Back to School!

We are back in the swing of school schedule time now. Katie started back to school last Thursday. She is a big 1st grader now. She is growing up way to fast, but as she is growing she is becoming one amazing little girl. She loves school, loves to read, draw, write out stories and make things. She has such a creative mind that is just amazes me sometimes. She was so ready to start the new school year and not be the newbie anymore.

All set for her first day. Can you tell she is excited???

Had to take time to get a few pics before we left.

Daddy even went in late to work to be able to go to school with Katie on her first day.

We walked her to her class because she had a lot of school supplies to take. She told us that she wanted to go on her own but I convinced her to let us help her. When we got to the room I asked her if I could get a picture with her and her teacher, she kind of rolled the eyes a little and said if you want to I will let you. Already at the age of 6 I am embarrassing her. So this might be the last year of a picture with her teacher.

Katie and Mrs. Gibson

Katie likes her teacher a lot, she seems very sweet and enthusiastic about teaching kids which I am thankful for. You never want the teacher that is burnt out. The other big thing this year is that Katie asked if she could ride the bus to and from school. She wanted to be a bus rider last year but I was a no on it. This year she was kept asking and asking, so we came to a compromise. I would take her in the morning and she could ride home in the afternoon, on a trial basis. I am still not sure I am 100% comfortable with it, but she loves it. She loves the independence of it and riding with her friends from class. So for now....she rides the bus home. I have a feeling it is going to get old to her, but we will see.

Happy Monday!

Little Fish

Katie has become quite the swimmer this summer, well basically in the last few weeks. Our pool as only been open for a few weeks now. At the end of last summer she would swim in the 3 ft area just fine but she wouldn't go any further than that.

This summer she is swimming in the shallow and deep end, jumping in on her own, through toys in the water and swimming to the bottom of the pool to get them. She is all over the place when she is at the pool now. Here is a little video of her jumping in and swimming.

Shrimp Festival

Saturday we headed out to the Shrimp Festival here in Sneads Ferry. This festival seems to be a big deal here so we thought we would check it out. The had a kick off parade that we went to first. Then we headed over to the festival. It was pretty much like any other festival with music, games, inflatables, vendors selling stuff, and lots of food. Except they have lots of shrimp as well.

As we were walking around we saw Ronald McDonald...or as Bree says hey it's "Old McDonald". She thinks he is the same as Old McDonald had a Farm. :)

Face paintings and party cups filled with frozen lemonade to help make the day a little more fun
They had a mining place set up....the girls had so much fun mining for gems, rocks and fossils. You pay for a bag full of different gems, rocks and follsils and the guys puts them in the sand so when they start mining they find all sorts of goodies. They both had so much fun. So cute to watch their expressions as they would bring up their pans and see all their gems.

Games were played and prizes were won.

Can't go to a festival without a train ride. They were the only two on the train and they though they were hot stuff. Katie kept doing the Miss America wave to everyone as they rode around. Ha!

The girls enjoyed the day....dad and I ended up broke. :) It was a fun family day!

And so the Questions Begin....Yikes!

I have to share this story. A couple of months ago Chris came to me one night after getting Katie to bed and said be prepared Katie is going to ask you a question in the morning. I asked him what the question was. He said she wanted to know how babies come out of their mamma's tummy. He said he told her to ask me. Thanks babe!!! I laughed and said she will forget it by morning. And she did. Then the other day she was in the car and she asked me. I just had to recap our conversation....

Katie: Momma

Me: Yes

Katie: How do babies come out of your belly?

Me: (thinking I could avoid the detailed part I gave her a somewhat truthful answer) They get cut out of your belly.

Katie: No way....do you bleed.

Me: Yes, you do bleed but that is why a doctor is there so he can stop the bleeding and make the momma all better.

Now, I am thinking I totally got this one answered and all wrapped up for her....but no

Katie: did I get cut out of your belly?

Me: Huh?? what did you say?

