NCAA Womens Basketball Tourney

Enjoying a day out with daddy!

The Aggie Band made the trip!

Oh, she was waiting for this!

View from their seats! Awesome, huh?

Feel asleep on the way home...she was TIRED!

This past weekend Abby enjoyed a day out with her daddy. As many of you know we are a huge sports family. We love it all...basketball, football, baseball, hockey, soccer, etc. So when Dan found out that his beloved Aggies would be playing in Shreveport for the First Round of the NCAA Womens Tournament he jumped on the computer and bought a couple of tickets for him and his special little lady. Abby has become quite the sports fan too. Since an early age we have taken her to many sporting events. Her first pro basketball game was when she was 9 months old!

Dan and Abby enjoyed a great game between the Lady Ags and McNeese State. They scored some awesome seats too. Practically front row right behind the announcers. The game was aired on ESPN2 and I even saw them on TV (twice!). Dan said she had a blast! The Lady Ags went on to beat McNeese State and are now on to the FINAL FOUR!!! Wahoo, gooooooo Lady Ags!

So sweet

Giving her brother lots of kisses...

It was the "giggles" that wouldn't stop between both of them...

More lovin' on little brother...Seth is not quite sure about it!

More kisses while Seth enjoys his bumbo relaxation while holding Ms. Sophie the Giraffe.

This is a fave of mine.

Um, ya...that's a bit much big sis! H-E-L-P

Lately, Abby has been wanting me to take lots of pictures of her and Seth. That's wonderful, I think, until she starts squeezing him too tight. I've asked her several times to be "gentle" with her little brother but her answer for everything is, "okay mom, but I just love my little Sef"....enough said. :)

Learnin' about Louisiana

As many of you know we are not true "Louisiana-ians" but during the week of March 7th Abby was learning about our new home state at her school. Um, let me correct that and say that we will always be Texans by heart. :) There is so much about this Cajun state that I am not aware off. Having lived in Texas my whole life I've never experienced or had the opportunity to move to another state. I do enjoy living here and the fact that they love crawfish (as do I), have many lakes/bayous to go fishin' and can throw the best Mardi Gras parties ever!

And speaking of Mardi Gras Abby has really gotten into the spirit of this fun festival celebration. On March 8th, Fat Tuesday, Abby wore her purple, green and gold to school. And don't forget those beads!

Fat Tuesday, also known as Mardi Gras and Shrove Tuesday, is often considered the last celebration before the start of Lent, which is Ash Wednesday. So what do you really do on Fat Tuesday?? Well, have a party, EAT and celebrate of course! Also I did not know that "Gras" is French for fat and "Mardi" is French for Tuesday! Hey, y'all know I'm a Texas girl and this is all still new to me even if we've lived here for over a year now. :)

Throughout the week Abby learned alot about her new state. Here she is with her "mask" she made and a few of the state symbols they discussed.

State Bird: Pelican

State Flower: Magnolia

State Reptile: Alligator

State Crustacean: Crawfish (but of course!)

State Tree: Bald Cypress

I know this pic is sorta "off" with my post but I had to put it in. Why? Well, as many of you know I LOVE to take pictures. Duh? So in the moment of taking this pic Abby says, "Mom, stop taking pictures okay?"....what a sad face but okay.

And another thing Abby learned about (and me too) was what the colors of Mardi Gras represent. Do you know? Well let me share:

Purple: Justice
Green: Faith
Gold: Power

Okay, so now you learned something new today!


Abby has also been working on her writing skills. She does a very good job but I was particularly impressed with these two sheets she brought home.

The highlight of the week was the journal that she brought home on Friday. She worked on it all week and was so proud to show it off to Daddy and I.

And I just love this last picture...her homemade crawfish!

Hope you enjoyed your history lesson today!

SCORE!!!!!

Every Saturday morning Abby has a soccer game. This is her second season and she seems to get the hang of it (well most of the time). You usually see her running next to her friends/teammates instead of really going after the ball, wondering if it's time for a water break or just stopping to look at a flower.

