Artist

Emily loves to color, draw and paint. She always has to have paper and a pen with her in the car. She asks to paint at LEAST 3 times a day. Lately, she loves to draw "a boy." Here is an example of the boy she draws. It may not really look like a boy, but when you compare it to her Mr. Potato Head she plays with every day, it looks pretty accurate.

Happy Birthday Andy!

Sunday was Andy's 32nd birthday. Man, that is old! Luckily, he doesn't seemed to bothered by his old age. :)

Emily had been very excited about his upcoming birthday. She asked every night last week, "Daddy's birthday in morning? Daddy blow candles?" Finally the day arrived. We started off the celebration by blowing out candles in our waffles and Emily giving her card to him.

Then my birthday present to him was getting myself and the girls ready for church on time! (This never happens)

His actual birthday present was a brand new bike we picked out on Saturday. Because of his old age, he has been having some knee problems, so he thought a bike would be a good way for him to exercise without hurting his knee. :)

Emily wanted to make a pink cake for Daddy.

Then the Boney's and Andy's parents came up for dinner and cake. We had a fun time, but I can't even explain all the chaos that was going on. Let's see... first the birthday cake and glass dish that was cooling on the stove exploded all over the kitchen when I turned on the wrong burner. Luckily the girls were napping so no one got hurt by the flying glass. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a picture but I wasn't in the mood to take a picture. Andy nicely pointed out that this has happened before. (I had to make another cake- that was not pink)

And then we lost Emily while the boys were watching the kids outside. I found her in the front yard (she wasn't lost for long).

Then Simon and Emily were running into the kitchen snatching hot dog bites and then running back to the bedroom while squealing. Meanwhile we are yelling for them to stop running before they choke.

Then Simon pulled a full pitcher of lemonade off the counter and spilled it on the floor.

Then Sarah knocks over a glass of soda while sitting in the Bumbo on the table.

Despite all the madness, the grilled steak and veggies were delicious. And cake #2 turned out OK and made for a yummy strawberry shortcake.

Let's just say I was TIRED at the end of the night... and will be buying Andy's cake next year. Happy Birthday Babe!

I stole this from my sister's blog. It is a video of the dress reheresal and actual performance of the show Emily was in last weekend. She was doing this cute hip shaking thing that I love. And once again, I have NO idea who the crazy boys are next to Emily during the show. :0

The video also includes my cute neice singing the song at home for her dad. I will have to get a video of Emily doing that too because she asks me to turn the music on every day.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Who Knew??!

Many of you know that Emily is pretty shy. She won't let many people hold her. She won't even talk to many people. She usually want to stay right by mommy's side. I would say she doesn't really enjoy going out of her comfort zone. Little did we know her comfort zone included being on stage.

My mom was in charge of getting some kids together for a preshow performance before a play in her community. Last week Emily stayed 3 nights with my mom and therefore attended some of these practices. Well this weekend was the play, so my sisters and I headed down to my mom's. My neices and nephews were going to be in the performance, but I wasn't even going to try to get Emily up on stage. I thought for sure that she would throw a fit. However during the dress rehearsal, I turned around and she was headed for the stage! She knew all the words and hand motions!

So we threw a red shirt on her and sent her backstage with my mom. I was so nervous she was going to burst into tears when she saw all the people in the audience (about 300)! But she did a great job! I was so proud!

Look at her face in shock at all the people in the audience!


OK, so maybe she was a little off with the hands motions, but she was still cute shaking her hips on stage!

These two little boys got into a fight during the middle of the song. I have no idea who they are!

Just kidding... I do know them and LOVE my little nephews. However that certain 2 year on the right had everyone fooled by acting so innocent during the dress rehearsal. He stole the show and was full of all kinds of shenangians for the performance (including jumping repeatedly on the expensive micrphone my mom was told to protect with her life!)


At least my neices behaved themselves. Afton and Leah are in the first picture - on the front row on the end. And cute Leland on the right.

Now I am excited to get Emily enrolled in dance when she turns 3. Hopefully she won't be like her mom. Twice I quit dance right before the recital because I didn't want to get on stage!

Easter Sunday

This was the first Easter that we really did all the Easter traditions that I enjoy. We had Easter baskets filled with candy and toys for the girls, well, really just for Emily. Sarah's basket just had empty eggs (shhh, don't tell her!). They had new matching Easter dresses sitting by their baskets. I had Andy hide the eggs we dyed for Emily to find. And we ate yummy cinnamon pull apart rolls.

Then after church, Mom and Larry came over for our traditional Easter dinner... ham, mac n chesse, green bean casserole, deviled eggs and rolls. And I attempted a cheesecake with raspberry sauce... it was pretty good but needed to chill for a bit longer, so it was really good the next day.

So we didn't have time before church to get a picture of the girls in their Easter dresses, so we were going to take some after church. However Emily got a pen out of my diaper bag and marked down the front of her dress right at the end of church. Andy thought I was going to burst into tears in the middle of church. I held it together and scrubbed that dress with everything I could find when we got home. AND IT CAME OUT! So then we had to wait for the dress to dry, so we didn't get pictures until after dinner... and this is the best we could get.

Dyeing Easter Eggs

Saturday night we dyed Easter eggs with the girls, well, really just with Emily while Sarah supervised. Emily really enjoyed it and kept saying "Ohhh.... cute!" when we pulled the egg out of the dye.

Easter Egg Hunts

Last week we had an Easter Egg Hunt with our joyschool group. There were some cute activities and yummy treats and of course, the hunt.




























































I am pretty sure Emily's mouth is stuffed with candy in this picture. Of course Sarah was a good little girl during the activity, as usual!

Then today we went to a BIG hunt at a family's house from church. They had filled and hid over 3,000 eggs. That is a lot of work and we had lots of fun.... until.... Emily got stung by a wasp.... twice. She, of course, SCREAMED, but calmed down once we got some ice on it.

All of these Easter Egg hunts remind me of last year's Easter when Emily had just started walking and it took FOREVER to get to each egg. I can't believe how much she grown in one year!

2009 NCAA CHAMPS!!!

UNC TARHEELS ARE #1!!!!
Andy went down to Chapel Hill to watch the game at the Dean Dome last night. There was no way he was going to miss being there to celebrate if they won. And of course, they did! Here are some pictures of the celebration.... unfortunately they are a little dark since it was after midnight.

I like this picture of Andy, Ben and Elliott. We watched the game with them when we won 5 years ago. So for good luck Andy watched the game with them again this year.... and it worked. Way to go Heels!