Katie: did I get cut out of your belly?

Me: No, you didn't get cut out of my belly.

Katie: well, how did I come out of your tummy.

Me: Uh, you really want to know?

Katie: Yes

Me: You came out of momma's bottom.

Katie: Like where you pee?

Me: Yes

Katie: Oh no...that is so gross. How did I fit out of there.

Me: God just works it out so that you can fit through there.

Katie: Are you being serious mommy?

Me: Yes, I am being serious

Katie: I am never having kids....and I wish I didn't ask because I really didn't want to know this. :)

Now, that was the end of that conversation.

I just laughed at her disgust in knowing how she got here. Hopefully it will be awhile before more questions like this come my way.

A photo of two spunky girls after we got home from school. Bree had on her cowboy hat and sheriff badge she made at school, pointing her gun and Katie was showing off her brightly painted nails and her bracelet she made.

Long Overdue Visit

Last week our good friends James and Cara and their three girls came to our house for a visit. It was a long over due visit, that's for sure. We all became friends when we lived in Columbia SC. Once we both moved away we would at least see each other once a year, but this time it was almost 2 and 1/2 years later that we finally got to spend sometime together. The Reneau's were excited to have their friends coming our way for a few days. The house was full of girls, 2 six year olds, 2 four year olds and 1 two year old, plus the momma's, so Chris, James and Samson were completely out numbered this week. :) But they handled it like champs.

We had a fun filled week......

A couple of beach trips....that is a given and we all had a blast!

Katie and Anna working on a sand castle

Silly Bree posing with her PB and J sandwich as she giggles at herself for being silly.

Strike a pose girls!



Me and little Leah.....the last time I saw Cara and James, this little one was in Cara's belly. This was the first time I got to meet her. She was my buddy all week.

My little fighter

Lots of playing in the sand
Daddy and his girls

Me and Cara enjoying the beach the way we like it....sitting in our chairs. :)

The fam

Besides beach and pool time we did some other things during the week.

Movie Night...everyone in their PJ's with some popcorn ready to relax.

Cara and I took the bigger girls to see the Smurf Movie one afternoon, while James took Leah to the mall to play. The movie by the way was really cute. The girls really enjoyed it. After the movie we met up with Chris and had some dinner. Little photo shoot to pass the time while waiting on the food.

Katie and Becca...they said they had to sit together because they were BFF's. :)

Anna and Bree. Love this picture of them. Two sweet little girls.

We let the girls paint some pottery at the Turtle Factory. This is Katie's favorite place and she wanted to show Becca and Anna.

Bree and Anna concentrating hard to create their master piece.

Becca and Katie working hard.

The times that we would hang around the house and relax you could bet that you would find Bree and James playing headbanzs.

Snagged a self portrait of me and this cutie. I just fell in love with her this week.

Saturday was the last night that the Morgan's where here and it was also Chris' birthday, so we went out to eat for his bday. In order to not have to wait we decided to have two tables instead of one. We put all the big girls at one table right beside up. They thought they were hot stuff sitting all by themselves with no parents at the table. They did really well, and the adults and Leah actually had a nice time talking and eating.

Me and the birthday boy

After dinner we headed home for birthday cake. The girls wanted to make his cake instead of buying it. Katie, Bree, Becca and Anna all helped decorate it and as we were decorating they all thought they should put their Smurf figurines on the cake since the icing was Smurf blue. So Chris ended up with a Smurf cake for his birthday.

They were all so excited for Chris to see his cake that he had to sit with is back to me as I lite the candles and walked it over to him.

The girls helping daddy blow out his candles. We had 35 on their and they were melting fast.

As soon as the candles were out all the girls were reclaiming their smurf figurines. :) They had lent them out long enough. HA!

Enjoying the cake....especially Leah. She walked around all day saying "cake, cake". She wanted a piece so bad. She was one happy girl to get her cake. :)

Sunday Morning it was time for them to pack up and head home. I had to get one more photo of this sweet face before she left. Loving her yogurt.

