Come and Gone

Thanksgiving has come and gone and I am finally beginning to feel the Christmas spirit. When I am done with school that will help, I just have too much going on with that to fully embrace the holidays.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with some great friends. We all enjoyed our day of yummy food and fantastic company. Very thankful to have them in our lives! It was the first Thanksgiving in years that I haven’t hosted and it was fabulous to have a bit of a break this year.

Chandra and I decided to go shopping this year on black friday, yikes! I had never done that before. Once we got out of the freezing cold it was actually a lot of fun. We started at 12:30am and ended at 8:30am! I spent way too much money but I am almost done with the shopping now! WooHoo! I still have to figure out a few more things for Mykenzie and pick up a couple things I have left to grab on Kaylee’s list and a couple gift cards for family members. Fantastic news.

After shopping all night I came home and put the tree up with the girls while Travis was at work. We got it up along with all the other inside decorations. It is still undecided if we are putting up outside lights this year. If you come in my house and only look at my Christmas decorations it is very pretty. You just have to put on blinders for the rest of my house which is a total disaster! I am getting there....

I have a packed week planned, starting tomorrow with writing my two theater papers, yeah that will probably take all day. Wednesday I have class and errands to run on my break. Thursday I have to work in Kaylee’s class and I have a ton of returns that I need to do and I plan to begin my English paper and finish it on Friday. This will free up the weekend from school work, well almost. Friday night I have my moms group ornament exchange that I am really looking forward to!! Saturday morning we have girl scout stuff all morning until about 2pm, I am not looking forward to this at all because it includes a trip to the discovery center on a free day which is going to be a nightmare! Kaylee then has a bday party at 3pm that I am excited to catch up with some of her preschool friends and their moms :) Sunday I will be studying for my Speech final that will take place on Monday. She moved it up so she could use the 2 hour allotted final time for us to do speeches, read she planned poorly and didn’t have time to do speeches prior to that day. Whatever, I will be happy to get one final out of the way. And it is going to be multiple choice!! I could not be any happier about that fact!! Almost done with these classes then onto the hard ones.

My sweet girl

Yesterday as I was getting out of bed Kaylee was coming upstairs to bring me breakfast in bed. It was her own creation.... ritz crackers with grape jelly and string cheese, YUMMY. I ate my two but Travis refused to give it a try. She was so proud of herself for doing something nice for her mommy and daddy though. When I suggested she eat the couple that Travis didn't she looked at me and said, "no way! I don't like that stuff!" Nice, glad I ate it. LOL

Holy Turkey Day Batman!

Tick tick tick BOOM! The clock has been counting down to the holidays and OMG they are here! I have never been so unprepared for the holidays in all of my life! Yeah yeah I know that Christmas is technically still a month away but lets get real gifts need to be in the mail in two weeks. TWO WEEKS! Yep, two weeks! No where near prepared. Now don't get me wrong I do have SOME things bought and some people crossed off my list but I still have a long way to go. I have nothing for Mykenzie or Travis and only have a couple things for Kaylee. Normally by this time I have all of our Christmas decorations up and the tree decorated, my Christmas cards are typically filled out and ready to be mailed. Not this year. I am keeping hope alive that I can write all the papers that I need to write this week and by the weekend I will be done and ready bring out the tree and all the many boxes from the attic and can finally get into the Christmas spirit. So much to do, so little time!

On a side note Travis, the girls and I went to see a stage production of It's A Wonderful Life on Saturday and it was really good. Mykenzie wasn't a fan of all the singing and Kaylee fell asleep after intermission but Travis and I enjoyed it. I would love to see it again sometime. I had never seen the story so I was unsure what it was even about. I am going to be renting it and watching it soon...

I am paying for our Rockettes tickets tonight. We are going on Dec 22nd to see that show and I am so excited!! See, I will get into the Christmas spirt eventually.

My kids are lovely

Today we are driving home and Mykenzie is talking about how Kaylee needs to go to a horse academy. She said that is Kaylee's talent but she hasn't figured out hers yet, maybe it is being a vet or maybe a rock star, if not she would just not have a job and she would just knit all day like me. I said "that is not what I do all day" So she said ok, well watch tv and eat health bars and go to the gym. I think you need to go to the gym a little more often" Lovely.

So then Kaylee was in the bathroom complaining about a stand I just bought and put in there. She said she didn't have enough room cause it is in the middle of the floor. I told her I had enough room and I am bigger than she is. So then she says, yeah your bigger than me and you have a bigger a pointed to my stomach.

