Christmas Lights and a visit from the Tooth Fairy

Christmas started a little early with a walk through of the Botanical Garden's Galaxy of Lights. Wasn't too cold this year. Anna Grace finally lost a tooth(yippee) she has been waiting a long time because all of her friends had been losing them for months! Enjoy. Hope everyone has a Happy and safe Thanksgiving!

Christmas Light Walk-through

Sarah

From Sarah's Dance 2009

Trick or Treat

Wow, what a wonderful weekend. Luckily the rain stayed away long enough to have some fun. Friday was Trunk or Treat at Capshaw Baptist with MOPS. Saturday morning was THE best soccer game ever(and the last one of the season Yea)My camera battery died so I didn't get any pics of the game, but friends are going to email me some. Then we had the soccer party then Trick or Treating. Sarah really got into it this year. She was so excited to go get candy. She wasn't shy and as soon as the person would drop the candy she was "thank you now lets go to the next one". Anna(who all week said she was going to 5 neighborhoods) had a good time, but with such a busy day barely made it around our neighborhood. Luckily Dad brought the wagon. Would like to thank God for giving us a great and safe weekend. Looking forward to having all the family in church tomorrow. Between all our illnesses is seems like it's been forever. Enjoy the pictures.

Halloween 2009

Anna's 7th Birthday (plus some)

Anna Grace's 7th birthday was a Spectacular Spa tea party! We had makeovers and then sat down for tea. Anna has wanted a pinata for 4 years so finally I was brave enough to surprise her with one. Amazingly no one was injured. Hard to belive she is going to be 7 tomorrow. Time really goes by fast. Also have some pitures of Anna's soccer game and some from my MOPS(Mothers Of Preschoolers) convention. Stephen was nice and brave enough to let me go to convention for 2 days. I can not say enough good things about MOPS. http://www.mops.org/

Anna's Birthday 7

Sarah's 3rd Birthday Party

Sarah had a pretty good 3rd birthday. We celebrated up in Kentucky with Stephen's family. We had 2 family reunion that weekend. Enjoyed getting to visit with everyone. Sarah thought that both reunion's were her birthday parties.

Sarah's 3rd birthday

1st Grade!

Anna Grace's first day of first grade! She said this morning that she didn't sleep at all last night because she was so excited.

1st Grade

10 Year Annviersary and then some....

Stephen and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary July 24. We spent it in Wears Valley, one of the prettiest places on earth. We had 2 days without the girls and then 2 days with. Our cabin was awesome. The views were amazing. The girls had a great time with their Aunt Donna and Julie. Stephen and I went out to eat and went to see The Miracle. http://www.miracletheater.com/ If you haven't seen it you need to. It was a wonderful show. Very talented people and a great story! Got to see Leah and Jeremy who are both in the show. Sunday was the Caylor's Family Reunion. We use to have this once a year when I was little, but for some reason we stopped having them. SO SO glad that we brought it back and hope to do it again next year. Jimmie met us at Metclaf Bottoms picnic area with the girls. Anna and Sarah loved playing with Whitney's girls and playing in the VERY cold mountain stream. Then we took the girls back to the cabin with us. We went to Cades Cove and we also took them to the Comedy Barn. It was a very funny family friendly show. Anna got to get on stage during the dog show and again later to dance. It was a very nice long weekend. So thankful that God brought me and Stephen together! Can't wait to see what the next 10 years bring!

10 Year Anniversary Weekend..and a little more

Bugs At The Garden

Few weeks ago we went to the Botanical Gardens for their Bug theme. They had huge bugs throughout the park and since Anna Grace loves bugs we couldn't miss it. The nice thing is the the water works they have for the kids. Stephen and I sat in the shade while the girls had fun playing in all the water. Also a couple pics of us and some friends put-puttin. Click below hope you enjoy

Bugs at the Garden

Petting Zoo

Saturday we went to Old McDonald's Petting Zoo. We always have a good time there. The people who own it are very nice and really love their animals. Just wanted to get the girls out before Anna Grace's surgery Monday. Anna did great with the surgery. She is still pretty uncomfortable, but is up and moving around more today. Doctor thinks she was able to fix the affected muscles so hopefully we won't have to do that eye agian. Pray that healing goes well. Enjoy the pics.

Petting Zoo 2009

And Video Too.....

