Fun Times with Family

"the girls table"-Karina, Sophie, Ellie, & Gracie had fun eating together

Caleb has such a sweet smile!

Here are our girls with their Daddy!

Last week, we had fun celebrating Matt's birthday with my side of the family and with our immediate family. We went out to dinner at Outback with my family. Later in the week, we were excited to be able to spend time with some of my first cousins and their children. One of my cousins, Craig, and his wife, Megan, came in from Northern VA with their 3 kids. Our children are close in age and they don't get to see each other very often, so they had a great time! Thanks for hosting dinner for all of us, Jim and Linda!

Seeing the Grinch

Caleb, Emma, & Sophie

the people of Whoville

Sophie & Emma

the Grinch

We have been pretty busy the last few days. On Thursday, Sophie went to school as usual and then, that afternoon my cousin, Sarah and her husband and kids came in town for a conference, as well as my Aunt Mary. My aunt came along so that she could babysit the kids while Sarah and Jason went to their conference. We had dinner with them that night at my parents' house and then spent the next few days hanging out with them. Sophie was excited to be hanging out with her cousins. Everywhere they went together Sophie wanted to hold their hands. Poor Caleb because he was the only boy cousin around! On Friday, my aunt & I went out to Opryland to see "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" in Ice. It was really awesome and also freezing cold. Everything inside was made out of ice in the display. It wasn't crowded and all of us went down the indoor slides except for Sophie! That was a blast! I think I was more into it than the kids were because they said they were freezing. I was like thinking, "we're here, we've paid the money (it wasn't cheap) and it's not crowded so let's don't go through this too quickly." They have everyone wear the big blue parkas inside and Sophie looked so funny because hers was huge. She fell down one time and was having trouble getting up because the sleeves on her coat were quite long as well as the length of the coat itself. It was good for keeping her warm though!

Afterwards, we decided to head over to Opry Mills Mall (right next door) and let the bigger kids see the Aquarium Restaurant that has a huge indoor aquarium. My aunt just suggested that we go ahead and splurge and have lunch there so we did. The kids all loved that. Sophie had been before but she was in heaven getting to spend time with her big cousins. =)