Blake and Larissa (and the girls of course!)

Ok, so much for keeping current on this blog.  Since school started in September, the year has literally flown by.  Grace started Kindergarten this fall in the “big school.”  At least that what it felt like to me.  She is full time, 8am to 3pm Monday through Friday, takes the bus, and carries her own back pack.  She might has well be an adult with how grown up she seems now.  Ginny started a new (new to us) preschool this fall and is in a two-year old class three days a week.  Grace also kept busy this fall with soccer and dance.  Ginny and I did a mommy-and-me gymnastics class.  Here are some pictures of all the fun we have been having!

Ginny’s first day of school.

Grace getting off the bus the first day – so big!

Having some fun with Cousin Ava – it’s so nice to have her in town!

Blake (aka Coach Blake) on the Pink Princesses soccer team.  🙂

Grace as goalie.

What Ginny and I usually did during the games.

 Grace and her cousin Taylor (a senior in high school) at the junior dance clinic they had this fall.  The high schoolers taught the little ones a dance one weekend and the next weekend, they got to perform on the field before the football game.  Grace was in hog heaven!

Grace and Taylor at the game.

 The girls at the church pumpkin patch.

Grace at her dance class (ballet and tap).Grace was a cat for Halloween (and almost everyday since then).

Ginny and Ava were Minnie Mouses for Halloween (when we could actually get them to wear their full costumes).  Riley and Caroline (our neighbors) were Snow White – too cute!

Grace singing in her Thanksgiving performance at school.  Front and center.

Ginny at her Cinderella party at home.  This was on her actual birthday which we celebrated with just us, Grammy and Pops, Brittany and Ava.  She got a Cinderella outfit, DVD, doll and cake (which all the adults loved how it looked like Angelina Jolie after we cut into it).  Unfortunately, she also got a nasty cut on her forehead from a console table by playing chase with her sister in the house.  We took her to the ER, which is the picture below with Daddy.

Ginny at her friend birthday party at Little Gym.

With the girls riding horses with our friends that own horses outside of Houston.  They had a blast!

Blake and I managed to sneak away to New York for a weekend as a tag on to one of his business trips before Christmas.

Ok, that does it for the catch-up.  Hopefully, I can manage to keep up a little better than I have so far…. let’s see.  🙂

So here it is the middle of September.  Where did the rest of the summer go?  Just a quick update and then we can move on to all of the fun things happening now.  Grace and Ginny did some weeks at the summer camp at their preschool.  Grace was pretty fired up to do the “big kids camp” portion this year.  It was for kids entering kindergarten through 4th grade and high schoolers were the helpers.  They even had field trips at different locations around town once a week.  Ginny went to camp too for two days a week, but she wasn’t as excited about it.  There weren’t a lot of kids from the school year at camp, and not being a huge fan of school, the lack of friends and familiarity was a little too much.

The last week of July and the first week of August, I took the girls up to Colorado to see Grandma Patty and Aunt Bonnie.  We had a great time and I managed two plane flights sans husband, which was a miracle.  We did plenty of “hiking” (or long walks in parks or on rocks), helping out in Grandma Patty’s garden, painting and ice cream eating while we were there.  Blake came up for a few days the weekend in between and we took the girls horseback riding (which they loved!) and up to Denver to visit Bonnie and Kyle.  Grace even did an overnight trip to see Bonnie and Kyle and stay with them by herself.  She was pretty pumped about it.  We helped out Patty with some house cleaning and a huge garage sale in which she was able to clean out a lot and actually see the garage after it was over!

Grace also did two weeks of dance camp at her ballet studio and loved that.  One week was a Dora the Explorer theme and the second week was Cinderella, made only better by the fact that her best friend Maddie was also in camp that week.  After her enthusiasm at dance camp, we enrolled her in a ballet/tap class this fall.  Let’s hope that enthusiasm lasts until May now.  🙂

Finally, the week before school started, I took the girls up to Mom’s house and they stayed with Mimi and Pappy for a few nights.  They had a great time there too, which included a lot of outdoor time with paints, and running and sprinkler time.  We were home in time to make it to “Meet the Teacher” for kindergarten the Friday before school started.  We don’t know anyone in our class, but our teacher looks great and I am sure Grace will make friends easily.

Here are some pictures from the summer adventures!

Grace and Ginny on a hike in Colorado.

The girls at a coffee shop that we went to every morning after we went on our “hikes” in Colorado.  There were these three pug dogs that were always there and were pretty much the highlight of the day for the girls.

The girls painting on one of our outings in Colorado.  Beautiful weather!

Making homemade ice cream at Grandma Patty’s.

