Birthday Celebration

We celebrated Peyton's birthday with her friends in June and tonight with Grammy & Grampy.  We will celebrate yet again on her actual birthday Thursday.  But 10 is too exciting not to celebrate BIG!

Birthday Dinner: Homemade mac & cheese, caesar salad, bread & pork tenderloin.

Here's hoping her wishes come true!

Grammy got her Speed Stacks which she LOVES.

Happy Birthday Maddie!

Maddie is 13 today!  We officially have a teenager in the house. 

Started out the day with breakfast and gifts at home.  Then to church and lunch with friends.

An afternoon of Mario Kart with Peyton

Dinner tonight with Grammy & Grampy (notice the new red lifeguard sweatshirt from Grammy)

French Silk Pie from QFC was the birthday request.  :)

Happy Birthday Maddie!

Birthday Celebration #2

We celebrated Peyton's birthday tonight with Grammy & Grampy. Jim made his homeade lasagna (Peyton's choice) and the girls helped me make a lemon cake (again, Peyton's choice.)

Cheering Section

Maddie had a great big cheering section for her game tonight.  They won their semifinal game, so tomorrow they play for the championship!

Happy Birthday Grammy!

We celebrated Grammy's birthday tonight. We had almost all the family here together, just missing Jeannine, Ron, Haley & Willie. Happy Birthday Grammy!

Christmas

Christmas Eve at Kristi & Wayne's:

Christmas Day at the Raleighs:

The Nutcracker

Grammy takes the girls to the Nutcracker every year at this time. You can see previous years here and here. They really look forward to it. This year Jim and I went along for the first time.Here's Maddie's orchestra performing some songs in the lobby beforehand.

The ballet was a very fun show, although about a 1/2 hour into it, Jim asked me "isn't there any talking?" :)

Thanks for a fun afternoon, Grammy!

Spike Tournament

Maddie had her final volleyball tournament of the season this weekend. After a tough loss yesterday, they rallied back for an exciting win today for a third place finish! Her team really played hard, worked together and improved so much this season.

Maddie improved her serve all year, learned to be more aggressive and to be a team player. We are so proud of her! And we are a tiny bit relieved that the season is over. 3 nights of practice each week plus games--that was pretty much our social life for the past couple of months.Here's the team cheer at the beginning of each game (and the siblings cheering along).And the run up to meet the other team at the net.

I should have a photo of the parents in the stands. We all wanted them to win just as bad as the girls did. It was a stressful season for the parents ! :)

And special thanks to her most dedicated fan, Grammy...and Grampy who came today as well. The Acobas came yesterday to cheer her on, but I forgot to get a photo! We appreciate the support.

Saturday Sports

Today was the sports tour. Gma Sue and Grammy cheered Maddie on in volleyball while Papa was watching Max play soccer.Then, we all met up at Morgan's soccer game to cheer her on. Luckily we had a little rain, but nothing too bad. Everyone played great and were grateful for the extra large cheering section.

Pey Pey

Peyton celebrated her 8th birthday officially today.
She woke up to lots of presents
including a new tennis racket and sweat bands
Spent the morning with Mary who brought her this HUGE cute cupcakeSpent the HOT afternoon having a lemonade stand with Maddie. Bonus points to the UPS guy who stopped and bought lemonade and tipped!
Had a birthday dinner with Grammy & Grampy.

Now, I told her to stop growing up, because she's getting too big! We love you Pey!

Sleepover

Grammy & Grampy invited the girls over for a sleepover tonight. I'm pretty sure they'll get lots of attention, get taken to OES to play on the cool playground, eat a yummy dinner and dessert and watch Bugs Bunny! Thanks for having them!

Softball Ends

Maddie had her last softball game of the season last night. They had a great team, awesome coaches & were undefeated! Here are some photos that another mom passed along:

Sunny Softball Saturday

Our prayers were answered and we had a sunny Saturday to watch softball! Gma Sue is in town, so she got to see the action in person. Peyton fielded great and had a good hit every time at bat.

The cheering section: Grammy, Gma Sue, Max, Aunt Kristi & Jim

Then, tonight was Maddie's game. We couldn't have planned it better if we tried-she hit a HOME RUN with Gma and all the Acobas cheering her on! It was awesome. We went to DQ to celebrate after the game.
Emily videotaped the homerun on her phone. You can see it here.

Softball Begins...

Peyton had her first game today. Grammy came along to cheer her on and just as the game was about to begin, it began to DOWNPOUR. Luckily it only lasted a few minutes and the game was able to begin.
Peyton did great, played first base, left field and 2nd base. She got hits every time..and I even got one on video!