Ice Cream, You Scream

This morning the Co-op went on a field trip to tour Hershey's Ice Cream store. They showed us how they make an ice cream cake and frost it. Abbie got to mix some of the frosting and really loved that part. We also got to watch them make a waffle cone.


Abbie finishing mixing the frosting. (she was actually really excited about it and was the first to volunteer)


All the kids watching the ice cream cake being frosted.


Watching the waffle cone being made.

The favorite part of the day was definitely getting to eat ice cream! Especially since it was before lunch. They thought it was so funny that they were able to eat dessert before lunch:) Abbie had "Superman" ice cream. It was red, blue and yellow and must have had a TON of food coloring in it.


Abbie and Molly eating their ice cream.


Molly was putting every last sprinkle back in her bowl.


Abbie eating her Superman ice cream.


Abbie got ice cream all over her face and eyebrow. The blue, red and yellow mixed together made a brownish black color.

It was a fun morning and I know we will be going back for ice cream there again as a family!

All at once

The other day Molly spilled something on her PJ shirt at breakfast. I got her a new shirt from her her school bag. For some reason Molly does not like to just change one piece of her clothing. You have to change both, even if they are both PJs or both clothes. So she went on her own and got the pants out of her bag and then put them on over her PJ pants by herself! She then proceeded to go find her shoes (she absolutely loves wearing shoes, unlike me who hates wearing shoes) and put those on also. Here she is afterwards:





Do you notice anything wrong with these pictures??

If you look closely, you can see the pants are on backwards and the shoes are on the wrong feet:) I hated to even fix it because I was just excited she could get her pants on by herself!

President's Day

Monday was President's Day so Graham had a day off from school. It was an absolutely beautiful day (and they were finishing our carpet) so I decided to take the kids to Maitland park. I told you we would be going back soon!

The kids loved playing in the sand of the volleyball court. When we got home they all still had a ton of sand in their shoes.





Can you tell that Graham was excited about the bumpy roller slide?



Ever since our vacation, Molly has really started to have a thing about sticks. She carried this around for a long time until I wouldn't let her climb up the ladder with it in her hand.



I love Abbie's little face in this picture. She is doing a great job learning to swing by herself. She almost has it, she just needs to realize that she can do it.



Molly is such a little daredevil sometimes. She was making me nervous while she was swinging like this, but she absolutely loved it! Graham was such a sweet big brother pushing Molly.






After our long day, Molly was worn out at dinner time. Notice she only ate about one bite of her food, she was exhausted!

Valentine's Day

Since Valentine's Day was on a Saturday this year, we had a special "Valentine Party" breakfast together as a family. Marty put up some balloons and streamers around the kitchen table. We also made pink heart pancakes with strawberries and cool whip. I had bought these cute heart shaped plates that have sayings like conversation hearts do. (they were a little hard to eat with though since the words stick up on the plate)


The kids with their Valentine's breakfast.


All decorated for the "Valentine Party."

We gave the kids there presents from Memaw and Papaw, which of course they loved. They got a Bibleman DVD from them also and they have watched it many times since.

Then we each passed out our gifts. I had just gotten Marty something little but thoughtful. I bought him a Rock Em Sock Em Robots. He has commented many times about them and how he loved playing with it when he was younger, and since he still loves playing with toys what better gift could I give him?


Marty and Graham playing with the new toy.


Molly got a toy with Mickey and Minnie and had them in the boxing ring with the Robots.

Well, Marty ended up surprising me a lot. He told me on Friday he was excited to give me my present and that it was small. Well it was small but only in size. It was my mom's wedding ring! We had used the diamond from it for my original wedding ring (that got stolen) and had wanted to fix my mom's ring for a long time. And he surprised me and got it fixed for me to wear!! I, of course, started crying when I opened it. It is such a wonderful and thoughtful present!


Me wearing my Valentine's present.


My mom wearing the same ring while holding me.

Getting ready for new carpet

Today we got the kids rooms and playroom ready for the carpet installation. We had to take everything off the floor, which meant taking the girls bunk bed and crib apart (so Molly is moving to the lower bunk bed). When I was putting their mattresses on the floor they all thought it was so fun and were excited to sleep on the floor that night. Well, Graham asked if he could bring his mattress in also and sleep next to the girls. He doesn't have school tomorrow so I said yes. Wow, I have never seen my kids be so excited to go to sleep! They actually asked if they could take a nap:) They never actually went to sleep but I didn't mind since that meant they would be more tired at night and go to sleep better.

Here they are getting ready to "nap" (Graham always does something silly in pictures lately). The three mattresses took up almost the whole room:)



Tonight they did great going to sleep. They, of course, talked for a short time but then they all went to sleep and there were no problems - yeah!

Getting the carpet installed has been a bit of a pain moving all the furniture, but it looks so great. Here is the difference:


We went from berber (the light color) to friese (darker one). Just an FYI, if you ever move into a house and don't like the carpet, figure out a way to change it before you move in. It will be so much easier!

Valentine's Day Picnic

Abbie, Molly and I went to the Moms4Moms Valentine's Picnic on Friday. It was at Maitland Community Park. We had never been there but will definitely be returning, we all really loved it. It was great to get to know some of the other mothers better and for the girls to get to play with some friends.

You can't really tell what this is but Abbie was afraid to climb this at first. Then she just did it on her own, I was so proud of her!

The park has this slide made from rollers so it was bumpy when you went down. All the kids really loved the slide!

Abbie, Molly and Sarah. The three of them loved playing together. Sarah especially loved acting like Molly's big sister, it was very sweet.

Molly climbing up to the roller slide.

Molly sliding down the roller slide (notice Sarah helping Molly). I also posted a video of Abbie sliding and also of the girls spinning at the park on YouTube.