We found more than vegetables in the garden at Grandma Patty’s.

At the Colorado Springs Zoo with our good friends Ryan and Lisa and their two little boys.  Feeding the giraffes lettuce leaves was the best part for the girls.

Getting some bubble gum ice cream with Aunt Bonnie.

A few weekends before school started back, I took Grace to see The Lion King, the play.  She loved it!

In her kindergarten classroom for meet the teacher.

Oh to be five again, and as my Dad used to say “oh to be Grace.”  Meaning what a life this girl has.  She has had an exciting summer already and it’s only half over with!  We started the summer with an end of school party at her school.  It was quite a production.  Her class combined parties with the class next door and had a huge water party outside in the soccer fields next to the parking lot of the school, including sprinklers, slip-n-slides, baby pools, water guns, you name it.  They also had a parent bring huge bull frogs and the kids got a kick out of chasing after them or using them to chase after each other.  Grace was not a fan of the frogs (in fact she spent a lot of the time after they were released from the cooler mid-way through the party wrapped around my leg or screaming and running from them).  To top it all off, a parent organized an ice cream truck to come at the end of the party and hand out ice creams to the kids.  They loved it.

The first of June, Grace tried a nature camp at a bird sanctuary near our house.  It was only a few hours a day, but she seemed to love it.  They did “hikes,” looked at turtles, frogs, snakes, tadpoles and insects, did arts and crafts and had more than one popsicle, which I am sure what boosted the camp’s rating up in Grace’s book.

Also going on the first of June, we had swim team practice and swim meets for our neighborhood swim team.  Grace was considered a “half lapper” meaning she couldn’t swim the length of the pool by herself and had to have a middle schooler or high schooler help her.  We had practices everyday for a few weeks and then had 5 meets against other neighborhood swim teams.  Grace had a blast and was convinced that she had won every race she swam in.  She got to pick out whatever color ribbon she wanted (she chose pink of course) and was not deterred that the 4th place number of it meant that she had actually come in 4th in the race.

To round out the last part of June and July, Grace and Ginny have been going to camp at the church where they went to school this past year.  Grace is old enough now to go to the formal church camp part of it and gets to be with “big” kids (Kindergartners through 4th graders) and Ginny is going to the school part.  Grace loves the camp and has made some friends, while Ginny still cries everyday when I drop her off, even though she does tell me all about the actives and her friends on the drive home.

All in all, we have had a great summer so far.  Let’s see what the next half brings!

Here are some photos to go along with the post…

Grace at the school party… pre-frogs.  🙂

The ice cream truck at the party – definitely a big hit.

Ginny at Noah’s Ark.

Grace and Maddie at the neighborhood pool.  I thought it was a pretty creative way to carry the pool noodle and their bag.

Grace’s birthday party (PJs and a movie) watching the Lion King.

Happy 5th Birthday sweet girl!

Grace at the swim meet.

Another pink ribbon.  🙂

We had family photos taken the first of June, and I have been so lazy about getting them out to family and friends.  So without further ado, here they are.  We used Jennifer Womack with Pickles to Giggles again (we also used her for our Christmas pictures year before last) and she was great again.  We did them on a Sunday evening around 6 at the house.  I bought the girls coordinating dresses from Baby Gap (and one for me from regular Gap) and put poor Blake in kahki’s and a white polo for about the 5th year in a row.  🙂

Jennifer did a few shots of the girls in their respective rooms and then shot the whole family out in the front yard.  Although the temperature was only about 90 (compared to the over 100 degree highs we have been reaching already this summer), the mosquitos were awful!  Poor Ginny got the worst of it and then proceeded to throw a fit for the rest of the photo session.  Jennifer had the patience of a saint and smiled through it all, even though I was about to have a heat stroke, scratch off my legs and strangle my two year old all at the same time.  I will always smile when looking at these photos, because they came out looking so good, but the behind the scenes effort was so painful!  We really turned on the bribes at the end with popsicles – and the pictures of them enjoying them are some of my favorites.

All that said… here they are – enjoy!

So here’s the newest blog that I have started and am determined to keep up with.  After going through about 5 blog sites, I have decided on this one and am sticking to it.  And to make sure I stick to it, I am paying for the “theme” here… a rookie mistake I am sure.  I do like the theme though – it reminds me of a children’s book that I used to read, but can’t think of the title to – a little fun without being too cutesy.  🙂

Ok, so on to the blogging.  My goal here is mainly to keep this site for me (and close family that visits) – so I can record all the adventures this family has.  I would love to look back on this one day and have a record of all our memories of the girls growing up.

So with that said, here we go!