Beanie Birthday

Saturday, March 12, 2016
Emily is totally enamored with Beanie Boos these days.  She takes them everywhere and her friends have them too.  They all have little tags that have the animal's name and their birthday.  Emily loves the fact that they have birthdays.

So, this weekend we didn't have much going on...and any excuse for cake works for me...so we had a party for all the Beanie Boos.  With cake.  And party hats.  Emily loved it.  We even invited Reagan from next door over for a second little party the next morning.  It was fun.
   

Easter Mini Session

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Immediately after we got home from Great Wolf, we had to get Emily changed and ready for her Easter mini session out in Hurricane.  I signed her up for a session with baby chicks and a baby bunny a couple of weeks ago.  I have been wanting to do one of these with her for years and I finally got the chance.  It was definitely everything I  hoped it would be. So sweet!!

First up - the bunny!





Then it was time for the chicks!!



     
I loved every minute of this session and for the first time ever, Emily wasn't ready for the photo session to end!  It was absolutely wonderful and so many great memories! Happy Spring!

Great Wolf!

March 4-6, 2016

We gave Emily a trip to Great Wolf Lodge for Christmas this year.  She has so much stuff and she LOVES Great Wolf, so this made a great gift.  Unfortunately, we had 18"of snow the weekend we had booked the trip so we had to wait until March to go, but even that worked out ok as it was a little cheaper!
We got Emily a Kid Camp room again this year so she had her own space and she loved it.
She brought along a few friends...
We arrived just in time to grab a quick bite to eat and then hit the pool.  Emily could. not. wait.  First stop was the lazy river (her favorite).  Then it was off to hit the slides!

 We finally got her to bed about 10pm.  Finally.  The next morning we had to kill a little time in the arcade since the pools did not open until 10am.  So we put some money on the arcade card and off we went.  Em earned about 300 tickets, but opted not to use them on the "junk" they had.  Ha!  Guess we're doing something right.
By the time she used up all her credits on her arcade card, it was time to swim.  We spent the whole rest of the day swimming, floating and sliding (and sometimes freezing).  We rode every slide and went in every pool.  We even ate lunch at the pool.  Em was definitely in seventh heaven.

After a very full day of swimming fun, we got cleaned up and headed out to dinner.  We found a Cheesecake Factory just a few minutes from the hotel so that's where we went.  At first we were quoted a 60+ minute wait, but then a table opened up in the bar area (first come first served) so we grabbed it!  We all had great meals and then settled in for dessert.  Cheesecakes for mommy and daddy and fudge cake for  Emily.  I swear her cake was bigger then her!!

After dinner we headed back to the hotel for evening adventures including glow golf!

Then it was finally time to turn in for the night and unwind with a little iPad time.  We still had big plans for the morning.

The next morning we took Emily to try out MagiQuest.  She had never done it before, but she is into scavenger hunts these days so this seemed right up her alley. Unfortunately, the whole game apparently takes some 6+ hours so saving it until Sunday morning when we only had 3 hours was not a great plan, but we tried it out anyway and Emily LOVED it!  We actually all liked it and we made good progress in the time we had. We told her we  would take her to the MagiQuest in Myrtle Beach this summer, but sadly, apparently MagiQuest was sold exclusively to Great Wolf Lodge and so the location in Myrtle Beach is closed now.
  

We definitely had a good time and it turned out to be a great gift to everyone to have a whole family weekend together (even if I was freezing for 75% of it).   :-)   Great Wolf really was Great.

Valentine's Day!

Sunday, February 14, 2016


 

We had a pretty low key day for Valentine's Day.  We opened presents in the morning and had Krispy Kreme donuts.  Emily got some American Girl gifts and then played dolls most of the afternoon.  They even had their own Valentine party. So cute.

 

McGala 2016

Saturday, February 13, 2016

This is a short time out for a mommy and daddy post!  This was a big year for House with the launching and hopefully closing of our capital campaign.  We definitely celebrated this year in style! We got to go with Bonnie and Nathan again (YAY!) and met a load of other friends there too.  It was a great night for a great cause!







And we even took advantage of the chance to get a few pics in with our friends too!  It was a circus theme, hence the funny noses.  Plus Ronald.  So much fun!!
  
 

Valentine's Day Party at School

Friday, February 12, 2016

Bible Center has a roller skating unit during gym class every year.  This year the roller skating unit ended on February 11 and for the kids' Valentine's Day party (and 1/2 day of school) they got to go roller skating at the real rink!  They were very excited.
Ms. Vencill, Emily, Madison & Kaylyn.
Before they headed out, they had a Valentine snack and exchanged cards and other goodies.  Shock of all shocks, Emily wanted her Valentines to be Minecraft themed. I bought these little buckets for $.50 at the end of the holiday season and they worked great for this!  I found a printable wrapper for gum to look like a creeper and a wrapper for conversation hearts too.  I filled the bottom of the bucket with chocolate hearts and added a wrapped brownie.  Then her little Valentine cards were Stampy themed.  She was so excited to hand them out.

Noah's Ark Day

Monday, February 8, 2015

The school used to have a whole spirit week about this time of year, but this year we only had 2 days.  One day of dress up and one day of Ram wear.  I was kind disappointed, but we made the most of it.  I found out about Noah's Ark day on Friday in the weekly newsletter from school.  That night at dinner, Emily announced that she was going to be an orange fox with her friend Ashton.  Ok, an orange fox.  And no time to order anything from Amazon.  Eek!
    
So, Friday night I hit up Pinterest for inspiration.  Then Saturday morning Em and I hit the craft store and Wal-Mart.  I ended up making her a pretty good set of ears and a great mask, but my fox top was pretty bad.  I  tried, but my sewing skills are not so good and I don't have a sewing machine.  Anyway, this is what we came up with.  Em was happy with the result...even though the top apparently came apart at the seams at school. Oh well.  She got a lawyer mom, not a seamstress.  :-)

Xtra Math Star!

Saturday, February 6, 2016


After several months of work on her iPad, Emily finally passed her addition math facts on Xtra Math.  Xtra Math is an iPad app that her teacher uses as part of the math curriculum and she  assigns it as homework sometimes.  Em had been working to pass since early November and today was her day.  She came flying into my room a little after 8am (on a Saturday morning) tears on her cheeks and her whole body shaking to show me that she finally passed addition on Xtra Math.  She was so  proud of herself.  Her reward was a little Frozen Lego castle.  We had that in our cart at Toys-R-Us by 10:30am.  Ha!

Now, on to subtraction...

Play Date Fun

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Emily and her friend Madison had a play date today.  Emily and Madison both like Grace, the American Girl doll, girl of the year from 2015.  She is a baker and likes macaroons.  Emily and Madison had never had a macaroon before so for part of their play date I took them  to Sugar Pie Bakery (one of my favorite places) to try a macaroon.  They both got vanilla and they loved them! They also each picked a cupcake to take home for later.
After our treats, I took the girls to Shabby Chic kids' boutique for a quick visit.  I was kind of looking for something for Emily for Easter/Bunny Brunch/Drama recital, but the girls quickly identified these matching outfits.  Everything was 50% off so we went with it and they loved them.  Even took them out to dinner later that evening in their matching outfits, with their dolls.  Most expensive play date ever, but also one of the more memorable ones, I'm sure.

100th Day of Second Grade

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

We were a couple of days late, but we celebrated the 100th day of school on Wednesday, January 27.  The kids were allowed to wear 100 of something.  So we got Emily this cute tshirt.  Unfortunately, after we washed it, it shrunk.  So we'll be looking for 100 of something else for next year.