Well last weekend was a different story! She kicked the ball and scored two goals! WAHOO! Daddy, aka Coach Dan, was so proud of Abby...and of course Mommy too! My sweet and wonderful friend, Lisa, took these photos of Abby. Her son, Billy, plays on the team too. Lisa caught all the action as Abby ran down the length of the field with the ball!! Amazing right? Wow, I was screaming with excitement and poor Seth was probably thinking, "what in the world?? Why are you screaming so much Mommy?"

When she scored that goal she was smiling and squealing with excitement. I think I even saw a "touchdown" sign from her. Ha!

There she goes...

So who's gonna catch her?

No one insight!

SCORE!!!!!!!!!

That's her buddy Billy and Daddy giving her a hug after scoring!

The Bike Parade

A few weeks ago Abby was invited to her friend Tripp's birthday party. Since Tripp's actual birthday fell on Fat Tuesday this year they decided on a mardi gras themed party. It was a Bike Parade Party! How fun, right? All the kids brought along their bikes, scooters, and ride-ons and rode along the barricaded parking lot. Now why didn't I think of something like this. It was so much fun!

I had to take a picture of Tripp's birthday cake. Lacy did such a wonderful job on it, don't you think? As you can see, Tripp loves trains. I mean, what boy doesn't right? I just loved his cake and the personal touches were brilliant. And of course those cupcake "train cars"...genius!

Abby rode her bike so much that afternoon. She had to add some extra "bling" to her bike before the big parade which was about to start.

All the kids lined up for their bike parade. They were all pretty excited. :) Several parents grabbed beads and moved out along the parking lot.

I'm thinking this was Abby's 2nd drive thru! She already had some beads on so I'm just guessing. All the kiddos would ride a little bit then stop and get some beads from the parents. It was awesome!

It's the birthday boy!

I love Abby's expression in this photo! She was having a blast! And look at all those beads!

I can't quite remember exactly but I think the kids went around 2 or 3 times. They all ended up with so many beads and we had a ton left over!

Here's Abby making her way around the parking lot one last time. I had to laugh once I saw how many beads she had on her bike and herself!

Riding around a few more times till it was time to leave. She didn't want to leave of course.

Finally a pic of just the two of us. Yes, that's me in the picture. Thanks Lacy for offering to take it of us! Overall, we had such a blast! It was a fantastic birthday party!

Freshly Squeezed Lemonade!!

Abby has been asking her Daddy to build her a lemonade stand for quite some time now. I'm not sure how it all started but she really wanted a lemonade stand. So one morning off they went to Home Depot to gather up some supplies. Now those of you who know my husband he is quite the craftsman. He loves working on projects! So this was a big project to work on.

Abby "supervised" the project. She needed to make sure it was done to her specifications, of course! AND well, it just had to be pink...what else! I knew when they went to pick out paint she would not settle for anything else BUT PINK. :)

So after many weekends of working on it and help from my father-in-law, who by account is quite the craftsman as well, the lemonade stand was done. Now you know where Dan gets it from. :)

"Abby's Place" is open for business! She had her first sale from her mommy and daddy. Oh, I forgot to point out that she made some freshly squeezed lemonade shortly before I took this picture. And I have to say, it was very good!

So who wants some lemonade??

Dan's Big Birthday

Daddy's plate that I made at MOPS the week prior! I used chalkboard paint on the edge of the plate so all I have to do is erase and rewrite! Genuis!

Daddy and his princess (though I didn't get anymore shots of the birthday since Abby decided to be a little stinker at the restaurant) :(

Dan's Tiramisu cake....oh, it was simply delicious!!!!

Yep, it was tasty! :)

Okay so Dan's birthday is right around the corner (actually exactly 6 days) from mine so we had another FUN day to celebrate. We started off the morning singing to Daddy and using my new plate I made at MOPS the week before. The plate turned out great and was a big hit with the family! I just love how it came out and we can use it for everyone's birthday over and over again! Thanks to my friend, Holly Doyal, for showing us how to make it at MOPS!