I swear my kids are so sweet ;)

What? A new post?

If you actually still ever visit my blog you will be happy to know that I am actually still alive and well. Not doing so well on the blog updates. I just spent two hours typing up some updates so if you are interested keep scrolling down and see what has been happening in our lives. Facebook is great cause you can keep up with friends with just a few sentences while blogging takes a bit more effort. I plan to do better at posting on here. I really love having this record of our lives and I think it is really cool that when my kids are older they will be able to look back on this and see what our lives were like during these years. Check back soon cause my blogging days are back :)

Mykenzie update

Mykenzie has some big news. After 10 long months she is now braces free! She got her braces off and she is so thrilled about it. Her teeth look so good!! I am so glad we got it done while she was so young. Fingers crossed they stay this way and she wont have to do it again. Dr. Jones said she has a 50/50 shot so here's hoping. It is so weird to see her with them off, even a month later. She is such a pretty little girl and now she has a beautiful smile to go with it.

I had a parent teacher conference with Mykenzie's teacher last week and got her report card. She is doing great and her teacher had great things to say about her. She got straight A's. She continues to love to read which I am still super excited about. She always has at least one book with her now.

She is getting older now and with that comes some preteen drama. Oh geeze what a pain in my butt! Listening to her drama stresses me out! This is the hard part of parenting that people don't tell you about. The bigger they get the bigger their problems... Girls are so darn mean to each other and she is right along with them being mean. I don't want her to be like how I was growing up... I wish I could get her to change her attitude about things before it is too late... just keep trying I guess. She is a really good kid but there is one girl she doesn't like and she is CONSTANTLY talking about how much she doesn't like her. We have had a lot of talks, maybe one day it will sink in.

Mykenzie is changing so much physically it is scary. She is truly a 'tween and will be a full on teenager faster than it seems should be possible. Lord help me please.... Better call for that refill ;)

Kaylee update....

Not sure what the last things I have updated about Kaylee... Well she was one of the lucky kids who contracted H1N1, luckily she didn't get a bad case of it and was totally better in just a couple of days.

A couple of weeks ago she got to go on her first bus ride for a school field trip. They had done a bus safety thing a few days prior so the kids would know how to behave and what to do in case of an emergency. On the way to school that morning I was going over bus rules with her. We talked about being careful on the big steps getting on and off the bus. She told me that you only get on the bus on the steps but you get off the bus in the back! lol Apparently the bus safety class confused her, glad we had that talk and she didn't go busting about the back door.

We had girl scout camp in October. Back to Camp Sycamore which is my favorite. They have a 48 horses and the girls got to do an age appropriate horse program. Kaylee got to do Pony Ready, where they learned how to groom the horse, including putting bows in their hair, and they also got to lead the horse around the rink. She was in hog heaven, first of all just being at girl scout camp after so many years of watching Mykenzie go without her but getting to have her first time combined with her favorite thing... ponies! Just the best time ever for my sweet little girl.

Last week I had her first parent teacher conference and got her very first report card. She did great and her teacher had nothing but good things to say about her. She has mastered everything they have learned, though she still needs to work on holding her scissors correctly, I can't even describe the strange way in which she holds them, but she gets things cut. Its crazy looking though.

She has also started to read! She is doing really well with this and loves reading her books she brings home. Not so much practicing her sight words but she is doing good despite not wanting to do it. She loves to do her books though and reads them each at least ten times. She is very proud of herself too.

She is doing great overall and has also learned how to use the computer on her own and loves playing games online now. She is getting so grown up and she has gotten a bit taller since her last visit to the doctor as well. Sniff.

My Update

I have so much to update on here it is insane! I totally suck and haven't been blogging (obviously) much lately. Life has been good, nothing to complain about. We have all been really busy with everything in life. School has been a bit crazy for me lately. Had a lot going on and the second I thought I could catch my breath it got crazy again. English has calmed down but the other 2 classes have picked up. Today was a particularly stressful day at school and I was feeling very overwhelmed. Now that I have had some time to relax a bit I am feeling better about it but I have a lot of work to do. Monday was registration for spring classes and I got up bright and early to sign up. I had had had to get into Anatomy and Physiology this spring and there is only 1 class available for 24 students, thank God I got into it, otherwise it would have been impossible for me to get into the nursing program in the fall. Next semester is going to be hard.

