Laurel turns 3!!!

Yesterday was Laurel’s big day.  It’s tough to be the youngest and have the last birthday of the year for the family.  She was a trooper though and kept up with daily asking “It my birthday now?”

It’s always fun when a birthday falls on the weekend, and we can celebrate with everyone on the day of the actual birthday.  After worship we headed to Pizza Ranch for lunch.  Once everyone was filled, we headed over to a kite festival that was going on nearby.  The kids loved seeing all of the gigantic kites.  I think their favorite was easily the caterpillar that rolled back and forth on the ground over them.  We definitely need to upgrade our kite collection though since our cheap, plastic Elmo kite just wouldn’t fly.  (Thank you Brad for trying so many times to get it going!)

 

After our fun at the kite festival, we headed back to our house for presents and ice cream cake.

In the end, it was a full, fun day.  We are so incredibly blessed with a super sweet girl!  Happy 3rd Birthday, LJ!

Fair day ’13

We are now the proud owner of a lemur. And a 3 1/2 foot long snake. (Both of which received a solid coat of Lysol before enter bedrooms, and one of which already needs back surgery to stitch him up.) We also came home from the fair with 3 sacks of candy, 2 plastic trumpets, and one pink ball (and likely many creepy carnival germs).

It was a fun day, and one that we look forward to in the months leading up to the Richardson County Fair. I’ve been to the Arkansas State Fair growing up, and what I’ve come to learn is that I like the small town fair much better. I loved growing up and getting to go to Nokomis, IL for the Homecoming Fair each year. I have incredible memories of those weekend, and I’m glad that my kids get the same small town fair experience each year.

We sit near the tail end of the parade route, and even though most have run out of candy to toss by the time they hit our spot, we still come home with enough tootsie rolls to last us the next several months. This was the first year since I started going that Brad’s sister brought her family down on Friday. It’s always fun to watch the kids get to enjoy their cousins.

After the parade wrapped up it was time to find some lunch and gear up for an afternoon of riding the rides. Nate is kind of in an in between stage with rides. He’s too big for the little kid stuff, and none of the other kids are really big enough to enjoy the big kid rides with him. Lucky for him his little sister is in the 91% for height, and she was able to go with him on some of the bigger stuff as long as she had a adult with her.

And, this is pretty much how we all felt as we drove home:

Thank you Humboldt, NE and Richardson County fair for an amazing day at the fair!

S’mores labor

 

 

Our Labor Day plan was to have no plans.  We are in a super busy season of commitments right now, and a day of nothing seemed like the perfect idea.  I had mentioned early in the day that it would be fun to break in our fire pit we got this summer with s’mores for dessert after dinner.  When Brad’s sister asked if we wanted to go to the splash pad with them, we thought it would be fun to pair the two things together.  So after having fun in the water, we headed back to dry off and get sticky.  In retrospect, maybe the water part would have served us better after the sticky s’mores!

momma’s sidekick

While the big kids have been having lots of fun things going on lately, Laurel seems to be missing out on blog posts.  She seems to think she is just as big as Nate and Jilly, but she doesn’t get all of the extra fun things going on quite yet.  I’m sure I’ll blink and I’ll be posting about her going to school, losing teeth, and running off to Husker games!

She is my faithful sidekick.  I can’t seem to get more than about 5 feet from her before I hear a panicked, “Mom!  Mom?  Mom, where are you?!”  Here’s a sample conversation from earlier today: (I had just hoped in the shower and Laurel pulled a chair to the bathroom doorway and was quietly sitting in it.)  Laurel:  I go play now Mommy?  Me:  Ummm,  yes please!!  (No audience needed while showering, thanks!)

As I’ve snapped pictures of the other kids lately, she has been right by my side with her little “me too, Mommy?”

Game Time!

This past Saturday was a first for Nate.  He had his first opportunity to attend a Husker game with Brad, and he was super excited.  He loves to watch the Husker on tv, and we decided that age 7 seemed like a good time to start getting to go to a game.  The only down side was that I didn’t get to tag along to see him experience it all for the first time.  Brad said he did really well, and asked a ton of questions.  Luckily we remembered to pull out the binoculars which allowed him to get a better view of things.  Our biggest fear was that the game didn’t start until 7pm – when your dad is a pastor there is no option to skip worship to sleep in the next morning!  🙂

What was most impressive to Nate about the whole experience???  “Mom we set a record, and I was there!”  (With the new stadium expansion, it was a record number of people in Memorial Stadium.)  Adorable!

