Kinsley's Preschool Photos

I was asked again to do the pictures for Kinsley's preschool this year.  I was thrilled to work with all the kiddos again...they are a hoot!  Kinsley cooperated for about 3 minutes and then she was done.  I got some pretty funny smiles out of her but they are so her right now.  I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out :).  I just can't believe how big she's gotten AND that this time next year she will be in Kindergarten!!

 

 

Love that girl to pieces!!



Crazy that its been a whole year!

Soooo....a whole entire YEAR has gone by without me blogging...wah!  I guess you could say I just kind of fell off the blogging bandwagon.  It became more of a job and hassle than fun and memorable for me.  I have a bad habit or trait (not sure what to call it) that I want everything to be perfect and that poured over into my blog.  If pictures weren't exactly the way I wanted them to be or something didn't happen the way I wanted it to happen, then I didn't want to blog about it but that's just not the way life goes and I know that.  I've learned to relax quite a bit with 3 girls but I still possess that ugly "perfect-ness" trait.  I can drive my husband bonkers with this ugly trait...poor guy!  I always want my house to be clean but that certainly doesn't happen more than once a week these days.  When I throw a party or make a craft or do anything, I want it perfect and I can get pretty stressed when things don't go perfectly.  Anyway...didn't mean to get off on a tangent there about my ugly trait...lol.

 

I need to get back to blogging.  Aliyah mentioned to me today that she was reading our blog at Grandma's and she read about getting her tonsils taken out and I remembered exactly WHY I started blogging.  For my girls.  It's the quickest way to journal these days and I want my girls to be able to look back on something when they get older to see what our family did while they were growing up and what was going on in their lives.  And it isn't always perfect, right?  So I'm going to start blogging the good, the bad, the awesome, and the ugly.  Hopefully I don't regret that!  Its pretty much officially fall around here which means lots of family outings, holidays, and other fun stuff...not to mention other exciting things coming up in our lives...like a BABY BROTHER!!  He is due Jan 6 and the girls are getting more and more excited every day to meet their baby brother =). 

 

Last weekend we took the girls to the hot air balloon festival.  We spent the night in a hotel since it's a little over an hour drive away.  Today we went to an apple orchard to pick apples, ride ponies, and other fun stuff.  I've got plenty to blog about so come back for more updates.  In the meantime, I'm going to work on getting a new header and new pictures up on the sidebar!  The girls have grown sooo much in a year!!

 

I'll end with my favorite picture from last weekend :)

 

moments like this

I was searching for a missing tote full of Kinsley's winter clothes (btw, how in the world does a full tote of clothes dissapear?!)  while Brandon was putting Emmy to bed.  The 2 older girls were supposed to be getting ready for bed.  I walk into the living room to find Trix cereal dumped ALL OVER both couches and ALL OVER the floor.  Kinsley is sitting on the floor chowing down and Aliyah is sitting in a box with the remainder of the bag of cereal on her lap, chowing down.  I'm already stressed over Kinsley's missing clothes (I HATE it when I can't find something.  It drives me absolutely bonkers til I find it!!  Not to mention this is a completely FULL tote of winter clothes, it's cold now and Kinsley needs pants!)  Its 9pm, an hour past Kinsley's bedtime.  I'm tired and just wanna go to bed myself.  And both girls had already had their bedtime snack and were told no more snacks!  They got in big trouble! Kinsley for dumping the cereal everywhere and Aliyah for not minding.  Luckily my wonderful husband helped the girls clean up the mess.  The couch even had to be moved.  I'm sure I will be finding Trix everywhere for the next few days.  However, this is one of those times where I wish I would have taken a picture.  The big mess was a mere inconvenience.  I tell me myself almost every day to cherish every single moment, the good and the bad b/c before we know it, these girls are going to be grown women with families of their own and I'm going to miss these days and wish they hadn't gone by so fast.  Miss Emmy turned 18 months old today and I just don't know where the last 18 months went.  Seems like just yesterday we were headed to the hospital to welcome her to this world.  And today she's walking, running, talking, and exploring the world around her.  She's a TODDLER!! WAH!

Bye Bye Tonsils

I have never been so glad to have a day over with than I am for this day.  I have been dreading this day for 2 weeks, which is when we found out Aliyah was having surgery for sure.  Aliyah has been really nervous as well but of course I didn't let her know that I was freaking out on the inside as well.  I thought I would do fine once we got to the hospital but honestly?  I cried.  3 times.  Yeah, I'm a big baby.  Once when the nurse came to talk to Aliyah and I about the surgery.  (Daddy had to wait in the waiting room.)  Again when Aliyah wanted Daddy (and not Mommy) before surgery and yet again when they took her back for surgery.  Sending your kid off to surgery is scary.  I know there are very minimum risks from having your tonsils out but that did not make it any easier.  It's still surgery and she was put under completely and cut on. 

 She is a stubborn girl.  She refused to put on the hospital gown and the hair net.  It took me several minutes to talk her into putting the gown on but she was NOT going to put the hair net on.  Thankfully there was another little girl about Aliyah's age sitting right next to her that had her hair net on.  After seeing her, Aliyah finally agree to put it on.  Not like she was actually going to have a choice but it definitly made it easier on me! 

