Clifford!!

This week was the annual book fair at FPK.  It was Abby's first time to go and she was soooo excited when she realized she actually got to keep the books she selected (she thought it was a library at first).  We attended Family Night on Tuesday and Clifford was there to meet all the children.  Abby instantly warmed up to him and by the end of the evening was curled up on the floor next to him, reading her new books.  It was really cute!  Abby selected several fun books and Ellie picked out a new chapter book.

The next morning was Granola with Grands, so Granna and Abby headed off to school to select a few more books, and have a little visit with her classmates and their grandparents.  Sweet times!! 
We've enjoyed all the new additions to our ever-growing library!  We love to read!

How Ellie spent her President's Day weekend

Poor little Ellie had one of her Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome episodes over last weekend.  She started Thursday night and by Saturday evening, it was clear she needed to go to the hospital for several bags of IV fluids under Dr. Braden's loving care.  She's such a good sport about it, even though she felt miserable and weak, and it took several attempts to get the IV started since she was so dehydrated.  It makes us so sad to see her sick!  But by Sunday morning after a night of IV fluids, she was feeling better, smiling, and ready for real food! 

Another real meal!  Hooray!!! 
Her second night we pretended we were having a slumber party in the hospital, and watched lots of Food Network and HGTV and painted her toenails.
Abby, Granna, Papa, Uncle Jeff & Aunt Sarah visited her Sunday, and that perked her up!

She spent 2 nights in KDMC and as soon as we got the "OK" from the doctors, Ellie was ready to bust out of the hospital!   She wanted to go home to her own bed.  Here she is, packed up and watching out for the wheelchair to take her to our car.

In the meantime, Abby had a super fun slumber party at Granna's house in Uncle Randy's old room.  Check out her pile of stuffed animals and pillows!

Valentine's Day!

We LOVE Valentine's Day!  So we seem to celebrate all month with tasty desserts and several crafts.  And we decorated a lot!  The girls helped me decorate the porch with Valentine fabric pillows, stickers in the kitchen windows, a vase of heart cut-outs on the dining room table, and we made a new wreath for the dining room mirror.

The Sunday before Valentine's Day, Tim grilled delicious steaks for our family celebration.  
On Valentine's Day, Ellie and Abby woke up to a decorated table with special little gifts from Daddy & Mommy and a breakfast of donuts and raspberry hot cocoa.  After school, we had cupcakes at Janie's!  Mmmmmm!!!

Ellie and Abby had a blast opening sweet gifts and cards from Granna & Papa, Uncle Jeff and Aunt Sarah, Jenny & Julia and Nana & Foo-Foo.

That evening, Tim and I enjoyed a rare date at the new Iron Horse Cafe downtown.  It was delicious -- I had lemon fish topped with a seafood sauce and Tim had key lime shrimp.   It was especially nice since we were celebrating our 10th anniversary of getting engaged.  The night we were engaged, Tim treated me to a  Valentine's dinner at the Inez, which is now the Iron Horse.

Ellie and Abby had a fun time with sweet Anna, our babysitter.  I think they were as excited about a babysitter as we were for our date.

Before supper, the girls and I made our Valentine's traditional chocolate covered strawberries!  Ellie took this photo of us.

After our date, we enjoyed our special dessert with the girls on our screened porch -- where Tim and I were engaged ten years ago!  We snuggled them close and told them the story of our engagement.
It was a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Abby's Class Valentine Party

Abby had a delightful time at her very first class Valentine party!  It was so cute!
They started with a craft -- decorating adorable owl bags to hold their Valentines.

Lylah with her cute bag.

Abby's owl bag!

Then they enjoyed a yummy dessert of cake pops.  Just the right size for pre-schoolers.  Abby really liked hers, as you can tell in the photo!

Abby's precious class (minus camera-shy Hampton) -- James, Tyndale, Livi, Abby, Lylah and Macel.

Lylah & Abby hugs.  They are best buddies!  Abby wrote her own name on her bag.

Checking out her loot after the big treat swap!  Her bag was full of tasty treats and sweet notes from her classmates.

Ellie's Class Valentine Party



Ellie and I had the fun task of organizing her class valentine party, since her actual teacher, Mrs. Porter, was out on maternity leave.  We worked together (and spent a lot of time online!) working on ideas -- and we think the party was a success!  Here are Ellie's lollipop treats for her classmates' valentine bags.



We came up with several "stations" for the children to visit during the party.  The first was the Tower of Love.  The children tried to stack large conversation hearts in a tower in 30 seconds.  Tallest tower wins!

Next station:  Chopstick Pick Up.  Using chopsticks, the children had to move small conversation hearts from one plate to another.

