It's Almost Bunny Time

T'was the night before Easter and all through the house...wait, wrong poem...

Kaiya is finally in bed and I thought I would just post a few pictures of our Pre-Easter festivities. I think I will go backwards here...

After much consideration about our own Easter Bunny traditions, we decided a few things. Since there are so many fun activities like Egg hunts and things before actual Easter, and because I wanted Kaiya to be able to take an Easter Basket she really likes to them, I wanted her to be able to pick out her own Easter Basket for the year. So we decided that Kaiya would pick out her own basket, take it to all the other activities and stuff, then on the night before Easter we would put the basket, the eggs we dyed, and empty plastic eggs on the front porch for the Easter Bunny to fill and hide. So here is Kaiya in her jammies on the front porch setting out things for the Easter Bunny.

She was very excited!

And of course she was silly too...


On Monday we also went to a super fun Easter egg hunt at Kaiya's friend Maura's Grandma's house. The kids had an awesome time, and the weather could not have been more beautiful. There were quite a few kids there, and while she was among the older ones, she still had a little trouble grasping the idea of "you have to hurry to find the eggs, or the other kids will get them all". She just doesn't have that killer instinct...(not that I'm sad about that, I like it actually) But eventually she got the hang of it, and got a few eggs in her bucket. It was pretty exciting!



She would pick one up, inspect it, then start looking for another one...

The only time she hurried was when we told her it was time to open the eggs...


We tried to take a group picture of all the kids, but this is how Kaiya looks in EVERY SINGLE ONE
She has her head buried in her basket. Of course, I guess most of the other kiddos do too.


Another fun thing about Maura's Grandma's is that they have goats!!! A highlight of the day was feeding the goats Graham Crackers.

Overall, it was a fabulous day!!!



The first Easter activity of the season was the annual Grapevine City Easter Egg Hunt. It was a zoo! Actually they did have a petting zoo, which was probably Kaiya's favorite part. They petted a bunny...


And here is Kaiya telling me that this is a Guinea Pig, just like Lenny (from the Wonder Pets)


I think it is funny, that a lot of kids Kaiya's age are scared of big character costumes, but Kaiya loves them! She always has, she runs up and gives them hugs...

Sometimes she will even stop talking to them long enough to look in the general direction of the camera...

After the petting zoo, and the meet and greet with Mr. and Mrs. Bunny, it was time for the Easter Egg Hunt. I wonder what they are talking about? Somehow I don't think it is strategy.

The actual egg hunt was a little bit crazy, but luckily she had a good coach.


Afterwards she had so much fun opening up her eggs, she didn't want to let me take a picture. When we finally got her to look up, this is what we got...
This is the "hurry up and take my picture so I can finish looking at my loot!" picture.

Overall it has been an awesome pre-Easter season. I can't wait for tomorrow!

Christmas Trip to the Gaylord Texan

All right!!! The computer is back up and running about 98% and I can get back to the blog! Yay! So I will try to play an abbreviated catch up.

So we have a Christmas Tradition of getting together with the Churchwell's before Christmas to do something holiday-ish and exchange presents. We usually do it all together as families, but this year Jamie was sick and Rick couldn't make it for some reason which escapes me (shocking I know, seeing as it was 3 months ago). So we made it a girls night! We went and ate pizza and then battled the crowds at the Gaylord Texan. For a girl from Nashville, going to the Opryland Hotel at Christmas time is an Official Holiday Requirement, but the Hotel is a lot bigger and maybe we used to go late at night or something, because I never remember it being this crowded in Nashville!

Nevertheless it was Christmas Opry style, with a Texas flare, so we enjoyed it all the same.

As always one of the main reasons to go with the kiddies is for the great photo ops! Here are the girls in front of a cute little Christmas tree.



Of course no adventure is complete until somebody's mom says "Get away from there, you're going to fall in!" This time it was a Koi pond, and I could just picture having to carry a soaking wet 2 year old out to the car in the freezing weather.


Here are the girls sitting on a bench with a reindeer. Haylee not only has on her blinking Rudolph antenna, but she got hot pink vampire teeth from the prize machine at the pizza place. Cute huh? (I wanted some too, but ran out of quarters) Kaiya, as always is loving being with her favorite sisterfriend Hannah.

After the Gaylord Texan we all came back to our house to open presents
Here is Hannah modeling her new Justice shirt and Kaiya and Haylee falling a teensy bit behind in the melee. Kaiya loves her stacking Dora, Diego & Boots, and in fact they are an important part of every successful trip to a restaurant. The Stir-Fry set has eggs that you can crack open and rubber fried eggs fall out, which is wonderful, because any time I reach for the carton of eggs, Kaiya is right there asking if she can crack one.

In fact when Kaiya was first learning how to crack eggs, I showed her how to tap tap tap the egg on the counter then pull it apart...well Kaiya did a very gentle tap tap tap then palmed the egg and squeezed for all she was worth. The look on her face was priceless when it exploded open and raw egg went everywhere. I think she was worried she was going to be in trouble, but it was so funny, I couldn't stop laughing. Now she tap tap taps the eggs for me, and we pull it apart together.

Merry Christmas Y'all!

And Now, a Word From Our Sponsor...

One of the nicest things about having a husband who is brilliant at fixing computers is that when your home computer breaks, he can almost always fix it. Unfortunately, he has to find the time to work on it...so for the time being, I can't do much to update the blog. However I have been promised that it shouldn't be too much longer.

I have a ton of Christmas pictures & other fun stuff to share, so stay tuned!

A Christmas Visit from Mimi & Papaw

Last week we had a little Christmas visit from Jamie's parents. With everything that has been going on, and their traveling back and forth from Tennessee to Florida, things can get pretty hectic, so we had a very fun early Christmas.

They decided to come early enough so we could all go to gymnastics together, which was great. Kaiya had quite a little cheering section in the parent's aquarium. She did really well, and for the first time hung on the rings and pulled her little feet up to touch her hands. I was so proud. Now she tries to do that on everything, especially the bars in the handicapped stalls of public restrooms (as you can imagine, not my favorite thing). She also is getting a lot closer on walking across the balance beam.

After Gymnastics, we ran some errands, had naps and then went to Babe's Chicken Dinner House, man is that place yummy. It is kinda country kitsch, so everybody has a good time. In fact one of their claims to fame is that the waitresses all do the hokey pokey down the main aisle of the restaurant, and the kids like to come out and participate with them. Well, Kaiya loves her some Hokey Pokey, so when they started doing it, I asked her if she wanted to go out there too, and she said yes, but got about 1 foot away from the table and came running back to Daddy's lap to watch.

Well, we were there at just the right time, and as we were leaving, it was Hokey Pokey time again, so this time she ran right out there and was hokey pokeying with the best of them! I of course, didn't have my camera (that could be a whole nother blog post right there) so Jamie went around and was taking pictures with his camera, but they weren't turning out so well, because it was dark, and a pretty fast hokey pokey. Kaiya was so adorable out there, that other people were taking pictures of her dancing with the waitresses, so I went over to talk to one of the ladies. I wanted to give her my email address and see if she could email me a picture. This lovely lady, named Oksana, was visiting some friends in Texas from the Ukrain, and she doesn't have an email address, and the people with her were VERY country and they "don't do so good with computers & stuff". So this nice Ukrainian lady asks for my address & says she will send the pictures to my house. I wasn't too sure what to do about this, and maybe I've been living in the south too long, but I trusted her, so I gave her my address. I half expected never to see those pictures, but low & behold, today I got them!!!!

"You put your head in, you put your head out, you put your head in, and you shake it all about..."

"You put your whole self in, you put your whole self out..."


The next day, we had Christmas in the morning, and Kaiya got a "Loving Family Doll House" which she loves, and Jamie got to do his favorite Christmas pass-time, assembling things (no seriously, it's his favorite). She also got some books, including a Fancy Nancy book, which she absolutely loves.

After our early Christmas morning, we told Kaiya all about going to see Santa, and we got all ready and headed over to Bass Pro Shop, where someone had told us there was a really great Santa & free pictures.

Well, I should have done a little research before we got Kaiya all psyched up for Santa, because he is only there in the evenings on the weekdays. So we got over there, and there was no Santa to be found anywhere. Here is where I have to brag about my little girl, I think it would have been totally understandable to get all upset about not being able to see Santa, but she just rolled with it. She was sad for a minute, but never got mad or upset, and just went and looked all around Santa's Workshop, and then wanted to climb on the boats and look at the fish. I was so proud of her for not throwing a fit, I thought I was going to burst.

We looked all around Bass Pro Shop and even saw a shark!

There was also a reindeer carousel set up, which only ran during Santa's hours, so we explained the situation to her, and promised we would come back after nap time, when Santa would be there & she could ride the reindeer. So basically we had to be satisfied with taking a ton of pictures in the Santa area, without the big guy.



Well, the tip about the great Santa was correct, and when we came back it was worth all the wait. There was a little bit of a line to get to see Santa, so we went and rode the reindeer carousel while we waited. Kaiya LOVED it, and we rode it over, and over, and over!


When it was finally our turn, Santa of course asked Kaiya what she would like him to bring for her, and we were all a little surprised by the answer, she said she wanted a toy reindeer and a box of candy treats! Kind of random, isn't it? I guess now, while I am writing this it makes a little more sense, she loved that reindeer carousel so much, I can understand her having reindeer on the brain. She stuck with that though, and said all Christmas season, that she wanted a toy reindeer and a box of candy treats (which she got, by the way, thanks to Buddy & Grandma).

The Santa was awesome too, and the nice thing about going someplace where you get a free Santa picture, is that they didn't care if we took pictures with our own camera! It was the best!

After we saw Santa, of course Kaiya wanted to ride the carousel again, and again, and again (thank goodness it was free!).


Then after she rode the reindeer, she needed to ride in Santa's sleigh. She even got it stolen out from underneath her by another kid, but she waited so patiently, and was excited when she finally got to ride in it.


It was great seeing Mimi & Papaw, and we can't wait to visit them again in a few months, hopefully in Florida, and cross all your fingers and toes, maybe we will be able to visit our good friend Mickey Mouse while we are there too!

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A Cute Gymnastics Post

Here is a cute blog post about Kaiya and Molly on Megan's blog...

Holiday Parade of Lights!

We love our town! There are so many fun activities, and we had so much fun at the annual Parade of Lights on Main Street! It was soooooooo cold, but we bundled up and headed out. Jamie even got a chance to wear his famous hat, although once we got there he was a little disappointed he didn't wear his Santa hat. I gave Kaiya some new purple mittens, which she was thrilled with (purple is her favorite color).

(It really isn't snowy, they spray the grass white, I don't really understand why)

There were lots of fun floats

Decorated classic cars

I liked this one because I have this exact car (including the tree on top) in my Christmas village.

Kaiya actually liked running around the grassy area we were in front of better than watching most of the parade, but she did enjoy the marching bands and the animals, including this fun guy:

Kaiya even knew someone in the parade! Her friend Betty and her mommy, who runs the spa at the Great Wolf Lodge were marching with a giant reindeer. Our town isn't a small town, but it kind of has that feeling, that is one of the many reasons we love it here.

We actually stayed until the end when Santa came by in a horse drawn carriage, but unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of him & Mrs. Claus. However Kaiya was happy to pose with her new friend the Mr. Polar Bear...