This One's for Emilie & Jon Jon

Avi loves to hear about what Emilie and Jon Jon are doing in Morocco, and we get to keep up with them through their fun blog. They really are having some really cool experiences, and we are so thankful they share them with us! Jonathan had the opportunity to shoot his first Arabic video project (Jonathan is a very talented videographer). Avi has watched this video on their blog many times now and continues asking to watch it frequently. She watched it again this morning right before we took Sally Sharp to the doctor (she's got a viral infection of some sort). Dr. Shirley gave the girls tongue depressors as distractors, and while we were waiting on the Strep test to come back, Avi decided to entertain us with her newly acquired drumming skills! Her show was definitely inspired by Jon Jon's video! I thought she did a great job, and I hope this brings a smile to Emilie  and Jon Jon's faces when they get to watch this video. We love and miss you guys!

Bring Max Home & Deep South Pout

Hi friends! A former student and sweet friend and her family (the Gordons) are adopting a little boy from Ethiopia. A local Starkville boutique is donating proceeds from this entire week of sales to the Gordon's adoption fund...how awesome is that? PLEASE support the Gordons AND Deep South Pout this week! Visit the Gordon's blog for more details:  http://thewesgordonfamily.blogspot.com/2012/04/deep-south-pout-is-helping-bringmaxhome.html

Easter Weekend

Since I haven't been able to catch up on my blogging and it will be several more weeks before I have a chance to even consider working on it, I thought I'd just start posting current happenings. I will catch up later! We had a super fun Easter weekend! On Friday, we spent the day with my parents, and the girls played and played. On Saturday we wen to Blackhawk to the Robertson family annual Easter Egg Hunt. We had a loaded down car (me, Granddaddy, Nana Gayle, Avi, Sally Sharp, and cousin Walt)! It was fun to visit with everyone, and of course the children enjoyed hunting eggs. Avi and Walt were pros this year, and Sally Sharp got the hang of it very quickly! In fact, I think she absolutely loved it!

While the eggs were being hidden in the back yard, all the children played in the front yard. There was a game of kickball taking place, but none of our kids wanted to participate. Instead, Avi thought it was funny to put her bucket on her head! And, guess who thought it was hilarious? Yep, Sally Sharp copied her big sister and got tickled about putting the bucket on her head and then peeking out to see who was looking. It was too cute.

Is anybody looking at me?? I'm just hilarious, right?

As I mentioned, SS loved hunting the eggs! I had to hold her bucket, and she would run find the eggs!

Avi found a lot of eggs and was very proud of herself!

 Sally Sharp and Avi looked in every egg to see what they had in them!

Sally Sharp absolutely would not be still long enough for me to get a good picture of the two of them together. But, they had a great time at church. Avi's class did a special Easter activity, and she had something that represented each part of the Easter story in a plastic Egg. It was really neat. Her favorite was the "tomb" where Jesus stayed for 3 days.

We spent the afternoon at Nana Gayle's house, and my parents joined us for the fun. It was great having everyone together, and the girls had a great time dying Easter eggs and hunting eggs. We could not have asked for more perfect weather! As you can see above, they were both tired! These pictures were actually taken in the car from church to Gayle's house in West Point! Sally Sharp was playing with her bucket of eggs and the next thing I knew, she was sacked out with her head still down toward the bucket! Sweet girls! 

Random Pictures

We spent most of our time in October moving and trying to get each room livable in the new house, but there were some fun pictures I took that don't really go with any other posts!

 Avi and I did an impromptu photo session one beautiful afternoon. We had fun. She was actually standing on a hay bale, but I didn't have a ladder or anything to get me high  enough to make that effective. Oh well, maybe next time!

 This little thing used to ALWAYS fall asleep on the way home from daycare (and most mornings on the way to daycare)! She just couldn't stay awake! She was so tired by the end of the day :). She has always fallen asleep in the car, and she still has a habit of doing that, but she is now able to stay awake on the way to and from daycare, thankfully!

 Look at their matching PJs! Aren't they cute?!

Sally Sharp loves to touch (or pinch or hit or kick) Avi! She was actually trying to point and touch the monkey on Avi's shirt in this picture (little did she know she had the same monkey on her own shirt!). Sweet times!

And Then We Moved...

As we were preparing to move, the girls found new toys to play with! I mean, who doesn't love a huge plastic box? They had fun switching back and forth from one box to another (Avi's idea for sure)!

As you can see it was a typical move...stuff everywhere for a while! We started moving the second weekend in October. It has taken a while, but we finally have all the rooms set up (just put my bookshelf and desk in my office yesterday). I still have furniture to recover, rugs to purchase and general decorating to do, but it is coming together slowly but surely!

I took this picture of the back of the house about the time we moved in. We have really enjoyed the patio and deck area on the back of the house. When the weather is nice we have left the patio door open and the girls can go in and out and play. We are loving it.

As you can see, the front exterior was still a bit of a work in progress when we moved in! The shutters had to be hung. It took forever to get the shutters stained and hung, but finally, it was completed. I will have to post another picture of the house with the shutters hung on a later post!

Rock Creek Stump Jump 50k

On October 1, Drew ran the Rock Creek Stump Jump 50k (trail run) in Chattanooga. He was in fabulous shape and completely ready for the race. He had been training hard for the event. We took the weekend for ourselves (thanks grandparents) and enjoyed some time in the mountains. Drew really enjoyed the race, but unfortunately suffered a fall during during the last 15 miles of the race. Despite the fall, he managed to finish the race and still placed 24th out of 375 people who finished the race (many did not finish). After the race, he had a lot of pain in his knee, and since then he has been dealing with an IT band injury. While it seems the fall did not cause the IT band injury, it did aggravate it and bring it to the surface. It has been difficult for him to temporarily give up on his running plans. He got some relief from physical therapy and a shot, but recently during a run it started feeling just as badly as it did in the beginning. He has resigned himself to riding the bike for now, but hopefully he will be able to run again in the near future after some rest for his knee!

Drew right before the start of the race!
(Don't know who the girl is, LOL, she just happened to be
standing next to Drew when I took the picture!)

Sally Sharp Started Walking!

Drew just knew Sally Sharp would start walking while he was away on his hiking trip, but thankfully she saved it for the day after he got back! It was almost as if she knew she needed to wait until he was home to take those first real steps! She was 14 months when she started walking. Below is a video of the first day she started walking.

I had to also throw in a few random pictures of the girls that I took while Drew was on his trip! We had fun, and the week went by quicker than I thought it would.

Sally Sharp took her first ride in the Barbie jeep. She LOVED it! She just sat there and let Avi ride her around. And, no, I didn't make Avi wear the helmet...she insisted on wearing it!

This girl can eat. She loves food. I think this picture was taken while she was eating her first muffin, and she loved it. I'm not sure why she was rolling her eyes up, but this picture makes me laugh! She's a funny girl with lots of personality!