Bayley's Sixth Birthday Party!!!

Our Party Girl

Bayley's First Day of School with her teacher Mrs. Reid
Bayley Decorating Her Own Birthday Cake
Bayley right after her first tooth was pulled
Spencer tossing Bayley into the pool
The completed cake





Anyone who knows Bayley knows how much the girl loves a party. We start planning her parties about 6 months in advance. The girl loves to entertain. Well, this weekend was Bayley's party for her 6th Birthday. We invited a couple of families from church and she invited 3 kids from school. She has had a tough time making new friends at school and we really haven't run into very many girls her age. Anyway, the people we invited from church showed up as well as her Grandma and Grandpa Griffeth and Spencer and Leigh. It was a crowd!


Bayley loves to decorate cakes and bake. So it only made sense that we would make her birthday cake ourselves...especially since we ordered the Betty Crocker cake decorating set off the Internet last month and had still not put it to use. Originally she had wanted a three-tiered cake. After looking up on the Internet how to make a three-tiered cake and seeing the difficulty involved, I talked her into doing a princess cake. Fortunately for me, she jumped on board and the cake turned out beautifully. I did the bottom and she decorated the top by herself. As she was decorating, she complemented herself on what a great job she had done. It did turn out pretty darn cute if you ask me.


We decided to make this years party a swim party since we have a pool. We also let the kids demolish a pinata, had a water balloon fight and ate hot dogs, watermelon, and chips. Everything turned out great, but boy am I glad that it is over. It is exhausting, especially when there are such high expectations by the birthday girl. Overall, I have to say she was pleased.


I am so proud of Bayley and feel truly blessed to have her in my life. She has such a sweet spirit and really is a VERY good girl. I love the blue-eyed, blond-haired girl that Heavenly Father gave me and that I dreamed about having when I was younger. She really is a great big sister to Kendal and Trey...I know that they adore her. I love you, Bayley and hope you have a wonderful sixth Birthday!


Kendal started "home" school last week. We worked all week on her colors. In some ways she is ahead of where Bayley was at her age, but in some she is way behind...which is of course, my fault. But we are determined to catch her up this year. She is such a smart girl and we are going to have her begging to go to school next year (even though she will still have another year at home before she starts kindergarten). Kendal also started dance classes this week. She is so excited and so darn cute! I can't wait to see her perform!

Kendal doing the "Cheerleader" in the Pool

Trey is getting braver everyday when it comes to walking. Fortunately, he still is crawling most of the time, but he could start RUNNING any day. I will be in trouble! I don't think I have posted this yet, but Trey has an infatuation with hair. He loves playing with long hair. If you give him a brush and some hair he will be content for quite a while. I've heard that there are a lot of other boys that are the same way, but I don't think that makes Jeff feel any better about his son's infatuation with hair. Speaking of hair, it won't be long before Trey is going to need his first trim!

Our big man Hanging Out


My big news is that I am going to start training for a 1/2 marathon. My basketball teammate at Morehead State, Jan, challenged me to participate with her and a couple other of my old teammates in a 1/2 marathon December 1st in Memphis. I've already been running just about everyday, so I am going to give it a shot. I've never been a huge runner, but it is something that I can do with kids...I love my double jogging stroller. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Grandma Nancy and Papaw Rick, First Day of School, Lost Tooth, 1st Birthday!

