Maryella Meets Her Teachers

Maryella went to the preschool at the church this morning to meet her 4 teachers that she will have this year for 3 yr preschool. She will go 8:30 - 11:30, 5 days a week. She is very ready and excited. We feel so blessed to have these wonderful teachers in her life for this special first year of school!

Here she is at the house before we left

Playing in the classroom

With her teachers

Elianna in "The Yellow Dress"

I have this yellow dress that all the girls have worn at some point. They weren't quite the same ages, but the pictures are cute to look at all together!

Kaylin at 8 months

Annlee at 7 months

Maryella at 9 months

Elianna at 6 months

Annlee's First Day of Kindergarten!

My sweet little Annlee is at kindergarten! She was VERY excited when she woke up this morning. She got dressed and came in my room to wake me up to do her hair. She couldn't stop bouncing all morning. She had her bookbag on for 20 minutes before it was time to go.

Once we got to school, she remembered just where to go and she lead us all to her classroom (it helps when you've been bringing a big sister for 2 years!). She went right in and after a few pictures at my request, she went to play with some toys. We met a couple little girls who will be sitting next to her and she said she thought they would be her friends.




And here's the new "picture with the teacher". Her teacher is Mrs. Geiger. Say a prayer for her today! All these new kids in her class - one of which was screaming under the table as I was taking this picture. She also had a call that her own daughter had gotten cut or something this morning and she wasn't able to go to her. So I can imagine that it's going to be a stressful day for her.

I go to pick her up at 11 (it's just a half day today and tomorrow) and I can't wait to hear how it went! Oh, and here's a redo of the "Summers Sign Picture". This one turned out much better!

Oh, and one more cute thing...
On our way back to the car, Maryella was holding my hand and she said, "Mama, I miss those girlies." Awww!

Elianna Grace

My sweetie and I had a little photo shoot outside this evening. It was meant as a practice for her 6 month "birthday" next week, but some of the pictures turned out so good, I may not do another. Don't want to press my luck!

I love taking pictures of my girls. I know in my head exactly the moment and expression I want to capture. It makes me so excited when I can freeze a moment in time that shows perfectly what I want to remember! These years go by so fast - I wish I could save every moment! That's why I love scrapbooking. I want to remember these days always.

Anyway, I am in love with these pictures. They show off my beautiful girly so prettily! Enjoy them all! This next one is one of my favorites!!!! And if you want to see more, I'll put them all on facebook! (Yes, this is just a sampling!)

All Done, Take 1!

We just got back from picking up Kaylin from school. She had a wonderful day, she said she loved it! Her favorite thing was seeing her old friends and making new ones. Her least favorite thing was getting blisters on her feet from her new shoes (she had to go to the nurse to get band-aids!) She saw her friend, Carson, on the playground and was excited about being able to see him - this is the first year they haven't been in class together since we moved here.
When she got home, I let the girls have a piece of the back to school cake I made for them. They were excited about it. (It's supposed to be a book)

Annlee Meets Her Teacher

We went this morning for Annlee to meet her teacher, Mrs. Geiger. Annlee was very shy, but I think she's going to love kindergarten. She seemed to love her classroom and all the fun things. She asked me if she could look all around before we left. I think she was especially excited about the little fridge, sink and stove that was set up.
Her teacher seems very nice. I think it's going to be a good year!

And I'm sorry to say that I just realized I somehow deleted the picture of her with her teacher from my computer, so I'm going to have to try to take another one tomorrow. Oops!

Kaylin's First Day of 2nd Grade!

We just got home from taking Kaylin to school for her 1st day of 2nd grade! I can't believe my sweet girl is in 2nd grade! Amazing how time FLIES!!

She looked beautiful this morning and she was extremely excited. I think may have been a bit nervous, because she didn't eat all her breakfast, which is unusual for her. But she couldn't wait to get there and she remembered exactly where her classroom was and went on in without hesitation. I was just glad she paused to let me get my pictures! Her teacher is also a picture person and as I was leaving, she asked to make sure I had gotten all the pictures I wanted. I thought that was funny.

