Beaches and Ballgames

It's September 10th...8 days after I first started this post. Can anyone find more hours to add to my day so that I could finish everything I start? Maybe it's more about time management. I'll think about that later!

A couple of weeks ago, Bethany cheered at her first football game which was such a big day! We'd been waiting for what seemed like years to see her in her uniform doing those cheers, and she was fabulous. She looked like an old pro!

Waiting for the team to run onto the field...

Is it crazy that I had tears running down my face at this point?

That was the moment that it hit me - it had all come full circle. All the craziness of getting ready for tryouts, being so nervous about getting the results (but knowing she'd done her best!), cheer camp, hours upon hours of practicing after school, and then finally seeing her on the field in her element. It was unbelievable!
Here she is in action...


This is one of my favorite dances - if you know me, you know I do the dances and cheers at home all the time. Usually the girls are sitting on the stools at the counter in the kitchen and I'm entertaining them while they eat or do their arts & crafts. I got the ultimate compliment/insult the other day from Towns...she told me I was so silly! Love it!

The girls always try to be just like their Bebby, and that night was no different!

When they weren't busy cheering, they were very much into Bethany's brother, Reid...


Cate and her Uncle Lance playing around...

After the game, we got the girls in their pj's and headed to the beach for a long weekend with my Dad...

We thought we had the master plan - leave that night so that the girls would sleep all the way. They're not huge fans of riding in the car for any more than 10 minutes, so we just knew that driving all night would be the solution. Ummm, wrong! Jonathan and I should know by now that our children have minds of their own. At 3:30 a.m. when we finally got to the beach, they had not slept a bit and were begging to go put their feet in the sand. They finally settled down around 4:30 and were up and at 'em by 7 o'clock that morning! So much for a genius plan!!
But it was well worth it because they had a blast...






Sharing secrets - wish I knew what was so funny!

Click the picture to make it bigger so that you can see the sea gull eating out of Cate's hand...










Thanks for a fun weekend, Paw Paw!

Circus!

Monday night, J & I took the girls to the circus in Huntsville. They've only been to one circus in their lifetime, including Bethany, which was a tiny Italian circus that came to town a few months ago. And while they thought that one was great since they didn't have anything to compare it to, they saw the real deal (not Barnum & Baileys, but close) this time and were amazed! I have the best memories of going to the circus when I was young, and besides it being a little more expensive and performers wearing a lot less clothing, not much has changed!

Everyone was running to get there as fast as we possibly could...

Except Cate, of course. She's always on her own schedule and is such a slow poke! She was taking her dear, sweet time and enjoying everything around her...

Bethany and Towns were about to die to get inside, so I gave her a lift to speed things up...

Wish it wasn't so blurry!!
The girls as we were going in...

Once we were inside, they absolutely could not wait for it to start!

Can you tell that they're just a little bit excited??

Yours truly wasn't very smart when I chose seats in front of this...

Because for the 30 minutes we were waiting for the show to begin, the younger two were dying to ride!
But they ended up getting these light-up flashing wands...

Which were a small fortune, and in the end I think they would have opted for the elephants instead. We're trying to teach them that they can't have everything, and to just be thankful that we had the opportunity to go the circus. That went over like a lead balloon!
Anyway, on with the show...
We saw lions

Tigers

Bears

And bedazzled elephants (according to B) since they had such sparkly jewelry (according to Towns)

Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks it's hysterical that both Bethany and Towns said 'oh look, they're holding hands'...

On the way home we played the 'if you were in the circus, what would you be' game. Jonathan would have been the guy doing flips on the BMX bike and one of the 3 guys on a motorcycle inside the steel cage ball. Bethany would be the girl who climbs and flips her way up the rope hanging from the ceiling. Towns wants to be the one who does handstands on top of the chairs stacked 30 feet in the air. I wanted to be the girl on the elephant. And we decided that Cate would be the lion tamer. It's a toss up as to who would be taming who, though!!

We Love Weekends!

Did anyone else make the most of the gorgeous weather over the weekend?? We were outside the entire time, which completely spoiled us because we're so ready for fall! And to top it all off, it was 55 degrees this morning when Bethany left for school...it just puts me in the best mood!

Bethany had cheer pictures Saturday morning and the practice afterwards, so when she was done we all headed to play.

We did a little of this...



And B worked on her back handspring...


She did it once by herself without realizing it...she'll have it down in no time!
The younger two caught on to what B was doing and had to have a shot at it...


My husband is absolutely the most fun and crazy person I know...




And I love it!



Sunday afternoon after church, we spent a couple of hours at the park by the river where we got pretty excited about seeing a ton of these...

And J played with the girls while B and I got a little sun and read a magazine...

It doesn't get much better than that!
Oh, and last night B planned a pj party while we watched the Miss Universe pageant. She made the cutest invitations, slaved in the kitchen making cupcakes, fixed popcorn with M&Ms (our fave), and even had gift bags for her guests. Towns got purple nail polish and I got new earrings! Thanks for the fun night, B!

Just keep your phone close by for when the agents of those contestants call us for our advice. We were full of it, right?! And Spencer called for you. He said he heard that you had some feedback on Heidi's performance. I told him you had some new moves for her. HA!