Testing. Testing. Anybody?

Yes.  I know.  It's been since August.  Yes, I know.  It's November.  And really, it went by so fast.  It's so true what everyone says.  Once your kids get into school, it flies by.  I mean, my daughter is reading now.  And she's loving her some Kindergarten.  No lie...we got the best teacher in all of Nashville.  She loves our daughter.  I've gone by the school several times to work on things for her.  I get to sit in the hallway and I hear what's going on in her class as well as the classes around me.  My observations during that time confirmed that Mrs. Reid is THE BEST.  

THE Mrs. Reid.  You know you have a good teacher when you're sick of hearing your kid say stuff like, "Mom, Mrs. Reid says..."  "Well, Mrs. Reid always says...."  She warned us at orientation that kids will come home tired because they work them hard at school and boy was she right.  Aubrie was a fire-breathing, eye rolling, dragon the first 3 weeks of school.  She was exhausted.  By Thursday, she would end up in her room for a timeout due to the side effects her grouchy-ness had on her mouth.  Now she knows that on Thursdays, if she needs it, she can come home and lay down for 30 minutes.  We ALL benefit from it.  :)

I so cried.  Like...ugly cry.  Sunglasses in the building, get your stuff together cried.   

But if you thought I took it hard, you should have seen Emilie.  Her little heart was broken and she cried so hard.  

But luckily, back during basketball camp, I promised Aubrie an end of summer party and I had that to focus and deliver on that day.  It actually was really nice.  The kids had a half day and then it helped ease their pain of having to get back into a school routine (or starting school) and parents were giddy because summer was over!

Poolside snacking

My buddy Grayson loves a good pool party.  I've gotten to spend more time with him now that his mom is back to work and dad's basketball season is in full swing.  It's such a drag having this kid around.  He never smiles...

And my girl, Lily, was happy summer is over and she can get some peace and quiet while big brother is at school!

I teach Emilie's Mother's Day Out (MDO) class this year with my friend, Marcie (Lily's mom).  Marcie's middle child, Trace, is also in our class.  We had so much fun putting our classroom together.  We call our students The Happy Campers.  Marcie knows every campfire song known to man.  

Our classroom. 

First day of MDO.  Kyle's hair has gone from stick straight at the beginning of the summer to thick, wavy, unmanageable hair.  It's out of control and he constantly looks like we don't comb his hair.  Oh, and don't worry.  Emilie ended up wearing shoes to school.   

Next on our summer agenda was Kyle's birthday.  Poor kid...with me setting up my classroom and having inservice, and Aubrie's school starting, I didn't have a lot of time or energy to put into his birthday.  But luckily, he's an easy going kid and enjoyed the laid back intimate party we had.  

Cannot believe our baby is 2! (see his hair?!!)

He LOVED his apple cake.  And I love his eyes.  And his wild hair.  Why do they grow up so fast??!

Now it's story time.  When I was in the hospital after having Emilie, Adam walked into the room and said, "I just ran into Kevin Murphy.  They had a little girl today, too!" I had to remember how we knew Kevin, but Adam reminded me.  Kevin was an accounting major with Adam and he played baseball at Belmont.  Fast forward to 3 years later.  We start going to a new church and run into the Murphy family!  Then we sign Emilie up for soccer and get assigned a team that Kevin ended up coaching.  (Here comes the magical part)  Emilie immediately falls in love with coach Kevin, affectionately nick-naming him "Famous Coach Kevin", and then falls in love with her birthday buddy, Maggie!  THEN...we go to our first day of ballet and Maggie is in Emilie's class!  Needless to say, I'm so glad God brought our two families together.  It's been so fun getting to know them.  Maggie has a little brother, Henry, who hangs around with Kyle while the girls are in dance.  Love how stuff like that happens!

Maggie and Emilie.  Birthday buddies!

Emilie had a blast playing soccer.  We only signed her up because, with her being a middle child, we wanted something that was just for her.  She cried when practice was rained out or when she was sick and couldn't go.  She was pretty aggressive out there.  She definitely used her elbows when things got tight.  It was a lot of fun and she relished it being "her thing".

