I must have lost my mind!!

The Diva's birthday cake that Aunt Kiki made, the Diva designed it herself!

The Diva's birthday ALWAYS falls at the beginning of track out or right at Easter or both! This year it fell during track out, since we had just been to Florida we thought that we could get away with that being her "Birthday" but no such luck of course, being the Diva that she is. We looked into several options for parties and then she decided that she wanted a sleepover party with her friends. Yes, I said SLEEPOVER!! We agreed and started making plans to be invaded by 7 yr old girls.

Camden hightailed it out of the house for the night and went to stay with Kiki and Jared who also had Levi (Jared's nephew) come down. Chris tried to hightail it out of the house but that was not happening!!

Grace brought me a list of at least 20 girls she wanted to come which I promptly whittled down to 5 plus her. We sent out invites and had the girls meet us at Milton's for pizza before heading home to party. This was Grace's first sleepover and all the girls had never stayed anywhere except at grandparents or aunts/uncles so we were in for an adventure. One little girl came to dinner with us but just was not ready to stay away from home so we ended up with 4 coming home with us and I know Milton's was glad to see me leave with all these loud, squealing little girls, LOL!!

We came home and had cake, opened presents, got on jammies and then I held on tight to see what the night would bring. There was bed jumping and bumped heads, snacks, snacks and snacks (who would of thought that little girls would eat like teenage boys!!), crafts,movies, Barbie's, Wii and Zubber...all that was in the first hour and half, seriously!!

They all were very good, no fights and one was asleep by 10:30 and another by 11:30. Leave it to mine to be up with the other 2 until 2am...yes, 3 7yr olds STILL up at 2AM!!!!!! Then everyone was up and awake at 7am...are they insane???

All in all it was a good night, the girls had fun and Chris and I survived...but it may be awhile before we do this again!

Wordless Wednesday

Wintering in Florida

That is what we will be doing from now on! We were able to go to Florida Feb 25th thru March 2nd. The weather was beautiful and we had a good time seeing family and friends in Lake Wales and staying out at Crooked Lake.

While we were in Lake Wales I was able to catch up with some old friends that I have not seen in 20 yrs!! I have known Angel Goodman Bowen since we attended First Methodist Preschool and then we both went to Babson Park Elem which is where I first met Jennifer Jacobs Mueller. We all attended middle school together in LW but went to different high schools before I moved to NC. We have all recently gotten back in touch through Facebook so when I found out I was coming to LW I told Angel to get Jennifer and that we needed to get together. We had a great time reminising about old times and people and stuff we did as kids, it was just like 20 yrs had never passed. They brought their kids out to the lake and they all had a blast playing on the beach and playing ping pong and getting to know each other. Grace loved hanging out with Angel's daughter, Blair and was begging for a sleepover. It was great to see them hang out and have fun just like their mom's did with each other all those years ago! I so wish that I lived close enough to see them more!

We also went to see my grandfather while we were in town. He looks good and seems to be well, except for the cold he was getting while we were there. We went to church with him on Sunday and it was good to see some old friends at First Baptist. It was so good to see him and I hope that we can get down again to see him this summer or early fall. We were also able to see my aunt and uncle, who graciously let us use their lake house and one of my cousins while we were in town.

We spent one day in Orlando because Chris had a convention to go to. Before we dropped him off we went to Downtown Disney and took the kids to lunch at Planet Hollywood and then took Camden to the Lego Store. It was VERY HARD to get Chris and Camden to leave the Lego Store!! We are getting in Raleigh this summer so I now know where Chris and Camden will be every free moment we have :) On our way back from Orlando we met up with my friend Jaime and her husband Bill and kids for dinner. It was good to see them and catch up.

Since we had such beautiful weather during our trip we took Saturday and headed to the beach!! We toook the kids to Sanibel Island where they were able to swim and collect shells. The kids and I got a little sun, Chris got A LOT of sun and he survived the drive to the island! If you know Chris you know he really does not like bridges and if you know Sanibel in order to get there you have to go across 3 miles of bridges! I did not tell Chris that until we had already gotten in the car and well into our trip that day, he handled it very well!! There was a lot of traffic that day but thankfully the beach was not too busy. On our way back to LW we ate dinner at Sonny's BBQ (a must whenever I am in the area) and we got Plant City strawberries to bring back to NC, yum!! We also had to make a stop at Spook Hill for Grace, she loved going the last time we were there and BEGGED all week until we finally went. I don't know if I ever got that excited about it when I lived but it is fun to see her so giddy!

Since NC had snow and schools had a snow day when we left FL on Monday we decided to stop in Savannah and continue home on Tuesday. We made our way to dowtown and went by The Lady and Sons and Paula Deen's store adn we got some pics of a couple of the town squares. It was chilly when we arrived, not too bad though. We got a room down on Bay St. and could see the river from our room. At dinner we walked over to Lady and Sons and took a chance that we could get in that night and as luck would have it we GOT IN!! We did have to spend some time walking around sight seeing prior to dinner but it was SO worth it, thankfully we had missed lunch while on the road b/c everyone was sleeping. The kids got the buffet and I got Paula's famous chicken pot pie and Chris got shrimp and grits. We could not finish our meals, SO GOOD but TOO MUCH of it!! (the cheddar biscuits are to die for!!) It was freezing on Tues when we got up to leave but we did manage to take a quick stroll along the river before heading home. I am already scheduling a Girls Weekend to Savannah for later this year!

The majority of the snow was gone when we hit Raleigh late last Tues afternoon and then Wed was back into the swing of school and dance and now baseball is starting back. We had a great time on our trip and hope to get back very soon, I pray that we can move back down there sometime in the near future.

Wordless Wednesday