Madeleine's 5th Birthday!

Our little girl is now 5 years old and she's proud to tell everyone about it! We celebrated her birthday with "Hello Kitty" party at home with her cousin and some of her friends. It was a beautiful day outside so we enjoyed an outdoor picnic under a tree, played "ring around the rosies",  "Duck Duck Goose" (or duck, duck, kitty), hopscotch, and cake of course!  It was  a very fun and girly party! Jack had the good luck of being swept away with Rhett by some of our friends... as our friend overheard him say, "Ring around the Rosies is the dumbest game ever!" Well, the girls sure do love it!  so funny...

We celebrated on the day of her actual birthday with cupcakes and presents after a sushi dinner,
as requested by the birthday girl.

more smiles... check out Jack's missing teeth!

Our little 5-year-old on her "Hello Kitty" party day!
This is the dress she got from Mom and Dad.  :)

"Ring around the Rosies..."

a picnic lunch of fruit salad and finger sandwiches with friends

"Hello Kitty" ears on Robbin are funny.
 (sorry I couldn't get this picture to rotate.)

a quick photo shoot of all the party girls

Girls just want to have fun!

Getting ready for "Pin the Bow on Hello Kitty"

No peeking!

Every girl had a different color bow to pin on...
Hello Kitty looked great at the end, and everyone won a prize!
A Hello Kitty t-shirt made by Classic Kids (aka Aunt Brandi!)

Fabulous Pink Strawberry Hello Kitty Cake!



Robbin yelled, "OH NO!!!!" when I announced
that it was time to cut into Hello Kitty's face.

And I thought that was so funny... :)

awww... Thanks to Aunt Brandi for taking all
of the pictures with her awesome new camera!

Jack's 8th Birthday

We can't believe our little man is 8 years old now!!!  He is starting to lose a lot of his teeth now, too. The tooth fairy has been busy! Rory managed to catch a picture of the tooth fairy in action as she was going to pick up one of Jack's teeth one night... luckily Rory scared her away just after she had left Jack's prize money! Sneaky Rory!
Jack celebrated his 8th birthday with 7 of his closest friends in town at a camping slumber party in our back yard! Rory planned the party to include a scavenger hunt after learning how to use a compass for the hunt, cooking their own dinner, a snipe hunt, ghost stories, smores, etc. They had a blast! Thanks to Aunt Brandi and Uncle Gary for lending us the huge tent!  ... and our neighbors lent us their firepit!

searching the woods for clues to the hidden treasure...

a clue, a clue!!!

another clue for everyone! Rory did a really great job of planning the hunt.

The whole crew before Jack blew out his candles.
Jack's birthdays are not complete without the quintessential "oreo cake!"

everyone that wanted to had their turn at bb gun shooting practice...
Proper safety measures were very well stuck to and no one "shot their eye out!"

A little land navigation course with newly issued compasses.

the tent courtesy of the Zetrouers

The Cat Island Survivors!

using teamwork to find the treasure

more hunting... for treasure that is.

the campsite

Jan and Feb

 ... here are some pictures of a few of our adventures that kicked off our 2011!

We went skiing at Beech Mountain, NC at the end of January and also ended up seeing the Biltmore estate near Asheville. It was beautiful! And talking about skiing, Jack and Maddie both learned to ski and went down the beginner hill with Rory on their second day! Maddie was unstoppable! Rhett enjoyed playing in the snow with Mommy while we watched Dad with Jack and Maddie. It was a great time!

A Wrap-up of 2010

So I just realized the other day that it has been almost a whole year since my last family blog update. This can only mean one thing... I've got a lot to catch you all up on! Last year brought home our own hero, husband and father. He came home to us after a long eight months of deployment, and then another 2 months away shortly after. We have since had 4 months of time together to catch up with each other and our families. We've had time to fit in many visits and adventures with family and friends on the east coast and even made a trip to Colombia, South America to visit Carolina's family! Here are just a few pictures to wrap up 2010 on the blog and I will endeavor to keep the blog updated through 2011 with more pictures of all of our adventures to come! It promises to be an interesting year already as Jack is preparing for his First Holy Communion in May and we have another big move coming up this summer! So stay tuned!

Christmas 2010 on Cat Island- we were the winners of our neighborhood Christmas lights contest! Wait until 2011! I LOVE Christmas lights! One day we hope to make it a Griswold style Christmas! Hee, hee!

Walt Disney World Camping Trip- we stayed at Fort Wilderness together sometime in April of 2010 and spent a couple of days having fun at the parks!

Rory and I at a COC dinner... he wore his brand new, custom made tux that he bought in Hong Kong... so 007!

The DuPont crew waiting for Daddy (Rory) to come home from deployment in March. Matching outfits thanks to Classic Kids!

Rory is flying the jet in the center of the formation!

Rhett was only 7 weeks old when Rory left for deployment.

Love this picture! Emotions were high!

Taking Daddy home!!! My favorite picture except for the fact that Rhett is missing in it... he was off to my left.

Maddie's 4th Birthday

A "new" princess bike... that she wants her daddy to paint pink for her :), a pink Hello Kitty cake with a friend, pretty princess dolls... her day was great! She actually LOVES her bike that used to be Jack's!!!

Jack's 7th Birthday!

Jack turned 7 today... I can't believe where the time has gone. He's such a great little man, too. We love him and are so proud of him!!! He had a fantastic day where he got to pick out his new bike at Wal-Mart, lunch at McD's (in Wal-Mart- why this is such a treat I just can't comprehend!), then off to pick daffodils with mom and Maddie- yes this was the girls' idea but we all had fun together(he told me he likes to pick the lonely ones- so telling of his personality, I think), and then home for some pizza, a movie, and cake and presents with 2 of his buddies. What a birthday!!! He said it's his lucky day... well, it was lucky #7!!! :)