Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we drove up to Tennessee. I can't believe that we actually did it after we swore that we would never do that drive again. We went up there two years ago and decided that we would drive at night so the kids would sleep and Aaron and I would take turns sleeping in the very back seat in the van. When we took that trip I took the first turn driving. This kids finally fell asleep around 10pm and then I had to pull into a gas station at around midnight to get gas. The lights were soooo bright that the kids were instantly awake and since they had had themselves a little nap they were wide awake. I was exhausted of course and wanted to sleep, but couldn't because the kids needed to be entertained. I think they ended up sleeping again from about 3:30am-7am. We swore we would NEVER do that again.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, however you choose to look at it) that trip was kind of like child birth. As time goes by you start to forget the horrible pain and anguish that you went through and think, "Hmmm, maybe, just maybe, I could do it again". Combine that with outrageous airfare and you find yourself driving 16 hours to Tennessee again and doing it at night! So I know you are all wondering how it went??? It actually went really well. The kids slept from 10:30-ish to about 5:30. We were much smarter this time though, and pulled over to fill the tank just before the kids fell asleep. Then any time that we needed gas after that I held a blanket over Nathan's head so that the bright lights of the gas station did not wake him up. I think it was helpful that the kids were older, too.

It was very cold up there. As usual we had to go out and buy a hole new wardrobe with pants and long-sleeved shirts before we took the trip. Grandma was able to borrow a jacket for Lexy and we had a hand-me-down for Nathan. I am so grateful for my nice warm winters down here in sunny Florida. I was not enjoying the cold weather at all. I did, however, really enjoy sitting around and having nothing on my mind - no cleaning, no groceries, no work, no laundry - nothing. Aaron's mom taught me how to crochet a pot holder. I know that doesn't sound very exciting, but I was really excited and I was able to do it in a day!

The kids got to play with some of their cousins (pictured above holding the gingerbread men they made at Grandma's house). We were able to spend Aaron's birthday up there with two of his brothers and his best friend from his youth. We took a trip to the Apple Barn in Gatlinburg (which has really yummy food). It is one of our favorite places to go. They have neat Christmas shops open all year. In the picture below this kids are sitting on a wooden Santa. Overall it was a great trip.

What a tongue!

This is one of those pictures that I think Lexy will hate when she gets older, but I had to post it because it grosses me out and makes me laugh all at the same time!

We were eating bacon (turkey bacon) one morning and some how it turned into dangling turkey bacon tongues. Lexy's looked so real that we had to grab the camera and take a picture.

Doesn't this picture freak you out a bit?

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween. It was the first time that we actually went out knocking on doors. We have always just gone to the ward Trunk-or-Treat party (which we did also). This year we went to our friends the Montierth's for some pizza first and then went up and down the streets in their neighborhood. It was really crowded! The kids had a great time and got way too much candy! Lexy was a black cat and Nathan was a member of the SWAT team!

Two little boys at church

Everyone knows that when one baby is born in a ward (this is what we call one congregation in our church) there are usually three or four more babies coming soon after. That was the case when Nathan was born - actually he was following the other boys who had been born just a few months before. We had five boys all about the same age - Jeremy, A.J., Cody, Nathan and Jack. They all played in nursery together and for the most part were good buds. Being in such a transient place, though, we are watching all of Nathan's buddies slowly leaving. Jack Watkins was the first to leave a couple of years ago. A.J. and his family, the Whitney's left us almost a year ago. Cody and his family still live in Naples, but we had some boundary changes and they are no longer in our ward and it doesn't seem to matter how hard we try we just don't see them as much as we would like. That left Jeremy. Although they have their arguments at times, they are good friends.

Yesterday was the Brower's (Jeremy's family) last day at church before they move back to Arizona. We are going to miss them. And now it just leaves Nathan out of the original group. I know that he will make new friends. We have already had some new families move into the ward with kids close to his age. But I could just picture those five boys growing up together and all being best friends. Anyway, I watched the cutest exchange between Jeremy and Nathan during sacrament meeting yesterday. It was the Primary program and Jeremy was suppose to be up in the stand with the other kids, but I think he had gotten a little shy so he was sitting with his family. We were a couple of rows behind the Browers. I could tell that Jeremy was trying to see Nathan and get his attention. Nathan however, had two small trucks that had his full attention. After a small struggle between Bro. Brower and Jeremy for some reverence Jeremy returned to his post looking for Nathan. By this time Nathan had moved down to the floor and was driving his trucks on the carpet. Once Jeremy realized that he could not see Nathan by standing on the seat he figured out he should go below. So he went down to the floor and this is what came next:

Jeremy: (in a loud whisper under the pew) "Nafan! Nafan!"

