Update?

Ok, be prepared. Sit back, grab a cup of coffee or whatever it is you think you'll need to make it through my novel of an update. My guess is most of you, if there are more than like 4 that look at this, are either on Facebook and have seen all the recent pictures of my two precious angels (I only call them that b/c they are now sleeping soundly:)) or are family and therefore, you know what's going on in our lives. Or maybe you don't. But either way, I can only take so much time to recap the last few months and add so many pictures so I'll do my best. Be sure to see my post below this one though so you don't miss out on the most recent events.

I'm just going to skip over Epcot, b/c let's be real here, the two princesses we took could have cared less about Epcot once the Princess Breakfast was over.

There's your one picture from Epcot. Others should be on the link (at the top right side of the main page) you are supposed to click on to see the pictures galore, but I have no idea at this point if they really are. If someone finds they aren't and wants to point that out to me, more power to you.

Somewhere in there, we made a trip back home to see G-Man and Gigi, guess it was the beginning of February which is well before Disney. Hmm... I'm way behind. Anyway, G-Man decided to walk in a 5K for Sheridan House Ministries and we wanted to show our support, so while we would have liked to surprise him, we went ahead and let him know to add us to his list of supporters that we would be walking with him. It was a quick weekend but the girls were great and had a blast hanging out!




Next, Aunt Leah Peah made a trip back to visit us and watch the girls for a much needed Mommy/Daddy get away! The girls always love it when Aunt Leah visits even though they generally know that means Mommy won't be home. Eric had already been TDY, so I decided to join him and got to see some good friends of ours while we were there. Too bad their baby spit up all over me. Doesn't she know I'm not a baby person?! HA, right. Thanks Gwen! I'll never forget being spit up on in Benihana:) You get two pictures of us from Vegas, b/c of course, what's a group of pictures without Eric sticking out his tongue?? I love this man! :) (And quite honestly, I love how my arms look buff, so why not show 2 pictures of it right? Just wish they were still that buff. In time.)


Apparently nothing fun happened in March, b/c I don't seem to have any pictures from that month worthy of making it on here. (Phew!) April, however, now that's a different story and I'm sure those aren't on that pictures galore, but one day, again, if someone mentions it to me and they haven't already seen them on Facebook, I'll get them on there. April brought a girls weekend for Mommy was super excited about. I was going with about 10 other gals from both here in town and other AF friends that came back to run the Cooper River Bridge Run.
It was a 10K and oh my word, was I ever scared. I had never run more than a 5K and I certainly wasn't training for it, but hey, it was really just to get a weekend away with some of my best friends! I ended up surprising myself and feeling pretty accomplished due to running it in 1:11:44! For not training for something like this, I was proud of myself and I can't wait to do it again next year. It was so cool to be running over the bridge even though I was running "by myself" with 30,000 of my closest friends as G-Man likes to always call them. Anyway, the girl time was awesome and I had a blast hanging with some great gals, even sitting on the floor in the produce section of Food Lion with our receipt for the bananas we purchased to eat before the race. And by the way, Amy's not here. Haha.


After running the race of my life, to date, we headed home for some much needed "leave" for Eric. He hadn't been home to FL since we moved to SC which was surprising considering we had said how great this assignment would be and we mentioned how we could even make trips home for long weekends. Ha, how wrong we were! Not with the schedule here! Anyway, we started the trip stopping by to see Daddy's side of the family and enjoyed hanging out with everyone. The girls had a blast dying Easter eggs for the first time ever, yea I'm a lame mom b/c I still wasn't' the one who initiated that event! :) Anywho, here is the good ol family picture from before Easter mass. I'm blessed to have girls that usually don't mind posing for the camera and a husband who plays the game for me :)
The girls also had fun playing around in the pool and Daddy was super excited to get them their first snorkel and mask set each. It now transfers from their pool at home to the bathtub each night.

After spending some time with Daddy's side of the family, we headed a little more south to see Mommy's side of the family and spend a few days with them. We of course got to see all the wildlife that runs around G-Man and Gigi's house yet again to include the millions of baby frogs. Talk about gross! Nichole didn't think so since she wanted to catch as many of them as she could and put them in her "Dollar Store" bug carrier thing. Gag me. In the pic below, all those things that look like little stones, yea, those would be baby frogs. Ugh, just thinking about it gets me all creeped out. Yuck. Moving along...

