She's FIVE!!!

Grace is five!!! I can't believe it's been five years since she was born. She's so grown up now. Anyway, I'll save the tears for later. We gave her a few presents on the morning of her birthday, which are shown here. She got a baseball glove from her daddy, which her daddy is very excited about. She also got a Halloween barbie doll. Weird, I know, giving that it is the end of January. She went to a girl's birthday party around Halloween and we gave the little girl this same barbie. Grace told me at that time that she wanted one for her birthday too but I blew it off thinking she would forget about it by the end of January. Well, kids never fail to prove you wrong. Every time I asked her what she wanted for her birthday the answer was always the same, the Halloween barbie. All I have to say is, thank goodness for Ebay!!! Grace also had been asking for a baton with glitter in it. I found some at Wal-Mart for $0.88 each!! Gotta love Wal-Mart too. I got one for Lyla too so she wouldn't feel left out. I'm thinking this was a mistake since I had to take it away from her within 20 minutes because she was using it to hit everything in sight, including Grace!

Birthday Time!

Grace received her first birthday present in the mail this week from Grandma and Grandpa Galloway (Jenny's Mom's parents). Grace didn't like the idea of waiting to open it until her birthday so she got an early treat. It was a bubble machine for the bathtub! They had to get the in tub immediately and try it out. It even has a working microphone. Very cool! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Chuck E Cheese!

We went to birthday party for a friend at Chuck E Cheese this week! Mass chaos! But, the kids love it. Grace and Lyla sat with Grace's buddy, Abby, to eat pizza and cupcakes. Lyla loved the cupcake as you can tell. Grace only ate ice cream because she has recently decided that she doesn't like icing! We'll see how long that lasts. The night ended in tears, as it usually does, as we had to carry them both out kicking and screaming and mad at hornets that they didn't have enough tickets for the My Little Pony toy hanging on the wall. The choice between a glow-in-the-dark plastic scorpian or 1 tootsie roll just wasn't acceptable to them. At least the cupcake was good!

Olympics here we come!

Grace and Lyla have been going to gymnastics since last summer and they love it! They are both pretty good and have moved up to the next class level since starting. I tried to get some pictures of them on this day for the first time. I couldn't really get any good ones of Grace. I'll try her again next week. Lyla is shown in these pictures in her class with her coach. Coach Kristina has told us that she has never had a 2 year old be able to do what Lyla can do on the bar! She's very strong and coordinated and fearless. I think her fearlessness is the biggest thing! Anyone who knows Lyla understands when I say she's fearless. She's our little wild child. Maybe it will pay off one day!

Another Sunday Afternoon

Don't be fooled into thinking this was a nice, calm, quiet, sleepy Sunday afternoon like I wanted it to be. The girls were wild as usual. I couldn't get them to take naps so I finally gave up. They ended up in the same little chair watching a cartoon around 4pm when Lyla fell asleep. Grace fell asleep shortly after I took this picture. Of course, I had to wake them up just 30 minutes later to get ready for Life Group and they were very unhappy with me! That's the way it goes!

The First Snow!!!

It's Wednesday night and I'm trying to hurry the girls out of the door to get to church. I knew it was snowing outside for the first time of the season but for some silly reason I thought I could rush them into the van and promise of playing later. Well, as soon as the door opened, Lyla was on the ground making a snow angel and getting all wet before church. After we got home from church they did get to play some more though. They loved throwing snowballs with Eric and trying to find snow to eat. Grace posed for the picture again but Lyla just have a frozen face for the camera. They were very disappointed the next morning when it was all gone. Lyla just couldn't understand where it went. I think they asked me 50 questions the next morning on the way to preschool about where the snow went!

One of the girls' favorite activities in our new neighborhood is to visit the Harpeth River which is just a short walk from our house. Thanks to Daddy, the girls know this walk very well already. The pictures above are from a Sunday afternoon walk to the river. The weather had been very rainy that weekend so the walk was muddy! Everyone fell in the mud except Daddy. Needless to say, Mommy wasn't prepared for walking in sloppy mud, and wasn't real happy when she slid down a steep bank and got all muddy. The girls loved it, of course, even though it was quite chilly outside. On the way back I decided to try to get them to pose for me in the grassy area. Grace has the cute, girly, picture pose down pat, but Lyla on the other hand, refused to smile and insisted on making silly faces for the camera. Then, on the way back, the girls wore us down and we told them they could walk in the water a little. A little turned into 30 more minutes and Grace lying belly down in the cold water! Lyla had a little trouble with her pants staying up but she didn't seem to care. They walked back with water swishing in their boots and complaining of the cold and Mommy saying I told you so!