Thursday, August 14, 2014

Let the Parties Begin

Birthday season has arrived at our house, in the space of 3 months we have 4 birthday's to celebrate which makes for lots of fun and lots of tasty treats. Birthday season starts with this doll, Miss Olivia! I cannot adequately express how much I love and adore this now 4 year old. Olivia has one of the sweetest temperaments and she loves to make others laugh, it never fails that she will put a smile on your face. Just being around her makes me happy and fills me with joy, she's the best cuddle buddy, and just a total delight. It is honestly crazy for me to think she's been a part of our family for 4 years already and that every moment of them has been so wonderful.




We had a joint party for Olivia and Abigail because the girls birthday's are only 9 days apart. I had a lot of fun making their cakes this year and I was really happy with how they turned out. We had a small dinner at our house with some friends, it was a great night filled with yummy food, happy kids, and great company.

Another thing that's crazy is that this girl turned one! This year literally flew by and I'm still having a hard time believing that it really has been a whole year since this little girl joined our family. Abby really is practically perfect in every way to quote Mary Poppins. Her laugh is infectious, she is so adventurous and will do whatever it takes to try and keep up with her big sisters, she gives the best kisses, she knows what she wants, and she's one of the happiest children I've ever met.


These two girls are just amazing and I cannot even imagine my life without them in it, its like before they were born I didn't know what I was missing and now that I have them I never want to let them go.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Summer Family Vacation

To warn you now, this post has a ton of pictures in it so be prepared. Around the middle of July we were invited to go on a little hunting trip with some good friends of ours. The boys hunted coyotes and us girls had fun hanging out around the time share. We were there for 4 days and it was fantastic to say the least. All of us had a great time and it was nice to be able to get away and do something fun. The guys would head out early each morning and hunt pretty much the whole day and they were quite successful as well which you'll see at the end of this post. Us girls had fun walking to the pond,

playing on the playground,

exploring,


swimming, swimming, and more swimming,



and just having fun.

We were able to see some horses while we were there and the girls couldn't have been happier,
Jacob also took the girls fishing one night.


This guy had a blast hunting and was beyond excited because he got three coyotes during the trip.


Overall we had a blast and felt so grateful our friends invited us and our energetic kids to come with them.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

What The?!

Where did this summer go? I feel like it flew by and now school has started for Savannah and Olivia goes back next week, its craziness I tell you. I have some fun summer things to blog about but I'll get to those another day, today I'm talking about Savannah and her first day of Kindergarten.
 I took Savannah and picked her up her first day. I had a vision of how it would be taking Savannah to school the first day and my vision did not go as planned. Savannah has been excited for school since preschool ended in May. We had all her supplies ready and she picked her outfit out almost a week ahead of time. This girl was ecstatic!!! We went to meet the teacher night the Friday before school started and Savannah loved every minute of it and we found out quite a few of her friends were in her class too. Savannah is also going to school all day instead of half day so she gets to do all the fun afternoon activities like going to the library, computer lab, music, and gym. It was finally the first day of school, Savannah was up at 6:30 all dressed and her bed was made. She came into my room and asked what other chores she needed to do before we could go to school. My friend Maryanne came over to watch Olivia and Abby so I could drop off Savannah. This girl was bouncing out of her seat with excitement! We got to her class, hung up her backpack, gave her teacher her supplies, and went to her seat. They had some blocks on each table for the kids to play with until school started. Here is where things did not go as planned. When I told Savannah I was going to leave she actually started crying!!! I was shocked to say the least and I didn't know what to do. I stayed with her a bit longer in hopes that one of her friends would finally show up. When one did they let Savannah sit next to her and play, soon after she stopped crying after I had left but I had started crying because I felt so bad leaving her there. When I went to pick her up she had had a great day but said that she missed me all day and didn't like being at school all day. I know by the end of the week she'll love every minute of it and be so happy. This morning she rode the bus, thankfully she has two friends that get on, on the same bus stop so she has friends to sit with on the way to school and back home. I'll be honest though, this morning was hard for me, as she skipped off to get on the bus as happy as could be I had a lump in my throat and butterflies in my stomach. Savannah can be a handful and make me want to pull all my hair out but I adore her, I want to protect her. The thought of something happening to her or someone being mean to her is devastating to me. Its hard to let go of that control/influence I had when she was home with me. Now she's in this new place without me having new experiences and I have to trust that I've done my job as her mom, that she'll be able to take care of herself and make good choices. Its scary but I can do it and so can she. The good points of Savannah being in school are Olivia misses her like crazy and Savannah misses Olivia. We were having some fighting issues right before school started and both girls needed some separation and now they have lots. Savannah and I appreciate each other more and miss each other more. Its fun to see how grown up Savannah feels now, yesterday Savannah said, "Mom, I can do my hair myself cause that's what kindergartners do." I did it in the end but still it was cute that she was already feeling more independent.
To celebrate a successful first day we went out for ice cream on our way home from picking Savannah up. In short time is flying by, Olivia starts back up with preschool in a week and Abby turns 1 tomorrow. Everyone says how much faster time goes by once your kids start grade school and it kind of has me freaking out because I already think time is going by fast. How can it go by even faster? I guess I'll find out.