TEA PARTIES, POTTY CHAIRS, POOH (the bear), HUNDRED ACRE WOODS, and LIQUOR STILLS

You'll never guess what this post is about. Ahhh, I believe the title gave the answer away.  Quite the haphazard variety of topics, eh?

Here's how they all fit together:

 

We packed up our little Pooh lover and took her to the wilds of Troup County on Saturday evening.  

Once we had a good night's sleep and shook off the driving dust and brain cobwebs, our dainty little tea partier wanted to practice her genteel sipping skills and table manners... (only one tea cup was sacrificed in the process! hopefully, Gabba Gabba can glue it back together.)

 

 

And after all the "tea" (orange juice), this is where the potty chair comes in... 

Gabba Gabba has an antique potty chair (complete with porcelain chamber pot), that is just Evie's size. Although the vintage 100-year-old handmade wooden potty chair is not nearly as fashionable as the breathtaking "Cushy for My Tushy" portable plastic potty chair that Momma Peach purchased at Babies R'Us, the antique potty chair serves the same purpose.

There's no telling how many little tushies have graced
this porcelain throne in the last 100 years.
We hope only the good 'Potty Karma' from
the previous generations of toddlers is passed to Evie.
(hahaha... get it? "Passing" Karma?... okay, never mind.)

After the Pooh party, the tea party, and the potty party, we decided to take a walk in the woods.  

Evie's great-great grandparents' land is in a beautiful area of West Georgia that luckily hasn't been touched much by developers.  It's our very own Hundred Acre Woods we can play in -  just like Pooh does!

All right, Uncle Battle... where's the tree with the honey pot?

 
The forest has a small serpentine-like stream that trickles its way through the woods and makes for fun play areas, waterfalls, and provides lots of pebble throwing opportunities.

This Hundred Acre wood has quite the history to it. 

Grandaddy likes to say that our ancestors were "Chemical Engineers"... but in reality, many of them were good old fashioned "spirit makers" (yup, this is where the liquor part of this blog post come into play):

Law officers destroying a moonshine still in Gordon County, GA 1922.
I can only imagine the scene was much the same in these Troup County woods.

Inspecting the giant hole in the ground,
where a liquor still used to be "many moons ago."

"Spirits of the forest" take on a whole new meaning!

 Our little forest sprite with a big forest goblin:

  

Evie stomps the still!

The Happy Couple in front of their next money-making scheme: Moonshine!  
(Ha! Obviously not. Everyone knows Dadda
will brew his own beer, but stays
away from making the hard stuff.)

A few hours later, after we had returned to the safe confines of the Yankee & Peach household in 'burbs of Atlanta, we get a text message from Grandaddy and Gabba Gabba with this picture:

Yup, that bad boy was probably watching us
while we were traipsing around in the woods all morning.

I guess I should have added "Bobcats" to the title of this blog post to be completely accurate, but I was really running out of room. 

Those are some tasty looking people.
It's a Bobcat Buffet!

Editor's Note: We weren't in danger of the bobcat. There was a greater chance of one of us falling in an old liquor still hole and getting hurt than being attacked by the bobcat. However, bobcats are a menace to livestock (ie. the goats and mini horses that are often kept on property). 

2nd Editor's Note:  For those of you who are hunters, the bobcat and fox season in Georgia is 12/1/10 to 2/28/11.  So it was totally legal! Now, if we can just persuade Grandaddy to save the pelt for us, we think Evie would love a new area rug for her room.

3rd Editor's Note: If you'd like your own shiny new liquor still, they can be purchased on Amazon.com. But if you'd prefer the old-fashioned (and frugal) way to make your own moonshine, just follow this guy's directions.

(Whew!) Final Editor's Note: You  might want to check with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives before buying or selling any moonshine in the state of Georgia (or any state for that matter).
But nobody says you can't make some and enjoy it yourself!

OH, BOTHER! (as Pooh says)

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?"”

-Pooh Bear

We are experiencing full-blown "Pooh-Mania" here at the Yankee & Peach household. Our little lady has wholeheartedly latched on to Pooo-ooooh! and scrambles to point him out and show him to us whenever she catches a glimpse of the silly-willy-nilly old bear. 

Evie has a 2T-3T sized dress that is entirely too big for her right now, but she insisted on wearing it to school today.

I may look like a bag lady,
but I'm a happy POOH bag lady!

Are you checking out my Pooh dress?

Momma Peach has used Pooh, the iPad, and YouTube to her advantage. A few video clips of Pooh are able to keep the little lady satisfied for five or six minutes so Momma doesn't burn supper!

Life doesn't get much better than warm milk and Winnie the Pooh.

 “You can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count.” 

- Pooh

What's YOUR favorite Pooh saying? 

 

HAVING A BALL...

Momma Peach and Dadda got a lucky (and rare) night out without Evie. On Saturday night, we sent the little lady off with her grandparents to see Uncle Winston's team play. 

She must have brought them good luck, since the Dolphins won 87 - 59!

Uncle Winston, the little lucky charm, and Uncle Battle

Basketball is AWESOME!
(and so is staying up way past bedtime!)

