Happy Birthday, Isabelle!

Finally, the long awaited day arrived! Never before in the history of the world has one girl so eargerly awaited their birthday! Now, finally, the day has came and gone. The torn shreds of wrapping paper are settling like ticker tape after a parade, and Isabelle is well and truly seven years old!



Since her birthday was on a Friday, she had to go to school. I (and Lexie) showed up at about noon with cup cakes. We had lunch with the class, read a story, and I hung around helping Ms. Graham with a few little chores until school let out.



Afterwards, cousin Katie came over for a sleepover. They even went to sleep at some point.

Saturday was the day of her party at Wishes! where they got to dress up as rock stars, sing karoke and have great time.



Afterwards, a bunch of the girts ended up at our house playing for a few more hours.

Overall, it was a fun few days. And Isabelle turned 7!

Opryland, Part III

Part I; Part II

Finally, we get to the final day; Sunday.

Here are all the children looking cute in front of one of the many trees scattered throughout the hotel. I tried to get one for our Christmas card, but the only good ones of all our kids had Zoe in them too:



We headed to the gingerbread-house-making section next:



There was an elf to help them, which was good! Zoe made some gingerbread cookies. Here is the finished house:



Then we went into the Hall of Trees. You can bid on a tree to win the stuff that was hanging on it, and the proceeds go to charity. Quick, only 15 days left to bid! (And no, I did not bid on any Update: I did bid on this one, mainly as Callum wanted the art supplies! I don't expect to win though!). This was my favourite tree, because it had music playing and Lexie dancing (I don't remember which was it actually was though):



The kids like the Madagascar 2 one (go figure)...



After the Trees, Pennie went into the Hall of treasures, which sold Christmas junk and other stuff, I guess, while Lexie rode the train (she does love riding trains!):



The, we had lunch, and drove back the 3 hours to Memphis to pick up Maggie. She appeared to have done OK, but is no better trained now than she was before.

One last picture of Lexie, just because this is my favourite picture right now: