A Decade Old...

It's hard to believe that Emory is now TEN!  Where did the first decade go?  It has been so much fun watching him grow and we can't wait for the next ten years.  We love you so much, Emory!

Here are a few pictures of Emory celebrating this important milestone...

February 21st  fell on a Sunday this year.  Emory thought that he would be able to sleep in but we couldn't let that happen on such an important day!  It's a tradition in our house to cover each child's floor with balloons while they sleep so on their birthday morning they wake up to a room full of balloons to start off their special day.  Emory woke up to a floor covered in orange and blue -- his two favorite colors.  It was our first year with Piper and Owen who thought that it was pretty fun too!  They thought all of the balloons were balls for them - until they popped!

 

Emory played in a 3v3 soccer tournament that wrapped up on his birthday.  His team, the Kickers, came in 2nd place in their age bracket.  Way to go Kickers!

Later at home that evening, Emory opened all of his presents and we sang Happy Birthday.  It had been a long day, but he still had enough energy to blow out all ten candles.  Inside his cake had 6 layers of alternating orange and blue cake!

We had a party for his friends on the following Sunday, February 28th.  It was a super fun called the Party of Ten Challenges.  Here are a few of the things that the boys did...

In this challenge, the boys had to pull plastic frogs and lizzards out of a box filled with 150 live crickets.  Everyone did it in the end, but Emory waited until last and protested quite a lot.

Another challenge involved pulling gummy worms from a whipped cream pie - using only their teeth.  This one was a lot of fun to watch!

"Icy Toes" involved pulling marbles out of tub filled with ice cold water.  It was definitely our cleanest challenge and the one that we probably should have done last.

Another challenge involved a relay race between the two teams to see who could pass the most cracked open raw eggs from the first person to a cup at the end.  It was a messy one but the kids seemed to love it!

The m&m challenge came next.  The kids had to carry m&ms around the ping pong table using only a straw and place them on pedestals made of straws.  The kids were more than happy to eat all of the extras!

Doggy Doggy Where's Your Bone came next and was my own personal favorite.  They raced around the pool carrying a large dog bone using only their mouths. 

The challenge that brought the most protests was the Baby Food Challenge.  The boys each tried six different kinds of baby food and had to guess what each one was.  Mmm, Mmmm, good!  I had forgotten how wonderful all of those baby foods smell!

After a fun afternoon of games, it was time for birthday cake.  A soccer ball and grass in the shape of a 10.

HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY, EMORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Time is flying!

Sorry that I haven't been doing very well at keeping the blog updated!  The kids have been super busy but I'll try to get caught up in the next few days -- or at least before Ellie's birthday gets here. 

Happy Valentine's Day

We wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Valentine's Day!  It was cold again here in St. Augustine today so we didn't go out and do too much but we had fun inside watching the winter Olympics.

Emory and Ellie got each other some silly Valentine's day presents that included these kissing lip lollipops.

I wasn't sure that we were going to be able to get this picture because of all of the giggling that was going on!

Fun at Universal Studios

On Sunday we went to Universal Studios - Islands of Adventure in Orlando.  It was the first visit to this theme park for the kids and the first time that Dan and I have been in over ten years.  We had a great day!  The weather was quite chilly by our standards with a high in the 50s but the lines were non-existant.  Definitely a fair trade off.  We didn't wait for more than 5-10 minutes for anything!

There are so many fun props to sit on as you walk into the park.  It was hard not to stop for them all!

Our first stop was at Seuss Landing.  A land of pure fun and silliness!

Just look at how the trees grow in Seuss Landing...  I wish that we could shape one in our yard like this!

Our first ride was the Carou-seuss-el.  What a colorful and fun ride!

You can't help but smile while riding this carousel.

We even ran into the Cat in the Hat before heading on...

We're hoping to head back next weekend to try out the other park - Universal Studios.

Ellie's First Dance

On Saturday night, Ellie went to her first dance.  It was the annual Father-Daughter dance for Girl Scouts.  There were no moms allowed but Ellie and I had so much fun picking out just the perfect dress for her to wear.  Ellie fell in love with this dress and she looked like a princess when she put it on.

