Spring/Easter eggs

We are so happy that Spring is here. Warmer temps and more daylight hours have been nice after a cold winter. I can't really say that it was a long winter, because time seemed to fly by for us.  I decorated a little for Easter a few days ago and wanted to share a few pictures.

For my front door, I bought this new Easter egg wreath. Found it at Target and just added the bow for hanging. I like the bright colors of the eggs.

Love these Reece's eggs!! We can't get enough of these right now. I think I may have to buy several packs of these so we can have them after Easter, too. I can remember this was the favorite thing in my Easter basket growing up.

McKenzie and I did make it by Target during Matt's chess tournament a few weeks ago and I was able to score these two things for Easter. The first is this cute burlap banner that I hung on the mantle and this spring  wreath made out of yarn. I thought this was really unusual and would be cute hanging on the door in the laundry room.

I ordered the kids eggs from Old Tyme Commissary back in February and love how they turned out. I had them paint a girl bunny holding an Iphone for McKenzie and a boy bunny playing chess for Matt.

I put them all in my Peter's pottery bowl on the coffee table where we can enjoy looking at them.

And of course every year this time its time to buy Kimberly Queen ferns! I love them and they last all the way thru fall.

A few other Easter things....

Hope everyone is enjoying spring!

Happy Birthday, Matt!

Wednesday is Matt's 8th birthday!  Where does the time go?  This past year Matt has been into American Ninja Warrior, basketball, Disney Infinity, and chess.  It's been a great year and we hope you have a great birthday, Matt!

Wordless Wednesday

Nifty, Nifty!

Look who's 50!!!

Happy Birthday, Jan!  Today is Jan's 50th birthday (I know, you can't believe she's 50, right?)!  All of the Cummings and Aldridge families got together Saturday night at Larry's Fish House in our old stomping grounds of Itta Bena to celebrate.  We had a lot of fun and ate a lot of food.  Jan, we hope you're birthday is a fun one!

The whole crew.  Enlarge it and check out Matt and Caleb.

Jan opening her gift from Andy and the kids.

Andy and Jan realizing they can't read anything on the computer because they don't have their reading glasses!

Chess Tournament

Matt played in his first chess tournament this past Saturday.  It also happened to be the Mississippi State Scholastic Team/Individual Tournament.  Matt started playing chess in October when Ezzard Beane came to the LEAP classes at school and taught the LEAP students how to play.  Matt loved it immediately and started playing against me and watching YouTube videos about chess.  So, roughly four months later he and three classmates when down to Ridgeland and the team placed 4th in the State Team and Matt finished 6th in the State Individual.  Each player played five rounds and the only player who beat Matt is the boy who won the tournament undefeated.  Great job Matt!

It was a long day but we really enjoyed it and look forward to playing in more tournaments in the future.  Here are some pictures from the day.

 

Olde Towne Middle School in Ridgeland - the site of the tournament.  Evidently, they have an abundance of "E's" in Ridgeland.

 

Dad cooked waffles in the hotel lobby for breakfast!

 

Matt's first opponent was one of his teammates, Arthur.

 

One school had matching "Chess Commander" t-shirts.

 

Lunch!

 

This was supposed to be his second round match-up but they ended up switching pairings before the round started.

 

As luck would have it, his eventual second round match-up was the boy who ended up winning the tournament.  Matt played him a close game and they were the next to last game to finish that round.

 

Round 3

 

 Playing between rounds

 

Round 5 game

 

Top 10

 

4th Place!

 

6th Place!