Family Celebration

Look at Abbie's creation!

Abbie's soccer team after their final game.

cousin time!

what a cutie-little Monroe!

Abbie, Sophie and Matt-Sophie's got her new music stand.

the birthday "girls"

Abbie in her pretty dress.

The weekend of Sophie and Nana's birthdays was quite busy.  Friday night we had Sophie's friends' party.  Saturday morning, Sophie's GS troop was doing a little booth at a garage sale for a little while.  Then, Sophie had a violin recital.  Nana and Paw-paw were able to come to that.  Sophie did a great job but she was really tired from staying up a little bit late the night before.

Our family ate some lunch and then, Abbie had her last soccer game of the season.  Afterwards, she got a new trophy and they had cookie cake.  Then, we went home to get cleaned up before going to Nana's house.  We were all able to be there-Uncle Phil, Nana and Paw-paw, Aunt Martha's family and our family.  We celebrated Nana's birthday that day (April 30) and Sophie's birthday on the next day.

On Sophie's birthday, she was able to open some gifts from us, we went to church and then we had lunch at Cheesecake Factory.  We were able to sit outside and we really enjoyed that.  That afternoon, our family went for a bike ride since the weather was nice.  Unfortunately, I think Sophie enjoyed it least of all because she got hot and sweaty.  Afterwards, we got some cold drinks from Sonic!  That night at church, there were having a special separate service led by young ladies and Sophie did a great job reading a scripture.  The girls had some cookies and snacks afterwards.  Whew, it was a busy weekend!!

Sophie's 11th Birthday

Sophie and Carley getting their nails done!

Lots of fun with "Minute to win it" games

Abbie vs. Allie on a challenge

Go, Sophie!  Get those ping pong balls out of there!

Another "minute to win it" challenge.  =)

We tried a face mask-here's the girls chillaxin'-Abby B., Anaiah, and Ellie

Here's Abby C. and Allie

Abbie, Sophie and Carley

Here's Jessie with her pyramid.

Allie and Sophie-BFFs since 1st grade!

Sophie, Anaiah, and Carley-we made bath bombs!

All of the girls watching a movie.

Did you know plastic stacking cups provide hours of entertainment?

I really can't believe it but Sophie turned 11 earlier this week on Sunday, May 1.  It seems crazy that she's already 11 and she's almost as tall as I am.  On the Friday before Sophie's birthday, we had a birthday party at our house.   Six of her friends were able to come so it was a great turnout.  I made poppyseed chicken casserole, rice, rolls, and then we had a tossed salad and strawberry pretzel salad that mom made.  (Sophie had requested no pizza this time.)  Our theme this year was a spa party and put on the invite that the girls could wear their p.j.s if they wanted to.  After the girls had dinner, we painted their nails and then, we played several "minute to win it" games.  The girls had a great time with these.  Then, some of the girls tried the face mask that I made (it turned out kind of runny).  Just for fun, they put some cucumber slices on their eyes.  Nana was able to come to the party and my friend, Jill, was nice enough to help me with painting nails, etc.  Carley's sister, Jessie, also stayed and played with Abbie.  After playing some games, the girls had some cookie cake and ice cream.  Then, we made some bath bombs that the girls could take home after they dried.  Sophie opened her gifts and then, they watched part of a movie called Parental Guidance with Billy Crystal and Marisa Tomei.  It was pretty funny!  After watching part of the movie, it was time for the girls to go home.  I think that all of them had a great time!

