Spring is in the air ...

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Just some random pictures I took this Spring, most of them on my cell phone so they aren't great quality but still, you can see just how pretty all the colors are here.

 It's so hard to get the full effect of this picture but there are so many roads that just have rows and rows of trees that look like this, too much pollen to deal with really but still, you can get an idea.  Then a few weeks later when  the leaves come in all those blossoms blow off the trees and the roads look like they have a layer of snow on them, all very pretty even though Spring is a tough season with my allergies and all.

Up close this is how the cherry blossoms look.

This was outside where Amber did her swim lessons.

At the Church where I work ... lots of pretty blooms.

In the parking lot ...

More bushes at the church ... I love these, I want them in my garden.

And the red version of them.

This one is pretty too, reminds me a bit of honey suckle but it's not, in fact we don't get too much honey suckle here at all which is weird but when we do get it, you can smell it a mile away, I love that smell.

This one was actually taken up in the mountains a month later but still pretty.

And that was just a bit of the color we experience here, I really need to take more next year to show it to you better and of course I need to take a decent camera with too.

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St Paddy's Day Parade !!! Representing for Gavin & Gigi in Ireland !!!

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We had never been to the St Paddy's Day Parade in the city so were excited to go, we had heard it was huge which of course it was, there were hundreds of people there all dressed up in the traditional green and all but the parade was super, super long, not sure we will go again because of that, or if we do, we will be way more prepared, will have chairs, and blankets if it gets cold and refreshments of course.  I think the only way we will go again is if Gavin and Gigi are still in Ireland next year at the same time, then just maybe we will go represent for them, one last time.

This is the girls dressed up before we left the house ...

Jade looks so grown up doesn't she ... she really is becoming a young lady way faster than we thought it would all happen.

One of the random groups coming by.

We thought these guys were funny but Amber wanted nothing to do with them, just another one of her crazy fears, she is not hugely into any sort of characters at the moment, on the TV yes but in real life, nope ... as long as they keep their distance she is ok.

Gavin, I totally forgot about this :-( it would have been so cool, you can take a tour of Charlotte while you cycle this trolley with a group of people, drinking of course LOL ... oh I so wish I remembered this, although it would have been hot, hot, hot !!!  Next time right ?

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Been forever since I posted last ... not sure if I will ever catch up !!!

Gosh the last time I posted was in March, can you believe that ... for those that follow my family on here, I am sorry but really I just don't get much time to sit down and compose much anymore, life is just too busy so for me to try and catch up here, well that would take too long but I am also trying to keep pictures posted here that if anything ever happened to my computer and we had not backed up that at least my girls will be able to pull some pictures from here, even though I only started blogging in 2007 and I don't think my good old website that I used to do even exists anymore but still ... something is better than nothing.  It is such a sad state of affairs to me that I don't have hardly any pictures from my childhood to look back on :-( so just trying to avoid that ever happening to my girls.

I am going to start posting a lot of pictures, most might be pictures you have already seen but as I explained in the paragraph above it's mainly a back up for me too ... they won't have all the detail I usually post monthly or at least more often but at least the pictures will be here for them and hopefully their memories are still good and they can remember what was going on at the time the shot was taken.

Anyway ... first things first and this seems so old now but here is the video that I am sure you have all seen by now, the one of Jade doing The Cup Song which she still does all the time, she looks forward to showing all the South African family in December ...

This took forever to video as you can imagine, every time she messed up we had to do a redo ... but thankfully it eventually got done.  I love this song, Amber and I know all the words too but I am so uncoordinated, it's too funny to watch me try and do this ... the kids think it's hilarious !!!

Ok one post down ... many to go, hang in there.

Just a few pictures of the girls ...

Considering they look happy in all these pics ... Jade actually after Tumble that night said she had a sore throat so I rushed her to the Minute Clinic since she has a big competition tomorrow and I wanted her to be well for it ... this was Monday night ... anyway she has strep so onto antibiotics she went.  She was home from school Tuesday but already was so much better and back to school on Wednesday.