Moving on, In October I took my first solo flight. No I didn't get my pilots license in all my free time I just simply flew without anyone I knew. I went to Ohio to spend a few days with Aimee (my sister) and my niece Abby and the brand new sweet baby girl Brielle! I loved every second that I was there with them. I had such a great time just hanging out with Aimee and cudd

ling my sweet nieces. Brielle is just the sweetest little cuddle bug ever. I hate that I live so far away and those girls don't get to know me and their cousins like I want them too.

The first weekend in November Chandra and I joined my theater class at TPAC to see the Broadway production of The Little House on the Prairie. I had never read the books and had maybe only seen a couple episodes of the show a very long time ago. I had no real interest in seeing it but had to for the class. I loved it! I now want to watch all the episodes of the show and read the books to my girls (shh they are getting them for Christmas) I laughed out loud and cried, which I never expected to do. Watching the relationship between the girls made me really think about my sister and I and more so, my girls and their relationship with each other. Anyhow, It was really good and if you have the opportunity to see it I would recommend that you do. After the show we went with my crazy pushy teacher (Dr. Adams) to the doors on the side of the building that the cast exits from and we got to chat with several of the play's stars and get autographs and photos with them, including Melissa Gilbert who played Ma in the play. It was a really cool experience. Chandra has the photos so I can't share right now.

I have some big decisions to make concerning girl scouts. Lets just say my decision could determine if this is the last year for the troop or not. I am completely torn and have no idea what I am going to do.

My moms group had a craft day at my house this past Saturday and it was fabulous! I loved learning new techniques all while hanging out with a group of women I love. Bonus, I now have 10 awesome gifts for Christmas that are all unique and special :) Crafting is way too much fun! Anyone with awesome craft blogs they want to share with me pass them along cause I want to see them :) Photos or our craft day crafts will be coming soon. I have to take them first ;)

That pretty much wraps up my personal life. Now to do the kids posts :)

School and life in general

It has been awhile since I have updated what is going on in our house. Basically we have been to busy for me to even think about this blog.

Where should I start, lets go with my school business. I turned in my first major grade English paper last week. It was due on Wednesday and I could not be happier that it is over with. Of course we have already begun our second so the process begins again. Won't have the grade back until the end of October. I had the entire thing written and had it in my 3-5 page limit and then realized it needed to be double spaced! Grr! That brought it to 9 pages so I ended up picking a whole new topic and rewriting the entire thing. Hopefully I get a good grade, though I don't know why I wouldn't, I did the assignment I was supposed to do.

Ahh, Speech class is next. NOT FUN! I really enjoy chatting with the other students in this class and we have all bonded over our hatred of public speaking but the public speaking of the class sucks. We had to get up and talk, just off the cuff. Tell a little about ourselves. I was a bumbling idiot! Seriously, it was terrible. Luckily when I actually had to do my real speech for a grade I redeemed myself and did pretty good. I was still a nervous wreck but at least I knew what I wanted to say and had spent a LOT of time practicing it. I finally got that grade back last week and ended up with a 48 out of a possible 50 points. That makes me happy but I am a little (ok a lot) pissy about what I got marked off for. She tried to say that I didn't preview the body of my speech in my intro and I SO DID!! She read my manuscript prior to the speech and wrote and I quote "excellent intro" on it. I said the intro WORD FOR WORD and she said I didn't preview the body? WTF? Anyhow, I am trying to just be happy I did well and forget about that but like I said I am quite pissy about it.

I have no clue how I am doing in my theater class. My teacher (also my speech teacher) is a total scatterbrain. We have turned in 3 things, very small minor things, for a grade but who knows if we will ever find out how we did. If I had to guess I would say I am currently holding out at an A. However, we had to do a character analysis on the musical Showboat and I don't think I formatted it correctly so who knows how much she will deduct for that crap. But really how can you tell someone to write a character analysis and not tell them how to do it (we have never done that) or what you expect. Seriously she is nuts. I am going to be pissed if I don't do well cause I have a lunatic for a teacher.

Moving on. Mykenzie had to do her first report last week. She had to do a one page report on Native American Nancy Ward. She also had to complete a poster with pictures and facts, and do an oral presentation. She was not allowed to read her report out loud, she just had to get up with her poster and talk. She had to present it on Friday and brought her grade home the same day. She ended up with a 35 out of 35 possible points on the report, 35 out of 35 possible points for her poster, and 28 out of 30 possible points for her oral presentation. So her total score was 98 out of 100 possible points. She was so nervous to get up and speak in front of her class and I am so proud of her that she pulled it together and did well.

