33 Years!

Wow - it cannot be! Today is my 33rd birthday, and I must say, now I am starting to feel a little old! I remember thinking, when I was a teenager, how 30's seemed ancient and here I am today! Oh well - hopefully my kids will keep me young in some way! Today I had to work, but after work Mike and the girls surprised me and took me out for dinner at a favorite pizza place nearby. They also got me a gift I have been wanting - a "Mother and Daughter" Willow Tree figurine (love these things!). Macey made me TWO birthday cards (how nice of her!) and also gave me one of her favorite rocks :) It was a very nice birthday.

Clean-Up of Leaves and Pumpkin Carving

Yesterday we all headed outside to clean up the TONS of leaves we have around here! What a job that was, let me tell you! Mike had gotten tons of piles raked up when I was at work and then my job (with the help of the girls) was to load the trailer and then unload at the huge leaf pile in the woods! The girls had fun riding in the trailer full of leaves!

Mike also carved pumpkins with the girls today as well. Lilly decorated her pumpkin with a marker, but it's kind of hard to tell that! Macey can't wait to bake the pumpkin seeds, a definite favorite of hers!

Later on today I'm taking Macey and her friend Lindsey to see High School Musical 3: Senior Year. I'm sure we will enjoy it as much as the other High School Musicals!

UPDATE: Just got back and H.S. Musical 3 was AWESOME! We already decided this will be one to buy and watch over and over again!

Who Do They Look Like?

Above is me...I'm guessing around 3 years of age...And below Lilly at 2 years (sorry so crooked!). Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Mike at this age.

Below is Mike at 8 years old....

And me at 8 years old....

And of course Macey at 8 years old...

With the girls recently getting their pictures taken and Macey just getting her school pictures back, thought it would be fun to dig up some pictures of Mike and I to compare and decide who the girls look most like! It's funny all the comments we get; most think Macey looks exactly like Mike (and even Mike's sister Cheryl) and Lilly exactly like me, but once in a while someone will think just the opposite, like my brother Eric who thinks Macey looks just like me and Lilly like Mike. So enjoy these lovely pictures I have dug up!! So what do you think???

A Visit With Uncle Tom

Here is Lilly with cousins Marlee and Mabel.
Here's Lilly and Grandma holding baby Loftyn, who Lilly just loves!
Uncle Tom and Jen
Jeff, Tom, Mike and Doug. Can you tell that they are brothers??!!

This weekend we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's house because Tom, Mike's youngest brother, was going to be visiting from Nevada. All six of Mike's siblings were able to be there so we did Christmas gag gifts for the adults since Tom won't be there for the real Christmas holiday, and that was lots of fun! We got to meet Jen, Tom's girlfriend, for the first time and she's very sweet and great with the kids! The kids definitely had a great time playing with their cousins, and I think will sleep very soundly tonight from all of the excitement!!

Macey's 3rd Grade School Picture

Is it just me or does Macey look older than 8 years old in her school picture this year?! As we added this new picture to our 8 x 10 frame on the wall, we had to look back at her other pictures starting with kindergarten and boy has she changed! Her hair has gotten so much darker from kindergarten and of course is also much shorter. She has definitely changed a lot from last year as well, looking more like a tween than a little girl, which is sad, for me anyway!

A Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

The picture below is a corn-filled tunnel that the kids can play in. They had a blast in here!

Since Macey didn't have school today, I decided that I'd take the girls to the pumpkin patch. We went right away this morning so it was a bit on the cool side, but at least the sun was out. We thought we'd do like every other year and pick our own from the field. Both girls had a blast and were pretty fascinated by the rotting, bug-infested pumpkins, but they ended up managing to each find a rather nice pumpkin so that was good! There was a bus of kids there so Macey and Lilly had fun running around with them for a while before heading back home.

What's New in October...

We absolutely LOVE this time of year with all the trees changing so I had to get a few outside pictures (unfortunately, only one posted on here...oops!). We are hoping to get all of our fall/Halloween stuff out by this weekend.

As far as what's new with Macey, she's enjoying school very much so far. Today we had parent-teacher conferences, and she's doing great. In particular, she's doing awesome in reading and has been put with a group of students at her level, and they just started their first book so we will see how that goes. She has scored 100% on each spelling pretest so far as well. She's doing better in Math, too - a class that's probably her least favorite. Next week she starts a Writing Workshop where she will be writing short stories, poems and even doing a little bit of acting as well. She will get a chance to share her work on the microphone after each session so this will be great experience for her. She's also going to be in Girl Scout's again this year which should be starting in the next week or two.

As far as Lilly, she seems to make us laugh each and every day with her new words and phrases! The other night she was sitting on the couch next to Mike, and I asked if she wanted me to read her a story, and she said, "No, I sitting next to daddy watching football right now." Mike was pretty proud of that response!! A few of her new words include "oopsies," "holy cow" and "holy smokies!" She absolutely loves going to daycare, and I can't even express to you how great it feels to drop her off without having her scream like Macey did for the first FOUR years of her life! She's a very independent little girl and dresses and undresses herself and even has started to drink a little bit from a big girl cup (with no lid)! We still haven't really pushed the potty training, but we do encourage her to go before bed each night and sometimes in the morning as well and also before her baths and she goes almost every time. We have kind of a busy October so I'm thinking in the next month or two we will try working more with her.

More to come very soon!