What A Long Day!

Friday, we went out with the Warner family and joined them in their activities that they had planned for the day. Becky told me ahead of time what the plan was for the day and I realized that all the festivities would run into nap time for Atalia, which could be the makings for a hard day. James had the idea to get her up earlier that day so she could take an earlier nap and wake up in time to leave. So, that's what I did! We woke up at 5:45 am (meant to get up at 5) and Atalia took her nap before we left.

We left a little past noon to go to the grand opening of the Tanger Outlet mall. There were TONS of people there! They even blocked off two exits off the highway to keep traffic down. The shops were packed! We decided to get something to eat first. Atalia had her first Auntie Anne's cinnamon and sugar pretzel! She made a huge mess with it, getting sugar all over her and all over mommy.

It's hard to see it on her face, but you can see it all over her pants.

I think the sugar put her in a goofy mood.

Atalia is an easily skittish and scared child. She's shown this part of her personality from a very young age. It is hard to explain how skittish she can be, but she really is.

There were some 50 cent machines that you put quarters in to ride, but Tali just likes to pet them (some kid's are scared of them like Tali). Eventually, I put her in a spiderman car machine that she kept asking me about. At first she didn't want me to let go of her, but I distracted her with something. Then before she knew it, she was enjoying herself sitting there next to spiderman in a spiderman car.

She had a blast sitting there looking at spiderman, asking me about him. Later we came to another spot that had the toy machines that you ride after putting some quarters inside. I wanted to show James her progress that she had made by letting us sit her on the toy (he was in line buying us a pretzel when she was sitting next to spiderman earlier). We decided to try and put some quarters inside it to see how she does. She started crying but I held her hand the whole time. Soon her cry turned into a laugh and then she sat there smiling happily. Then the ride ended and she started bawling because it was over!! We decided to let her have another ride on it and bawled when that ride was over too. It's not easy being little :(

After being at the new outlet mall for a while, it was time to go to the next event planned. I think they call it Holiday Market. They had it at the Greensboro Coliseum. It's where a bunch of vendors go and set up booths of all new Christmas things coming out for the year. Pretty fun!

Here is James, taking a picture of himself. If you look in the background, you can see kinda what it was like there.

Here is a picture that James got of a camouflage-glam purse that someone was selling...for $45.99

Tali was getting goofy again.

twisting all around...

We were able to see Santa Clause there. (Tali's first encounter)

She would hardly get close enough for us to get a picture with him. This was the best picture we could get unfortunately. This Santa was very nice. He's giving her a sucker if you were wondering.

Tali and Livie.

There were fun blocks that Santa said they could play with.

We looked around for a few more hours and then left to go to Mario's pizza place for dinner. Very yummy pizza. Tali played in her cup of water with two straws and had a blast.

The day started at 5:45 am and we got home around 9:30 pm. A REALLY long day for Tali, but she seemed to love it :)