Nathan: (bending over to try to see where that was coming from and finally seeing Jeremy two rows up) "What?" (also in a loud whisper)

Then I couldn't hear what Jeremy was saying, but this was Nathan's response (in a loud whisper, of course) "No.... I can't.... I have to stay here.... No.... No." Then he looks up and me, at which point I shake my head 'no'.

The next thing I know Nathan pulls his arm back, with truck in hand, and then chucks the truck under the pew to Jeremy. What could I do, but ask if Jeremy got it, hoping that it hadn't hit the feet of the couple in front of us who were visiting from Utah. Jeremy had gotten the truck and he quickly popped up, back to his original post on the pew, with a big, happy, 'mission accomplished', grin on his face.

It was one of the the cutest things I have ever seen. I am sure that Nathan will probably not remember that as time goes by, but it is something that I don't think I will ever forget.

Reasoning from a child....

I just had to post something that Lexy said yesterday. She was telling Aaron about a little boy in her class who was rich just like our neighbor. Aaron asked her how she new this little boy (and our neighbor, for that matter) were rich. This was her response..."I know that they are rich because they can afford an upstairs in their house!"

We only have a one-story house, so I guess in Lexy's mind we are not rich. ;o) It is so fun to see how our children think about things and to hear their perspective on life.

My Favorite Grandaddy

I should be packing right now to get ready for our drive to Pensacola tomorrow. Wednesday we will be going to my favorite Grandaddy's funeral. He had a stroke Saturday afternoon and another one early Sunday morning that took his life. For some reason, though, I just can't bring myself to pack. Maybe it is because if I don't pack then maybe I won't have to go on this trip because he isn't really gone - or so I would like to think.

For those of you who didn't see my post a while back about my relationship with my Grandaddy this picture will probably appear quite odd. Yes, that is a picture of "roadkill". We always played jokes on each other. This particular day my grandparents were in town and were coming over for dinner. I told Aaron that I had to come up with a "Gotcha" as we would call it. I new that we were having steak for dinner so I created the body to go with it. When it was time to eat I took his plate into the kitchen and served him some "roadkill steak". It was great. In my previous post I also put the picture of the "gotcha" that he brought with him that day. It was a "Gotcha" Scoreboard. He had worked really hard to create it and of course he had more points that me.

I love my Grandaddy so much! I cherish all of the special memories that we have together. I wanted to find this picture and I couldn't. I almost thought that I had accidentally deleted it somehow and I was getting really upset with myself. I am so grateful that I found it because I think that it is the last picture that I have of him. I am so grateful that I know that he is in a good place and that I will be able to see him again someday. It is hard to wait, but maybe I can come up with a really good "Gotcha" before then, because I know that he will be working on one too. I LOVE YOU GRANDADDY!

Talk about a Slacker!

I am such a bad blogger! In fact that is an understatement. I think that part of my problem is that I would like to have a picture to blog about, but I have decided that I love reading other people's blogs even when they don't have pictures so I should just start writing. Also (and I know this is really not a good excuse because there are a million busy good blogging mom's out there) when I get a minute on the computer it is usually just enough time to read everyone else's blogs or check email and respond to one or two if I am lucky. I thought that I had a busy email before, but since becoming Relief Society President at church I get a million emails and usually I can't just ignore those. Anyway, I know excuses, excuses.

I have a few minutes to myself. Aaron is in Boston for a dental CE course. He has been there since Wednesday. He is probably almost on his way home. We have missed him lots, but the kids and I have had some nice time together. Last night we went out to dinner for my Dad's 60th Birthday. Happy Birthday Dad! It was nice.

