To my girls delight, we took our first trip to Dollywood for the year. There were so many delightful things to enjoy.

1. Going with your best friends. This year Ashley, Elena, and Maeve got tickets too and we made the day trip together. The first thing the girls asked when I told them we were going to Dollywood was if their friends were going too. I didn’t deny or confirm, but surprised them when we met their friends to drive over.

2. Emily got her own ticket. I’m not so excited about this as she was. She is proud of her pass and photo, proud to put the ticket in the machine, proud to walk through the turnstile by herself, and proud to show off her pass to her Daddy. I wish my photo was as good as hers was. She should be proud.

3. Emily has grown since last year. This year Emily is tall enough to drive a car all by herself. She thinks that it is awesome!

4. Peer pressure is not always bad. Emily was willing to try a bunch of things this year that she was afraid of last year. She was still hesitant, but not willing to let Elena do something without her. Thank you, Elena.

5. When we run out of steam, we run out of steam. While we waited to drive the cars one last time, Julia asked for me to hold her. Then she started to give me hugs. Next she laid her head on my shoulder. Lastly, Emily drove her car while Julia slept in my arms.

6. Having season tickets means we can go back.

Sharing a ride around the carousel.

The big girl driving all by herself!

The little one doing her share of driving. She loved driving until she realized there was a horn on Mommy’s side. Then there was conflict over what to do next.

I love the smile on Emily. The carousel is her favorite ride in the park.

Julia still seems little on the big horse. She waved at all the people as we went around like she was a princess in a parade. She even blew kisses out to people who waved back.

Emily was delighted to ride with Maeve on the duck ride. See our pink cheeks – the day was pretty warm for early May.

Happy Julia and her famous wave.

Julia flying around with her friend Maeve. Maeve was missing her Mama who was with the big kids on a roller coaster.

One really tired girl! She slept through a snack and the walk to the car and then played all the way home. Emily fell asleep shortly after we left the and slept all the way home.

The Edwards girls and Tappan girls have been attending Thursday school together these past two years. All four girls were privileged to have Ms. Melanie as their teacher. While there is one more week of school, this past week was Ms. Melanie’s last week with the little girls. She has been such a sweet spirit with the girls showing them so much love. We thought it was good to get a parting photo together. I’m afraid that we made her a bit sad with our parting good-byes. Thank you, Ms. Melanie!

The big girls enjoyed playing together and trying to climb a tree.  

We went strawberry picking with our friends. The morning started out looking stormy, but when we got there it turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day. We joined Ashley, Elena, Maeve, Ariaun, Aiden, Tracy, and Brown for our hunt for red fruity gems. We all left with plenty of great strawberries!

The field was very easy to pick because the plants were elevated and the mounds tarped, but it had a bit of mud along the rows that we had to get around. By the time we were done, the kids were covered in mud and strawberry juice. They seems pretty happy about it.

The big girls picked with Tracy. I’m not sure how much they actually picked, but they seemed to have fun. They also enjoyed hanging out with Brown. He was awesome with the girls! Tracy was very sweet to carry each of the girls over one large mud hole.

The other kids moved between the rows with the other mamas. When they were ready to switch places we picked them up and passed them over the plants. Aiden made himself comfortable with any of the girls or mamas.

Julia started eating strawberries as soon as we got to the strawberry plants. It was like strawberry heaven for her. I wasn’t sure if she was capable of picking a strawberry and putting it in the basket without it going into her mouth. After a while, Julia discovered the dirt path and that she could just play in the dirt. She was one happy girl.

Today is the day Prince William married his princess. So, what does a family of girls do – we have a party with other little girls and watch the wedding. Our friends Elena, Maeve, Ashley, and neighbor Laurel came over to watch the wedding with us. The kids dressed up in their favorite princess dresses for the occasion. We had lovely scones and snacks while we watched the ceremony. I think to our good fortune, the girls were not too over-the-top into the wedding. If they had been we would be living this for weeks. We had some coloring pages and a variation on the bingo game with cards to match to the event.

It was a fun time for the big people to watch and the girls enjoyed each other. It will be a while until we have another royal wedding and glad we didn’t miss celebrating this event.

Just some photos of our sweet girls

We had a wonderful Easter day. The girls looked beautiful in their dresses and loved twirling in them. Emily’s Sunday School class marched into the church service playing percussion instruments and she loved it. After church, we took some photos and then went to Grammy and Granddaddy’s house for lunch and an egg hunt.

The girls helped Grammy and Granddaddy hide the eggs for the big kid hunt. To qualify for the big kid hunt you can’t be a grandparent nor under 10.  The next hunt was for the girls. Emily asked Grammy to hide the eggs in the grass where it would be easier to find. They did well looking and finding the eggs. After finding a few, Julia was very happy pulling the eggs out of her basket and eating what she found inside.

Lots of fun photos! Enjoy!

The morning Easter Basket – The girls came running in to tell their parents about their basket. We got them to spend about 10 minutes running back and forth to look at the basket and then come back to report on what they found.

Every year the little ones just get bigger and bigger.

When we arrived at Grammy and Granddaddy’s house, the girls had woken up from a nap in the car and there were people there the girls didn’t know. Julia was her usual shy self around new people and I gave her a choice of places to go while we carried things in from the car. She happily chose Granddaddy’s lap for a place of safety.

I think this is a photo of our future. Emily found the funny pages from the paper and was fascinated by them. She also had been looking at Robby’s phone and was fond of holding on to it. I can remember spending a lot of Sunday’s at my Grandparent’s house reading the funny pages to fill the afternoon.

The girls at the beginning of their egg hunt.

Emily on the hunt!

Little Girl on the loose, watch out candy!

Mama with her girls