Moss Rock

The weekend that our house went up for sale we had several showings and had to make ourself scarce!  That Sunday was so beautiful that we headed to Moss Rock Preserve to do some hiking...Maggie even got to come along.  You would think that Pierce was hiking to the top of Mt. Everest.  He wanted to take a picture at every stop we made!

So thankful for a warm, beautiful day...especially after the cold, cold winter we've had!

The Cheese

Pierce was invited to two birthday parties for classmates on back to back weekends at Chuck E Cheese earlier this month.  If you know me, I'm really not a big fan of CEC!  It's just mass chaos and craziness.  I had an open mind since the party was at the new one on 280 but it was just as crazy as I expected.  Despite my excitement, Pierce had a great time and loved seeing friends from school!  Can you tell he partied hard?!?!

 For the second CEC party, one sweet mom offered to pick up P and take him with their family.  I gladly said yes!  I think he had lots of fun tagging along with them and we enjoyed a quick date night dinner while they were gone!

Mr. Robbie even helped Pierce reach the pedals so he could race.

Big sis, Ellie, rode rides with him too!

Gold Star

Pierce came home with this Gold Star award earlier this month for the Kindergarten students.  I thought that they just took turns during the year giving it out, but apparently this was the first time this year that they had done it.  And, another friend said that her kids said it was a big deal to get this.  Who knew!?!?

Season Opener

Pierce was excited to kick off this baseball season for his first game.  He is on the White Sox team now (which his daddy isn't too excited about and will never wear any White Sox paraphanelia).  Nontheless, Pierce was most excited to have his name on the back of his jersey this time like the real players!

He has two buddies from his team last season on his team and one friend from church.  So far, they have turned about to be a pretty good little team. Go White Sox!

Around town...

At school, Pierce's class did a unit on buildings around town in Birmingham.  I think that many kids picked iconic and historic buildings around town to make.  What did my child choose you may ask?  This one...

....that's right.  Priorities people, priorities.

Laundry Reading?

 

Who doesn't love reading a book in hot laundry straight out of the dryer?  Doesn't everyone do this?

Filling In

I got the opportunity to sit with Pierce's class during Teacher Appreciation Week while Mrs. Miles went to her luncheon.  She always talks about how sweet all of her kids are and it's really true, they are a super sweet group.  I think the kids liked having a parent for a teacher, and I got lots of hugs before I left.

Reading time for the girls...Emma and Alaina

A special movie time while the teacher was out...Pierce is hard to spot but he went to the front row and wiggled his way in between Mary Claire and Emma.  Haha!

Reading time for Pierce and Vaughn

Memory Lane

In February, my parents finally closed and sold the only house that I called "home" until I got married.  Yes, a rare occurance these days to have lived in the same house all my life.  It was sad to walk into an almost empty house that was filled with so many memories.  Each room literally had so many...I guess it's true what they say, you can turn a house into a home!

I hope that the next person there creates many more memories! 

Kids Mercedes Marathon

Pierce was finally able to participate in the Kids Mercedes Marathon this year.  The Mercedes is a big deal in Birmingham and they put on a great race for a good cause.  He was so excited to run with the Kindergarten group this year (along with daddy).  Each school keeps track of how much they run and the kids do the final mile on race day.

Crossing the finish line!

 Before the race, Pierce found his buddy Carter (who loves to run and we were hoping would provide a little more motivation!) so they ran together.  Surprisingly, they stayed together most of the race and Carter only finished a little ahead of him since he sprinted to the end!

Post race photo with Maury and Carter

Pretty excited to show off their medals!

V-Day

Since it's Spring Break week here, I should probably post about Valentine's....haha!!  Pierce woke up to several goodies for Valentines, had a day at school filled with fun activities, swapped valentines with friends, then had a fun play night with lots of buddies at church.  He had a fun filled day!  We enjoyed a date night with several couples with plenty of adult conversation and no kids to chase or clean up after.  It was a win-win for everyone!

More Snow!

Well, this winter was definitely a record winter that I can remember. We had multiple snows which meant, more weather days from school than I ever think I got! Regardless, we were happy that daddy was around for this snow. At least it was the fun kind...not too much, enough to play in, and it came quickly and left just as quick!

Who knew the boogie board for the beach would be used in the winter!

USA, USA USA!!!

Pierce has definitely loved all things Olympic!  Each night he would get really excited to watch the events and keep up with who was winning.  I think they talked about it a lot at school too.  One night, I walked into the living room and found this...

Of course, we kept it up for a few weeks until all of the games were over!  Way to go, USA!!!

