A last and two firsts

School has started.

I'm still trying to let that sink in.

School has started and the oh so busy schedule has started as well.

Sigh.

Can't we have summer for a bit longer?

Please.

Pretty please??

These two girls were SOOOOOO excited for school to start.

They both had picked out their first day of school outfits roughly five days before school started.

I think they looked pretty spiffy personally.

Last.

This girl is in her last year of elementary school.

She's one of the big kids on campus.

5th grade, I cannot believe it.

I swear she was a kindergartner yesterday.

Adison is so excited because this year they get to do band or strings.

She's really hoping to do violin, we should find out next week.

I'll keep you posted.

First.

Ainsley started kindergarten.

Again, I feel like just yesterday she was a little 9 month old going with me to take Adison to kindergarten.

She had been pretty nervous but then we found out that she was going to have Adison's kindergarten teacher as her teacher as well.

I was beyond pleased.

We also had Sneak Peek the day evening before school started and that really got her pumped.

She was so cute getting her backpack all ready and packing her lunch.

It was a riot watching her pick out her backpack and lunch bag {she picked Hello Kitty, shocker!}.

I couldn't leave Miss Abby out of the first day of school pics.

My girls are growing up!

Tears.

She held it together so well and then the tears started falling.

I knew they were coming because she had her little hands on her face.

When the dam first broke she had both hands on her little cheeks, that's a tell tale sign that Lee is going to lose it.

I held it together until she didn't, I managed to get teary but never actually cry.

It was so hard to keep it together, I knew this day would be hard for my little home-body, mama-loving girl.

She was so brave though you guys and her little excited face when school got out was priceless.

She told me in the van on the way home, "I cried because I missed you, then I forgot about you and didn't cry."

Poor Abby.

That first day that both of her sisters were gone was a tough one.

She kept telling me, "I want to stay home, I don't want to go anywhere without my sisters."
Cue the heartbreak, I felt so bad for this girl.

We met up with some friends at the library who knew that Miss Abby was having a hard time without her sisters, especially Ainsley.

I just love good friends that surround you and your children.

A week after the older two girls started school, Abby started preschool.

After the epic meltdown and shutdown that homegirl had at a preschool screening we decided to hold off on the whole preschool thing.

This shy girl wanted to stay at home which was fine by me, she's three.

She can stay by my side, no problems!

But then, one of my dear friends, Sarah, invited Abby to join her daughter in some homeschool preschool.

Let me tell ya, despite some tears the morning of before we left the house, she LOVED it!

Not a tear nor a turn of the head as I left happened.

She was a rockstar!

I feel like this is the exact right place for her to be, doing school with one of her best little friends and her mama who loves my girl so much.

It's perfection.

So, here we are, back at it.

Signing planners, looking at papers, making sure homework is done and lunches are packed.

Halloween 2012

How was your Halloween lovelies?
Ours went very well!

We started off our Halloween morning with a parade and a party at Adison's school.

The little girls love looking for Adison and shouting out what the other costumes are.

It's crazy to think that next year I will have two kiddos in school, eek.

After the parade/party we headed back to the van, which you can barely see in this picture.

I thought that this picture of Lee was so sweet, I played around with it a bit on my phone.

We had lunch, rested/napped, had dinner then went over to my Dad and step-mom, aka Morning according to Abby, house.

It was their first trick-or-treating of the day.

I even got some candy, score!

My dad {who shouldn't be doing yard work!} just can't help himself when the girls are over, he had to rake up some leaves so they could jump in them.

He's quite the kid himself, I think it's what makes him such a fun Papa.

This child, she slays me with her beauty, spunk and goofiness.

It was a gorgeous night out, I think I took five or six pictures of the sky alone.

We went out ToT-ing with some friends/small group members.

The girls were so excited because they each had a buddy to run house to house with and scream like terrified banshees.

K, who is such a kid himself, dressed up like a Jedi.

You should have heard the kids commenting on his costume/light saber when it got dark out.

Hysterical.

K and Kip had a light saber battle, luckily no limbs were lost in this epic match.

But then Abby took K on with her glow in the dark fairy wand and I think it's safe to say that she won.

Fair and square.

Trust me, you do not want to duel with a fairy princess.

Speaking of Babs, she was a riot.