Daddy then took the girls and headed back to visit with Giga, Nana and Nana Alice some more while I stayed back and hung out with my family some more. We had my little cousin Lindsey's sweet 16 birthday party to attend and while it would have been fun to have Eric and the girls there, we needed the air conditioning in the car to be fixed more.

Kel, it's really too bad your eyes were closed for this one, but hey, that's you, the hot mess:)
Two of my favorite younger sibs! Well, one is my sib, the other is the birthday girl and my little cousin:)

Lindsey apparently wanted nothing more than a kitten for her birthday and Kelly made it happen! What a great big sister! Love you all!

This all brings us to the past few weeks. We've been back from vacation and life is busy as usual. We got a new car... er, mini van, so we have joined the mini van club that all my cool friends are in and don't tell Eric I said this, but he secretly likes it. I won't say "loves" it, b/c that'd just be a little over the top, but he likes how roomy it is. And no, we're not having more kids, but the extra room is sure still nice especially since I tend to find myself with at least one or two extra kids on a daily basis. It's all good.

And the final thing to update on... whew, I'm tired, are you? Nichole no longer has training wheels. Yea, it took us a while, she is our less daring child, whereas Emily, she got herself a "big girl bike" and wanted the training wheels off before she even got on the thing! Fear not, we are having her ride around with the training wheels for a bit, quite possibly b/c we're lazy, but my guess is by the end of the summer, neither one will have them.

Ok, well that brings us to my most recent post below this. I will be traveling home on Monday for my little cousin's funeral. Please pray for our family through this time that even though we don't know the reason behind it, God has plans.

See you in July or August;) School starts in August, maybe that will be my next post :)

RIP Dani

I realize I am way behind on posts and I have no excuse other than my life is completely fast paced and I live hour by hour lately. So, one day, you'll eventually see the pics from our last day at Disney and then maybe even an update or two since then, considering that was almost 3 months ago! My, how time does fly.

On a sadder note, my younger cousin Danielle passed away this past week. It's been tough on the family and I will travel home for a quick trip to be at the service and be with family, but will sadly have to leave Eric and the girls behind due to some things going on here in SC. This is the Dani I love and remember. These few pics were taken when we were in New Hampshire at Alton Bay when Nichole was about 8 months old back in July of 2004. Unfortunately, our lives have taken us in different directions the past few years, but that doesn't mean I won't miss her. I love you Dani and will see you again one day. Say hello to Grandma Hornsby for me!

This is the Danielle I will miss.

RIP Dani

Nov 12, 1983-May 8, 2009

It's a Hard Knock Life, so they think

So apparently the girls think they lead a tough life in our house. If only they knew how many other kids had lists of chores, bathroom toilets to scrub, baseboards to clean, etc :) Ignore that they don't really know the words to the song. It's still humorous.

I promise I'll post the last day from Epcot, Mommy and Daddy's time in Vegas and other recent happenings soon.

Disney Memories

Ok, so here are just a few things I want to make sure we remember from this trip and then I'll go and backdate/backtrack on the rest of our trip. Just as I thought though, I can't remember them all, so I'll have to add as I remember them.

Emily upon returning: "Mommy, why did we have to come back home?" "Well, Daddy has to go to work, Colee has to go to school and Aspen would miss us". "Why won't some hotels just let us bring Aspen with us, then we could have stayed".

Nichole after asking if she could go inside Cinderella's castle and Daddy told her she couldn't go upstairs in it. "Mommy, why does Tinkerbell live in the attic of the castle? I want to go visit her".

Nichole: "My favorite part of the trip was seeing the princesses, even Mulan".

Emily's infamous line: "I'm tired of walking. Daddy, I want a neck ride".


Also, be sure to check out all those extra pictures. There are a TON on there I didn't add to the posts here. I just tried to get the highlight pictures!

Princesses galore!

Friday afternoon, we took the girls over to the Bibbidi Boddidi Boutique in Cinderella's castle where they do your hair and makeup depending on what option you choose. We just did the hair and make up and brought the girls their own princess dresses. Upon arrival, they give you a brochure on what type of hairstyles they offer. My only hope is that Emily's choice is not a prediction of what's to come in the teen years:) We could have some crazy times ahead of us:) The girls sat with G-Man and picked out their hairstyles.

