Emma's 4yr Pictures

I decided to take Emma to Portrait Innovations for the one pose, no sitting fee, $9.95 special for her 4 year pictures. How do you chose just one picture when they take 70? Needless to say, I spent much more than $9.95. Here are a few of the pictures they took....

Happy Easter!

The reason for the season

In so many ways, our lives are blessed. We are blessed to live in a free nation with so many comforts of today's world. But without the blessing and love of our Savior, it would all be for nothing. In our town, we have a preserved mound that gives us our name. Every Easter, they put up the crosses and hold a sunrise service on Easter to celebrate the Risen Lord.

On Friday, we went as a family to remember the day that Jesus died for the sins of all of those that believe in Him. It's great to see the little minds of our daughters putting together all the pieces of the story. They got excited for our trip up the mound and knew all the details of that day nearly 2000 years ago. While looking some little known pieces of detail about the crucifixion , I found the following discussion in a number of places about the others that were crucified with Christ.

As this was our first trip up the mound, the view from there is quite amazing to take in, being able to see all the way to downtown Dallas. There are countless numbers of people who drive by this historic mound every day, and how awesome it is that our town continues to remember our Lord and Savior during the Easter season!

Happy Birthday, Emma Faith

My sweet baby girl turned 4 on St. Patrick's Day (poor child will always have to wear green on her birthday). I was scheduled to be induced the following week, but she decided to make her grand entrance into the world when I was 37 weeks pregnant weighing in at 7 lbs. 13 oz and a healthy 21 in. How could that possibly have been 4 years ago? Where did the time go? It makes me weepy thinking about it.

Abby began planning for Emma's birthday on Sunday afternoon; she was so excited. Abby and I spent Sunday afternoon at Target picking out bd presents for Emma, and Abby came home and wrapped them with no assistance at all and did a great job. Monday morning, Abby was up a little after 6:30 to decorate the kitchen and get ready for Emma to come downstairs. After surprising her, Emma opened her presents, and it was time for the birthday breakfast. When I asked Emma what she wanted for her birthday breakfast, she said, "Well, it's something really tasty, has sprinkles on it, and a hole in the middle. What do you think it could be?" I couldn't resist her little riddle and cute smile, so a pink, sprinkled donut it was.

Then, I took the girls to storytime at the library since Abby never gets to go, and then Brian and I were off to our favorite class at Lifetime at 11:00. (The girls were excited to go to the childcenter, so it was all good). Then, we went and ate at the overly priced Lifetime Cafe where I had won a free lunch for the family in my Ironman Triclassathon challenge for coming in 3rd place. After a quick shower, we all headed to open bounce at Bounce World. The girls had fun bouncing for over an hour, but then a bd party started, and it got really crowded. So, we were off to Peter Piper Pizza for games and pizza. The day ended with High School Musical cupcakes and ice cream. It was a great birthday!

Rainy Day / Beach Party

So, the girls have put their usual imagination to work with all the rain we've had. One of their favorite 'games' is to have a beach party. They get out all the swimming toys we have and pretend to be at the beach. Here is a typical dress-up that goes on in our house.

Snorkeling anyone?

Princess B-Day Party

Last Sunday, we had Emma's 4th birthday party. Yes, it was over a week before her actual birthday, but with all the kids out on Spring Break, we were worried that some would be out of town and would not be able to make it. After much deliberation, we decided on a new place by Vista Ridge Mall called Going Bonkers. It's like a McDonald's playland (but 10 times bigger) mixed with Chuck E Cheese (without the characters). Jen checked out the place a few weeks back, and there were about 10 kids there. Sunday was a different story, with 4-5 different birthday parties going on every hour or so. For non-parties, it's $5 per kid and $1 per adult. Also, the playland area is labeled as Ages 4 to 100 (there is a smaller section for 0-3 yr olds). She created the guest list herself, so we invited a few girls from her class, a few friends she does playdates with, neighbors, and of course, her cousins.

Anyway, we showed up early so the kids could get in some extra playtime. This being my first time here, I was worried that Emma was going to be left behind, get all sad on her birthday, pushed around by some elementary age boy and ruin her day. I asked Abigail 5 different times to make sure not to run off without Emma. Boy was I wrong. Despite the chaos, Emma had a blast. Here you can see her heading up never to be found for a good 20 minutes...


She only came down to get a drink of water and went back up. She and a couple of friends went down this fairly long and fast slide probably 15 times (each time climbing their way back up the maze and then sliding down again). By this time, I gave up any reservations I had of her getting scared up there. Later, as more of her friends showed up (who acted like normal little girls and felt a bit intimidated by the size of the maze), Emma hung out with them on one of the many rope swings.


Finally, it was time to corral all the kids to the party room (the first hour of the 'party' is play time, followed by cake, ice cream and presents). Here you get to see her switch back into a little girl who is fascinated with Princess stuff... right down to the cake (which came from Target):


Next, it was time to open presents... and everything was Princess stuff. Toys, Dolls, Dresses, Shoes, Wands, PJs... you name it. Below is a dress that I have seen her in no less than 3 times this week (she's only had it for 5 days).


I have asked her on a couple of occasions to leave the 'princess shoes' that she is wearing at the bottom of the stairs before going up stairs to get something so that she doesn't come tumbling down the stairs in her high heeled shoes. Lastly, the kids went to an upstairs section where they got to play games, earn tickets, and trade them in for prizes.

Even though it was quite crowded and the party room was pretty packed with the 13 kids we had there, I call the party a grand success. Now, we just need to go back there sometime during the week when it's not so busy to that I can go up in the maze with the girls!

Dance Competition, Part 1.

Dance competition season has begun and last weekend was the first of 4. It was a fairly small competition, with Abigail's studio being only 1 of 3 studio's there. Most of the dances from her studio, including the 2 that Abigail participated in (a tap and jazz), were entered in the 'Expert' category for which they got 'Gold' for both of their dances. Basically, you have silver, gold, high-gold and platinum.A number of the girls from Abigail's studio won first place for their solo, duet, and group competitions... all winning a small cash prize.

Anyways, we were able to video her first dance (the benefit of showing up after the competition starts is you don't hear the announcement that no video recorders are allowed). The make-up is a little overwhelming, but they call it "stage" make-up because without it, the kids really do look very pale. Abby loves getting all made up, of course, but hates all the scrubbing it takes to remove it.

So, for your enjoyment, here is Abigail's tap routine where she shows the most emotion that I've ever seen in her dancing career.

Here we snow again

Twice in one week! Who can believe it? We got greeted today with many hours of snowfall today, totally up to 3 inches here at the Butler estate. Once again, it was big wet flakes that made for great snowball and snowman making. The girls were able to fully enjoy today's weather with their own snowball fight. I joined them later and built a couple of snowmen. Bailey liked the finish product because she had just enough reach to get to the candy corn teeth.

The rest of the snow day

You would've thought it was Christmas in the Butler house this morning. We told Abigail last night if she got ready quickly in the morning (i.e. eat) then she could go outside and play. She came bouncing down the stairs at 6:15a this morning ready to go (we normally wake her up around 7a). Emma woke up around 6:50a running into the office saying 'Daddy, daddy, daddy, you have to come look out my window. It's so beautiful!'. I worked from home this morning just to play out in the snow with the girls... knowing that it wouldn't last on the ground past lunch time. My only regret is not making the snowman last night because it was perfect packing snow. Even at 7a the snow had already melted enough that it wasn't great for rolling up a snowman. Maybe next year...

Btw, once the girls left, Bailey had her way with that little snowman eating up the candy corn that we had used for the eyes and nose.

More snow pics

We got a wonderful March gift tonight in the form of snow. For those that don't know, it's been in the 70s since last Thursday, and it was 71 at midnight this morning... but so much for that. We got over an inch of rain and thunderstorms and tornado watches overnight and some beautiful white snow this evening. The girls only got to see the beginning of the snow before heading off to bed, but they took the opportunity to catch a few flakes.


Then after the girls went to bed, we let Bailey go run around in the snow. She learned from the girls and caught a few of her own flakes.


I brought her inside with me after getting a little cold (I only had shorts and a sweatshirt on), and she wanted to go back out and play some more! This time I decided to put her sweater on her. She went outside and tried to locate all of her toys which are usually spread out all over the yard. Here you see her with a chew-stick that she had located.

Bailey's First Snow

My first of what will probably be many snow pictures shows the youngest Butler getting her first experience with snow. She is a hoot! The girls were already in bed when we started getting these big flakes so its just Bailey out having a good ole time.

This is my first video post so hopefully it works!