Thursday, February 24, 2011

My baby is 2...

Ava is officially 2 years old today. What a wonderful and fun little girl she is! She makes us all laugh and is a joy to be around. Happy Birthday Ava Kate!!

The many faces of Ava...






Priceless!

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Meet Macy...our new puppy

I don't know what I was thinking, but I gave in. Yes, I gave in and we now have a new puppy named Macy. She is a black Miniature Schnauzer. She is really cute and the kids are SO excited. One of these puppies is Macy, but I can't remember which one (I think she is the one on the right)!



She has conquered Cooper!






Friday, February 18, 2011

Visiting the Murphy's

I have MANY more pictures to add to this....

My wonderful husband setup a trip for me to go visit the Murphy's in South Carolina. It was so great to see them again! I really miss having them next-door to me and seeing them every day. I can't wait to bring Mark and the kids out here to visit. They will love it! On Wednesday, Christy picked me up at the Savannah airport. She took me back to their BEAUTIFUL home and we took their golf cart for a ride around their neighborhood in Okatie. It was "Taste of Texas night" at the Magnolia grill which is located at the golf club in their neighborhood, so we had dinner there. Their neighborhood is like a resort. They have everything from really nice swimming pools, golf courses, weight rooms, restaurants, fishing, and on and on. I cannot imagine how wonderful it must be to live there year round!

We really enjoyed our food and took lots of pictures of it! I texted many pictures of the great food back home to Mark. Yes, I was rubbing it in, but he does that to me when he is on business trips and eating at fancy restaurants! On Thursday, we drove over to Charleston to eat and shop. The parking is a mess down on King St. where we spent the day.
We found a spot in a parking lot that was $1 an hour and you could only get a ticket for 2 hours at a time. We ended up walking back three times during the day to put change in the machine. I set my alarm on my phone each time so we would not forget. It's a good thing too, because two hours flies by fast when you are finding some great items in J Crew. :) (Christy, I copied what you wrote...I have forgotten the details!)
We ate at a little place called Caviar & Bananas. It was similar to The Market that used to be at Pinnacle Hills. It was really neat and appeared to be popular with all the college kids. I felt old and fat! But, that didn't keep me from eating :)



Christy had a grilled chicken breast salad and a peanut butter and jelly cupcake. I had a lobster salad and a red velvet cupcake. The food was so good!

I really liked Charleston. It was a neat city, at least this part of the city was neat! These are all little shops lining the street. We saw many college students riding bikes up and down the street. Would be a neat place to go to college.


On Saturday, Chris' parents kept Ian, Lia and Ali so that Christy and I could go over to Savanna, GA for the day. I really loved it there. I had no idea how beautiful that city is. The trees are amazing. I really liked all the parks the city has. There is a park on every corner.

A Riverboat on River Street and the cobblestone roads. So pretty.
There was a candy shop on every corner...it seemed :)


The City Market.


My kids would have loved the way the police patrol the city.

We walked so much and our feet hurt so bad that we had to sit down and take a break.





There were some beautiful architecture.








We ate a "The Lady and Sons" which is Paula Dean's restaurant. When we got to Savannah at 10:30 in the morning, Christy was so smart to suggest we see if we can get on the waitlist for this restaurant. They were already so booked and we couldn't get in until 2:30. It was so worth waiting for. The food was incredible Southern food. One of my favorite things they made was the appetizer of a pancake with a cheese biscuit on top. They told us to put Maple syrup on top of both and eat them together. Oh SO good!!! I can't even tell you how good that was. Something so simple, yet so wonderful!


Christy and I with Paula Dean herself! ;)



The trees are already starting to bloom there. The weather was just beautiful!!! Wish it was like that here.







Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Kiwanis Terrific Kid Award...

Cooper was selected as a Kiwanis Terrific Kid today for Miss Randall's 1st grade class. He was so excited! He received a certificate and got to listen to a woman from the Shilo Museum tell about how people in the 1800's would pick cotton and make their own clothes. It was actually very interesting. Congrats Cooper!

Historian passing out cotton for the kids to pick the cotton seeds out.

Picking out the cotton seeds.

Waiting to receive his certificate.

One Terrific Kid!
The first grade Kiwanis Terrific Kids (2 kids from each 1st grade class were selected)


Monday, February 14, 2011

Valentine's Day 2011

For Sophie and Ava's birthday, I gave them matching outfits and even Sophie's American Girl Doll got a matching outfit. They were perfect for Valentine's Day parties. I thought the girls were so cute!



Daddy and his girls! Mark got Ava, Sophie and me flowers on Valentine's Day. The girls LOVED getting flowers. This was Ava's first time to get flowers and I was so surprised at how excited she was. She absolutely beamed with pride, just like her sister Sophie. :) They have such a great daddy! He also got me an iPad!!!!!!! I was so surprised and very, very excited!