First days of school

I now have a preschooler, kindergartener, and a 2nd grader.

The first week of school went smoothly for the older girls.  Nice to know they are both at one school.  A big kid school.

 Ava LOVES her teacher and thinks she is quite the fashionista.  Her beautiful teacher makes up for the fact that she is split up from most of her friends this year.  There are only 7 girls in her class!  I say her teacher lucked out!  Less drama that way!

Molly wakes up every morning so excited to go to school.  She is becoming quite the little student.  Her favorite part of school is walking in the mornings with the big kids!  I know how much she is going to grow and change this year.  I feel blessed that I get to have her home with me in the afternoons.

Rachel started school today.  It was anticlimactic.  She new exactly what to do.  Walked right into the room, found her cubby and hung up her backpack.  Mike and I started laughing because she was waiting for us to leave!  Her teacher's called her a pro.  It makes sense because she has been going to that school for her sisters since she was 3 months old!

Swimming

With summer coming to a end quickly, we decided to spend the last two weeks doing swim lessons at our pool.  They were GREAT!  Small classes, and great weather.  The girls learned so much!

Rachel is now going underwater and floating on her back.  She has braved her fear of going across the rope into the deeper water.  Not sure about this one since I will have to watch her like a hawk now!

Molly has become a great swimmer this year.  She is now going off the diving board.  Swimming lessons taught her the crawl and backstroke and she is perfecting diving!

Ava has perfected both her crawl stroke and her backstroke.  And is so close to diving!  She is very excited to start swimming on a swim team in Sept.

I have mixed emotions about summer ending!  I will miss hanging out with friends at the pool.  The girls are more than ready to start school!  Stay tuned for back to school photos next week!

S. Dakota

A getaway is good for your soul. This trip was so much more than that. With so much going on at home, an escape was just what I needed. More importantly, it was great to get away with just the 5 of us! I can count on 1 hand the trips we have taken just with just our little family. It was heaven. We could do what we wanted, when we wanted.  We stayed crazy busy.  The girls had so much fun experiencing lots of new things! And it was great to show the girls Mike's old stomping grounds.

Bear Country

The Cosmos

Mt. Rushmore

Reptile Gardens

Storybook Island

And lots and lots of fishing

Bye bye turtles

For just over a year now, we have been raising baby turtles.  If you remember from last August, we watched 12 of them hatch.   Then Grandpa took 8 of them back to Texas with him and released them into the lake.  Last week, we decided that Fancy Nancy, Fast swimmer, Bitey, and Princess were getting to big for their aquarium.  So, we released them at a park nearby.  The girls were surprising okay with this decision.  Mom and dad (mostly dad since he did most of the work) were tired of taking care of them.  It was a great lesson for the girls who did a great job feeding and exercising our pets.  The hard part was cleaning out the aquarium which had to be done bi-weekly.  As a family, we decided no more pets in cages or aquariums.  It was fun to watch the turtles grow and change and watch the girls take on the responsibility!