Sophie's 8th birthday

Sophie's ready to celebrate her birthday!

 

 

 

 

 

For Sophie's 8th birthday, we told her she could only invite a few friends for a small party.  She invited four friends and they were all able to come.  We had the party at our house this year and we had an owl theme.  We ordered pizza, made a couple of crafts including beaded necklaces and tie-dye shirts, played a game and had cupcakes and ice cream.  The girls loved doing the tie-dye shirts!  We didn't get a very good group photo of the girls at the party and we forgot to take any family pictures.  I made owl cupcakes which turned out pretty well but it's hard to tell from the pictures.

Her school friends that came to the party were the following: Allie Wells, Nagisa Amada, and Caragh Clark.  From church, Carley and Jessie Gray were able to come.  "Miss" Jill, their mom, was a big help when we were tie-dyeing the shirts.  We did it in our garage but it was hard for everyone to wash up afterwards and not make a huge mess coming back in the house.  I let the girls wear T-shirts of Sophie's over their clothes so that they wouldn't stain their clothes too much.

Sophie wanted a rainbow loom kit to make bracelets for her birthday.  We gave her one but it arrived late because the toy store had run out of them.  She also wanted a mini Caroline doll which Mimi and Paw-paw Tom gave her.  She also got the Disney Pictionary game alongwith several surprises.  Sophie still loves to read and do art projects.  She just completed her 2nd school year of taking violin lessons.  Right before Sophie's birthday party, we purchased a "new" used Toyota Sienna van that's black because Matt is about to start a new job and will have to give up his company van soon. 

Busch Gardens-Spring Break 2013

Sophie and Abbie with a cheetah (I think)

Look at that giraffe!

Here's Abbie posing with a gorilla statue.

Wow!  Abbie is being brave.  She usually doesn't like people dressed up in costume.

Sophie's ready to drive!

Now it's Abbie's turn.

The girls loved the Shamu stuffed animals that Mr. Scott and  his friend, Mr. Matt, won for them at Sea World.

After heading to Sea World for a couple of days, we headed over to Busch Gardens.  We had a good time over there   but it seemed to be pretty busy by the time we got there.   It was also warm outside.  The girls were able to see some shows and we rode some rides.  We enjoyed seeing some of the animals.  We all loved watching the apes!  The girls waited to ride the cars shown above for almost 30 minutes I think and then right when we were almost up there, Abbie had to go to the bathroom.  Ugh!  So, Matt stayed with Sophie and she rode.  I took Abbie to the bathroom.  When we came back, a lady in the line recognized Matt and knew that he had been waiting before with the girls.  She let him go in front of her.  That was so nice!!  We went to the Sesame Street show with the live characters even though at first Abbie acted like she didn't care about it.  Even though she let us take her picture with the huge character shown above, she wanted to sit in the back and wanted to stay far away from the characters.  =)   All in all, we had a fun trip to Florida.  I wish that the weather had been better while we were at the beach so we could enjoy it but what can you do?  We flew in and out of Birmingham and we got home on Saturday evening, just in time for Easter.  We were all exhausted when we got home from our busy trip! 

Day 2 at Sea World-Spring Break 2013

We decided to go back to Sea World for a second day and try to meet up with the Gray's for at least part of the time.  We wanted to check out Downtown Disney first because we had never been.  It wasn't busy at all when we went first thing in the morning.  We walked around a little bit and did some souvenir shopping.  We only saw part of it I'm sure.  The Lego store was really fun to see with their life-size Lego sculptures of Disney characters outside the store!

We arrived at Sea World mid-day and were going to meet up with the Gray's but then Carley ended up being sick so her parents, Scott and Jill, stayed with her most of the day.  We met up with Jessie and Matt and Amy later in the day (Scott came later too).  Our family was able to see the Shamu show first thing which we had missed the day before.  Our girls wanted to collect different pressed pennies throughout their park with different animals on them to take home.  We did a few more rides that day and decided to stay for the Shamu Rocks show that night because our girls seemed to catch a second wind.  Abbie really wanted to ride the big roller coasters that the adults were riding.  Oh my!!

 I forgot to mention that during our first day at Sea World, we had a big scare.  The kids were playing in the huge playground area that has big nets, slides, etc.   Matt had gone up there with Jessie and Abbie.  They all came down one of the slides and then he couldn't find Abbie.  All of the adults in our group were searching for Abbie.  We were quite scared for a few minutes because there were a lot of people there and we didn't know where she could have gone.  Thankfully, Scott found her after a few minutes.  It is a terrible feeling to lose your child!  All of the shows that we saw were awesome!  We were all exhausted at the end of the night!

 

Here we are-ready to begin our 2nd day at Sea World!

I have to admit that we got a kick out of seeing the people get soaked down in the Splash Zone at the Shamu show!

Sophie and I on the carousel.