Now I will update on the freaking Swine Flu, oh sorry I mean H1N1... whatever. Kaylee ended up sick last week, on Sept 25th. She had a temp of 102 that didn't come down with tylenol. Travis took her to the doctor (Kenzie and I were at our Girl Scouts garage sale) on Saturday (the first time he has ever taken either of our kids to the doctor, btw) Even though her fever had broke in the middle of the night and she seemed ok, she tested positive for type A flu. Grr. Luckily the fever stayed away and she was able to go to school on Monday (or I would have been screwed since I had to turn in my rough draft and T had to go out of town). Also take note that this occurred exactly one week after she received her flu shot. Fast forward to yesterday, October 3, and now Mykenzie gets a 102 fever. Luckily I had extra of the Tami flu (long story) from Kaylee cause that crap cost $85! so she has been taking that and so far has been fever free since last night. Hopefully that continues cause once again I have class tomorrow and need her to go to ESP (the girl are on fall break so they have to go to the extended stay program at school)

Lets see. Beyond that I have had a ton of stuff going on with girl scouts and putting together the yard sale we had last weekend. So glad that is over but we leave for camp on Friday so there is no rest cause now I have to figure out what the crap we are going to do while there. We are doing the horse program again. Mykenzie gets to ride cause she is a junior this year so that will be really cool. Kaylee gets to brush and learn about horse safety. They are both really excited though Kaylee wishes she could ride too. I let her ride the pony's at the school's fall festival the 24th though so that was nice. The child loves horses and that was the first time she had ever been on one or touched a real one!! She was over the moon!

Aimee had her baby on the 30th!!! Brielle Raylin (that would be my middle name, Rae and Aimee's middle name, Lynn combine, aww. How sweet is that?) She is such a sweetie! And a chub! She weighed in at 8lbs 15oz and that was 2 weeks early. They are home now and my mom was able to be up there with her for the week though I assume she is leaving today or tomorrow. I am going up to see her on the 14th. I can't wait. I will only be there for a few days but I am so excited to go see them all. I will be flying for the first time in 4 years and the first time ever by myself. The way there is a straight shot but I have a layover on my return flight. Fingers crossed.

Ooh! We FINALLY got a family picture taken!! Shocking right? The last professional family picture was taken 9 years ago when Mykenzie was exactly 1 month old. Yep. That is sad people. You have to wait to see them though, well unless you are Travis' facebook friend cause he put them on there. I want people to wait till Christmas cause uh, heck yeah that will be Christmas gifts for people :) If you read this and want one, LMK what size ;)

I think that is all the major time consuming things going on. Though there have been plenty of smaller things for sure, baby showers, picnics, my car dying. Not that they were small things, just smaller less time consuming things that have been going on.

strange

I have been thinking a lot about Jenna lately. I imagine it mostly has to do with the fact that Mykenzie just spent the night with her kids (and Mark and Kara) and while we were out there dropping them off Barbara and I stopped and visited Jenna's grave and I made a fall flower arrangement that we put on it. Fall was her favorite time of year and she always got so excited about all the upcoming fall festivities.

In my english class at school I have to write a narrative essay, so a story with a point. We had no notice and had to start writing in class on Monday and so I started to write about Jenna's story and was recounting the day she found out she had leukemia.... I was reading over what I had written so far in class tonight and realized that I should probably fill in my blank I left in the opening line of my essay....."I got the phone call that I had been dreading on ________. " I couldn't recall the exact date, so I came here to my trusty blog to find out. You want to know the date that it was.... September 15, three years ago to the day that she found out that she had cancer. Wow. So yeah, I had to write about it and share it with someone. I thought it was strange that I picked the exact day that it happened to look up the date. I bet I don't forget it again.

Lots of Changes

Both big and small changes are happening in our home currently... I am officially in school. My first day was Monday and I go back tomorrow. People keep asking how it was and I don't really know what to say other than school is school. It is something that I have to do so I am going to get it done. I don't think it will be as bad as I thought however I am still nervous and I am still a bit freaked about having to do speeches. I think that the next 15 weeks are going to fly by though as well.