Dan chose a delicious restaurant to go to that night. We went to Texas Street Tavern. What a great place! The food was spectacular and drinks weren't bad either. It is a bit pricy but it was worth it for Dan's birthday. They don't have a children's menu but they made some chicken strips for Abby to eat. Well, she didn't eat much of it or the fries for that matter since they had some sort of "seasoning" on them. It was a bit spicy so we had to take off the breading. I think that's where it all started. Well, thinking back I think she was already getting tired since it was nearing 6:45 by the time we got our food. She had a long day and it was showing. Anyways, she had a meltdown and it just went downill from there. Sorry to say, but she had to be taken to the restrooms for a well deserved spankin' . Not what Dan was looking to do on his birthday. Luckily her food came early but she barely ate a bite. All she wanted to do was lay down in our laps, cry and fall asleep. Our food was oh so delicious and we'd love to go back again. Maybe this time without the kids...

Back at the house everyone got ready for bed and fell asleep early. We decided to wait till the following day to eat cake. The tiramisu cake was to die for! Oh, I probably could of eaten the whole cake by myself if I wanted to. :) In the end, Dan had a wonderful birthday and it was a great day to spend it with our family.

Happy Mardi Gras!

A few weekends ago we attended our second Mardi Gras parade. We had so much fun last year (despite the frigid weather) that we had to do it again. We had two reserved spots along Kings Hwy so we weren't in a hurry to get down to the area too early. We did make it down there around 2ish and brought along our lawn chairs, BBQ pit, beads, Abby's big wheel bike and of course lots of food. Here's a look at our spot! We mingled with our neighbors and loved watching all the people and their Mardi Gras attire! And oh yes, that is a Port A Jon!! We came prepared this year! So worth the money and we could of made some serious $$ if we allowed others to use it!

Now what's a parade without COTTON CANDY!!

Here we are with our beads we brought from home. Seth was snoozing away otherwise I would of been holding him.

This was my inlaws first time attening the Mardi Gras parade. They loved it and we hope to make it an annual tradition now!

Abby was getting a bit ansy waiting for the parade so we pulled out the DVD player. That has been a lifesaver many a times! Notice how dirty her feet are too! Geez, who knew that playing in the bed of the truck would get her feet so darn dirty! LOL

And of course Baby Seth had to have his own beads! Abby picked these out for him. :)

Now it was time to bring out her Big Wheel and go for a ride. We usually wait until they shut down the streets to do this. She had a blast and went down the street several times!

While waiting for the parade to start Abby decided to play "down the hill" with a friend.

We were having a blast and took our official Mardi Gras photo as a family of four! Little Seth was snoozing away in my Bjorn! :)

I was hoping to get a good pic of the Centaur logo but apparently some chick got in the way...grrr. Otherwise it would of came out perfect!

Abby caught a huge catepillar from one of the floats. She absolutely loves that thing! He's about as tall as she is and she named him Rainbow!

More floats! There were 40 in all! I know, that was alot and it nearly took 2 1/2 hours for the parade to pass by! Since we were at the tail end of the parade it took nearly 3 hours for it to get to us! Yes, I know what you are thinking...that's already 5 1/2 hours. Well figure in our tailgating party, which started around 2ish, and well you get it...we had a LONG day but it was fun!

Poor Abby was getting really tired and Seth was such a trooper. Shortly after I took this picture Abby was ready to lay down in the truck and go to sleep!
Needless to say, she didn't fall asleep right away but kept peeking out of the truck to see the floats. I was inside with her and with all the bead falling into the bed of the truck and hitting the roof there was no way we could fall asleep! Eventually she did, missing the last two floats. She was soooo tired.

This pic was taken the following day. Abby sorted all her beads by color!! She sure did hit the jackpot! Now what to do with all these beads!