Family Reunion & fun pics

My mom's father's side of the family has not all gotten together for a reunion in about 11 years! And some didn't even come to that one 11 years ago, so it had been a really long time since I've seen some of my family and very distant family members. I had Great-great Uncles, 4th cousins, and too many more to count at Mom's house yesterday. She worked her hiney off getting things together for it and it was awesome! The whole family appreciates everything you did Mom to pull this off for us! You're amazing! There were about 90 people there and a lot couldn't make it. It was a full house when it rained, but thankfully it stopped many times for us to enjoy the pool and outside patio for the kids to play and the adults to eat. What a great time we had!

Everybody eating great, yummy food!



The kids looking over the patio.



Mom, the photographer, took over 600 pictures!


Isabella and Tessa eating their popcicles. Or as Isabella calls them, "goggles".


Another pic of everybody eating.


My last post was about how much Isabella loved the Backyardigans. Here are some more pictures of her LOVING on them and then some precious random ones of her. She also loves her "choo choos". She sleeps with them at nap time and bed time. My little sweetie is getting so big!








Peter took Isabella to the zoo the other day on his day off. Not much of a day off for him if he's going to the zoo huh? They had a great daddy daughter day!

Worn out after the zoo trip and fell asleep on her Princess couch.

She'll be 2 too soon!!!

I cannot believe how quickly Isabella's 2nd birthday is coming! Time has gone by so fast. She's now talking all the time, able to tell me what she wants, and doesn't want. She is copying us a lot more now. Just getting so big! So I started thinking about what I would want to do for her birthday this July. For a while now I was thinking of having Isabella a "zoo" themed birthday party. I was so excited about it because I knew Peter could get me some really neat decorations from the zoo. She loves her tiger and giraffe animals that she sleeps with so I was really excited to have this as her birthday party. But the past few weeks she's been so into the Backyardigans that I decided to change my mind. I had bought her a Tasha doll a while back and she loves it! She takes it everywhere, to church, the grocery, to bed with her, anywhere she can. She watches the DVDs at home and at mom's so I thought I'd take her to party city and see what they had. We went into the Backyardigan section and she went nuts yelling "Shasha" which is meant to be Tasha. They had the other dolls and I needed my camera so bad! She smiles like I've never seen before! Oh my goodness, you'd have thought I'd given her a million dollars. So, that did it. We are officially going to have a Backyardigan 2nd birthday party in July. Yes, I'm a little early getting this stuff together but we're going on vacation for 2 weeks and I want it all done by the time we get back. Here are a couple of pictures from the party city trip.

She was a little tired in the pictures so she wouldn't give me any smiles, but she would not let me leave the store without all the "yardigan" dolls. They didn't have Austin though. I'll have to find him somewhere else I'm sure.

Mother's Day

I don't even know where to start since I last posted. I have been extremely busy with the end of the school year that I've hardly had anytime to do anything else. We had the Kindergarten Graduation this past Friday and it went awesome! The kids were so happy with how their program went and the reception in my room was a huge success. There were a gagillion (if that's even a word) people in my room! I get extremely nervous to talk in front of a room full of adults so I was beyond nervous this time. But it went very well and they all enjoyed themselves and it's on the countdown now. There's only 3 days left with the kids this year. It went by really fast! What a great year I've had.

This past mother's day was great. I love my sweet mom so much! I wish I could give her the moon, but I can't. What a sweet, beautiful person she is. I love her so much. A bunch of us went to eat at Mimi's Cafe for Mother's Day. All the cousins had fun together and we all ate and just had a great time.

Curtis, Harrison, Isabella, Abbie, Lillie, and Tessa:

Amanda and Harrison playing, and Harrison, Paula, and Greg

My Grandmother and my Aunt Sheila

Tessa and Isabella acting silly and yelling in the restaurant.
They love to see who can squeal the loudest!

Isabella, Lillie, me, and Abbie

Fun times and Birthday Parties!

Isabella loves wearing her daddy's shoes around the house. He caught her the other day and thought he'd take a pic. So precious!



