Princess Tea

Last Saturday we headed to the "Princess Tea"!  My mom works part-time at a doctor's office that is affiliated with Southeast Hospital, and every year Southeast puts on a fundraiser called the "Princess Tea" where little girls can get dressed up and go "meet" all the princesses!  My mom was able to get some tickets, and so we got to go!  Brynn was so excited almost the entire month leading up to the tea.  She kept talking about who she would see and what princess outfit she wanted to wear.  We had such a great time!  

Brynn with her "handsome prince" as she calls him!  

We sat at a table with some friends and enjoyed eating cupcakes and drinking "princess lemonade!"

Bella and Emma were at our table.

And Evy Kate is next to me, but I don't think I ever got a good picture of her and Ashley!

To start off, a lady introduced all the princes and princesses.  Prince Charming and Flynn Rider were there!  And then all the princesses came out.  Then the girls got to walk around and meet all of them, get their "autograph", take pictures with them, etc.

Brynn was SO EXCITED and when I asked her who she wanted to go meet first she quickly said "Rapunzel."  But of course once we actually saw her, Brynn got SO SHY!  =)  HA!

I had to be in several pictures because Brynn was a little timid going up all by herself.  =)

After awhile, they invited the "little princesses" to come watch some of the "real princesses" sing and dance.  We listened to Rapunzel and Flynn Rider sing a song, Ariel sang, and Tinkerbell did a dance! At the end Cinderella sang too!

Ansley went to see Snow White with Brynn...Brynn liked going to see them a LOT with cousin Ansley!

The girls took a break for some dancing...little Bella was getting with it!

Doesn't Brynn look thrilled!  HA! She would get so excited to see each one, and then get so shy!  =)

Brynn saw the girl in front of us get some pixie dust sprinkled on her, so she told Tinkerbell "I want those "parkles" on me too!"  HA!

Brynn and Ansley spent the rest of the tea dancing!  They were so cute!  Of course Brynn does whatever move Ansley is doing...it is hilarious to watch her watching Ansley.  =)  She loves her cousin SO MUCH!

Dancing with the Fairy Godmother.

Such a fun afternoon with my little princess!  I am so thankful to be her mommy and get to do stuff like this with her.  We are blessed!

Bonfire at Pam and Rick's

Last Friday night we headed over to Ryan's parents for a big bonfire!  It was SO FUN!  Several of our friends and their families came over and we all roasted hot dogs, made s'mores, and sat around the fire visiting! (And wrangling all the kiddos, who were running all over the place!  HA!)  Emory even got to be outside just for a little bit.  =)

Clearly Jason was having some fun!

It really wasn't too cold, and Emory was all bundled up so we let her sit outside for awhile.  I thought she looked like baby Jesus all wrapped up.  =)  And clearly in this next picture I had just taken a bite of something.  =)

Brynn and Ansley and all the kids had so much fun playing with all of Pamaw's toys.  They have this really cool playhouse outside and some of the girls ate their supper in there!  (Of course Brynn had a little melt-down because her plate spilled all over the floor inside the playhouse, but I guess that's what happens when you are 2, and want to be as big as the 5 year olds!  HA!)

Brynn, Ansley, Marlee, and sweet Scarlett!
Brynn and "Car-litt" are only about three months apart and are such good little friends!
I am so thankful that there are several little girls Brynn's age at church!  I hope they all stay friends forever!!!

Thanks Pam and Rick for hosting such a fun night!

HOUSE UPDATE - Staking It Out

We are making LOTS of progress on our future home!  Over the summer we finally finished up the plans.  We made lots of compromises to keep ourselves within our budget, but the things we've cut out are things we can hopefully add on or do in the future.  Since our builder was still working on a couple of projects, we knew that he wouldn't be able to start until around Thanksgiving.  So in the meantime, we worked with an architect to see what our house would look like in 3-D.  (There were several changes made to the roof lines, etc. and we wanted to make sure we knew exactly what certain parts of the exterior were going to look like once they were built.)  It has also helped us pick out specific materials and colors, etc.  

Now that it's NOVEMBER we are getting everything finalized.  On Saturday we met our builder out at our lot to stake it out and pick exactly where we want our house to go!!!  It was a BEAUTIFUL morning and I just started taking pictures because, as my mom would say, IT WAS GLORIOUS!  It was also just such an exciting, surreal moment.  When we bought our lot over five years ago, we DREAMED of the day when all of this would finally happen.  We have driven out there so many times (and I'm sure we will only drive out there a gazillion more as we start building!).  I just can't wait to get started!!  I can't wait for our girls to get to go fishing with Daddy out at the pond, for us to be able to host parties and get-togethers, and to drink coffee out on the back deck while looking at the beautiful trees and pond!!

The road to the subdivision...

My camera just did NOT do it justice...the trees were just GORGEOUS!  Ryan kept joking "man, it looks like a Bob Ross painting!"

The subdivision is called "Touchdown Estates", and our future street is "Super Bowl Drive."  (The streets are all football themed...Quarterback Ridge, Heisman Drive., Linebacker Run, etc.)  For our football fanatic family, it is just PERFECT!  Everyone is invited to our Super Bowl party in 2015!!!  HA!

And there's the lot in all it's fall glory!  HA!

Ryan and Stuart (our builder) started getting out the tape measures and we started deciding where the house should go.  Yikes...that's not a big decision or anything!  We have just been praying like crazy that God would help us in every single decision we make.

We think we picked the perfect spot!  Now we are finalizing all the tiny details of the plan with both our builder and architect.  We are going to close on our construction loan in about a week, and the plan is to break ground the Monday before Thanksgiving!  Our builder is hoping to get it "under roof" long before rainy spring weather, and then hopefully we will be in it by summer or early fall.  YAY!  We are so excited, and I'm sure I'll drive you all crazy with my many house updates!  =)