First Time at the Movies!

We have been doing a star chart at our house for the past couple weeks. The girls have been doing awesome at completing their chores every day and each week we do something fun to celebrate all their stars. This week we took them to the movies. They were so excited! Natalie has been asking to go to the movie theater ever since she saw the cool building with all the lights on it...probably about 6 months ago. She scares really easily so I had to wait till something very kid friendly came out. Yay for Winnie the Pooh! The girls really loved the movie and the whole experience. Natalie wants to go every week! They got to give the guy their tickets...Heidi was free so she gave them Shane's ticket. :) We got a big popcorn to share and a cherry icee. When we got in the theater, it was empty, so we got perfect seats. They had booster seats for the kids to sit on so that the chairs didn't close up on them while they were sitting in them. The kids were great too. We talked about having to be quiet in the theater before we left. The only thing Heidi did do was throw her napkin at the guy in front of her. Whoops! Heidi has this habit of wiping her hands with a napkin and then throwing it on the floor. We are working on this! When she threw it at the guy in front of her he didn't even notice. Shane and I just looked at each other and had no idea what to do. It was just sitting on his shoulder. Shane reached forward and grabbed it without the guy even knowing it happened. I can just imagine what he would have thought if he looked over and found Shane's hand by his face! Awkward!!  Other than that though, it was a really perfect outing. :)

 In front of the theater and the Winnie the Pooh poster

No one was in the theater with us so I wanted to get a picture of Heidi just chillin in her booster seat. Didn't turn out that great but you get the picture. :)

Cute Girls

This past month I have just been noticing how great my kids are. They have hit this perfect stage where they play great together. The girls will go in the playroom, make up games and then play for hours. 

Natalie loves being the big sister.  Every day she blows me away with how her mind works. She just picks up on so many things. Shane and I can't even spell around her cause she tries making the sounds of the letters to figure out what we are talking about! She wants to know about everything and she remembers everything.  

Heidi has hit this massively adorable stage. I just want to cuddle with her at all times. She doesn't sit still long enough for me to do that but at least she does give me the best hugs and kisses whenever I can grab her.  She tries to keep up with Natalie in every aspect. She is always running around and always laughing. She is such a happy girl!

 Heidi drew this "peoples" today. I was so surprised at how good her stick person was...I had to take a picture. I was so proud of her and she was very proud of herself. :)

 Whenever we go anywhere in the car the girls always hold hands. I love it! It makes me so happy that they love each other so much. :)

This is Heidi's new thing. She falls backwards off the ottoman and lands on her head. She tries to catch herself with her hands first but that only works once in a while. Such a crazy kid!!

More Indoor Fun

This morning the girls lined up all their stools and then took turns walking across them. I decided to move them into the center of the playroom so that if they fell they wouldn't hit any furniture. Then I added beanbags to the end so that they could fall into them. They had a better idea...they decided to jump into them. They had so much fun! I got some really great pictures and it kept them occupied for a long time. A definite win win! :)

Happy Birthday Shane

Today was a super busy day! Shane's nephew Joshua had his first birthday today so we celebrated at his house for lunch. Then we came back home, put the girls to bed and then got ready for Shane's party. All the family came over and we had pizza and a salad bar. It was so fun! Being on our diet, Shane wanted to splurge on pizza for dinner but we were still good with our home made salad bar. Seriously...the best dinner ever! We had three different kinds of pizza...the works, spicy Italian and Tuscan cheese. Then for the salad bar we had a huge bowl of lettuce, a bowl of spinach, diced hard boiled eggs, cheese, carrots, green onions, kidney beans, mandarin oranges, avocado, tomatoes, mushrooms, bell pepper, and crispy bacon bits...cooked fresh this morning. :) So yummy!

 I love our big table! Everyone always fits!

 Kingston makes the cutest faces...here he is showing me his teeth! :)

 

 

 

 I love this shot...Ava was just floating in the pool while the kids ran in the sprinklers...when she saw I was taking her picture she started laughing and I got this great shot.

 

 Shane and Kingston

 A cool golf shirt from Rose Marie. Love the color!

 Justin got Shane this visor with the fake hair attached...it looks so funny. He looks like Guy Fietti!

 I used white chocolate to spell happy birthday on the cupcakes for Shane. I did it on wax paper and stuck it in the freezer. They looked so awesome when I put then on...they were all standing up. But then this hot Georgia weather made them melt and lay flat!

 Heidi loved the cupcakes...I love her chocolate face!