So, I just got done telling my friend Jenn about this book that I Aaron and I read. I have probably already told most of you about it, but it is so good I thought that I would talk about it on my blog. It is called "The Total Money Makeover", by Dave Ramsey. I heard about it from my friend Shaela. It is by far one of the best self-help books I have ever read. It teaches you how to become completely debt free within 18-36 months (except for the house). Then it teaches you to save a 3-6 month emergency fund, fund your retirement, start college funds for the kids and to save money so that you can pay cash for whatever you want in the future. Aaron and I are officially starting it this month. Dave's motto is "Live like no one else, so that you can live like no one else". This book helps you to see how foolish we all are with our money and how some of the things that we thought were smart money decisions were really bad decisions. Anyway, enough preaching about the book. Just know that if you have any debt at all - even car or school loans with very low interest (the 'okay' debt, right?) then this is the book for you.

Well, "my time" just ended with Nathan waking up from his nap so I will go for now. Hopefully I can get back on here soon.

A simple life?

I have really been feeling the need for a more simple life. I am not a big city girl, but I have also never really had the desire to live out in the woods, either. Lately, though, I can really see myself out on a big piece of land (or at least not 5 feet away from our neighbors) where my children can get out and play in the yard. Here we have a lake just a house away, with alligators, of course, so I never let the kids just go out and play without me.

I envy the women who have nothing more to do than play with their kids and clean their house. (I guess I am assuming that those women are out there - maybe I am wrong). I feel like I am always running....from home.. to the office.. to the store to buy supplies for the office.....I can't ever catch up. I am sure that the "craziness" of my life is my fault. I am task oriented and rarely do I count laying around the house with the kids as a task.

I am just tired of all the extra stuff.....tv....house clutter.....cell phones.....email.....shopping...and even the computer....

Am I making any sense? Maybe in my mind the solution to getting rid of all these "extras" is to live on a farm with my own chickens and a garden so I don't have to "go and do" anything, but then I would probably feel like my list of things to do at the farm was never done either.

This really sounds like I am not grateful for my life. I am soooo grateful for my life. I would probably go crazy without all of the "comforts" that I enjoy. I know I am so blessed with a great husband, good kids, the gospel, a beautiful home, a beautiful place to live, reliable cars to drive (and the money to buy the gas), health, and even an amazing business. I don't know how I could be more blessed than I already am.......I just wish I could simplify things a little. Does that make any sense?

Well, thanks for listening to me ramble. I think I will ignore my "lists" today and see if I can't simplify my life - if even for a day.

I had to do this...I hope you all share a memory!!! Pretty please???

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you.

It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

Happy Remembering!

Lexy's last day of Kindergarten

Here are a couple of pictures from Lexy's last day of class. The first one is with her teacher, Mrs. Nesbit and the next one is with one of her best friends, Madeline.

Mom's Surprise 60th Birthday Party

May 31st - As I had previously noted in my blog we threw a surprise 60th birthday party for my mom. Her actual birthday was the 14th of May, but we wanted to wait until Julia was home from her mission. It was the perfect time because we also had Jonathan and Val here and some friends from Colorado (the Whitesides) that are partially responsible for my parents being members of the church. The best part of the surprise was that we had flown in one of my mom's best friends named Gail. It had been over 10 years since they had seen each other.

We had the party at our clubhouse. The plan was that we were all (our family and and the Whitesides) going to meet at my house so that we could go watch a movie. My dad called my cell phone just as my parents were leaving the house so that I would know that we had 20 minutes before they arrive. About 15 minutes later I called them and asked them if they could stop by the clubhouse to "pick up some papers for me from the association". This was the decoy to get mom into the clubhouse. Dad told her it was a box and it might be heavy so he should go in with her. When she came into the room we were all waiting and yelled "Surprise"

She was confused at first and then realized that this was all for her. She went around and hugged everyone in the room.

You can see in the first picture that we had a slide show ready to go. At this point her best friend Gail was hiding behind the door in the kitchen. We didn't want to make her stand there all day so we tried to have my mom sit down to watch the video as quickly as we could. The video was of pictures throughout her life. At the end we had pictures of friends including some of Gail from the 70's. One of the last slides contained a current picture of Gail waving with the caption, "I had really wanted to come for your surprise party............" - the next slide said, "so I did, turn around!" During the slide show we snuck Gail in so that she was standing behind mom. When my mom read the last slide she turned around and screamed "No, no way!" There wasn't a dry eye (at least from the women) in the room. It was awesome!

It is hard to see in this picture but Gail is standing on the left and my mom is bent over on the right.

Gail and my mom hugging.

