Dear Abby

Dear Abigail,

You are 5! Sorry this is so belated.

I am loving you at 5- you are so mature and grown up. You have this sweet grown up voice now.

You love Pocahontas, princesses, dancing, baseball and biking. You love writing and math. You love doing “homework” at your desk. you love to write words and letters and make up words.

You have outgrown Dora:( You announced this on the way to school. “I have a Dora backpack but I don’t like Dora.”

You love to cook and draw. You love flowers. You love planting in the yard with me. You also are a ham for the camera. You love music and singing.

We just read Meanest Doll in the World and you loved it! Now you are reading Dr Doolittle with Dad.

You love ballet. You can’t wait for the Nutcracker!

I look at how tall you are and how grown up you can be and can’t believe 5 years have passed.

Here you are hanging up a Halloween garland you made by yourself. You are such a big girl these days!

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I love your enthusiasm for life. We just got home for a trip and you were just bursting with stories for Bawby yesterday. It was so cute listening to you talk away like such a big girl.

Thanks for being my girl.

I love you,

Mom

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you at your birthday party- we had pancakes for dinner at your request:) Chocolate cake for dessert. Here you are wearing your new boots.

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Medford

We had a great visit with Kyle’s parents this past weekend. They brought us to a Trunk or Treating event and the kids just loved it!

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my little fireman

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They love their cousin Peyton!

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me and Brandy

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Grammie got a haunted house kit for the kids. They loved it!

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Kyle and I got in two date nights. We got to see Peyton’s football game. Sunday we went antiquing- so fun! We got our favorite Mexican for lunch and had a beautiful drive home in the sunshine through Jacksonville. Seeing the countryside in the fall sunshine and all the beautiful hills full of mulitcolored trees was incredible.

Wedding

Sophie is married!

I am waiting on more pictures but here are a few of me and the kids:

me and Gaby

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Kyle and our little ring bearer

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the flower girls dancing

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everyone making quilt squares for the guest book quilt

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Summer Summer!

Well the seasons are changing. I can tell by all the football games, the Duck t-shirts all over today for game day and school and work starting. We had a wonderful summer. I am sad for it to end. I will end it by looking back on all the wonderful memories.

Here are some highlights:

-ballet camp for Abigail- the camp focused on signing and dancing at the same time. She put on an incredible show the last day of camp. We are so proud. She is still listening to all the songs and doing her performance. Andrew knows them all by heart too.   

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-Amazon pool- the kids did 4 weeks of swim lessons. I got to swim laps since they both are 3 and up now and do the classes without me. I loved swimming again and the kids made a lot of progress in swimming. Abigail now knows all her strokes- she learned butterfly and back stroke in her class. Andrew now does the big kid class, goes underwater and blows bubbles. They both love the slide now and they fell in love with their swim teachers. Some days we were there 11-5pm! We had a blast. they loved the afternoonm swim going in the big pool and dancing to the music they play in the afternoon. I love going with them there because it reminds me of my childhood summers spend at Paradise Manor in River RIdge doing swim team, getting cheese sticks from the snack bar and going swimming at night with my dad, siblings and cousins enjoying the radio music they played. I remember being there at dark- you can swim at night without getting cold in Louisiana:) Here are my little swimmers:

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-camping trips– the kids love camping! At the end of one of our trips Abigail announced she wished we were staying another week

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-our garden plot- the kids are really into it this year. They really take ownership this year picking out their own plants to grow. Andrew grew a huge sunflower that he started at school. Abigail’s bean plant from school grew very tall. They love picking all the vegetables whenever we go.

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Abigail with her morning glories and bean plant

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-lazy days to do with what we like- on Andrew’s birthday he got to pick what he wanted to do and he picked biking. I loved being able to just do what we wanted with no schedule to follow  

-beautiful weather- this year was a true Oregon summer . We haven’t seen rain since June. It has been a lot of sunny days great for the pool . It has been just gorgeous- a perfect Oregon summer. We even had a week of weather in the 90s. I loved it!

-visits with old friends and family- i had two teacher friends come visit from Beaverton and Salem. It was fun to see old friends and catch up. My grandfather has been here visiting , my brother Ben came a few times and two of my siblings have moved home. It’s been great spending time with everyone.

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We spent our last day of summer at the park the three of us. I can actually sit and read on a blanket while they play now:) (only for a bit at a time but it’s nice). We spent a leisure morning at home and then went to the park last minute and canceled our other plans. It was nice to have an empty lazy day to do with what we wanted. I loved watching them run and scream with joy in the sprinkler . Such little things bring such joy to children.

  

  

8 years

Kyle and I celebrated 8 years of marriage this month. He surprised me and took me to Excelsior Inn. It was quite a treat!

Then…

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and now…

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I got crab filled ravioli and had delicious white wine. We got their focaccia bread appetizer with gorgonzola cheese and garlic. Yum!

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Andrew is 3!

Dear Andrew,

I can’t believe you are 3. Time flies. I look at you and you are this big boy who talks so well and has such a love for sports. I am so lucky to have you. You are so beautiful with your dirty blonde silky hair and sweet face.

