Happy 5th Birthday

Last weekend, we celebrated Avery turning 5 with a Barbie themed bounce house birthday party.  The highlight of the party, so I like to think, was the Barbie doll cake I made for the special day.   Avery picked the cake out from multiple candidates on Pinterest and I put my unreliable baking skills to the test.  Thank goodness for the Betty Crocker video tutorial or I never would have pulled it off!  Avery had a great day celebrating with friends and family, and she didn't just like her cake, she loved it.  As for me, next year, I'll leave the cake baking to the professionals!

 

Christmas 2013 Photos

Santa brought everyone something special this year, but I think Greg and Avery were on the extra nice list as Greg got help constructing a new workbench and Avery got the American Girl Doll she'd been asking for.   After a relaxing New Year's cabin trip with friends, we're now getting ready for a certain someone's 5th birthday celebration.   We'll be back soon with photos of the social event of 2014!

Merry Christmas 2013

Wow, I can't believe it's been over 6 weeks since my last post. We've been busy this last few weeks seeing the Radio City Rockettes, running a Turkey Trot and Jingle Jog, riding the Duck Dynasty float in our small town's Christmas Parade, and making Christmas cookies, of course. Needless to say, this holiday season sure has flown by and I can't believe it's Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas to you and yours!

October Wrap Up

We rounded out October with trick-or-treating and the fall festival at Avery's school. Below are some photos of the day, as well as a few extras of our reluctant jockey and my eerie eyeball cake pops. Octobers is now a wrap!

Happy Halloween 2013!

We've been celebrating Halloween all month so I thought today I'd share photos from last weekend's "Owl-O-Ween" festival. Despite the crowds, we had a great time dressing up and enjoying the festival activities which included my favorite - hot air balloons, acrobats, and a KSU pole vaulting competition. My homemade Ursula costume turned out pretty well, but I'm still sticking to my day job. Happy Halloween!

Great Wolf Lodge and Super Hero 5k

We kicked off our first girl's only weekend with a visit to Charlotte where we got to see not only Meme and Pa but Heather and Luke, too. Double bonus! And to add even more excitement, we squeezed in a visit to the waterpark at Great Wolf Lodge. Luke and Avery were fearless on the water slides and us adults had a great time wearing out the two four-year-olds. The lodge even had a special trick-or-treating event so the kids got to debut their costumes and I got to admire Luke's sweet jet pack AND jumpsuit with pockets!

The next weekend, Avery joined me for the Superheros v. Villains 5k. While I ran, as my favorite super hero of course, she enjoyed supervised gymnastics. Afterwards we hit the festivities which included a petting zoo, face painting, arts and crafts stations, and photo ops with other superheros. Perhaps my favorite part of the day was the post race picture Avery drew of her balloon dog, herself, and me dressed up as Wonder Woman. If you can't tell, I loved this race and will definitely make my way to West Cobb for the 2014 event. Maybe I'll even add to my Wonder Woman ensemble with a cape or crown and cuffs. I'll surprise you.

Happy Momtober!

It's officially fall which means Halloween, pumpkin everything, and lots of mommy daughter time for us girls as hunting season is in full swing. Because of all the fun things on our schedule, I've dubbed the month "Momtober." The first order of business for Momtober (even though Daddy tagged along) was our annual visit to Yahoo Farms. This year, our big girl decided the pony rides and bouncey house were for little kids and that she was big enough to do the Cosmic Corn Maze and Haunted Hayride. I was a little worried she'd get scared during the hay ride, but she took it all in stride and we had a lot of fun. Do the photos look familar? I always enjoy seeing how much Avery has grown from year-to-year so tend to have her pose for the same shots. We have lots more Momtober photos to share so promise to post again soon!