Surprise

SURPRISE

That is what I heard on Saturday March 7th.

Tyler hosted a wonderful surprise party for my 40th Birthday.

It was hosted at the Great Bay Oyster House. He did a wonderful job planning and organizing everything.

Lots of wonderful friends were able to make it. Lots of wonderful friends were not able to make it and sent well wishes. My parents were in town since they came up for Jonathan's baptism. My sister Michelle and her family came up from Georgia, so it was good to see them.

All in all it was a great night.

Thank you to all my wonderful friends that came and helped me celebrate!

I received many wonderful gifts.

I also received some fun Over the Hill gifts, thanks!

Tyler and several of my friends got me the Cricut that I have been wanting for a while. I have enjoyed getting to use it. I am currently on the hunt on Ebay for more cartridges to use on it. I found one on Sunday night and have already purchased it with some Birthday money. Yeah!

Here are some great pictures from the evening... if you were there and have some more pictures I would love to get them to add to my files.

Brad and Tracy and Randy and Chandis

Sophie and Luc

Leigh and Billy

Bama and Mark

Jed, Gerry and Matt

Casey and Doug

Michelle and Dean and Dad and Mom

My Beautiful cake

Blowing out ALL the candles!

Opening presents

The Cricut!

Great Friends

Forty and Fabulous!

Thanks again for a wonderful night!

Till next time,

Barb

Upwards Ceremony

On Thursday March 5th Upwards had their award ceremony at Bethlehem Baptist. Sarah had to go for cheer leading. They had a magician and he did a wonderful show. Sarah got to join him onstage for one of his tricks. The cheerleaders did a cheer onstage also. It was a fun night. My parents had come into town, so they were able to come also.

Here is some video and pictures from the night.

Mega Postathon

I just want to let you know that I have written several posts below. Be sure to read all of the current posts that were done in the last 3 days or so.

Thanks for sticking with me while I was on a blog hiatus.

Looking forward to being caught up and staying caught up.

Till next time,

Barb

The big snow in South Carolina!

The first look at the snow, Sarah is catching snow flakes on her tongue.

Jonathan and Abigail are in amazement.

Toby doesn't know what to do in the snow... he had so much fun catching the snowballs in his mouth.

He was running around crazy.

All the girls in the snow.. Jonathan was still trying to get some shoes on.

Jonathan finally joined us for the picture.

They absolutely loved the snow and were looking forward to the morning time when they could go out again.

Sarah and Hannah having a snowball fight.

Sarah is cold and ready to come in.

Toby is ready to come in also.

Abigail peeking in on the picture.

Till next time,

Barb

Tiger Paw Invitational

On Saturday afternoon we headed to Clemson to watch my niece who lives in Georgia compete in a gymnastics meet.

We had a great time....

We met them before the meet at Eddie Spaghetti's and had some food before the meet.

We then had a little bit of time before the event started so we were able to walk around in the downtown area. The kids loved going into ALL the Clemson stores... how many Clemson stores do you need... there were like 3 or 4 in a row.... and they all had the same stuff!

Here is Paige waiting for her turn on the bars and watching her teammate's routine.

Jonathan and Sarah called her name so she would look at us so I could get this picture.

She looks so much like my sister it is amazing!

My sister Michelle and Sarah from across the arena...

Paige won several medals in different events... I think she placed in every event but one, and she placed 2nd for her All around score.

Way to go Paige!!

Here is her team when they won 1st Place for the all around team score!

Way to go Ultimate!

Here are all the kids... Jake stayed home because he had baseball practice.

Sarah's 7th Birthday

This year we decided that since we are taking the kids to Disney for Spring Break that all the kids would bypass big parties this year. We told them they could pick their favorite restaurant and take 2 - 3 of their best friends out to eat to celebrate.

For Sarah's birthday she chose to take her 3 friends to Olive Garden to celebrate with her.

Here are her three good friends.

Sarah, Kate Elizabeth, Julia Kate and Lauren.

This is Sarah's best friend, Julia Kate. They have been best friends since Kindergarten. This year they are in the same class again.

Sarah being silly!

All the girls together for a nice picture.

The silly picture!

She received some wonderful gifts and had a great time.

Till next time,

Barb

National Beta Club Induction ceremony

We are so proud of Abigail, she was chosen to be apart of the National Beta club because of her good grades. She was in the Junior Beta Club in Middle school.

She has a 4.375 GPA, so needless to say, she is doing very well her first year in high school.

If you are reading this and you are a college scholarship organization, call us...

Here is Abigail getting her certificate.

Here is her racing by with her certificate.

Till next time,

Barb

Pure love now weekend..

We hosted the 9th grade girls at our house for the pure love now weekend... I think they had a fun time.. but I am not sure.... I stayed in our bedroom most of the weekend to give them their privacy.

Here is a shot of them with the tiaras I got them all going into their afternoon session on Saturday.

Till next time,

Barb

Taking a tree down... a big job!

We are officially the Griswold's... we took our Christmas tree... OH this is so embarrassing.. on Feb. 7th. The big rush was really because we were having Pure Love Now weekend at our house. We were hosting the 9th grade girls for the weekend.. so we had to take it down or embarrass our children in front of their friends...So we set off!

As you can see from the pictures our tree was still very nice looking.... oh I failed to mention it was a live tree....

Taking down our tree is a very long process... I have to take off all the ornaments and then line them all up by the year so they can be put away in their appropriate year bag. Mainly to make sure we don't lose any or leave them in the tree.. I also have a printed list were we check off each ornament as we take them off and put them in the appropriate year pile. We store all our special ornaments in one big box with lots of ziploc bags with each year labeled so that when we put the tree up we can start with our first year together "(1988) till the present... we get an ornament for Tyler and I and each child, each year... Here are all the special ornaments lined up from our living room to our front door.

Y'all are sworn to secrecy, not to tell our shameful story!

Till next time,

Barb