Our Growing Family

Monday, June 12, 2017

Mollie Grace's Birthday

In the busyness of practicum last week, I failed to post Mollie Grace's birthday pics. She turned seven on Tuesday, but we did most of our celebrating on the Saturday before.

She found a picture of a My Little Pony cake online that she wanted to copy. It required fondant decorations. This was our first time using fondant and they ad a very good time with it. Kind of like edible playdoh. We actually used our playdoh tools to cut, shape, and roll it.

Adding ponies to the decorated cake.

We had one of Mollie Grace's favorite meals, fajitas, and she decorated the table with ponies, pony plates, and pony napkins.

So excited!

Opening her card from Ben.

He got her a gift card to Wal-Mart.

A doll dress from Annie.

This is a snowcone machine from John and me.

And a REAL sewing machine from Nana and Grandaddy!

Friday, June 9, 2017

CC Practicum

For three days this week I had to attend CC Practicum, which is training for CC tutors all over northwest Mississippi. While I was in class, there were classes for the kids as well.

Annie was in the nursery with several of her friends. Her favorite thing they did was draw in shaving cream.

Mollie Grace was in GeoDraw Camp which focused on U.S. geography. They had lots of fun playing games and doing puzzles. Her teacher sent me this pic of her from a dress up relay game they did.

Ben's teacher Hollie loves to take pictures as much as I do so I have lots of pics of their class. They were studying Life Science.

Today they borrowed the costumes from Mollie Grace's teacher and did a dress up relay, too.

The best part of camp for Ben was that his friend Graham was there. He has not seen Graham since our last day of CC in April.

Saturday, June 3, 2017

Zoo

We've been to the zoo lots of times, but yesterday we went with a group of friends which makes going to the zoo different. Also, parts of Memphis are still without electricity from a big storm last weekend including the zoo. Some of the big animals (lions, tigers, bears, etc) were not on exhibit for safety reasons because they couldn't power the electric fences. We looked at a lot of smaller animals that we usually pass by without even a glance. We also saw lots of new babies -- hippo, giraffe, and warthogs.

This picture is missing the sound. They were all lined up on the fence howling at the wolves -- "Ah-oooooo!"

You can't see them in the picture, but the baby hippo, Winnie, and her mama were floating nearby.

Group pic.

Brought the trusty wagon with us.

Ended the day with a swim in the fountain.

Annie knows how to take a picture.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Bowling

We planned a trip to the bowling alley this morning with some CC friends. When we arrived at the bowling alley every lane was filled with a field trip from a local school. They said the kids were about to leave and in 30 minutes there would be lots of lanes available. We went down the road to McDonalds to pass the time.

Ben, Mollie Grace, and Annie weren't the only ones that ate. They just got their food first.

Mollie Grace ended up with the highest score on her lane!

I love how excited these girls were when someone bowled well. I'm not sure whether Mollie Grace or Lucy Kate was bowling here.

Ben got a strike.

Annie tricked me into letting her bowl. As I was putting on my shoes this morning, she came into the closet and said, "Do I look big?" I said, "You look very big!" She got really excited and said, "That means I'm big enough to bowl!" So I let her bowl. Her other little friends Emmaline, Harris, Jonah, and Bailey bowled too. Those were the slowest balls ever rolled down a lane. Some of them stopped dead at the pins and another one just stopped mid-way down the lane. I think it was "thrown" by Emmaline.