Now for some of the changes you can actually see. I mentioned in my last post I was in the middle of moving things around in my kitchen closets... Well after a LOT of hard work I did it. It is done and it is dang cute if I do say so myself. Most importantly though it is such a WONDERFUL use of space!

This is my small closet sized pantry before the redo....

And now it is a coat closet.....
This is my closet before (ish) I forgot to take a photo with all the crap in here. Picture one of those ugly wire shelves with all those coats (plus several more that got moved to the yard sale) with a bunch of crap piled on top of the shelf and a ton of craft stuff, playdoh ect all over the floor of it. You can see where I had to re-mud and tape and deal with electrical in this photo though.
And now...

Tuesday Twelve

1. I am in full on project mode. So far this week, I have changed my pantry into a coat closet, painted the door from my garage to my house, and painted my shutters.

2. I taped and mudded dry wall joints for the first time. My old closet, new pantry had the surprise of the current stuff coming down so painting on there is on hold till it is successfully fixed. Another surprise in there ended up being the stupid box from our security system that is no longer hooked up. Fun stuff. It isn't there any more ;)

3. I dropped about $400 last week on book and already got them. The classes don't look too bad but still eh.

4. In less than one week I will be a college student for the first time in my life after leaving high school 11 years ago. I will no longer have to check the box on things that say "level of education" as just having a high school diploma ever again. I have moved onto "some college"

5. Both girls have colds :( Hopefully they stay colds and don't develop into anything else. That would be just our luck that they get sick my first day of school and have to miss school. That is not a situation I want to deal with at this point.

6. My sister finally has her c-section scheduled I learned via facebook since she doesn't have a phone right now. September 30th my new sweet baby niece will be here!!

7. I am working on figuring out how to get up to Ohio in October to see the new baby. I am thinking I can leave the night after my last mid-term and head that way for about 4.5 days.

8. I am having a garage sale on Friday. Apparently after sitting on my butt all last week, I decided it would be a great idea to cram as much as possible into this week. Wish me luck cause I have some serious lofty ambitions this week.

9. The girls are both enjoying school this year!! I had both of their room meetings on Thursday and I have got to say I really like both of their teachers alot. I think this is going to be a good year for them.

10.Travis picked up a second district. joy. That means, oh yes folks, TRAVEL. This equals good times for me. ugh

11. I joined my moms groups biggest loser contest. I don't think I have lost any weight this week but I am getting back into exercising. This is good since like I said in a previous post I have gained 12 pounds this summer! yuck!

12. Girl Scouts is back in session. We had our first meeting last Monday. I have 1 new girl as a brownie which puts me at 4 girls. I am really excited about having only a few girls this year and getting to do more with them. I had 11 last year!!! This is going to be a cake walk!

Look out Kindergarten here she comes!

So far Kaylee has had 2 half days of Kindergarten. Her phase in day was Friday and she had another half day today. Tomorrow starts full time school! I am nervous for her but excited too. I will still be walking her to class, even though it isn't "recommended" because she still doesn't quite remember where her room is. She is still very much so getting the hang of things around that big school where independence is so important. I have her lead me to her room in the morning and she can almost get me there, so she is close and should be ok by the end of the week I would imagine. However, since today after sitting in what could have been the longest carpool line in my life (and it was only kindergartners being picked up) I got to the doors to find my child was not there. Yep. She was missing. Oh where is she? I'd like to know that too. It ended up that she mistakenly got into the wrong line for the ESP kids rather than the car riders and then when she saw her teacher walk away she tried to follow and the ESP teacher told her she had to stay with her.... so hopefully we wont have this issue again or the mama bear is gonna be roaring pretty loud. This is now twice in 2 days that someone has misplaced my little girl, yeah the people at church on Sunday couldn't find her either. She was fine then and in the room she was supposed to be in then too. Seriously though it is not cool. Anyhow she really likes school alot and said her teacher is really nice. After we picked Mykenzie up after Kaylee's first day she asked her how it was and she said "GREAT!" She has met a new little friend too :) She is off and running into big girl world.

Mykenzie is in 4th Grade!!!

Mykenzie started school Tuesday morning. She just had a half day but she came home happy and said that her teacher was really nice, but made sure to add that "teachers are always nice the first day of school" She has already had a bunch of homework this week. Ey yi yi That is a freaking nightmare. She is so slow! It has taken her hours every night to complete it because she doesn't just sit and concentrate and get it done. It is going to be a long year if she is this scatter brained with this amount of homework. I hope she learns to focus, and fast! She did say after spending the week in her class that her teacher "is awesome" Her best friend from school is in her class again this year too so that is great news. She is really happy to have Grayson with her again.

