On Friday night, we had the opportunity to see my niece, Brooke, in a performance of "Snoopy!"  She was one of a cast of 7, so we got to see her on stage a lot this time!  She did a fantastic job and I'm so happy we were able to go.  She played the role of "Lucy," so you can imagine the fun we've had with that over the past several weeks. (Anyone see any resemblance between Brooke and me?  It's harder to tell with the black wig, but Brooke has been accused of looking like her Aunt Tanya all her life.  )

 

The rest of the weekend was fun as well, with a surprise 31st birthday party for a friend from our Sunday School class on Saturday and a Little Mermaid party for a 3-year-old in Lucy's class on Sunday.  (Sorry, no pics!)  Both were outside parties, but thankfully there was shade!  This week is turning out to be much cooler than last week, so we are taking advantage of the nice weather and getting outside as much as we can.

 

Have a Happy Independence Day, everyone!

The first set of pictures were taken at a birthday swimming party for one of the little boys from church.  They live on a farm.  I didn't take any pictures of the birthday party or of the girls swimming, but when they got to be around the animals, I had to break out the camera!  They had a ball, especially Lucy.

 

On Father's Day, we got up early and gave Jeff his gifts before church.  After church, we drove to my parents' house for lunch with my side of the family.  It was fun having all of us together, seeing the girls play with their cousins, and getting to go swimming with Uncle Troy the next day.

 

The summer is flying by, as it always does.  Hope you are enjoying it as much as we are!

Last weekend, Jeff and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary by going to a wedding in St. Louis!  We left the girls with Jeff's parents and attended the wedding of one of Jeff's friends from high school, Tim, on Friday afternoon.  We had some time between the wedding and reception, so we checked into our hotel room and then walked down the street to Union Station.  It's not what it used to be, but still worth seeing.

 

The reception was held at Windows Off Washington, on the 10th floor of the St. Louis City Museum.  It was very fancy and we enjoyed being all dressed up and for an elegant meal without kids around!  It was also really nice for Jeff to get to catch up with three of his best friends from high school.  It is rare for them to ever all be together in the same place like that these days!

 

Saturday morning, we enjoyed swimming in the warm hotel pool and then headed down by the river for our anniversary lunch at The Old Spaghetti Factory.  Yum!  It is very close to the arch, so we walked down the river to the arch area and back, just enjoying the beautiful weather and the sights.  Then we drove to the St. Louis Mills Mall for the afternoon (never been there before...very cool!) and back to Jeff's parents' house in the evening.  It was a nice time away, but we were excited to see our girls again.  In some ways, it didn't seem right to be taking a trip and enjoying all that stuff without them.  As Jeff said, "They're part of us now!"

 

We stayed there two more days before coming back home.  Jeff and I sang with the praise team at their church and also did the special music.  We ate lunch Sunday at a little restaurant in a park all about Abe Lincoln, hence the pictures.  We took the girls swimming at the city pool that afternoon, but it was COLD, so we didn't stay long.

 

This week, however, has been far from cold!  It's been in the 90's and very humid!  So yesterday we blew up the pool and the girls had a blast outside for over an hour.  I'm looking forward to many more opportunities for them to use it this summer.  They're both at such a great age to enjoy it together.

On Friday, we took our semi-annual trip back to Louisville for professional pictures at Portrait Innovations.  Our appointment was for Saturday, but we went a day early to enjoy a mini-get-away and some time with friends.  We took a picnic lunch and spent the afternoon along the riverfront.  The weather was perfect - sunny, but not hot - and we had such a nice time.  We even decided to spend the money and rent a "surry" for an hour, which we rode up and down the riverfront from the Belle of Louisville all the way to the splash park.  It was great.  That was one thing we always wanted to do when we lived there, but never did.  Next time we go during warm weather, we need to remember to bring the girls' swimsuits so they can play in the splash park.  That was always a fun thing to do in the summer and we don't have anything like that here.

 

Later in the afternoon, we spent some time at Mall St. Matthews and drove by our old apartment and the hospital where the girls were born.  Then we ventured over to Simpsonville, where our dear friends from our church here, Kris and Jwain, just moved!  I mean literally, they just moved there 11 days before we came!  But they seemed to be pretty much all moved in and were such gracious hosts.  We had a yummy dinner and enjoyed spending the evening with their family.  I'm so sad they moved away, but so thankful they moved close to Louisville so we can continue to visit them from time to time.

 

I wish we could say we had a good night's sleep there, but Lucy kept us up most of the night.  She was fussing, crying, in our bed, having nightmares, thinking something was crawling on her, thinking there were scary turtles on the wall, on the couch with Jeff, and occasionally even screaming at the top of her lungs until about 3:30 when she finally settled down and fell asleep in the bed with me, with Jeff out on the couch.  We all slept soundly after that...until 6:50.  Then she was wide awake and that was it.  Ella slept in a twin bed with her good friend, Annali, and they both slept great, though they were awake even earlier than us the next morning!  (And remember, we were in a different time zone, so it was an hour earlier for our bodies!)