We really had a great time. I have to thank all the people who kept this quiet so that it could actually be a surprise. Thanks everyone!

Welcome Home #2

Here are a couple of pictures from the "welcome home" in the Ft. Myers airport. We had actually talked to a few families on Tuesday and told them that we were going down to get her in Miami, but the Browne's and Patty Johnson still showed up to greet Julia.

Julia's Home from Argentina!

May 2008 - Julia was set to arrive in the Ft. Myers airport at 11 am on Wednesday, May 28th. We were so excited to have her home. We had told everyone in the ward so that they could be at the airport to greet her if the wanted to. On the Monday before, my parents got a call from Julia. She said that she was going to be arriving in the Miami airport at 5am and wanted to know if we could pick her up there so that she didn't have to wait 5 hours before flying to Ft. Myers. They called me and we all talked about it. We decided that we had no way of knowing who in the ward was planning on coming to the airport in Ft. Myers to greet her so we should just keep things the way they were. Aaron had patients scheduled in the morning so he couldn't go to Miami and my mom was scheduled to work in the morning also. So we hung up with Julia being really disappointed.

As soon as we got off the phone and I started thinking about it, I realized that we had made a huge mistake. She is our family and we hadn't seen her for a year and a half - how could we not go get her? All day on Tuesday we worked out plans to go down and get her in Miami. We weren't sure how we were going to find her since they don't let you enter the gates without a ticket, but were determined to make it happen. At 3 am my mom, dad, Jonathan, Val, Lexy and I headed down to Miami. We got there right at 5:oo to discover that her plane had been delayed an hour. We went into the building that said "Customs" and hoped that somehow we could find her. When we started asking around we realized that she would have to go through customs before she could go to her connecting flight. So we sat and waited and waited and waited until finally we saw her. She was too busy trying to figure out which way she was suppose to go so we just stood behind the big glass wall waving and smiling until she looked at us.

It was great to be there to surprise her. On our way home we stopped and had breakfast at Denny's and made it back about an hour before we had to go to the Ft. Myers airport for her second "Welcome Home".

"Lost" Tooth - Literally

May 26th - Today the girls (Lexy, myself, my mom and Aunt Val) and Nathan went to the water park that is in Naples. It was a really nice day. The boys had all gone fishing so we decided to go have some fun of our own. Nathan was really cold and didn't enjoy himself that much. Lexy had a blast until a little mishap. She and aunt Val had gone down the big slides a couple of times and then had decided to go down the lazy river (or crazy river as Lexy calls it). Some how at one point Lexy hit her face against the inner tube and knocked her front tooth out. When they came back over to us she was crying because her tooth was at the bottom of the "crazy" river. She was afraid that since she had really lost her tooth that the tooth fairy would not come. We assured her that the tooth fairy knows and we could even leave her a note explaining what happened. She decided that would be okay.

Later when we got home and had baths and showers I was in my bathroom drying my hair when Nathan walked in saying, "I found Lessy's (Lexy's) tooth". I thought that may he found something small and white that he had mistaken for her tooth. When he put it in my hand though, I discovered that he was telling the truth. I couldn't believe that he had the tooth that we thought was at the bottom of the lazy river. The only explanation is that it went down Lexy's bathing suit and traveled home with us. Thank goodness for little toddlers who notice everything on the floor! This will be a memorable story for a long time.

May 17th 2008- Today was Lexy's ballet recital. All of the girls looked so beautiful. Gran (my dad's mother) came with us to watch the show. We really enjoyed it. Afterwards Lexy, Gran and I went out for a special dinner .

A few cute lines

I have a lot more to post before I am caught up, but Nathan said a couple of things that were so adorable, I just had to post them.

The other night as we were getting ready to have dinner Nathan said, "I want a juice box". I replied with, "I'm not sure that we have any, but I will check." Then he said, "Heavenly Father said I can have a juice box". Well, who can argue with that?

