March has now come and gone, but not without some fun! We started the month off with a date night! Our Sunday school class had a couples evening out at Sullivans where we enjoyed a wonderful dinner, socialized, and played games! Such a fun evening!
Everyone at the social event!
All the girls!
This month we signed Dawson up to play tee ball! He is SO excited! He and John have had some fun practicing in the backyard when they weather has been nice enough! It will be a lot of fun because his friend, Carson, is on his team and John and Carson's dad are the coaches! (Dawson said he was going to call his coaches: "Coach Daddy" and "Coach Carson's Daddy!")
It wouldn't be Spring if the boys didn't take rides on the lawn mower!
Nora Kate just wants to know exactly where she will get to ride next year?!
One weekend was really pleasant, but it was windy! The perfect weather for flying a kite!
John was really great about helping the boys fly the kite, but then the boys got wild and decided they would rather take off their shoes and roll in the grass than fly a kite!! Can you tell we've been cooped up inside all winter?!
At the very beginning of the month Dawson's preschool had Dr. Seuss day in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday. All of the kids were told to wear silly socks to school. When we couldn't find any silly socks Dawson liked, I decided to make some. What could be sillier than Thing 1 & Thing 2?!
And Dawson wore his Silly Socks with his Cat in the Hat hat!
Here he is in the hallway at school (slightly frustrated that I made him wait before going in his class to take his picture...he likes to be the first one there!)
At the beginning of March, we stopped bathing Nora Kate in her baby tub. This was much overdue, and I'm not sure why we did it for SO long because she had waaay outgrown it! She really enjoys taking a bath in the sink!
Carter is SO into playdoh right now!
Oh, Galatians! In Dawson's class each student takes turns getting to bring home this bear named Galatians. When its your turn you are supposed to take care of him (brushing his teeth, dressing him, etc-he came home with one outfit, pajamas, and a toothbrush) and then document Galatians adventures in a book to send back to school. Dawson had been awaiting Galatians visit for a while! He was so excited that we got to keep Galatians from a Wednesday to the next Monday. When he got home with Galatians he immediately knew of at least 10 things he wanted to do with the bear. Here they are playing playdoh!
Fun morning playing at Gym Bugs.
Gym Bugs fun!
Carter is getting so big!
Of course, Galatians had to come to Gym Bugs too!
After Gym Bugs we surprised Daddy at work with lunch! Galatians tagged along, and Daddy even gave Galatians a "New Team Member" name tag to wear while he was there in Daddy's office!
Galatians and Dawson in their blue pjs, and Dawson wanted Galatians to try on one of Nora Kate's head bands!
Dawson decided we should bake a bear cake for Galatians.
Galatians got to ride in the Gator, and Dawson and Carter made a seat belt for Galatians with a bungee cord!
Dawson, Carter, and Galatians on a gator ride!
Sand fun!
That night we frosted Galatians' bear cake, put 4 candles in it (Dawson decided Galatians could be 4 since he was in the 4 year old class at school), and Lolly and Pop came over for Galatians' birthday party! Oh, and of course Galatians had to wear a party hat.
Our friend Charlie turned 4 this month!! He had a fun party at Smart Toys and books!
Carter amazed me and sat at the table with the big kids feeding himself ice cream!
Boys at the party!
About half way through March, we decided to let Nora Kate try taking a bath with the boys. We weren't sure how it would go because they are SO SO rowdy in the tub. I think we scared them about upsetting or hurting Nora Kate in the tub because they look nervous in this picture and they were very calm! Now it's our nightly routine to bath all three kids together. They all do a pretty good job being calm enough, and they enjoy it!
We had some nice weather here and there to take advantage of!
Nora Kate's first time laying in the sun! Look at those baby blues!
During the nice weather, we blew up our inflatable in the backyard.
The boys LOVED it!
My best friend from high school, Cassie, had a sweet baby boy in February. In March I felt like my kids were well from their illnesses that it was safe to visit and meet Campbell! Isn't he sweet!
Cassie, Campbell, Nora Kate, and me!
Nora Kate was slightly jealous of all Campbell's hair!
Nana and Grandad bought 4 chicks from the CO-OP and kept them at their house for about a week until they went to a family member's barn. The boys absolutely loved these baby chicks. (The lighting is odd on these chick pictures because of the glare from the chicks' heat lamp.)
SO excited about the chicks!
Cousin Corbin turned 5 this month, and we got to go help him celebrate at his lego party! Everyone had a lot of fun!
My sweet Dawson one morning!
Nora Kate's first St. Patrick's Day!
Love these three!
Happy St. Patrick's Day from this little leprechaun.
These next few pictures are a little out of order because I uploaded them from my parents' camera. One nice Sunday morning, Dawson and Carter got to go with Lolly and Pop to the mountains! This was during the week we still had our turn with Galatians, so the bear tagged along too! The had fun driving through Cades Cove, checking out the water, mountains, and fields, and then having a picnic!
(This is such a Dawson face! I love that it was captured in this picture!)
We visited the Discovery Center again this month!
Carter insisted upon wearing a hat to the Discovery Center, but as you can see from the pictures it only lasted a few minutes!
We LOVE legos!
Cooking Carter!
Everyone has fun at the Discovery Center!
two brothers in the kitchen!
the girls!