School's Starting!!!

We went to the school tonight to drop off the girls school supplies and meet their teachers. We went to Mykenzie's class first and she has a very sweet teacher. She seems really nice and I got a good feeling from her. Immediately felt comfortable around her. So Yay! One down one to go. I have had a really bad feeling that Kaylee was going to get the one and only kindergarten teacher that I can not stand and did not want her to get. Mykenzie did not have her but she did have an encounter with her where I witnessed her hollering at her bent over in her face and wagging her finger in her face. So after I exchanged so unpleasant words and expressed my dissatisfaction with that situation I haven't really had good feelings toward the woman. So anyhow when they would not let me request a teacher I was feeling that Kaylee was surely going to get her..... Turns out, I am happy to announce that my feeling was wrong and she instead got a teacher that I think she will end up loving (and I will too) Hopefully I am right about these ladies and we have a terrific year! Mykenzie got Jennifer Grimes for 4th grade and Kaylee got Jennifer Polk for Kindergarten.... it is the year of the Jennifer, Mykenzie said that it either means they are both going to be really nice or both going to be really mean. Lets all keep our fingers crossed that it means really nice!

Mykenzie goes tomorrow for a half day and then starts on Wednesday full time. Kaylee has a phase in day on Friday for half day and another half day on Monday then starts full time on Tuesday. Wow! Yay for another great school year. Now lets hope I like my own teachers... dun dun dun

Summer In review

1. Trip to Ohio in June. We had such a good time visiting family and friends. Drama as always and makes us glad we don't live in those towns but wish we were still closer than we are. We have some great people in our lives.



2. Kaylee got 10 inches of hair cut off and it is ready to be mailed to Locks of Love. Yes I said it is ready, I suck and haven't mailed it yet. This week I swear!



3. Mykenzie had a week of VBS in June that she loved. She also had several days of girl scout day camp in July. She had a great time at that as well so I think I am going to look into doing a week long one for her next year.



4. Kaylee had a week of kinder camp in June. She got to meet some of the teachers and learn what her days are going to be like in the big school. She ended up being much more nervous than I would have ever guessed her being but I think overall she enjoyed it and she is going to really enjoy kindergarten.



5. Mykenzie turned 9! Holy Moly! She had a skating party with her friends and they all had a great time. She is doing much better on her roller skates now. Kaylee did very well for her first time on skates as well.



6. Travis' friend Ernie came down for a visit over 4th of July weekend. This means that our roof is actually fixed now! Yay!! 3rd times a charm right. Kaylee loved having him here and didn't want to leave his side for a second.



7. I turned 29! Gasp! I am now officially in the last year of my twenties. Next year at this time I will be 30. I remember when I thought 30 was so old!



8. We got a zoo membership. I swore I would not buy another one here because it costs too much and it isn't that great of a zoo. Well I broke down and got one and we have already used it twice! Once with friends and once with just the 4 of us. I would imagine that since we have it we will get our money's worth out of it anyhow.



9. Blueberry picking! We went blueberry picking with our playgroup and it was tons of fun! The plan was to make yummy blueberry muffins.... nope never happened. They all went to waste cause I just never had the time to do it. So sad, but it was worth the $4 of fun we got out of it anyhow.



10. Several trips to the pool with friends. We don't typically have a ton of trips to the pool with friends but we took advantage of it this year. We had a great time going and hopefully we will continue to take advantage of that free fun thing to do for the kids.



11. Thanks to all of our pool trips, both girls have become much braver in the water. Mykenzie started the summer refusing to jump off the side of the pool in the deep end to having that be the main thing she wants to do. Neither of them can swim yet but I feel confident that they will be able to next summer. Both of them have relaxed quite a bit, and since Kaylee is now 5 she can take swimming lessons without me in the pool with her so they will both be signed up soon and take them through the winter so they will be little fish by the time next summer hits.



12. We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. Seriously. I don't even feel old enough to have been married for 10 years! lol We went out a week early while the girls spent the night with wonderful friends. We saw a movie (Public Enemy), had a yummy dinner at The Melting Pot and went to a couple of places downtown including The Big Bang which was great fun. It was a really fun night and I am glad we got to go out and celebrate. He also bought me a new toy, I got a Mac book computer! I am still getting used to it because Apple is a whole new world from PC but I love it.