 

Jwain made us a wonderful waffle breakfast Saturday morning, we all got our showers, and  we headed out the door around 11:30 for our 12:00 appointment.  To say I was concerned how the pictures were going to go after the night we all had would be an understatement!  Especially when one child is a 2-year-old!  So we made good use of a questionable technique...the bribe.  We stopped at Walgreens before the pictures and let the girls each pick out some candy.  Ella chose Dots and Lucy chose Gummi Bears.  We took the candy in with us and told them they could only have it if they smiled pretty and did whatever the photographer asked them to do and let me tell you, they were ready to go!!  We had to wait when we got in, so I asked Lucy, "Would you like to sit on my lap and wait or play legos with Ella?" and she said, "I want to take pictures!"  Unfortunately, it turned into a 45-minute wait (!), but Ella and Lucy were amazingly patient and very well-behaved.  When it was our turn, they behaved like angels and did exactly what we asked.  I couldn't be happier with the pictures!  You better believe they got their tummies full of candy when we were done!  Does that make us bad parents?  Oh, well!

 

That afternoon, we spent a few hours with my good friend, Heather, and her 3 precious children.  We used to have weekly play dates with them when we lived there, so it is always fun to catch up, see how the kids have grown, and give them all a chance to play together.

 

When we got home Saturday evening, we were anxious to try out the new buggy Kris and Jwain gave to us.  Their youngest child is a year and a half older than Ella, and they have been SO generous to pass things on to us when they are finished with them.  This buggy is so great for us to have because now Jeff and I can both ride bikes together (and Ella rides hers along with us sometimes, too)!  Before the buggy, we had nothing for Lucy to do on a bike ride, so we just had to walk and use the stroller.  We're so happy to have it.

 

You'll also notice pictures of Ella at her swimming lessons.  It's a two-week class (8 lessons in all) and this Thursday is the last one.  She has already come a long way.  The first night she refused to get her head wet at all and pretty much stayed to the side the whole time.  And last night, she put her whole head under for the first time!  I was so proud of her!  Hopefully this experience will help her be less timid around the water now for the rest of the summer.

As promised, here is the second installment of Ella's birthday fun.  We had two parties on Saturday.  Her friends came from 10-12.  They all dressed up in princess dresses, jewelry, high-heeled shoes, etc.  They looked so sweet!  They made some crafts, took a group picture on the stage, played games, had a tea party, ate cake, and watched Ella open her presents.  It really couldn't have gone any better!  Jeff was our handsome prince in his tuxedo, and he also doubled as the waiter at the tea party.  The girls thought it was pretty special to be served by him.

 

After cleaning up from the first party, we got set for round two!  We provided a quesadilla lunch (Ella's choice) for our families at 1:00, followed by cake and presents.  The afternoon was spent watching Ella play with all her new toys while Lucy took a nap.  Then in the evening, we went to GattiTown (also Ella's choice) for a pizza dinner and games.

 

The whole day, though totally exhausting, was a lot of fun.  Most importantly, I think Ella felt special and loved.  She is our CinderElla!

Happy Birthday to Ella!  We are finally starting to dig out of the remains of Ella's birthday celebrations, so I have a few minutes to post some pictures!  Ella turned 5 last Wednesday and we had a fun day.  Jeff made her banana-chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream for breakfast and she opened her gift from us.  Since her 2nd birthday, Ella has slept in a toddler bed.  Not that she wasn't ready for a twin bed before now, of course, but we didn't have one!  And we figured, as long as she was within the height and weight requirements for the toddler bed, we would just let her stay in it.  But the time finally came for us to shell out the money and buy her a big bed, mattress, bedding, curtains, etc.  We picked more of a "big girl" border for her walls when we moved into this house last summer with the upcoming transition from her toddler bed to a twin bed in mind.  I was thrilled to find a new bedding set that went so well with the border and looks just perfect, in my opinion, for a sweet, 5-year-old girl!

 

After breakfast, we all took Ella to her 5-year-old well-child check-up.  She did great!  She passed her vision and hearing exams with no problems and checked out just perfectly.  She even got to pick a prize out of the treasure chest at the end, which only kids coming for their kindergarten exam get to do!

 

Next we went to the mall and let the girls play in the play area for a bit, which is one of Ella's favorite things to do, followed by our traditional meal at T.G.I. Friday's.  (The tradition started the night before Ella was born when we had our last meal out without kids on opening night at the T.G.I. Friday's at 4th St. Live in downtown Louisville.)

 

In the afternoon, Daddy and Ella put together Ella's new bed while I washed up all the bedding and ironed the curtains.  She was SO excited.  After dinner at home, we finished the evening with a "My Little Pony" movie that Ella had picked out from the library and a family bedtime story (all 4 of us!) in her new bed.  It was a great day.

 

Her birthday parties (friends and family) were both on Saturday.  I'll post more about that soon once I get the pictures loaded.