Jammies and BFF's

this morning, Aubrey found Riley's jammies particularly interesting.  

so Riley helped her put them on...

over top of her own of course

later, while eating breakfast the girls were concerned that their matching 

"Best" and "Friend" necklaces

didn't include Aubrey

so they decided to 

get her one that said "Forever"!

lovin' these three like crazy

Happy Tuesday Everyone!

linking up with Sweet Shot Tuesday 

A Little Happy

I have not posted about my sweet little Aubrey in awhile.  I think she got a bit lost (not really!) in the back to school hoopla.  Now it is just us at home all. day.  The mornings are quiet.  I forgot how quiet quiet can be.  We play and sing and dance to JoJo's Circus.  Anyone remember JoJo??  It is one of my all time favorite kids shows.  The girls still love to dance to the cd.

{sorry it's blurry...she moves so fast!}

sitting on her "truck" and reading

she's a multi-tasker already

Remember this window?  Well, Aubrey still loves her window.  During the summer she waves at Dave through it as he goes by on the lawnmower.  But her window is even more entertaining now that it has been open to let the cool "wish this was really fall" breeze in! 

oops...what's that in your hand....

yep...that was a bug...

{note to self, clean window-sills}

sorry sweetie

come give me a hug

Yesterday Aubrey got her first pair of shoes!!  This was a big day in our house.  She loved them! And if watching a toddler sway and stagger as they walk isn't cute enough...

add an adorable pair of new shoes to the mix

yeah...you can keep them...

just as long as you don't walk too far away from me

and you always come back for hugs

This morning she spent a long time giving her baby a ride.  It's amazing how quick little girls can fall in love with babies.  Having two baby crazy big sisters in the house helps a little I'm sure.

can you hear the "brrrmmm brrrmmm" noises???

So there you have it...a Little Happy sent from our house to yours.  I hope your Friday is filled with a Little Happy of your own.

Enjoy the day

and have a great weekend!

I Can Feel It..

Fall is in the air!

it is 55 outside this morning

with highs today in the mid 70's

Pottery Barn

humidity is low and 

spirits are high

can you feel it?

 Pottery Barn

sending "fally" weather wishes your way...

Enjoy the day

Summer List ~ An Update~

At the beginning of summer we made our summer list.  It was fun to make and even more fun to look at and use  to plan some of our time together.  I have to say, we did pretty good...not perfect...but pretty good.:)

boy was our summer hot this year

we decided the big wooden park and the orchard will be 

oh so much more fun with temps under 90!

we also never camped out in the backyard

something else cooler weather makes all the more enjoyable

we did have a family sleepover inside though 

the girls loved it and we enjoyed the ac and our comfy beds.

I posted about most of our summer list accomplishments already

except our "read 100 books"

every time I read a book to them we wrote it on a link and kept track of our growing list that way

the girls did a lot of reading independently, but we just used this system to record the books I read to them

it was fun to look back on all the titles from the summer

one thing we didn't get to that I really wanted to do was our 

Family Rules Board

I think I originally saw the idea here

I just love it

we have all of our rules written

that was the kind of easy part

I think I may settle for a really pretty typed list instead of a

super crafty time consuming really pretty canvas

what do you think?

keep it simple right???

How about you?

Did you check everything off your summer list?

Enjoy the day

Lunch Boxes

of all the joys of going back to school, this is the one I love the least.

packing lunches.

I try to...

make it fun

make it beautiful

think of my daughters joyfully eating it

look for inspiration and ideas

but it still boils down to packing lunch

so here they are

the first of about 180 packed lunches

got any great lunch box inspiration to share?

enjoy the day

First Day

Seems like only yesterday we were here. Wrapping up a school year and ready to start our summer.  Now we are wrapping up summer and ready to start another school year.  I must say, this has been one of the best summers we have ever had.  We were intentional about our fun, our time together, and our time alone. We took things slow and simple.  My favorite way to be.  The girls spent very little time with friends (not that friends are a bad thing) and much more time together...being sisters...being bored...being kids and being happy.


