Tennessee (Days 1,2,3,4)

Day 1 of our big trip:)

We started the day by getting Aubree's stitches taken out.  Again, she was a very brave girl.  And it took all of 10 minuets, score! 

Then we packed up, cleaned up...and headed to the airport.  We did have a direct flight, which was SOOO wonderful for the girls (and for us by association)

I planned a million things for them to do, so they wouldn't get bored.  And it worked really well.  Aside from landing causing Aubree's ears to hurt, there were no issues.  Our plane was pretty small.  There were only two seats per side with a TEENY TINY isle down the middle.  So Dave took Soph, and I had Aubs.  I had to take a lot of shots of them doing each activity to illustrate how many they had, and how short their attention span is.  It was a 4 hour flight...

Window stickers for them to decorate.  Sophie didn't want the window seat so she would hand them to Dave and point at where she wanted them to go.

I bought 5 new movies.  Two were revealed on the plane.  Lady and the Tramp, and Puss in Boots.  The one they chose: Puss in Boots.

Playdough

Paints

Magic coloring

Regular coloring

and tattoo's.

We arrived in Tennessee around 9:40....the first day {of traveling} was pretty much behing us.  It was bittersweet to be there knowing that we weren't moving.  If I didn't have a great spiritual experience of our answer to stay it would have been very sad.  As it was, it was just great to be in such a beautiful part of the country, with my family.  My Dad and Dave had a very nice heart to heart on the drive to their house.  Making me even more glad that we were there.  When we arrived at my parents, my mom had made us delicious crepe's.  We all stuffed our faces, and crashed.

Day 2:

We set up camp in my brother's room.  All 4 of us.  The girls did amazingly well.  Sophie, as usual, was found sleeping on the carpet.  Not on the nice soft pad, bed we made her....today was graduation day.  I was busy trying to finish designing some toppers and food labels for Ben's open house the next day. Everyone was so amazing and made sure the girls were occupied.

We all got ready and went to my little brother's graduation.  It was boring, as to be expected....but at the same time really neat. :) It was fun to watch him graduate {with honors} and walk across the stage to get his diploma.  WAY TO GO BEN!

The girls were amazingly behaved the whole time.
I think it helped that Grammi let them bring some fun polly pocket toys from her house.

Next up was dinner at Cheesecake Factory to celebrate.  Sophie totally zonked out in the car, and during the hour wait...she got a nice nap.  Day 2 of no naps caught up to her.

Day 3:
Sunday.  Being evil and selfish I told Dave we weren't going to church.  The girls needed a normal day before all the craziness picked back up again.  So the rest of the faithful family went to church while we put the girls down for a nap and stayed behind.  It was the right decision, and both girls were very happy because of it.  I went to get Sophie up and found her like this:

Apparently I had forgotten to leave a blanket for her and she ransacked the room.  She found a thin plastic Halloween tablecloth and snuggled in it!  Again on the carpet, and not her "bed".

After church was Ben's open house.  Ben and his friend Jeff....at Jeff's house. I made cupcakes with some cute toppers.

A fun banner for them...

and food labels

Sophie made something for them as well....a beautiful piece of artwork....she COLORED Jeff's dog.  With markers, while we were all occupied...thankfully they were very understanding.

The open house was fun.  My Mom made some delicious food.  I met some fun people, especially a true gem named Frances.  Every word that comes out of her mouth makes me laugh.  She is simply HILARIOUS.  It was fun seeing Ben with his friends, and saying farewell.

When we got back to the house, we all packed up...cleaned up as much as we could...and left to drive 12 hours to Orlando.  

Day 4:

Driving day.  We technically did leave on Monday.  Just after 12:00 a.m.  We decided to drive through the night since we had so many drivers to switch, and the girls would sleep better.  They were pretty excited so they didn't fall asleep for a couple of hours.  But the other 3 movies were revealed and again, I had a million activities planned to minimize the damage. (Gnomeo and Juliet, Enchanted, and a Disney Princess spin off)  Sophie slept for a good 6.5-7 hours straight. Aubree didn't do as well, but she did good considering how "easy" it is to sleep in a car.  I was SO AMAZED at how they did.  During the whole drive, they didn't fight once.  NOT ONCE.  Who took over?  We were all kind of zombies...but again, I was very surprised that the lack of sleep didn't effect their mood and attitude.  We arrived in Orlando around 1:00 ish in the afternoon.  We arrived to a Tropical storm.  Yay.  Of course there just happened to be a tropical storm blowing through the week we were there!   It was pretty crazy.  The rain would come down in sheets, hard and fast...but really warm.  Then it would be gone and sunny. 

