Northside art show, dancing pictures, beating 'da Bears and Daddy's birthday

Katie's school had an art show this past Thursday, so Katie and I went to see all the exhibits. Here Katie is outside her school (gosh, I wish she would come out of her shell!):

Here is the proud artist with her work:

Her drawing of Nottoway plantation:

We had dance pictures this weekend and Katie posed outside the studio in her beautiful ballet costume. She loves it alot.

This is Emma with her friend Anna in their Ballet costumes. They are quite adorable. Anna's big sister Ali is in Katie's class, so we see a lot of them!

Here is Emma in her too, too adorable tap outfit. When she wears it with her hair down, she looks just like Madaline. Bonjour petite fille!






One of the most exciting events of the weekend was our 13 inning defeat of Catholic High, who is /was ranked #1 in the state. Did I mention that we also beat Barbe and Northshore this year who were also ranked #1 at one time. Guess the yellow-jackets are moving up in the world. I tried to get a picture of the scoreboard after the game, but missed it. Here is a picture of Mark's boys:

Daddy celebrates his "twenty-ninth" birthday AGAIN! We brought a cookie cake to his "baseball boys" at practice, while we had Mark's favorite for dessert - white cake with chocolate icing:

More soccer and welcome baby Sarah!

Sorry this is so redundant (the soccer thing), so I won't leave much detail, just a few pictures:

Emma dancing on the soccer field:

Emma in action:

Emma's soccer team with Coach Karl, one of the most patient people I have ever seen - are they too cute?

My good friend from work, Julie and her husband had their first baby Friday, so the Carroll girls went to visit "Miss" Julie and Mr. Andy and new baby Sarah - one of the prettiest new babies I have ever seen:

... but maybe the favorite part was dancing on the music chimes in the courtyard of the hospital:

Soccer and Baseball weekend

Nothing exciting going on this weekend - just the usual, baseball and soccer. The weather was amazing and we were sorry to miss the St. Patrick's day parade with Nannie Kim and / or Eleanor, but we had a busy schedule.

Mark wanted me to take a picture of the field with the new "Buzz" the yellow jacker on it. This is a picture before we played a team out of Florida. We got beat, but after this game we played the number one ranked team in the state, Northshore and beat them, Yeah yellow jackets!




Emma had another soccer game; here she is kicking the ball in, but other than that, she rarely touches the ball. Still no "killer instinct" in the Carroll girls when it comes to sports!!

Awww... arent they sweet? Another rare captured moment, where we love each other!

... and the caption on this one is "... just give me some pom - poms instead of these shin guards!"

Quick trip to Monroe

So we played hookie from school for 2 days for our 2nd annual trip to Monroe for Mark's baseball tourney. We started this last year, now that I am brave enough to drive the 4 hours by myself. (Mark goes on the charter bus with "his boys"). The weather was awesome, and we use this time to visit with Grandma.

Here I am somewhere near Vidalia (um... no I wasn't driving when Katie took this):

Is that what I think it is.....?

It sure is... wonder where this was headed:

Most importantly, though is we got to visit with Mark's mom. She has moved into a very nice assisted living facility, no too far from ULM:

Grandma and her "favorite" child:

Grandma with Katie and Emma. Ignore Emma's blue / red lips; she seems to have a lip licking problem that we are trying to remedy:

Oh, yeah, and there was some baseball involved this weekend. We actually had super weather, and I didn't mind sitting out to watch a few innings. Mark and the team went 3 out of 4 while they were there.

The cute 3rd base coach:

The girls at their 2nd home, the ball field:

Dad and his girls after we beat Belle Chase:

Rain, rain, go away!

Well, no soccer this Saturday b/c of the rain we had all day (and all night) Friday. So... the girls and I had a nice shopping day. We got haircuts at Snip Its, ate lunch and walked around Hobby Lobby. Emma had her first skating party for her friend Ada from school at Skate Heaven. This was Emma's first time skating, and I have to say, I was pretty impressed at how brave she was.

Emma and Ada:

The cautious skater:

Emma and Ada slowly round the rink!

Typical Carroll girl - so shy to pose:

After the party, all of us hung out with Jovi and enjoyed the awesome almost-March weather:

Emma's first soccer game!

Well, Emma has now participated in her first organized team sport, and like most 5 year olds, she spent most of her time goofing off with her teamates and wondering what the snack was for after the game! We have the unfortunate luck of being the orange team (a little too Halloween-ish for my taste), but Emma doesn't really care. I think she had a good time and spent most of her playing time running (or often skipping) around the crowd around the ball. She got to throw it in and kick it a few times. We'll see if she has that "killer instinct" for competetion by the end of the season. The weather was great, and it was nice just sitting out there. Here are a few pictures:

2nd post (I will get more creative with my titles!)

Wow! That wasn't so bad! Here is one more post, then I'll probably need to rest (tee-hee). Who knows, I may even figure out facebook this year!

We have tried to transition Katie's room from the princess thing to a kind of underwater, bubble type thing. We have been adding blue and green circles to the wall over the Mardi Gras break. I think it came out pretty good. Can you find the hidden Mickey?