and gave the rest to one of those donation bins in the store. She liked to watch the money go in.

Georgia Aquarium and Centenniel Park

Here is the crew minus me that went to the aquarium. It was loads of fun. A lot of work, but a lot of fun. We went when they had a sale of $20 per adult if they went with a child. A mother's day out promotion. It was a great day. Celia is on Kevin's head, Daniel is in his lap and Kyla is in Rachel's lap. LaFae let us borrow Kyla for the day to take advantage of the deal.


Kyla was so cute all day and really enjoyed herself and all the attention.
She even loved the aquarium mascot.

After the aquarium we went across the street to the park and it was not too long after that Celia tripped and landed on some stairs to the play equipment. This is the end result of that day's clumsyness. It went away and she no longer has that lump. Fun times fun times.

This slide was the hit of the park and they really enjoyed going down it. It really is quite fun, it feels like a little butt massage as you go down.