Creativity

One thing I love about the ages my kids are right now is how creative they are. They seriously can destroy my house in less than 5 minutes (paper, tape, "constructing" desks and offices, etc) Seriously, fun but messy.

This day Joey had to find boxes and bags because he wanted to transform himself into a robot. Successful I'd say...

My girls

 Kylah has PE on Mondays and Fridays so she always wears tennis shoes on those days. This past Friday she was dressed so cute that I just had to take a picture of her. She looks like a little Sporty Spice. :)

 Of course Norah wanted her picture taken too. I love her smile here.

But, in reality Norah likes to be dressed like a princess these days...all day long. She wants a princess dress on first thing in the morning and leaves it on all day, even napping in it. It's adorable. But I do make her wear normal clothes to her babysitter's house and church. :)

Life is never dull with two girls in the house...

Charity dinner

 Last night was our annual Charity Dinner night. Dave does the website for the local suicide crisis center's annual auction/dinner, so he gets a free table. We look forward to this every year because it's a fun chance to dress up and have a kid-free night.

This year we had 6 women and 4 men (Andrea's husband, Ryan, was out of town, so our friend Alaina came with Andrea!) So fun!

There was Christine (and Brian), Andrea, Alaina, Leigh (and Brad), me (and Joe) and Meredith (and Dave).

I thought it would be fun to look back on the women that attended the past years at the Charity Dinner.

2012

 (Meredith, me, Melissa, Bethany, and Christine)

2011

Andrea, Christine, Meredith and me (Melissa was there too, but I guess I didn't get a picture of all of us girls!)

 2010

Krista, me, Christine, Meredith and Andrea. (yes, Andrea and I are both pregnant...)

2009

Amy, Krista, Andrea, me, Meredith and Christine.

So fun that we've been doing this for 5 years! And kind of fun that you can see the weight fluctuations of us girls...pregnant, postpartum, and then normal.  :)  Luckily we all end up normal again. :)

Joe and I always enjoy getting dressed up for a night. I love when my kids see me dressed up. Kylah walked into my bathroom after I was ready and stopped and stared and just said, "mommy you look so pretty. I love your dress!" Joey said I looked pretty and then proceeded to tell me I was like that girl on Wreck It Ralph who had a lot of black stuff on her eyes that all ran down her face when she cried (obviously I don't wear this much eye makeup normally...)  :)

 Meredith and I always love to do a selfie. :) We did selfies before selfies were popular with iPhones!

Speaking of Meredith and I, we have gotten asked if we were sisters more in the last few months than ever before. Cracks me up! We always get asked if we are sisters, but sometimes more than others. Apparently we look more alike right now. :)

Oh, and one more thing.. Do you see that dark spot just under my collarbone in the above photo? Yep, I totally burned myself with my curling iron as I was getting ready. I already had my dress on so of course I burned my shoulder that was showing!! Luckily it was pretty dark in the room we were in. :)

We always have a fun night with Dave and Mere.

This was a casino themed night, so we got to play poker with pretend money. Win, win! 

lunch with Kylah

  On Tuesday Norah and I went to have lunch with Kylah. Norah was so excited to take her own lunchbox like a big girl. Kylah is always so excited to see us in the middle of her day which is so fun.

We saw some of Kylah's work posted outside of her classroom. I love this paper because it is the first time I've seen Kylah try to write a sentence by herself. It says, "I am a pet store owner." I love it!!

Bobcat of the week

Last week Joey was Bobcat of the week for his class. He got to make a poster all about himself, and it was so fun to see what he wanted to put on his poster. I helped him pick most of the pictures, but then he wanted to add a few things (he drew a picture of him playing on the monkey bars, a picture of him writing in cursive, a Jayhawk, and a Razorback.) So cute!

He is doing so well in 1st grade, and he is just loving it!

Hot Springs

 Joe had a continuing education seminar to go to in Little Rock this past weekend, so the kids and I joined him so that we could stay in Hot Springs. Jeff, Courtney, James, Brianna, and Aunt Kris all live in Hot Springs so it was a good excuse to see everyone! :) We got to stay at Jeff and Courtney's new house, which is just adorable. The kids loved it because it had an upstairs (they are fascinated with stairs...) :)

We got in on Thursday night, and our kids were so excited. I think they enjoy being spoiled by so many aunts and uncles. :)
**I forgot my real camera, so all these pictures are from my phone...bummer**

 Friday was a work day for everyone, so the kids and I had the morning to kill. We found a fun park and enjoyed the nice weather. Then we headed to the school where Brianna and Aunt Kris teach and brought them lunch. The kids loved seeing them at a different school and eating lunch in a different cafeteria. They even got to stay for recess!

After a quick nap for Norah I headed back to the school to "watch" volleyball practice. Brianna is helping coach the high school there so she told the coach I was coming. The coach pretty much wanted me to run practice, so I had to dig into my memory to remember how to run drills! :) It was fun. Joey and Kylah got to stay in Aunt Kris' classroom while I was at practice, and they played school the whole time. They loved it!

The next day we went exploring at a nearby park and stream. The kids are right at home exploring in streams, so they had a blast.

Norah was pretty attached to her Aunt Brianna (or Miss Anna as Norah called her....) :) I think Norah is a little confused by why we call some people Aunt and Uncle and some people Mister and Miss. She kept calling Jeff "Mister Jep" too. :)

Aunt Kris is such a fun aunt. I know she was one of Joe's and his brother's favorite aunts growing up, and she is just as awesome to my kids. She took Joey and Kylah to her house on Saturday afternoon to make goo. How fun! 

Norah loves her too!

When they got back from making goo, we all went swimming in a neighbor's pool. It was very refreshing and fun. And it is always fun to have aunts and uncles around to throw and play with the kids. 

Joey and Samuel had a lot of fun playing together this weekend too. Samuel is the son of one of Aunt Kris' best friends, and he is her little buddy. Him and Joey always have a good time playing together. (Sidenote: the place that we went swimming is a friend of Kris' from church. The lady and guy have older kids, their youngest being teenagers. Anyway, while we were swimming, the dad brought out popsicles for everyone. I thought it was so sweet that he doesn't know us at all and doesn't have little kids anymore but thought to bring out popsicles for all the kids. So sweet!)

We enjoyed just relaxing at Jeff and Courtney's house with everyone in the evenings. We watched a few movies (while Jeff played Pokemon....yep....) and just enjoyed being together.

Sunday morning we all met at Cracker Barrel for a big breakfast. It was fantastic!

 We then headed to church. Three of the six "boys".

 

 Kylah loves her Uncle James, and he loves his "Crackers." :)

And three of the six sister-in-laws. We missed everyone else, but we had a fantastic time!

What a fun weekend!

tough

Norah tripped in the garage on Tuesday morning and hit her head on the side of a wooden board. As soon as she hit it I just knew she had split her forehead open. I was thankful that she didn't split it open, but realized she hit it hard as the goose egg popped up right away. She's a tough little thing, though, and was fine after a little ice pack.

It's tough being two...

gymnastics

 Kylah has been loving her gymnastics class. She goes once a week, and she is really getting better and enjoying it so much!

 Last week she got to use chalk on her hands for the bars for the first time. She was pretty excited. :)

greg and amy visit

Amy and Greg and Logan and Olivia drove all the way from Nebraska to come visit us in Arkansas. We haven't seen their whole family since last Thanksgiving, so we were so exited that they were coming! 

They got in Friday afternoon, and we quickly got to work making pizzas on the Green Egg for supper. Joe had suppers on the Green Egg all planned out for us!

 These sweet little friends were re-united and were happy to be together. They were so cute all cuddled up on our bed playing the Kindle together. Norah was a little lost at times without a little friend running around with her, but we couldn't talk Amy and Greg into having another...  Fortunately for Greg (????) Norah fell in love with him and followed him around all weekend. :)

On Saturday Amy got up bright and early to get a 10 mile run in (she is training for a half marathon in a few weeks!) I joined her about halfway through to give her some encouragement...I knew I couldn't make it the whole way!!

After showers and breakfast, we headed off to the trails and the museum in town. It was a beautiful day, and not too hot in the shade.

Sweet little kiddos.

They couldn't wait to do a silly pose. (Norah wasn't quite sure what was going on...)

They got plenty of energy out walking and running on the trails.

We stopped for a selfie of the two of us. :)

We love this LOVE statue at the back entrance of the museum. 

 This was right after us adults got kicked off of the statue. There was no sign saying not to climb on it!!!

We kind of did a quick sweep through the museum and spent the bulk of our time in the kid area. They had some fun crafts and activities for the kids.

Sweet daddy and Norah.

Art is definitely Greg's thing, so he was happy to create a few masterpieces.

 

The walk back up the trails after the museum was hot and long, mostly because the kids were getting tired (oh, and Olivia and Logan had both just got stung by bees...)

Luckily, when we got back to the Square we found the cutest little shop that had these old time Coke bottles for only 10 cents each! Very refreshing!

 Norah had a grip on her Coke and was not about to let go!

After lunch we headed to the splash park to cool off. Nothing cools you off better than sno cones at the splash park. :)

I think everyone was worn out after our fun day, so it was movie time after supper that night.  We put the kids to bed and then enjoyed a nice quiet adult dinner. Joe made salmon, asparagus and couscous. Fabulous!

 We headed to church on Sunday and then had lunch together at Steak 'n Shake. We headed out for some bike riding and scooters on some other trails that afternoon, but it decided to start raining as soon as we got there. We still rode bikes and scooters, but we were all a muddy mess by the end. I should have taken a picture of that! 

What a fun weekend we had with Greg and Amy and their kiddos. We can't wait to see them again soon!