A Day in Our Lives: 2 Week Recap

Well, I noticed I hadn't posted anything in a couple of weeks so I thought I'd recap the past 2 weeks.

1. Nov. 22nd was my birthday. Robert & I were supposed to go to Fall Creek Falls for Friday & Saturday while the girls stayed with Mamaw & Papaw. However, plans changed. Katelyn got strep throat, so we just stayed at home.

2. We had movie night at home and the girls wanted to watch The Sound of Music, so that's what we did. They absolutely loved the movie! And remarkably, they didn't fall asleep even though it's really long!

3. We took the girls to the UT Invitational Swimming and Diving Meet. It was UT, Alabama, Kentucky, and Virginia Tech. It was a 3 day event. The day we went didn't have the best swimming events to watch, but we really enjoyed watching the diving warm-up! It was much better than seeing the actual competition because there were so many folks diving one right after the other and on various boards/platforms at the same time.

4. We celebrated my birthday and Lloyd's birthday at Mom & Dad's with a steak dinner! YUM!!!

5. The girls got to spend the night with Mamaw & Papaw and Robert & I got to have a date night! We went to see Blindside. It's really good!!! While the girls were at Mom & Dad's, we also had a lunch date and went to the gym to swim and play tennis!!

6. We celebrated Thanksgiving with Puddin, Papa, Donald, Beth, Ryan, Kate, and Jessica.

7. Wendy, Mom, and I did our annual Black Friday shopping extravaganza! We were at Wal-Mart by 5:00 a.m. and got back home around 3:00. It was a productive day. We topped it off by all meeting at Angelos Brick Over Pizza for dinner.

8. We took the girls to their first Lady Vols basketball game!!! Rachel really enjoyed it. Katelyn thought it was a little boring. She did like it when Brianna Bass played though because she looks so tiny out there on the court with all the other players. I told Katelyn "See - it doesn't matter how big you are! You can still play basketball if you're good enough!" So Katelyn would get excited whenever Bass was in the game. We parked at the AG campus and rode the shuttle to the game since it was free. I think the girls enjoyed that as much as the game!!! The picture below is of Rachel and Katelyn at the game.

9. Rachel is doing a competitive swim class. It's twice a week for 8 weeks. It's going okay. Most days it's just Rachel and one other girl. The most that has ever been there is just 3 girls. The good thing is it's keeping Rachel in the water over the winter. However, the teacher isn't very good as far as I'm concerned. She just kind of stands at the edge of the pool and says stuff like "Give me a 200 freestyle" or "Give me a 100 IM." She doesn't give much instruction and hasn't even gotten into the water at all with them.

10. Basketball practice started this past week! Robert & I are coaching both girls' teams. Katelyn is playing on a 1st & 2nd grade girls team. There are only 5 girls on the team. Katelyn can really dribble and handle the ball well. As would be expected, she has a hard time getting the ball up to the goal. But she does occasionally make a basket, so it can be done! Rachel plays on a 3rd and 4th grade girls team. There are 8 girls on the team. Rachel does a good job of handling the ball and can shoot decently. It should be a fun season!!

11. Rachel's entire 3rd grade went to see the Nutcracker ballet this past week. Lots of the kids dressed up for it, and Rachel wore a dress and new black boots to school that day! She was so excited about it! She really enjoyed it and had a good time. Her friend and classmate, Karly, was her partner for the day, which made her happy. They had a fun time being partners. The picture below is of Rachel and Karly waiting in the cafeteria to get on the bus.

12. Rachel had a birthday party last night. It was also a sleepover, but she wasn't able to do that part of it. But she was able to go have pizza and then to the karaoke club for a while. The only part that upset Rachel was that she didn't know any of the songs they played. I told her that was fine - they were just playing music we don't listen to. If it's not kid's worship music or music from a Disney Princess movie, then she doesn't know it. She did go up and ask the guy if they had the song from The Little Mermaid, which they did. He played it before she had to leave, so she did get to sing it. But they didn't omit the voices, so it was hard to hear Rachel - plus, there were other girls from the party singing with microphones also. Oh well, she still had fun.

13. While Rachel & I were at the birthday party, Robert took Katelyn on a date! I think they had a really good time! She wanted to go to Ruby Tuesday's so she could have butter pasta! Afterwards they went to a drive-thru nativity and then to Brown Cup for some hot chocolate.

14. This morning we awoke to snow!!! We had breakfast and went outside around 8:00 to play in it!!! We built a snowman, sledded, had a snowball fight, made snow angels, etc. The girls really enjoyed it.

15. Katelyn & I went to Home Depot for their Kid's Workshop. This month they made a wagon and she was adament about going because she wanted to make a wagon for one of her stuffed animals!! Rachel wanted to stay and play in the snow, so Robert stayed and played outside with her. We all had a good time.

16. I almost forgot about the parade! We all 4 were in the Christmas Parade! The girls were actually on the float for the church. It was the nativity scene with kids dressed up as all the characters. Rachel was a sheep and Katelyn was a donkey. Robert & I just walked alongside the float.

This is Rachel with 2 other sheep (Amelia and Trent)