Chase Turns The Big 8!

Chase turned 8 on September 3rd. He was very excited to be 8 because he will be getting baptized soon. For his big day we went on a family outing. After getting his hair cut, we went to Chuck E Cheese as well in Buford, GA. Then we went mini-golfing in Gainesville, GA. We had birthday cake and opened presents at home.

 

Little brother Peyton wanted to emulate big brother Chase by dressing just like him. What a compliment!

Peyton Turns The Big 5!

Peyton turned 5 on July 24th. My parents and sister Lisa and nephew Xavier came out from Utah to celebrate with him. We spent the day at Alabama Adventures Water Park. Our good friends, Tina and Tayler Hearn spent the day with us. Afterwards we had cake and pizza at Chuch E Cheese in Vestavia. Tina's husband Ken met us there.

 

 

As you can tell by the pictures, everyone had a great time at the waterpark as everyone is sporting facial sunburns.

Entering a New Decade

Well, Craig's 40th birthday was on Saturday. I worked really hard to plan a nice party for him. I really want to thank our friends that had the courtesy to RSVP and/or show up. It really made Craig's day. He was especially pleased that our wonderful friends and former neighbors from Alabama came out especially to be there for the celebration. Thanks, Hearns!

Also, on Friday Craig put the moulding around the basement bathroom door. I was so happy I could have cried. Craig's wonderful friend Reed who has done so much to help us get this house back into shape since it was destroyed by renters has been helping Craig with the basement painting. He is also trying to fix the horrendous taping/mudding/sanding job that the renters did in the basement bedroom. (The last pics I posted showed the basement man cave and bathroom before it was mudded, taped and sanded by a very nice gentleman named Tim.)

New basement bathroom moulding.

Inside the bathroom. New moulding.

Starting to paint bathroom blue.

ditto

Fiberboard is up around tub.

Will have slate tile around tub.

Reed's fixing the poor sanding job in basement bedroom.

Man Cave painted.

TV wall still needs some paint.

Needs final touch-ups.

Chase turns 7!

Yesterday Chase turned 7 years old. He has been so pumped up to celebrate his birthday. He wanted to have a family party. So, after eating homemade batman birthday cake for breakfast and opening his gifts, a new bow and some RC toys, we drove to Helen, GA for the day. Helen is a kitschy German town located in th Blue Ridge mountains of N. GA.

We went mini-golfing and then tried to go on a tube ride down the Chattahoochee river but when we saw people with big sticks pushing themselves thru the shallow water, we decided that it looked too much like work than like relaxation so we changed our minds and went to a local water park instead. The kids had a ball.

For dinner we ate at a local German restaurant and the accordion player sang Happy Birthday to him a long with the other diners. Their pretzels were to die for yummy. Chase picked out one more toy, Peyton got one too, then Craig bought some fudge and we drove home. Fun day.





Peyton turns 4!

                                    My baby turned 4 today!

He suddenly seems so much older and more mature than the 3 year old he was yesterday. Last week we were in Alabama all week and so we were able to have a party for him last Thursday at Chuck E Cheese. He has been pleading with us to go there for some time now, and he was not disappointed. We invited his best friends from our old neighborhood to the party which made Peyty very happy. He tells us how he misses his best friends Tate Tate and Tayler all the time. Chase had a blast with his 2 best friends Tayler and Drew.

All the kids were able to go to Pump It Up as well that same morning. Wednesday we went to Alabama Adventures with Tayler and her mother and had an excellent time. At first the kids were a little sceptical of the rides, but soon remembered how much fun we used to have on them 2 years ago when we had passes to the park. It was a hot day and it rained a little but thank goodness it never lightninged so they didn't make us stay out of the water.

This morning when Peyty got out of the shower we gave him his new bicycle and other gifts and cards. I lit a '4' on a small cupcake and we sang Happy Birthday to him. At church the primary kids sang a birthday song to to him and since I am his Sunbeam teacher, I brought tiny cupcakes to class and had the kids sing to him yet again. After church we went to Skogie's restaurant for lunch. After naps we put the boat into Lake Lanier for our traditional birthday boat ride. Peyton drove the boat like a champ. After a dinner of leftovers* we ate SpongeBob birthday cake.

*At Skogie's the waitress made so many mistakes with our order that we ended up with a lot more food than we had ordered for free. They were really sweet about their mistakes and we were in jovial moods so it was no skin off of our backs. Who can complain about free food that tastes good? Not us!