The Holler

After a very green and yummy breakfast we headed down to the Holler (and now that I'm writing that I'm wondering if I'm spelling it correctly). We went because we learned Aunt Jen had never been. I'm not sure if the kids had ever been either. I'm also not really sure how to explain it. It's basically valleys close to Baxter. I don't know if it's officially Buffalo Valley or officially the Holler or something else all together. I remember going for drives there frequently when Andrew and I were children. It wasn't far from where we lived and Mom and Dad enjoyed collecting wild flowers there. It seems like it was a main attraction for anyone who ever visited us and we always took company there. It's pretty, fun and great for lots of exploration if you're a kid. I guess you just have to go and see/experience it for yourself. If you ever visit my parents and haven't had the pleasure of a visit to the Holler, ask them to take you there! :) We stopped at one of the places we frequented growing up and the girls had a fantastic time!Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Andrew helped the girls explore and find fossils

Aunt Jen found a little salamander

One happy little girl!

One happy dog!

The girls tried to skip rocks with Uncle Andrew and Aunt Jen. Somewhere along the way Reagan decided it was more efficient to locate the largest rocks and just chuck them in. If you can't skip a rock, then you might as well create the biggest splash possible, right?!?!?

No harm in trying, right?

Besides the hat, I think Reagan looks like she's walking like a Leprechaun in this picture :)

Kennedy enjoyed throwing large rocks as well

Jackson never really went near the water but he throughly enjoyed inspecting each rock individually

Then he decided it was pretty funny to hold rocks on top of his head. Looking at this picture it's definitely one of those times I wish I could hear exactly what he was thinking. :)

Jackson also enjoyed hanging out with Grammy while the girls explored with Uncle Andrew, Aunt Jennifer and Boss

Nothing like a good book (especially if it's about Thomas and Friends) when rocks are no longer exciting enough entertainmentMissy K and Grand-Dad

Thank you for a fun morning in the Holler!

Celebrating St. Patrick's Day in Tennessee

Uncle Andrew and Aunt Jennifer traveled to Tennessee from Alaska the middle of March. They wanted to visit family before hitting the Appalacian Trail for a month in preparation of climbing Mt. Denali in May. They were in Tennessee over St. Patrick's Day and as you can see we came prepared to celebrate! :) Three beautiful LeprechaunsOf course Boss didn't want to be left out of the festivities. He practically begged us to put this Leprechaun hat on his head. :)

Grammy made her amazing Long Johns for us but turned both the donuts and frosting green for fun. :)

Jackson wasn't sure which hat he wanted to wear but he didn't have any trouble determining that the Long Johns were delicious!!! :)

What a happy (and super cute) baby boy!

Reagan headed outside in search of a Leprechaun

Reagan was quite dissapointed not to discover a Leprechaun in Grammy and Grand-Dad's yard but amazingly we found SIX 4-leaf clovers! Here's a picture of 4 of them. What luck!

Baking Bread with Grammy

Kelly and Chaz left on Wednesday of their first week of Spring Break and let Anna stay with us for a couple of fun days. Grammy stopped in Kentucky on her way back from Wisconsin to help us all get back to Tennessee. After spending a couple of days over the weekend in Tennessee, Grammy came back with us to Kentucky to spend a few days of her spring break with us here. I'm not sure how it is that I don't have any pictures of the week that transpired in that time (given that I have 100 pictures of everything and anything) but it was a super fun way to spend Tennessee's spring break. :)

~

During Grammy's visit, she helped us bake bread one day. I've actually been interested in finding a good and easy bread recipe so we decided to see if it would work to use Grammy's wonderful dinner roll recipe for bread instead. The girls were both excited about getting started with Grammy.

Jackson quickly decided he wanted to get in on the action as well. He just had some specific ideas on exactly how he wanted to help and wasn't entirely sold on the idea of following directions...

I think Grammy was helping Kennedy with the salt while Reagan was measuring sugarJackson thought using the mixer was pretty amazing!

Talk about teamwork! Love it! :)

Here's some serious teamwork in action; adding flour while stirring it in with a wooden spoonJackson thought adding flour was a lot of fun too

Jackson did not appreciate being told we had enough flour... Sometimes life just isn't fair! Meanwhile Grammy taught the girls how to kneed the bread.

Reagan doing her best to follow the directions but kneeding bread is a little more complicated than either Grammy or I realized. Practice makes perfect though!

Thank you for spending so much time with us over your spring break, Grammy! We had lots of fun playing and baking with you! :)

Snow - At Long Last!!! :)

To our great dismay, we received hardly any snow this winter. :( A couple of dustings here and there but we only had one good snow where there was enough to go outside and play in. As luck would have it, it happened to snow in early March when Kelly, Chaz and Anna were visiting us. This was the first opportunity the kids have ever had to enjoy snow together and they did have a wonderful time! Our next door neighbor girls, Macy and Meagan, also came over to increase our fun!

~

Incidentally, growing up I remember quite frequently receiving our best snow the first week in March. Even though the weathermen certainly weren't predicting it, I told Kelly she should bring the kids snowclothes. She laughed at me and didn't bring their clothes. I guess you can see below who had the last laugh! lol :)

~
This is a bit out of sequence but I wanted to begin the post with the best group shot I caught of our crew lined up for sledding in front of our house.

The kids actually began playing in the backyard making small snow forts to use during snowball fightsMeagan made one enormous snowball!

Sweet Anna making a snow angel

One very happy Missy Reagan to get outside and play in the snow!

The big kids decided to try and pull the little guys around our yard.

We did have Jackson out in the snow last winter but he obviously didn't recall that as he was only a few months old. I was very excited he had the opportunity to finally get to really play in the snow! Jackson on the other hand, was not so excited about this fine opportunity...

I had to get this picture of Macy and Kennedy since they were both wearing frog hatsBest friends, Anna and Reagan, taking their first sled ride together in our backyard - so sweet! :)

After playing in the back for a while we finally made it to the front where our best little hill is. It is absolutely perfect for kids the age and size of ours! Here are Chaz and Anna posing for a sibling pic especially for me. :)

And they're off!

Reagan and Anna lined up and ready to go!

This sort of wild and crazy activity is right up my wild and crazy girls alley!

I couldn't help but take a couple of pictures of these best buddies racing each other

and sledding together - ahhh.... ;)

Chaz enjoyed trying out Meagan's snowboard - looks like a pro!

After a CONSIDERABLE amount of convincing and conjoling Jackson finally decided the snow wasn't all that bad and sledding is actually quite a bit of fun!

This series of pictures of Kennedy sledding is probably my favorite of the day. I definitely see an amazing scrapbook page coming out of these in the future!

I'm hoping and wishing we have a lot more snow next winter but I'm so thankful for the snow we finally received in March this year! I love snow every bit as much as the kids! The only thing I can't figure out is why Kelly and Karen weren't out there playing with me?!?!?