My baby is 2!

Today is Alyssa's 2nd birthday. Here are a few pics of the past two years:

Lil' 500

Every time we go to Florida we take the kids to Lil' 500 Go Karts. Dale and I went there numerous times growing up and it is definitely an Orlando novelty. Last year in October when we went down to Orlando for Dale's cousin's wedding Andrew was not old enough or tall enough to drive his own go-kart, so he reluctantly rode with us. This year, after riding with his Grandpa Steve, he told us he thought he was tall enough to drive his own. We told him he probably wasn't; it had only been five months; but he insisted. Sure enough, he was definitely tall enough. The proud smile on his face did not compare to the proud smile on his Mommy and Daddy's face. Here are some pictures:

Florida trip!!

This past week Dale and I took the little ones to Florida for a short vacation. About 5 hours into the road trip (7:00 p.m.) Andrew and Alyssa started to get restless. So Dale and I started a game. Think of the funniest words you have ever heard. It took Andrew a minute to figure out what we meant, but Dale and I were thinking of all kinds of words. Here are a few of our favorites: lickety split, hacky sack, guacamole, and our all time fav...drum roll please...crack-a-lackin!!!! Anyways, when we finally arrived in Orlando, we went to Fazoli's (a place we don't have in Atlanta) for some quick italian and then my Mom; who so graciously let us stay the whole vacation at her new apartment; suggested we go to Lake Eola and let the kids play at the playground to get all their energy out. The kids loved the playground so much, we ended up going several times during our trip to FL. Here are some pics of those crazy monkeys. If you look really hard you can see Dale relaxing, enjoying a much needed vacation...the first in four years.

My Piggies!

Alyssa is not a little baby anymore. I have recently really started to notice this. Everything her big brother does she has to do. They play cars together, ride bikes together and even take baths together. But there is one thing she asks me to do for her every day...that is, her piggies! She loves having her hair in pigtails.

Andrew is 5!

I can't believe it has been 5 years since my little baby boy came out barely crying. Now he exceeds my dreams for him everyday. This year he had a Transformers birthday party because in all honesty, Party City didn't have any monster truck pinatas and that was really the only thing he wanted at his party, a "pin-otta. Although, he was excited about the Transformer theme and even went as far as to wear his Transformers t-shirt...which I didn't even notice he had on until many hours into the party. Here are some pics of the party. The cake is a Spiderman cake; Publix had discontinued all Transformer cakes the day before I ordered his b-day cake. The two little girls are Gab, and Gen my friend's girls.

The last two pictures are Alyssa and Andrew's best cake faces...

Monster Jam!!!!!

Every year since Andrew was 2; I know thats only three years, but it has been a long time for him; he has been asking if Dale and I would take him to Monster Jam. We tried delaying things a little by buying him a Monster Jam DVD, Monster trucks, Monster Jam shirt, Monster Jam PJs, but all that did was make him want to go even more. So this year for Andrew's 5th birthday he didn't have to make a wish while blowing out his candles because Dale and I took him to Monster Jam. He was the happiest boy there, out of all 20,000 other boys. He had the biggest smile on his face the whole way there (it took two hours from our driveway to our seats in the Arena), the whole time we were there (about two and a half hours), and the whole way home (it also took two hours to get home, most of which consisted of us sitting in the parking lot in traffic). Here are some pictures...enjoy, cause I know he did.

New Years Eve Party

I know I'm a little behind, but I thought I would get you caught up. First, here are some pictures of our party for New Years. Dale's Mom and Tony (his "adopted" brother) came into town to visit and Codi had some of her friends over for the party.

We all got a little silly towards the end of the night, but we had a really good time.