UMBY CHEERS AGAIN; FISHING; SHOPPING; EASTER OUTTAKES

I'm not at all surprised but nonetheless thrilled for my baby girl that she will be cheering again this next school year. Tryouts were last Thursday so the younger two boys and I made a mad-dash to Decatur to be there when she found out the results.

As you can see she has no shortage of fans! :)

It seems like just yesterday you were cheering for the local YMCA peewee football/cheer league.

And now look at you. You're big time!! We're all so so proud of you, Sissy! Way to go!! We love you and are excited to watch you continue doing what you love!

Good Friday was also Maggie's birthday. Two things Claire asked to do on her birthday was to feed the turtles, geese and ducks at Blount Cultural Park followed by a trip to California Yogurt Kraze. Martha asked if we would like to meet them at the park then accompany them to CYK. Yes and yes.

It was a gorgeous day which I thought would make for some lovely pictures at the park. Well, pictures that probably would have been lovely had I remembered to put the memory card back in my camera. I was able to capture a few with my phone.

I'm not sure if you can tell in that picture but all those little heads sticking up from the water are turtles. Turtles were kind of the theme for her birthday so it was really neat that we got to see so many. It was like they knew. HA! I'm sure it had nothing to do with the bag of Cheerios with which the kids were luring them to the surface. The picture does it no justice because there were so many of them. They decided to go up to the viewing deck to feed them.

We always enjoy spending time with RaRa and the girls and were glad we could help Claire celebrate turning 9.

Saturday was the day before Easter. As in the Easter Bunny was supposed to be making a visit THAT NIGHT. Procrastination Polly here decided I better kick it into high gear if I didn't want my children's hopes and dreams of a supernatural bunny who comes around on Easter giving out loot shattered by the fact that he skipped over our house this year. I have two people to thank in helping me accomplish this feat:  Chris and Bethany.

Thanks to Chris because he decided to spend the day fishing with the boys at his parent's house. The boys have been wanting to do this for quite some time, so they were beyond excited to go. They not only enjoy fishing but always love to see Grandmama and Granddaddy Norton.

They caught 240 fish in 3 1/2 hours.

Believe it or not, yes, they did leave some fish in the pond.  HA! It took a few hours to clean them too. But now they're all cleaned, bagged and frozen and have been our dinner in some form or other the past three nights. Delish! If you could see in my freezer you would see they will likely be dinner for quite a few more nights as well. :) 

While the boys were away Sissy and I had the day. We had the whole day to ourselves, and we were on a mission. We spent the entire day shopping. The ENTIRE day. I think we all know shopping isn't exactly my forte but it had to be done. This is where the thanks to B comes in because if you can believe it she actually got me to enjoy myself. In the beginning anyway. One of the missions was an Easter dress for me so she was like my own personal shopper. ;) I'm not exaggerating when I tell you I think we went to every single store that sells dresses in Montgomery, and I think I tried on every single one of them even remotely cute. Notice I said I enjoyed it in the beginning because by that afternoon I was as ill as a sore-tailed cat. I had shopped until I literally was about to drop. We refueled with a stop by Great American Cookies and accomplished what we set out to. And I'm officially over shopping until a few days before Christmas.

Did you know Satan works overtime on Sundays? But because I can laugh about it now, here are a few outtakes from our attempted Easter pictures:


First of all I wanted our picture in FRONT of the cross. You know, the front. As in the prettiest part, with the church in the background. Well it was a beautiful day with full sunshine and the front of the cross was facing the sun. Not. Gonna. Happen. However, even when I agreed to put our backs to the sun...

 

Grant still couldn't see, Mac is trying for the great escape, and 

Reid clearly wants to be there. Sissy and I are trying to keep it together.

Until...

Sissy was blinded by the light as well, Grant looks like he should be in the bathroom, Mac looks like he's in pain, and again, Turbo CLEARLY wants his picture taken. I'm still trying to keep it together.


I tried for one more. ONE more. Grin and bear it, April. You're at church. On Easter. You can do this.

 

And then...

The whining. Oh my side, all the WHINING!

And then I could no longer keep it together.

And then I needed to ask for forgiveness and repent.

And that was our weekend. Just keepin' it real. :)