I am sad that the carefree days of summer are coming to an end.  But it's time.  Routines are being craved and new things are ready to be learned.  We are all off on a new adventure.  I am returning to the "super simple all consuming" days with just a toddler at home...Riley is heading to a new school with lots of unknowns and Janey is starting full day first grade with lunch in the cafeteria!:)  But we are ready!


Good-bye summer!
Thanks for the good times!
See you soon....

Our first day of school started with these.  They smell so delicious baking and taste even better. Best blueberry muffins I.have.ever.had!  {Of course I left the blueberries out of three of them for Janey}. Thanks Amy for the inspiration.  

all dressed up and ready to go

Riley

8 years old  ~ third grade

Janey

6 1/2 years old ~ first grade

now that's a car full of cute!

gotta love new lockers

Today was just a short day at school.  I am sure tomorrow it will all start to sink in.  It will sink in that my sweet little angels will be spending  more awake hours with someone else other then me.  It will sink in that they are growing up so fast and I wish I could slow down time just. for. an. instant.  It will sink in that before I know it, I will be dropping Aubrey off at kindergarten. I know I will miss them terribly but I honestly hope they don't miss me...all that much.  I love you dearly girls and I know you are going to have a wonderful school year.

This Morning

we practiced cartwheels

we were silly

we snuggled

and we had a leisurely breakfast with our baby....and hers

and that was all before 9:00! 

now, Aubrey is napping and the girls have been playing babies in the "middle of a re-do" basement for over two hours

something tells me this is going to be a wonderful day

hope your day is starting wonderfully too

Pool

Dave and the girls spent their last Monday before school starts at the pool.  The weather was perfect...
sunny
in the 80's (for a change)
low humidity.

They had a ton of fun together and it was great to see so many of their friends there...I guess we weren't the only ones with the idea.  It was a memorable day for Janey for another reason...she finally rode the "blue slide" all by herself.  She was so proud and couldn't stop talking about it when she got home.  Wish I could have seen it!  Next summer...the "yellow" slide is calling her name!

What Kept You Busy Today?

whatever it was...

I hope it made you smile...

and brought you hours...

and hours...

of pure joy...

Happy Monday!

Weekend Glimpses

A wonderful weekend.
Temps were a wee bit cooler...at least we were out of the high 90's !

Dave worked a lot on the board and battan re-do in the basement.  I helped a little, but my job was mostly running defense upstairs.   Almost done and still loving it.  The project has taken quite a bit longer then expected, but I guess everything does with 3 kids!:)  Can't wait to show off his amazing work.

The girls kept busy while we worked.  Came upstairs to see all of Aubrey's toys sorted by color.  There are about 10 other piles gracing our family room floor.......

After lunch we were invited to an Open Halloween House in Janey' room. (I told you we had Fall on the brain)  Janey sent us an invitation and told us "to come in pairs so we wouldn't get freaked out"!  There were scary bats hanging from the ceiling fan, fortunes being told and witches everywhere.  the signs say...

    ghosts in the air....scared? BOO!

    time is running out the ghost is near

    eat one up (plate of vanilla wafers) if you dare...you will turn into a witch...boo!

    don't forget to grab a mint on your way out BEWARE

I just love my creative little girls.

They keep us smiling and laughing that's for sure!

lots of time spent smiling and hugging and watching this one walk all over the place

I sure do love my hubby

He can whip up a tasty lunch after hours in the basement

And see those two involved in that deep conversation?

They were in the middle of some very intricate story/game that continued over lunch.  Yesterday they were all puppies and I had to serve them lunch and tell what all their little grunts and yelps meant.  Too funny!  They are really going to miss each other in a few days.  Poor little Aubrey spent most of the day being held, second molar coming in, poor thing!

Helping Daddy cook pork marsala...YUM!  Told you that guy can cook.  Like the new aprons?  Found them on sale at Michaels today along with those adorable tins.  Our favorite wine.....LONG day!

This is what happens when you work on your wife's crazy basement projects all weekend...you are stuck mowing at 8:00! 

