Hopes first day of school.

It was Hopes first day of school today. She is going into 3rd grade and her teacher is Ms. Estes. Tweeb and I cannot believe that she is old enough to be in 3rd grade. She is growing up sooo fast. She wanted her hair curly this morning and I think she looked so cute. Here she is outside right before we took her to school. School started at 8:35 but the doors opened at 8:15. There was a HUGE line but the PTO was serving juice and donut holes to everyone while they waited. Here is Hopey waiting to go in.

We were able to take Hope to her classroom. Her teacher seems super nice, so we are all excited about the upcoming year. Here she is at her new desk. It was a full day today and I miss her being home already!

Mammoth Caves

We went to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky as an end of the summer outing a couple weekends ago. It was just a day trip but it was quite fun. When we got there we went and got our tickets for our tour and then went on a picnic. While we were eating two deer came right up to us. They were about 6 feet away was all. It was pretty funny because as soon as we saw the first one we also heard the van door close (Hope decided that they were a little to close for her liking).
After our picnic we went and got in line for our tour. We were going to see one of the biggest caves there. The Mammoth Caves are actually the largest cave system in the world...I believe there are around 367 miles of caves that have been explored so far.

The cave was HUGE and really cool. The girls loved it and did such a good job hiking. Mya was such a trooper, it was all up hill to get back and she INSISTED upon walking. She also had to stop at every light and pretend to scan her ticket. Here the family is after the 2 hour tour.

Birthday Party!

For my 29th birthday, my friends took me to The Cheesecake Factory to celebrate. It was alot of fun, as is any night when you go out with just girl friends. Thanks guys!!

It's a.........

BOY!!!

We obviously have really good news to share with everyone! We found out on July 24th that our 4th baby was going to be a BOY! We are very excited to say the least, the girls are thrilled as well. We kept it a secret from all of our family and friends (except the ones from Tennessee, its kind of hard to keep a growing belly a secret) until we found out what it was. It wasn't easy but all of their reactions made it well worth it. I think the ultrasonographer thought we were crazy when she told us the news. I am SURE that people heard our excitement in the waiting room!

4th of July!

For the 4th of July Tweeb had to work that morning but was able to be off by 2:00, so we met him at the theatre and watched Ice Age Three in 3-D (the kids really enjoyed it). We then headed downtown to check out the festivities. Here are the girls just before we got started, Mya is such a cheezer!

Once we got there, they had blow up slides and stuff to play on. Here is Ellie going down the slide.

When we were in line for our second activity it started to rain and I am not talking about a little drizzle. So we ended up standing under a store awning for about a half and hour and then heading into the store for another half an hour for a change of scenery. There was a pretty big open area that the girls were able to get down and run around in. They were dancing around and having a good time, the rain was not going to spoil their fun! Here are the girls hanging out by the hats (they tried on quite a few too...they especially liked the pink ones).As soon as the rain let up we headed down to the stage and listened to the symphony and an opening act (sorry I forgot who it was). We also ate some really yummy food, the weather at this point was perfect. Here is a picture of Wynonna singing.

As soon as she was done singing (which was cut short due to a storm approaching) it started to Down Pour!! I am not kidding, it was ridiculous!! We figured we might as well stay and watch all the fireworks (which started an hour early) considering we could not get anymore wet and I am glad we did, they were AMAZING!!! As we were walking back to the car Hope kept saying.....well this is a 4th of July to remember!

5 days of Girlie fun!

After everyone came to Tennessee for Hopes baptism, I kept Mistys three girls for 5 days while they went to New York City for their 10 year anniversary. The girls had so much fun. We tried to do something fun everyday and to get everyone out of the house so we did not get couped up. I did not get pictures until the last two days but the first day we went to music row (Tweebs family had not flown out yet) and then after taking them to the airport we took all the kids to the Nashville public library (they have the cutest little kid area and they loved it) and then to McDonalds. The second day we went swimming. On Wednesday I took all the girls to my friend Annies house to have a play date with her kids and also our friend Whitneys kids as well. After the play date I took all 6 to the mall by myself....I know, I know everyone thought I was crazy but they were all really good and I had some stuff I needed to get done. I took them to the play area afterward and then got them all ice cream. Thursday we went for a picnic to Bowie park, fed the ducks and played at the playground. They have this cute little deck where you feed them. Here they are waiting for the ducks to come.
Here are the ducks up close. The girls thought this was the greatest thing.Group photo from the left: Hope, Ainsley, Mya, Ellie, Addison and Alivia sitting in front.
Here is Mya swinging, the older girls were to busy to get a picture.Here is Miss Alivia swinging as well. She is seriously the best baby. She was soooo easy and is happy all the time. She really took off walking while she was at our house as well....sorry mom and dad.On Friday Tweeb took everyone but Alivia to the pool. She was asleep and so I stayed home with her. They all seemed to have a good time.

