Two years and Still Missed

Today will always be bitter sweet.  Lots of memories, lots of smiles, and probably a few tears...I have shed my fair share.  Two years ago today my Pawpaw passed away.  I still miss him.  Carli still asks about him.  Ava even recognizes him in pictures.  Two years, it doesn't seem like that long and yet it seems like it has been too long.  I still miss seeing Pawpaw.  I still miss his dinner time prayer.  I still miss that twinkle in his eye.  I miss hearing my Grandma shaking her head and saying, "Oh Carlis..." as he embellishes on a memory from his childhood.  I just miss him.

Only One More Day!!

It's Carli's favorite princess day today!  Cinderella got the royal treatment, Carli even colored her dress and hair the right color.  Cinderella is really the only princess movie she has watched, so obviously she is a favorite. 

 

Ava even colored her princess this morning with a little encouragement from Kayla!





Naggy and Pappy are on their way here this morning to help out with the party to do list!  The girls don't really know that they are coming today so it will be a nice surprise when Naggy and Pappy walk through the door!

Only Two More Days!!

Carli branched out in her color palette today.  She colored both her and Ava's princesses.  She said that Snow White is a rainbow princess. 

Pretty sure you can see our little priss attitude in these pics.  :) 

 

Three More Days til the Big Party!!

Have you noticed a trend in Carli's coloring?  All her princesses are black or brown.  Very interesting and would be easily understood had we watched the Princess movie with Tiona in it, but we haven't watched any princess movies.  But she is fascinated with Tiona so all the other princess are going to be just like her! 

By the way - only three more days til the big party!  And five days until Carli's birthday!  :)

Not to be left out, Ava "colored" her picture too.  Look really close, there is a smidgen of green on the paper.  :)

4 Days til Carli's Party!!

And only 6 days until her 4th Birthday!

5 Days til Carli's Birthday Party

It has started!  The countdown to Carli's party and her birthday has begun.  The questions started this wkd and she has declared that every tomorrow is Saturday so it will be her birthday party!  Truth is, this Momma needs the next five days to gather her sanity and get ready for a party!  :)

5 Days til Carli's Party...7 Days til Carli's Birthday!

Our Gymnasts

The girls started gymnastics a couple of weeks ago.  Ava took gymnastics over the summer and Carli would ask every time if she would get to go too!  We worked out the schedules and we get to to spend two hours every Thursday at the gym watching the girls do flips, swing on bars and walk the balance beam.  They are enjoying it a lot!

Aren't they so cute?!

The first week, I remembered by camera but had forgotten to charge it so I didn't get a good picture.  The second week I remembered and took lots of pictures but only two turned out decent.  You will have to take my word for their amazing gymnast abilities!  :)

Ava on the bars doing "Hello Toes!"

 

Carli doing a flip on the bars - love her hair!  :)

 

 

Ava amazes me because of the two girls, I would think that she would be the one that would be bouncing off the walls everywhere too busy having fun to pay attention to the teachers.  But apparently she has some of me in her because when it comes to school and gymnastics she is very attentive and aims to please her teachers.  She will be sitting down right where she has been told to sit watching all the chaos around her!  It is pretty awesome...makes this Momma proud.  :)

 

Carli's first class she did really well.  She was so anxious to do each activity that she would jump up and down trying to volunteer to go first!  This meant that she went last.  So the second week she did a lot better at containing her enthusiasm and even got to go first a couple of times!

 

 



New Bookshelves for the Playroom

I'm always on the look out for some space saving ideas that are kid friendly.  We really like the bookcase Keith built for the door in the girls room.  I had toyed with the idea of putting one in the playroom but wasn't so sure since the door would be very heavy.  The girls open and close the closet door in the playroom more times than I can count each day.  I could just envision them whacking each other up aside the head or toes and fingers being squished...

And then along came Pinterest and all the wonderful ideas...and we found the perfect, cheaper alternative!  Ikea spice racks ($3.99 ea) make amazing little book racks!

Grammy went to Ikea with her sisters this summer and I asked her to get us some.  She came home with 6 spice racks - $24.  That is all these little things cost us!  I put off getting them done b/c I wasn't looking forward to painting them.  But it turns out we had three cans of black spray paint and it took me all of an hour to do them all. 