I feel like it never got super hot here this summer.  The weather was very mild.  We are all adjusted and in a pretty good rhythm now with school going full swing.  Now that soccer is over, Aubrie will be doing basketball for a couple of months.  She's pretty excited and worked really hard this summer to get enough strength to get the ball up and into the basket.  She was so funny.  We would be outside shooting hoops and riding bikes in the cul-de-sac and she would get out this exercise band and do curls with it.  She was pretty serious about getting better.  Now she's consistent on getting it up and into the basket. Adam has raised the hoop one more step and she's working on a new height.  She's such a determined and driven girl.  Her grades so far have been excellent.  She's reading so much and writes the cutest notes and to-do lists.

Emilie is doing well with me as her teacher.  I didn't know if she would be a nightmare or what.  I mean, ages 2 and 3 were not kind to her.  But she hit age 3.8 and smoothed out nicely (Praise the Lord!)  She turned the corner just in time for little brother to start with his terrible 2's.  Emilie is the tallest person in her class.  When you go somewhere, the odds are pretty high that when you get her out of the car, you'll have to stop her and put her shoes on the right feet.  And if you take her shoes off, the odds are even greater that her socks WON'T match.  She's still pretty clumsy and leggy.  Hopefully ballet will continue to help with that.  She still tries to keep up with big sis.  She's pretending to read books that she has memorized.  Her math game is strong.  Sometimes when Adam is giving math problems at the dinner table, Emilie can yell out the answers faster than Aubrie.  In Aubrie's defense, she's super tired from a long school day and Emilie is wound up with energy.  But still, she's pretty bright.

Kyle is talking paragraphs now.  He says so much and acts like such a big boy.  He spends 80% of his day death gripping a matchbox car of some kind.  He asks to watch Disney's Cars daily.  He also has a love for Thomas the train.  I tried to move him out of his crib right before he turned 2, but it didn't go well and I remembered the wise words of our pediatrician, "Don't borrow trouble.  Wait until he climbs out."  And this kid probably won't try to climb out until he's 9.  I'll put him into a timeout in his crib (because he won't sit in a chair) and he just stands there and cries.  Won't do nothing about it.  Which is fine.  I mean, I don't want to turn that nursery into a big boy room.  I want to keep him a baby FOREVERRRRR!!!  But that won't happen.  Right now he will bring me food from the pantry at all hours of the day...like 30 minutes AFTER we just ate.  So I'll lock the pantry door and he will then scream and throw his body at the door.  We'll be replacing that door at some point, I'm sure.  He does a lot of weird boy things that I don't quite understand, but I'm learning.

We are enjoying this moment of our lives right now.  We are about to have 3 kids and no diapers and it's weird.  I am excited about it, but a little sad I won't have a baby anymore.

So I just watch Grayson and get my baby love from him.  :)

Love to all!!!!!  (Lots of love!)

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Camps, Gammy, and Sewing...oh my!

How is it August 13th?  Seriously? I have so much catching up to do.  First of all, Aubrie went to basketball camp this year.  She was SO nervous about going.  So much so, that on the first day she cried and gripped my hand.  She was 1 of 2 girls that were in her age group and she couldn't get the ball to the rim when she took a shot.  Adam was worried about her having a bad experience and her not liking basketball, but she ended up liking it.  She was so nervous the first day that she starting talking about how we should have a party.  So I went along with it, making small talk.  But every day she brought it up on the way to camp.  Soon it turned into a huge party with balloons and Popsicles and 90 of her closest friends because talking about it seemed to take her mind off of being nervous about camp.  I spent most of my summer getting out of the grandness of her party and scaling it down to a smaller party.  She would still just get really nervous when we got there and later in the week she only cried when she got frustrated because she couldn't make a basket. But she LOVED being with Uncle Steve at Lipscomb.  She got an awesome shirt and a new basketball.  It was a great camp and we look forward to doing it again!

Uncle Steve

All I said was I would like a picture of you going to camp.  This is the pose I get.  :)

Get it, Aubrie.

