A Family Celebration

Sophie's about to enjoy a cupcake!

our family-yes, we are looking different directions but at least we're all smiling!

Abbie & Sophie love playing with their cousins-here's Abbie & Sierra hanging out!

One of Sophie's favorite gifts was a Barbie head where you can style her hair with tons of accessories. Here, the girls are playing together somewhat nicely. Sharing toys is always a challenge at our house.

On Saturday evening, we had planned to have a birthday dinner at our house to celebrate Nana and Sophie's birthdays. Nana's birthday is on April 30 and Sophie's is on May 1st. Well, Saturday it just rained and rained and rained. Our area received 10-12 inches on Saturday alone. Some of the roads around us were closed on Saturday afternoon, including I-65. It ended up some of the family who had planned to come on Saturday night were not able to make it because their street was flooded or they just realized how bad the roads were. We had a birthday dinner but Nana and Paw-paw didn't get to make it until later that night. Aunt Patti, Uncle John, Randle and David were able to come. It was a nice surprise that Uncle Mike, Summer and Sierra were able to come because the girls had been at the Cool Springs mall when tornado warnings started coming in so that they couldn't leave the mall. It continued to rain all day on Sunday too and it has caused a lot of people around Nashville to lose their homes or have significant amounts of flood damage.
On Saturday night the tornado sirens started going off after we went to bed but no tornadoes touched down. On Sunday morning, after watching the news, we decided to try to head to church. It was barely raining at our house. When we got to Brentwood though, it started really pouring. We made it to church but parts of Franklin Road already had significant amounts of water flowing over it. Our church didn't have power. We decided to just head home and hang out. Matt was afraid that if we went somewhere else for church, we might not be able to get home since so many roads were already flooded and it was raining so heavily. We already knew from talking to my mom that several streets in the Crieve Hall were badly flooded. I think we made a good decision because many parts of Nashville were badly flooded on Sunday. It's the worst disaster I've ever seen in Nashville!

Sophie's 5!

Sophie riding the carousel

Sophie's Barbie cake

Emerson and Sophie eating cake

Sophie is so excited to be eating pizza and celebrating with her friends!

Sophie turned 5 on Saturday, May 1st. For some reason, this birthday seems really hard for her mommy to swallow because it means that she'll be starting kindergarten in a few months. We decided to celebrate Sophie's birthday at Chuck E. Cheese's this year with some of her friends. We had it on a Thursday night which was great because it wasn't crowded and we did before all of the storms came over the weekend! The kids ate pizza, played games, and ate cake. Abbie was pretty scared of Chuck E. Cheese, even the electronic one.

Buddy the Clown

Sophie & Buddy, the clown

Mr. Buddy made each of the kids a balloon animal. Sophie's Paw-paw knows Mr. Buddy and he really wanted to have the clown come for Sophie's birthday. Paw-paw arranged it with Sophie's teacher, etc. The kids enjoyed it but it did take awhile for Mr. Buddy to make the balloon animals. Also, it was kind of interesting because he is hearing impaired. He can read lips however, the kids got kind of restless after waiting for a little while as he made the balloon animals.

After Mr. Buddy finished making the balloon animals, we went back to Sophie's class and had ladybug cupcakes.. Mama, Daddy, Paw-paw, and Uncle Phil were able to be there. Sophie had specially requested ladybug cupcakes. She also got to bring a "me' bag where she brought special objects that she could show and tell the class about.

More pics from Chuck E. Cheese's

Grady loved playing ball

Miss Kate whose birthday is one day after Sophie's

Can you tell Abbie enjoyed eating her cake?

Carley & Sophie with Chuck E. Cheese

All in all, the kids had a wonderful time at Chuck E. Cheese's. It was a pretty easy party to have and we had a good turnout. I hope Sophie will have some happy memories from her 5th birthday!

Recent Zoo Trip

Abbie & Ella look for gators

Sophie & Nathan (they look like they are on a date or something here but they are just friends.)

me & Abbie on the carousel

Sophie riding the panda

Last week, we made a trip to the zoo and enjoyed the warm weather. We met up with a friend of mine since childhood, Suzanne, and her two kids. Abbie and Ella enjoyed "hanging out" a little since they the same age and Sophie & Nathan got along well together. They will both start Kindergarten next year. Suzanne and I went to kindergarten together (that's where we met) so I told her it's weird that our kids are both starting kindergarten now. We enjoyed seeing some animals, having a picnic lunch and riding the carousel. It was so hot after lunch that we just briefly played on the playground before deciding that we were ready to head home.

Today's the Day

Recently, Sophie heard about Earth Day and she wanted to organize each member of the family so that we helped do something kind for the Earth. She wanted us to make a list of what we would do. It was pretty funny. She wanted to focus on helping her Daddy outside in the yard. Abbie "helped" Mommy sweep some. Anyway, I just thought Abbie was too cute here!

Today, however, particularly around her normal times to sleep, Abbie has not been a happy camper. Her mean Mama and Daddy decided that it was time to snip the ends off of her paci (we were tired of having to get up during the night to go find a paci). When Abbie wanted the paci this morning, she said, "paci broken." Then (mysteriously) her other paci was broken too, so after a few minutes of her trying to suck on them, I encouraged her to just throw them away and she did. However, no nap today (boo). Bedtime was hard tonight too but we are going to try to stay strong. (I'll try to update with more pictures soon.)

Abbie doesn't mind stopping for some chocolate!

Let me see...what kind of candy's in here?

Sophie's playing in our new PINK and BLUE sand!

We had a great Easter this year! The weather was really nice and we were glad that Matt's family could come and visit. We were able to be with some of each of our families. They left on Tuesday to head back home. On Wednesday, we were able to enjoy hanging out with the Gray's at the park. The only downside was that it was really WINDY and a little chilly at times. The girls had a great time swinging and sliding together. I wish that I had remembered to bring my camera! They all swung on the tire swing at the same time. The older girls were all really sweet about helping Abbie.