You love preschool and “teets” (treats). I love hearing you say the Madeline prayer at dinner. I love you sweet 3 year old voice. You do this deep voice sometimes too- I guess to sound more grown up.

You are a total sweetheart but you are also intense! You like things a certain way:)- you will not go to bed unless your room in clean. You do not like to wear a wet suit. You strip as soon as we get out of the pool. You hate pants and are obsessed with shorts. And you can thrown a tantrum! One of your favorite books is Finn Throws a Fit.

You love pancakes, blueberries, raisins, mango , PB and J, beans and Mommy’s green smoothies. You love basketball, gold and baseball and hip hop. You love anything Cars or Spiderman or Handy Manny. You love tools and biking. For your birthday you chose to go bike riding and for dinner you chose blueberry pancakes with cookie cake for dessert. You love doing the bicycle for two with me. You are so excited about your birthday this year . You love singing the birthday song and opening presents. Your favorite presents were your tool bench, drum and bike. You favorite songs are “Good Feeling” and the soccer song.

I love you so much! I am lucky to have you

Love,
Mom

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My Little Guy

Andrew has been obsessed with balls and sports since he was a baby. His first birthday was a sports theme party so it must have started before 12 months. All day he runs from playing some baseball, to basketball to throwing the football to hitting with his golf clubs to throwing the frisbee. He initiates this all by himself and is happy playing all by himself.

This weekend when we were out of town he was over the moon because my brother had a frisbee and football in his backyard. He spend practically the entire trip playing football and frisbee with whoever would play with him. My brothers, my dad and Sophie’s boyfriend took turns. We even brought a football to the graduation ceremony! It was outside so Andrew was able to play during the ceremony.

I have him signed up for Tball and will sign him up for soccer again. He is so excited!

I found him a basketball outfit at the Goodwill in Walla Walla. He loves it and wanted to put it on immediately!

Here’s our little jock:

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Rainy Morning

Just ran 4 miles in rain. I am training for a 1/2 in November. We’ll see if I can make it to 13. Now I am wrapped in fleece after hot shower, eating hot steel cut oats with soy milk, brown sugar and raisins in a quiet house. Preschool day. Life is good

I had a wonderful day with the kids yesterday. Wednesdays are our free day where the day is ours, no scheduled events. We went to the pool with friends. Very fun. The kids are swimming like fish. I’m amazed at how much progress they made yesterday from 2 weeks ago. Abigail started really “swimming ” on her own a few weeks ago. Yesterday she started diving in and then immediately swimming once she was in. And she learned to flip from front to back while swimming. She also started swimming on her back about 6 feet at a time. Andrew got better at torpedos. He kept saying he learned this from his swim teacher Sara at the Y. I guess the $30 I paid for lessons was worth it! So a torpedo for a 2 year old is where you sit on side of pool and dive in, push off wall, swim, turn and swim back. He got better yesterday at “diving”, really pushing off wall on his own and got better at swimming with his arms. He started to swim on his own to wall underwater maybe a 1/2 foot. This coming from a little boy who has always been grouchy about the water! We’ve turned a corner! Yay! So proud of my little guys!

Little Moments of Joy

I was a little grumpy Saturday for no reason at all, I felt especially guilty about this since we have had such great weather lately. Sunday I woke determined to snap myself out of it.

We went to the tulip fest. It was stunning as always. It was really hot (not complaining I love it!) so I found us some shade. Out of the blue Andrew grabbed me by the ear, turned my cheek towards me and planted a big kiss on my cheek. I was so taken aback by this unprompted display of affection, I started to tear up, smile and laugh. He got this big sweet smile on his face. I had stumbled on this blog earlier today about catching those little moments of joy in front of you every day. (http://www.thejoypractice.com/the-joy-factory/ ) After that kiss I thought that is what that blogger is talking about! Now Kyle had just announced we were going to get ice cream before Andrew did that so maybe the kiss was about ice cream. Either way I’ll take it! Andrew sure got me out of my slump after that . That is all that matters:)



Holidays

We had a wonderful Easter. The kids are so good at egg hunts this year.

The kids loved seeing their cousins. They especially loved seeing their baby cousin Colette. Abby and Andrew wanted to sit by her at the table at all the meals.

In the middle of dinner Andrew started crying and sobbing, tear dripping down his face. We all stopped and asked him what was wrong and he said he was sad because he wasn’t sitting by Colette!

Here are the kids walking into the Bunny Breakfast:

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Here are some other holiday pictures:

Valentines:

The kids came up with the idea that they wanted to do a Valentine’s Party with cookie cake . So I made a cookie cake and we had a nice little family party:

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Here is Abigail in her Valentine’s outfit:)

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Mardi Gras celebration:

Abigail making king cake

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It was incredible!

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Abigail and Andrew celebrated Mardi Gras with their book club:

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Christmas:

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Andrew living his microphone from Grammie:

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Abigail and Colette:

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Abby’s room during the break when Kyle organized the whole house!

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