Emma turns 3!

Yes, our little Emma is three years old! Hard to believe. She had a wonderful birthday. She is just now at the age where she really gets into this birthday thing. Everything was extra special that day. There was birthday pizza, birthday kisses, birthday peepee, birthday boo-boos, etc. We had lunch at Chuck E. Cheese, and finished the day off with a big party with our family and friends. Oh, yeah, it was my birthday, too. :)

Here are her official Three Year-Old pics:

The Jollys at Great Wolf Lodge

We LOVE this place!! The girls had so much fun. When we walked into the lobby, Grace jumped and squealed "AWESOME!" Emma just stopped in her tracks and whispered "Wow!" It's that good! The water park was a lot of fun. We definitely plan to go back!

This is my favorite part! Check out the video below. Here's the scene: there's this game thing in one big pool at the lodge. You have to make it from one side to the other on these floating things. It's apparently harder than it sounds. Grace gets in line behind maybe 7 or 8 teenagers and grown men. As each one of them crosses, she's just watching and studying. NOT ONE of them makes it! Most don't even make it half way! Then she gets up there. At first, no one is really paying attention to her. Then, as it starts to look like she may actually have a plan, some of the people who didn't make it began to get each other's attention and they all turn back to watch her. Before long, she has an audience of all of these teenage and adult "losers" who couldn't make it and are now watching this skinny little girl kick their collective behinds. By the way, her daddy was one of those "losers!" :) I watched in disbelief! I guess this is what you'd call "brains over brawn!" Watch it!

Our Hillbilly 4th of July . . .

Where else but in Kentucky can you be chased by a possum on the fourth of July?! We have this tradition of hanging out in our yard after dark on the 4th and watching all of the neighbors in the surrounding subdivisions shoot off their expensive fireworks. Our hill-top view is perfect for it! This year it rained, but that didn't stop the fireworks, or us. We just watched them from the safety of our big front porch. I don't know if the fireworks had the possum confused, or what, but he really didn't even seem to notice us when he meandered right in front of the front porch just a couple of feet from where we sat. That might have been harmless enough, but just as he crossed in front of the steps, he was spooked by a loud blast from the fireworks and the next thing we knew he was coming up the steps after us! Ok, maybe he wasn't actually chasing us. I suppose he could have been simply running away from the noise. Either way, he ended up on the front porch while four grown adults (Kenny and Jana Cook were there to share the adventure) and two kids watched fireworks from INSIDE the house! He eventually left, as did the rain, and it turned out to be a great night.