Funny Stories on Abbie

I had a couple of funny stories that I wanted to share about Abbie.  The first one has to do with Abbie's frequent sleep walking habits.  She usually goes to bed about 8:00 at night but she frequently gets up around 9:30 and we have to walk her back to bed.  Sometimes, she says things and other times she does not.  One night when she was sleep walking recently, Matt got up to check on her and help her get back to bed.  Before she got back in the bed she asked, "Did Sophie get baptized tonight?"  Matt just responded with a "yes".  We thought it was funny because Sophie was baptized last summer.  It's better not to argue with someone when he or she is half asleep though.  =)

A few days ago, we were driving home from church one Sunday night.  We had celebrated Sophie and Nana's birthdays over the weekend so we had been eating a lot of dessert (they had also brought cookie cake for Abbie's last soccer game on Saturday.)  Anyway, Abbie asked if she could have some cookie cake when we got home ( I had made some for Sophie's birthday cake).  I was a little bit distracted but I said, "well, you don't really need more dessert but maybe you can have just a bit".  We had also eaten lunch at Cheesecake Factory that day for Sophie's birthday and shared a piece of cheesecake.  She said, "what is a bit of cake?  I don't know what a bit of cake is.  Can I have more than a bit of cake?"  I said, a bit of cake just means that you only need a little bit."  She had also eaten cookies after church so I didn't really feel sorry for her.  We decided that both of the girls had already eaten enough dessert for the day!

Another story on Abbie that was cute happened this past Sunday morning.  Abbie usually takes some notes on our Sunday morning sermon.  She does a great job with it.  This past Sunday she was taking notes because normally her age group meets on Sunday nights and we review the scriptures from that morning's sermon.  Well, this Sunday she was taking notes and our preacher started talking about some recent health problems that he had.  He recently dislocated his hip and he was talking about he had to go back and look up his precautions from that surgery.  On one of the slides it listed some hip precautions.  Our preacher was tying that in to a Biblical point but Abbie busily copied down the precautions.  I just thought it was cute!

A few more party pictures...

the whole "Waggoner" clan (can you find Morgan?)

another shot-it's hard to get a decent picture of this many people!

The party planner extraordinaire-my awesome husband, Matt

Here are just a few more pictures from the birthday party.  It was a lot of fun!  I'm glad that my friend, Ruth, took some pictures of various people and  I was thankful that we got some family pictures.

Paula's 40th birthday party!

Me with my best friends from college, Jamie and Andrea

Jian and Paula

Diana Easley, Paula and Jennifer Brown

Several friends from church: the Moss', Kelley's, Liu's and Todd Potgeter and his brother

Hadleigh, Jonathan, Jennifer Brown, Molly Zirkle with Maddie Brown

Jon Zirkle and Eric Brown

Jennifer Potgeter, Jill Gray and Krissie Stegall

Anne Hyberger and Amy Waters

Scott Gray, Brian and Beth Tallent, background: Klarissa Jackson

Keri Thompson, Summer W., Jonathan Milewski

Aunt Patti, Aunt Shannon, Phil and Tanner Thompson

Matt and Martha

Our family by the sign that Martha and her boys made!

Yay!  It's time to open some gifts (lots of gifts)!

Here you can get an idea of all of the gifts that my mom, Martha and my family got together (40 gifts for my 40th bday).

Sophie made this little clay container for me!

Abbie made this cute little owl for me.

On March 4th, I had a big birthday-my 40th birthday or my 29th for the 11th time to be exact (just kidding).  I had told Matt that I really wanted them to do something for my birthday since it was a big one.  My 30th birthday was really no big deal.  We had moved to Charleston and didn't know a lot of people.  I think Matt was sick on my birthday that year or something.  Anyway, you know how the mom in most families goes all out to make everyone else's birthday special?  Well, that's how I am.  Trying to prepare the birthday honoree's favorite meal, favorite cake or dessert, shopping for presents, planning a party, and on and on it goes.  So, I thought, well this year, I believe it's my turn to have a little bit of a fuss made over me.  I guess that sounds spoiled but I'm just being honest.

Well, anyway, a couple of weeks before my birthday, Matt told me that there was going to be a game night at church on my birthday.  He told me that we were going to drop the kids off with some of our friends and then, we were going out to dinner or something.  The problem was, he couldn't say it with a straight face so I didn't really believe him.  I knew that they were planning something because my bossy self had sort of asked them to.  =)  Anyway, on the day of birthday, I got lots of nice texts, phone calls, and facebook messages, a couple of cards, etc.  That afternoon though, one of our friends texted me and asked if there would be food at my party.  I was just laughing when I read that message.  I told her that I didn't know.  I knew they were planning something but I didn't know what.  She officially let the cat out of the bag.  Our friend, Krista, is sweet but I guess she didn't remember that the e-mailed invitation said it was a surprise.

