Ellie created a website!

Ellie is very into the animated movies and the behind the scenes of film making. This summer I'm going to try to get her into a UGA film camp that explores the process of film making, storyboard development, character building, editing... Some of her favorite movies are: Rise of the guardians, Brave, Tangled, Frozen, How to Train Your Dragon, and most recently, Big Hero Six. She created a website, not a blog, but an actual website, with movie clips and trailers, character profiles, and shipping of characters. That's the new thing... kids take a character from one movie and "ship" them together with a character from another movie. For example, Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians, and Elsa from Frozen, would become Jelsa. Check out her website... http://riseofthebravetangledfrozendragons.weebly.com Yes, I know, it's a long name, but it's a pretty impressive website!

If you have a weak stomach, don't look at these pictures!!!

Poor Matt was sawing and sawed off part of his finger and thumb!!! Ouch!!!

Ellie is loving recreational softball!!!

Keith's been working with Ellie at home and helping coach all the girls at practice.

Ellie's 1st game was against a tough team, but they won!!!

All the brothers (and Ross and Hayley) came to Ellie's second game! Keith was out of town. They crushed the other team, 22-2. It was actually kind of sad for the other team:(

Emma sat by a woman with jelly belly's and stared at them. The kind lady offered several handfuls to Emma. I had to cut her off when she started climbing the fence:) One of the boys was looking for a trashcan and said, What do I do with my trash??? Emma said, "Just liter, it's a free country!"

Yep, the same old silly boys... haven't changed a bit!!! Who would believe they are 28, 26, and 24 now!!!

Found Ellie another bike!

One of the boys accidentally broke Ellie's bike that we bought her at a yard sale last summer. When I heard talk of another neighborhood sale this spring, I shot out a message on my neighborhood Facebook asking if anyone wanted to sell a 10 speed bike. We got this 18 speed for 25.00! I love a bargain!!! It rides great too. It even has a place to hold a water bottle. Ellie loves to ride and listen to her music.

Bad pooty dog!!!

Ellie's beautiful 7th grade school picture (13 years old)

Most girls go through an awkward middle school phase, but not this gal...

She's as smart and sweet as she is beautiful. 

Hmmm, Drew... Disney's Jack Frost...

Happy Birthday Keith!!!

Keith got a big flatscreen tv for his birthday! We have officially entered the new millennium. Haha! Actually, in December, mom and dad gave us one of their smaller flat screens and we put it in the armoire in our bedroom:) We have really enjoyed it!!! We also just got netflix this past month and can finally see the shows the rest of the world is talking about, lol. 

Every year with our tax refund we have a "gotta do list" and a "wanna do list". The gotta do list always includes making an extra house payment, and putting a little in savings. This year, it also included a tune up/timing belt for the kia and paying the escrow overage. We often don't have much left over for the wanna do list, but this year, we did, YAY! It was Keith's turn for a treat!!! He works so hard and always puts everyone's wants/needs ahead of his own!!! He loves it! And so do the kids! We hired a guy to come out and hide all those wires, they drove me crazy! The mount we got is kind of cool. You can pull it out from the wall and face it to one side or the other. We could see it from the kitchen table if we wanted. But, I have a rule about that:) Table time is family time! It's amazing how much bigger the keeping room feels since we moved out the big black armoire, and the new furniture arrangement feels more open to the kitchen.

We decided to move the armoire to the upstairs bonus room and are in the process of taking down the wall of shelves. That will give us a lot more room up there. Drew is going to repaint that room for us. He needs the dough, and we are getting a little tired of the red. We had no idea red was such a pain to touch up. (I guess because it has a clear base.) We have a lot of leftover paint from when we painted the guest room this summer and I think the color will be great for a bonus room! It transitions well from the color we have running throughout the rest of the house and has a nice warm tone. The bonus room furniture is in desperate need of replacing. The futon, that I got 11 years ago for $50.00 at a tent sale, is stained and falling apart and the wicker chairs that I got from the goodwill are becoming rickety and the paint is chipping. I'm keeping my eyes open for a good deal on comfy furniture to replace them. That will have to wait though; I'm in no hurry. Maybe I'll do that with my swim lesson money this summer, who knows???

Ellie's loving her piano lessons!

Ellie's music teacher is Mrs. Wendi Stunzi. She is an amazing teacher! Ellie was lucky to get in her class. She has a limited number of students she takes and is very selective. The first half of the class is Music Theory, and the second half is instruction from Miss Wendi. 

Tyler, Alex, Sean, and Travis (their new base player) are recording some of their music over college spring break this week!

This has been a dream of theirs for a long time!!! They are soooo excited!!! Drew and Haley are spending part of their spring break in Blairsville, working for Haley's grandma; trying to make a little extra dough!

Creative girls...

Look what she can do with bubble wrap!

Give her a pen and paper, this girl loves to read, write, draw, and dissect movies! Rise of the Guardians is her favorite right now. This is her hero, Jack Frost!