Amy is Three!!!

We celebrated Amy's third birthday yesterday afternoon. The weather was so nice outside that we decided to have it at the Children's Park in Niceville. Coincidentally located about four minutes from our house and halfway between our house and Seth's parents' house. Perfect location! Amy absolutely loves going up and down slides and climbing on playground equipment. She was even big enough to rock on the purple dinosaur and only needed a little help getting back down. We managed to keep the party a complete surprise from Amy. On Saturday, Grandma K wrapped all of Amy's presents, which turned out to be quite a task since she got a dollhouse that comes with separate boxes of furniture for each room. We hid them in the front hall closet out of the way. Then, while Amy was napping on Sunday afternoon, I made a quick trip to WalMart to buy some fresh groceries for the week and also picked up some cupcake themed party supplies and found a cute blue cupcake cake that the baker personalized for Amy's party. I had just enough time to grab a few balloons before I headed home. While the family put the groceries away, I went upstairs to get Amy dressed and ready for her party. Then Seth stalled the kids a while so that my mom and I could make it to the park a few minutes early to set things up. About ten minutes was all that we needed, and we had just finished when Amy came running into the park and saw the birthday table. Seth's parents joined us shortly afterwards. We had just enough time to eat cupcakes and ice cream and open her presents as well as have about 40 minutes of playtime at the park (before and after the party). I would say that it was a success!

Here's the cute birthday cupcake/cake.

Amy opening one of the first presents.

Almost there!

Her brothers were close by to help when needed.

Hugging her new Groovy Girls Doll.

Amy on the purple Dinosaur. I think I have a picture of all three of the kids at this age on this dinosaur.

 

Siblings having fun together!

 

 

 

 

 

Easter 2013

Just a few pictures of the kids taken on Easter Sunday. It's so hard getting everyone to smile, not over-smile, and look at the camera and not blink!

Georgia Cabin Vacation

We spent our Spring Break at a very nice cabin up in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Ellijay, GA, with Cara's parents, siblings, and nephews. What a blast! Here are a couple of pictures that were taken.

Here is the whole gang minus Aniekan. Unfortunately Aniekan's and Ali's stays did not overlap.

Here is Amy standing in the living room. Ali is washing dishes and I think that Cara is at the table frosting cakes.

Our hike to Amicalola Falls. Beautiful day! Amy made it up the 600 plus steps to the top all by herself!!!!

Due to a slight miscomunication in plans, some of us were separated on the way down from the falls. But both groups ended up meeting up at the park in front of the visitor's center at the same time. Perfect timing, and a fun afternoon!

At the end of our day trip to Dahlonega GA, we went to the Consolidated Gold Mines for some gold panning and a gold mine tour. Here we are watching the video on how to pan for gold.

Reece and Ryan panning for gold.

More panning for gold.

We only had about 15 minutes before the gold mine tour, but it turned out that was just enough time for all of us to finish panning our gold.

Step two of the process where the experts help wash away the final pieces of sand and issolate the gold nuggets, then put it in a small glass vial for us to take as a souvenir. This part was exciting to see how many nuggets were in your pan.

Ryan admiring his gold!

Nina already has hers and Reece has just been handed his gold. By the way, the same guy handing Reece his gold, happened to be our tour guide for the mine.

Down inside the mines. There were three levels, but we were only able to go through the first level as the other two were still under water, apparently very cold water!

Everyone over 5 feet tall had to wear the blue hard hats, those shorter could wear them if they wanted.