Heart Attack:  The children were asked to write notes to a special someone, thanking them for all they do.  It was sweet to read their thoughtful cards!

Jars of Hearts:  Guess how many were in the jars!

There was also a craft station where the classmates could make valentine decorations using doilies, paper plates, stickers and other art supplies.

Ellie's heart is cute!

One mom surprised the children with yummy bottled drinks sipped through fancy straws!  Quite a treat!!
The children snacked on Valentine cookies, cupcakes, fresh fruit and chips.

Ellie and Anna Cate acting silly!

Sweet friends!
Sweet party!

Quest and Shapes!

Ellie loves her Fridays in Mrs. Driskoll's Quest class.  They play educational games, learn about different cultures, history lessons, and experiment with new concepts.  One afternoon, I popped in and got to see their fun color wheel project.  They were experimenting with food coloring, cake icing and nilla wafers, to learn about the color wheel.  First they mixed up primary colors in the icing, and spread them on nilla wafers.

Then they combined the primary colors to make secondary colors like that pretty lavender on Ellie's plate.  Educational and tasty! 
On the floor behind Ellie are their newsprint covered balloons for their Presidents Unit. The balloons are for their President head sculptures.  Each Quest student has selected a President to study and do a presentation for their regular class.  Ellie's choice is Ronald Reagan.

One of Ellie's homework assignments in her regular class was a Shape Monster.  She had to find objects around the house representing the shapes they've learned in geometry and make a funny monster.  Ellie's is quite colorful!!   All the children's monsters were so creative and are now on display in Ellie's class.

Ellie named hers "Cutie Patootie!"

Fun Random Photos!

One morning before school, I dressed Abby in her cute Valentine skirt, tights, boots and white sweater.  As soon as she was all dressed, she looked down and said, "This is a BORING outfit. I don't love it."  Seriously?   What's boring about this?  So I asked her and she said "this sweater is boring.  It's just plain white."  Little Fashionista!  Check out her bored face.  Soo funny!  I found her Valentine stickers and stuck one on her sweater and that made the outfit sort-of un-boring.  But as soon as we got to school, she slipped off the boring sweater, revealing her un-boring hot pink tee.   Much better (and not BORING).

Look who helped me mop!  Yay! My helper!

Ellie & Abby on a Daddy/Girls Day to Jackson.  They did a little valentine shopping and ate at their favorite without-mommy restaurant, Annie D's.

Ellie and Abby have pen-pals!  They each received a letter all the way from California, from my sweet childhood friend Cara's daughters, Natalie and Allison, asking them to be pen-pals.  Ellie and Abby enjoyed reading the letters, learning a little about Natalie & Allison, and spent an afternoon replying to them -- answering the questions Natalie and Allison asked and asking their new pen pals a few questions.  On the right is Allison's letter from California and on the right is Abby's drawing of (who else?!) Tangled.  The girls are excited about this new long distance friendship!

I have never seen a child MORE excited about visiting the dentist.  Abby acts like it's Disneyworld.  She marches right in, climbs up on Dr. Reid's exam table and waits with her mouth wide open.  It's hilarious!!  She told the hygienist that her teeth needed to be sparkly clean since the Easter Bunny would be coming very soon to bring her lots of sticky candy. 

Shopping cart naps are the best!

Visiting Mamaw for her 93rd birthday!  Precious, precious Mamaw!

Ready for ballet!

Camellia Show

The camellias have been absolutely gorgeous this year so Ellie and Abby decided to enter several of their blooms in the annual Brookhaven Camellia Society's show.  First they pretended the Japanese Magnolia petals were snow and ran through them (in their jammies!).

Ellie was very serious about her camellia selection process!

Abby carefully carried her blooms inside on a tray.

This is our favorite variety in our yard!  It looks like peppermint!

Granna & Ellie!  Granna is so sweet to teach the girls all about camellias! 
This was a huge show for Brookhaven -- look at the tables and tables of blooms!

Ellie's blooms won a first and second place!  She was so excited!  And several kind camellia growers helped identify her bloom.  This one is a Herme.

Father Daughter Ball

Ellie and Daddy had a very special date several weekends ago.  They attended a Father Daughter Ball at Co-Lin.  They were so very excited about their special event!  Ellie selected a lovely new dress and requested an updo hair style.   Tim coordinated his tie to match her pretty ballgown. 

She looks so grown up!!

A corsage for his date!  How precious!

Sweet!

Little sister had to jump in a few photos.

Ready to go!!

They had a lovely evening.  At the ball, they ate party foods, visited with several of Ellie's friends and their dads, and danced, danced, danced!  Precious memories Ellie will always remember!