They turned out great!  Some people have said that their kids would climb them like a ladder, but our girls don't.  They have had the one in their room since they could remember and they simply know that climbing the book shelves is not something we do.  These make it a lot easier for the girls to see their books as well as put them up without tearing them up!  Love it!

Bowling on a Friday Night

A couple of Friday nights ago, we met up with Grammy, Uncle Tone, Uncle Andy, Aunt Chelle and Logan to go bowling.  The girls bowled with Uncle Tone when we went to see him back in April, and they loved it!  They were excited to go again! 

The bowling ally didn't have shoes big enough for either girl.  So they just went in their sock feet and didn't seem to mind one bit.  It probably worked out for the best with Carli since the shoes they did have were "boy shoes" and didn't have any with pink on them.  *sigh* 

 

The girls bowling with their Daddy.

Logan helped Carli bowl a couple of times.

 

Logan and Ava bowling.

 

We all had a good time!  I think if I remember correctly that I actually beat Keith...but I'm sure had we played a second game he would have won - that's usually how it goes!

 



First Day of School 2012

Yesterday was our first day back to school at Oak Tree Academy.  Carli was very excited to get to school all morning.  Ava was a little apprehensive but excited too.  I am not sure if Carli's excitement helped or hindered Ava.  :)  It was a little strange packing two lunches and backpacks. 

Here are the girls ready for school.  Note, we do not have bows in our hair.  We learned last year with Carli, only send a bow if you don't expect her to come home with it!  If that was the case with Carli, I couldn't imagine Ava having a bow that would last past getting through the classroom door!

My sweet big girls.



When we got to school, Ava was really not so sure about things.  It was quite fine for us to talk about school and get ready for school but to actually go to school might be a whole other story.  I was secretly hopeful that she would opt to stay with me.  :)

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on who you are, we took Ava to her classroom first and when she walked it she was quite alright with everything.  She handed me her lunch kit and backpack to put in her cubby and she was off to play with all the new toys!  I am not even sure if I acknowledged her teacher.  Carli pretty much pulled me out of the room so she could go to her classroom...again, this probably was a good thing but it kind of made me sad. 

Carli waltzed right into her classroom.  Gave her teacher a big hug, put up her things and told me to have a good day.  Well, okay then.  So I went out to the car and realized that I had forgotten to leave their tuition check.  Sweet, I needed to go back in and make sure the girls were okay anyway.  They were.  Happy, content and smiling.  *sigh*  I went back to the car and sat for a good five minutes before finally leaving.  It was kind of hard to admit they were both old enough to leave.

 

 

I came home to a very quiet house.  It took me a good hour to really get to work.  It was hard to concentrate in the silence.  Eventually I hit my groove and started knocking things off my list.  One couldn't come fast enough.  Keith picked the girls up from school and they both met me in the garage with big hugs and lots of smiles.  Ava did awesome - only had one accident, but went potty twice too.  Her teacher told Keith she was very sweet and laid back.  Carli filled out this little questionnaire with the help of her teacher.  Apparently she loves to do laundry with her Daddy and wants to grow up to be a princess.  She later told me if she could be a princess and a fairy she would be so so happy.  It is obvious she has an awesome imagination...her Daddy doing laundry?  Really?

 

I may have rocked Ava to sleep for her nap.  I loved every minute of it.  I also may have cuddled with Carli while she fell asleep for her nap.  You can't blame a Momma for wanting to stop time for just a few moments....

 



Meet the Teacher

The girls start back to school today, more on that later.  Last Thursday we went to meet the teacher.  Carli thought that only Ava was going to school this time and she would get to go to gymnastics, like Ava did during the summer.  I could never get her to understand that they were going to get to do both!  We finally just had to wait until it was time to go to each event before it sank in that she was going to get to go to school and do gymnastics!

Attempting to get some pictures before we left....



 

And every once in a blue moon a miracle occurs and we get more than one cute picture!

 

This is Ava's first year to go to school.  The girls are going to go on Tuesday and Thursdays from 9:30 am to 1 pm.  Ava is so excited to be a big girl just like her sister!  We went to meet Ava's teacher first.  She is in the youngest class in the school.  There are five girls and three boys in her class.  Her teacher's name is Ms. Robin.  She is full of energy and very excited about her job!  Ava just meandered around the room and checked out all the toys.  Then she came back and sit next to her sister while we finished filling out all the paperwork. 

