June 2016

Kaylee had her last day of Kindergarten at the beginning of June and I have never seen a girl so heartbroken!  On the last day families can come and have lunch on the lawn and then take their kids home or the kids can stay and help the teachers clean up their classrooms and watch movies. It wasn't hard to guess which choice Kaylee would make. There was no way she was coming home one minute earlier than she had to!  I'm glad she loves school so much.

We love going to festivals and this summer we went to a LOT of them.  We heard about one that we hadn't been to before but there was a chance it would rain.  We thought we would be fine in a little drizzle and decided to go anyway.  The address took a really sketchy part of town and the festival didn't look much better. I looked up their website again and realized I missed the fine print that said it was a festival for youth that they are trying to rehabilitate back into society to give them something fun and clean they can go to.  Oops! Not the right festival for a family with little kids.  Luckily it started POURING rain so we didn't have to explain to the girls why we weren't actually going. We were far away from our house and starving so we had a pizza party in our car.  I think the girls might have had just as much doing this as going to the festival :)

We tried teaching Kaylee how to ride a bike without training wheels last year but her bike was still too big for her and it didn't go over very well.  This year we decided to try it again, only to have Kaylee tell us that she didn't want us to help her, she would do it on her own.  She got up on her bike and took off!  What??  Then, not to be outdone, McKenna did the exact same thing!  We've been jipped so many times on teaching our kids the classic things that parents are supposed to do, why should this be any different?  These silly independent kids.  It was really fun to watch them take off so fast though!

Back to the festivals... we went to the main Columbus Arts Festival (which is HUGE) because they had a free section specifically for kids.  We went even thought it was hot and so humid we were all dying.  I don't know how people live in these hot humid places all the time!  I literally feel like I am going to melt.  They had a ton of fun things so I it was worth it.

May 2016

We were on a walk and McKenna had to stop and play in this field of dandelions.  When she looked up at me it just took my breath away how beautiful she is- inside and out.  I had to take her picture and she gave me a sweet little smile...

 and then in typical Kenna fashion she busted out this cute face for me too!

Richard couldn't take any time off for my birthday but I told him not to stress about planning anything- his present to me could be finishing his dissertation on time!  But we did go out to eat where the girls showed us their moves... I wish I could go back to being this uninhibited!  And then my nice neighbor put together a girl's night with all of my favorite people and we had planned to play games but ended up just talking for hours!  It was a great night.

Kaylee has been begging for an Easy Bake Oven for years and I would always talk her out of it.  However, she found one at a garage sale for $2 so I told her she could get it if she used her own money to buy the mixes for it.  She was so excited but I quickly realized why my mom never bought one for me- each mix costs $7 and have the appearance of making a whole batch of cookies or cupcakes but really just make one.  And it also tasted disgusting...  Kaylee still loved it but I could not believe people still buy them after all this time.  I'll just let her make real cookies for us all next time!

Mother's Day was fabulous- Richard tried really hard to make it special for me.  Last year really taught me the importance of being a mother when Richard was out of town and I couldn't get any "special treatment", it was just me and the girls.  And it was the best Mother's Day ever.  So this year I didn't want to just relax and get pampered, I wanted to spend time with my girls.  They kicked me out to make me a treat however, so I did get to relax a little bit :)  To my delight, they made a GIANT cookie just for me and I enjoyed every bite!  Richard knows the way to my heart!  

Since we had already celebrated our anniversary with the Segway Tour, we thought we would just go out to dinner and had a babysitter already lined up when Brooklyn threw up and I canceled.  However, she was totally fine the rest of the day and I think she may have just gagged or choked on something so we decided to take the girls along with us and make it a family celebration.  Chick-Fil-A was having their last family event before taking a break for the summer and we decided to go even though it wasn't what we had in mind for our anniversary...  They have roses, candles and placemats at every table and a fancy background set up for a professional photographer to take pictures. They gave each family this mat that says "I love you because..." and a picture of your family to put in it. Then when you put it in a frame you can use a dry erase marker to change what it says.  I thought it was such a cute idea and we enjoyed being with the kiddos to celebrate our 8 years together. And Chick-Fil-A even asked if they could use our family picture for their example so everyone who came in saw us- we're famous!  ;) 

Kaylee's school had a little fun fair for the end of the year with pizza, two bounce houses, and lots and lots of little games to play.  They also got their face painted.  It was pretty ghetto but I was impressed with everything they put together for this school (can you tell I am not a fan of this school?)  

Kaylee also finished up her first year of soccer, which I was sad about.  It was fun being a soccer mom!  I don't think she liked it as much in the spring as she did in the fall and we will probably try something else next year but she just loves being a part of something so I think she will enjoy whatever she does.  

Kaylee has continued to lose more teeth and she finally got her wish of losing one at school so she could get the little tooth necklace they give you to keep it in.  However, it doesn't close well at all so they had her tape it close.  She couldn't resist opening it over and over to show her friends and so eventually her tooth fell out and she couldn't find it. She wrote a long note to the tooth fairy explaining where it was and was hopeful she would still get paid.  Luckily, the tooth fairy must have found it because she still got money in the morning!  