We got to the house and set up our rooms.  We got the biggest :) but we had the biggest family to house.  We got settled, unpacked, shopped, etc...and then enjoyed the pool.  

It was really neat.  Our house backed up to a forest and it was just beautiful.  There were beautiful HUGE hawks soaring above us.  It was great to be in Orlando! 

My little Klutz

I was giving the girls a bath, just a normal routine night.  Including Aubree acting like a spaz child :) 

I told her to calm down or she was going to get hurt.  They hear me say that a lot with no results...so I think they don't really believe me!  Well Aub's was climbing out of the tub and not doing it carefully...being "silly'.  She slipped and smacked her chin HARD on the edge of the toilet.

Here is where I admit what an awesome Mom I am.  Instead of showing empathy...I pointed out that that was EXACTLY what I was talking about.  And to calm down...that she was just fine.  I told her to go get her pajama's on.  She said her chin really hurt so I decided to actually look at it to "placate" her.  Well, I was in for a little surprise.  Her chin had split open.  All my evil emotions left. Just like that. And concern flooded me.  I yelled to Dave (who was just in the next room with Soph) that we needed to go to the hospital.  We got them dressed a quickly as possible and headed out the door. 

We got there and found that we weren't the only ones present who needed stitches.  In fact 4 others needed stitches, including an achilles tendon that had been sliced.  That was just too painful to look at.  The nurse came out with her huge tub of numbing creme and numbed up all the kids!  It takes 20 minuets to be in effect...so we hung out and talked to all the others there.  It was a sad party that you don't want to be invited to.

Aubree was being SO brave.  I am so proud of her.  After she saw us react appropriately to her injury she stepped up and took on a brave face.  She held her washcloth on tightly the whole car ride and had stopped crying.  After they numbed her she was running around greeting everyone and making sure their injuries were okay.  You wouldn't have even known her chin was split open. 

After the 20 minuets were over we got called back.

She was all smiles.

Apparently the numbing creme is strong enough that that is all they need.  NO SHOTS!  What a relief.

They cleaned out the wound, all the while Aub's was just giggling.

Then the doctor came in to do the sutures. Again she was giggling and the doctor was a little baffled.  He said she was the second 5 year old that night that was giggling and that just isn't his normal reaction.  

After the first stitch she started to feel them.  The cotton ball had been sagging off her chin (that held the numbing creme) as soon as I had noticed it I held it up on her chin for her, but I guess it didn't numb all the way.  Again she was so brave.  The doctor said if she could handle just a few more we could avoid a shot.  So she gripped my hand like death, and braved thorough it.

The finished product.  A sewed up little chin.

Tonight they were being crazy again.  I asked them to calm down or someone would get hurt.  Too bad neither of them listened.  Sophie smacked right into Aubree, "bounced" off (literally) hit her face on the edge of our wood table outside, "bounced" again and fell to the cement.  SERIOUSLY!  I took a look at her little mouth, and announced to Dave, again, that we needed to go to the hospital!  This time I just took Soph.  After the LATE night last night and trauma to her chin Aubree needed to get to bed.  We got there and I had a nurse come look at her lip.  It didn't look too bad on the outside, but inside was pretty gnarly.  She took a minuet to look, and decided that they wouldn't need to do stitches.  Phew!  The cut on the bottom of her lip wasn't that deep.  The inside cut was definitely deep enough to warrant stitches...on any other part of her body.  But they don't do any sewing on the inside of the mouth, it heals fast enough that it isn't needed.  She almost bit straight through her lip!  Two nights in a row....but we're not going for a third.  We need a padded room to throw them in from the hour of 7:30-8:30.  It's their crazy time.  

Geoff's Wedding

My cousin Geoff got MARRIED!  Yay.  I hadn't seen him in a few years, and was pretty excited.  What I wasn't excited for, was the hour drive.  I don't think the kids were either....

Once we got there they were content to stretch their legs, take a look around, and explore.

The ceremony was short and sweet.  They both looked SO happy.  It was fun to be a part of.

Congrats cousin Geoff.  Wish you all the happiness.

Sophies party take 2

I got back the beautiful pictures my sister took with her nice camera of Sophie's party. 

Seriously, she is AMAZING.  Check out more of her beautiful pictures HERE.

Decorations:

The Food:

(Pb&J dolphin shaped sandwiches)

The girls

Sophie and Ariel