She sure does love ice cream or as she would say it "i ceme!" She also LOVES popcicles or as she says it "goggles"! I have no idea how she got "goggle" out of popcicle, but I definitely know what she's saying. The other eating picture is of white powdered donuts. I was looking at her stomach poking out of a shirt the other day and realized it was probably the result of eating 2 bags of donuts in 1 week! :)




A few weeks ago we went to Wade's 2nd birthday party. Barney was there and I thought Isabella would love it, but she kept her distance and just stared for a while. It was a really good time.

Aw.......she does love me!

Ok, so some of you may know how Isabella has been with me lately, but if you don't, this picture is a rare moment right now. For the past several weeks my little Isabella has wanted NOTHING to do with me! She just wants her daddy. :( It hurt my feelings so bad at first, but then I thought, ok she really needs to bond with her daddy so I'm ok with it. Well, it's been like 3 weeks and I'm so desperately wanting her to love me again like she used to! Of course she loves me, but I mean I want her to want to be around me and play with me. She's not wanted me to hold her, put her to bed, give her a bath, feed her dinner, play with her, much less look at her! I know it's just a phase, but I hope it passes quickly. So tonight she was pretty happy considering she's still not feeling well and she even let me hold her after her bath! I couldn't believe it! I kept saying to Peter, "look, she's letting me hold her!" She fell asleep in my lap. Oh, the Lord must have known I needed that tonight. So, Peter hopped up and grabbed the camera. I guess she really does love me after all! :) I'm definitely cherishing this moment for as long as I can. I'm not sure how long it will last this week. :)

Good Times.....

My husband is the best! Last weekend he decided to take me on a surprise date! Since having Isabella in our life we became major home bodies. We have maybe went on a handful of dates alone. So we decided to take turns once a month and surprise the other with a date. So, he started it off this month and he way outdid himself! Not only did he clean the house a few days before our date, and I mean major cleaned, but he also took me out to eat on Saturday night to J. Alexanders. I had never been there before and it was really good food. Then he had purchased tickets to TPAC to see Jersey Boys! What an awesome, fantastic show! We loved it. I didn't realize how much talent some people have. They were absolutely talented and unforgettable. The only picture I took was this one holding up the program. Then we got in trouble for taking pictures in the auditorium! What? Anyway, it was so much fun and I really appreciated all he did for me that week and taking me out on the date. I guess next time I'll have to think of something cheap! :)

That same weekend we had family in town from Illinois. My sister-in-law, Stephanie and her girls, Maddie and Mary came in and stayed with us. We all took a trip to the zoo. It was so pretty the first half of the day and then turned cold the last half. Very cold. I ended up started getting sick that night actually and I'm still not completely over it, 9 days later. But we had a great time with the fam! Isabella loved playing in the Jungle Gym. She ran everywhere! Her favorite thing to do is swing on the swings. She loves it! I remember loving it the most over everything else when I was little.

This past weekend was spent pretty much at home. With me being sick with a sinus infection and Isabella getting sick we weren't able to go to church or do anything for that matter for Easter. My dad and mom both saved us dinner and brought it to us. Thank you!! for the food. We really appreciated it. I wished we could have done something on Easter Sunday, but Isabella started throwing up and there was no way we could go anywhere. She's still got a terrible cough and we're taking her to see the doctor tomorrow about it. I really hope they give her something to help it. It just doesn't sound right. I'll let you know how it goes. Here are a few pics of Easter Sunday. Isabella opened up her things from the Easter Bunny at home.

Thinking ahead....

Hey family & friends,
I wanted to start thinking ahead for a place to have Isabella's 2nd birthday party this July. Sometimes places have to book several months in advance so I'm trying to do some research. I've thought of a couple of ideas, but wanted to get some input from friends that have tried and tested other places with their own kiddos. Does anyone know of any fun places to have birthday parties? July is so hot so I was thinking about something indoors. Any suggestions would be helpful, thanks!!