First Haircuts

i fully admit that i take entirely too many pictures. 1600 in May. granted, Allison and I can take that many in an 8 hour wedding. What most people don't realize is that because we shoot in RAW (think old school negatives), we have to process them before they become pictures.

sometimes, i wait entirely too long to go through and edit pictures. sometimes it's the lack of time. sometimes it's the lack of motivation. and sometimes it's just plain laziness.

but when grandpa called last night and made sure to tell paul how much he enjoyed looking at my pictures of our girls, the motivation returned! (thank you grandpa!)

so here goes...

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the little girls were in desperate need of a haircut, but they kept getting sick and i kept having to reschedule!

finally, we headed for a haircut last week! thankfully my mom was able to join me for reinforcement!

i managed to grab a few pictures outside before we started; because once we got inside, i had two appendages that wouldn't let go!

Anne Perry was first. She screamed when i tried to put her in the chair. no way. so i held her, and my mom took some pictures!
she was perfectly content once she was in my lap and eating a sucker. she could have cared less what someone was doing to her curls!
we didn't even attempt to put audrey kate in the chair alone. so my mom held her while i got to take a few pictures.
She had already gotten into and eaten her sucker, so we moved onto the cookies we got earlier to get her through it!
And it was done before I knew it!


significantly less of a mullet fro i might say!

Addie's First Soccer Practice

this big girl had her very first soccer practice last week!

she was so nervous and anxious but at the same time, beyond excited!

she started out super timid and spent a fair amount of time with her hands in her shirt or biting her little nails.

but after a quick game of learning names and kicking the ball around, this girl got into playing ball!

i haven't seen this level of serious focus from her in a while!

they worked on dribbling the ball and kicking it into the goal.

and even played a practice game, where she got to be one who threw the ball back in! 

but there were definitely some moments of spinning and jumping and just being a typical (wonderful!) 4 year old!

but what i loved the most about her first practice was midway through, every team on every field stopped and had a devotional.

i think this is going to be a great first season of soccer!

Punkin' Patch with Grandpa

we were SO excited that Grandpa and Ms. Gail could come visit a few weeks after Addie took her field trip to the Pumpkin Patch. she was beside herself excited to take them to the pumpkin patch and show them everything she loved...especially the animals!

I was so proud of Addie for feeding the goats all by herself!

the little girls were a little more hesitant about all the animals, but that baby goat was the cutest thing!

it was all ok when grandpa was right there holding a hand though!

there was a silly singing farmer that didnt keep our attention for long...but gave me an opportunity for a picture with all 3 girls! Can we say a little confused with the singing farmer?

all the girls had fun in the corn box!

of course, what's the pumkin patch without a hayride?

apparently waiting for the hayride to start is rather exhausting!

And it's a miracle everyone was facing the same direction...at the same time!

Love watching these little girls experience & discover new things!

i love how the little girls are "loving" (or licking) on their pumpkins.

But I really love Addie's smile in this one!

Grandpa and Ms. Gail, thank you so much for coming to the Pumpkin Patch with us!

Punkin' Patch

Addie had her very first field trip a few weeks ago. It included the entire preschool k-3, k-4 and k-5. we were the only school at the Dreamfield Farm Pumpkin Patch and brought the farm to near full capacity. I guess that says a lot about the size of Addie's preschool!

We had SO much fun with her little class and friends. There are some sweet kiddos with some sweet mamas! Everyone got to play for a little while before we started our morning. (not a clue what addie was doing in that 2nd picture, but it made me laugh!)

and ducky races!

Of course Addie immediately gravitated to the animals, and she got to feed one of the baby goats a bottle of water...with a little help (which made it almost impossible to photograph!):

she and her sweet friend loved looking at the various birds: chickens, turkey, ducks, etc.

everyone crowded around to watch the pig races. those pigs were not pleased about being picked up, but they sure did love racing to their food!

we then headed to the pumpkin patch on a hayride pulled by a tractor

addie picked the tiniest perfect pumpkin that's still decorating the table in our foyer.

after the pumpkin patch, we headed to the corn boxes.

where Addie got to throw corn just once for me to get a picture (because no one else was in there with her yet)!

and some of you might remember this picture from facebook...riding the cow train (and attempting to hold on!) and having a blast! I can still hear her laughing and screaming with delight!

and last but not least, we headed to the blow up slides and mazes

Addie and I decided on the way home that we had to bring her baby sisters back in the next weekend or so...and we did with Grandpa and Ms. Gail! Post to come!