From Disney World 2009

Disney...almost done

Sunday we went to Animal Kingdom. What an adventurous day! We didn't get up as early as we wanted, so we got there about 10 I think. Well they closed at 5 so we figured we would just do what we could. The first ride we rode was Kali River Rapids. BIG MISTAKE. Last time we were at Disney we rode it and got a little wet...this time we got SOAKED! I don't mean wet I mean DRENCHED. And let me tell you Sarah was NOT happy about that! Anna loved it. I hate walking around in wet denim shorts. And not to mention I had on a white tee shirt that luckily had some strategically placed pictures!!! Course its my fault I'm the one that suggested it, but I never thought we'd get that wet. Oh well got a new T-shirt out of it LOL. Then we ran to get fast passes for Everest(we had already got fast passes for the safari ride) The Safari ride was ridiculous. We had Tony Stewart for a driver. It was like look there's an elephant...zoommmmm It was slamming on the brakes or slamming on the gas. One time she hit a bump and I am not kidding we all came a good foot off of our chairs..I have bruises....after surviving that crazy ride we had lunch at Tusker House. This had the best food. Corn-dogs, mac-n-cheese, and pizza for kids(thank you) roast and mashed potatoes for me(thank you) and crazy African food for Steve(he loved it) The desserts were AWESOME. They had these strawberry mousse in edible chocolate cups!!! Then after that we were off to Everest. I had never ridden this so had no idea what it was other then a roller coaster. Again we did a ride swap so Steve stayed with Sarah. Anna and I got on and oh wow....it goes backwards....lets just say Steve did not ride this one. After seeing the look on Anna and my face(and all the African food) he decided against it! By eating at Tusker house we got VIP seating for the Nemo stage show. It was cute. A little weird cause the fish are puppets, but the puppeteers wear weird costumes and dance around...but the puppets were really pretty. So by now we were running out of time and every time I go to Animal Kingdom I never get to go to Dino land..so we ran there and were able to do ALL the rides we wanted to before they closed. And let me inform you that the Dinosaur ride is not a slow happy informative ride. It's scary! I don't think Anna opened her eyes through the entire ride! So now that Animal Kingdom closed we decided to go to down town Disney for Wolf Gang's again. Then we did some shopping.
Sunday was our last day, but we had 2 tickets left so the game plan was to go to Epcot so Stephen could eat lunch at Morocco(a favorite last time) then spend the rest of the day at Magic Kingdom. What we didn't know is that if you don't buy the park hopper option you can't go to 2 parks, even if you have 2 tickets!! Made me pretty mad, but oh well. So we spent the day at Epcot, got to see Minnie again. For supper that night we ate at the Grand Floridian. What a HUGE disappointment. I booked it cause you got to see the evil stepsisters and mother and supposedly prince charming. Well the food was awful. I mean even Stephen couldn't find anything good. The evil stepsisters were annoying, which is probably how eating with them is suppose to be. Cinderella spent all of 2 seconds with us. No prince charming!! However the Fairy Godmother was very nice! So after that we went back to the hotel to let the girls play at the pool and pack.
Monday morning we were suppose to leave early but Stephen was very sweet and took us to Magic Kingdom for breakfast and one more ride on the carousel. It meant leaving late, but I wanted to use my last ticket just for the fact they wouldn't let me use it the day before. It was nice. We even got to see Aerial before we left! It was a LONG 12 hour ride home since we had to stop 6 times...but an absolutely amazing vacation. So blessed that I got to spend such a magical time with my family. And with that I will leave you with the words of Sarah when asked if she wanted to ride one more ride...."I done, that's enough"

Disney part 3

Disney part 2

Day 4 we decided to spend at Epcot. I made reservations for the Princess story book breakfast. It is at Norway in the world show case. We eat there every time we go. We think it is better then Cinderella's Royal Table. The food is better and so are the princesses. You don't feel as rushed. We had EARLY reservations, which again was nice because we got into the park before everyone else. Surprisingly Sarah did not like the princesses? After breakfast we took on ALL of Epcot. We rode the Nemo ride which is Anna's favorite cause you get Crush's turtle talk(she got to talk to him this time) and its Sarah's favorite because of the aquarium after the ride. We rode Living with the Land this time, and it had some neat things in it. Anna met up with Abigail again and got to ride Sorin together. Again we got lucky and missed the rain while we were in the Land Pavilion riding rides. For supper we ate at The Le Cellier Steakhouse in Canada. I had heard wonderful stuff about it. Very hard to get reservations. The Filet Mignon was WONDERFUL you didn't get a lot of food which is sad cause it's expensive(we had the Disney dinning plan so it didn't matter), but what you get is AWESOME. Had a great day and we were exhausted that night.
Friday we decided to sleep in as late as we wanted which thanks to Sarah that was 8am. So we got up and went swimming. Then we headed to Down Town Disney to our favorite place to eat Wolf Gang Puck Express. They have the BEST food! Then we decided to head to back to Magic Kingdom since they had the late magic hours(open till 1pm for resort guest) Also we had reservations at Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary Resort. Honestly I did not like this place. Which is surprising because Everyone raves about it. I hated the food, and thought it was very stressful. It was a buffet but you felt like you couldn't get up to get food or you would miss one of the characters...however it does keep you from standing in line to see Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto. Stephen liked the food. We ate with our friends the Flemings so Anna was in heaven. After dinner we rode the monorial back to Magic Kingdom and Anna was able to ride several rides with Abigail. Mickey and Minny were there and actually rode Dumbo. We also got to meat Chip and Dale. Sarah passed out in the stroller and doesn't remember much. We didn't get back to the room until about 2am, but it was FUN Click on the pic below to see more!

