Disney on Ice

I surprised the girls with tickets to go see Disney Princesses on Ice! We had a fun girls' night out together and the girls were enthralled with the beautiful production. Disney does a pretty amazing job with their shows!!! Claire & Anna watching the show!

Snow White and the dwarfs

Beauty & the Beast

Mickey & Minnie

Me with the girls at intermission (ignore the $25 in snow cones the girls are holding... GEESH. How can you say no? I am still shaking my head that I spent that much money!!!).

Cinderella and the mice

The finale with all the princesses and princes. What a fun evening!

Lunch at the Park

Ahhh, FINALLY some nice, cool, fall weather! We are loving it! We decided to take our lunch to the park and enjoy the crisp temperatures!

Our unhealthy lunch at the park!

Enjoying the playground equipment after eating!

Soooo thankful I get to spend everyday with these two girls! God is good!!!

Lily's 5th Birthday

Today we went to our friend, Lily's 5th birthday party! She had a fun cowgirl theme and she was even surprised with a visit from a pony!!! What a fun day celebrating a sweet girl!

Cowgirl Lily

The kids seeing the pony for the first time!!

Anna squealed when she saw Rudy the pony! She was in heaven riding him!

Claire loved riding Rudy, too! He was a very sweet and patient boy!

Hitting at the pinata!

Make a wish, Lily!!

Her mommy did a great job planning her party!

Gymnastics

Since Claire started pre-school, I wanted to do something special with Anna during part of the time Claire was in school. I decided on a gymnastics class because Anna is such a little monkey. She has always been my climber and so agile. She is the one, if you remember, that started rolling over at just 8 weeks old (CRAZY!). So anyway, last week she started in a 3 year old gymnastics class (they bumped her up to the three year old class). Needless to say, she loves it and is really good at it, especially swinging from the rings and the bars!

Learning to do a forward roll with her teacher Miss Whitney.

She could swing on the rings all day. She can even flip around on them. No doubt she's part monkey!

Miss Whitney had them squeeze a stuffed animal between their legs while they were swinging from the bar!

JUMP, JUMP, JUMP!

Balance Beam

The loooong trampoline. Man... she is quick when she jumps the length of this trampoline. My heart skips a beat! Slow down little girl!!!

And the funnest part of the 45 minutes... jumping into the foam pit!

Beth's Bridal Shower

I had the honor of helping in the planning of a bridal shower for my sister-in-law, Beth. Beth is getting married in October so on Saturday we had a shower to honor the bride-to-be! It was a really fun day filled with lots of good food, good friends, family and lots of nice gifts!

I collaborated with two very special women (Bernie Sietman and Roxanne Sparling) in the planning of the shower! We worked together so well we said we should go into the shower planning business! I couldn't have asked for better girls to work with!

Enjoying the beautiful day!

The mother and sister of the groom!

The mother of the bride with her sisters Shari, Debbie and SIL Shirley.

The group! What a fun day!

More Shower

Beth's cupcake!

Loved the way the cupcakes turned out!

There was lots of DELICIOUS food!

I was so proud of my napkin creation! I love doing this kind of stuff!

Gift table before most of the gifts arrived!

The shower favors (Yankee votive candles).

Bernie giving her wonderful devotional on "emergency preparedness". She did such a great job and clearly presented the plan of salvation. There is nothing more important and I was so thankful to be apart of such a God-centered bridal shower!

Beth opening her gifts! Ooohhh, a KitchenAid mixer!

Papa's Retirement Party

My dad has officially retired as a school teacher. He has been teaching at Dayton Public Schools for many years and needless to say... he was ready to retire! He is still doing some substitute teaching and also some part-time teaching at a career technical center.

We had a surprise retirement party for him last night at Shawn & Kristen's house. We decided in honor of the biggest pizza lover we know, we would have a "Taste of Dayton Pizza" for dinner. We all brought two different types of pizza (LaRosa's, Marion's, Cassano's, Papa John's, Domino's, and Cousin Vinny's pizza). Ben had the fun idea to blindfold my dad to see if he could guess the type of pizza he was eating. Not surprisingly, he guessed all six types of pizza correctly. I had no doubts!

It was a really fun evening with the family as we celebrated one of the best men I

know!

My parents!

Let the pizza taste testing commence!

Six for six! Impressive!

The kids were able to get one last swim in before the pool is closed for winter!

They sure do love the "hot pool" as Claire calls it!

Papa with his grandchildren (minus Jillian who was at a neighbors house!). Happy Retirement, Dad!! We love you!

Grandma McDowell's 83rd Birthday

My Grandma McDowell celebrated her 83rd birthday yesterday. We always enjoy our time with Grandma and we're so thankful we were able to be with her on her birthday. We LOVE her!!

Grandma opening the card that Claire made for her!

Aunt Heather, Caroline & Catherine helped us celebrate.
Grandma with the little grandgirls!

My dad also made a visit to wish his mama a happy birthday!

Popcorn Festival '10

We love going to festivals so we made our way to the Popcorn Festival on Saturday! I really love this time of year. Bring on the festivals! Anna getting a free gymnastics class!

Who says firefighters have to be boys?

One of the BEST parts of festivals is the yummy food!

We love lemon shake-ups! So refreshing!