A Hope and a Future

Birthday bash

Today is my precious first born's SEVENTH birthday!! How can it be that she is already seven? Time is marching on way too fast:) She has had a great two day long birthday celebration complete with a slumber party, cake, and presents!

She chose to have a slumber party with Emma and Cailey last night and they had a blast together. In fact, they finally had to be separated into separate rooms about 10:30 last night because they just could NOT settle down! Here are some pics of all the fun:

 
  
 Making (and then eating) their own pizza

 

Birthday cake:)

 
  
 

Present time! My mom gave her the potato with quarters in it: she said this is something her mother used to do:)

 
 

The "pot game"....candy under the pot as a reward for finding it....they want to play this at EVERY party now!

A HUGE thanks to Heather who was my official party photograper....you saved me friend:)

I'm so thankful for seven years with this precious girl....happy birthday baby! 
  

Parade fun

Yesterday was our town's annual Christmas Parade. I have very fond memories of watching this parade growing up; the parade came right past our house so we would invite lots of friends and watch the parade right on our front lawn:) We decided to go and take the kids yesterday and really enjoyed it!

 

We were wondering if any of them would be scared of the loud noises but they all just took it in and seemed to enjoy it! It's a two hour long parade so the boys got a little restless and wanted to wander around but the endless supply of candy they consumed helped:) Dennis and I remember growing up having people throw candy off of floats and having to run for it but apparently now they just walk alongside the floats and hand it out! That's what happened yesterday anyway:)

Here's what happens when you are two and skip your nap to go to a parade:

It's only a 10 minute drive home but they were SO tired! Rebecca wasn't really asleep but wanted to pretend she was for the picture:) We let them sleep in the van for about 30 minutes....bless their hearts! 

Oh, I should probably explain why our son is in a pink carseat....that's actually Hannah's carseat but they like to switch seats sometimes and honestly it's just not a battle we chose to fight.....doesn't really matter:)
  

Kudzu: A Southern Musical

Dennis is getting a neat opportunity right now to be a part of something he loves: musical theater! We have a really good community theater group here and I had thought several times that Dennis might like to try out for a play. Through a neat series of events he found out about a part he thought he could play and got the part! He has been really busy with it for the last six weeks or so; practices Mon-Fri evenings and the past 10 days or so performances almost every day. He has had a BLAST and has done an awesome job with his part! He actually joined the cast a couple weeks into rehearsals but picked up all his lines and songs with no problem. He plays a sidekick of the main character and his character is named Nasal T Lardbottom (I know!) He is a really big guy who wants to play basketball but can't even jump much less shoot a ball! He wears a fat suit and everything. He even shaved all his facial hair and he looks so different!

I got to see the play twice and the second time Rebecca went along. She LOVED it! She got the biggest kick out of seeing her daddy up there.

   

After the play Rebecca and I got to go bowling with the cast and she was in heaven! She loved meeting all the other actors and hanging out with them and it was her first time bowling. She was a little hesitant at first but soon was going right on up when it was her turn. I kept trying to catch a shot of her actually rolling the ball but kept missing it. She thought she was big stuff staying up so late; we didn't get home until 11:30 that night!

If you want to see more pics here and here are links to our local paper's stories on it. He is gone right now to the final performance; it's bittersweet because I know he has had a blast and I am SO glad he got to be a part of it but I'm also glad to be getting my husband back:) I think he is hooked now....he is planning on trying out for another one in the spring!