The Alley's come to play!

We were so excited that my brother and his family could come visit us for the weekend. We have missed seeing them and are so thankful for the time they have on the East coast. They came down this weekend and we had grand plans to wear the kids out and for us to relax. Well, the weather didn't quite cooperate, but I think our back up plan worked out well!

We started our weekend off with some Krispy Kreme! I mean if that doesn't spell fun then I don't know what does;)

all the kiddos drooling over the donuts! I won't lie, the parents were doing the same thing but at a respectable distance;)

yeah! I all sugared up with no where to go….uh, I'm not sure we planned this right...

thank goodness for Clemson's basketball practice gym! We ran these kids silly!

after lunch and some quiet time, the rain let up some, so we headed out to the Central Train festival. There was this magician that the kids where enthralled with. Honestly, the adults were a little creeped out, but hey, the kids loved him! Kendall and Owen got selected to "help".

that night we had a fire in our fire pit and the kids put on a rock show for us…um, it was…great…;)

We always have so much fun with Team Alley. I can't wait for us to do this again!!

Craziness and Surprises

Sometimes our weeks are just crazy. The kids get crazy or our schedule is crazy or we just do crazy things…This week, MC decided it was her turn at a little craziness. She dresses up in her old ballet leotard and puts on a dance for me. She leaves and its quiet for a while. I sit back and enjoy the quiet, because lets face it, it's NEVER quiet her. Of course, I should have known something was up. MC comes running back into the living room and proclaims, "look what I did all by myself mommy! I didn't get it on anything, I promise". Ummm, okay little MC. How can you not love this little mess?!

Another act of craziness in our little family…I cooked some bone-in chicken in the crockpot one day. When it was done, I took it out and started taking the meat off the bone. Alley happened to walk through the kitchen and comes over to see what I am doing. She gets so excited because she thinks she sees a chicken rib. She yells, "look, its a rib from a chicken!". She proceeds to ask me to hurry up so she can look at all the bones and try to make a chicken skeleton. She pulls up a picture of a chicken skeleton on the internet and gets to work. I start hearing, "I found the femur", "oh look, it's the scapula!", I am pretty sure thats the ulna". Oh.my.word….

Now on to our surprises…we got a trampoline!!!

here is the morning they found it…let me tell you, I am loving this addition! IT has kept the girls entertained and outside for hours each day!!

they asked me to jump with them…"with" being a loosely followed word. It was more, bounce them while they are sitting down. "Mommy, jump harder"….I.am.so.tired….

Hiking

South Carolina is home to so many hiking trails and waterfalls. This is a fact we have recently discovered ;) We have been wanting to expose the girls to how beautiful God's creation is and how fun exploring is. With that thought in mind, we purchased a book listing all the waterfall hiking trails in the upstate. Man is this a cool book! We have picked out several that we are wanting to try soon. Since Andy has weekends off this summer…yoo-hoo!…we are trying to see how many hiking trails/waterfalls we can see this summer. This past weekend, we visited Station Cove Falls. It was beautiful and so much fun!

Here we are, all ready to go!

my favorite people:)

sassy little girls in their "exercise clothes"

a pause int eh hiking to appease mom…I know, I know, I'm disrupting your flow

and here we are!! We were actually the only ones at the waterfall and on the trail today!

the girls before they started exploring the waterfall…aka, before they kept slipping and falling and got soaking wet ;)

Crazy girl and her daddy

aaaaand, this is what happens when you don't listen to mommy.

my little adventurer taking a break

the McPherson girls

sassy miss thing

the trek back

We are having so much fun exploring all the trails in SC. I can't wait for the next one!

A visit from Mimi and Papa

Mimi and Papa have come into town! It's been a few months since we've seen them and, let me tell you, the excitement level in our house they day they were to arrive was through.the.roof!!

Alley being silly with some of her belated Easter filler (whatever you call that stuff!)

They got to meet Bailey for the first time…she definitely thinks she's a lap dog;)

The first night they were here, we had story time. Papa and Mimi spent most of the evening read books to the girls:) These girls sure do love books AND their Mimi and Papa.

Boy do I love a good project and luckily, my parents do too! The plan was to have them help us mulch the back portion of the yard so that we can add a fun play area for the girls. Of course, the weather didn't want to cooperate on the first day they were here….so, we decided to paint the kitchen! Yeah!

We are getting our cabinets painted soon and I had planned to paint the walls after the cabinets were finished. I love that my parents actually came up with the idea that we should go ahead and paint the walls, since the weather wasn't cooperation gout side for us to mulch! Yeah!

The girls took a break from watching the paint dry, to take Bailey for a walk around the neighborhood. Aw, sisterly love…any bets on how long this hand-holding, merrily skipping along, vision of love lasted??!:)

 The next morning the weather was beautiful. Our plans were restored and we began a loooong day of working outside. Mimi and Papa are such troopers!

Even the girls got involved in transporting mulch. Alley's mulching wagon…MC catching a ride back to the big mulch pile

apparently Mimi needed some help driving her "train" back to the mulching station…choo-chooo

oh look, they picked up a passenger...

 Mimi cleaned off our slide…it was in desperate need of some TLC…thanks Mimi!

Papa hard at work!

Of course, everyone staring at the tree that needs to be taken down. When Mimi and I heard Papa and Andy were going to take a tree down, we decided we needed to go shopping (grocery and plant shopping…not clothes…whomp-whomp). We did NOT need to be around for that one!

Aaaaaand, we came back to this…success!

snack time games. Who can throw their apple cores the farthest...

MC with the under hand toss

Alley with the blind, don't look where you are throwing, toss

Kendall looks uncomfortable…maybe a softball pitch? or a touchdown dance?!

 Let me tell you, MC is a little worker bee! The other two girls got tired and went inside to play, but little MC kept on working hard!!

Papa's little shadow…I have a feeling that this was me when I was little…following Papa around and watching him in the shop, asking to help or asking questions about everything. 

 All of Papa's little helpers (side note, we got 4 truck loads of mulch…that was crazy….)

 Sunday we celebrated our accomplishments with a little Krispy Kreme! Nothing says good job better than KK donuts!! We say good-bye to Mimi and Papa for a few days as they travel south to Florida…the best thing is that in a few days they will be back!

TWhen they return, we have a little family pyramid going on…a little rough, but we managed it.

Good bye Mimi and Papa! Come back soon!

I will leave you with a little bit of silliness…until next time!! Rest up Mimi and Papa, I've already started a list of things we can tackle next visit!! ;)