Let's Go Falcons!

We took the girls down to the Dome tonight to cheer on the Falcons in their first preseason game. This was the first time the girls have been to a professional game. We had a blast!  Both of the girls enjoyed yelling and cheering for the birds. 

Ready for the game to start. 

Having fun with Daddy!

I think part of the fun was hearing the girls' comments. They have never paid attention to games on TV before so this was all new to them.  Lily said she should have made a sign that said "This is my first football game. I hope it goes well." I sat next to Mia and here are a few of her thoughts and quotes. 

- "What is girl's football called?  You know, like girl's baseball is softball?"  When I told her there isn't a professional girl's football team, she responded "well that's odd."

- "Why did the umpire throw a banana on the field?"  I explained the referee threw a yellow flag when one of the players didn't play fairly. 

- "Have you ever seen a game this exciting?!"  She loved that we were up by 17 points. 

- "So they just have to get the ball to that big white line?  Hmmm, that looks easy."

- "What just happened?!"  This was said after almost every play. 

- "How do they score a run?"  She's been learning about baseball/softball recently so we had to go over the difference in sports' terminology. 

- "Best game ever!"  It was great to see her having so much fun. 

Mable House summer camps

The girls had so much fun attending the Mable House summer art day camps in two different weeks this summer.  Each week had a unique theme, and we knew they would love both.  The first week was all about animals.  They couldn't get enough.  The second week was all about travel which they loved.  Each day they looked forward to telling us about what they had created and how.  The instructors were great.  They are all Cobb County public school art teachers, so they are not only very talented artists, but they are great with kids.  The girls adored them and told us all about them.  They couldn't wait for camp each day!

Not surprising, we had an awful lot of artwork after two weeks.  I asked the girls to go through and save what they felt was their favorite and best work; we'll put it in a special folder where I keep this kind of stuff.  I also offered to take pictures so we can see it as often as they like.  Here are their selections of their favorite and best art projects.

Mia's kangaroo was my favorite piece that she made; loved it!  Her favorite piece was this African tribal mask.

She really liked her jellyfish coloring and cardboard totem pole.

Mia was pretty excited about her jaguar bank too.

Lily made this drawing of a bear, and I love the elephant handprints.  She knows I can't resist anything with handprints on it.

This is her painting of herself watching tv, with Atticus (our old cat) on the sofa and a bird cheeping in the corner.

She made the painting on the left of the new playground at Maggie Daly park in Chicago, and she painted a beautiful bird on the right.

It was a lot of fun to see their excitement and admire the artwork!

In the second week of camp, Lily elected to do an acting class in the afternoon instead of an art class; she still dreams of being a Broadway actress so this was right up her alley.  The class of ten kids comes up with their own characters and general storyline; the teacher then helps them write a script.  Lily wanted to be a cat.  The play was quite interesting.  The US was being invaded by bad guys, but then they found out they only wanted to be the dj's at a dance party, so everyone ends up happy and dancing.  Lily had a few speaking lines, and she did a great job; she remembered them all, and she spoke clearly and loudly.  We were proud.

These camps were tons of fun for the girls and kept their creativity going this summer!

Other Summer Fun

With just over a week to go until school starts, we officially see summer break winding down.  Here are few snapshots from the fun we've had this break.

Both girls learned to ride two wheel bikes this June!  It was a very exciting day in our house!  They have struggled with finding their balance in the past.  I think it has helped tremendously that they've been practicing on scooters for months (Mia got one for Christmas and Mr. Mayo gave his son's old one to Lily).  They asked to try the bikes one day, so we brought them out, and they both picked it up almost immediately.  There was much rejoicing!  They absolutely love it now and ride all the time.  It's wonderful!

The girls were so excited that they were going to ride on their school's float in the July 4th Marietta parade.  They were so disappointed when it got rained out!  We still had a great day and evening though because the Wilkinson family came over for bbq, sparklers and firework-watching.  We were excited to share Yabsera's first July 4th with her; her eyes grew quite large at the first fireworks but she ended up loving it.  It turned out to be a great way to celebrate America's birthday!

At Target one day, I saw these little blue gloves on sale, and it hit me that my kids have never actually played baseball.  I bought them and decided to teach them (easier said than done).  They had fun with it though and caught on fairly quickly.  Lily isn't too interested, but Mia can't wait to play softball!

The girls were very excited to have Macey over to spend the night one evening.  Here they are performing a musical number...wow is all I can say about that.

