Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

On September 4th, we left for Pigeon Forge, TN to celebrate Leanna's birthday.  It was only about a four hour drive for us from North Carolina.  Here is a picture of the view of the Carolina Mountains.

Here is the view from our cabin: 

Devin wouldn't stop talking about the jacuzzi in our cabin so Mom decided to throw him in all clothed! He was mad at first, but quickly got over it! Here are the photos of my soaked little boy! LOL

The first night we went to The Comedy Barn. I don't have any pictures from that, but the next morning we went to the Ripley's Aquarium.  We used our homeschool discount which was wonderful! Here are some of the photos of our morning:

Nicholas seems to think that he needs to kiss everything around him!

The below pictures, I did what I could to "save" them.  They were very dark to the point of not being able to see them so I put them in a picture editing program and did the best job I could to where you could actually see the subjects, but now they are very grainy.  I didn't get many pictures of my oldest so I really didn't want to delete them off my phone. 

After the aquarium, we took Devin to go on a pony ride.  This was really a big deal for us because he is our "shy, afraid-to-do-anything child".  We could not believe that he actually got on the pony! We were so proud of him!

There was a sweet white pony named, Snow White, that the kid's can't ride any longer because she is too old and sick.  Leanna fell in love with this pony and stayed at her side for at least thirty minutes and was so upset when we had to leave her.  She is my horse loving little princess. I have still heard everyday for the last week about Snow White. 

Then we went to the Pigeon Forge Gem Mine. This was so much fun, but so expensive.  You pick the size bucket you want and use the shovel to put the sand in the "sifter" and run it through the water to sift through the sand. 

We found so many neat gems.  In Leanna's hands are a "pretty rock" and a ruby.

When you are done sifting through the sand, you go inside and sit with one of their "gem experts" who tells you what you found.  You can then choose to have any gem you want cut and set into jewelry.  This is where I spent way too much money.  I am still waiting to get my jewelry in the mail though.  I will post pictures when I receive all of it.  I had a necklace and ring made with the Citrine I found since it is my birthstone.  My husband also had a ring made with the Smokey Mountain Topaz he found.

Here is my sweet Nicholas trying to kiss a statue again! LOL

There are doll stores all over Pigeon Forge. Of course, we had to go in all the doll stores.  Here are some pictures of the beautiful dolls in the Three Bears Gift Shop which was right outside the Gem Mine. 

Here is an Alice in Wonderland doll.

Here you can see Nicholas standing right in front of one of the dolls in the previous picture.  The doll was the size of a 3 1/2 year old. 

The following day, we went to walk the streets of Gatlinburg.  Our first stop was go-carts.  Brittani went with Nicholas and Michael (Brittani's boyfriend) went with Leanna since the kids were too young to drive their own. 

Leanna and Devin in front of one of the shops.

We found another Gem Mine! Oh no! Tony sifted through the sand this time.

Here are our treasures at this gem mine. We had a ton of Rubies this time (my favorite gem). 

Brittani's New Haircut

I have always been one to love keeping my girls' hair long.  I love long hair on them! My oldest has always loved short hair and constantly complains when her hair is long.  For the last couple years it has been worse because she is all about beauty and fashion, especially her hair and makeup.  She has been waiting for a first paycheck so she could treat herself to the haircut she has been wanting for months.  On September 2nd, she went to the hair salon, had her hair died black and cut VERY VERY SHORT! I wanted to cry! You can see the before picture to the left of the blog.  Here are some pictures of the experience that made a mom cry.  LOL

HERE IS THE FINAL RESULT! 

She didn't feel like "posing" for pictures so this is all I have of the final result right after it was done being cut and styled.  Of course, she is still as beautiful as ever, so I really can't complain.  

Leanna's Pre-Birthday Treat

The date on this blog post is going to be way off because I have been so busy that I haven't had any time to post, besides being out of town.

Leanna's birthday is on September 4th.  We were out of town on her birthday.  We went to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, TN  for her birthday so we took her out to the local cupcake place for a birthday cupcake treat.

Here she is enjoying her yummy cupcake. In the first picture, she was trying real hard to be goofy! LOL 

Our School Room

I have seen so many other blogs where pictures of school rooms have been posted. I figured it was time for me to get around to taking some pictures of ours. All of the furniture, bookshelves, etc. in our schoolroom were bought at IKEA.

These are the children's school desks. We have four chairs so that Mom can sit with them while they are working. 

This is the other side the wall where we keep all the kid's toys. They usually play on the the cool rug you see which is from IKEA as well. 

I made this bulletin board because Devin was learning his color words last year and was having a bit of trouble with them. It was a great visual for him. On the top of the bookshelf, we have a few games and a box of craft supplies.  The bookshelf below is separated for each child. One box is poetry, another early  readers, another my 2nd grader's readers, and lastly my highschooler's readers from last year. 

Here is Mom's work area

This is a full view of one end of the schoolroom (all I could fit in the camera from the small space I had.  

This last one is Devin showing off their new chore charts.  I love these.  They were definitely a lot of work, but I am sure they will be worth it.  The kids can't wait to get to use them (we still have not started school yet).  I found all the printouts for these at Homeschool Creations which is one of my favorite blogs and is also listed in my sidebar. Be sure to check it out! 

Wordless Wednesday

Trip to Dish It Out

Last Wednesday, we were bored.  I decided I wanted to take the Leanna and Devin to do something they hadn't ever done before.  We ended up at Dish It Out.  You start by picking out your pottery and your paint colors.  Leanna loves horses so she ended up picking a unicorn and Devin loves anything that goes fast so he ended up painting a motorcycle.  He actually wanted the army tank, but they were all out.  We are going to go back one day soon so he can paint that army tank.  Here are pictures of the kids painting their pottery.

We just picked up our finished work yesterday.  I will say that I helped Leanna with hers A LOT. It turned out beautiful.  I love the colors she chose. Devin didn't want any help.  He just decided to slap some colors on it and piled color over color! LOL But, thats okay, because thats what makes his special, right? Devin has been counting down the days until he could go get his pottery, "Mom, it was 7 days yesterday so now  we have 6 left".  I think I heard this everyday.  I am so glad the pottery place wasn't late. Anyway, here are the final results.