Welcome, Alyssa!

On Saturday, Aug. 4th, we picked up Alyssa at the Little Rock airport. She flew in from Colorado all by herself! Pretty brave for an 11 year old. Tracy was the person who was named as her pick-up person, so Fisher and I waited in the waiting area. When we saw her plane come in, we moved to the security check point to wait for them to come out. I couldn't believe my eyes. My little niece was so pretty and tall! She seemed to have grown a foot since I last saw her in November. So glad she came to see us: they grow up in a blink of the eye!

Gracie's Invitation Photo Shoot

Here are some of the pics that I liked from the photos I took of Gracie for her birthday invitation. Luckily I had Kevin around to help me take them. After awhile, she realized that she could crawl off and we had to call it quits. All it takes is one though, so I was happy with what we got. I bought the cute digital kit off of ebay to make her invi, and I thought it was just what I needed!

Craft Day!

Tuesday was craft day. Early that afternoon, we broke out the play-doh that Alyssa, Branden, Kim and Chuck gave Fisher as a "big-brother" gift at Gracie's birthday party. It was lots of fun! - yes, I played too - lol. We played with it for 45 minutes. Alyssa and I were ready to clean up, but Fisher still wanted to play - talk about keeping his interest! Later that afternoon, Lolo came down and we painted rocks. Alyssa painted a red ladybug with heart shaped spots, and Lolo painted a smaller ladybug in Alyssa's school colors - purple and gold. Then we glued a magnet on it so Alyssa can put it on her locker! It was Alyssa's and Lolo's first rock painting experience - and my - hmmm - 500th? haha I kind of miss painting my rocks. I actually didn't finish mine, because I had a couple of little ones wake up from their naps (I don't think Fisher technically had a nap - but just a little quiet time was good enough). We ended the evening with some of Uncle Kevin's homemade spaghetti and meatballs. Yum - Gracie's favorite!!

Sci-Port Discovery Center

On Wednesday, Kevin, Alyssa, Fisher and I headed to Shreveport for the day. We went to the Sci-port science museum. We started off with the IMAX film "Hurricane on the Bayou" which was a pretty good film. Leave it to Fisher to point out every boat, helicopter, and airplane in the movie. At least it held his interest. We had a good time playing with all the exhibits. Alyssa has a nice smile in the pic I took right after all the dominoes she was setting up got knocked over! What a good sport!

Louisiana Boardwalk

After we left Sci-port, we headed over to the Boardwalk for a little bit. We checked out the fish at the Bass Pro Shop (look how long Alyssa's legs are in the aquarium picture!), then walked down to see what stores they had. It was so hot that when I saw the fountain, I had to let Fisher play in it. I stripped his shirt off and let him play. Luckily there was a linen store handy for a towel and an Osh-Kosh store right across from it, so he got some cute new overalls to wear since he got completely soaked! Alyssa decided it was hot enough to get her face and hair wet! After the fountain, we went to Cold Stone Creamery for some shakes and ice cream. We all had yummy shakes, except for Fisher. When I asked him what he wanted, he said "blue" and pointed to the blue cotton candy ice cream - and it tasted exactly like cotton candy - yuck! Too sweet for me, but he didn't seem to have a problem with it.

Hope Watermelon Festival

One word to describe the trip to the Hope, AR Watermelon Festival - SIZZLING! We had planned a trip to the zoo in Tyler for Friday, but I was afraid the 100 degree temps would be a little too much, so we went to Hope instead. Am I glad we didn't make the drive to the zoo, because we barely lasted an hour at the watermelon festival! It was just way too hot. We looked at a few of the vendors, and then had to cool down with a shaved ice. Gracie was a cranky-pants until she got to eat that cherry sno-cone!

Scrap Night!

One of my favorite nights when Alyssa was here was Saturday, the night before she left. We all went upstairs and made a scrapbook of her trip to Texas. I had been taking pictures of everything we did, and we had them printed Saturday afternoon. After eating dinner that night, Clint and Kevin got to take care of the kids, and we went upstairs. Alyssa sorted the pictures into categories, and we each picked a day or two to make our pages. Alyssa made the shopping page (pink and black stickers - so girly and cute!) and the Sci-port page. Lolo made a page about Gracie's birthday party. Tracy, the speed scrapper - lol - made the Watermelon Festival page, the Craft Day page and the title page with Alyssa arriving at the airport in Little Rock. I got to make the Shreveport Boardwalk page and the Hairspray movie page. I was so happy that we got to send her home with a memento of her trip. I promised her I would scrap these pics as well and send them to her to add to her album.