We loved watching her out there.  She did a lot of skipping, spinning, waving, and daydreaming.  It brought back a lot of memories for us of being in camps AND working camps.  My freshman year, I had to report to school early because we had to run camps.  We had TONS of crazy kids. You had the clingy huggers (Aubrie), the wild kids, the non-listening kids, and the "I don't care about this sport but my parents needed daycare" kids.  Adam had a hilarious encounter his senior year at a Belmont basketball camp. He had a kid who said his name was Justin and he was a unique combination of the wild kid/non-listening kid.  He NEVER answered when they called his name.  They would be yelling his name to come over to the group or to hold the ball and the kid would not listen.  Finally on Thursday, Adam saw his mom in the hallway picking Justin up and heard her say, "Come on, Kevin."  Adam stopped her and said, "Hold on.  His name is Kevin?!?" and the mom was like, "Uh, yeah!"  Hahaha.  When Adam asked him about it on Friday morning he just said that he liked the name Justin better.

Next we had dance camp.  I don't know if you remember our experience last year with headlocks and fighting among my own children, but this year went better for my princesses.  Emilie has really matured and she really enjoyed herself this year.  She came home and asked, "Mom? What's digified mean?"

Check out these poses.

They learn all about manners, etiquette, being dignified, as well as doing some dancing.  On top of that, every day they have a new Disney Princess there at the camp that they can take pictures with, dance with, and do activities like a craft or special snack that relates to that princess.  They really hit a home run on the last day because they had Elsa and Anna there.  Amazing!  Check out the Nashville Dance Center's website in the spring to sign up for next summer.

Adam's mom made Aubrie's costume

Lana was visiting the week before and I asked her to make an Elsa dress for Aubrie to use for dance camp and for Halloween.  They get to dress up as a princess on the last day.  Emilie wanted Anna's coronation dress, which was easy to find, but I couldn't find a decent Elsa dress anywhere, except for expensive ones on Etsy or Amazon.  So we bought the material and gave Lana the vision and she whipped this dress up in no time.  It was amazing and she got a lot of oohs and aahs over it.  Plus, she made a cape for Emilie's Anna dress.

Adam sewing with his mom.  :)

She also made these curtains for our playroom.  LOVE THEM!

I joke with her and tell her to retire so I can lock her in a room and have a sweat shop, but I'm half kidding.  She also made Kyle's nap mat cover and blanket for school.  He wanted "Maynor" (Mater from Cars), so she sewed one together in a day.

Aubrie also went to Art Express Camp this summer put on by our Preschool's art teacher.  I knew this would be her favorite camp and I was right.  The whole week they studied Normal Rockwell.  Aubrie came home talking a hundred miles a minute about what she learned.  They obviously did a lot of art projects like painted baseballs, made t-shirts, created a flag, and did bubble wrap feet painting just to name a few.  And the snacks.  They hit a home run in the snack category.  Every day was a new Norman Rockwell painting and they had snacks that related to it.  They did a Christmas painting one day and everything about the day was Christmas.  So I'm not talking goldfish and water.  I'm talking cold hot cocoa with marshmallows and Christmas cookies. I kept thinking that there was NO WAY Mrs. Jessi was making money off of this camp by all the stuff Aubrie was doing and everything she got to bring home.  Definitely got our money's worth there and she learned things which is a huge plus.  You can check it out at their facebook site.

I was so blessed to have my mom in town for the week before school started and my birthday.  She usually comes for a week in the summer to hang out.  She got to witness some of dance camp and had some serious bonding time with Kyle.  The girls call her Gram but he renamed her "Gammy".  And he doesn't just say Gammy.  He yells Gammy.  He wanted her attention every five minutes for something.  He followed her around and she taught him how to do exercises and squats.

playing cars with Gammy

riding bikes with Gammy

Mom also helped the girls make cupcakes for my birthday.  Aubrie loves cooking with my mom in the kitchen.  She helped mom make the cupcakes and then the whole crew helped do the icing and sprinkles.  Aubrie actually got in trouble for talking ugly while we were icing cupcakes and it was about the third time that day, so she got a spanking and got sent to her room.  From the monitor, we heard her crying and then she prayed through her tears, "Dear God, Please let something cool happen because I've had a rough day.  I haven't made good choices.  You're a blessing and I thank you.  Amen."  I loved it.  She came out of her room refreshed.  I pray with the kids every morning on the way to school.  They each take a turn and pray out loud and it really has helped them pray with ease and learn that they can talk to God about anything!

Cupcake central.  Please notice Adam isn't working at all.

Grating carrots with Gram

While icing cupcakes, Kyle got to sit on the counter next to Gammy and ended up giving her some yummy kisses!