After swimming we got 2 of the cutest baby sitters ever and then went and picked Misty and Braydan up from the airport. We then went downtown (it was the county music festival) and had dinner at the Wild Horse Saloon (thanks guys it was yummy). We then went to hang out and see what was going on but guess who forgot their ID....me!! Oops! Sorry everyone! So we came home and stayed up talking. The girls were all so cute and my girls loved having their cousins come and stay. They still talk about it. We were especially glad because we do not know when we will see them again. Thanks for coming guys, we miss you already!

Baptism, Birthday Party and Family Fun!

I am finally getting around to updating the blog. We have had a lot of fun things going on this summer and lately we have been busy swimming, barbequing, watching the lighting bugs... etc. We try to do something fun every day and most of the time I do not even have a chance to check my e-mail let alone blog. So to say the least, this is going to be a LONG post.

Lets start with our family coming out to Tennessee. Tweebs parents, his sister Brooke and her husband Eric and two boys Ericson and Brighton and also my sister Misty her husband Braydan and their three little girls Ainsley, Addison and Alivia came to visit us...YAY!! We started out by meeting the Gladwells and Bowers (Tweebs family) at the hotel and then going to pick up the Shaws (my family) at the airport. We went straight to the Nashville Palace to listen to Tweeb sing. It is a family place and so all the kids could go (sorry all my pictures of him turned out TERRIBLE.) The next day we took everyone downtown to see Broadway (after the boys got back from golfing). I love this picture of the 4 oldest girlies walking downtown...how cute are they?Tweeb showed everyone where he has sang down there and then we went to get ice cream at the ice cream parlor and then headed down to the famous Wild Horse Saloon (which we ate at when Misty and Braydan got back from NYC..thanks guys). Here is Ellie sitting by the "boy" horse....I was dying laughing at her hand on its leg.Here is Hope just being silly. This place has these horses all over and even has them upside down on the ceiling in the restaurant area....the kids LOVE it. We did not stay downtown too long because we had made reservations to go on the General Jackson for dinner. It is a HUGE river boat that takes you downtown, by the time you get there it is nightime and looks Amazing. It was alot of fun. After we ate dinner we all went upstairs and listened to the band. All the kids and Uncle Eric went out on the dance floor....it was really cute. Now for the whole reason why everyone came out....Hopes Baptism. Here she is with Tweeb. I was soooo proud of her for making this amazing decision. The program turned out amazing, thanks to all of our family and friends that helped. She looked absolutely beautiful.

Here she is with President Griffin afterwards.

Here is all of our family that came out to support her (minus grandma who was taking the picture) on her big day. I swear she was happy even though this picture doesn't show it. After the baptism we went to the hotel where everyone was staying and went swimming, we then got ready and went to the famous Loveless cafe for dinner. Afterwards Tweeb took all of us to the theatre and treated us to a free 3-D movie of UP! We all thought it was really cute and it turned out to be a very fun day.

The next day it was Mya's 2nd Birthday and after church we came back to the house and had dinner and then took everyone to Franklin to see the Temple and to show them the places where we like to go. We came back and had cake and ice cream and opened presents. Grandma and Grandpa gave Mya a cute pink remote control car which she LOVES...thanks guys.

She also recieved a pool from the Shaw family, clothes from Grandma Mick and Mom and Dad. I loved her facial expression in this picture....whoever said kids don't get excited about clothes!!! Thanks so much for the presents everyone!

We were trying to get a picture of her with all of her stuff but she was being shy and would not cooperate.

Everyone left the next day. Thanks so much for coming everyone. We had such a good time and thanks Brooke for the funny memories that we will always be able to laugh at. We love you guys!!