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

Maryland

Maryland was wonderful.  Since summer began, the girls have been counting the days for this trip. They love their cousins so much, and even though we don't see them nearly as much as we all would like, every time we are together the smiles, laughter and hugs are nonstop.

The big  morning had finally arrived and everyone bounded out of bed, (if you can believe that) and quickly got dressed and ready.  We jumped in the car and got a nice early start...4:20 to be exact! We were feeling good...really good...we were even ten minutes ahead of schedule.  But then, we heard something dreadful  from the backseat...

"Oh No! I forgot my ________!"
You can pretty much fill in the blank there with anything you choose...nothing could be worth turning around right???  Especially now that we were already on the highway!

What did you forget Janey? {frustration}
My pipe cleaner bracelets. {cry...sob}
Can you make another  with the 50+ pipe cleaners you have right next to you? {begging}
No this one is special {more cries and sobs}
Ok...we'll go back! {DRATS!}

But they sure are pretty right!

{Have any "crazy turn around trip stories" of your own?}

after our second start of the morning we were smooth sailing.  
playing silly games
dreaming of the fun times ahead
smiling and laughing

the second half of our trip was filled with more sillies
and even some sleepies

Finally we made it.  Of course we were all too tired to grab the camera for first hugs, but the kids were loving on each other in no time and headed to the basement for fun. Jessi, Emily and Michael really know how to love on our girls and make them feel special.  They danced, did a show, played in a band, did flips over mattresses and all camped out in the basement...and that was only the first night!

On Friday (after lunch at Chick-fil-A!!!) we went to Boyd's Bears.  What a great place. Lots of cute things to cuddle and touch.  I would have loved more time to browse, but we had two girls on a mission.  A mission to build .

This was so much fun.  We have never done anything like this before and the girls were really looking forward to it.  They each picked out an animal, got their hard hats on, punched-in and then began building their new furry friends.  You get to fill up a cup with colored beads that represent the qualities you want your new friend to have.  It was interesting to see what they choose the most of...Janey's cup had a lot of laughter in it...no surprise there!

meet Janey's new dog Annie

and Checker, Riley's new giraffe

aren't they cute?

We spent Saturday at a water park nearby.  

Water and cousins....what could be better?

{and yes that is me on the water slide...Riley captured that one}

this is one of my favorite pictures from the trip

Aubrey was such a trooper

but finally could fight it no more

must have been the sound of the water and the cool shady breeze

even though my arm (and butt and back and neck) was completely numb

I loved every minute of that hour and a half nap

speaking of favorite pictures

here is another

Riley and Janey played non-stop with their cousins

mostly in the basement

not the best of places for a 14 month old

but Aubrey and Riley managed to sneak in a  snuggly moment 

there were lots of other snuggly moments too

dinners on the patio, watching movies and working on Power Point presentations????

who knew?

fun at the park

I think this is a vacation we will always remember.

so much fun and love crammed into those four little days.

we love you all so much and miss you terribly

we can't wait to be together again soon

After lots of early morning tears and hugs we dragged ourselves back into the car for the LONG ride home

Some of us slept

some of us just trashed the car

remember that super organized packing picture

look at it now

and of course those two very content and happy pictures happened after I begged to drive the final hour home

one more game of peek-a-boo was going to send me over the edge!:)