She got the little duck for being a good lil patient, once she put the hair net on...lol.  Her mask smelled like strawberries, which is what they used to put her to sleep.   

She thought it was pretty cool and even asked to bring it home, which she got to do!  She also asked me if they would put her tonsils in a jar so she could bring them home.  Gross!!  And the one question she asked the nurse?  "Will I still be able to talk after surgery?"  That's my Aliyah, worried about not being able to talk!!  She would literally die if she could not talk!!  The girl talks all day long! =)

Thankfully the surgery itself went really well.  The whole staff said she did excellent so I was grateful to hear that.  When she was in recovery, every time a nurse came to check on her she would wake up with a smile on her face :)  Then she just wanted to go home.   She would have left that hospital an hour earlier than they let her if it were up to her.  She wanted to get the heck out of there!  But she did give the last nurse we saw a hug and told her thank you :)  They all deserved a hug in my opinion.  They were all excellent and took really good care of her! 

She's done really well here at home today as well.  I thought she would sleep all day but nope.  She didn't sleep at all.  She sat and did puzzles for a while and then she did half of her homework.  She's got a week and a half of homework to do and the kid got half of it done today!  They gave her Tylenol with Codeine and I'm making sure to give it to her about every 5 hours so that it never fully wears off.  I don't want her to be in excruciating pain and thankfully she's not :)

Lil Firecrackers

Quick post - I want to get this up but I'm on my way out the door to get Aliyah's assignments from school for her to work on while she's stuck at home recooperating from having her tonsils ripped out.  It's been an insanely busy day and its not even close to being over. 

Anyway, here's our 3 munchkins on July 4th...almost 3 months later ;-)

Daddy was behind the camera for those.  Mommy was the one being goofy trying to get them all to smile.  I think I did a pretty good job! =)

Well I was going to post last year's July 4th picture for comparison but blogger is being stupid and I gotta run!

Kinsley's 1st Day of School

Kinsley's first day of school was actually August 18.  As you can tell, I'm really behind on the blog.  I plan to work really hard to get caught up this week, or at least highlight some of the fun stuff we did this summer.  Aliyah gets her tonsils out Wed morning so we will see how much catching up I actually accomplish. 

Kinsley could NOT wait to go to school.  I hesitated to send her this year since she just turned 3.  Afterall we didn't send Aliyah til she was 4.  However, Kinsley wanted to go so badly and after discussing it, we decided that Kinsley would benefit from going this year.  She knows her ABC's and numbers but colors and shapes are another thing.  She knows her favorite color orange but that's about it.  I've tried working with her here at home but she's much more interested in climbing the walls than sitting down and learning shapes or colors.  At her 3 yr Dr check, the nurse mentioned how smart Kinsley is and she thinks that Kinsley's mind is just constantly turning, which is why she's ALWAYS getting into something or figuring things out.  Makes sense, I guess?  Should make school interesting...

She wasn't too happy with me right here.  She wanted to go IN her classroom gosh darn it but I made her stand by her name and take a picture...lol.  We decided at the last minute to switch Kinsley to a different school with fewer kids in her class that only consists of 3 yr olds.  The other school doesn't start until after labor day so we didn't have a backpack for her yet, which is why she just has her regular bag (in case you were wondering :)  Her backpack came in the mail Saturday and she now has a backpack like big sister with her name on it.  She wore that thing ALL day on Saturday!  =)  I'll be sure to get some pictures tomorrow.

She sat right down on the rug with the other kids and got straight to work :)  Didn't even care that I was leaving...lol.  

The only "bad" thing about her going to school is that she only goes 2 days a week, Tues and Thurs.  I think 2 days a week is plenty for her.  However, Kinsley does not.  She would go all 5 days of the week if it were up to her.  She asks every single morning after we drop Aliyah off if she has school.  If I say no, a meltdown is sure to follow.  I'm so glad that she loves school just as much as big sister!!  I can't believe we have 2 in school now! 

2nd Grade

How is it possible that my "baby" went to SECOND grade today?!?!  She's growing up way too fast!  She was sooo excited about her first day of school.  She's been asking for the last several weeks "how many more days til school?"  She loves school and she is ready to have a good year.  I'm hoping and praying that she does have a good year, b/c last year was not so good. 

We didn't have a whole lot of time this morning to get pictures but I managed to snap a couple on the point & shoot.  I wish now that I had drug the monster camera out this morning...sigh.  Oh well, at least I got pictures and that's all that matters. 

 I wanted her to stand by the door to her classroom and she would not do it.  She refused so I got this instead.  Proof of how stubborn she is!

 And this is what I left behind this morning.  A smiling girl ready for school and ready to have a good, fun year.  Her teacher is younger (I'm guessing 30's and she's had all older teachers so far) and Aliyah immediately said "she's pretty! I'm really going to like her and I'm going to have a good year, Mom!"  That was all I needed to hear! 

And she came home all excited about school once again.  She kept asking all day "how many more hours til school tomorrow?"  LOL!  It's so nice to have her come home in a good mood and excited about school.  That didn't happen very often at all last year.  Actually, I'm not sure it happened at all.  It makes me sad and mad.  I feel like she got robbed of her 1st grade year.  But I need to get over it and move on b/c we are going to have a wonderful year!!!