13. Vacation to visit my mom. Hanging out at her house and spending time with her is always something I love. If only you realize this when you are a teenager! lol



14. Kaylee got her ears pierced. Such a big step for my little girl. She loves them and so do we and knock on wood they are doing great.



15. Kaylee turned 5. It is still so hard to believe that she isn't a baby anymore. She had her party with her friends and had such a good time. We are so lucky to know such great people.



16. I have to report so I can be held accountable, that I have gained 8 pounds this summer. I am pretty sure at least 90% of that landed in my ass. Once school starts back up so does the workouts. This is not a good thing people.



17. This obviously isn't all we did but just some of the highlights. We have had a great summer. I am a little sad to see it end but I am looking forward to the girls being in school too. Our lives are about to change so very much I am so nervous and a little excited too. I don't do real well with change so it will be interesting if nothing else. Having both girls in school, trying to navigate being back in school myself. Trying to find a balance between everything. We are beginning a new chapter in our lives. No more babies at home just school age kids. It is really scary but I am sure we are all going to do great in our new adventures.

Kaylee's new exciting thing....

While in Virginia Kaylee did something that I have wanted her and Mykenzie to do for a long time. I have been hounding Mykenize about it for many years but just recently started on Kaylee. Mykenzie still has absolutely no interest and says no way but Kaylee agreed and I jumped on it. So while shopping with Nanny, Kaylee took the leap and got her ears pierced!!!! YAY!! I am so excited about it!

My big brave girl didn't even shed a tear. She got pretty teary eyed after that first one but she held it together and only let out an "ouch" and did the second ear like a champ. I am so proud of her she did such a good job and was so very brave. She looks so cute!! I love them! I told her she could pick any of the earrings she wanted and she picked the cheapest pair! lol

Life

It is now August and in only 2 days my baby girl will be turning 5! Yikes! On Sunday she told me she wanted to go to the splash pad for her birthday so I frantically sent out several evites and started planning a little party for her. I mean she is going to be a whole hand afterall. I have nothing ready but I am keeping it pretty simple so it shouldn't be too difficult to get everything together tomorrow.

On Saturday we got back from a week long visit with my mom and step dad in Virginia. We always have a good time with them. Last year our visit was so busy and we were constantly on the move though it was totally fun it was really exhausting. This year we took it easy and just hung out at her house. Took the boat out and once again didn't catch any fish. lol It is so relaxing sitting on the boat though so I sure didn't mind just being out there. We of course did alot of shopping, playing poker and cards and just sitting on the porch and talking. The girls love the 4wheeler so we all took them on many rides on that. It was a good trip and it is always hard to say good bye to them, I really wish we were closer so we could see them more than once a year.

In another post I will share Kaylee's exciting news from our trip to Virginia. No it does not involve anyone getting lost in the woods or getting ticks or poison ivy! lol This one is good exciting news :)

4 year olds are tough!

Kaylee and Travis were wrestling around this morning and he pinned her down on the bed with his leg. She says "Dad, I am 4 I can handle this!" Too funny :)

It's July!!

Half of the year is officially over. I am now only 2 days away from beginning my last year of my twenties! yikes! In 22 days Travis and I will be celebrating our 10th anniversary! Oh my goodness time is flying by us.

Today we had a BEAUTIFUL day at the zoo. It was perfect weather especially after last week being so hot you couldn't even breathe when you walked outside. We went with Chandra and Barbara and all the kidlets. 9 kids in all and they were all pretty good. Some whining about being hungry and tired but overall a pretty good day.

So on Saturday we had Mykenzie's skating party. The kids all seemed to have a pretty good time. Kaylee impressed me to no end. That girl had never put skates on her feet before and she did really well. She fell quite a bit but I was amazed at how well she did. Mykenzie did MUCH better this time around. This was only the second time she'd been skating and her confidence has grown a ton. She ended up having 14 kids come so it was a pretty good party. My party girl was terrible and we were very rushed in the party room but the kids had fun anyhow. No one got hurt so it was a good day. Jenna's kids were able to make it with Dawn. It was great to see them. I told Jake he probably didn't remember me but he said he did and gave me a big hug. He is just the sweetest. It has been a while since I have seen them and they have grown up so much. It was great to see them on that day, it was the 2nd anniversary since we lost Jenna. It was good they had something fun to do. Here are a few photo's of the day :)