That's my smiley girl, gosh I can't say it enough how this little one lights up our lives with that smile, of course she gets away with murder because of it too.  She just has the biggest smile and really for the most part is such a happy girl.

My blue eyed girl ... yeah I don't think she is going to keep the blonde hair but thank Heavens she will always have those blue eyes that are so striking, you have to enlarge this picture to see them though :-)  She is starting to grow up way too fast.

I took so many pictures of them but couldn't get them both smiling in the same picture, ti was crazy, this is about the best one I got.

Oh and this sideways shot, now really what can I do with that ?

Too cute.

Looking so grown up.

And she is our joker, you have to see her dance and sing ... oh I should add those two videos, let me go see if I can find them :-)

This is a song that Amber learned at what she calls 'church school' which is where I work.  The preschool she goes to is also a Christian Preschool so I find it funny she calls my preschool that.  Anyway she had been singing this all day so I video'd it.

Amber has been amazing with music and singing from gosh her early 2's, she learns tunes so fast, golly and sings along to most songs, obviously she does not know all the words but she sings it like she does which totally irritates Jade (hehehe).  Anyway here is one video of her that I thought was really cute, wish I had made more over time, to show her one day.

Jade has what she calls a new found talent, we need to video her, maybe I will do that this afternoon and post it once I have it uploaded :-)  So stay tuned.

Sisters !!!

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Ok so after that beautiful snow we came indoors and I told the girls to go take a shower, Amber loves to shower with Jade and normally Jade doesn't mind too much but she came home tired and miserable from her sleepover and she was not getting her way and didn't want Amber to shower with her but of course Amber is super persistent so ...

Next thing I hear screaming, you know that kind of scream you never want to hear as a parent where you know someone got really hurt ... Dave was upstairs and I was doing lunch downstairs, I called up and there was a long silence and eventually Dave said I better some up ...

OMG I had heard the door slam but didn't for one minute think that was the cause of all the crying, of course I should have known because we have had the door fight a billion times in this house ... but yeah, Jade had slammed the door on Amber finger, on the hinge side and the finger looked terrible, I was sure it was broken.  It was the tip and it swelled up so fast and the nail had been cut through, I was sure it was broken !!

Jade can be lucky she was in the shower, I was so mad, she said later she could tell she was in big trouble by the fact that my screams were becoming louder and more high pitched, she had never heard me that angry.  You see the girls really can play nicely when they want to but it sadly is not often, they really fight so much and they can both be mean but I guess Jade has 7 years on Amber so poor Amber often gets the raw deal in it all.

Anyway thank Heavens we are less than 2 minutes from a brand new hospital so we rushed her over there, they helped us nice and quickly even though it all took so much longer than we thought it would because there weren't many people there ... anyway, they were all so gentle with her, the nurse said she needed xrays for sure and said that when the nail is broken for the most part the finger would be too so off to xrays we went, she was so good, my kids are so good at the doctor and dentists etc. as long as you tell them exactly what is going to happen they are super good.

Thank Heavens no break but they did say to give her lots of Tylenol and Motrin for a couple of days and that her nail might come off, they strapped it up for her, really mainly so it looked worse when Jade saw it and sent us home.

It looks great now and I don't think the nail is going to come off it really healed well.  For a while she wanted a bandaide on it, it didn't look good and that freaked out her but otherwise she was very guarded with that hand but was fine.

As for Jade, well I told them both, the next kid to slam a door in my house, the door is coming of the hinges for a month, doesn't matter if it's the bathroom or bedroom, I think that scared Jade half to death coz obviously at her age she is getting into wanting so much privacy :-( but oh well.  There's another memory in the life of the kids.

Here is a pic of Amber just before we came home.