My birthday is always exciting because Adam takes the kids to Kohls or Target the day before, sets them loose, and they pick random stuff out for my birthday.  This year I scored some pumpkin dish towels, a water bottle, a 2 cup measuring cup, and a REALLY sparkly necklace!

This picture doesn't do the necklace any justice to the sparkle and how heavy it is.  It must have jumped out at the girls when they walked by

For my birthday, I just wanted to lay low.  We went to church and then I picked Zoes kitchen for lunch.  The kids weren't that thrilled.  Adam let them all have milk with the straws and Kyle probably squeezed his and turned it into a geyser about three times before we removed it permanently.  Then, Emilie didn't like what we ordered.  When I made her take a bite of her roll-up, she started gagging on it and threw it up into my hands.  Made such a big scene that the manager came running over and asked if she was choking.  No sir, she just likes to throw up food she doesn't feel like eating so she can get out of eating it.

Then we came home and I had Adam help me organize things and throw things out, which for me, is the best gift ever. I even made this awesome headband holder for the pantry door out of oatmeal containers.  We've got quite a collection! I had a blast.  He hated it.

We actually have had a great deal of car problems with my Tahoe.  It's ten years old with 140,000 miles on it.  I love it dearly and want to drive it for another ten years.  But I went to put it in reverse the other day and it wouldn't go.  So when I tried it again, it made a loud clank and then caught the gear and reversed.  I called my car expert (dear ol' dad) and discussed the symptoms and we both agreed that I needed to get it in the shop ASAP before I get stranded at a light.  It has had trouble shifting into second gear for about a year, but now we are going downhill quickly.

Luckily, my friends at Walker Chevrolet took care of me.  They loaned me, at no cost, a 2015 shiny silver Tahoe to drive while they worked on mine for 6 days and returned my car in good shape.  Of course, it was sad to see the shiny bright Tahoe go bye bye, but I was such a nervous wreck with the kids making it dirty!  Emilie cried when we got our old car back.  She named the new car "Angel" and said, "I'm going to miss you sweet Angel!" real dramatically in the car bay as I was loading them into our old Tahoe.

This summer we got really good at riding our bikes.  Emilie fell in love with her bike, became good at riding, and outgrew her bike all in one summer.  We went and bought her a cheap boy's red bike and stuck some streamers in the handle bars and she didn't seem to care.  Her legs are as long as Aubrie's.  I predict they'll be wearing the same size next summer.  Anyway, we went on a lot of bike rides with the kids.  We would bike around Radnor Lake or we would ride the trail to Crockett park and then play on the playground.  We got to get together with our buddies a lot and had fun all over Nashville!

Baby Rhett was NOT feeling the group activity that day...

A Radnor Lake outing

The splash pad downtown by the Titan's stadium

Playing in the creek after a bike ride to Crockett Park.  That's sweet Mikey and family.  He was in my class last year and now he's a preschooler.  I'll miss him a lot!

What a whirlwind summer.  I'll wrap up for now and start working on my back to school post.  I hope everyone has had a great summer.  We have had AMAZING weather!

Love to all!





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It's GALA!!!

As we were packing to go up to Indiana for the 4th, I noticed that my packing list was shorter and my nerves weren't shot when thinking about the trip.  I realized that this was the first year that I was not pregnant or breast feeding, which turns out to make life a whole lot easier!  So not only was packing a breeze, the 8 hour trip wasn't that bad and the kids weren't too restless.  We ended up having a wonderful time with family.  

Kyle got some good chunks into the air this year.  Last year he was too little.  He accomplished treading water and not tipping forwards or backwards while in the water with his life jacket.

We had perfect weather.  We had a couple of cool days but we filled those days with games and a trip to the Ft. Wayne zoo.  

 Adam's grandma and grandpa Mark had four children.  Then there were 9 grandchildren and a lot of great grandchildren.  So when this group gets together, it's a big crowd.  Adam's mom hosts the 4th of July every year at their house.  They grill out, celebrate summer birthdays, walk over to the park for the town fair, and then stick around for fireworks at the park.  

That's grandpa and grandma Mark in the middle with great grandbaby Cooper on her lap.

Thank goodness for Tia who will do rides with the kids

The kids' annual merry-go-round ride with Grandma and Poe.

