Amanda's 5th Birthday

It is hard to believe that Amanda is 5 years old already. She has grown and changed so much this year. Next step is Kindergarten....hope they are ready for her!!! We love you Amanda!!!!

Amanda celebrated several times this year. She celebrated in Florida while we were visiting, then she celebrated on her actual birthday with VA family and then she had a small party with her friends.

These are from her actual birthday with VA family.

Here she is with her friends. We had a small party at the house with pizza, movie, games, etc. She had a great time!!

First Haircut

Amanda got her first haircut!!!! She didn't really need it but I needed it. Emily was 14 months old when she got her first haircut because she hated hair in her face. Amanda was bald for so long that once her hair came in we didn't dare, or need, to cut it. I have had my hair cut by Tammy, in FL for 15 years and she did Emily's first haircut and watched the girls grow up. I decided that while we were home that I would continue the tradition and get Amanda's haircut. It is one of those milestones that I wanted for her and wanted in her scrapbook and baby book, problem is she was just days from being 5. I used to joke that she would be 8 or 10 before she cut it!! I was nervous that she wouldn't agree to this but she LOVED it and sat so perfectly still. We only did a trim so we can keep her cute girls as long as possible.

Florida!!!

We had a great time in Florida this year for the holidays. It was wonderful to spend time with family, visit our friends, our old home and so many other things that we miss about Florida.

We went to lunch one day with the family, we went to Gators at the beach. It was a beautiful day and the dolphins out the window gave us a great show for at least 2 hours. Everyone, including the girls, ate gator (both wanted more).

We were suppose to take the girls to Disney while we were there as a Christmas present but the park was so crowded and the wait was 3 hours per ride. We decided that it wasn't worth the money to stand in lines. We hope to make another trip for them, they both want to go so much! Since we were meeting our friends from TN there we opted to play mini gold at Disney and enjoy some time visiting. Emily and Ashley are a week apart and have been the best of friends and in school together since 9 weeks old. Emily misses living near them but we have been lucky to see them at least every year. An extra treat was that an old friend Isabella came up to visit also. All the girls had fun!!!

Sometimes we miss Florida, we mostly miss family and friends (okay, and Publix) but Richmond is home now and we are happy here.

Christmas!!

Christmas was wonderful!!!!

Lots of snow....not even winter yet!!!

The last shopping weekend before Christmas we got about 15" of snow and it was even a few days shy of the first day of winter. It took us a full two days to dig out enough to leave the house and gave us a white Christmas!!!

Baptism Photos

Some baptism photos of Emily. Hard to believe she is already 8!

Emily's Baptism

With Emily turning 8 years old it was her decision to be baptized and we couldn't be happier or more proud. Her good friend Kristen turned 8 the day before her so they had a very special baptism together.