makeover

Our sweet Molly finally had her first makeover this week! She looked so cute and fluffy before she went, but she could not see!!! I think she looks even cuter now!! The groomer put pink bows in her hair, but they only lasted for 30 minutes. She does not like bows like Claire and Ava do. We are still loving having a puppy. It is crazy to think that she is almost 5 months old already! She is getting a lot better with walking on her leash and is almost 100% potty trained. She did have an accident last night in the house, but thankfully it was on the hardwood floors! She loves to go on rides in the car and we have had fun taking her out to eat and to the grocery store too! Molly has definitely become part of our family and we love her so much!

birthday dinner

We had a wonderful birthday dinner last week at one of our favorite places to eat 518 West. My mom and I have birthdays that are only five days apart from one another so it is so fun to celebrate our special days together. We have had SO many special dinners at 518....the day that I graduated from college, my mom's 50th birthday, my 30th birthday and my favorite one, the night I got engaged. It was fun to celebrate turning 35 back at 518 too! I won't tell you how old mom turned, but I still think we could pass as sisters!!!

how how

Last weekend Jay and the girls headed to Camp Sea Gull for the Y Princess Spring Outing.  They were so excited to go and have fun with their daddy and best friends for the weekend.  I was so excited because I still remember going on the same trip with my dad.  The girls and Jay did almost all of the same things that we did 28 years ago!  They had a blast doing archery, shooting bb guns, canoeing and swimming.  The weather was pretty chilly, but they still went down the zip line three times with Jay and did the water slide!  I love to see the friendships that have formed in the tribe between all of the girls and the dads!  They really have such a great time together.  Molly and I had a good weekend together, but we were both really excited to see the rest of our family come back home safely!!

favorite places

 

 

We could not wait to take Molly to Armadillo Grill for the first time!  It is our favorite place to eat and we go all the time even though it is not that close to our house.  Not only did we eat at "Armie" for the first time with Molly, but we took her for a walk around Meredith College.  It was a beautiful day and Molly enjoyed the walk so much.  The girls and I go to Meredith often, but they always love to see what dorms I lived in where my dorm window was located.  I love telling them stories about eating dinner outside on the lawn while we listened to a local band and about the few times I went to the library to study :) Mom and dad, you can ignore that sentence!!! We had a wonderful family day  together and Molly is now a Meredith girl too!

number 500

I can not believe this is my 500th post!!!  Even though I go through times of not wanting to blog, I really do love being able to write about our adventures! I love even more being able to go back and read about all the things we have done as a family.  One of my first posts on the blog was about potty training the girls, that seems like forever ago!! A big thank you to my hand models above for making the number 500, they sure are fun to blog about!!!

science fair

The girls were SO excited to participate in their first Science Fair this week. One of my friends from school gave us the idea to do "How to Train a Puppy."  It was such a good idea, since we have been living out this topic each day for the past 8 weeks!!!  We took pictures of the girls showing all of the commands we have taught Molly and then they came up with what to say about each picture.  My favorite picture is for "no biting", which has been the hardest command for Molly to get.  Molly is biting Ava's dress and Claire is clapping at her!  I am so proud of my little scientists and their doggie too!

Italy

I decided to go through all of my pictures from Italy and pick out my top 10 favorites! It was no easy task considering I took 626 pictures while we were there!! We have been home for almost a week now and I miss it so much. I miss being in Italy, but most of all I miss my brother and his family. It was so special being with them and having real quality time together. The girls had the best time playing with their cousins who they had not seen since last August. Everyone keeps asking me what my favorite part of our trip was and it has been an easy answer....time with family! We went on amazing excursions around Trieste and surrounding cities and spent an amazing day in Venice, but hanging out with Jay, Clay and Court each night after we put all of the girls to bed was my favorite part of the trip. Some nights we watched funny shows on the computer and died laughing together, and some nights we had really meaningful conversations. Almost every night we had gelato, nutella or some other yummy treat. One night Ellie got out bed and caught us with our treats. She said the funniest thing that we laughed at all week... "Hey, you are you busting out the treats?" My favorite thing we did was taking a tour of two different castles in Trieste. It was amazing to see buildings that were constructed around 1300! They had the original furniture, weapons and artifacts in them too. There was a lot of history in the city that my brother lives in. The views were also amazing. You can see the snow covered Alps from the street that they live on! Court and I had fun shopping one day and shopped so long that the stores started to close. We also stopped that evening for a crepe before we even had dinner. I had white chocolate and strawberries in mine. It was one of the sweetest and yummiest things I have ever eaten!!! My other favorite thing was taking a day trip to a surrounding city called Opicina. We got to go down in a cave that is actually the world's largest cave that you can tour. It was breathtaking!!!! To get down into it you had to go down 500 steps and then climb back up 500 to exit. The stalagmites and stalagtites were amazing and some of them were huge! I know I will never see something that amazing again. To get to Opicina you have to take a bus and then get on a tram that goes up the side of a mountain. That was the coolest mode of transportation I have ever been on. While Court and I were shopping I found a cute black and white picture of the tram on a magnet that I was so excited to buy. I have loved looking at it this week and it has served as a great reminder to pray for Clay and his family. This trip was the trip of a lifetime and we are so thankful that we got to take it!!!

spring

I am SO thankful that Spring has arrived!