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

Enjoy the night!

Friday

Today was our last Friday of summer.  I can't believe the end has come so quickly.  It seems like I turned around and there it was.  We made today special but in an ordinary kind of way.   We are pretty good at that around here!:)

The girls and I spent a lot of time drawing together this morning.  They  love it when I sit down to draw with them instead of them drawing at the island while I am doing something else in the kitchen.  What an easy way to make them smile...kids can be surprisingly easy to please sometimes.   Fall seemed to be the theme of our art this morning.  Can you tell we are all tired of the heat.  Riley drew herself and Janey in the kitchen baking an apple pie.  Janey drew her and Riley racing up the hill with Daddy, his basket of apples and I waiting at the top.   I drew a fall tree in all it's "fally" splendor.  Ever wonder how to draw a really cool looking fall tree?  We Googled it and found this.  

Have you ever tried these crayons?  We just LOVE them.  They are a bit pricier then regular crayons, but oh so worth it.  They have lasted us over a year and they help me with my obsessive compulsion to throw out old crayons and replace them with pointy new ones every month or so.

After Aubrey's nap and lunch time was cleaned up, we headed to the library.  We have made it there almost every Friday this summer.  Our library is fantastic and if Aubrey was just a wee bit older, we could spend hours there.  Her favorite things to do are pull all of the books off  the shelves and climb on top of the Lego table...not quite the literary activities the librarians have in mind I'm sure.  With all the excitement , we still managed to fill ours bags with a collection of wonderful books.

wow...we spent a lot of time in the "New" section...with a busy toddler you have to move fast

Earlier this week I was inspired by this post over at Boyd's Crazy Mama.  If you have not met Nicolle  and visited her amazing blog, you must.   Her photography is beautiful, her son Boyd is a complete cutie and she has a wonderful way of enjoying the everyday moments in life and keeping things simple...and I love that!

We have a cute  little cupcake shop of our own nearby.  Dave has gotten cupcakes there for my birthday before, but the girls and I have never been.  Today sounded like the perfect day to check it out and we are so happy we did.  It was darling inside.  Gauzy fabric draped everywhere, fancy crystal chandeliers and a whole case of scrumptious cupcakes.  I would have taken more pictures but there was some sort of business meeting going on inside and we were the only customers there.

The girls had a pink lemonade cupcake  with crystal sprinkles and a sour candy stick inside.  I choose  Cookies and Cream....YUM!  Wish they had a sample tray so I could have tried them all.  I know the girls and I will definitely be back.  Janey says she wants to go there on a date with her husband ...but she will invite Riley, Aubrey and I to go along too.

Dave came home safely last night! Yeah...yummy home cooked meals again.  After dinner we ended this special day with a little dance party.  When we were in MD, by nephew Michael kept playing this song over and over again.  Of course I am so out of the current music scene, I had never heard it before but it has been floating around my brain every since.  Now it's on the desktop and we all love dancing to it several times a day. :)

So...there you have it!  Our perfectly extraordinary ordinary last Friday of the summer.  

How are you making your final days special?

Enjoy the weekend!

To Be Announced

yesterday we found out who our new teachers would be
we have been waiting for this day
wondering
hoping

we went into the gym to find our names and Janey's teacher said
to be announced
apparently there was a  change in staff...the night before
the teacher Janey was going to have decided to take a part time position to stay home with her  baby

i totally get wanting to stay home with your children
i have been that teacher

i am a bit of a control freak
not always proud of it and trying to change
but i can admit it
this is driving me crazy

the not knowing
the waiting

i worry about who will take the new position

i have been that teacher too

school is so important to me

i love being involved
i love every detail of it
i have been "living school" for my whole life now it seems

i am trying to stay positive
i am so proud of Janey for her attitude and her smiles
i love that she is focused on the friend that she really wanted being in her class
i need to take a lesson from my own daughter...again

i am hiding my fears and worry
i know the opposite of worry is faith
i am trying to have faith that it will all work out
for the best
and in a month this will seem small

i know in the scheme of things
real things
this is small

i am praying