Then Monday morning I wake up to Nathan standing next to our bed. He says mommy I have to go pee pee. (He just recently decided that he wanted to be potty trained and did it in a day, by the way). I didn't want to push my luck by making him wait so I got up (still not really awake) and took him to the bathroom. As I got up my head started pounding so when he said that he was hungry I told him that I was going to have to lay down for a little longer because I had a "head-ache". I invited him to get his blanky and come lay down with me, so he did. Within minutes Lexy was standing by the bed. Nathan started talking to her about random things and then he said, "Mommy......mommy has........mommy has a 'egg-head' ". I started laughing so hard! He was trying to say head-egg(ache), but got it switched around. He has become very sensitive lately and when we all started laughing he burst into tears. I felt so bad I immediately scooped him up and tried to explain that we were only laughing becuase what he said was really cute. It took him a while, but he finally calmed down. I just love the stage that he is in now. It is so fun!

Nathan's Third Birthday

May 2008 - The week of Nathan's third birthday was a complete whirlwind. We had my mom's birthday, his birthday, Lexy's ballet recital, and a Father and Son Camp Out. With everything else going on we decided to have a small party with two of Nathan's best buds - Jeremy and Cody. We went to Pump-It-Up and played for an hour or so. Nathan had helped me make some cupcakes so we took those to share. The boys all had a blast!

Jeremey took a little while to get comfortable going through the obstacle courses by himself,
but once he decided he liked it, there was no stopping him.


Cody coming out of the obstacle course.









Nathan about to go down a slide.

My life is "mostly" back to normal

I know that I disappeared again from the "World of Blogs" but this time it was due to a true lack of time and severe stress. :0) I know that all you "supermom's" who keep up with your blogs on a regular basis wonder what could possibly have kept me from blogging? It was a surprise 60th birthday party for my mom. I started planning it a week or two after my last post and the actual party was not until May 31st. I know that it sounds like I had plenty of time for some extra curricular activities (like blogging) but since I am a perfectionist and wanted to make this extra special I took on a few extra projects.


First, I hand-made all of the invitations with a picture of my mom in her 20's. Let me clarify that....Jonathan (my brother) created the invitations on the computer, then I printed them out and cut them and backed them with paper. Next I had wanted to get video of friends telling mom what they loved about her. I was really stressed about how I was going to get all the videos in time to put something together. I am not a video person like the Curry's or the Watkin's and the whole idea of the video made my heart beat faster. So a kind friend suggested that I do something more on my level like scrapbooking..... I took her advice and then requested letters from every friend that I knew my mom has ever had. I picked out a scrapbook and a color scheme and started making scrapbook pages. I think that I ended up with about 25 letters. This is what ate almost every waking minute of my life through the entire month of May. I worked on it during nap time's and every night until at least 11:00. (It was all worth it, mom!)


Jonathan and I also wanted to use pictures from throughout my mom's lifetime to make a picture video. He wanted to work on that, but since he is in North Carolina that meant that I had to collect all the pictures. That in itself was a huge project. Any time that we went down to my mom's for Sunday dinner I would try to get her to take a walk with the kids and the dog by herself, stick Aaron on "window watch" and I would run back to search through the pictures and "steal" as many of them as I could. Usually the walks would last all of about 10 minutes. Needless to say, I think that it took me 3-4 trips to actually confiscate all of the pictures that I wanted. By the time I actually got them all it was too late to send them to Jonathan. He and Val were coming at the end of May so they created the video after they got here.


In the middle of all this was my mom's actual birthday, Nathan's birthday, Lexy's ballet recital and many rehearsals, Jonathan and Val arrived, Julia came home from her mission and we had friends come into town. Oh yeah......and to top it all off I was called as the new Relief Society president. I still have to chuckle at that one and think half to myself and half to heaven "are you serious?" - seeing as how I have spent the last 15 years in Primary with about 4 months as a teacher in R.S., and a couple more as the enrichment leader (while teaching primary).


Anyway, these are all of my excuses for not blogging since the beginning of April. I hope that I can get back to blogging on a more regular basis now. Thanks for all of your understanding. :0)

P.S. I will post pictures of the party - which was a huge success, by the way - after I get all of the other posts done that need to come first.

Girl's Night Out

May 16th - Tonight was the Father and Son Camp out. Aaron and Nathan went for the firs time together. We decided that we should take full advantage of this opportunity and have a "girl's night". So Lexy and I spent the evening with my good friend Kristen and her daughter Bryn (and baby Abby). First we went out to eat at California Pizza Kitchen, then we took the girls to a Spa around the corner and they had pedicures. After that we went back to our house where the girls made picture frames to put their pictures in and we made s'mores. It was a great night. We had so much fun.

Learning to let loose...