Homegirl would raise up both of her arms and come running to us saying, "I GOT CANDY!"

Abby the fairy princess, Adison the NCIS agent and Ainsley the Barbie princess.

Have I mentioned Abby's princess song?

If not, this is what she repeatedly sings while dressed as a princess.

It's awesome.

Just keep swimming...

and in our case: swimming and swimming and swimming.

Hey-o!

This is me after day two of marathon swimming {soon to be three and then hopefully four!} yay sunscreen.

Today {like yesterday} the girls had swimming lessons {see the picture below}.

We then have a few hours for errands, lazying around, lunch and nap time for the Babster.

We then meet up with my besties {Clara and Jennifer} to work out.

It has been fabulous, I Never Never Never would have thought that I would actually enjoy working out, but I do.

Then, we get the kids ready and skedaddle out to the pool where we spend the remainder of the day.

The older two girls are taking swim lessons this week and next week.

The super fun part is that we scheduled it so that we go with my besties and our kids are all best friends too!
{I don't know if I have mentioned before, but Jennifer and Clara are sisters-in-law, so I guess I should have said the kids are all best friends/cousins.}

Next year Abby will get to take swimming lessons as well, say what!

This sweet girl is LOVING the pool.

and the snacks

and the friends

and the jumping

and the splashing

and the, well, pretty much everything

Cupcake Happy {Vol. 5~Daydreaming Fool}

I wanted to share with you who made me incredibly happy this week.

Erin of The Daydreaming Fool.

I have blogged about her before, but it bears repeating that she is one of my all-time favorite bloggers/people/friends evah.

She is seriously supportive and funny and just lovely.

I have to share something so incredibly sweet and thoughtful that she did.

While visiting Niagra Falls {on my bucket list of places to visit}, via Twitter, she offered to send postcards.

I asked her if she would mind sending one to us and she replied that she would.

Lo and behold, she sent each of the girls one as well as one to K and I.

She even wrote the sweetest messages on the back of each one AND picked out different postcards for all of us.

 

The girls were so excited to get some pretty mail and felt so incredibly special.

Huge smiles decorated every face and a warm fuzzy feeling resided in the heart.

Thank you my dear for your thoughtfulness, xoxo

Happy Tuesday

Today has been a busy one.

It started out with me sleeping lousy again last night.

When I woke up this morning, I had that contented feeling of having a while longer to lay in bed.

WRONG.

My alarm had already gone off and I was still laying there.

ugh.

Once I got going though the morning went pretty smooth.

Today was the last day of school for the week, the bigs were excited to have so many days off.

I am excited too.

After getting Adison to school and picking up my niece, my friend Jennifer and I had a meeting with the kids' school principal to discuss getting parents involved at schools.

I love love love Adison's principal, she is AMAZING!

We had a great meeting and I was left feeling so grateful to have her as Adison's principal.

Afterwards Jennifer and her youngest two came over to play with Abby and Cameron.

They all had a nice time playing while Jennifer and I got to talk for a bit.

On to some random stuff:

~This is my current coffee creamer addiction.

Yum yum yum.

~I am so beyond ready to chow down on some Thanksgiving yumminess.

~I really want to see the new Muppets movie, I loved that show as a kid.

~I just finished reading a book called Mr. Darcy's Diary by Amanda Grange. If you love Jane Austen then I think you will love this book. I just started reading another one of her books called Mr. Knightley's Diary. So good.

What books are you reading, who are some of your favorite authors?
I am always looking for something new to read.

An award and our day

I am so incredibly honored to be given the Liebster Blog award from Nikki at Saving For a Rainy Day. According to Nikki's blog, the Liebster award, "is given to up coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. "Liebster" is German and means sweetest. kindest, nicest, beloved, loveliest, cutest..." Isn't Nikki the sweetest!

Now for the rules:

1. Thank the giver and link back to her.
2. Reveal your top picks and leave a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love too!

 

My picks:

Just as I am- Anna is an amazing woman. Her faith is inspiring, her family is beautiful, she is such a sweet friend!

Picture This- Rachel is one of my favorite bloggers EVER! She is so sweet and thoughtful and encouraging, I adore her and I know that you will too!

Enough Faith for Today- I am a somewhat new follower of Kim's blog and I adore her writing style. She is such a wonderful mom and her blog is always a great read.