Wordless Wednesday

if you're on facebook, you've seen this...but it's definitely blog worthy too!

riding the cow train (with mommy who's hanging on for dear life!) on her first school field trip to the punkin patch!

more non-iphone pictures to come!

Happiness is...

found in the normal, average day with a

quick trip to the fall (aka mall, which is apparently a place we don't go often/ever so Addie had no idea what it was!)...

...to experience firsts even at age 3: riding the merry-go-round.

then eating pretzels and watching ice skaters (which, according to Addie, made our mall adventures for the day total in 3)

Addie's comment when we got home: Mommy, thank you for taking me to ride the merry-go-round. I had SO much fun going to the mall with you!

Word Families

*disclaimer: this post is exactly like every other post on this blog: to document our girl's lives (because I'm sure not writing all this stuff down on paper!), but this one could easily be viewed as bragging (and I will be the first to admit that I'm just a little proud of our big girl!). so if you're not a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle, or anyone who doesn't think our girls are the cat's pajamas, please don't read any further. if you do, do so at your own risk and please take it at face value, as nothing more and nothing less! happy reading!

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One of the few things I remember about the basics of reading are word families. Sure, there are sight words; but word families seemed to be a good starting point. Right?

Addie has been talking about beginning sounds and rhyming words for a while now. There isn't much difference to her between the two. Sure, she can rattle off words that rhyme with cat: rat, bat, sat, mat. But then she'll up and tell me that rock and rack rhyme, when in fact she's just hearing the same beginning sound.

I've resisted putting on my teacher hat and pushing; but when I've seen the door/window open, I've jumped at the opportunity. Recognizing letters quickly turned into learning their sounds. Tracing her name turned into writing it independently. Me enunciating and repeating beginning sounds has turned into her recognizing them on her own.

And today. Today a light bulb turned on. I mean, I saw it light up. An understanding that hasn't been there before.

The baby girls were asleep. While I was eating breakfast, Addie played a word game on my iphone: put the letters on the letters to spell the word: c-a-t. Then we played memory, and she decided on puzzles next. She chose her letters puzzle. I remember thinking, how on the earth am I going to come up with anything different than what we've already done: find the letters, what sound does each make, let me see if i can trick you, find the letter that makes the sound, put the puzzle back together...

When she busted out with c-a-t. C-a-t spells cat.

Um...yes. And I jumped.

We found the letters and spelled c-a-t. Then I pulled the c- and put another letter in front of the -at (aka: word family). At first, she was a little confused. We talked about the beginning sound. We talked about the ending sounds. And we tried again with another letter. And again. Until this is what i started seeing...

But then there were a few that confused her, like m- and r- and s-...

So we worked a little longer (and put on a skort!). I mixed up just a few of the letters and this is what she all of a sudden did!

And she looked up at me and said: Mommy, you rock!

Ummm...I'm pretty sure it's Addie that rocks! ;)

Big Girl Preschool 3's

Two and a half years ago I took Addie to her first day of Mother's Morning Out.

So much has happened over these past few years:

she's...

...learned to walk, talk, run; hop, jump, and roll.

...grown a head full of curly hair.

...welcomed home two new baby sisters.

...learned songs and Bible verses, her alphabet and sounds, and how to write her name.

...finally potty trained and can do it all by herself.

...and so much more!

She's grown up so much even compared to this little girl last year! (how could I forget that she got her stitches out that day and that I was now carting two 5 month olds along with me!??!??!).

Before I unleashed the little girls from their holding area cribs this morning, I took Addie outside to take a few pictures.

She wasn't overly eager...

In fact she was down right uncooperative.

But she couldn't hold that scowl for long!

And then she got all cute and cuddly on me!

And a bit silly...

She tried to tell me she couldn't take pictures because of the ants and proceeded to examine them.

silly girl!

and then that cute cuddly big girl started smiling. (and I had to resist taking a gazillion more pictures of that cute smile in that ridiculously gorgeous lighting so we wouldn't be late on her first day!)

So we ran back in and got her baby sisters. As I was shuffling everyone out the door, I heard Addie tell her baby sisters that we would be taking a picture! She told them where to sit, and I grabbed my phone to get a picture! Audrey Kate with her busted lip. Anne Perry crawling away. And Addie sitting up all straight and big and smiling!!!

Happy First Day of Real Preschool 3's Big Girl!

She had a fabulous get-to-know-your-teacher morning! She loves her teacher, and we're so thankful two of her sweet little girl friends are in her class again this year! We're praying for a wonderful year of growing her sweet little heart, mind, and spirit!

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. 

Proverbs 22:6