We Heart Dollywood

Our family got season passes to Dollywood and went for the first time this year.  It was forecasted to rain, but we went anyway.  Well, it didn't rain until that evening and it wasn't crowded at all!  It was a great day.  Carter even rode a few rides.

Samantha was a little embarrassed riding on the baby rides, but she had fun with Carter!

Primary Talent Show

The kids had a primary talent show last month.  Ryan did handstands and Samantha sang "You're a grand old flag"  They both did great and it was very entertaining to see all that talent in our primary.

House for sale!

So our house is finally on the market and it has been quite a ride.  We have put stuff in storage, cut down trees, cleaned, replaced, and cleaned some more.  The market is not the best, but I think we just need to be patient.  Our house has never been this clean on a daily basis and it's been nice, but very exhausting at the same time.  Wish us luck!

Girl Scout Cookies Anyone??

It's that time of year! This is Samanatha's first year to sell Girl Scout cookies and she has done pretty well so far.  She has sold 82 boxes, but that also means we had to hand out 82 boxes of cookies.  Last Saturday we had a cookie booth set up in front of JCPenney's and for three hours we sold cookies.  So I just wanted you to think about us when you see those girls and their moms selling their hearts out!  Heehee!  

By the way, this is not a way to get you to buy any cookies.  I have never bought any until this year (that would be 5 boxes) so don't feel any pressure from me.  

I was just wondering what your favorite girl scout cookie is?  Is it Thin mints or my personal favorite, Samoa's (AKA Caramel Delites in other parts of the country) or maybe it's the traditional Trefoils (AKA shortbread cookies).  You can tell I've been around the cookies way too much lately, but I was just wondering.

I've added a picture of Samantha selling in front of JC Penney in a cookie outfit.  She and her friend did some "cookie dances" and Samantha made up a "Cookie song".  It was very cute and effective in getting customers over to our booth.

Florida!!!

Warning: A lot of pictures in this blog

We recently took a trip to Florida with my entire family.  We did a lot of walking, we stood in a lot of lines, we ate a lot, we spent a lot of money and we had a lot of fun!  We spent 5 days at the Disney parks, then one day at Seaworld!  Needless to say, we were very tired by the end of the trip.  We drove down (took 12 hours with kids) and it was long, but saved us a lot of money.

I have so many pictures, but cut it down for your viewing pleasure--enjoy!  

Here we are in front of Cinderella's castle.  For some reason my hand looks gigantic in this picture.  Maybe I've acquired "man hands" recently :) The first two days were cold then the wonderful Florida weather returned!

Here are the love birds in front of the castle

We went to a character breakfast and it was well worth it.  I especially liked the mickey waffles!  Here are the kids with most of their cousins (Wade and Kelly's kids)

Getting ready to watch the 3-D Bugs Life movie

This picture shows how much Carter loved the characters.  He would get so excited to see them and here he is pressing his nose up to Minnie's nose (twoo wove)

Riding a merry-go-round is serious business

We celebrated Ryan and his cousin, Ella's birthdays while in Florida.  He was very pleased with all his loot

Here I am at Seaworld.  Only a few hours into our day, I was graced by a blob of bird poop on my shirt.  Samantha got some on her hand and Carter also got some on his shirt and face.  Yuck!!  The only good thing that came out of this was that Carter and I got new shirts.

Samantha and Ryan being crazy in some silly hats they found

We had such a great time and thanks to mom and dad for providing the condos.

I would love to go back some day, it was well worth it!

Water baby

All my kids have liked their baths, but Carter absolutely LOVES his bath time.  He doesn't talk, but when he hears me say bath he crawls up the stairs and into the bathroom.  He makes such a mess of the bathroom splashing.  Samantha and Ryan think it is sooo funny!

Samantha turns 7!

Samantha turned 7 on the second and we had a small party for her at home on her birthday.  Then on the 10th she had a friend party at our house.  I originally wanted to find a place to have the party, but somehow it ended up at the house.  We had 10 girls come (half church friends and half school friends).  It was wild!!  We played hot potato, guess how many candies are in the jar, pop the balloon race (apparently I didn't blow the balloons up enough because it seemed difficult for the girls to pop them), did the limbo and played freeze dance.  The rest of the time was filled with running around and screaming.  It was a lot of fun, but exhausting.

This was taken during our family party.  Ryan was so excited to give her the gift he picked out.

Doing the limbo to the song "girls just want to have fun"

Dancing

I always make the cake and Tinkerbell was the theme, so I just bought a Tinkerbell candle and added flowers and "grass"

The entire group

Samantha has such a great group of friends and she gets really sad when we talk about moving in June.  Hopefully she'll find some fun girls on Ohio.