Smedley Family- I have been reading Kelly's blog for a while now and I always look forward to reading it. Kelly has the sweetest little boy, Karson, and a little brother or sister for him on the way.

********************

It has been a cold and rainy day today.

We are actually expecting snow this evening!

I don't particularly enjoy the snow, but I have to say, there is something so magical about the very first snow.

I hope that I am awake to see it.

This morning, Abby and I met up with my friend, Jennifer, at the discovery center.

It was a really nice morning.

It was also very odd to be out with only one child, ha!

We had such a nice time chatting and playing with the kiddos.

Abby is OBSESSED with her Muppets jacket, she freaked out this morning when I took it off of her.

Eek!

This afternoon, Ainsley saw a commercial for the American Girls dolls.

She was instantly interested in them.

I told her that I had mine from when I was a child {Kirsten} and that I would get her out after we picked Adison up from school.

Lee was SOOOO excited to see her and got out her Bitty Baby so they could play together.

Lee decided to name her baby Kerrigan.

 

Okay folks, I am off to play trains with Abby and Ainsley and hopefully play a game with Adison.

Wow, now that is what I call a weekend!

My Dad invited us to his company's 21st birthday celebration at some beautiful botanical gardens that were about 3 hours from our house.
That town also happens to be where one of K's fraternity brothers and family live.
We were supposed to visit them a while ago but Lee had a stomach bug that nixed that plan.
Anyways
.
.
.
Botanical Gardens~

It was beautiful.

They had a brand new children's garden that was so much fun.

The kids ran around like little chicks.

Abby fell in love with a mosaic water fountain. 
 

 

{Apparently I laugh really loud, so you have to listen closely for Abby's hysterical giggle.}

The entire garden was beautiful.

K and I took a lot of pictures that I will probably intersperse in the next few posts.

But this picture of Abby and my Dad is just too sweet.

He was thrilled that she wanted to go through the garden with him.

Then as awe were leaving we stopped to look at a beautiful pond with a Weeping Willow right next to it.
If I were ever going to do an outdoor wedding, that would be the spot.
{I think K might have gotten a photo, I'll have to check.}
While we were looking at this beautiful place we saw that there were two duck standing at the waters edge.
Abby was thrilled to see them, tried to get a closer look and tumbled into some tall grass.
She hoped back up, no tears and we went on our merry way.
Then K and I saw what the grass had done to her face.

Poor thing had cuts on her nose, lips, chin, both cheeks and both arms.
It was awful!
She was a trooper about it.
Poor baby!

Saturday we decided to do something indoors because the temperature was beastly hot.
Indoor putt putt won the vote.
We got there and discovered that their air conditioner was broken and had been for a month.
It was hot.
Oh well, we were having too much fun together to complain.

K's friend T and his was J were so incredibly sweet.
The have two boys that were very close in age to Adison and Ainsley.
The kids got along famously and it was just a wonderful weekend.

Saturday evening as T was grilling, Lee and her little buddy were playing dress up.
This is a costume that was a first for us, ha ha!

She was a wonderful Iron Man.
{Her face broke out from some sort of allergic reaction., I need to talk with her doctor about this.}


On Sunday K and I overslept and we missed church.
We both felt awful about it, sorry guys!


We decided to head out for breakfast and my oh my, the place we went was soooo good!
I got an omelet with cheese, bacon, mushrooms and avocado.
It has become my new favorite.


Shortly after we headed home.
To get there we went through an area of Kansas called the Flint Hills.
I was awestruck by their beauty on the way down and made sure to take a few on the way home.

I told K on the way home that I have lived in Kansas for the last 15 years and never truly appreciated the beauty until recently.
Sure the summers and winters are miserable, but the land is gorgeous.

How about you, how was your weekend?

I meant to post yesterday

I honestly meant to, I will throw a pinkie promise in there for good measure.

The problem was that my arch-nemesis showed it's ugly face again.

Yep, my apparent bff also known as insomnia is back.

Friday night I got about 4 hours of sleep.

If I had a newborn I would be thanking my lucky stars, but I don't.

I do however have 3 rambunctious children that need a fully operating mom.

I had my yearly exam the other day and my midwife said that my insomnia isn't related to my hysterectomy, it's just a coincidence.