So getting our hardwood floors refinished this last week has put me a bit behind. We had a great weekend with Grandma Nancy and Papaw Rick who made a quick trip down from Indiana. The kids love having visitors and enjoyed seeing their grandparents. We swam, took rides on the golf cart, swam some more, played and showed them around a little bit. After a quick weekend, they had to head home Sunday morning. Sunday evening we began preparing for the hardwood floors to be refinished. Jeff recruited some guys from church to help him move our furniture off the floors. It only took them about 20 minutes, so it was nice to have help. We crammed everything into the bedrooms and out on the back porch. On a scaled down version, it almost feels like we are moving again. The kids and I headed to Atlanta Monday morning to escape the fumes. We spent three days at Grandma and Grandpa Griffeth's where we did some shopping, some swimming and lots of playing. Jeff managed to tolerate the fumes and slept in our basement for the first 3 days. Thursday morning was Bayley's first day of school, so we woke up at 6 am Georgia Time, which is 5 am Alabama time and made the quick trip home so that we could drop Bayley off at school. She is excited to be starting first grade and we hope that she has a wonderful year. Her teacher's name is Mrs. Reid and seems to be a great teacher. Thursday night we all braved the fumes and spent the night in the basement. Despite the heat wave, we have had to keep a couple of windows open to allow for ventilation. Needless to say it wasn't the best sleeping conditions, but we survived the night. Thursday night before bed, Jeff asked to see Bayley's loose tooth. After convincing her that it was time to get it out, he pulled it. There were some tears...she was more scared than hurt, but she was very excited. The tooth fairy came over night and left her $2...Bayley said that the tooth fairy must have left her so much because she had such a clean tooth! Friday was Trey's 1st Birthday! He took about 11 steps in a row yesterday, so we can say that he started walking on his first birthday. He is still trying to get brave, but he will be running around before we know it. After Bayley got home from school, we went swimming for a while then had dinner on the back porch. We sang to Trey and afterwards put a cupcake with a candle in front of him. He wouldn't even take a bite...it was like he thought something was up. We never give him a whole cupcake and he really wasn't too pleased to have a whole one in front of him. He threw the cake and frosting everywhere, then began to cry. After a busy day, he ended his birthday early by heading to bed. We had a very eventful week...but a fun one nonetheless. I will be excited to get our stuff moved back in this evening, and hopefully get things put back together. Hope you all enjoy the pictures!

Life after Potter!

All right, I know that a reading a book is not that good of an excuse for not posting, but I really was trying to finish before I heard details about the book that would ruin the ending for me. Suprisingly, I accomplished this and thoroughly enjoyed the book. I would recommend it to anyone that has had any interest in the Harry Potter series at all. Now on with the update!

Stone Mountain

As Pfizer was providing us with free all day passes to Stone Mountain Park in Georgia, we decided to head out after lunch to the park. Well, it was a good idea in theory, but ended up to be somewhat of a disappointment. Besides being a very hot day, the park was extremely crowded (we overheard a couple of the employees saying that it was busier than July 4th, which is one of their busiest days of the year). We would wait in line for an attraction, get hot and decide to ditch the line and find something else. We did that about 3 times before seeing nothing and finally giving up. Early in the evening, Pfizer provided dinner and games. That part of the experience was much more enjoyable. The girls had a lot of fun participating in the hula-hoop contest, the dance contest, relay races, and tug-o-war. We all left with temporary tatoos and before finding our seats for the laser show, we decided to take a ride on the skylift. As it had started to cool down a bit, we actually managed the 30 minute wait in line and made it to the top. The kids enjoyed the ride and the view from the top was pretty cool. After heading back down the mountain, we claimed our seats for the laser show and hung out enjoying the opportunity to sit in the cooling weather. We set up a little tent for the girls which kept them more than occupied and once it began to get dark we pulled out the glow-in-the dark bracelets and necklaces. The girls loved the laser show...Trey finally gave up and fell asleep just as the show was starting. We had a great time and I am sure as long as we live this close to the park, it won't be our last trip there.

St. Thomas

Sunday, Jeff and I left for St. Thomas. The kids were fortunate enough to get to stay with their Grandma and Grandpa Griffeth and Aunt Alyssa and Uncle Grant. The kids had a great time and enjoyed being spoiled with attention! I know that I had a harder time being away from them, then they did being away from me! I think about 4 days is my maximum when it comes from being away from my kids. I miss them too much! Jeff and I had a great time on our much needed vacation and did a lot of fun things. I will summarize our activities by day.



