Preschool Days

Gracie started Preschool at Hope Lutheran last Friday. She was so excited to be going to school too. Although if you ask her how "school" is going she will quickly correct you and say "it is not school it is preschool"... she really is too big!
Here are just a few pictures from her first day last week.

Top: Gracie out front of the school
Bottom: Gracie showing her new backpack

A nice, cheesy smile!

"I'm ready!"

My sweet baby... off to school. Oh, excuse me... Preschool!!

My Sunday School Kiddos

I teach the 2 and 3 year olds at church and all of them are promoting up at the end of August to the Preschool class. I told them we would have a class party since they were are leaving me:)
We had lots of fun. We had cookies, juice boxes and even prize sacks for each of them. I gave them all kinds of sugar and then they had to go sit still in church for the next hour:) Here are few pictures of my class!

Anna, Gracie, Evie and Joseph... hugging!

Being super silly... they do that a lot!

Some really nice smiles.

Here they all are enjoying their snacks and prizes.

We had lots of fun. I will miss them but I get three new kiddos in a couple of weeks and that is going to be lots of fun too!

What is that Saying?

.... Necessity is the Mother of all Inventions....
It was time for Molly to move on out of the high chair into a booster seat at the table with the rest of us. She was ready and her high chair is falling apart. I decided to start shopping online for a nice booster seat. This is what I found. It was a nice size, isn't supposed to slip, a nice bright color... it is also $29.99! Yikes!! Not really what I wanted to spend.

So this is what I did....
tied on two seat cushions to a chair for her to sit on at the table. I have to say it worked very well and it was ... FREE!!!
(and since I am the only one who wants to use a seat cushion we had extras laying under the table)

If you give me long enough... I can be real creative:)

The First Day of 2nd Grade...

What can I say really... my baby is in 2nd grade. It shocks me sometimes that she could really be old enough to be moving along so quickly in school. She had a great day and really likes her teacher. I often spend (lots of) moments during the summer praying for whoever Sydney's teacher might be the next year. Only God knows what teacher she needs and that will be suit her. So here are a few pictures of the first day of school... a very rainy first day:)

Sydney finally got to use her fun see-through
umbrella she got for her birthday!

I know her name is not 'Francisco', she is standing under her name:)

Sydney at her desk! She was so ready for me to stop taking pictures by now! I am her mother this is my job!!

Another Milestone

Sydney learned how to ride her bike last week. She was not really looking forward to learning because I think she was scared of falling off. It only took her about two evenings to get it down. Now she just cruises around the cul de sac all on her own. It is a very exciting accomplishment for sure!! We are super proud:)

The first night of learning to ride!


Gracie and Molly going for a bike ride in the trailer with Barry.

I think Gracie was "posing" and Molly was trying
to do the same but it ended up just looking like they
could not hold their heads up:)

There's No Place Like Home...

This was at the the Kansas Welcome center in, I believe, Concordia. The first rest stop just inside Kansas. I was so exited to see this. Even though we had about 8 hours left to drive, it still felt like home.
The rest of the trip I took in the rolling green hills and the fields of beautiful sunflowers and was so glad to be back in Kansas. I love the mountains and seeing Colorado but Kansas is HOME!!

I LOVE KANSAS!!!!

Gracie standing in the middle of the Sunflower:)

Meeting the Twincesses

One of the greatest highlights of our vacation was
spending some time visiting with Tony and Heather
and meeting Hadley and Leila. (Tony is Barry's
brother)
The babies are so sweet and little and we enjoyed
holding them and playing with them so much.
We got to spend a lot of time with Tony and Heather
and they tolerated our constant picture taking of their
baby girls. Here are a few of my favorite pictures:)

Sydney and Hadley

The girl cousins

Heather and I. Leila on left, Hadley on right.

Hadley (bottom). Leila (top).

Sydney, Grandma and Hadley

Gracie and Leila

Me with both babies!!! Hadley on left, Leila on right.

Barry and I.

Me and Heather.

I have new found respect for this mom. You

are automatically SuperMom if you are the

mother of Twins!!

Thanks Tony and Heather for your wonderful

hospitality and sharing your sweet baby girls!

Colorado Vacation

We just got to spend over a week in beautiful Colorado
We started out in Colorado Springs then went on to
family camp in Westcliffe and Horn Creek. We had a
wonderful time. These are just a few pictures of our fun
vacation and also not really in the right order but you will
still get the idea.

This is what happens to Molly when she has had
enough... just falls asleep on Daddy. This is after
spending a good part of the day walking and shopping
in Old Colorado City.

Barry and Molly going down the water slide at camp.
Molly loved it! Sydney loved it! Gracie went once,
but she did not love it so much:)

Gracie is trying out Sydney's horse, "Red".

Sydney, Barry and Grandpa Steve went on a

horseback ride one day. Gracie and Molly "tried"

out the horse when they got back. All the girls also

got to take rides on the little pony as well.

Sydney on Red. She had a great time!

Barry and the girls at Focus on the Family in

Colorado Springs. We love visiting Whitts End and

spending some time playing and roaming the

Focus on the Family book store!

Sydney and Gracie at Western Night at camp.

They got their faces painted. Gracie was a kitty,

Sydney was a rabbit.

My three sweeties!

OH... and again!

This picture is at a Colorado visitor's center we

stopped at on our way out. They had one of those

"propellers" from one of those new energy creating

windmills. This is the end of it, the girls could lay in

it. It was huge!!

We got to do so many fun things at camp and play with

a lot of fun friends. I wish I could post all of our great

pictures but that would be too much! We love family

camp and we do love visiting Colorado. The mountains

are gorgeous and it sometimes leaves me breathless in AWWW

of God's creations.

We had great room and the girls all had their

own beds. We all had fun classes to go to and

we also got to spend our week at camp with

Grandpa Steve. I hope he had as much fun as the

girls did with him!