Good-bye tutus...

Ansley hung up her ballet shoes for soccer.... and it ended up being a great decision. Ansley just wasn't into ballet anymore and it was a battle to go every week, so we decided it was best to not finish out the class. We signed Ansley up for a 5 week soccer clinic at the Y, she absolutely loved it! She just loves to be outside running around. She really liked her soccer coach, Mr. Matthews, he was great with her. We will probably do one more clinic in the fall and if she still enjoys it then we will sign her up for a spring soccer league.

Chicago Trip

Santa (aka Rob) surprised me and had planned a trip for us to go to Chicago in March. This was such a much needed trip minus kiddos. Unfortunately, I had come down with another sinus infection before we left but made sure I got some antibiotics and we were set to go. Thanks to Mimi & Pops who came to our house to watch the girls. Ansley could have cared-less that we were leaving, she was super excited to have Mimi & Pops for a couple of days.

We had a wonderful trip! I had never been to Chicago before so I was excited to see everything I had heard about. The first night, we went to Second City, it was AWESOME! I highly recommend going if you go to Chicago. It is a comedy club where a lot of the SNL people have come from. We laughed non-stop for almost 3 hours. Afterwards we were going to try to find a near by club one of our friend's had mentioned but with no luck we decided to just head back to our hotel.

We went site-seeing one day, and walked all over. It actually wasn't too cold and with the sun shining, it was comfortable. We started out walking up to Millenium Park and saw "The Bean". Rob had never heard of it before, it was beautiful and I loved how you could see the Chicago skyline in it. We then headed over to the Willis Tower (use to be the Sears Tower) which was amazing! Definitely high up, but the views were so worth it, absolutely breath-taking! After the Willis Tower we ate at Lou Malnitis http://www.loumalnatis.com/, one of the best deep dish pizza restaurants. I never thought I would be able to finish one of those pizzas, but I didn't disappoint, it was so yummy!

After we were nice and full from lunch, we walked over to Grant Park, and went to the aquarium. It was a nice aquarium but I have to admit, it has nothing on the Atlanta Aquarium. Once we finished with the aquarium we walked back to the hotel. We had dinner plans with some of college friends.

For dinner we went to a great Mexican restaurant, Mercaditos http://www.mercaditorestaurants.com/, and met up with Max Weighandt, and his beautiful bride, Leslie, and Drew Moore (Drew & Max were Sigma Chi's with Rob). We had a great time catching up, eating great food, and enjoying some Margaritas (I had way too many!).

Unfortunately, I was struggling the next day which I was upset about because this was the day we were going to go shopping down Michigan Avenue. It was also the big St. Patrick's Day parade and where they dye the river green. So, I got some Starbucks, a bagel and fought through it! Or at least I tried. It was very cold this day, but we went to check out the green river, and they aren't kidding when they say it is green, it is LIME GREEN! It was cool to see. Afterwards, we started our shopping day. This is huge for Rob to let me shop all day, he does not like shopping at all, but he was a trooper. We also met up with Uncle Boo at a bar, he was also in town for the St. Patrick's Day festivities....Later that night we went to another great restaurant recommended to us by our friends, Sunda http://www.sundachicago.com/. It was a very swanky sushi restaurant! We had a great time on our last night.

Needless to say, we had an amazing trip! It went by really fast, but we definitely want to go back again when it is a little warmer. It is such a great city! Definitely tops my list of favorite city's...

gorgeous day for sight-seeing

the tour boat, we decided to not do because it was too cold!

ice-skating rink, I believe this is at Grant Park?

"The Bean"

taking a picture of ourselves in the refleciton of "the bean"

looking up inside "the bean"...thought this came out so cool!

love how you can see some of the skyline in "the bean"

Views from the Willis Tower

we are out on the observation deck, it hangs out from the Willis Tower

lookig down from inside the observation deck... we are VERY high up!

The best Pizza!

Yes, I finished the whole thing :)

Rob was sad we were leaving...but we ate enough to keep us full for the afternoon

the aquarium

view from the aquarium, Chicago Skyline behind us

drinks after we ate at Mercadito's

(L/R: Me, Max, Rob, Leslie, & Drew)

Rob, Drew, & Max

Chicago celebrating St. Patty's Day...the river is very GREEN!

wearing our green proudly!

Playing Dress-Up

One of my girl friend's has a daughter who is one year older then Aly and has wonderful boutique clothing she was going to sell. Lucky for me she let me have first dibs :) So we played dress up one day so I could see what would fit for the summer months. She looked precious in all the clothing!

practicing standing up!

the back-view, ha!

Teddy Bear Parade

During the winter Ansley's class had a teddy bear parade. They decorated a shoe box and pulled their teddy bear through the halls of our preschool. I was sad I wasn't able to be there, I was so sick with another sinus infection (had way too many of these this past winter). Luckly, daddy was able to go and take some pictures!

so excited to see daddy at her parade

it is hard to see but Ansley is pulling her tedding bear

(she is wearing pink jammies - aka Aly's sleeper from when she was a baby)

Ansley isn't happy, she thought Rob was going to join in on the parade... it is always something!

Daddy turns 32

On February 4th Rob turned 32. Ansley helped me bake Rob's cake, she loves to put the sprinkles on top :) We just had dinner at home, with cake as our dessert and then opened presents! Aly had her first taste of cake and loved it :) This was no surprise to us because she will eat anything!

We got a babysitter for the following night and Rob and I went out to a restaurant we have been wanting to go to but just had not found the time to go. Dresslers was really good, I ate entirely too much. It was just nice for the two of us to get out without the girls....

We hope daddy had a wonderful birthday, we love you!

 Aly enjoying some of daddy's birthday cake!

Aly's Baptism

Over Martin Luther King weekend, Aly got baptized. It was such a wonderful weekend spent with family. Unfortunately, my mom couldn't be there :( But we understood, she had to take care of my grandmother.

Aly did so well during the service. We were nervous for a second and thought she was going to loose it when we handed her over to our minister. But I let Rob do it, because if it was me, then she would have definitely started to cry. Aly wore the same baptism gown that Madison, Ansley & Hailey wore. I am so glad all the Willson grand-daughters have been able to wear this gown. I definitely want to get the gown perserved so that when the little girls have their own daugthers they can wear this special gown.

After the service, we all went back to our house for nice brunch. I actually wasn't stressed about getting everything ready for us to eat since I was able to do everything the day/night before. We were able to enjoy some mimosas and bloody mary's while the food was cooking. We had a honey baked ham (thanks Nana & Pop Pop for buying it for us), green bean bundles wrapped in bacon, hashbrown casserole, rolls, and fruit salad. And to top it all off, we had some yummy cake! I had Harris Teeter make the cake, and it was delicious; however, it looked so ghetto (sorry if that offends anyone, but it was not what I had pictured). At least we can look back at it and laugh at the gold foil leaves on it :) ....Even though it looked this way, we still managed to finish it off!

We can't thank everyone (Aunt Kelly, Uncle Brent, Maddie, Hailey, Uncle Boo, Aunt CC, Pop Pop (and we know Nana would have been here if she could have), Pops, Mimi) enough for making the trip up here to witness Aly's baptism. It was a very special day to us!It was a very special day and we were very grateful our family was able to share it with us. We love you!

Our sweet little girl at her baptism at Davidson United Methodist

January 16, 2011

the pic below is from my sister's camera

wish this pic would have come out better, but Ansley did not want to smile, she gave a very fake smile!

not the best family picture, but at least we got one!

Love the picture below of my dad and Aly

 Madison LOVES her cousin Aly

the ghetto cake!