Anyway, that evening we headed for the church.  I tried to just along with everything.  The girls brought along a couple of games for the "game night".  I didn't know it until later but Sophie was texting different family members to let them know we were on our way, etc.  We got to our church and there were several cars but when we walked in, first I saw one of my nephews and a little cousin out in the hallway.  Then, we walked on around to the reception room.  It was dark in there and when we walked in, a whole bunch of people jumped out and said, "Surprise".  There were about 70-75 people.  I wasn't really surprised that they threw a party for me but I was surprised about how many people were there.

I was so proud of  Matt and the girls because they did most of the planning.  We had pizza and of course, a big birthday cake. A lot of our friends from church came and several members of our family.  A couple of my college friends were there along with a few other friends.  It was a lot of fun seeing all of these people who mean so much to me there.  My mom had gathered up different pictures of me in different stages of life in the middle of the tables so everyone enjoyed looking at those.

After things had slowed down at the party, my mom told me that she had bought me 40 different gifts for my 40th birthday.  I was pretty impressed that she did that.  We loaded up our van and headed to my parents.  My mom said that the girls were really excited about this idea when she brought it up.  It was a lot of fun!  There were 40 different gifts bags and many of them just had small things like my favorite type of candy or a cute little bar of soap, etc.  What a night!  I love my family and all of our friends and I was so glad that all of the ones who came were able to be there!!

Book Character Day

Sophie and Abbie on book character day

Abbie as ladybug girl.

Abbie as ladybug girl and Charlie, our neighbor, as bumblebee boy

Abbie certainly had a fun day at school on Friday.  All of the kids at their school dressed up for Book Character Day and they had a little parade.  Then, in her class, they could change into their pajamas and bring electronics because their class had earned these things for good behavior. Abbie also brought her robe to school and wore that most of the day.  I should have taken a picture!   Abbie's class also visited the book fair at school Friday.  I came and met her class for that so Abbie got to pick out a couple of new books.  I thought it was so cute that Abbie had decided to dress up as ladybug girl and we found out that our neighbor, Charlie, was dressing up as bumble boy which is from the same series.  =)  

Since Sophie's a little older now it was hard to come up with a book character that wouldn't be totally embarrassing.  She decided to dress as Gerta from a historical fiction book called "A Night Divided".  She thought about dressing up as an Amish girl because she's gotten into reading books about Amish people lately but 5th grade boys are sometimes mean so we decided to go for a more normal costume. I was able to take Sophie to the book fair at their school on Friday too so she enjoyed that. 

Monroe's 2nd birthday

Jumping for joy!

Abbie and Morgan

Monroe's working in the yard while Morgan and Abbie play.

Mickey Mouse treats

Yay!  It's Monroe's birthday!

Paula with Tanner, Keri's youngest

Matt, Monroe, Morgan and Martha

3 of the cousins-where's Abbie?


On Saturday, February 20 (Monroe's bday), we drove to Kentucky early in the morning for his birthday party.  It turned out to be a really nice, almost spring-like day so everyone enjoyed being outside.  The kids had a great time playing together.  Keri's family came, along with Nana and Paw-paw, Uncle Phil, Matt R.'s Aunt Sara, and his Mom and Dad.  Another family that they are friends with also came later.

They had a Mickey Mouse party.  Abbie was sweet about pushing Morgan and Carter around on the tractor.  The kids played some on their new swingset too.  They had hot dogs and sandwiches for lunch.  Martha had made some really cute cookies and cupcakes for Monroe's party.  Monroe is very independent these days!!  Our family had a super-packed day so we stayed for a couple of hours and then drove back home for Sophie's Girl Scout cookie booth at Wal-mart and a violin recital.  We were exhausted that night from a full day!!  Happy Birthday to Monroe!  We love you!!