Here are a few pictures from her first morning. (I'm sure there will be more this afternoon when I pick her up! LOL)

Gotta try to get this one again. We've got one from in front of this sign at the beginning of school every year so far. I can't wait to continue this tradition in the future and be able to see how they are growing!

Kaylin meets her teacher

We went up to the school this morning for Kaylin to meet her teacher, Mrs. Touchton. She was very nice and Kaylin came home saying how much she liked her. She's got several friends in her class and she's really looking forward to the school year starting on Monday.

Watch Out, Laughter May Be Contagious!

I took this video this morning of Annlee making Elianna laugh. It's so funny! Annlee can get her laugh like no one else can. And she hardly has to do anything to get the laughs either! It's hilarious!

Elianna tries some rice cereal...

...and decides that it's pretty yucky! Not that I can blame her, the stuff looks really gross! Eventually, I'll flavor it with bananas or something, but for the first time, I figured I better keep it simple. I'd hate for her to have a reaction and not know if it was the cereal or the fruit. Anyway, here is a video we took of the event. As you can tell, it was a family affair!

Sweet Home Alabama

We just got back from a wonderful trip to Alabama. Everytime I go, I am reminded of how much I miss being there! I love spending time with my family, getting together with old friends, and just being in the town where I grew up. It's fun to drive down the road and have a story to tell the girls about each place we pass - "I ate there for my birthday once" "That's where I went to middle school" "We used to play there" "That's where I went to church" "I used to work there" "My friend lived there"... But even though everything seems so familiar, so much has changed. It makes me sad - I wish I could keep everything the way it was. Well, except for all the new stores - I do love to go and shop and enjoy what Alabaster has to offer now!

Anyway, the week was fun-filled and too short. Here are pictures from our time in Bama!

We went on Wednesday to spend a great morning with a few old friends and their children. There were 12 kids between us all and they had a great time playing. However, I'm pretty sure that we had more fun than the kids doing lots of "catch-up" talking and recalling stories about the good ol' days! We also had fun exchanging tips about cooking, shopping and saving money with coupons (thanks for all the info Becky and Jamie! I can't wait to check out those websites!)

We were at Sarah's, whose house is gorgeous by the way, and my kids were loving riding this car! All the kids wanted turns driving and I think we found out that none of them are going to be ready for a license any time soon. We had a few toes get run over, legs bumped, and a bookbag squished. Poor little Sophie may have gotten the worst of it when someone ran over her belly - hope she's doing fine, Jamie!

Look at the group of us and all these beautiful children! From left to right, the moms are Jamie, me, Becky, Carla and Sarah. The kids are Tres, Bryant and Sophie (Jamie's kids), Annlee, Maryella, Elianna and Kaylin (my girls), Alex (Becky's son), Haleigh and Hannah (Carla's girls), Emily Caroline and Parker (Sarah's kids)

On Friday, we went to downtown Birmingham to meet my dad for lunch and then go see the IMAX movie at the McWane Center. The movie was really good (although don't ask Kaylin about it because she watched the entire thing from behind her hands). I think the girls enjoyed this hurricane simulator thing even more than the movie though. They kept doing it over and over again. It lets you feel what it's like in 79 mph wind. Pretty neat!

And here are a few other pictures from downtown. We went to see this fountain to kill some time before the movie started.

On Saturday, we went to see the new house that Lindsey and Chris are building. It's beautiful! I can't wait to come at Thanksgiving and see it all finished!

Linny and Chris in the entryway

The master bedroom - I love the tray ceiling!
The living room



The kitchen

We then went out the lake house where they are living until their new house is finished. We had a great time on the boat ride that Chris took us on.

Here's all the ladies on the boat - Ma-don was even able to come!

Maryella and Sophie (Linny's dog) on the boat

Annlee

The girls on the swing overlooking the lake

And here is Annlee and Elianna in Linny's house - can you see the resemblance? I think they look so much alike!

Here are a couple pictures of Elianna at mama's house in a couple of new outfits I bought her. Sometime, I'll have Kaylin do a fashion show in all the new school clothes we got for her.


And here is one final picture from Sunday morning after church.