American Girl mania

Our girls love anything American Girl related...dolls, books, movies, etc. We decided to make the trek to Atlanta to see the store in person. We hit the road and were excited the whole way there! Here they are outside after our successful shopping trip:

A close up shot...Cutie Pie got the mini Ruthie doll (she pronounces it 'Roofy'), Popcorn got mini Elizabeth, and Sweetie is holding her Kirsten doll with her new clothes.

A good time was had by all! Well, I don't know that Ladd loved shopping at the doll store but he got a kick out of seeing the girls so excited!

PJ's

Like many families, our girls get new PJ's on Christmas Eve. I of course wanted some pictures so I called the girls to the stairs. Here's attempt #1:

Okay, please smile everyone! Attempt #2:

Cutie Pie's smile looked a little forced, so let's try one more time! Attempt #3:

Never mind, they were just too excited. Cutie Pie then wanted to take a few. Here's a real looking smile:
Strike a pose!
Now come the goofy faces:

Last but certainly not least (and I think my favorite):

Gotta love goofy girls!

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a great Christmas! Here's the girls in their new PJ's:

Reading the note from Santa...

It snowed a little and we woke up to a white Christmas! I read somewhere that there's only a 7% chance of this happening; cool! Church was cancelled the next day so we got an extra long weekend of relaxing.

Cutie Pie in her new gloves and hat. If her smile looks forced it's because she's following in Popcorn's footsteps and makes funny faces for the camera...

Sweetie sporting her new necklace and working on the new 'kids only' laptop, thank you Santa!

Popcorn in her new hat:
We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

December fun

We made a gingerbread house (don't get too excited, it was the kind you decorate right out of the box!). The girls had fun and that's really the point anyway. Here they are showing off the finished house:

Part of the roof fell off so Popcorn decided to take a sample:

Cutie Pie being goofy too:

Here's the broken house:

Ever since school got out Popcorn has been sleeping in Cutie Pie's room!!!! I don't really like admitting this, but Popcorn has been sleeping on the floor in our bedroom for the past 3 years. As soon as I got Cutie Pie out of our room Popcorn came in and never left. I didn't mind at first, and with all the moving I think it helped her feel secure. However, now that we've been here for 18 months and the fact that she's 6 yrs old it was far past time to move into another bedroom. I think we're going to put the bunk beds back together and Popcorn and Cutie Pie will share those.

All 3 of them spent one night together, here they are all ready for bed:

Sweetie's recital

Sweetie had her first recital on Sunday, Dec. 5th. Here she is posing at the piano:

The video below is her playing the Mickey Mouse March. The lighting isn't great, but you can hear her song.

Her second song was Away in a Manger. She did great, didn't have one mistake!

Cute dresses

Popcorn and Cutie Pie wore their super fabulous purple dresses to church on Sunday. Here they are posing by their new 'kid' Christmas tree. We needed a place for all their ornaments to go and I needed them to leave the big tree alone...last year I found ornaments were rearranged daily.

Anyway, here they are in all their purple glory: (and no, Cutie Pie doesn't have anything interesting on her head, she was standing in front of a snowflake they made)

A trip down memory lane, here is Sweetie and Cutie Pie in the same dresses almost 4 years ago! This was taken January 2007:

Daddy Daughter Dinner Date Night

Chick-fil-A hosted a daddy daughter date night at the mall. Perfect! You actually reserved a time slot and they even checked in upon arrival. It was cute, the tables were all set and while it was the same menu they were served on real plates. Here they are excitedly awaiting their dinner...

It was also perfect for me because I went and did a little shopping alone! A great night for all!

Halloween Fun

Here's all 3 cuties ready to trick-or-treat:

(Sweetie was an explorer)

Popcorn and Cutie Pie driving a car through the park at the mom's club party:

Cutie Pie enjoying a snow cone at the Mars Boo Bash:

Popcorn enjoying her favorite snack:

Painting pumpkins:

This year I found some fun Halloween toys on sale at Target so I bought each girl a little toy and made them a deal...they could keep the toy if they gave me their entire bag of candy. They all took the toy :) Here's Sweetie with the Hello Kitty haunted house:

Popcorn with her toy:

We hope everyone had a fun Halloween!

Pumpkin patch

We've been having some crazy warm weather, we're still in our shorts and tees. On Saturday we went to the pumpkin patch, but sadly the actual patch part wasn't open. We found some already picked pumpkins and headed out of there, it was very busy. Here are the girls on the truck:

Earlier in the month I helped out with Cutie Pie's harvest field day. I thought this scarecrow was cute...

It was actually a little chilly for the field day. Here's Cutie Pie doing the 'pumpkin roll' game:

I haven't been very good about taking pictures lately, but we should have a whole bunch later this week. We have no less than 3 Halloween parties, not to mention Halloween itself!

1st day of pre-school

Cutie Pie started school today! She was very excited, once she saw her older sisters riding the bus to school she's been ready to go as well. Cutie Pie was a little upset that I had to drive her, she was set on riding the bus.

Here she is, all smiles!

Such a good little poser, I have trained them well! Side view...

The backpack, oh how we love Kailan!

