Great pictures from the weekend celebration!!

Okay, there are a ton of pictures here and these are only some of the best of all of them and there were still other good ones. These pictures follow up the blog about my Mom's birthday celebration (although in the order of the blog, I guess this comes before it or on top of it...) Either way, enjoy these great pictures!

Rachel and Addelyn flew in from Spokane to Nashville and we picked her up from the airport and they spent Thursday night with us. Julianna and Adde were quick friends and had a couple of common loves....bathes & Dora!!

Julianna shared her Dora bath towel with Addelyn!

On Saturday, Matthew headed to Chattanooga for a wedding so he had to say his goodbyes to the Washington Girls!

My two beautiful sisters!

Mom with Christian (#1 grandchild) and Lydia (#11 grandchild)

Anna Blair showed Rebecca some things on the piano

I brought my first digital story book I made from 2008 and Papa read through every page of it!

Katie & Cassie

Anna Blair with Addelyn (I actually have this pose with like 5 of the cousins but couldn't put them all in)

My parents (Nonie & Pops) with Lydia

The girls (well, not all of them but the younger of the crew)

Uncle Justin played outside with the big kids for a while since the weather was mild

Papa and Rachel

This picture cracks me up!

Christian with Ruth and Julianna

Christian and Addelyn

Cassie & Lydia

James & Lydia

My beautiful sister-in-law, Mandy and her precious son, James!

Other weekend pictures from the weekend

Celebrating my Mom

So my Mom celebrated a "big" birthday this year and we were all able to get together (except Rachel's husband, Eric). We got together on Saturday and had a wonderful celebration with her.

We went with an Italian theme for lunch and we had our homemade famous Lasagna and Manicotti and then some chicken fettuccine alfredo and of course Caesar salad and bread. Yummy. And of course Mom got the Red plate for her special day!!!


When we asked Mom what she wanted for her birthday, she said an electric pencil sharpener. Wow, Mom. Thanks for making it easy for us - so we went all out and got her the top of the line one! HA.

Justin went out on his own and got her a really nice ice cream scoop. Of course she only has ice cream when he's in town to visit but at least she'll have a good scoop to serve his ice cream!!! :-)

We actually got her more than a pencil sharpener. All 4 of us kids, plus the in-laws, plus the 11 grandkids, plus dad all worked together to make a digital storybook for Mom. It turned out so good and she was truly surprised by it.

She got to a funny picture on Rachel's page and was replaying that moment!
Well........

...then she found Matthew's page. This was her response.... let me explain....
As we went through literally thousands of photos over the years, there was not a single picture of Matthew & Mom together. There were some with Matthew, Katie, Mom and Dad but not many of them. Well, I jokingly said to Matthew he could just photoshop a picture of him with her. Well, then we got silly because there's a history of Matthew doing some Photoshopping for Mom and next thing you know, we got an idea.....
Mom continues to find this page funny....

....and funnier.....

.... and funnier....

Even Justin, who was videoing the event had to show the camer what was so funny..... Do you want to see?? Okay, the next 3 pictures are the pictures that Matthew photoshopped for the 3 son-in-laws. Basically, he wrote at the bottom of his page that he needed to get some real pictures of him with Mom but this would have to do.....

Mom with her 1st son-in-law, Matthew

Mom and her 2nd son-in-law, Tim

And lastly, Mom with her 3rd son-in-law, Eric (although according to Tim, Mom actually likes Eric so he didn't understand why Matthew would need to do this picture). The funny thing is my sister-in-law, Mandy, didn't understand why Matthew didn't do one of her, too!! :-)

So as you can see, he was being funny - love the church directory photos, don't you???

Everyone enjoying the album.

Justin also put together a great DVD slide show of pictures of Mom and our family and we all enjoyed watching that.

And for dessert, we had key lime pie, a beautiful fruit pizza, an a family favorite, Weight Watchers Banana split cake

Mom attempting not to blow germs on the cake!! :-)

We had a wonderful time together as a family. I am so blessed to have the parents, grandparents, brother and sisters, I have and the spouses that each of them brought into the family. Mom is not just the greatest Mom in the world, but also one of my closest friends and I love her dearly!!!

Girlfriends Weekend 2010

Over MLK weekend, I had the privilege to go away for a weekend with my closest college girlfriends. If you know me, you know I've had the opportunity to do this every year since we graduated. What an honor. It does seem to get a little easier over the year, considering we're leaving 6 husbands and 21 kids between the 6 of us, but with the help of our wonderful hubbies, mom, neighbors and friends, we are able to pull it off.

This year was a bit different - we stayed in all day on Saturday. It was awesome. Some of us took showers around 4pm and then put back on our pj's. Then we all ended up climbing into the big king size bed and started plans for a bigger trip next year - a celebration. Yes, that's right - we all turn 40 over these next 12 months and are considering the idea of a bigger trip. We'll see!

We did do some shopping, eating out and an unusual amount of movie watching. And this year, we didn't do as many picture taking. I'm posting one of the best ones of all of us - it did take quite a few tries. But I just want to say that these 5 girls here mean the world to me and I truly thank God for their unconditional love and friendship to me.

First snow of the year in Tennessee

We don't get much snow around here, so even the forecast makes everyone go crazy. The kids were to return to school on Thursday, January 7th from their school break. But because there was a threat of snow in the forecast, our school system cancelled school for Thursday. The kids could hardly contain themselves and finally we got some snow. I took a bunch of pictures but you'll realize how little we had. There was more in the streets than in the yard so we actually played out in the street. So here are the pictures:

Before heading out to play

Rebecca's attempt at a snow angel on the drive way. Yes, I know it's sad, but we're in Tennessee...what do you expect!

Having fun



Love this picture - Christian had just thrown a snowball at her (see her hat) and rather than the crying, she though it was funny. Whew!

Love this picture of Rebecca

What a smile

So funny

Attack!

There was more snow on the trampoline than the ground


Christian had to scrap the snow off the road and bring it to try to build something

Hot chocolate break

Julianna was pretty cold and said she couldn't smile - I think her lips were frozen!!