A Not-So-Sick Day

This winter has been a pretty sick winter around here.  I'm not sure which "sickness" this was, but we had a few days that he wasn't super sick but still contagious or unable to go to school.  On this not-so-sick day we stayed home, but we did get some work done!

Writing out valentines for his friends at school...completely unassisted!



Knocking out more independent reading time for e-learning!

An Artsy Kind of Day...

As part of Pierce's e-learning requirements for school, we chose to do our "field trip" at the Birmingham Museum of Art.  Much to my surprise he loved it and thought it was really fun!  I'm not sure I've ever been to the art museum here, which is crazy for how long I have lived here.   

Each child got to make a medallion to take home.  This was based off of the Wedgewood series they were showcasing.  Pierce decided to make his look like an Olympic medal!

Thumbs up for his approval of the BMA!

His favorite thing was the scavenger hunt to look on the map, locate certain rooms, and then find the item on his sheet.  I think we completed 2 out of 3 hunts! 

Countdown to Sochi

Pierce was on the countdown leading up to the Winter Olympics.  They talked about it at school, we had talked about it at home, and it was finally here!

He plopped down on the floor in front of the tv to watch the opening ceremony and loved it.  Can you tell he was very serious and excited all at the same time?!?!

Stuck at Home....Again

 

After the last mention on snow which brought on the big ice storm, most of the city shut down when it was exepcted to snow a few weeks later.  So, not much more for me and school was closed.  To pass some time, Pierce decided on a middle of the day bubble bath to try out our new tub!

Weekend Full of Birthdays

In early February we had a weekend full of birthday parties to help celebrate some sweet friends.  First up was Grant and Grace's 5th birthday!  I can't believe they are five...so hard to think they are almost ready to start kindergarten.  Lots of fun was had by Pierce jumping at their party, and especially their awesome and delicious cakes that their Nana makes!

 Next up, was Keller!  Pierce loved seeing friends from school (and the gym) and thought it was crazy that he had a swimming party in February! 

I've gotten so use to seeing both of them in glasses that it's kinda funny to see them without them here!

Pierce was also excited to remember that he could grab a green arm band and could go all over the pool by himself!  I was glad he had not totally forgotten how to swim!!

A Sunny Surprise

This has proven to be an extremely crazy winter here in Alabama!  After the ice storm, a few days later we got some much milder weather.  We were happy to get outside and enjoy some sunshine, hopscotch and warmer temps!

Ice, Ice Baby

We have had a really brutal winter this year.  You know it's crazy when there are days that it is warmer in Alaska than in Alabama!  There was an unexpected ice storm that hit in January.  Thankfully, Pierce had been home sick that day getting over the fever virus and wasn't at school.  Otherwise, he would have been stuck there.  If you ask him, he's sad he missed the big spend the night party at school!  I'm happy we were safe and warm at home and I was not stuck at another school for work!

This was on the hill in front of Julie's house just up the street.  We were literally stuck at home too while M was stuck in Montgomery.  So glad I encouraged him not to try to come home.  People were stranded for hours and hours on the roads.

This little angel loved making an angel even though there wasn't a lot of snow!

Busy Bees

We have been some serious busy bees around here the last few months. Sadly, we've been doing lots of projects that we would have loved to accomplish for quite a while now. I'm sure I have some better before and after pictures, but here were our biggest projects.  The deck and master bath! 

M and his buddy, Ray, did the deck and did a fabulous job.  They were out there for several weekends and very chilly ones at that!

We also completely gutted the baster bath and now it's so much bettter!  I love getting ready so much more in the mornings.  Too bad I won't get to enjoy all of our hard work we put into it that much longer...

Rose Bowl Bound

Our tigers had a very surprising turnaround for the 2013 season.  Who knew that they would go to the National Championship at the Rose Bowl?!  Well, we got to head our west too...such a fun trip!!

We stayed in Vegas and took the "Gus Bus" to Cali for the game.  Here is our view from our room.

Our first night we had dinner with our tailgating crew at one of Bobby Flay's restaurants.  It was yummy!!

We met up with friends during the "tailgate party" outside the stadium.  Brooke and Laura stayed in Cali so this was our only chance to really see each other.

 Unfortunately, we didn't bring the win home that we were hoping for.  However, it was a really fun trip!!  It was a very quick and tiring couple of days, but completely worth it (except that I got the flu shortly after we got back).  This trip would not have been possible without a big help from Gigi and Poppa!  They came to stay with Pierce for a few days.  It ended up being kind of crazy with school delays, frigid temps, missing the bus, and probably some other stuff they didn't even tell us about!!

While we enjoyed our time away, there is nothing more I'd rather do though than come home to this little angel.