A Weekend in the Mountains

We recently took a trip to the mountains with our friends Carrie, Jeremy, and Colton. (Colton's little sister Caroline stayed home with her grandparents.) Carrie's parents have a vacation house there and were kind enough to let us all invade for the weekend. We had a great time. The weather was perfect (70s during the day and 50s at night) and the kids had so much fun!

Colton's grandparents had made a little hiking trail in the backyard. They had a blast going on it by themselves....we could hear/see them the entire way through the trail. Four year olds are never very quiet...no matter how quiet they think they are!

Best buddies on our big hike down the Cascades waterfall.

They were so proud of themselves for doing the whole trail! They did receive lots of reminders from Carrie and me about safety, so on the way back up, they stopped every few minutes to give us a "tip". For example (one that was given many, many times by Laura)..."Tip #42: Watch where you are going! You might slip on the rocks!" Colton's favorite..."Tip #41: Stay out of the green stuff. It might be poison 'iby'!"

A huge slide at the local park. They thought it was great fun to lay down and go as fast as they could. This is a big change from not that long ago when Laura wouldn't even go down the slide in our backyard!

Nothing tastes better after a long day of playing and hiking than a huge lollipop! By the time she finished it, Laura had it all over her face, neck, and shirt!

Roasting marshmallows was lots of fun. They kids liked eating them straight out of the bag better (and I agree with that decision), but there is always something nice about a fire.

Our happy little family by the fire.

Shawn, Laura, Jeremy, and Colton went on a short canoe ride. Laura liked it, but Shawn said her favorite part was collecting leaves from the water. Fortunately, no one fell in...the water was cold!

We spent all day Saturday at Tweetsie Railroad...a little amusement park. Most of the rides were geared for kids, but they let adults on some of them. Laura felt like a big girl driving the car.

Good friends flying the airplane.

Panning for gold:) Laura thought playing in the sand and water was way more fun than looking for gold!

None of the adults like the rides that went in circles, so I had the fun of taking the kids on the bigger rides...we went on the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Scrambler. They loved both of them and I had so much fun watching their excitement!

We had a great weekend...and Laura is already asking when we can go back!

Our Little Dancer

Laura has been in a combination ballet/tap class since we moved to North Carolina in October. She has really enjoyed it and we saw the fruit of all her hard work at her recital at the beginning of the month. I unfortunately don't have any idea how to get the video off my camcorder and post it here, but she was soooo cute:)

Her ballet dance was to the song "I Have a Dream" from Mama Mia. During dress rehearsals, she seemed to be in a different world and dancing a totally different routine than all the other girls. She did perfect at the two performances, though. We were so proud of our big girl!

Her tap dance was to "Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho" from Snow White. The costumes were either pink, blue, or green. Laura was very happy she was given pink...there might have been tears if we got a different color! Tap dancing at this age is more like stomping, but they all did a great job stomping around the stage:)

As the girls were coming off stage, several of the moms were giving their dancers flowers. Laura got really miffed that she didn't have any and wouldn't talk to me until I told her the secret that Daddy had flowers waiting for her outside...she was very proud of her big girl bouquet!

We were so glad that Nana and Granddad were able to come and watch.

A quick pose with mom and dad, too.

There was lots of energy left in our little girl when we got back home, so a game of basketball was in order. We all got in on the action, but Laura definitely had the advantage when it came to slam dunks!

She has decided that she wants to do gymnastics instead of dance in the fall...I think this will be a good fit (since I usually call her my little monkey)!

Happy 4th Birthday, Laura!

Last week we celebrated Laura's 4th birthday. It is hard to believe how big and old she is getting. She gets more mature every day and seems so much more like a kid now instead of a baby/toddler/preschooler. She is about 3 1/2 feet tall and is about 38 pounds. Her vocabulary is HUGE...tonight she told me that she had a "really good sense of smell!" Where does she come up with this stuff?!? She still has a few "Laura-isms" that I refuse to correct. She calls her art easel a "weasel", the hula hoop is a "lua hoop", because is "e-cause", and pretend is "be-tend"! When she gets really cold she always says, "shiver me timbers!" and when something is really funny she says, "that cracks me up!" She cracks us up all the time and any time we laugh, she is sure to say, "don't laugh about me!" Anyway...here are some pictures from her many birthday parties!!

This is Laura and two of her best buddies from Richmond, where we had her first party. We hosted a handful of kids at Chuck E. Cheese and they had a blast eating pizza and playing games!

Happy Birthday, Laura! This party was about a week before her actual birthday so we had many confused questions from Laura about when she be would 4. She was pretty sure she turned 4 at this birthday party and then turned 5 at the party on her actual birthday!

We went to Chuck E. Cheese two years ago and she was scared to death of the big mouse. This year she couldn't wait to hold his hand (with another good friend) and have her picture taken.

Laura's last day of preschool picnic was also her school birthday celebration. We had a great time at the park and Mommy is so excited that Laura can now pump her legs and swing all by herself!!

Laura received a special birthday necklace and her whole class and all the mommies sang Happy Birthday.

It is hard to believe she only has one more year of preschool...kindergarten will start next July...just over a year away:(

We had Laura's last party at the lake with Nana and Granddad...and everyone was very excited to be celebrating.

Laura really made out at this party...a new "big girl" bike and her "weasel":)

Laura has been asking repeatedly for a pinata, so her wish was granted at the party. It was a cool one with tons of ribbons at the bottom. You just kept pulling ribbons off until you found the one that opened the trap-door that let out all the candy. Much safer than the old-fashioned kind!

Laura did a great job learning to ride her bike...with lots of help from Daddy and Granddad.

We did a princess cake at Chuck E. Cheese, so this cake was her other favorite thing...Tinkerbell!

I was getting tired of Laura not smiling for pictures, so for this one I insisted she say "cheese!" She practically growled it out and this was the resulting picture:)

A sunset boat ride is the perfect way to end a long birthday celebration.

Floating around on the lake is always a favorite thing to do...and we tie the rafts to the boat so no one has to work too hard to get back to the ladder:)

My two cutie-pies!

Check back soon for pictures of the rest of our May activities...it has been a very busy month!