3rd Leg of the Trip

Our last stop was in Tennessee to visit my aunt and uncle as well as some of their kids and grandkids. We met my mom, my aunt, my sister and her kids down there for the weekend. This is an annual trip that we take each May. Usually it's just a girls trip so this was the first time Dan visited with us. Here are the links for our visits in 2011 and 2012.

And here are some pictures from this year. Its fun to see how the kids change from year to year.

2nd Leg of the Trip

After leaving Evansville we headed south into Kentucky's Red River Gorge area.  Dan's parents rented a gorgeous cabin that literally sat on the top of a cliff!  Amazing view but I was a little nervous keeping track of the kids.  We spent a lot of time playing games in the cabin and exploring the area. I think the kids' highlight was finding a puddle of water near a creek that was absolutely full of tadpoles!  Thousands and thousands of them!  The girls were also crazy about picking wildflowers that grew near the cabin.

Here are some pictures from the time we spent in Kentucky with the Corys before again getting in the car for another drive even further south into Tennessee to visit some of my family for the weekend.

1st Leg of the Trip

At the end of May we took a trip. As a family. In our car. The first part of our journey took us to Evansville, IN to visit some of Dan's family. We spent the evening visiting and having dinner and staying up late. The kids were getting a bit frazzled as we loaded them up and headed back to our hotel and I'll be gosh darned if we didn't get a single picture of the kids with their cousins! What was I thinking!?! Argh! Miss Boothe and Miss Harper totally hit it off and loved playing together. Ken and Erika's twin boys are about 9 months younger than Henry so in a few years those 3 will be unstoppable.

Here are some pics we did take in Evansville. The first are of the kids picking out their bed at the hotel. The rest are from the children's museum where we spent the morning killing time before heading down to Kentucky to stay at a cabin for a few days.

Henry getting used to all the hours spent in the car on our trip.

The kids picking out their beds at the hotel.

Boothe Self Portrait

She wanted to take a picture of herself with the iPad.

Boothe Ballerina

The little princess (self titled) finished her first year of dance and loved every second of it. She is our little performer and our big ham. Magnolia likes dance and definitely enjoys it, but Boothe takes it so seriously and tries to do everything perfectly. She was putting on a show for us and making everyone laugh while we were watching her class during observation week. Here are some pictures from that day of our ballerina.  I also added a video below - be sure not to miss her moves starting at 1:20.

Piano Recital

Magnolia's first piano recital since beginning lessons was a success. She worked so hard to learn and memorize Bach's Sheep May Safely Graze. I think she was sick of practicing the same song over and over towards the end and now is happy to be practicing other things this summer.

We will need to find a new piano teacher for the fall as her teacher has decided to stop doing lessons in South Bend (she comes to our house). Since so much is up in the air right now as to where we will be living, I haven't even started looking for a new one.

See the end of the post for the video of her playing her song.

Snuggles

Henry has been wanting to lay in bed with the girls at bed time for a few minutes. He loves to get all snuggly and cozy with the blankets and pillows and stuffed animals and his sisters for about 3 minutes before he has to get up and be an active little boy again.

Where We've Been

So it's been 2 weeks since I've pulled up my blog to post but I actually have a very good excuse this time. Two excuses, really. We were out of town for a week, getting home on Memorial Day, and since we returned we have been packing and moving boxes and things into storage. We have an official closing date of June 21st, but have yet to nail down our next place. Things will work out in the next two weeks...because it has to!

Moving is overrated. My advice, don't do it. There is nothing fun about it. It's overwhelming, tedious, and annoying. This is why we are waiting patiently for the perfect home to come along before we buy again...I never want to move again.

June may be quiet around here as I spend my free time packing, organizing, and labeling box after box after box. I'll try and post some pictures from time to time of our moving process.

Recently when we were out of town, we visited Evansville, IN, Rogers, KY (Red River Gorge area), and Murfreesboro, TN. I'll post about that trip soon!