Monday
Jeff and I got the day started pretty early despite getting in pretty late the night before. We arrived in St. Thomas to rain and a beat up rental car. Everytime we went over a bump the car would make a horrible scraping noise. We decided to see if we could exchange cars and fortunately were given a better option. Most of the rental cars have damage of some sort and after driving there for a couple of days you can quickly realize why. First, they drive on the left side of the road. Second, the roads are extremely narrow, filled with potholes and the terrain is extremely hilly. I am pleased to report that Jeff and I survived the crazy driving and enjoyed the freedom that having a car afforded us. Monday was our day to explore St. Thomas. We went first to Coki Bay. We were some of the first people on the beach, so we dove in right away to check out the snorkeling. It was awesome...probably the best snorkeling we had on St. Thomas! There were tons of fish and the terrain wasn't that bad. We enjoyed Coki Beach for a couple of hours and left just as it became busy. After Coki Beach we headed to Magens Bay. Supposedly one of the highlights of St. Thomas, we found the bay beatiful and big, but the snorkeling very disappointing. After seeing very few fish, we decided to head out and make the trek to the highest point on St. Thomas...Mountain Top. After an interesting car ride on windy and steep road, we made it to the top of St. Thomas. The view was amazing. Besides the view, we also enjoyed a world famous virgin banana daquiri. It was pretty good and very refreshing on a hot day. After cramming in all of the sightseeing we could in a short amount of time, we headed back to our room to prepare for our dinner sail. We boarded a sail boat with about 20 other people and enjoyed a short ride to a quiet bay looking out at St. Thomas. We had crab legs, mahi-mahi, chicken, rolls, fruit, salads, and dessert while we watched the sunset over St. Thomas. Very nice and relaxing! It was a great end to a great first day of vacation.

Tuesday
Tuesday was deemed our day to go to St. Johns. We took a car ferry over so that we would have transportation when we got there and while we were there we went to four different beaches. Our favorite as far as snorkeling was Caneel Bay, which was a surpise because it was not one of the noted beaches. We also explored Cinnamon, Trunk, and Hawks Nests. It was a very enjoyable day. Towards the end I was getting tired of snorkeling, so I just sat on the beach at the last couple of place we visited. Jeff couldn't seem to get enough snorkeling. After a full day on St. Johns, we took the car ferry back to St. Thomas and enjoyed a gourmet meal at a restaurant called Havana Blue. The portions were small, but the atmosphere was pretty cool!

Wednesday
Wednesday was supposed to be our day to go on a daysail to the British Virgin Islands. We woke up early and headed out to meet at the appointed location. After waiting about 30 minutes and seeing no crew or additional passengers we had the feeling that the sail may have been cancelled without us knowing. After a call to the charter office, we did find out that the charter had been cancelled because too few people had signed up. We were a bit upset because had we have known this we would have booked with a different company. Now faced with a day with nothing planned, we spent most of the day at the hotel hanging out at the beach and the pool. Definitely not what we had planned, but still an enjoyable day nonetheless. It was definitely a lot more relaxing than what we had originally planned.

Thursday
After a wonderful breakfast at the hotel, we decided to spend our time before our departure doing some last minute shopping. In downtown St. Thomas, they did have quite a few shops, but most of it was the same stuff at all of the places. We spent a couple of hours shopping then headed to the airport. Our return home went all right except that we were delayed leaving Miami a couple of hours because of a problem with the plane and didn't get into Atlanta until 2:00 a.m.

Overall, we had a great time and would definitely go back to St. Thomas. Sorry it has taken me so long to post. We have had a busy week trying to enjoy Bayley's last week before she starts school. Her teacher's name this year is Mrs. Reid and we are so excited that she got the teacher she did. We know that she is going to have a great year. Rick and Nancy are here this weekend. The kids love company! We will be headed to Grandma and Grandpa Griffeth's for a couple of days next week while our hardwood floors are refinished...the movers put a large scratch in them when we moved in and we are finally getting them fixed. I will post more pictures soon!