Grandaddy, what are those guys DOING?

Nomar: "This kid is crazy."
(Gabba Gabba brought her Jack Russell puppy to play!)

A pre-game book about fish to get our little girl
in the mood to cheer at the Dolphins' game.

(yeah, yeah, a dolphin really isn't a FISH, but you get the point.)

 

Dadda and Momma all dolled up for a
wedding reception at the 755 CLUB at Turner Field.
(Trot doesn't even recognize us... see lower left corner)

Weekends spent in pajamas are awesome too!

Evie loves to take over the dogs' bed and feed them goldfish snacks.
A typical morning at the Yankee & Peach house!

More snacks, please.

TEA PARTY

We're currently engaged in an ongoing battle to teach our child some semblance of gentility, manners, and table etiquette. Most of the time, we fail miserably... but every now and then Evie surprises us and behaves like a little lady. 

Anyone want to join me for a tea party?

You go first, Vallie.
Let me know if it tastes good.

Nice!
You didn't fall over dead, so we know there's no poison in the cup.
Unless you've spent the last few years building up a tolerance to iocane powder?

Evie: I challenge you to a battle of wits.
Gabba Gabba: For the Princess?
Evie: [nods]
Gabba Gabba:  To the death?
Evie: [nods]
Gabba Gabba: I accept!

 Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny!
I switched glasses when your back was turned!
Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this:
"Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line!"
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...

Inconceivable!

WHO GETS 25 HOURS IN A DAY?

I'm not going to apologize for the lack of blogs recently. It means I'm too busy being a good mom to waste time trying to arrange a bunch of pictures into a slightly cohesive and intelligible post.... right?!

Eh, here's my apology anyway: VIDEOS!

And I'm also not going to apologize for being (almost) 30 years old and having Justin Bieber on my Ipod. He's literally half my age, but he makes fun music. 

Feel free to turn your volume DOWN prior to watching these, so you can avoid the high-pitched mommy voice that is now captured for eternity by YouTube:

UNDER THE WEATHER

We're alive and well. No need to call the police! 

In case you haven't watched the news in the last, oh... 6 to 7 days or so, then this will come as a shock: Atlanta got snow. A LOT of snow. And then ice. A LOT of ice.  So, we've been under the weather - quite literally!  

The snow was nice enough to wait till Sunday night to come in, which gave Momma Peach enough time to help put together a baby shower on Sunday afternoon for our good friend Adria, who is expecting a little baby boy in just a few weeks. 

It was the first time Momma Peach has ever thrown a party at the Yankee & Peach house for someone outside of the immediate family -  and we hope/think Adria had fun and got a lot of baby goodies to go home with afterwards!

You get four guesses as to what they are naming the baby.

   

The shower was the perfect excuse to
not take down Christmas decorations yet.
Add a little bit of blue to all the red -
and voila, a baby shower theme!



The soon-to-be mommy and her mommy.

Some of the ladies...

Practicing her hand at being a mom... with little Amelia.

Evie got lots of love from Auntie Amanda!

And then got to learn about static electricity from all the balloons...

Waving BYE-BYE to our guests.

The snow started later that Sunday evening, about 9:30 PM or so.  In less than an hour, we had at least 4 or 5 inches on the ground. It was so pretty to watch fall and blanket everything in white... but only if you were inside with some hot chocolate on the couch!

SNOW!!!! I gotta go tell somebody!!!

Not me, kid. I've already experienced
the white stuff and it is NOT to my liking.

So, school and work were canceled for Monday.  Dadda was able to work from home, but Momma doesn't have those capabilities (grrr... stupid security policy), so we all stayed home and played inside the house and had a fun day.

By Tuesday (everything canceled again), the cabin fever set in...

BORED BORED BORED.
I have resorted to smashing my face against the glass to get attention.

 So Momma and Little Peach bundled up and went outside. Evie has seen snow before, but has never really PLAYED in it.  

Yes, that is a Pooh outfit with a hunting vest over it.
Slightly sacrilegious to the Pooh fanatics out there,
but ehhhh..    it kept her warm.

Pooh's visual demonstration as to why metro Atlanta is shut down right now.
Our snow was beautiful and soft and fluffy and fun-
till it developed about an inch of ice on top.
Evie was too light to break through the ice layer, so in order for her to walk, she either had to slide on the top layer of ice - or step wherever I had kicked it up and broken it for her.

And if she fell, the force of her fall was enough to break through the ice, but left her little bootie stuck in a hole.
Yes, we have laughed continuously at this picture. Feel free to laugh too - she was only stuck for maybe 10 seconds.

So she happily rode around in the wagon for the rest of the time.

Till the wagon got stuck and Momma got tired of pulling.
Whenever she shifted her weight, the wheels on her side sunk through the ice and into the snow, while the other side still couldn't break through the ice.

So we resigned ourselves to playing on the porch.

And SWINGING!

And going inside for muffins and hot chocolate!

Bye-bye snow and ice. You can leave now.

 We'll leave you with a picture that I think sums up the current feelings of much of metro Atlanta right now: