Happy 4th!!!

We had a fantastic time celebrating Mayzie's first 4th of July! Our celebrating actually started a week early at our church's Patriotic Picnic. Jill and I decided to make Mayzie and Emory matching dresses...which was SUPER simple by the way. Here's the tutorial we used if any of you are interested in trying to make pillowcase dresses: http://www.aroomsomewhere.net/2007/07/pillowcase-dress-tutorial.html. Anyways...Jill found a wagon and the girls did SO well riding in the parade around our church parking lot! We had a ton of fun and plan on winning 1ST place in the decorating contest next year!!!

Hendersonville always has a pretty great show the 3rd of July and our YaM's class gets together at the high school to watch the fireworks. We had a GREAT group this year show up and Amy made 4 yes FOUR quarts of homemade ice cream for everyone!! I got a fantastic group shot of all the kids that came (something I've been wanting to do for a WHILE). Mayzie was a little afraid of the fireworks at first but then was fascinated! She sat with Owen and just watched in awe! I was so proud of her...considering that I was DEATHLY afraid of them when I was little!!!

My parents' pool is FINALLY finished and we are SO excited!!! On the Fourth we had family over and had a great time swimming!! Mayzie is a fish and just loves being in the water. She also really loved watching Aunt Kate and cousin Jordan break in the diving board. Later that evening we had our little family fireworks show and Mayzie did pretty well with those too! There was one whistling one that scared her but who likes those anyway, right?? Holidays are SO much more fun when you get to share them with your kiddos!!!

Captivated...

The summer after we got married Owen and I went with his family to Sanibel/Captiva Island. I had heard about this place forever from him and been DYING to go! Needless to say it was a fantastic trip and I knew that first time that I had to bring my parents and sister down there. It was a LONG drive...especially since all 6 of us were piled into our suburban towing a UHaul. We really did have a good time (I love car trips) and Mayzie did a great job! We stayed at a house on the bay side of the island which had a private pool. This was a HUGE plus since swimming was Mayzie's favorite part of the whole trip! We rented a boat two days out of the trip and went shelling at North Captiva (Sanibel and Captiva are wonderful for shelling) and then went fishing the next day. We caught a couple of trout, and when I say a couple I really do mean two...ha! Mayzie did great on the boat. Thanks to some good advice from our expert boating friends, Kayla and Justin, she played in her little laundry basket and loved watching the water! We also did some biking on Sanibel one day. Mom and Dad rented a tandem bike which was the cutest thing ever and Mayzie loved her little trailer! We visited all our favorite resturaunts, did a little shopping and a lot of relaxing! I can't wait to be back!

A Very Proud Niece

Owen's brother Evan leaves for his year deployment in Afghanistan tomorrow. We are having some mixed emotions at our house today. So incredibly proud of Evan and his choices to put his life on hold and at risk to keep our family safe and comfortable in this wonderful country of ours but also worried for his safety. We have complete confidence in our Father's plan but can't help but be anxious for his return in December and then in June.

Owen's mom Janie, Evan and his sweet girlfriend Kelsey all came and visited us over Memorial Day weekend. We had WAY too much food and so much fun just hanging out around Hendersonville. I even tried out one of my Pinterest recipies (with Uncle Evan's help of course)...bacon pancakes...so easy and fun and DELICIOUS! One of my favorite things we did was have a picnic at Saunders Ferry Park. Evan put Mayzie on his shoulders and she did NOT stop laughing for probably 20 minutes as we walked around the park. I'm terrible at remembering to take pictures and so mad at myself for not getting a group one. We'll have to put that on the list for when he's home in December. I know Mayzie doesn't understand any of this now but someday I know that she will proudly brag about her strong and bwave Uncle Evan who's in the awmy (is it weird that I hope she can't say her r's?). Please keep Evan and ALL our soldiers in your prayers and remember this upcoming Fourth of July what our freedom costs. We love you Evan!!!