This is take #68 of 145 of the kids.  Kyle was a monster.  Adam was passing out gummies as a treat for anyone who would sit still.  As you can see, it was cloudy and windy.  Every morning it looked like this and by the third day, Aubrie asked, "Does the sun EVER shine in the mornings in Indiana??!"  

Granny met her match.  Emilie liked to sit in the back of the boat with her and they would talk and talk about anything and everything.  Sometimes you can catch them both talking and neither listening.  :)  The kids had so much fun with Granny.  I'm sure she had to take naps for weeks after we left.  They were constantly playing peggity, old maid, doing homework, coloring, playing stone school, and Granny even hopped on the hopscotch with them!  Go Granny!

The whole fam

Neighbors gave us some sparklers and we weren't sure of them.

View of the lake while waiting for fireworks.  We kept the girls up to watch them this year.

Standing on the end of the pier, looking back at the cottage.

The lake is Petey's favorite place in the world.  He is spoiled with lots of swimming, sleeping on the couch, and cleaning up table scraps after we dine outside.  He is so patient while Kyle tries to ride him like a horse.

Granny was swung on this porch swing when she was a little girl.  The kids were chatting up Gaga while they swung.

For those of you who don't remember, last year we caught a turtle for the girls and Aubrie named it Gala.  She feel in love with it, talked to it, kissed it (ewww)...

Well, this year we "caught Gala again!!"  Aubrie was so excited to see her old pal.  Adam took the picture below.  We were sitting at the table, playing scrabble, and she was contently sitting with her turtle and playing with it for the longest time.  

We noticed Gala had pink paint on her tummy.  We didn't know why until some neighbor boys walked by with a net and a turtle and they said that every turtle they caught, they put some paint on their shell so that they knew if they caught it or not.  GREEEEAAT.  That means that next year we can't just "catch Gala".  We are going to have to catch a turtle with pink on its stomach.  

Gaga told us that 70 years ago, this July, he landed on Normandy beach when he was just 19 years old.  We got to hear some neat stories, but most of all, it made our Independence Day just THAT much more meaningful and we are so thankful for all the men and women serving now and who have served in the past.  This also includes the family who hold down the fort at home when their loved ones are away.  We are so thankful for you!

I mentioned earlier that we went to the Ft. Wayne zoo on one of the colder days.  Adam and his sister used to go to Ft. Wayne when they were little on cloudy days.  I was a little weary of going to this random zoo in a smaller Indiana city.  But this zoo was AMAZING!  It's a children's zoo, so that is probably why we were so impressed.  But their train ride actually took 10 minutes and went somewhere!  They have a ski lift you can ride and look at the whole safari exhibit.  Peacocks and ducks just wandered around everywhere.  They had misters hidden in the brush that would come on and cool you off periodically.  The selection of animals were awesome.  My favorite... the lions.  Kyle brought home a stuffed lion in honor of Bill the lion.  We also got to FEED THE GIRAFFES!  So cool.  I loved this zoo.  It definitely made Nashville's zoo look like no fun.  But then when we came home, we found an article that showed the Nashville zoo's plans for expansion and improvement and we can't wait to see what they will do!

The kids all went on a pony ride.  Kyle sitting on a pony cracked me up, but then his pony got a little frisky and started trotting off and Poe had to run along him to make sure he didn't fall off.  I could NOT stop laughing. 

Feeding the giraffe.  Emilie picked out a stuffed giraffe from the zoo.  It had about 4 name changes before she got the name Barbie.

Adam and I took a day trip over to LaPorte to visit Nick.  Both Nick and Steve went to school in LaPorte and then played at Belmont with Adam.  We couldn't wait to tour the historical city of which two great me were born.  Nick is a lawyer there, but soon will be mayor.  Then President.   Nick's lovely wife, Ashlie, cooked us some lunch and we sat lakeside and caught up on life.

Before we went to lunch, we stopped by Nick's office to see where the magic happened.  Adam was so impressed he decided to sue the NCAA for using his name and likeness on a basketball video game.  Nick will win us millions...

We had a lot of fun on our vacation. The kids were so sad to come back home and so was I.  But we have been filling the days with lots of fun and a couple of camps.  I'll share that some other time. 

Love to all!

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