Unexpected Snow - February 2013

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Well yeah, normally when we get snow or are going to get snow, we get tons of warning, mostly because we don't get much snow down here and when it does snow, it causes so much havoc.  The roads need to be salted, you need to stock up at the store with stuff just in case you can't get to the store, make sure you have candles and non perishable stuff in case you lose power ... yeah crazy I know and all the schools go into 'do we close or have a delay' mode.

Anyway we have had a couple of these this year but even with a dusting of snow the schools have not closed thank Heavens, oh one day I got all the way to work and as I got there they cancelled work but that is ok, if we make it to work and make the effort even if we have to leave we get paid for that so score on that note but nothing else much.

But then two weekends ago we got warning of snow, snow that it would snow on and off all day but the temperatures would not be low enough to make it stick or get a build up, now that's no fun :-( but oh well so that Saturday, it did snow on and off but nothing much to write home about, Jade had a sleepover party so we took her to the party and then came home and had a relaxing afternoon before we had to head out to a house warming party ... the party was here in Waxhaw at 5h30 so at 5h00 I headed downstairs and well you know how it goes when you are about to head out it always starts to rain, so coming down the stairs I saw what looked to be rain drops on the deck outside anyway then continued to get ready.  About 10 minutes later David came downstairs and said 'have you looked outside lately' my response was 'yeah it's raining' to which he replied ... 'go take a look' !!!  We were having a blizzard or well gosh a blizzard in NC terms (hehehe) and we had to head out in this.  Pictures do it no justice but take a look.

This much accumulated in like 20 minutes, it was so weird, it came down so quickly.  We would hope it would stick but really it was not that cold so we had to see.  Jade was playing in it at the party she was at and we were off to our party as I said so there was no time to play in it sadly so we were praying that it would stick.

The road to our friends house in the 'blizzard' was bad but as long as we were on the road with other cars we just followed them, but when we turned down into quiet neighborhoods like theirs, there were no roads, it was just one big snow covered blanket, thank God Dave was driving but even he thought he was on the sidewalk sometimes.

When we got to their house, they have this crazy steep driveway so we stopped at the top so as not to battle to get out later, that was a wise decision, David tried to get Jennifers car out for her and he battled with that, had lots of fun but still it was a battle.  Me of course was wearing heels not knowing we were going to go down this hill or walk a mile till their door so that was a challenge but we managed.

When we left the snow had stopped but everything had stuck and it looked so very pretty.  The drive home was fine the roads thankfully were not iced so that was good.

These two pics I took when I got home, one with the lights on and the other with it off, it looked so pretty, thought I better get some pics in case I wake up and it is all gone.

This was the next morning.  Jade was only coming home for around 11 and the kids were all already out there playing, I was so sad she was not home on the one day of the year it snowed !!!

I had to take this picture to the side as the sun was so bright, I couldn't even see the house.

Amber snuck out for a second, no coat and all to quickly take this picture, with her bed hair and all but it was a quick shot and indoors again, brrrr it was cold out there.

Our Winter wonderland out back, I love the snow on the trees.

That's North Carolina for you, Carolina Blue skies the sun peeping through the snow covered trees.

I should have taken a picture from upstairs, it was so pretty to look out at all the snow.

Finally Jade got home ... time to play.  Sadly so much of the snow had melted already but the girls were ready in their snow suits which I was happy they at least got to wear once.  Amber looked twice her size she was so bundled up but they lay in the snow and really got into it and when I undressed them at home they were both dry and really warm and sweaty actually.

Love this shot of the two of them.

This is one of my favorites, my 3 favorite people in it and that snow in the back just looks dreamy :-)

Ok so all the snow covered hills were gone, the kids in the hood had already ridden then to mud :-( was so sad for Jade but anyway ... so there is this little downhill by the pathway behind our house so this was Ambers first experience on a sled and oh my gosh she loved it, can you tell that little face just totally lit up, too cool.

Beautiful right.

Dave sure as heck got his workout in that day, dragging the two girls on their sleds.

He didn't drag them too far but for him I am sure it felt like miles ... all the way the girls were scooping up snow and throwing it at his back, it was too funny to see but I am sure he was not too impressed :-)

David finally getting them back (hehehe).