Sigh.

Oh well, things could be much worse than a lack of sleep.

I seriously could do an entire insomnia post.

Back to yesterday though.

I was beat, just plain worn out.

We decided to head over to K's parent's house yesterday.

While K and his dad were hanging out with the big girls and Abby was napping I decided to hit the sack too.

I ended up sleeping for about an hour and a half.
When I awakened I was feeling ever so much better.

It was funny, when I woke up Napoleon Dynamite was on and it was at the dance scene at the end.

That part always makes me smile.

Last night we headed over to some friends of ours house.

We were friends in college.

Actually K introduced them and they in turn introduced us.

It is crazy to think that we have known each other for so long and now have a total of 5 kids between us.

It really was a great time.

We got home late though and the kids must have hit their second wind or something because they would not go to sleep.

The littles then woke up at 6:30 this morning and my father-in-law got up with them.

Thanks Bob!!!

We planned on staying inside most of the day at it was set to be a scorcher.

We were able to get out for a bit this morning though while Abby slept.

Poor girl was zonked after getting so little sleep last night.

Okay, so I just realized that this post is getting kind of long, random and rambly.

So, I will share this one picture because I love it and it feels kind of magical to me.

I will share more tomorrow.



We had a storm, did some swimming and played at the park

Our small group met last night.

It is always a wonderful time to share, learn and be together.

There are questions asked, answers learned and life lived with some amazing people.

K and I have an app on our phones that goes off whenever there are weather warnings.

Last night it seemed to keep going off.

We would check the weather and the radar to see what exactly we were in for.

As we left we all looked up at the sky and saw something new.

I have never seen clouds like these before. 

 As K was driving home I was snapping some pics.

I mean, this sky was crazy looking.

Plus, I apparently dream of writing a weather blog or something with how many weather related posts that I write.

Sorry guys.

Back to the story.

K is driving home and I have the window down to snap some pics.
Genius right?
The wind suddenly picks up really fast and I am getting pelted in the face with sand.

Trust me when I tell you that it didn't feel good, at all.

I start telling K:

Roll the window up.

Quick, roll the window up!
I am getting hit in the face with sand.

{The windows were locked so the kids couldn't mess with them.}

He finally replied that he was trying to avoid the road sign that was flying through the air.

Oh, okay, well that makes sense.

Sorry honey.

The girls had swimming lessons this morning and did amazing!

Woo hoo!

Afterwards we went to the park with my friend Jennifer and her kiddos.

Good times!

Revisiting Friday

Last Friday I mentioned a fun outing that I took the kiddos on and I am FINALLY going to share it with you.

Finally, jeeze, I'm such a slacker.

I think that I have mentioned before that we just got a Children's Discovery Center here in our town.

I am eternally grateful as we just don't have that many indoor things here to do.

Considering how HOT it gets here during the summer and how COLD it gets during the winter, someplace indoors was definitely needed.

The day that they opened K ran over and got a year pass for us, trust me when I say that we will be there A LOT!

My friend Jennifer and I decided that we would wait until the following week to go since everyone and their mom was going the first few days.

Then, I up and decided to get sick so that postponed our visit even more.

Yep, I am apparently difficult.

But Friday YES Friday was the day.

To say that my kids were excited is an understatement.

We had seen this building being built for what felt like forever so finally get to go inside was very exciting.

Add that to the fact that Jennifer and her kids were going and my girls were giddy!

We walked up to the front door and even the entry way impressed me.

There was SO much to see and do.

I apologize in advance, there are A LOT of pictures.

The girls when we first walked in.

There was so much to take in I don't think they knew what to think/do/or want to do first.



Lee made a delicious cake, ha ha.



 She also dressed up as a princess.

Adison had a lot of fun playing in the cafe.

I think that the favorite of the day was the mechanic's shop.

Abby loved crawling through the tires, Adison loved working on the car and Lee liked pushing all of the buttons.



They also had a construction area.

Adison loved drilling into the wood and hammering nails.

Abby had a lot of fun driving these tractors.

There really was a lot for all ages.



They also had a painting room where the kids got to paint on the walls.

Yes, my children loved this.

There was also a section made just for toddlers.

There were things for them to climb on, a rice table and all sorts of neat toys.

We had so much fun at the center and plan on taking the kids back again.