Ryan and I had such a fun time on our double date with Jeff and Elizabeth Smith.  We have absolutely loved becoming better friends with them over the last few months.  We met them for bowling one evening where Jeff and his lucky towel took us to task.  From there we went to play whirleyball which is where this picture was taken; it was boys against girls after all.  None of us had played before, but it was awesome.  I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard!  After the girls won, we decided some ice cream was in order to celebrate, so we enjoyed just hanging out and talking.  It was a great evening!

The girls came across their old play kitchen food recently, and they've been having a ball with it.  They made Lily's room into a cafe, set up signs, kitchen, register and even a behind-the-scenes tour.  Who can resist?

Mia and I had a fantastic Mommy-Daughter date to Stone Summit one morning.  We spent 2 hours there!  We had a great time trying all the different auto-belay walls.  Mia is really quite good at this.  Me...not so much.  I tried it but man, that used muscles I have completely forgotten about.  I had a great time watching her though.  I love her face in this bottom left picture; she had just realized the name of this course was "Amazing Amelia."  She was stoked!  After our bodies simply couldn't go any more, we headed over to The Varsity for lunch.  Mia was pretty excited to try a Frosted Orange!  I love my time with this fantastic girl!

Mia and I went rock climbing on the day Lily went to White Water to celebrate Rachael's 8th birthday.  She had a great time that day!  Here she is with Rachael and Raegan, both sweet girls from school.

She was very excited that the party turned in to a sleepover.  The girls painted dolphin pictures that evening as a craft; isn't Lily's cute?

Our whole family is pretty excited about the new remote control helicopter Mia received!  We've been having lots of fun with it!

We had a lot of fun today going to see Varekai at the Gwinnett Arena.  We all love Cirque du Soleil, so this was fun for all four of us.  Their acts are pretty amazing. 

New Smyrna Beach 2015

Recently our family headed down to New Smyrna Beach, FL for our family's annual vacation.  This year, we decided to simply take it easy and enjoy our time there; we didn't plan any side trips or before/after trips.  We were appreciative that Mom and Dad let us stay with them; they are always so gracious with that.  Overall it was a lovely week.  Here are several pictures (in no particular order) of the fun we had.

What a welcoming site!  Ryan and the girls headed down to the pool pretty quickly once we got down there, and I headed over to Publix.  This greeted me in the parking lot.  What a great reminder of one of God's promises!

I have to admit that we didn't take this picture; my cousin Lisa did.  Isn't this sunset amazingly beautiful?!  This was our first night there and the view from JB's restaurant.  I couldn't resist keeping it.

Randy and Georgia are so kind every year to play a game where all of their nieces/nephews get their birthday money gift from them and Meme.  Each child ends up getting around $40.  Needless to say, it's a much anticipated event!  Our girls certainly appreciate their generosity!

We surprised the girls with boogy boards this year.  They couldn't wait to try them out!

Trying to catch some waves!

Of course, the beach is also great for playing in the sand.

This is one of the beautiful sunrises Ryan saw...I missed this one (and every other one this week).

Well what do you know?  The boogy boards are fun in the pool too!

Mia loved getting some pointers from Papa on how to catch and throw a ball; she can't wait to play softball this fall!

Lily got the hang of diving this year!

Both girls loved it when Ryan would throw them in the pool.  Mia could catch some air.

Lily was a little more reserved (and just a few pounds more), so she didn't fly quite as high.

One fun little treat this week included a stop at Baskin Robbins after dinner one evening.

We were all so excited to meet our newest cousin, Maggie Jane.  She's five weeks old now.  Her birth mother chose Jason and Jill to be her parents when she was only two days old.  She is absolutely precious, and we are glad to welcome her into our family.  We had a fun baby shower for her and our second new cousin, Bryce, who technically joined the family last year just before the beach trip but was officially adopted in during the year.  We love kids in this family!

Both girls were a little nervous to try the big surfboard, but they were willing to give standing up a try with a little help and encouragement from McKayla and Madi.

Wayne and I enjoyed sitting down by the water catching up one afternoon.

Lastly, here's the shot of the big group after enjoying hot dog day.  My family isn't perfect, but we love each other.  I'm thankful for the traditions that have been established over the years!

On Friday, it started raining about noon, and the forecast said that would keep up the rest of the day.  We decided to pack it on up and head north.  We stopped in Daytona for a couple of hours first though, so I could get my Bubba Gump's shrimp in; still my favorite shrimp ever.  We headed on home after that which ended up working out well.  We missed a good bit of traffic (there's a mass exodus from Florida on Saturday), and that gave us the whole day on Saturday to catch up on laundry and rest.  Trips are always fun, but there's nothing like coming home!