he's famous...

We have loved swimming at our Bentonville pool this summer, and we have loved seeing Joey's pictures all over the pool! (Our friend David Adair of Adair Creative made all of the signs for our city pool, and Joey was his subject.) It was about 2 years ago, so I love to see his little baby teeth smile staring at me when I go to the pool! And Joey loves it too. (And, no, they don't let us into the pool for free...)  :)

locks of love

Ever since our Aunt Kris has lost her hair from chemotherapy, Kylah has been wanting to donate her hair to Locks of Love. This past week it was finally time. One of the guys I play sand volleyball with (Ron) is a hair dresser, and he was so happy to help Kylah fulfill her dream. He treated her like a princess, and it was adorable (all of her other "trims" have been at home from me...)

The long "before" hair...

She as so ready to get rid of her long hair. I thought she might miss it, but she has not at all!

So cute (and a little too old after Mr. Ron blew out her hair...) :)

I'm loving the way her natural curl is coming out even more with the short hair!

What a great opportunity, and such a great way to show Aunt Kris how much we love her!

new school

One bit of new news is that our kids started a new school last week! There is a public charter school in our area that is a classical school. It kind of meshes the public and private school together, which we love. It is going to be challenging to our kids, but we think it will be great for them. And the uniforms are pretty cute...

It was a hard decision because we really did love their other school, but we feel like this will be so good for them in the long run.

And now they match their Philippine cousins with their uniforms!!

getting caught up

Man, I have been slacking on blogging lately! I need to get back to it!

I'll recap some of our month of August...

Early in August we went to Nebraska for my cousin's wedding. We stayed with our good friends the Nunamakers. We had a great time with them, and are so blessed that our friendship lasts through so many miles!!

I'm not sure what happened to the normal picture of our kids, but this is all I could find... :)

We had quite the weekend...Joe had a random flare-up of back pain, and I had a random problem with my eye (NEVER  USE CONTACT SOLUTION UNLESS YOU READ ALL OF THE DIRECTIONS!!)  But, all's well that ends well. We still had a great time at the wedding. It was beautiful. I think my favorite part was watching Kylah's face as she watched the bride walk down the aisle.

It's fun to see us all dressed up together (and you can't even tell that Joe can barely walk, and I can barely see!).

One of the best parts was that we got to see my mom and my brother Aaron (and somehow I didn't get a picture of Aaron...) The kids LOVED seeing their Gramma!

I think the kids loves getting to drink pop at the reception and getting to dance. So fun!

end of summer

Our last days of summer together before school started was similar to what we've been doing all summer. Swimming was one of our favorite things to do this summer. Joey and Kylah are both great swimmers, so I've been able to spend time in the pool with Norah, and now she is so good at swimming with no floaties! She loves it!

Trips to Target are always on the agenda. And the kids can never resist the big red balls by the front door.

We've had lots of morning cartoon times in our jammies.

I love this sweet picture my friend got. Kylah usually goes to big church with us during the second service while Joey chooses to stay up in the kid area for two services. I think she enjoys the alone time with just her and mommy and daddy.

I love seeing random pictures of my kids on my phone.

We have really had a great summer, even though it seemed to go so fast. For now, we'll still enjoy the warm weather on the weekends!

school starts

This past Friday was the first day of school for us. We go to a year round school, so our summers are shorter and we get more breaks spread out throughout the year. The six weeks of summer seemed to go by very fast, but the kids were very ready to go back to school. I love the first day of school. Besides the obvious excitement, everyone pops right out of bed with a smile. Doesn't always happen come December...

Our 2nd grader. I can't believe how big he looks.

Our 1st grader.

Norah's got a few more years before she starts, but of course she still had to pose like the big kids.

We have really loved our school.

Ready to go. Kylah was very excited that she gets to have her own desk in 1st grade instead of the tables they had in Kindergarten.

Meredith bought these matching softball shirts for the girls, and they decided they wanted to match and wear them the first day. So cute!

He was ready to go too!

Joey and Connor didn't plan to match, but they did!

We are so excited to see what this school year brings!