Weekend with the Thompsons

Grandma was in town to play softball, so we had some Thompson family time.


The girls talk about Aunt Lorraine's dolls quite a bit - they love them!


Here is Aunt Lorraine helping Lera open a new monster doll.  You can see the dollhouse she made out of a bookshelf in the background.


They played here for hours, and could have played all day!


Mother and son.


We stopped for some yummy Mexican on the way home.




Here we all are the next day, getting ready to cheer Grandma on at her game!








Warming up.


Watching the game.




Enjoying Uncle Trevor.


Grandma's team won the championship!


Finishing up with a little park time.

We loved seeing everyone!

A Day in the City

We were generously given some tickets to see Sesame Street Live at Phillips Arena, so we decided to make a day of it.


We parked near the CNN center and got our tickets.


Pedestrians.


We went to the Georgia Aquarium - it was our first time there.


The dolphin show was my favorite part - it was really amazing.


The theatrical part was more of a filler and a little cheesy, but the actual dolphins - amazing.  Such beautiful animals.








One of my favorite pictures.


Whale shark.




These two penguins were swimming right in front of us, looking straight at the girls for a few minutes.  It was pretty neat.


Leopard seal and beluga whales.




Chess loves petting the sting rays and other animals you can touch.




Lera is very timid about touching any animals, but she finally stuck her finger in to feel this spiny guy.






The required walk through the gift shop on our way out.  We took pictures with our favorite stuffed animals!


Centennial Olympic Park play area.






Hmmm, how does this door work?


Here we go!


Back at Phillips Arena for the Sesame Street show.


Love this one!


Elmo can't stop singing!  It was a cute show.

We had such a fun family day.  They are my favorite people to do things with.

School Fall Festival

Chess's school had a fall festival as a fundraiser and it was really fun.  Here are some pictures from my cell phone from the evening.

Chess lost her first tooth!

The tooth had been loose for about a month.  The time had come.  That thing was barely hanging on.


She let me tie the floss string on without a problem.  We were just "trying it out" to see how it felt.


She let Daddy look at it and access the situation.

Then we started talking about pulling it out and she had a bit of a meltdown.  She ran upstairs, crying.  A while later, she came down and said Daddy could yank it out in the bathroom.  She was worried about it bleeding (we had watched a few youtube videos of kids getting their teeth pulled).

So we went to the bathroom, Daddy pulled the string, and....it slipped off the tooth.  Nervous laughter ensued.  I tied it on tighter this time.  Daddy yanked again - it worked!


She was in shock at first.  It's pretty crazy to lose a body part that's been with you for as long as you can remember.


She then got excited and smiled for some pictures.




Checking out her new smile.


The tooth fairy came!

The second tooth followed a few weeks later.  She was ready for it this time.  My Chess is growing up too fast!

Preschool for Lera

We have started preschool/joy school with a new group of kids this year.  Lera loves being in school!  I hosted the first week at our house and the kids were great.


Ready for the first day of joy school!




Play time is a favorite for all the kids!