zoo day

We had the most beautiful weekend.  Saturday was warm, sunny, and just gorgeous.  We headed to Little Rock to go to the zoo.  We spent a couple hours walking around and enjoying the sun.

Afterwards we went to Chuys to try it for dinner.  It was really good and we had a great time with YaYa and Peepaw.

Sunday we headed back down to Little Rock for Cody's birthday party and to do a little shopping.  It looks like winter is coming back again this week so we sure did enjoy that little glimpse of spring we had this past weekend!

Valentine's, a birthday party, and the stomach flu...oh my.

Friday was Valentine's Day...Travis got to go to Essie's party that morning.  This year she chose to make a "vanity" box to hold her cards.  She gave out Olaf valentines made of marshmallows, pretzels, candy corn, and chocolate chips.  They decorated cookies, sang a song, and exchanged cards.  She had a blast.

 Saturday morning, we went to Lexie's birthday party at Build a Bear.  It was such a fun, cute birthday party!

Afterwards, we drove down to Batesville to spend the night with Nana and Papa.  Essie loved being there and giving us a "fashion show".  She's obsessed with their puppy Opie and playing games with Nana.

Unfortunately I woke up super early Sunday morning sick as a dog.  I spent 5 hours vomiting and we had to come home early.  I was sick enough to have to stop on the way home even.  I pretty much slept all day sunday and ran fever off/on all night.  I had to take off work today to try to recover.  I am feeling better than yesterday but still am a ways away from 100%.  Every muscle in my back/ribs hurts from the illness now.  Travis and Essie were both off for President's Day today so I had lots of good care.  It was such a beautiful day that they went outside and practiced tee-ball a little bit.

Finally some SNOW!

We've had so much ice this winter we were beyond thrilled to finally get some real snow.  It wasn't a ton but enough to play in.  We did some sledding and made some snow angels.

She got holes

For years Essie has been torn between her desire for earrings and her fear of "holes".  She sees cute earrings everywhere we go and says "I'll get holes when I'm older and not scared."  We honestly had ZERO expectations for her to ever get them done.  She is a slight worrier...much like her momma.

 A few weeks back I ran to Target after picking her up and she announced "I wanna get holes tonight momma!"  She was very, very insistent on getting them.  I convinced her to wait til Saturday when we would be in Little Rock for the Big Buck Classic.  YaYa made her an appointment at Merle Norman when they would have two girls there to do it.

We started the day at the Big Buck Classic and she had a blast bow-shooting and jumping.  As the time drew near for us to leave and go to the jewelry store she began to get nervous.  We got there and she got to pick out her earrings...cute rainbow flower ones.  She then had to sit in the chair...on my lap and she immediately covered her ears with her hands and would not take them down.  After about 30 minutes of her "not being ready" I finally told them I would hold her arms down and to just do it.

She was sooooooo mad.  Bless her heart she cried and cried and cried.  I know it hurt and she was so upset with me.

Afterwards we went to get ice-cream and she finally cheered up and was so beyond thrilled with her new earrings.  She kept saying "I can't believe I got earrings!".  After that we went to the mall and bought several new packages of cute earrings.  She has done so awesome with them.  She can twirl them herself and lets us clean them without any trouble at all.  She's counting down the weeks until she can change them out now.