Surprise!!!!!

So a month or so ago Owen and I were talking about how we needed to go visit GJ and Pops and thought it would be fun to surprise GJ for her birthday/Mother's Day weekend. With some help from Pops, Granbertha and Kelsey it remained a secret and I think GJ was super surprised!! We had a wonderful weekend full of some yummy food (some of our favorite restaurants are in Birmingham), catching up and great memories! We surprised Owen's Mom at a great restaurant that evening where I enjoyed a GIANT piece of cake....YUM! Saturday we ate at one of our favorite little places in Birmingham...Mr. P's and got to visit my favorite baby store...Buy Buy Baby!! That evening we went for a walk at Star Lake and Mayzie loved the ducks!! It was such a fun filled weekend and I was also so glad we got to see Grandbertha...she and Mayzie are big buddies!! :) We were sad to say bye on Sunday but are really looking forward to seeing everyone soon!!

Max and Mayzie

A week or so ago my sweet best bud Megan came in town to visit!! She lives in Oklahoma now and I miss her very much but being so far away makes it so much more fun when I get to see her (I'm trying to be a positive Polly here...) Anyways we were headed out of town that weekend so we didn't get to hang out as much as I would have liked but we got to see each other at church Wednesday and have a quick lunch Friday! I got a sweet picture that I've been wanting to get for a while of our Mom's with their new grandbabies! Mayzie and Max are only a couple of months apart and I've loved sharing this exciting time with Meg!! We can't wait till Sean, Megan and Max are all back and we can hang out longer!! Love you guys!!

Time for Tea!

So my sister, Katie's friend, Mary Morgan, works at this ADORABLE store in Franklin called Lulu's. Mom, Katie, Mayzie and I all had a fun shopping day in downtown Franklin which was also the day of the Royal Wedding. SO in honor of the wedding, Lulu's had a Royal Tea Party and of course we had to drop by!!! There was delicious tea, yummy snacks and of course Mayzie loved the pretty plastic silverware! :) We ended up sitting across from two women from Great Britain (I know...how cool was that?!?) and chatted all about Kate and how great they thought she was! We had such a fabulous afternoon and can't wait till Lulu's has another fun event!! Thanks again for inviting us Mary!!

Here Comes Peter Cottontail!

We had an absolutely fabulous first Easter with our Mayzie. I have ALWAYS loved Easter. I have such happy memories of fun frilly dresses, beautiful Spring weather, church with sweet family, delicious cooking from my amazing Granny and Easter egg hunts on the farm. I cannot begin to describe how exciting it was to start those same memories with our baby girl! We started the weekend meeting the Easter bunny at our church's Easter Eggstravaganza and dying eggs the Saturday before! Mayzie just loved the Easter bunny and was a little confused about the egg dying but I think she had fun!!

We woke up Sunday morning and were so excited to show Mayzie what the Easter bunny brought! Owen and I had so much fun picking out her fun gifts and had a little bet going. I wanted to get her a 'Sophie' teething giraffe and he got her a remote...yup...a remote. We were curious about which she would go for first. I'll let you watch the video at the end of the post to see what she did!

Later that day we met up with my family. My parents had gotten Mayzie her 2nd Easter basket of the day and she loved it all!! We took some sweet pictures and headed off to Greenbriar to spend the afternoon on the farm with more wonderful family!! My grandmother is an AMAZING cook and we let Mayzie try some of it this time and boy was it a HIT! I have SO many happy memories at my Grandparents and am so thankful for them! Granny and Grandaddy got her ANOTHER Easter basket too!! She still plays with the little duck from this basket all the time!! After all our food had settled we had a quick Easter Egg hunt inside because it had started to storm. My sweet Momma had put together some fun Easter eggs full of puffs, small toys and little phrases like "Aunt Kate loves you!" (She had one from everyone at lunch that day). We had such a wonderful wonderful day and I can't wait till next year when she can run around and tell us all about Peter Cottontail!