1st day of school

I think when you go from "welcome summer" to "1st day of school" on your blog posts, that may mean I am slacking! Well anyway, I can't believe but my boys started school today. Eli is starting kindergarten and Caden is going into 1st grade. Oh my. They were VERY excited this morning and I am praying it will last. As we waited for the big bus to roll up, Eli whispered to me "I'm even more excited than I thought I would be". So cute! I held back all the tears, but will be watching the clock all day...can't believe they are away from me until 3:50pm! Not sure what the princess and I are going to be ALL DAY by ourselves. She already has asked me several times "KK at? YiYi at" which is how she says there names.

Getting on the bus...and still smiling! Please God let this last!

Caden and our neighbor Elle, both big 1st graders now!




Eli has to try to look "cool" for every picture

Just one of little Millie :)

Cheers...it's summer!!

We are really enjoying summer and we are trying hard to SLOW DOWN our days (which is hard when you are married to busy body Jerome)! At least once a week now, we start our day toasting each other with fruit smoothies on the deck. So hope you are are having a great summer and Cheers!

Little Sister

This is what happens to sweet little girls when they have 2 older brothers to teach them things...

Hair!

I am starting to realize that I am going to have YEARS of screaming, crying and fighting while dealing with Millie's hair. It's getting a lot longer, and wow when it is not "contained" somehow, it gets quite fluffy. I tried to put it into 2 little pigtails today, and boy was it a challenge. I strapped her down into the highchair and applied 2 different detangler hair products and pulled and stretched every little curl until they made it into the hairband. She screamed and wiggled the ENTIRE time. I honestly do not know how the moms of the little girls have have like 10 ponytails and barrettes all over their heads do it! I do think she looks darn cute though with them! They are not even, but I think it's pretty good for the first attempt!

School Pictures!

It's that time of the year again...time for the awkwardly posed school pictures! Actually, Eli's preschool always does a really good job, but poor Caden. He showed me "the pose" they had him do when he got home that day, and I was afraid to see the final pictures! Also, I included Eli's soccer picture, this year he was Team Japan. :)

Catch up...

I finally downloaded pictures from our camera and I have much to catch up on (as usual). The first sequence of pictures are of the boys. This is the perfect "story" of why I can never get a good picture of the kids together. This was actually outside of a photographers studio. We were on our way inside to have professional pictures done with their cousins...I am sure you can imagine how those turned out. ha!

This was Millie's Easter Dress, she would not sit still for even 2 seconds so that I could take a good picture of her. But it really was adorable, trust me!

Finally, yesterday was a gorgeous day here and Jerome was off of work, so we decided to take the kids to the zoo. It was a great time, and I think Millie had the best time of all! I feel bad, because I think I just think of her as a "baby" and don't really even consider that she might enjoy these things yet. She ran & squeeled from exhibit to exhibit...trying to climb into every single tank or cage she could get close too! The funniest part of the day was Caden though. He is really into taking his own pictures of EVERYTHING when we go anywhere. So I just let him have the camera and go for it. Well at some point he asked me to put it "movie mode" and he began filming the animals. I heard him talking a little bit, but what I didn't realize until I downloaded them all was that he was acting like a TV show or something...he was adding commentary to each film about the animal. There were too many share here, but each one CRACKED me up with the things that he came up to say about the animals. The snake area was the funniest, but it was really dark, so I didn't include it. He went from tank to tank though saying things like "notice this one really blends in with the rocks, and oh my, now that would be scary to see in your yard, and he would say "I am not sure what this is called, but then you would hear Jerome in the background telling Eli the name, and all of sudden, Caden would say "oh yes, I just remembered now, this one is called the rainbow viper" lol

Quick Picture...

It's SO RARE, that I actually get a picture of the three of them together, so I have to share! We went to Chicago for Spring Break (Tropical, huh?)...had a ton of fun though. Science & Industry museum, Aquarium, swimming at the hotel, lego store, and eating waayyy too much. I have figured out that all my boys need need for a "perfect vacation" is to sleep in a hotel and swim in a pool.