Summertime Pals

Each year it seems our yard is the place to be. Most days I love it. I am a bit protective of my kids so I would rather have the friends here to play. So these days on average I have around 8 kids here. I often joke that I run a free daycare. Each summer it seems to change just a bit. With apartments in the area kids move in and move out so I try to snap some pics so the kids remember who they played with that year. Of course summer is in the final lap and I am already looking forward to quieter days....

A visit with our friend Michelle

Last week I got in the car and drove. A first for me. I have never honestly taken my kids by myself in a car more than an hour away. So we drove almost 3 1/2 hours to visit my friend Michelle, who moved a few years ago and I keep saying we will visit, so we finally did! And I am so glad that we spent time together. The kids really don't remember playing together, but were instant friends. We have 7 kids literally they are ages 8,7,6,5,4,3 and 0 but for the most part they played so well together you never would of known. We caught up, I got to meet some of her girlfriends and we had a girls night in which was so nice. We went to the movies and a block party and a park, and it went to fast. But it was so nice to catch up and it will be nice when we get to see them again even if briefly here the beginning of August when they come up to visit.
So now when we get in the car if I haven't told Natalie where we are going she asks if we are going back to miss Michelle's. She had such a blast. Thanks Michelle!

Gymnastics

I attempted to put Elena in Gymnastics when she was younger, but she was a little bit stubborn. I cannot believe this post was over 3 years ago! When I just started blogging. So when I signed Natalie up for Gymnastics, Elena wanted to also. They did great! Natalie is a natural. She was nervous at first as she is my quiet observer. She doesn't jump into anything, but once she saw one of her friends from cubbies was with her, she had a great time. The bar is her favorite, she has turned everything she comes into contact with a pull-up bar. The counter, the table, the racks at the store, coat racks in waiting rooms, oh do I have a monkey on my hands!Elena had her class immediately after Natalie's and was always so hot and worked up by time it was her class. She quickly made friends with a daughter of her dad's high school friends, so that was great. Bonus, a new friend that we already know the parents! YAY! We don't have many school friends that I trust that she go play with yet.She is a natural flipper and jumper. Such a strong little girl, this was a great way to get her energy out.

Happy 4th Birthday Natalie Joy!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Chuck E Cheese

Easter 2009

Something to Celebrate!!

Natalie has been potty trained since last June, but she wasn't quite ready to do the night training and I never was really in a hurry to mess with it. She did such a great job during the day. So a few weeks back I was noticing her waking up dry day after day so I asked her what we said when we stopped using diapers. She piped right in with "bye, bye diapers!" When we moved to just at bedtime, we just used pull-ups so she says with a huge grin I can say "bye-bye pull-ups!!" So I waited another week and she continued to stay dry so I got brave, put her old sheets on the bed with the mat underneath and prayed for no wet beds. SHE GOT IT!! She is a big girl now. And she even gets up at night, goes to the bathroom and back to bed. I LOVE IT!! So after 8 1/2 years I can officially say GOODBYE DIAPERS! I surely won't miss you!!!

Just add Food Coloring!

We have had some fun snow days this year, The last one we had was a few weeks back and I am so behind on blogging, but we had a good day and I wanted to post about it! A lot of snow days we will kind of mix up our meals. Have dinner for breakfast, breakfast for lunch etc. well it was so cold and dreary out that I thought we could have some fun with food coloring. So for lunch we made some rainbow pancakes.(They look a little weird, but they were quite tasty!) Elena showing me her color of choice.

Open wide Ethan!Yummy, YummyAfter lunch we made up some play-doh and the kids were painting while it cooled.They played muffin shop. This game lasted most of the afternoon and into the next day. Natalie especially really loved "baking" all kinds of crazy flavored muffins.Ethan the artist hard at work on a painting.We ended our fun afternoon with early and extra long baths. Of course some food coloring was added to the bubble bath to make it more enjoyable.

The days of taking photographs in the tub are no longer. But trust me, they had a great time!

Hey, Hey Cinderella

Cinderella, I mean Natalie loving on her kitty Madison. Cinderella is her favorite princess and there are many days lately that she has to be cinderelly all day long. Which is such a cute and fun time as Miss Elena never was much into the play dress up thing. She was into other fun things. But lately we are in the land of princes and princesses and true loves kiss:) If she could just stay like this... Just for a little while longer......

Miss Natalie and Miss Alex

Aren't they cute as can be? Miss Natalie and her best friend had a chance to hang out recently. It's been awhile since they have been able to play together and they had a BLAST! They had to hold hands to go get Ethan and Elena from school :)

Soo, soo cute. That's all I can say.

A little time for tea - Jennie's Shower

It has been too long and too much has happened over this past month that I have not made note of, so I am going to try to get this little blog updated. My last few posts were about my little man Ethan and I do have much more to share with him, but I will start with the girls. We have a wedding coming up in our family next month and miss Elena gets to be one of the flower girls. She is a little nervous about this job, so this is building some excitement for it and helping her with that. We had a very nice shower with Jennifer, it was lovely and a nice day for me to spend with my girls.How can you resist these faces? I cannot believe they are mine:) How lucky am I?Miss Jennifer with the girls

And the bride to be and her mother, Aunt SandyAgain my little Angels, I just was eating them up in their Navy dresses!For the shower favor they had little tea cups and saucers and the girls were each able to select one, they were so excited to have their own special tea cups. Now for the tea parties!

First Day of School

I know school started here two weeks ago, but I started back to work too so my blogging is a little delayed. Anywhoo. Ethan started 2nd grade on Monday August 25 and Elena started kindergarten on Tuesday August 26. So far school seems to be going great for both of them. So nice to see them looking forward to going to school. They both are doing well so far and making friends. Here is Ethan standing by our first day of school tree Still 7, but almost 8 years old.Elena has always held up how many fingers old she is. As you can see she is 5.Here they are waiting in the gym with their class waiting to start the day!And after a long first day of taking kids to school and going to the babysitter, here is Natalie when I came into the living room to call her for dinner. First day was hard on her! We have survived so far and are looking forward to what this new school year will bring:)