Nat too :)

National Ice Cream Day

Today is National Ice Cream Day. I actually never knew about this wonderful day until my cousin Julie sent the girls cute ice cream outfits just for the occasion. So today they wore their matching outfits and after dinner we went to get ice cream at Baskin Robbins. The people who worked there didn't know about it either...that's pretty sad! Anyway...we all really enjoyed our ice cream...no one more than the girls!

 They were very excited about today

 This was their best happy face and silly face :)

 Shane took our picture...he has the nicest phone

 This is after all the sugar set in and they were going pretty crazy

My happy ice cream girls!

Also...I just wanted to add these cute videos of the girls from yesterday. They were in the play room and when I went to check on them they had set up their own "drum sets" and were rocking out. It's pretty funny. :)

Lazy Days

These past few days have been so hot! We haven't been doing anything exciting...just staying inside and trying to keep cool. Which you think would transfer to blogging but I just haven't been taking pictures. So I uploaded my phone today and what do you know? I found out what I've been doing the last week or so! :)

Last week, Dana and I went to Atlanta and helped my brother Brent buy a whole new wardrobe. It was so much fun. We went through his closet and threw away everything that was old or ugly and then filled it with cool new stuff. He got three suits, a ton of shirts, ties, jeans and everyday shirts. It was a full day!

 His closet after we got rid of everything he owned...pretty much work out clothes were the only things left.

 Then we filled it with lots of good stuff

We also celebrated my Dad's birthday last weekend. He grilled this massively huge prime rib, the girls went swimming and we gave him his gifts. The girls bought him a jar of Jelly Bellys. We went to the store and they filled the bag. After dinner they got to pick out a couple to eat. 

 The girls filling the bag at Fresh Market

 Picking out jellybeans and then matching it to the chart to find out what flavor they are.

Then yesterday I let the girls finger paint outside. I put a couple of Shane's shirts on the girls and let them have fun. When they were done I squirted them off with the hose and let them play in the pool. 

These next couple weeks are going to be super busy. I'll try to keep you posted! :)

Fourth of July

We had such a great 4th of July this year! This is the second time we have had people over to celebrate and I think it will be a tradition that we keep for a long time! This year wasn't as hot as the past few years but storm clouds threatened to burst and thunder clapped in the distance. We were worried that they might not even have any fireworks. Thankfully the storm passed by with only a couple sprinkles and we got to have a great firework show. 

We spent the day making food and getting everything ready for the party while the girls were taking naps. At least we thought they were taking naps. Natalie was sleeping like an angel but Heidi decided to climb out of her crib, grab the bottle of baby powder, get back in her crib and then proceed to dump the whole thing out all over her and her bed! She was a mess!

Everyone started arriving around 6 and the first thing we did was eat. That is the best part of any gathering I think. :) Everyone just hung around ate their food and talked. There was a ton of food. Mostly just finger foods but Shane grilled hot dogs too.  And of course there were cupcakes and a patriotic cheese cake!

 Heidi really loved her cupcake

 Colby and Sabrina

After everyone finished eating we had our 2nd Annual Watermelon Seed Spitting Contest. Seriously, so much fun. Shane and I had never done a watermelon seed spitting contest before last year but because it was such a hit we did it again this year.

 Badra went first...he wanted to get in a practice shot before we officially started. His practice shot was way better than his official shot. :)

 Dane tried it too

 People would take their turn spitting a seed and then a couple of us would circle the seed with chalk and write their name next to it.

 The kids all wanted to try too.

 Pretty blurry but this is Shane's wind up. Last year he tied with Bub's friend Jay...this year...not so much. :)

 The winner of the spitting contest. He spit it almost all the way to the street!

 

 Badra's official turn

 Johns turn

 Sarah's turn

 All the spectators

The pink circle by the grass in the front is the winning seed. :)

After we finished that we waited for it to get dark and then went over to our neighbors backyard. They set off fireworks directly behind our house but for us they go off just behind the tops of the trees. Our neighbor is just a little higher than we our so he lets us ALL come over to his backyard to watch the fireworks. We bring our chairs and file into the yard, watch the show and then file back out. It's so much fun! A neighbor set off a firework that was really close and it scared Natalie but once I calmed her down and told her that the rest were going to be farther away and really beautiful she got excited again. Both of the girls loved watching the fireworks and didn't even mind when the neighbors set off fireworks close to the house. One cute thing though...Natalie asked if Jesus was making all the fireworks in the sky. :)

 These and the one at the top were taking with Shane's phone. Thank goodness for iphone 4 and it's camera flash! I forgot to bring my camera over to the neighbors when we went to watch the fireworks. :)