Happy birthday Papa!

I have had pictures I have been meaning to blog about for over a week now and with all of the craziness of tax day, Easter, Spud, etc - I am just now getting around to it!

Happy belated birthday to the first apple of my eye - my dad!! My mom invited us all over last Sunday (4/17) - to celebrate and have dinner with my dad on his birthday! Thank you, Mom, for getting us all together and for a great dinner - we even had all of the dogs, including Spud, there for one last hoorah! The girls loved helping Papa open his presents....



And LOVED his new Wii dance game - Just Dance! What can I say...these girls (and their daddy!) have some moves!


Happy birthday dad - we love you more than you will ever know! :)

Fuse Soccer 2011!

For the past six weeks or so, Ali has been playing FUSE soccer at the church! It's for six Sundays at 3:00 - the kids practice for half an hour, then play a game the second half. Ryan and Brian Holle helped coach and Ali and Libby enjoyed looking cute on the soccer field....not sure they were that into actually playing the game! :) Ali started off the season not wanting to get off the bench - but, by the end, she actually made it on field and played a little. We're hoping next season will bring us her first game kick! :)

Rhodesy and I had to miss a few games due to naps (games were right smack in the middle of nap time!), but we made it to the last game sans a nap and still in our church clothes! :)

Their favorite spot...

Good game!

Ali and Libby with their end of season trophies... future soccer stars??

Rhodes wanted to get in the picture!

The girls with the daddies/coaches

After the last game, the Varsity catered and there was face painting, a balloon lady, and a few bounce houses! This one was Rhodes' favorite....she would go down and give the crowd a show as her dress flew up completely over her head and she would bounce back up grinning from ear to ear! It was hilarious!

So much fun!

In loving memory...

It is with a heavy heart that I write this post...today the Tumlin clan lost a great part of our family...someone that has been a part of our family for half of my life, brought so much love, joy and happiness to our lives for the past 16 years...Spud Maverick Tumlin. :) I think Sig was in 6th grade when we got him for his birthday and we named him with that awesome middle name. It has been a hard day. To be honest, it has been something we have been expecting for awhile...but it still doesn't make it any easier. He has lived a great, long, happy life and we have all been so lucky to have had him in our lives! In early December, almost exactly 16 years after he entered our lives, he started struggling to walk. He has had issues with hypothyroidism (runs in the family! :)), seizures, then hearing, old age, etc - but he has been such a trooper. His back legs started to give out and after years of hoping he would keep living a long life, our family faced the fact that the end was in sight. We spent a weekend in December together, saying our sad "goodbyes" to Spud and it was like all of the love gave him a second wind and instead of putting him to sleep then, my parents and the vet decided it was not time just yet and he was given some prednisone and we have loved all of the extra time we have gotten to spend with one loved and loving dog. This past week, (and before) Spud's legs have just given out and he could no longer walk with his back legs. His loving heart and sweet spirit was still going strong but his body was weak and could no longer keep up. What an incredibly sad day for our family and especially for my parents having to make the decision to lose such a special part of our family - but they stood by him in the end and hugged him, told him they loved him and said goodbye as he kept kissing the vet! My heart tries to believe that a soul like Spud's has to be in Heaven now where it belongs! :)

(These pictures are from December when we thought we were having to say goodbye!) I went to my parents house this morning for a few hours and hugged him and made sure he knew how much we loved him one last time! Part of me wishes I could turn back time and go back to yesterday when he was still here - but, I know it was time and he is in a much happier place now with so much relief! We love you Spuddy and will miss you always!

Easter Egg Hunt 2011

Another busy, fun weekend! After thunderstorms and tornado sirens all Friday night, we woke up to a fun, but busy day! I headed out the door to host a wedding shower for a good friend from high school (Lindsey), while Ryan and the girls headed to the Atlanta History Center for a fun morning with grandmommy and granddaddy! After our first stops, we all headed to The Commons neighborhood for the third annual Easter egg hunt. We helped host this year with the Lowery/Morris family and it was so much fun! We had 150 Marietta children there - fun, organized chaos pretty much sums it up!

My little egg hunters...

And they're off!





Ali found a silver egg - she was SO excited! (it may have helped that she had helped set up/throw the eggs out that morning!) :)
Rhodes wanted it for herself!
Ali and two of her sweet friends from school - Lucas and Caroline...
Pinata time!
Water break!
Ali and her prize!

After all the eggs were hunted, the goody bags were given out, pictures were taken and pinata was knocked down - all of the kids LOVED playing with the start line ribbon that was cut down to start the race!

Sweet Lily Boon
My little Easter angels with Doe Doe bunny!
Thank you to all of our friends for coming out - I love this sweet Marietta tradition and am so excited to be apart of it! I'm not sure my girls know how good they have it and what a fun neighborhood/community we live in! :)

Spring Break 2011

This was definitely my favorite beach trip yet! I was thinking about it and the last 5 years I have either been pregnant at the beach or at the beach with a less than one year old or one year old and packing up and I was exhausted just thinking about going to the beach and packing everything up! This year, the girls are at such a fun age and LOVED the beach!

This little one was in pure Heaven - she could have played in the waves for hours! (there were a lot less jelly fish on day two thanks to wind and waves!)

Ali loved the ocean too but preferred to be in the sand relaxing, playing in the sand and playing paddle ball!

Poor thing could not keep her bathing suit bottoms up!

It was the perfect, relaxing trip! (well, as relaxing as it can be with two children ages 2 & 4!) The both really were great and played hard, slept great - and we loved getting to have daddy off work for a few days to help and play with!

We had fun eating at some of our favorite restaurants! (the girls love to check out this mermaid outside of Gnat's Landing - one of our favorites!)

Ali and I got mani/pedis while Rhodes napped one day! I think I have created a monster - she was in Heaven! It may have to become a ritual of ours and we can't wait for Rhodes to be old enough to be able to sit still and join us!

We did lots of walking in our stroller...

And of course hit up every playground on the island where lots of swinging was of course involved....

But, with a background like this, I didn't mind pushing them all day! :)

As soon as we got in the car to head home, I got out my calendar to start figuring out when we can come back. We have a week long trip planned for July but I can't wait that long!!

Our spring break continued with more fun! We stopped by Macon on the way home to meet the newest member of the McNeel family, Lynde! She was precious and the girls, of course, loved playing with Harry!

On Friday, we headed to the zoo and this was unfortunately the only picture I made it home with - eating cotton candy on our way out! The zoo was a zoo as it was the Friday of Spring break, but the girls were great, we saw lots of animals and had fun with fun friends!!

We definitely have spring fever around here and can't wait for a spring and summer outside with fun things to do!!