Elite 8

Dear Abigail,

One day it will make sense, maybe. Hopefully. Otherwise, you and your daddy may more issues than the appropriate age to begin dating... just saying. Anyway. UT made it all the way to the Elite 8 - and we were all there together to watch history in the making! Unfortunately, they lost in the last seconds by one silly point to not advance to the Final Four... As proud as we all were for those Vols, Mommy was more proud that day that we were able to get a picture of you and Ellie and Ryan, all looking at the camera (sort of) at the same time!!!!!!

Almost...

Yikes, not close...

Success!!!!
GO VOLS!!!!! and GO Abs!

Dirty days, rainy days

Dear Abigail,

I'm going to let the pictures do the talking on this post...

LOVES YOU!

Memphis Zoo, the Park with Mimi, & Birthdays!

Dear Abigail,

What a weekend! Mommy and you drove into Munford on Wednesdsay and stayed at Papa Rob & Gramma's house. On Thursday, Mommy had to go with Mimi to the doctor, so you went and stayed at Mammaw's house. Two good things came out of that - A) You were excellent for Mammaw & Pawpaw, went down for a nap perfectly, didn't cry when we left, just perfect! and B) Your Mimi is no longer sick!!! YAY - we were so happy to get this wonderful news! After the doctor, we headed back to Papa Rob's for another night, and got ready to go to the zoo on Friday. That's right - me, and you, and Papa Rob, and Emily, and, wait for it... wait for it... YOUR BFF Sarah, all went to the Memphis zoo!!!! What a beautiful day it was, and we were all so anxious to get down there to enjoy the sunshine. Well, I think 1/2 of Memphis was thinking the same thing, or at least the half that was on Spring Break!! It took forever to get just into the actual zoo - but don't worry, we made it! And then, oh what a good time we had! And Madison and Miss Ida actually met us down there, too!! The Memphis zoo is definitely bigger (and some would say better) than the Nashville zoo, but we made our rounds!!

Here's you and your BFF looking at the bears...

And you and Em looking at the wolves. Mommy was looking hard for Jacob, but, unfortunately, I couldn't find him. I'll tell you about Jacob one day - maybe when you are 17. Nah, scratch that - 27 sounds better.
You and Papa Rob...

And, as always, your picture with your favorite - the Giraffes!!

You and your BFF looking at the monkeys...

And the orangoutangs. Although here it looks like she might be letting you join them....i'll have to talk with her about that!

And you even got to play on the playground with the big kids!

You loved the zoo, as always, and between your BFF, Papa Rob, Em and Madison, you were constantly catered to! I'm not sure you had to take a step on your own, well, unless you insisted upon walking by yourself!! But you did get tired, and fell asleep almost instantly once we made it back to the car.

Friday night, we all got together for Mexican, all 12 of us, and by the time we got home that night, we were all completely exhausted!! We needed a good rest, though, because we had a busy Saturday to look forward to.

Saturday morning ended up being just as pretty as Friday, so we got our gear on and headed to the park. This time with Mimi and Clara Lee and Aunt Ash-ash! Boy did you guys have fun getting dirty, and swinging, and riding down the slides! And, to Mommy's surprise, Miss Blaire was there with Robert Hale (he was at soccer practice). She knew Bebe would be so upset if she missed an opportunity to play with you, so she ran home and got her!!! Mommy was super thankful because Bebe is the best little babysitter around! I really shouldn't say little though, as she is probably as tall as me! Anyway, you had a blast...

Here's Mommy having to push until Bebe got there!

YAY Bebe made it! And boy did you love those rocks.

It's probably not too surprising to hear that you had to immediately come home and take a bath, then of course a nap, but then we headed down to Mammaw's to celebrate Paw-paw's 80th birthday, oh, and Mommy's 30-somethingth birthday... We had our typical pizza and cake, and thankfully the weather was still nice, so we were able to go outside for a bit!

My little tree hugger!

And playground hugger...

Here's Em being chased by Gracie, who is being chased by Sydney, who is being chased by you! I think it Clara Lee was out there, she'd be chasing you!!!
You still have your crowd anxiety where you insist upon being held if there is more than 6 people in a room. Here's you looking so desperate, saying "hold me"....

We all had a good time, and afterwards, Mimi took you home while Mommy went and hung out with your BFF. I told you Mimi was feeling better!!!! A fun-filled weekend, no doubt. I love that spring time is in the air, and I love you, too. OH, that brings me to another thing - Mimi totally taught you how to say "I love you"!! Actually, she taught you to say that when she says "The Mimi's on the bus say ...." but Daddy and Mommy have been getting you to say it without the "Mimi" part!! I LOVE YOU!

A day at the zoo with Mommy & Daddy

Dear Abigail,

You will come to learn that this weather here in Nashville, TN is a little fickle, kind of like you and learning to drink from a big girl cup. Sometimes it's right on, other times, it's way off! A couple weeks ago, we happen to catch it when it was on, and all of us were home. So what happens when we're all at home together? We leave!! That's right, we headed straight to the zoo while the nice weather was lasting. See, after that snow trip, we were begging for spring weather and at the first sign of it, we jumped! Here's some fun pictures from our random trip to the zoo..

We had a good time, but what's so funny, is this wasn't even a 'nice' day compared to what was to come!! Stay tuned for those memories... Love you baby girl. PS - that woman with the black/goth hair is your mother. I had a very bad hair experience for a couple of weeks but thankfully we got it all taken care of. Other than these few photos, we shall never speak of it again... LOVE YOU.

Snowshoe - Season Finale

Dear Abigail,

You may be wondering, what else can Mommy talk about with this Snowshoe trip. We covered the ride up there, we covered playing in the snow - what else you ask... How about Abby learns to ski!! That's right. I saved the best for last. See, Mommy HEARTS skiing, and, after years of convincing him, Mommy's true love (Daddy) learned to ski and enjoyed it, and so I thought "well, this just makes for a fantastic vacation. I can't ask for anything else". But then, Aunt Steph's sister Mel, who is the famous level 2 ski instructor who taught your daddy, suggested why don't we get the girls on some skis! WHA?!! Abigail on skis at 18 months old - oh what a dream come true. All my loves will be on skis!!! And so we did it... The pictures speak volumes...

Here's getting the ski boots on...

Mommy's so proud of her powder monkey...

Look what a big girl Ellie is being, too!

Here we go.....

And look at Ellie go!!!

I don't want to deceive you, so I have to be honest here. You didn't exactly LOVE skiing, at least not yet. You were a little afraid of actually standing up on the skis. I think maybe because they limited the amount of space you could move!! Anyway, we had a blast trying to get you to ski, and it brought a lot of hope for years to come!! And, at the end of the day, you had a good time. Aunt Steph even taught you how to throw snow balls in Mommy's face, instead of Ellies!!

Then. top the trip off, on the last day, Daddy and I took you back out in the snow - one last hoo-rah before the dreaded drive home...

As you can see, you were worn out when we got you inside. Perfect time for a bath!!! Yay - you and Ellie got the infamous 'babies in a bath' picture!!! Wouldn't be cousins without it!

Baby girl, we had such a blast on this vacation, so much that I don't even remember the awful drive home, other than it was the longest 12 hours EVER!!

Twelve hours or not, this is no doubt an annual trip for us! I love you and can't wait to have a million more ski trips with my powder monkey!!!!