Gorgeous!!!!!

All I can say about this weekend was it was GORGEOUS!!!!! It was sunny and highs were around 70. We were so excited. Not your typical January weather but we weren't going to knock it!

Friday night we had our sweet friends the Newbys over for dinner. We loved getting to hang out with them. I actually graduated high school with Jonathan and Jennifer and they are the only people I still see that I graduated with. We have been friends for a long time and I love that we can still hang out. Always fun to just get to catch up with them.

Saturday we took advantage of the beautiful weather. We spent all day outside. It was wonderful!!!! We went up to Monte Sano Park for a picnic and to play. We spent about 4 hours up there which was great.

This is our child with no fear. She was going head first down the slide! They had a blast playing together. It was so sweet.
Silly boy!

Silly Girl!
We were so proud of Ben. He has always been afraid of the tall slides they have (they are really tall) and the climbing stuff but this year he did it! He just started sliding and climbing. He is growing up so quickly and I am so proud of how he is conquering his fears.
We made Kate practice her walking. She still has no desire to walk but can do it great if we make her. Ben and I put on a show at the stage area for Daddy and Kate. Of course it was about football!

My handsome little guy!

Sweet brother and sister!

We enjoyed a great picnic lunch. Can I just say the weather was just perfect.

Saturday afternoon we came home and played outside more. All the neighbors were out and it was so good to just hang out with them and catch up. It has been a long winter inside. All the moms sat around and talked and the dads and kids played ball. It was great! We are so blessed to have such great neighbors.

Sunday was the usual church activities. I was able to catch a couple of pictures of the kids in their "Sunday best."

It was a great weekend. Now it is back to real life. It is raining and going to turn cold again. I am sure there will be snow sometime soon. But we enjoyed the nice weather while it lasted.

That's So Ben

Ben's teacher met me at the door to the classroom the other day and said " I have to tell you a story that's so Ben." That line right there cracked me up. Ben is a quirky little guy! He likes things a certain way! Mrs. Teague told me that she had gotten each of the kids a bucket to keep their art supplies in. They put their glue and scissors and such in it. She then put a big bucket of crayons in front of them and told them to pick out a bunch of different crayons to put in their buckets. Ben followed the instructions perfectly. Mrs. Teague looked in his bucket and she said there were 10 different shades of green crayons. He had only picked out the green. That's my boy!!! He loves his green.

He does not like art or coloring or anything related to it. Today when I picked him up from school, there were giraffe pictures they had cut out and colored hanging on the wall. I knew right away which one was Ben's! It was the one that did not have a single coloring mark on it. All the other kids had colored spots and different things on the giraffes. Ben's was perfectly cut out but also perfectly plain. He has no desire to color! He did draw a nice tree next to the giraffe for it to eat from. Kindergarten is going to be a long year for him!!

Thursday Randomness

So I guess the winter doldrums have hit. I feel like I just don't have much to write about. We pretty much do the same thing everyday. I try to find exciting things but it's hard. So sorry if the blog is getting boring. I guess our life is boring right now.

I enjoy Thursdays because it is our low key day. Nothing too scheduled Well we have speech therapy early but that is fine. Today Ben had a buddy over to play and then we went to lunch with my dad and brother. My dad has been retired for the past 4 months and it has been wonderful!! He has loved retirement and I have loved having him nearby!! He has done lots of babysitting. He is heading back to work soon so that is sad. We sort of had our good-bye lunch. We sure are going to miss Grandaddy being around so much.

After lunch we went up to my mom's new school. They recently built a new school to divide up the school near our house. It had 1,000 students at it so it was just too big. The new school is nearby too and my mom is splitting her week between the schools. It was our first time to get to go in the new school. It is beautiful!! It looks like a ski lodge if you ask me!

We enjoyed checking it out and playing in the library. Everything is so new and clean!
This afternoon it was actually sunny and sort of warm (like 50 degrees) so Ben and I ventured outside to play. We had a great time playing in his "cabin." We also played some football (of course) and some soccer. It was great to just be outside and run off some energy!

I had to show off my van's new "bling." I am so excited!!!

See like I said boring days but they are our days and they are great!!!

