American Girl in Kansas City!!

It is here!! The American Girl store came to KC in the Oak Park Mall. Sydney asked for money and gift cards to the AG store for her birthday back in June. When we found out they would be opening a store in our mall Sydney decided to wait to spend her money until we could visit the new store and experience it all!!

We did experience it all, the girls had so much fun in the store. Gracie and Molly even enjoyed it though they were not getting a doll this time.

Here are a few pictures from our fun family night out at the American Girl store!! Enjoy!

Ready to go shopping!

Sydney trying to decide with 'Just Like Me' doll does look 'just like her'

All done shopping! It was fun!

Sydney, Sabrina (she named her doll) and Pepper the snow dog (also from AG store).

Sydney, Sabrina and Pepper ready for soccer!

I think this store will make a girl of any age feel about 8 again and remember how much fun it is to play with a really special doll!

The 10th Annual VanHorn Backyard BBQ Bonanza!

We just had a wonderful backyard bbq this year. A record 106 people this year! Wow! I am only going to post a handful of pictures because I took way too many to post here. God blessed us with a beautiful evening and a fun evening with friends.

Me and my girlies :)

Gracie showing off her BBQ tshirt.

My BBQ co-horts! It would not happen with out them that is for sure! Lori designed the shirts and they are fabulous!

Just a few of our BBQ friends!

Thanks for coming everyone and we hope to see you all next year!

Gracie goes to preschool...

Gracie started preschool last week, she is going three afternoons a week this year. She is really enjoying it!

Showing off her 'new' backpack. Sydney carried it for a few years and thankfully Gracie was excited about inheriting it!

Ready for school!

The First Day of 3rd Grade!

My baby on her first day of 3rd grade... yes... 3rd grade! I can hardly believe it myself. She was looking forward to it and was not even nervous. Is this my child?

Our conversation went something like this this morning:

Her: You're not dropping me off?

Me: No, we are all going to walk you in, Mommy wants to take some pictures!

Her: You don't have to walk me in, I know where I need to go

Me: I know but I want to , it is the first day of school

Her: (big sigh) okay

Dad: Sydney, when you are a senior in high school we will still be walking you in on your first day and taking pictures (probably just kidding, but we will see)

Her: Mom how many pictures are you going to take

Me: only a couple

Her: Okay, only two.. okay?!

Me: We'll see ;-)

I took way more than two pictures and she survived her mom embarrassing her on the first day :)

Summer Vacation!

As most of you know we had a fabulous vacation to Colorado at the end of July! We spent a couple of days with Tony and Heather (Barry's brother and family) in Colorado Springs and then went to camp at Horn Creek with Barry's parents for a week and then came back to spend a couple more days with Tony, Heather, Hadley and Leila. We had a wonderful time! If you are my Facebook friend you have already seen these and these few pictures are just a few of my favorites out of many pictures we took. I hope you have enjoyed your summer whether you traveled or had a 'staycation'!

Here is our family at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. It was a nice little walk and very hot that day!

Barry and his girls relaxing on the porch of our lodge at camp. We shared a lodge with 7 other families... in our lodge was a total of 30 kids! It was great!

We had a family hike up to Venable Falls, it was a lot of fun!

One of the many things we enjoyed... the water slides in the afternoon. Okay, okay... Sydney and Barry enjoyed the water slides. Gracie and Molly played in the pool and I captured the fun!

Sydney and Gracie relaxing by the creek in the mountains on our hike.

Cousins!

Here is one wonderful part of our vacation... visiting family! We had lots of great time with Tony, Heather, Hadley and Leila while visiting Colorado Springs. We even enjoyed a visit from Brad and Gina Chapin and their boys while we were there.

Grandma and Grandpa with all but one of their granddaughters!

Sydney, Hadley, Molly, Leila and Gracie. My girls loved playing with their cousins and Hadley and Leila shared their toys so nicely :)

VanHorn girls with the Chapin boys!

All three of our families, what a great time!

Happy 4th of July!!!

We had a great time this holiday weekend enjoying lots of family and friends! We spent the night at Grandma Mitzie's house Saturday night and went to church with them on Sunday morning, the 4th. We got back home to enjoy a nice cookout and fireworks with great friends!

Happy Birthday America!

My girls before church on Sunday morning.

It was pouring rain and we could not see fireworks so we had our own fun in the rain with Sparklers.

It was so smoky and rainy but it sure was fun!

We took the girls up to the park by our house fresh from baths and in pjs on Monday the 5th to hopefully catch some fireworks that were rescheduled from the 4th and the rain. We finished off the rest of the sparklers while waiting for the sun to go down.

We did not see many fireworks but it was still fun relaxing and making fun family memories!

Happy 4th of July and God Bless America!!!!