Dan got all dressed up for the event too and he was so proud to take his princess to her first dance.

Ellie went to the dance with her friend Allie who is in her Daisy troop and who lives down the street from us.  Ellie and Allie have been friends since they were four years old and went to preschool together. 


















Here are the girls with their daddies and dates for the evening...Dan and Kevin.

At the beginining of the dance, each girl was given a corsage that their daddy pinned onto their dress.  The cream rose matched Ellie's dress perfectly and it had a small glass slipper attached to it.

After dinner and pictures it was time for the dancing to begin.  The girls enjoyed dancing in a conga line, doing the macarena and spinning in circles around each other.


















The favorite dance of the evening for all of the girls was being dipped by their daddies.  Doesn't it look like fun?























It was a wonderful evening for Dan and Ellie and hopefully the first of many Father-Daughter dances to come!

Soccer Tournament

Emory played in a 3v3 soccer tournament with his team, the Kickers, on January 2nd and 3rd.  It was his second tournament of this type and the second one played in less than great weather.  The first one was played in torrential rains that eventually forced the tournament to be canceled on the second day.  This one was just freezing cold.  It was at the very beginning of our two week long cold snap and the temps in the morning must have been in the 20s with highs in the 30s.

 Emory was happy to see his Under Armour clothing again to put on beneath his uniform.  I think that if he could have wrapped a scarf around his face to play that he would have done that too!  That was the only skin that he had showing in the morning it was so cold.

Scoring a goal was enough to make him forget about the cold temps for a little while!

The Kickers 3v3 Team - Jordan, Mack, Emory, Alex and Jack.  The only one missing is Cameron and he was out of town for this tournament.

Student of the Week

Ellie has been making us so proud this week!  At school she was on the "gold star" for two days in a row.  This is an honor that is earned when students receive three compliments from adults (other than her teacher, Mrs. Ledford) at school during a single day.  It's something she's been trying to do all year and now she did it two days in a row.  She even earned four compliments the first day!   Great Job, Ellie!!!

To make the week even better (if that is possible), Ellie found out on Monday that she is the Student of the Week.  All sorts of fun things come along with this honor.  A few of them are being line leader all week and getting to run errands to the front office, passing out the hand sanitizer before lunch (this is what she's doing int he picture below).

The best part of all is getting to bring home the Student of the Week backpack.  In the backpack are two stuffed animals, Lucky Bernard and Whiskers.  The student of the week gets to choose one to take with them everywhere all week, even home!  Ellie chose Whiskers the cat.  She also has a special journal in the backpack that she gets to write in each night about the fun that she had with Whiskers each day.  We're having lots of fun with Whiskers so far and we'll post something next week all about Whiskers adventures with Ellie.

Straight A's...again!

Emory and Ellie received their 2nd Quarter  report cards yesterday.  Emory made Straight A's again.  That makes six quarters in a row!  Way to go Emory!!! 

Ellie also made all Ms and Ps again, which would be equivalent to As  (no A, B, Cs until third grade in our county).   I think that she is going to follow in her big brothers footsteps with the grades.  Way to go Ellie!!!

Wacky Weather!

Our weather here in St. Augustine this winter has been crazy!  First it was in the teens and twenties every night for over two weeks.  Our poor palms and other tropical plants did not fair well at all.  We've finally warmed back up into the 60s and we're loving every minute of it.  Then last Thursday we were in for another surprise.  We'd been having storms all day with heavy rain and winds and tornado warnings.  At school, the kids spent a couple of hours sitting in the hallways away from all windows as the warnings passed.  Dan and I heard a strange sound and looked out to see hail coming down.  It was pretty to watch since we were at home rather than out in it.  Owen even came out to the lanai to check it out with us and he was in heaven.  He loves ice cubes and couldn't resist eating the hail that bounced through the open door into the lanai! 

This is about as close as we're going to get to snow this year I think!  Now, come on Spring!!!

Ringing in 2010

May all of your new year's wishes come true and 2010 be a great year for us all !