Love these shots of them in the snow and knowing even that they were sitting in that snow, they were dry to the bone :-) these snow suites are amazing.

Jade going down the little hill ... not too impressed at all but making the best of it.  She was actually grumpy and it was probably coz she went to be so late and was up so early at her sleepover.

Jade making snow angels.

Amber making snow balls.

Jade attempting a snowman.

Everyone rolling snow in our front yard to make a snowman which sadly didn't get photographed ... The photographer was inside making hot chocolate.

I guess that was the snow for us this year ... or maybe, don't know only time will tell.

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Happy Valentines Day

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So this Valentines Day fell on a Thursday and as usual Valentines Day is always so commercial and expensive so I thought Dave and I would get a babysitter and go out on the Friday so the Thursday we would do a little celebration at home ... Also one of the moms in Jades cheer group had just had surgery on both feet and was out of commission so many of the moms in the group had been taking her meals through the week, I had chosen Thursday since it is my only day I am hope and don't have other commitments to have to rush off to but I forgot it was Valentines Day so ... what you see below on our table, I put together an almost identical package and the girls and I delivered it to their house the afternoon, hoping of course they actually do celebrate Valentines Day (hehehe) well if they didn't they were now going to :-)  They said it was fun so am glad we could make light of it for them.

It was just apple juice but the bottle looked like champagne and we had it in these fun little glasses and each of us had our own little candle which the girls got a kick out of :-) it was a nice evening and the girls enjoyed their treats from Daddy and he enjoyed the ones from them too.

Sorry I did not get pictures of the girls like I usually do but the day got away from me a little.  I really do need to get some new pics of the two of them.

And now while we are on the 'love' page ... let me take this little opportunity to congratulate my inlaws on their 50th Wedding Anniversary, they had a big celebration with extended family back in SA and we were sorry to miss it but but still we are very proud of them and this wonderful accomplishment.  What an inspiration to so many married couples and especially to Dave and myself.  Good going you guys ... keep up the good work coz marriage is a tough one, takes lots of hard work and you guys have done an amazing job.

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Before I get too far behind ... let me get some pictures loaded.

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Thought I better get some pictures loaded before I get too far behind, only most of you would have already have seen some of these pictures either on Facebook or via email, so sorry for the duplication ...

This was the morning before Jades latest competition, it had snowed / iced slightly and the roads were not great and the venue for the competition was far out so I asked Dave to drive us there which would mean Amber would be in tow ... not a great idea.  Thought she would enjoy it but she was bored, good thing we are not taking her to the Myrtle Beach competition which is a two day competition !!!

Actually this coming weekend she has a competition up at one of our local universities and then all that is left is the Myrtle Beach competition, cannot believe that is another season of competition under her wing.

This is her last season with WAA which as been great, a huge learning curve for her and for me really but now it's onto bigger and better competitions.  She has already started tumbling classes every Monday for the past month with Charlotte All Stars which is not too far from our house, in fact they are the sister gym to where Jade used to do gymnastics all those years back so it's like we have come full circle since when we were working out there, they asked her to join their cheer group but I wasn't ready and now two years later, we are so ready.

She is loving her new gym and her new tumble classes but it's been a big commitment what with her other cheer two days a week as it is.  But I guess when we get started with them full time, it will be a huge wake up call for us all, not only financially but all commitment wise, we are now part of the big leagues.  She will only try out for a team in May but will continue to tumble with them until then, hopefully her getting a lot stronger will help her get into a more senior team.  We are all so excited.

Anyway here you go ...

Amber in her Zebra gear to support her sister. Yeah no I agree, she still has to grow into that bow ... but she is so tall, for a 3 1/2 year old that is :-) at the All Star gym they wanted me to sign her up there too, there is a 4 year old class.  I actually think she might be good at it but first things first ... this is all about Jade right now, Ambers time will come :-)

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