A cool thing is that Ava is the only one in big girl undies in her class!  :)  Go Ava!  We are going on week three of no diapers and she is doing super good.  We have gone up to four days with no accident.  Ms. Robin was really cool about helping us with the process and agreed that diapers would not be an option for Ava.  Shew!  While we were at the school, Ava had to check out the little potty at least three times.  She did finally go.  I think I was just paranoid about her having an accident the first time we met her teacher!

 

Ava checking out a new toy.

I think this is actually in Carli's classroom.

Taking it all in!

 



 

 

We are really excited about Carli's teacher.  Her name is Ms. Donna.  She has been with Oak Tree for 15 years!  I think she must have been in the same classroom the whole time b/c it was definitely hers!  She had at least 7 or 8 centers in this little room and each had a very distinctive purpose.  Carli's new classroom has a crab and a fish.  They will get to do science experiments and grow plants and even eat the veggies from their little garden!  Ms. Donna is a very hands on teacher.  She told us if Carli didn't come home dirty than they didn't have enough fun!  Sweet!

 

Carli is pretty excited to have her little friend from last year, Shiloh, in her class.  She also knows three of the boys in her class as well from last year.  There are five boys and three girls in her room.  

 

This year at Oak Tree they are getting to have music class.  Carli's summer teacher, Ms. Laura, is the new music teacher and once a week they get to go to music class with Ms. Laura. 

The girls are really excited about school.  More on how their first day went soon! 

Labor Day Tennis

My cousin Billy's daughter, Allison, played in a tennis tournament this wkd.  We were pretty excited to get to see her play.  She is good!  I can't play tennis - I tried once and if tennis was about hitting it over the fence, I would have been a pro!  Allison was lots of fun to watch.  We missed her best match on Saturday afternoon but the girls had not napped all day due to all the family being in town.  They were having way too much fun.  But that meant about 5 pm we were having a few meltdowns to put it mildly.   :) 

After Allison's first game:

 

Ava, Allison, Jake, Weston and Carli



 

 

After Allison's 8 am match, most of the family came back to our house to visit and cool off.  We had Billy, Gina, Allison, Jake, Aunt Carolyn, Aunt Betty, Uncle Cleaon, Dionna, Ron and Weston.  Uncle Danny showed up too later on.   We had a good time catching up and the kids kept themselves entertained in the play room.  I sure wish Allison lived closer!  She is an awesome baby sitter! 

 

The whole crew reading some good books!

 

 

It was a great, unexpectedly little family reunion.  Coupled with Sunday we got to see our whole family on the King side, minus our cousin's way up in Washington.  Given the distance, we let them off the hook this time around!  :)

 





New Dresses & Hugs for Grandma

We woke up this morning and decided we would venture down to Jacksonville to go to church with Grammy, Pa and the rest of our family that was in town.  We have to admit that one very special person was there that we were very anxious to see! 

Since we were going to see Grammy on a Sunday it was a good opportunity to wear our new dresses she had made the girls.  The dresses turned out really cute and the little models in them are beautiful!

 

After several interesting pictures....

We got a really sweet sisterly picture that shows off their new outfits just fine! 

Grandma was in town along with many other family members.  They all came to Tyler on Saturday to watch our cousin, Allison, play in a tennis tournament.  We were blessed to get to spend much of our day on Saturday with the Jenkins, Wrights, Shelbys and Uncle Danny.  Grandma came Allison's game but went back to Alto to avoid the heat and Carli did not get to "give Grandma lots of kisses and hugs and lovin'" so it was a necessity to see Grandma today before she went back to Fairfield!

Carli absolutely LOVES Grandma.  She was so cute when we got to church.  She went right to Grandma and gave her hugs and kisses.  We sit behind Grandma during church and every once and a while Carli would reach up and just touch Grandma's shoulder.  During the last song, Carli climbed over the pew, let Uncle Tone hold her so she could be next to Grandma.  It was pretty awesome.  :)

Grandma got her fair amount of hugs and kisses from Ava too! 

 

 

It was an awesome Sunday morning with good preaching, good eatin' and awesome fellowship!  We are very blessed with an amazing family!