The girls playing one last game before they all had to give hugs good bye. :(

I really can't express how much fun we had this week. I know my girls loved having friends here to play with. Since we moved here they made some friends but haven't had any real play dates. They had so much fun having girls their own age here to play with. Chris and I both loved catching up with Cara and James. They both have been great friends to us and we love hanging out with them. It was one of the best weeks we have had since we have moved here. Hopefully, this can be an annual thing and not be so long in between our visits. Thanks Cara and James for making the trek out to see us. We love you guys!

Tennessee in July

The girls were pretty much gone the entire month of July. They spent three weeks with their Nana and Papaw in Tennessee. They have all sorts of fun when they are there. Lots of play time with both Nana and Papaw, plus evening visit from Uncle Kevin and Aunt Brandy and usually sometime with Matthew when he is home during the summer. They also had trips to Chuck E Cheese, went to a kids Dinosaur Museum, Chick-fil-a lunches and of course shopping. Needless to say they get pretty spoiled when they are there. I went up for a week of their visit to see the girls and spend time with the rest of my family. We a couple of things planned the week I was there.

This week was Fun Fest week. If you don't know what that it is, it is a week of activities planned all around Kingsport. They have a kid center place at one of the local elementary schools and it is was three days that week. We took the girls over there one day.

They had games to play

A lady was doing face painting....which we waited in line for an hour. There was just one lady who was painting. She did an amazing job as you can see below....it was hot, but the girls wanted to do this so we waited. They were so happy to have their faces painted.



On Friday night we were heading over to eat at Taste of Tri-Cities (fun fest event that brings lots of local restaurants to one place so you can have a taste of different places) and to watch the Balloon Glow, but on are way over it started to rain. :( Boo! So we had to settle with eating at Braeden's BBQ, which is really good, and then since we couldn't go see the Balloon Glow we took the girls to a place call The Ugly Cupcake. They have ginormous cupcakes with about 3 inches of icing on the top.

Katie digging in to hers....I believe she got Banana Pudding cupcake

Bree got the Happy Birthday cupcake...she didn't like the icing at all, I didn't even like it. If it was suppose to be chocolate icing but didn't taste like that at all. So she at the cupcake part and that was it. I got a Key Lime cupcake and it was actually really good. Way big, but really good!

Saturday morning the girls were up early enough for us to head back down to see the hot air balloons that didn't get to glow on Friday night, but got to see them take off on Saturday morning. We got to see this one get blown up from the ground and then take off. Poor Bree kept covering her ears. She thought it was going to pop because it was called a balloon. :) We kept telling her it wasn't going to pop....she finally believed us and put her hands down.

Another day we went to see a play of Beauty and the Beast at the Barter Theater in Abington VA. My parents and Brandy and Kevin have seen several plays at this theater and they all say it is well worth the money and time to go. The girls were super excited about seeing the play. The play was awesome!!!! It was 2 hours and 45 mins long with a 15 min intermission....so I was a little worried that they would get squirmy before it was over but they sat through the entire thing. They both talked about this play the rest of the week. We will definitely have to find time to go back for another play soon!

As if all of this excitement wasn't enough, I had one more thing planned for the girls. Kevin, Brandy and I took the girls to Wetlands over in Jonesbourgh for an afternoon. It is a small water park that is geared more for smaller kids. They had a blast going down the water slides, swimming in the lazy river and playing in the splash areas. Brandy, Kevin and I also has some fun taking turns going downs some of the bigger water slides. Big kids have to have fun too....right???

Here is a short video of the girls going down one of the slides.

July was a fun filled month for the girls, they love spending time with their Nana and Papaw and I know Nana and Papaw love it just as much. I love the fact that my girls want to go and spend time with them, even though we miss them, it is great that they have such a good relationship with them. Bree even cried for the first few nights back at home with us that she wanted to go back to Nana's.