Here's Abbie on the carousel.

 

Our girls are in the aquarium.  Oh no!

 

We finally managed to get a family shot.

Sea World-Spring Break 2013 part 2

Then, on Tuesday, we checked out of our hotel and drove over to Orlando.  We were able to meet up with our friends, the Gray's, who go to church with us back home, at Sea World.  Our girls got along great with their girls, Carley and Jessie.  We had a very full day and enjoyed seeing a few shows and riding some rides.  The Gray's friends, Matt and Amy, who live in Florida, spent the day with us as well.  We loved seeing the dolphin show, the nighttime otter show and I think one other one that day.  It got really cool for Florida when the sun went down with temps in the upper 40's and low 50's in the evening.  We had such a wonderful day enjoying Sea World and hanging out with friends.

Jill rode the crab ride with the girls!  I probably would have ridden if  I had remembered that their version wasn't jerky.

Abbie, Carley and Sophie are ready for the dolphin show.

Look at this guy riding the dolphins!

Matt got some amazing shots of these dolphins in action!

Carley, Sophie and Jessie have been looking at some of the animals.

Beautiful girls with a lovely background.

Jessie didn't want to smile but she gave in.  =)

Abbie's Easter egg party

Anna and Abbie enjoying their lunch from Chick-Fil-A

Abbie's having fun at the party!

Abbie's daddy stopped in for the party.

Here's Abbie with her Mama.

(Yes, I know these posts are out of order.  I'm sorry about that.   I thought that this posted last night but it didn't.)  A week or two before Easter (which was in March this year), we had a really cold spell again.   The Easter egg hunts had to be held inside this year at Abbie's school because it was just too rainy and cold.  The kids enjoyed their lunch from Chick-Fil-A alongwith some Easter treats and goodies for dessert.  Then, they went into the gym for an egg hunt.  Abbie still has a great fear of people who are dressed up in costume (if their face is covered) so she was worried about the Easter bunny coming to visit her at the party.  (Last year, she started crying and carrying on so I had to take her out of the room).  This year, I told her that it was just Madden's dad who dressed up and that she didn't need to worry but she was definitely worried.  Before the party, I found the dad who usually dresses up as the Easter party and I asked him if he could let me know before he was coming to Abbie's class because I told him how frightened she was.  Abbie's teacher told me just to tell him not to come by her class because she had several kids who were scared of the Easter bunny.

Clearwater Beach-Spring Break 2013 part 1

our crazy girls-Nope, we can't have a "normal" beach picture like most folks!

 

Aww..sweet girls looking out of our hotel window.

The girls are all smiles!

Paula and the girls with the Lego statue at the Science museum.

Abbie's got the beat!

 

The girls posing at the science center.

 

Yes, it was very windy and chilly while we were at the beach.  We had some seafood at Frenchy's.

Matt and the girls with Little Toot, a boat we rode a couple of years ago.

If you ask me and the girls, the Seabird Sanctuary was a little stinky.   =)

Beautiful sunset at the beach.

Our funny girls

Sophie's riding on the trolley.

 We were able to return to Clearwater Beach this year for Spring Break but this time we flew!  It was a little bit warm when we first arrived and then they had a cold spell for a few days.  It wasn't really ideal beach weather.  After we arrived on Saturday, the girls swam in our hotel's heated pool for a little bit and we briefly went down to the beach (the girls just put their feet in ).  On Sunday, we got up and went to church and then had lunch.  It looked like a storm was going to move in and it got really WINDY.  We had brought some kites so Matt took the girls to try to fly them.  Well, I think Abbie got scared because it was so incredibly windy so I said that I would just come down to get her and then bring her back to our hotel room.  Well, some idiot had pulled the fire alarms on various floors so Abbie was so UPSET by the wind (frightened too, I guess) but then we couldn't use the elevators for a while because of the fire alarms being pulled.  I knew where some steps were right outside of the hotel so that we could go up to our room but Abbie wouldn't go because she didn't want to step outside at all into the wind.  Oh well!  After a little bit, we were able to go back to our room.  We ended up going to the science museum in Tampa for a while.  Abbie loved the play restaurant and grocery.  She played in there for a long time!  Sophie loved this quiz show type exhibit where different kids could try to answer questions.  That night, we tried out a local Italian restaurant and had some delicious pizza. 

On Monday, Matt had hoped that we might could go on a dolphin cruise but all of the caution flags were out on the beach.  Most of the dolphin cruises were not running because the water was too choppy and they thought it was too dangerous.  We took a walk and the kids were able to play on the playground by the pier.  Then, we went to a seafood restaurant for lunch.  Both of the girls tried my shrimp.  We didn't end up doing too much on Monday.  That night though, we headed down to the pier and enjoyed the entertainment there and then watched the sunset.  It was pretty cool during the day but really cold at night while we were there.