After the Discovery Center we stopped for lunch! Carter has been having very picky eating days, and this day in particular was a very picky day! This is the face he made when offered grilled cheese sandwich!
We started offering Nora Kate a sippy cup of water this month. She loves it, and caught on immediately!
mmm...water!
We visited Mamaw (Nora Kate's namesake)
While Lolly was out on spring break from school and on a day John had to work, Lolly, Pop, and I took the kids to Dollywood!
Carter looking like a rock star in my sunglasses at Dollywood!
Everyone loves the Lemon Twist!
Dawson requested a picture in his sunglasses at Dollywood too!
One of Dawson's favorite parts of Dollywood is feeding the ducks straight out of his hand!
Dawson is always so sweet in wanting to give me flowers. Now that it's spring, there are lots of flowers to pick!
Dawson has been really into drawing people lately. He drew this adorable picture of Carter!
And this picture of me!
And this, he said, "is a picture of Mommy singing about the letter E!"
I love how he draws a bellybutton and ears on EVERYONE he draws! He's into the details!
A couple weeks ago he started asking to drink out of cups like Dawson. Here he is drinking out of a cup with no lid for the first time...so excited! (We have had MANY MANY messes, but he's learning!)
Dawson on his typewriter and Carter coloring.
I think we have an author and illustrator combo here!
Lolly gave the boys Hello Kitty cookie kits. We made the dough, used the cookie cutters, and the decorations from the kit. The boys LOVED this!
Hard at work on the Hello Kitty cookies!
One thing I haven't mentioned on the blog yet but that has kept us busy in part of February and March, was selling our house in Alabama. A little over two years ago when we moved up here, we decided to rent our house. We were very fortunate that the process went well! The last weekend of March, we drove to Huntsville to sign the papers to close on our house. We are so happy to have sold the house as it was such a liability, but at the same time I guess it's always a little sad to sell your first home! So many big things happened there-it was our first home purchase, John and I celebrated our first anniversary there, I graduated from college while living there, we learned how to take care of so many household chores while living there (lawn maintenance, painting, laying laminate wood floors, tiling the fireplace, tiling the bathroom floors, etc.), we hosted a lot of great out of town company at this house, we had many dinners, cookouts, and friends over at this house, we had our small group over to our house at least once a month which was always a lot of fun, we had friends over to play games after Dawson went to bed, I had girls over once each month after Dawson went to bed to work on our scrapbooks and other crafts, we decorated our first nursery, we brought Dawson home from the hospital to this house, this was the driveway where we locked Dawson in the car when he was only weeks old and had to wait on the volunteer fire department to come pry the door open in 100degree Alabama temperatures, we celebrated his first and second birthday with big parties in this backyard, we had what feels like a million playdates in our playroom and our backyard, we walked miles and miles around the neighborhood with the stroller, push tricycle, bike, and bike trailer, Dawson first used his baby walker in our quiet cul-de-sac and then graduated to the Cozy Coupe in the cul-de-sac and eventually the motorized John Deere tractor in the cul-de-sac, we announced the upcoming arrival of Carter while in this house too! We were in a wonderful BIG and flat neighborhood perfect for playing! We had friends in the neighborhood for ourselves and for Dawson! There were only 6 houses on our street, and it wasn't unusual to stand in the cul-de-sac or front yards and talk. There are SO SO many good memories of this house!! This was the perfect first house for us in a quiet neighborhood with a fenced backyard and big windows that always made the house feel well-lit. I think the yard and these windows were always my favorite features of the house!
So, back to the month of March...we traveled to Alabama to close, and now it's official we are no longer home owners in the state of Alabama!
Our wonderful, flat backyard where we spent hours and hours!
More of our backyard.
This picture is a little out of order, but I found it when searching for picture of our house. Here we are in front of the door to our first apartment when we first moved to Alabama!
Our 1st House!!!
This was what Dawson's room looked like when we listed the house before moving to Tennessee.
This is what the playroom looked like when we listed the house before moving to Tennessee. Obviously we had already moved several things out!
The kitchen! LOVED those big windows!
Another view of the kitchen!
Our living room with the floors that John and our friend Mo put down a few weeks before Dawson was born!
Our master bedroom!
The layout of our first home.
Dawson in front of our moving truck when we moved to Tennessee.
Moving truck fun!
Our family (me pregnant with Carter) with our moving boxes!
One last family picture before moving to Tennessee.
We had a great time this past weekend in Alabama. John and I left the boys in Tennessee with Nana and Grandad. It was hard to leave them, but Friday ended up being a busy day just taking care of business with the house closing. The boys would have been very bored! We did manage to have some fun though! Our wonderful friends the Houghs had us and our other friends the Wayes over for dinner on Friday evening. It's always a great time, and we feel like we just pick back up exactly where we left off last time with our friends!
Saturday John, Nora Kate, and I did a little shopping at Bridge Street (always our favorite!). Then we had dinner at our friends Mo and Dee Dee's house! They are always wonderful hosts too and a lot of fun!
Sunday morning before heading out we drove by "our house" one more time! We had a great weekend trip to Huntsville! This was Nora Kate's first road trip. See the above picture of her napping on the way down to Alabama!
We had a great weekend. John and I miss all of our wonderful Alabama friends, but we still plan on going back to visit even though we've sold our house!!! :)