Nichole showing off her face jewelry.

Not sure what got into Emily and wanting that hair style! It was rockin' that's for sure! However, she didn't want to put it back on the next morning. She did ask about it once we were home though!

Nichole and one of her biggest fans...

Checking herself out in the mirror

Emily looks like some Indian war chief or something :)

The girls and G-Man!

Emily and her favorite spot of the week... on Daddy's shoulders!

Once we had hair and makeup done, it was time to go meet all the princesses. Sleeping Beauty was first.

Cinderella was next.

Belle was a favorite.

The girls kept trying to understand how Ariel was on land when she has a mermaid tail.

The girls enjoyed getting to have their hair done and meet all the princesses. It was certainly a day to remember!

Magic Kingdom fun!

Friday morning brought joy to the girls knowing this was finally the big day... they were going to meet up with some of the princesses! We rode the ferry over and the girls were so excited once they saw Cinderella's castle. Luckily by then, the temperatures had gotten a little warmer so we left the jackets at home and enjoyed the beautiful day with sunshine and fun!

After getting frustrated quite a few times due to Nichole not wanting to ride things or being too scared b/c we have an issue with darkness right now, we finally talked Nichole into going on one of the roller coaster, Thunder Mountain. Unfortunately, in our efforts to get Nichole to go and be "big", we hurt Emily's feelings when we told her she wasn't big enough to go. Nichole did well and Aunt Kylie and Mommy made sure we kept screaming and making it sound really fun as did Daddy. She did great, although when we asked if she wanted to go back on it, she passed. She did say that she wanted to try out Splash Mountain, but it was too late by the time we got around to that. Maybe next time.

Most of us got to enjoy the carpet ride in Magic Kingdom. The girls enjoyed this one.

Nana and Emily hung out on one part of the carpet while Daddy and Nichole sat in the other seat.By now we had visited the "Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique" with the girls (pics and stories in another post) and we waited in line to see Ariel.

After watching the fireworks, we snagged a few pictures of the princesses in front of the castle with all it's changing colors.

Of course Mommy and Daddy needed a picture too!

After watching fireworks, we went over to get the girls each some mouse ears as a souvenir. They each got to pick their own hat, ears, patches and then had their name embroidered on it. Thanks G-Man and Gigi for getting them!

It was another long day, but the girls had a blast and I'll post pictures of meeting the princesses in another post.
This was the girls on our way home from Disney! Poor thing had yet to eat dinner, but they managed to wake up and eat a few nuggets before getting back to bed so they would be ready for another fun filled day at Epcot.

Hollywood Studios

Hollywood Studios (formally known as MGM Studios) was on the agenda for Thursday. The girls were excited to get back out and have more fun. We started by stopping to watch the "Voyage to the Sea" show with Ariel. It was a cute show with dancing and singing and minus when the massive Ursula comes on stage, we survived that show. From there, we moved on to get our "fast pass" for the Toy Story Mania" ride, one I would TOTALLY recommend! The girls loved it. It's 3D, so Nichole was a little skeptical after the whole "It's tough to be a bug" bit, but once she got on it and had fun, she wanted to go again, which we did later.

While Daddy went and rode some rides that Mommy didn't care about, the girls all went to watch the "American Idol Experience". They have 3 guests that were pre-casted appear before the audience to perform and then we vote with the numbers on our armrest. It was pretty fun to watch although by about the 3rd performer, the girls were ready to move on.

We caught the second half of the "block party parade" that was going around, so we stopped to watch. Nichole even got to go out and join in on the dancing fun!

Emily was so excited to see Leo and Annie from "Little Einsteins" on the Disney channel.

The girls before watching the "Playhouse Disney Live" show.

We had a little more time to wait on Daddy while he rode the Aerosmith rollercoaster and this is how Nichole decided she wanted to watch for him coming out of the line.

Our last stop of the evening was to get a picture with the hat and lights. It took a few minutes to get the lighting correct on the camera, but we finally got it. Both girls claimed their favorite part of this day was the Toy Story ride. It was another late night at the park, well 8 pm, but that's late when the girls are usually in bed by then! However, once we got back to the room, we were greeted by Nana who came up to visit with us for the next few days and then not too long after, G-Man, Gigi and Aunt Kylie arrived as well! The girls were super excited about this, since they knew once all these people arrived, it was finally time to see the princesses!