Busch Gardens (our trip to Virginia cont.)



Sophie and Daddy before riding Verbolten

Sophie, Abbie and Mama

Abbie loved the swings and the bumper cars!

Sophie with Hansel, Gretel and the witch after their performance.

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A pretty cool shot that Matt got of the foal in mid-air.

Sophie and Paw-paw Tom

Uh-oh!  What has Sophie done?

 We had such a busy week while we were visiting family in Virginia.  Some of us headed to Busch Gardens Sunday evening while Mimi stayed back with the kids.  There is so much to do at Busch Gardens!  On Monday, all of us headed to Busch Gardens.  Matt and I had ridden the new roller coaster, Verbolten.  Although Sophie was tall enough, I really didn't think she'd want to ride it.  There's no upside down parts or anything but a lot of it was inside where it was totally dark and it is pretty fast.  Anyway, when Matt and I were going to ride it for a second time, Sophie somehow decided to ride it.  I tried to tell her about it because I wanted to be honest.  After, we got off the ride though she got kind of upset because I think it was pretty scary for her!  I felt bad for her because I didn't want her to do something that was too scary for her.

We had a great time at Busch Gardens!  The weather was a little strange and it started sprinkling at times.  We were able to see a couple of shows.  I think we probably could have spent another day at Busch Gardens but we didn't.  The girls also rode in go-carts while we were there and we did several other things.  I'll try to post more pictures soon.

Bike Riding and Maymont Park (Part 1 of trip to Virginia)

Abbie riding her bike

Paw-paw Tom with Sophie and Abbie

Abbie and Sophie looking cool

bears at play

 

our gang at the Japanese gardens at Maymont Park

us with the waterfall

Mimi and Sophie (not sure what they are doing)

Sophie and Abbie in the beautiful gardens

the girls with Paw-paw Tom and Mimi

Abbie as I try to hand the butterfly off to her

Sophie holding a butterfly (no,there's really not one sitting on her head). =)

 

A little over 2 weeks ago, our family headed up to east TN and then on up to Richmond, VA to visit Matt's family.  We arrived in Richmond on Friday, June 15, just after Matt's mom, Teresa, finished the school year.  For the first couple of days after we arrived, it was so nice because the temperatures were much cooler there than at home.  The highs were only in the upper 70's and low to mid 80's.  The first few nights, it was so cool that I could have used a jacket.  The girls enjoyed riding their bikes some in the cul-de-sac where Matt's family lives.  With Paw-paw Tom's help Sophie learned to ride her bike independently without training wheels (finally).  We were so happy!

On Saturday, we all headed out to Maymont Park to enjoy the beautiful day.  We saw a variety of animals, walked around and enjoyed the gardens, and had a picnic lunch.  We really enjoyed being able to see the bears playing really near to where we were.  The girls loved walking across the large stepping stones in the middle of the pond (in the Japanese garden).  I was just praying that no one fell into the water.  They were also having a special event that day at the park called the Bumblebee Jamboree (what a fun name, huh?).  Anyway, they had crafts for the kids to do, educational stuff, a puppet show, etc.  We were able to go into a tent and see some butterflies up close and we all had a chance to hold them.  It was a fun day.  

Abbie's graduation

Abbie and Uncle Phil (Abbie smiled the whole time at graduation).

Abbie and Mrs. Gloria as she went up front to receive her preschool diploma.

Abbie with Layla ( a friend from church).

 

Mrs. Gloria, Paw-paw, Abbie and Mama

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Here's some pictures from a couple of weeks ago.  We are in summer mode around here where we are not on much of a schedule so I'm a little behind on blogging.

American Girl Party-part 2

our family before the party



Sophie with her dolls at the doll table before the party

   

Sophie and Maddie



Meredith and Sophie



Mary and Sophie



Emerson and Sophie



Allie and Sophie



Ella and Sophie



Carley and Sophie



Jordan and Sophie



Lauren and Sophie



Taylor and Sophie

       

the doll table

all of the girls (minus Ashton-Lauren's little sister) with their dolls

Here's several pictures from Sophie's birthday party.  The girls enjoyed painting their picture frames and then had a nice picture to take home from the party.  They had a great time at the party and I think it was a memorable party for Sophie!

An American Girl Celebration-Sophie's 7th birthday party



This is the scooter that we gave Sophie for her birthday.



Sophie and Molly are ready for the party.



Some of the girls playing musical chairs.

  



Kendall, Allie, Sophie, Ella, Lauren, Meredith, Carley and Emerson.



Maddie, Emma, Jordan, Mary, Taylor, Abbie, and Ashton.

Sophie with her "7" cake made from cupcakes.

Treat bags!

Keri, my cousin, and Martha (my sis) who are both expecting babies this year and were a big help at the party.

This year we did an American girl party for Sophie's birthday.  We had it at our church and 12 of Sophie's friends were able to come alongwith Abbie and one friend's younger sibling.  I will have to post some more pictures soon because we had some really cute pictures of each girl and her doll with Sophie on another memory card.  Each of the girls painted a picture frame and then Matt went to Walgreen's one hour photo so that each girl would have a picture from the party to place in her picture frame.  I also had about 4 different games planned including pin the hat on Molly, musical chairs, toss the handkerchief (like duck, duck goose) and the egg on the spoon relay.  We had a special table for the dolls to sit and little lip glosses in the shape of cupcakes so it looked like the dolls had something to eat too. 

Thankfully, my mom, Martha, my cousin, Keri, and Kathryn helped a lot with serving the food at the tea party.  I had made place cards for each of the girls with an American girl doll sticker on it.  Each of the girls was served a turkey and cheese sandwich (shaped like a flower), a cupcake, mints that mom and I had made, and an ice cream cup.  We also served some punch.  What I had not counted on was that we were pretty much done with everything by 3:00 and we had an hour left.  Sophie opened her gifts (to kill some time).  All of that sugar kicked in and the girls got kind of hyper.  We decided to take them back into the gym and let them do a few more relays to burn off some energy.  Then, we came back and let the girls put stickers on their picture frames and finish that, get their treat bags, etc.  All in all, the party went really well and I think the girls had a good time.   I'll try to post more pictures from the party soon! 

Sophie's birthday cont and Birthday Party Preparations



Here's Sophie on the morning of her birthday.  She's so excited!



We let Sophie open one of her presents on the night before her birthday.  She opened this Lego Friends set from Mimi and Paw-paw Tom and loved it!  She started putting it together right then.  Her Lego set even had a Sophie in it.

As I mentioned earlier, Uncle Phil came over and Sophie's birthday and we went to Chuck E. Cheese with he and Nana and Paw-paw.

Uncle Phil with Abbie (none of our pictures was good of both girls so I cropped)

I was busy making things in the days and weeks leading up to Sophie's American Girl parties.  Maybe there's a little bit of Martha-Martha Stewart that is, somewhere inside me.  I punched this scrapbook paper out and glued it onto clothespins to use on our treat bags for the party.

These are some of the cupcakes that I made for Sophie's party.  I added some sprinkles later.  Thanks to my friend, Kathryn, for letting me borrow her special decorating tip and cake decorating book so that I could try to make them fancy!

Since Sophie had an American Girl party, I made these little party hats for each of the girls' dolls using a pattern that I found online.  Not too hard but some of these projects can be time consuming.