Zoe’s Tinkerbell Party - Fun!
Zoe had so much fun celebrating her birthday with her friends. She is so happy with people all around her so this was perfect for her. Some of the girls dressed up and they all looked so cute. Not only did Zoe have her friends at her party but she also had one very special guest, Tinkerbell herself! Tink told Zoe she flew all the way from Pixie Hollow to help her celebrate her birthday. She had magic bubbles, music, dancing (including a special birthday dance with just Zoe), and a necklace that she made for Zoe. It was so cute to see the awe in Zoe’s eyes when she saw Tink and when she was dancing with her. She had been asking me for months to invite Tinkerbell to her party but I don’t know if she really believed Tink would come because she was so surprised when Tink walked into her house. It was such a special way to celebrate Zoe! We are so thankful for all of these precious friends of Zoe’s! They made her feel so loved and so special.
Zoe’s Tinkerbell Party - Decor
We celebrated Zoe’s birthday a week early (due to her birthday falling on Easter weekend) with her friends from church and her best friend from school. Zoe chose Tinkerbell as the theme for her party. It was so fun creating a little Pixie Hollow in our dining room, with flowers in honor of Zoe’s birth mama. I found some cute food ideas on Pinterest and Zoe requested strawberry cupcakes. The girls decorated fairy doors and made fairy wands using sticks and yarn, a craft idea we got at Indie Craft Parade from ReCraft Greenville. It was such a fun party, complete with an extra special guest (pics of that coming later). As always, I loved creating this celebration for my girl!
SCC in Charlotte
Over spring break, DJ and I had a nice little getaway to Charlotte for the night. We met up with our former assistant pastor and his wife along with our missionary friends for dinner at Tupelo Honey and a Steven Curtis Chapman concert. Amanda (our former pastor’s wife), Brian (our missionary friend) and I are all huge SCC fans. Amanda and I have talked so many times about how we needed to see SCC together and it was so fun to make it happen. When I met Mandy and Brian while living in Kennesaw for my internship in college, one of the things that connected us was SCC (plus Mandy is a Clemson alumna as well). So, it was so fun to be able to have a triple date night with them and enjoy some SCC music together, especially since Mandy and Brian will be returning to the mission field in May.
Spring Break 2023
This year our spring break was much more chill than last year….no Disney trips and new puppy this year. We did some things around town and enjoyed one day trip to Riverbanks Zoo. It was a cool day, which was especially nice for walking around Columbia. The girls loved seeing all the animals that we don’t have at the Greenville Zoo. Ava was extra excited to see the mama and baby Koala since koalas are her favorite animals. Zoe loved seeing the Zebras, which are her favorites because Z for Zebra and Z for Zoe. We all enjoyed getting up close to the giraffes. The gardens were beautiful. But I think the carousel was another highlight for the girls. It was a really fun day together!
A belated Christmas
As I’ve mentioned before, Christmas 2022 was far from normal this year. Due to multiple sicknesses, we were not able to celebrate with DJ’s family at Christmas time. And then because of coordinating hectic schedules, we weren’t able to actually all get together until the end of February. It was a late celebration but a fun day together. The weather was really nice and the kids had a blast with the bounce house. Thanks to Nana and Papa for a fun family day!
School Dress Up Days
The spring semester started with multiple dress up days at school. Most of the dress up days were for Zoe but even Ava had one. They dress up days started with the 100th and 101st days of school. For the 100th day, Zoe’s class dressed up as 100 year olds. Zoe wore a sweater dress and a cardigan with a necklace.
For the 101st day of school, Zoe’s class dressed up as Dalmatians. She was most excited about her tail.
Next up, it was Ava’s turn to dress up. The 5th graders put on a fun event at the school. They had a WWII Wax Museum. Each kid had to prepare a speech about a person from WWII, dress up like them and then “come to life” and perform their speech whenever people walked up to them. They did such a great job giving their speeches to parents, teachers and 4th graders. Ava chose to dress up as Josephine Baker, who used her fame as a singer and dancer to act as a spy for the allied forces. We were super proud of how well she did at the event!
The last dress up day for now was also for Zoe. She got to celebrate her very first book character parade day! It was exciting for Zoe to pick out a book character to dress up as and walk in the parade. She was especially excited that Ava got to watch her parade. Although, it was a little sad knowing Ava is too old to participate in this event now at school since the 5th graders line the halls for the kids and cheer for them as they parade through. Zoe chose to dress up like Parker Curry from Parker Shines On. It was perfect for her because in that book, Parker is a ballerina. Zoe looked so cute dressed like Parker!
Terrific Kid
We are so proud of Zoe for receiving Terrific Kid from her teacher for the first quarter. Ava’s been awarded this twice now but this was our first time actually being able to go to the awards ceremony. The first time Ava got it she was sick and missed the ceremony. The second time she got it was in the middle of COVID shutdowns so nothing was happening at school. We loved being able to see Zoe walk across the stage and get her t-shirt and certificate. She’s getting so big and thriving so well in school and we couldn’t be prouder of her.
Family Portraits 2022
We had our family portraits taken this past fall as well. I am so thankful that we are not making yearly portraits a priority. I have so many pictures of the girls but not many of us with them so it is always nice to have this yearly time set to make sure we have great pictures of all 4 of us. This year, we took them at Table Rock and it was a gorgeous background in the fall.
Wetzel Family Portraits
Last year for Christmas, we all gave DJ’s parents a portrait session (don’t worry mom, we know we still owe you a session too). We were able to have those portraits taken by a fellow photographer friend back in September when we were all gathered at their house. The kids surprised us and did great for the pictures even though we started taking them not long after they all got out of the cars. We love having these special pictures of all of us together!
Sookie
2022 ended with a big surgery for Sookie. She has a very bad habit of eating anything and everything she finds laying around. Well, that led to an obstruction in her intestines which became an emergency situation. She was acting very strange one morning (after having vomited a pair of doll pants) and I just knew something wasn’t right. When she sat in DJ’s chair in his office, something she’s never done, I felt like she was trying to tell us something was wrong. We took her to our vet and they saw something on several x-rays that wouldn’t move despite filling her full of fluids. So, we ended up at the emergency vet where they did an ultrasound and recommended surgery. It was a pretty involved and risky surgery but she did great. We were able to bring her home the next day and begin the fun of keeping her in her crate and calm for 3 weeks. The first 2 weeks weren’t too bad because we had meds to mostly sedate her. The week after she had her sutures removed she still had to be kept calm but she wasn’t on the meds anymore so she was not happy at all. We were all so thankful when she could take the cone off and not have any restrictions anymore. However, we know she’s already eaten other things that she shouldn’t have and are just praying everything passes on it’s own so we don’t have to go through this all again. We told the vet at the hospital that we hope we never see him again.