"No Snow" Day

So for about the past week they have been predicting another snow even for us this week. We are so sick of snow. I mean we usually only get snow about every 5 years and that is just a little. About every 20 years we get a big snow and that is good for us. This winter we have already had 2 big snows and a couple of other small snows. We discussed needing to start name them with letters like hurricanes to keep them all straight. When they started talking 7-12 inches I was dreading it! They did bring the prediction down to 2-4 inches but even that is enough to close schools for several days. And they did delay schools starting yesterday. So I woke up with dread this morning to see what was outside. And I saw this wonderful sight... NO SNOW!!! Happy Day!!!! That meant the kids got to go to school!!! They were excited to go.
And I was excited to send them. I really do think this was the first Wednesday (the only day that they are both in school) that I have not had to go into work! It was great to drop them off and come back home. I got to do my Bible Study in quiet. Then clean my dirty house! It was great. I even got to eat lunch in silence. Then it was time to pick them up and the house was full of screams, laughter and chatter once again. That is also so wonderful!!!

Games

Our family LOVES games! We recently met some people and asked them if they were "game people." They said they didn't really like games. We quickly knew they would not be our friends! I don't know if it is genetic or just environment but Ben has a deep love of games as well. Everyday it is "I want to play a game!!" Always so much fun. He is actually really good at games. He loves to follow the rules and try to do his best. We of course love it. I got some pictures of him really concentrating on his games tonight...
Love the tongue sticking out! It is so much fun to just play games together. I love spending time with my little family!! I am so blessed.

I wanted to share a couple of our current favorite kids games. I got Hullabaloo at a yard sale recently and it is the best $1 ever spent. If you have kids over the age of 2 this game is wonderful! Interactive and fun. Ben got Busytown Eye Found It for Christmas. It is a really fun game based on his favorite book. We have also really enjoyed playing it recently. So those are some must haves.

Just some fun pictures of my precious babies!! Love them!!

Ok so this is just one for the "Ben funny file." These days everything to Ben is football. He takes anything and turns it into a game of football. Tonight it was the game pieces when we got done playing. It just makes me laugh. There is always an offense and a defence and of course someone has to be Cam Newton. I love his little imagination.

Celebrate Good Times!

We had an amazing weekend!! We headed down to Auburn to the National Championship celebration. We knew that if they did something on a weekend we were going to be there. It was so hard for us to miss out on the game so this was a great way to be in on the championship!! We drove down to Birmingham late on Friday and spent the night at the Sheraton (so thankful for our points!!). We got up early and headed out to Auburn. We got there and finally found a place to park. Had to head straight to the stadium. Good thing we did because it was already filling up fast!! They estimate there were around 78,000 people there and I believe it!!
They even had to open the upper deck! The atmosphere was awesome!! So exciting. When we got there they were playing a replay of the NC game. Everyone was cheering like we were seeing it for the first time! We met up with my brother and Kelly and some of their friends.
It was great!! Both the kids were so excited. It was actually really sunny and not too cold. We got some fun ballpark food for lunch!

The actual ceremony was great. They had all sorts of great speakers. Former players, the governor, coaches and other awesome Auburn people. They introduced all of the players from the team. Then they passed out all the different trophies for the year! So neat!!!

Kate LOVED it!!! The girl clapped and shook her shaker the whole time!! It was so cute.

Ben took a nap. His eye drops make his eyes very sensitive to the sun so had to keep his eyes closed and I guess that made him sleepy.

At the end they raised the National Championship flag! So cool!

After the celebration we headed down to Toomer's for a good rolling!

We were lucky enough to get tickets to the Auburn - Alabama basketball game! It was our first game in the new Auburn Arena. It was such a fun atmosphere!

Once again both kids had a blast. They loved cheering and looking for Aubie.

The best part of the game is when they presented the Iron Bowl trophy at halftime! The SGA President from Alabama had to lead the crowd in the Auburn fight song which was fun!

It was a GREAT Auburn day!!! It was so much fun to celebrate a once in a lifetime moment (although we hope we win again soon - it is Auburn so we don't bank on it). We then headed back to Birmingham for the night. The kids enjoyed staying in a hotel all weekend. It was fun to just get away and spend some time as a family!!

Busy Friday

It has been a busy couple of days. The kids and I went down to Birmingham yesterday for Ben's eye appointment. His eyes still aren't doing what they want so that means more drops and another trip down there in a few weeks. These trips down there are getting tiring but we'll do it!

Today we are getting ready for a super fun weekend!! I can't wait to tell you about it Sunday or Monday!

Just thought I would share some pictures of our awesome kids! Have a great weekend.