The Children's Songbook, Already?

Blake has been taking piano lessons for a little over a year now and has moved right along very fast. This month I started him playing Primary songs from the Children's Songbook! He had already played the simplified books I had, so I decided to try it and he's doing great. So far this month he's past off "Book of Mormon Stories", "Once There was a Snowman" and is currently working on "I Lived in Heaven". I'm the chorister in Primary now and since he's learning songs out of this book already, I'm thinking of having him accompany the kids for at least one song for the Primary Program this fall.

Bad Hair Day

Cool temperatures + low humidity = bad hair day! At first Ashlyn thought it was pretty funny that her hair had so much static and could stand up like this......but she quickly got mad that we were laughing at her hair and that it wasn't pretty like she likes it...not to mention that it looks like this while we're out and about running errands lots of times lately! Oh, the curse of having really fine hair!

Her first sleepover.....

...sort of. Rick and I have a big fundraiser event/dinner to attend tonight. Last year we didn't get home until around 11 o'clock. So this year instead of getting a sitter, Blake's going over to a friend's house for a "real" sleepover and Ashlyn's going over to her friend's house for "half a sleepover". We're picking her up "in the middle of the night" as she says (when the party's over) and she gets to sleep in her own bed the rest of the night. She was pretty excited about it and had her bag packed -complete with jammies, slippers and her toothbrush - Myrtle in hand and ready to walk out the door at 11 o'clock this morning. Unfortuntely we're not dropping her off at her friend's until 6 o'clock tonight...it's going to be a long day. She insisted that I take a picture to show everybody her big day and made a big production of wanting all different shots. Each time I clicked the camera she'd say "Okay, one more momma." This shot, although she's not smiling, was the best one she thought...we're in trouble when she's a teenager!

"UNO!"

Ashlyn's favorite game the last few weeks has been UNO. Her and Blake played it everyday during Christmas break and she's gotten REALLY good at it. Her hands are too small to hold all the cards so she has to lay them out in front of her, but she can play all by herself without help.
She's pretty funny when she skips a person or lays down a draw four card - she's got the trash talk down already! "Ha-ha, ha-ha, I skipped you!" However she's just as cute when somebody does it to her. She throws her head down on the table and acts as if it's the end of the world - laughing about it, thank goodness!

Fun with Grandma Kathy

This week Rick's mom came to visit along with her two sisters Wendy and Kay.


The kids had a great time having them all here and were really sad this morning when they went to wake Grandma up, forgetting that she left for the airport around 5 a.m.

Okefenokee Swamp

While they were all here we took them out to the Okefenokee Swamp to find them some gators. Since it's winter time there wasn't much green vegatation out there, but it was still pretty to look at on the boat ride. We can't wait to go back and do the 3 hour ride through the swamp to go further in.We defintely found them some, however there wasn't as many as we had seen the previous two times we had been out there.
This little guy we chased for awhile with the boat to see if he'd get out onto an island so we could see him better...no luck. These guys were enjoying the nice 75 degree weather, basking in the sun.
During a reptile show we all had the opportunity (which I chose not to take) to hold and pet various LARGE snakes. Both Blake and Ashlyn loved it and weren't scared one bit, I on the other hand chose to scoot to a row further back to stay clear of them. At the end, the gentleman got out a couple of baby gators and let the kids come up and "make their pictures" with them. (In the south you "make a picture", rather than "take a picture".) Right before I snapped the picture he put the 2-year old gator on Blake's head!

Game One of the Season

Blake had his first game of this year's basketball season this past Friday night. He's number 14 on the Pirates and the team is great this year! Everybody on the team scored at least one basket with many of them scoring multiple times - Blake made 3 of them. This season will be a LOT more exciting to watch since they all played last year. Go Pirates!

Two Spiffy Kids

Both Blake and Ashlyn got new clothes for Christmas this year. We were out of town last weekend so they didn't get a chance to wear their new church clothes until today. After they were all ready for church with Blake looking so handsome in his new shirt and tie and Ashlyn looking so pretty in her new dress with Cinderella on it, I couldn't help myself from taking their picture (or as they'd say here in the south..."making their picture") before heading out the door. Can you believe how big they're getting?

Happy New Year!

With kids our New Year's Eves have been pretty lame....last night we did break out some sparklers though, around 7:30 a little on the early side, but they needed to get to bed at a decent hour.Rick even got in on the fun. Here he decided to light an entire box at one time, not something that he'd suggest doing now!Ashlyn had a blast with them....until she burnt her finger and her bare leg with one. I ran her inside a got some ice to help get the heat out quicker. She now has a Nike swoosh looking mark on her leg and a polka dot on her finger as battle wounds. Needless to say she now says she's "never gonna do fireworks again!"