Reasons I love Greenville!

We went downtown Greenville on Saturday evening. There is always stuff going on down there. Shakespeare in the park has started. It's free to watch. Katie, Sophie and I enjoyed some of it while Craig and Taylor threw rocks in the river. Also there is this crazy tree with amazing roots down at the Reedy Falls Park. Great restaurants line Main Street. All the people watching is free. They have a wonderful Saturday Market. We can always go down and park for free for the free events, concerts, parades, festivals, street fairs. There is a little train track area that has water fountains for the kids to play in, and ducks to feed and a fabulous gelato shop. There is an old wharehouse that is rented out for parties and weddings. The video shows us walking back to our free parking garage and there is a wedding reception going on there. I just love it! Also I added a pic of Sophie. She came to us in Greenville and we are so happy to have her!

Congrats to the TWINNERS! (and Cousin Robert)

I'm happy to announce for those who may not know (although anybody interested probably does by now)that Hailey and Steve had their baby on May 11th. Congrats to the twinners for winning the baby pool and guessing the correct day. A fabulous prize will find it's way to your mail box soon! Also congrats to Cousin Robert for winning our in-house drawing to determine a final winner in the baby Ike baby pool held earlier this year. He will also win a prize of undisclosed fabulousness!! Sorry it's taken me this long to post the results, I'm suffering from postpartum fogetfulnes.

Sofa Loaf

On Sunday we had Stake Conference. The Apostle Dallin H. Oaks came to our Stake Conference. He is warm and funny and speaks with such love and authority. Craig and I usually split up the Saturday meetings. He goes to Priesthood and I meet him and we swap the kids and I stay for the adult session. This time we got a sitter though. It was really neat to shake Elder Oaks' hand and to hear all the interesting stories he had to tell. His message was clear, prepare now because we're in for a wild ride.
Anyhow, as you can see from the pix, Sophie is a little Chinese (or Taiwanese) baby. We have a Taiwanese lady in our ward who loves Sophie and sometimes takes her during 3rd hr while Craig and I have classes to teach. She brought this little outfit on Sunday and unbeknownst to us changed Sophie into it. Everybody thought we'd be so mad, but I thought it was cute and as long as I got Sophie's other dress back, I didn't care. We always tell Sis. Morton to speak as much Chinese to Sophie as possible.
Well, you can see Sophie's reaction to our camera by her "surprised" eyes. That is a classic Sophie look. She used to do that whenever the kids were around her. Well they can't surprise her with all their crazy noises anymore, but I guess the red light on the camera still can.
Sophie is doing well though, she's 5 months now and thriving as you can tell. We're already into size 3 diapers and she's over 15 lbs, probably closer to 16 or 17 but I'm not sure b/c our scale ran out of batteries and I haven't replaced them yet (like I want to know how much I weigh, only Craig uses that thing). She can roll over and play with her pacifier and grab anything near her. She is still so good and so sweet. Katie and Taylor (especially Katie) are so good with her. We're finally starting to fall into a rhythm and are looking forward to summer when we won't have to run so many carpools.

Greek Festival!

Friday night we went downtown Greenville to the Greek Festival. It was $1 for adults to get in and free for kids. We got a bunch of Loukoumades (like donut holes with cinnamon sugar) to split and listened to the live Greek music and watched the Greek Dancers. The parking was free and it was fun to go check it out. They also had a little flea market with Greek stuff and carnival rides. Also tours of the Greek Orthodox Church. The kids did great, especially considering we had gone swimming before this so I'm sure they were tired.
Oh, you can see the picture of the Uhaul that ran into that brick facade of the atm of that bank! Man, it made me think of Derek's move from or to TX when Roy ran into that gas station overhang! Sucks to be those guys! I hope they got the insurance!!

Happy Birthday Katie!

Yesterday was Katie's big day and what a day it was! We had the kitchen decorated all Hannah Montana for her in the morning and I tried to take in little ice cream cups for her class. The school wouldn't let me in to see her during her lunch because some of the older kids were testing somewhere in the school. They generously let me drop off the insulated bag though. I tried to pick her up from school to bring her home (she couldn't bring that huge bag home on her own) but they had already put her on the bus so they were kind enough to let me sign in, make a made dash (with Sophie and Taylor in tow) to the classroom, get the bag, sign out and pray I made it home before the bus so she would be allowed off. Wow! That school, just a bunch of helpers over there!
Anyhow, when Katie got home we created the pink pony cake out or the pink pies. Then Craig came home and we all went to Red Robin for dinner. That has been planned since last year! When we were there the Red Robin showed up. Unfortunately Katie is terrified of the robin, but it didn't come over and we were mostly all done.
After we got home we opened presents and danced and sang with the Kareoake machine. Then we talked her in to letting us sing and having some of the pie. It was a fantastic day for her (other than me not being at lunch) and so fun! (Oh, sorry about the birthday cake video, there were boxes on the floor I was tripping over)

The Pool opens!

The pool opened on Saturday. It was the most perfect day for a pool opening. Warm, humid and a little breezy. The water was cold, but soon enough it will be bath water warm. After a few false starts we got everybody in! Sophie did awesome! She didn't seem to mind at all that it was cool. Hopefully she'll continue to be such a water baby!

Last weekend

As you can tell, I'm playing a little bit of catch up today. Here are some pix from last weekend. We went to Baby Stella's blessing on Sunday and then enjoyed a fantastic lunch with The Eichhorns. It was really wonderful to be there and she is such a sweet baby so she fits right in with their family. She looks alot like Casey to me right now.
Taylor also had a soccer game last Saturday. Craig is coaching his team "The Jaguars" this season. We have another game today at 1:30pm. Looks like it'll be 90 with probably the same humidity. I'm really excited about it. Taylor is doing better during practice than during the game, but it could be because he's the smallest kid on the team.
I included some pix of Sophie just because she hasn't been on the blog for a bit and she's changing so quickly. I just love her chunky little baby rolls! Her hair is coming in a lot lighter now, but still dark by the back of her neck. I'm wondering if it'll stay that way.

New Sister by Katie Starkey, read by Katie Starkey

Check out our new garden!

Last week for FHE we built a garden. The ground here is horrible clay that is impossible to dig into so we just built a planter box and filled it with potting soil. It's not super big, but we're excited about it. We planted 4 different kinds of tomatoes, some peppers, squash, zucchini, cucumbers and strawberries. So far so good. We've watered it everyday and they seem to be growing already!