Disney part 2

Our Disney Trip Part 1

Wow what a great vacation! I love Disney World. We had the best time despite the weather(rained almost every day) and the VERY long car ride! We arrived about 4pm Florida time. We were pretty tired so we decided to just hang out at the hotel. We stayed at Caribbean Beach Resort. It was really nice. Had a great Kiddie pool which is a must!! We usually stay at the All Star Movie Resort, but they don't have a kiddie pool, which is ridiculous at Disney!!! Anyway we walked around, looked at all the wildlife, ate and swam. Then early to bed for our first full day.
We decided to spend our fist day at Hollywood studios. One because that's where I had dinner reservations, and 2 it wasn't extra magic hours. For those who don't know, if you stay at a Disney Resort each day a park is open an hour early or stays open a few hours later for Disney Resort guest only. Nice, but that park is always really busy that day. We had a great time. Our first stop was the Beauty and the Beast show. It was really good. Sarah LOVED it. I think I watched her more then the show. Anna Grace rode the Tower of Terror..and boy was it. We got a rider swap, which allows one of us to stay with Sarah while the other parent rides. Then when that parent is done the other one can go to the front of the line so to speak and the kid gets to ride twice. Anna Grace HATED this ride, Stephen had to ride it by himself, she refused to do it again. I thought it was pretty fun. Stephen didn't like it either. We had dinner at 50's Prime Time Cafe. Its like eating in a kitchen straight out the(you got it) 50's. The waiters really play it up. They get onto you for putting your elbows on the table, and won't let you get dessert until you eat all your vegetables. We had cousin Cooper. He was so funny. Stephen drinks A Lot when he eats. So after the 2nd refill of coke Cousin Cooper brought him a Pitcher with a straw. The food was great, and the desserts where AMAZING. We were lucky and missed the huge downpour while we were eating. That night we were going to watch the huge fireworks light show, but it(we) got rained out. We managed to ride and see everything we wanted to do in one day.
Our second day was at Magic Kingdom. We started out with breakfast at Crystal Palace with Winnie the Pooh. This was one of the best places we ate at. The characters were great and we ate early enough to get into the park before it opened, so had the castle all to ourselves. We were able to ride every ride we wanted in one day. Sarah's favorite was the carousel. Anna's was splash mountain. It rained again, but did so while we were eating lunch. We took some time to see Minnie Mouse since she is Sarah's favorite character. She was so funny. We stood in line for about 30 min(the longest line for anything we did) When Sarah got up to her she pretty much went catatonic and wouldn't do anything. It was truly the best time I have EVER had at Magic Kingdom.

Disney World 2009

Anna Grace's Kindergarten Graduation.

Well Anna Grace is now officially a 1st grader. Wow are these girls smart. It is absolutely amazing how much they have learned this year. We could not have asked for a better teacher then Mrs. Huett! The graduation went wonderfully. The first grade moms went above and beyond and had the place looking amazing! All the girls did great! Here are some pictures of the graduation as well as some of our flower garden that Grandmommie helped us with today. Enjoy!

Anna Grace's kindergarten graduation

Kindergarten at a glance

Anna Grace will graduate from kindergarten in 2 weeks. 2WEEKS!! Wow has this year flown by fast. The entire year she has loved school, which says a lot about her teacher if you ask me. We were very blessed to get to send her to CBA and we were very lucky to get Mrs. Huett who is a wonderful caring teacher! The 13th is Anna Grace's Kindergarten graduation. It will be a big production from what I hear. Hopefully the ones that can make it will be here, trust me you don't want to miss this. It goes by so fast....

Anna's first year of school