The girl's favorite dad in the ward signed up to coach a T-Ball team and since the girls fit perfectly into the age range, I signed them up to be on the team together.  I was a little worried about how they would do being on the same team and I was definitely not expecting them to love it so much!  The first few practices they were inseparable and both of them are doing so well! I would say they are definitely the best hitters on the team and Kaylee even had an opposing coach say to his team "Watch out, this girl hits it really far!".  I am really glad we decided to do it and it's just another way these two can be best buddies this summer, which I will be really sad to see end when Kaylee goes back to school. 

While Richard has been working like crazy to get his dissertation done, I wanted a project to do at night to distract me from the loneliness after the girls went to bed.  I found these projects at Hobby Lobby and even though I am NOT patient and this is NOT usually my kind of thing, I am really glad I did them and am quite proud of them!  Since I am not artistic at all, this is the best I can do... I probably won't do these again anytime soon but I am glad they helped make the time go faster.

McKenna had been struggling with the end of preschool and I was not as patient with her as I should have been.  She made a comment to me that broke my heart and made me realize I needed to be more loving and patient with her.  To try to help with that I took her on a date with just the two of us- we went to the bookstore and Graeter's.  I am so grateful I have this little girl in my life!

April 2016

Richard couldn't take much time off from writing his dissertation but we did want to do something for Kaylee's spring break so we decided to just go mini golfing so that Richard could write the rest of the day. It was actually really fun and the girls are ridiculously good for their age- in fact we all got a hole in one!  They must have Grandpa's genes!!  

Kaylee got a beginner's sewing kit for her birthday and finished it all while we listened to General Conference.  I was so proud of her!  She did a great job and now she keeps that little owl on her bed so she can remember that hard work.  

The Sunday after General Conference I came downstairs to discover the girls playing "General Conference".  They moved the piano bench to make a podium and were taking turns giving talks.  Kaylee was President Monson and McKenna was "all the other 'postles".  It was pretty cute and I love seeing them come away from Conference with something, even if it's just that we listen to the prophet when he speaks!  

We knew that Richard would be crazy busy during May writing and teaching his class in the "Maymester" so we celebrated our anniversary early by finally going on the Segway tour we had bought tickets for 4 years earlier!  It was actually a lot of fun and I'm glad we tried it.  When you first step on the Segways it is so different from anything you have experienced you think it will be hard to control but they are actually really easy. It was a gorgeous day and we were the only ones on the tour. Happy 8 years to us!  

One day when I was talking on the phone, McKenna told me that she was playing with bubbles in the sink so I went into the bathroom to see what she was doing.  She had dumped a bunch of our handsoap into the sink and then filled it up with water and was playing in it.  I told her that was fine while I was talking to my mom and we would clean up any water that splashed onto the floor after.  What I didn't realize, however, is that she had plugged the sink and just left the water running!  I was sitting on the couch and saw something out of the corner of my eye and when I turned my jaw dropped open and I gasped so loud my mom probably thought someone had died!  What I saw was bubbles oozing under the bathroom door, out into the hall as if they were from a horror movie! I hurried into the bathroom and saw McKenna standing in an inch of water and bubbles playing to her heart's content.  I could not believe she had gotten that much water everywhere!  But in fairness, she did keep telling me that water was getting on the floor and I kept telling her we would just clean it up when I was done.... can't blame her for that one!  Luckily I was so shocked I just kept laughing instead of screaming at her and we had a good talk about it afterwards.  If only I was that level headed when it came to discipling my children all the time!  We did see water dripping in the basement but hopefully we didn't do any permanent damage and we got it cleaned up pretty quickly!

We saw a sign about a little scavenger hunt at one of the small malls we discovered recently in Worthington and decided to check it out.  It ended up being a lot more fun than I thought it was and we had a blast running from store to store to find the clues they had hidden. At the end, they gave a grand prize to two people and we were a little bummed that it wasn't us since the odds were so good (there wasn't very many people there).  However, they also passed out $5 ice cream gift cards to a place that lets you pick what size cup you want and then you can fill it up with cookie dough, ice cream, or any number of toppings you want. It was a really fun way to spend our Saturday afternoon and it made it even better that it ended with a yummy treat!

A lady in our ward was moving and cleaning out all of her old scrapbook stuff (of which she had a ridiculous amount!!).  We got a giant box of scrapbook paper as well as a bunch of stamp sets and the girls have had a lot of fun with both already!  We really needed a project to do one Sunday when we were all grumpy and the weather wasn't good enough to play outside.  We took all that scrapbook paper and made a beautiful spring garden.  I was really surprised how it completely turned our attitudes around and made it a great day.  We hung it up in our front window so everyone else could enjoy it too :)

Our next door neighbors have been so great with our girls. They don't have kids and are newly married but they both love kids.  The wife even went out of her way to make sugar cookies at Halloween just so the girls could come over and decorate them. We have been very spoiled having amazing neighbors this last year and we are sad they are already moving.  For their birthdays, they always buy each other a prank gift and a real gift.  Since the husband doesn't love animals, she bought him a giant frog, put it in a bag and made him reach in and touch it without looking!  It was pretty hilarious and the result was the girls had a new animal to fall in love with.  They only kept him for 2 days before releasing him in a wooded area nearby but our girls didn't want to waste a minute with him.  It was fun to be able to play with him and then send him on his way!