Not yet

We were supposed to have new carpet put in downstairs and in our bedroom on Tuesday. Well when the installers went to pick it up, they didn’t have the padding?! Marty and I had gotten these rooms completely ready for install, which meant that we had moved everything out of these rooms. Since our living room was empty Abbie, Molly and I had a picnic lunch on the floor.

(Marty put the chair and table in the room so we could have a place to sit.)

Then Marty suggested we set up our tent inside for the kids to play in. They all had a blast eating dinner in the tent and playing.

The installers were able to put the carpet in Wednesday and it looks amazing! I will post some pictures later. We got rid of our ugly berber and now have friese (a type of shag). It is a drastic difference!

Monster Jam

Graham and Marty went to the Monster Jam two weeks ago, on January 24. This year they went with some friends early to the preshow where you can get your picture taken with the trucks and meet some of the drivers. All the boys loved seeing the trucks up close. I think that Graham's favorite part about going early was that they ate ribs from a street vendor (Marty said they were probably the best ribs he has ever had). He has asked a few times when he can have ribs again!

All the boys before seeing the monster trucks.


Here they are with Graham's favorite truck, Grave Digger.


Graham looks so small on the huge monster truck.



Daddy and Graham, Graham loved spending the day with his daddy.


Graham with his stuffed Grave Digger that our friends bought him. He has been sleeping with it every night since! You can sort of tell in the pic that Graham and Marty were very close, about on the 4th or 5th row. When they first started Graham got really upset because it was so loud. Once they got ear plugs, actually double earplugs, he was great and loved it.


Graham's favorite truck, Grave Digger, after winning. He crashed right before this and Graham got really upset until Marty explained that sometimes they do that for the crowd:)


Monster Jam has definitely become a yearly boys tradition!

Here's a video of the silly boys killing time before the Monster Jam begins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9UBhlRLtXM

Vacation - Last day

Our last day of vacation was mostly just getting ready to leave. The kids had a blast running around and playing outside. When we left, we followed Mat and Brittani this time so the roads weren't so windy. Much better on the way home, no one got car sick!

It couldn't go that easy, so on our stop for dinner we got a flat tire?!

One of our first concerns was that we couldn't drive all the way home on a spare. Wow, amazing how God helped us get it fixed and how quickly was amazing. First we couldn't drive the car at all, so we were pulled off in the grass under the bridge. We didn't have our Allstate Motor Club card with us, but technology was on our side this time (unlike on the way to the cabin). Allstate connected us with a Tow Company that called us immediately. And even better the Tow truck was only about 10 minutes away. Marty walked the kids and myself across the street to Sonny's, which we all love their food. As soon as we got across the street, the tow company called and they were at our car already. The driver had a friend that works at Tires Plus, right down the road, and had already called his friend to get them to stay open late for us! We were just blown away by the Tow driver and how much he went over and beyond what was necessary.

The kids did amazingly well at Sonny's.  They were so sweet and helpful.  I know they were glad to be out of the car and enjoyed coloring but they really made the experience so much better and so much easier.  

(someone obviously took the picture because it was funny. We didn't have that special that's for sure)

So within an hour or so, we had a new tire and had eaten a yummy dinner at Sonny's. What an adventure!

Vacation- 1/22/09

Thursday was a wonderful day.  It was warmer this day and the kids loved being outside.  After Breakfast, we all went for a short hike and had so much fun.  The mountains were beautiful and it was great to be outside.

  

The whole group ready for our hike.

All the kids bundled up going down the hill.

Graham especially enjoyed the hike and collecting things to show his class.

Molly absolutely loved her "walking stick." She did not want to put it down.

Molly loved that Anna wanted to help her get unbundled. 

After our hike, the boys made a fire and cooked hotdogs for lunch.  The funniest part was that it took a while for the fire to get going since the wood was a little wet from snow.  When the fire was finally ready to cook the hotdogs, we realized noone had gotten more hotdogs from the store.  We only had 4 hotdogs!  Here are the men cooking the (4) hotdogs. Graham is holding his nose from the smoke, not picking it.

After lunch we made smores by the fire though. They were so yummy! Here's Graham and I making our smores.

That evening we went to "Fun World" which is a huge arcade.  On the drive, the girls were really quiet.  Well, we discovered why when we got there.

We ate dinner there and then found out that they were closing in about 20 minutes!  So we played as many games as we could and as fast as we could.  We all commented afterwards that it really was a blessing and was fun.  We didn't have to deal with overtired or whiny kids because they were to busy trying to play as many games as they could.  And the kids still got some prizes and got to play lots of games.  We (actually Brittani) had to stop and take a picture outside the "Fun World" sign. 

Vacation-Second Day (1/21/09)

Wednesday morning Mat made piggy pancakes for all the kids. They turned out great and of course all the kids loved them!

Anna, Abbie and Molly (in the background) with their piggy pancakes.

Aren't they so fun?

That day we hung around the house playing and trying to stay warm.  Abbie and Anna loved playing together.  Aren't they so sweet in this picture?  I think it's sweet how Abbie's foot is wrapped under Anna's leg.

 

That evening we went to dinner at Rib Country with Mat's family.  They had paper bags for the kids to color on, so Marty being the kid he is made a mask out of one of them!

The food was great and the dessert was amazing.  Marty and I had a fried apple pie, yum! (there were no WW points counted this day)  I don't know what to say about the sign, especially since Mat's mom works there:)

The whole group after dinner:

I love this picture that Brittani took of Molly in her jacket.  Molly loved wearing her warm jacket and having the hood up.  I guess she loves pink furry things?!

I already posted the video of the girls singing a Hannah Montana song in the car so I won't post it again, but man were they so funny to listen to in the car.  All 3 of there little squeaky voices!