Here's the deal....I am an uptight mom who is an organizational, neat freak. I need a clean house and I don't feel like I function very well without one. So what is the problem with that, you ask? I have a really hard time taking the time to play with my kids when the house is a mess because I feel like I have so little time and that I need to use the time that I have to get something done like the dishes, or the laundry, or filing the mound of papers on the kitchen counter. I have known that this is a problem for a long time, and I will say that recently I have gotten better about playing with the kids even if it's for 30 minutes before bed - so I have been working on it.

Listening to General Conference on Sunday was great for me. I loved all of the talks, but there was one sentence in one of the talks (I don't even know who said it) that hit me the hardest. It was the comment that if our children live in our homes until they are 18, they are only with us for 1/4 of our entire lives. That hit me like a ton of bricks. I know that everyone says that time goes by so fast and enjoy the kids while you can, but this sentence made me feel really selfish. It made me realize that I will have at least half of my life without them (whether I like it or not) and that I can worry about all the silly things I worry about now when I have nothing as important as my children to worry about .
So today I decided that Nathan and I would have an uneventful day together. I ignored the fact that we have no groceries in the house and I ignored the suitcase that has not been unloaded since our trip this past weekend and I also ignored the piles of junk around the house. At one point Nathan and I were in the office together and he spotted the large trash bag full of shredded papers that was sitting by the desk. I had not tied the bag very well and he discovered that he could open the bag and get to the shredded paper. At which point he pulled out a handful and threw it on the floor with a big grin. My first reaction was "oh no you don't"....but then the talk from Sunday popped into my head and I stopped and thought, "how can we have fun with this?" So, I got the big yard gate and set up a barrier in the kitchen, stuck Nathan in there with some toys and the bag of shredded paper and told him to have at it. He played in there for 1 and 1/2 hours. I joined him for some of it and also let him play some by himself for a while. Then we worked together and cleaned it up when we were done. It felt really good to give him something new and fun to do and it even felt good to let him make a huge mess. (Although there are still little papers that made it to other parts of the house, but I am trying really hard to ignore them) :)

Fun in Orlando

We went to Orlando this weekend and went to Sea World with Daylynne, Ernesto and Elijah. We had a great time. Unfortunately I left my camera in the car, so Daylynne is going to share the pictures that she took at Sea World with me and those will have to go on another post. These pictures we took the next day in Kissimmee at a little fair. The kids had a blast going on the rides.

Losing the training wheels!

Step #1 - Remove training wheels and put on safety geer.
Step #2 -Remove bike petals and practice pushing and balancing.
Step #3 - Put the petals back on and learn to ride within 48 hours.

We have to thank the Watkins (and the Browne's) for the ease at which Lexy learned how to ride her bike without training wheels. We had taken the training wheels off and I had held onto the back of the bike, balancing Lexy while she rode around for at least 20 minutes. All that got me was an extremely sore back and a child who still couldn't balance on her own and got very upset if I tried to let go of the bike. Luckily we have the Browne's in our ward who have owned a bike shop for years and shared the secret with the Watkins when they came down and rented some bikes for Chase and Phoebe to learn how to ride. Once we took the petals off, Lexy picked up on the balancing thing almost over night and within 2 days we had the petals back on and she was riding all by herself. I (and my back) are so very grateful for this amazing technique. Thanks guys!

Nature at it's best!

February 2008 - Aaron's parents came down for a visit this month and for the first time since we have owned the boat we went out on it to watch the sunset. Of course it was beautiful! Being outside in nature is one of my favorite places to be. I am so grateful that we live in such a beautiful and free country where we can enjoy all of Heavenly Father's creations. We are so lucky that we don't have all of the worries that people in other parts of the world have. Watching the news on any given day constantly reminds me of how very blessed we are.

Daddy Daughter Dance

February 2008 - Our neighborhood has lots of fun activities for families and everyone to enjoy. This particular night was a Daddy Daughter Dance. Lexy and Aaron dressed up. We did Lexy's hair like a princess and Aaron presented her with a single rose. She was beaming the entire night. I love all of these pictures and I know that I will cherish these for the rest of my life. Even though it wasn't my special night with her, I know how special she felt to have that time just her and her dad. They had a great time eating, dancing, having hula-hoop contests and watching their dad's do the chicken dance. I think that we will probably make this a yearly tradition.