Chick-Fil-A is the greatest business and the one by us has family events every month.  Richard was really busy so I was brave and took the girls by myself to Frozen night.  They had the whole restaurant decorated, everyone got a free ice cream that you could decorate to look like Olaf, they had a sing-along and you could get pictures taken with Elsa, Anna, and Olaf.  I wasn't sure how Brooklyn would react but she had no problem going to Elsa and would NOT come back to me.  Once I forced her to come to me, she reached her arms out and wanted to go back to Elsa!  I was a little bitter about that but I guess I can't compete with a princess!  

McKenna had her preschool graduation a little early since her teacher had to leave for a wedding in Utah.  Miss Kyla was the best and it was so fun to see all the things they had done over the year. They sang a bunch of songs (including my new favorite ABC ya),

 had artwork hung up all over and she even put together a cute slideshow of all the pictures she took throughout the year. We will definitely miss this preschool!!

March 2016

McKenna's preschool has been so fun for both of us. It's only 2 1/2 hrs twice a week which is perfect for her to have some time away from the house with friends. And Miss Kyla has been the best teacher ever!  We are really glad we chose to go this route. They had a few days like pajama day, Dr Seuss day, etc.  and for crazy hair day I turned to Pinterest (of course) and found these cute cupcake hair ideas.  I thought they turned out great!  

For Angel Day this year we went and got doughnuts and watched Benjamin's video.  Next year we need to release balloons too! It's fun to think about Benjamin and the effect he's had on all of our lives. 

I haven't been interested in crafts for a while but I feel like I got bitten by the craft bug again.  I made this cute LOVE sign that is one of my favorites I've made so far and then a bunch of girls in the ward got together and made this super cute board to measure how much the kids have grown. 

Kaylee wanted an art party for her birthday this year and overall I would say it was super ghetto but the kids loved it anyway!  (Except for one girl but I'll just keep things positive and not talk about her! Ha ha)  We made Rice Krispie paintbrushes and rainbow jello for treats and then we had a lot of different crafts to do.  First they decoded a secret message Kaylee had written for each of them by painting over the white crayon to reveal the message. Then we decorated bags for them to take all of their goodies home in.  The favorite activity was sculpting things out of Play-Doh.  One of the dads stayed for the party and he made it a lot of fun for the kids- he would go outside while we told them what to sculpt and then he would come back in and try to guess what they made. He kept saying silly answers and had all of them laughing their heads off.  We also drew a picture of Kaylee on the dry erase board while blindfolded, stacked Froot Loops onto a piece of spaghetti stuck in Play-Doh, sorted mini Trix by color, kept our balloons in the air with just a foam paintbrush and she got spoiled rotten with tons of presents!  Parties keep getting more fun and less stress for me because the kids are old enough now that they know what to expect and aren't as much work to keep in line.  I'm glad it was such a fun day for her. 

I wasn't going to renew my Conservatory pass so we wanted to go one last time with Bethany before it expired and she moved in a few months.  Lily is a little young for Kenna but that doesn't stop Kenna from being super sweet to her, she seems to really like taking care of younger kids. The Conservatory isn't normally what I think of as somewhere fun to go for the kids but especially in the winter it is a nice place for them to just be able to run around somewhere. 

After waiting and waiting and waiting, Kaylee finally lost her first tooth!  She was determined to lose it at school but since it was really lose and still hadn't come out the day spring break started, I told her I needed to pull it out.  She hasn't trusted me to pull out any of her teeth since!  I think she was surprised that it kind of hurt and bled for a minute. But she couldn't be more thrilled when she got her money from the tooth fairy!

We were so happy to have Holly come stay with us for Easter and Brooklyn's birthday, which happened to be on the same day!  Saturday we decided to be brave and go to a giant egg hunt at a church which also had carnival rides, free food, and a little train. There were more people there than they thought would come so they had to limit the amount of eggs kids could get and we stood in line FOREVER to ride the train...but overall I'm glad we went.  I think our kids have outgrown the little egg hunt our neighborhood does for all of the little kids so this was a fun new adventure. 

It seems crazy that Brooklyn is already one!  

That year FLEW by and it's so sad that I don't have a little baby anymore!  She is honestly the best baby in the world.  She is constantly in the stroller for walks, events, and the girl's soccer games and gymnastics classes and never complains. She sleeps AMAZING and has since she was 2 months old. She is always happy and content and almost seems to prefer playing on her own instead of being involved in something with all of us. I couldn't ask for a sweeter baby!  

Since she wouldn't care that her birthday was overshadowed by the holiday, I made an Easter cake and she is my first baby that dug into her first year cake!  I was so proud :)  

It was awesome having Holly here to celebrate with us!  I don't know what we're going to do when we don't live by each other anymore.