Oh The Dilemma...

I can't believe my "baby" is growing up. She will turn 3 in just a few short weeks:( So anyways, we are in the process of planning her birthday party and she had told me a couple months ago that she wanted to have a Strawberry "Corcake" (Shortcake) party. So I bought an adorable little strawberry shirt & skirt at Crazy 8 for her to wear for her party and started searching for invitations and products online.

Well then she changed her mind on me. Several days ago she started saying she wanted to have a Minnie Mouse party instead. So I was literally begging her because I already had the outfit and some other ideas to do at her party:) And when I would say "But don't you want to have Strawberry Shortcake and wear that cute outfit?" She would reply sweetly "No thank you...I'll have Minnie Mouse". But no amount of begging was doing the trick.

So guess what the thing was that changed her mind back?! Mia suddenly said..."I wanna have a Strawberry Shortcake party" and then Averi goes "I want to have Strawberry Corcake". So I got my wish...thank you for that Mia:) We're back to Strawberry Shortcake. Whew, that was a close one:)

Missions Night

Mia's missions night at Cubbies. She was a Kazakhstan princess...

Or as she called it...Princess Jasmine

She Did What?!

So...I went to pick Mia up from school today and her teacher said to me "I thought you might want to know that we had a little incident today. Mia & Caleb kissed on the playground, but we had a talk about it and why we don't kiss boys etc..." You can imagine my surprise! All I could think is "why in the world would she do this?" and all that I could get out was "WHAT?!"

I tried to regain my composure and then calmly replied "well thank you for letting me know, we will talk about it". As I walked away her teacher reassured me that Mia was innocent in it and that this can be normal at their age.

When we got in the car I asked Mia what happened. She told me the whole story which was that Caleb wanted to kiss her and that she didn't want to hurt his feelings and was just trying to be nice...Now that made sense to me! That is my child to a tee...not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings! So then she went on to explain that she didn't actually get in trouble because when Mrs. Moore asked her what happened, she told the truth. But Caleb got put in time out because he was trying to hide it and was the one who tried to kiss her. I was a little relieved after hearing the whole story but then explained to her as much as you can to a 4 yr. old that we do not kiss boys (only daddies and grandaddies) until we are much older.

My mind then flashed back to the 2nd grade when I chased down a boy named Douglas on the playground to kiss him. A little bit different of a story since I was the one chasing him down:)

So what was my husband's response when I told him about it? Well his first response was "Do I need to go have a talk with this kid?!" Yes, he is a little protective of his little girls just as my dad was. But his second response was..."Like mother like daughter". OUCH:)


When we got to the restaurant to meet "Juju" for lunch and she asked Mia how her day went, Mia started bawling and replied "I had a really hard day because I kissed Caleb!" Crack me up!

A Good Day

Mia's gymnastics has become our Saturday morning's family event...

Warming up and streching out...


Obstacle Course...



Averi loves to watch...She may get to join her next year; we will see.

Here she is waving to Mia...

After gymnastics we went down the hill to Bruster's to let the girls play on the playground, get ice cream and enjoy the awesome weather.



All in all it was a great Saturday!

Not Exactly the Answer a Soccer Coach Wants to Hear

So, we were driving home from church tonight and I was telling Mia that I heard that a friend of hers from church (Abby) was going to start playing soccer. I was hoping that might influence her so then I asked her "Do you want to play soccer too?!" She answered "No thank you, I might get sweaty!" What?! Where did this little girly girl come from?! But it was so funny that I had to laugh...

I was a little relieved when Averi piped up and said "I wanna play soccer mommy". At least I know we'll have 1 soccer player (child) in the family...



Dear Mia: You are a beautiful and dainty little girl and I love you just the way you are. I will support you no matter what you do...whether it be dancing, gymnastics, cheerleading or none of the above. I just think it is so humorous because you are the exact opposite of what I was as a child. We will one day laugh about all this together and I look forward to many more years of watching you grow (or not grow...lol) :)

Wordless Wednesday

The best part about snow? Eating it!!!

Valentine's Day

Mia went to school on Friday because they were having a little Valentine's Party. So I spent the morning hanging out with Averi and making valentines cards. She had so much fun and was giddy with excitement the whole time we were working on them...



Valentine's Day at church...

Jon & I celebrated Valentine's in Gatlinburg since we knew our weekend would be busy, so yesterday we just spent the afternoon/evening hanging out at home altogether. I cooked a nice dinner and made heart shaped brownies for dessert and we watched "Up". It was nice to just have a quiet night at home since we'd had a hectic weekend at our youth Winter Weekend...

And We FINALLY Get Snow...

The girls LOVED the snow. We went over to my parents and Grandaddy and Slava (a friend from Kaz.) helped the girls build a snowman and had a snowball fight.

Inspection Complete

The inspection and survey went great on the house today. The only thing the inspector discovered that we didn't already know was that the microwave didn't work...not a big deal at all-we can live with that:) Termite inspection also went great and there were no sign of termites. So we are set to close at the end of next week. Then the work begins...Home Depot is about to become my best friend:)

Gatlinburg

Jon & I had an incredible trip to Gatlinburg. It was really just what we needed. We spent the first day sleeping in, then we headed to the Apple Barn and had lunch and spent the rest of the day outlet mall shopping. After shopping we went out to dinner and then headed back to the cabin to enjoy the hot tub (which was out on the deck...so awesome) and watch a movie.

The second day we were there we had hoped to spend skiing. But unfortunately the weather was uncooperative and the rain melted the snow. So instead we went back to the Apple Barn for breakfast and then headed downtown to do some shopping. We also drove up on the mountain to hike around and take some pictures.

The best thing about the whole trip was just being able to enjoy not being on any nap or bedtime schedules. We just took our time doing whatever we wanted which was perfect. We have a lot of work ahead of us with remodeling the house and moving, so this was a good refresher before we start that whole process. Here are some pictures of our trip:

Apple Barn...



Our Cabin...




Eating Baskin Robbins in downtown Gatliburg (even though it was snowing outside)

Driving downtown...beautiful view of snowy mountains

Hiking around the Smokey Mountains...


It was snowing, but you can hardly tell in this picture...

You can see the snow flurries here...