Happy 5th Birthday, Jilly Mae!!

 

 

We have a “rule” in our house that you wait until your 5th birthday before you get to have a friend birthday party.  To say that Jilly was excited to turn five, would be an understatement.  She went through countless theme ideas before finally settling on a Lalaloopsy party.  I was thrilled since it meant that I got to do all kinds of fun sewing projects to go along with it all.  The day was incredibly hot and incredibly windy.  I might have gotten slightly stressed over not being able to decorate the table as I had hoped due to the wind, but luckily 2-7 year olds don’t pay too much attention to decorations!

Following her celebration with friends on Saturday, she got to celebrate with family on Sunday.  We had a low key, stay out of heat, home celebration.  She seemed to have a great time, and thoroughly enjoyed her moment in the spot light as everyone’s eyes were on her as we sang Happy Birthday to her.  (Don’t you dare tell her that isn’t a real American Girl doll!  She is quite certain that it is!!)

After a couple days of break from celebrating, it was time for the actual day of her birthday.  She was thrilled to get to spend part of her day at preschool and celebrate with her classmates.  After opening gifts, she picked Jimmy John’s as her choice for her birthday dinner.   Although we were slightly surprised by this choice, we all enjoyed our meal.  Then it was back home for more gift opening with Grammy and Grandpa and a show before bed.  Happy birthday, Jilly Mae!

the lost, lost tooth

This just happens to be the week of Jilly.  The girl loves attention, and she sure does get to have the spot light on her a lot this week.  Saturday was her birthday party with friends, Sunday we celebrated her birthday with family, today is her first day of Preschool 4, Wednesday is her birthday, and Thursday she starts back in ballet class!  This much attention just wasn’t enough for her though – she needed to add to it.

After a very traumatic (for all of us) experience of having her first loose tooth pulled by dad, we decided to let this second one take its time.  Over the past week, she had started to talk about wiggling it – a conversation that would previously cause her to have a melt down – which let me know that it must be getting close to time for it to come out.

As we headed up to quiet time today, she mentioned that her tooth was bothering her.  I looked and noticed it was bleeding quite a bit.  (Here is where you need to know that I cannot stand loose or wiggling teeth or gaping holes where teeth one stood.)  I, being the brave obligated mom that I am, asked if she wanted me to try to pull it.  She, being the stubborn independent girl she is, said that she would do it.  And she did.  With just two tries, that tooth came right out.

Somewhere in the excitement of trying to find my phone so she could call her dad and share the news, the tooth got lost.  I thought that would cause a meltdown, but she was more than happy with the idea of writing a note to stick under her pillow.

What a little more attention for such an adorable girl!?!

1st day of Preschool!!!

One of the hardest things to explain to an excited student is why she has to wait a week and half longer than big brother for preschool to start.  Today was the much anticipated (by myself as much as her!) day.  Over the course of past few days she would break into excited giggles over the idea of school starting.

 

(You can from this point forward expect to see Ayla (the non-American Girl doll) in 99.9% of Jilly’s pictures.  They are apparently long lost BFFs and inseparable.)

She walked right into her classroom this morning with confidence and joy.  Now that I think about it, I don’t think I even got a good bye hug!  She chatted away about all her friends from last year that she got reunited with today and is thrilled at so many new friends to get to know.

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Back to School

I guess today would fit into the category of blog worthy events for our family.  It’s back to school day for Nate!  He said he was awake at 6 excited to start the day.  He started 2nd grade this morning with a half day.  He seemed to LOVE it!  Brad and I were thrilled to get some actual conversation out of him regarding his day rather than just, “It was good.”

There is something about him being in second grade, that makes me miss teaching.  Second grade was my favorite to teach.  I loved everything about second graders.  They are so much fun to teach!  I’m hoping he loves second grade as much as I did!