It was very strange to be alone for a good part of the day. I ran my errands in record time and came home to an oddly quiet house. I will need to find a project or something to do or else I will go crazy. Although, I was thinking about it and I've had a child with me (and have been changing diapers until just recently) for the last 9.5 years! Most of my friends have 2 kids closer together in age, so their childless days aren't so far in the past! The only thing you can count on is change!

Hello!

Sorry for the long absence...I've been without a computer the last couple weeks! Long story, but after 3 weeks of dealing with the Apple store (and a nice little chat with the manager) the issue has been resolved plus I got Aperture 3 for FREE! Awesome! I will be posting (and most likely back dating) our summer adventures and school starting. Please be patient, I need to retrieve our photos from our back-up. I'm back!!!!!

The bus incident

We had another incident with Popcorn and the bus the very first day of school...

A little background: last year on the first day of Kindergarten Popcorn initially got off at the wrong bus stop. I guess the bus stopped and she hopped up and followed the other kids. Luckily a friend of Sweetie's noticed Popcorn and alerted Sweetie, who jumped into action and Popcorn was safely put back on the bus and everyone got home safe and sound.

This year on the first day of school I was waiting at the bus stop with Cutie Pie and our neighbor. We had cameras in hand, ready to hear about the first day. The bus stops and neighbor girl gets off, followed by Sweetie. Doors close and away goes the bus. No Popcorn??!!!!!

Upon questioning Sweetie and neighbor girl no one recalls seeing Popcorn on the bus! Strange. Panic begins to set in. I called the school and said something to the effect of: "My oldest got off the bus, my 1st grader is no where to be seen. I'm trying to figure out where she is." I was nice, I was calm.

My main fear was that she got off at the wrong stop and was wandering around alone and afraid. I wasn't entirely sure she knew our address. It had been a few months since they had been in school. So I'm on hold at the school. It's probably 100 degrees outside (in the shade) and I'm standing in the sun. My legs got all red, I was super hot. Sweetie started wailing (did I mention she has a flair for drama?) and was sent inside with Cutie Pie.

I ran up the street and was talking to another neighbor who get this- had a missing Kindergartner for 3 hours!!!! Several years ago her daughter had fallen asleep on the bus, the driver didn't get up to actually check the rows. She wasn't found until the bus pulled into the parking lot at night and the driver actually got up and walked each row!

Okay, so her story didn't make me feel much better. More panic. More holding. The secretary would check back in with me here and there...Popcorn was put into the correct bus line, something went haywire from there. At last (after about 30 minutes which felt much longer than that) it was determined that she got onto the wrong bus. There are at least 4 Elementary school buses that come to our neighborhood, nice Mr. bus driver brought Popcorn home.

She was fine, a little scared but fine. Upon further questioning Popcorn said she was talking to a friend and I guess she marched right onto friend's bus.

It was traumatizing enough that I now pick her up from school. It was a fight to get her to even rider the bus to school, but I assured her all would be well, she gets on with Sweetie, and she even gets escorted to her classroom. And so the school year has begun!!!

First day of school

Today they returned to school! It seems a little strange since it's still so darn hot!

Here's Sweetie in her one picture. She informed me that she's too old to pose for such silly photos!

Popcorn (aka Toothless Wonder) on the other hand was all about the posing. Here's a front view with her super cool lunch box:

Side view:
Her backpack:
The whole crew waiting for the bus:

Mars Picnic

We had TONS of fun at the Mars Company Picnic this year! Upon arrival the girls got their faces painted., we thought it would be good to do the 'sit still' activities first. Here's Sweetie with her flower and Popcorn with her blue unicorn:

Cutie Pie liked the unicorn and decided she wanted a pink one:
Then we had our caricature drawings done. Ladd got a picture of him on a bike, Sweetie was swimming, Cutie Pie became a ballerina, I had a camera in hand and here's Popcorn becoming a Princess:
After a yummy lunch Ladd and I went on a zip line. You had to climb a rather tall pole in order to zip down. It was an adventurous adrenaline rush! Then we went swimming in the kid friendly pool (sorry, no pictures, didn't want the camera to get wet). After the water fun the girls wanted to get balloons. Cutie Pie got a Princess wand:

Popcorn got a butterfly:

Sweetie got a puppy balloon. We also took a break to have some delicious ice cream treats. The perk of Mars is that we got the good stuff: snickers and twix ice cream bars, m&m cookie ice cream sandwiches, and Dove ice cream bars. Yum!

We look forward to next year!

Beach vacation

We took a trip to Sunset Beach, NC the last week of July. It was a fun week of sun and sand with Ladd's family. Here's Cutie Pie building a sand castle:

Sweetie and Cutie Pie together:

Popcorn and our new friend...Sweetie saw him building a sand castle and walked up to him, introduced herself and they began playing together. He's also 9yrs old and gets mistaken for being older all the time, just like Sweetie. They had hours of fun together!

After the sand castle they moved onto burying each other. It was fun at first, then the sand began to bother the girls. Luckily our new friend was staying right off the beach so we got to use their outdoor shower. They even fed us lunch so we would stay longer and play! Sweetie and our new friend traded email addresses and they're already sent messages back and forth!

Cutie Pie didn't want anything to do with the ocean, on our last day there we finally got her into the water and she loved it!

We took a day trip to Charleston, SC. Here we are by the water:

It was a hot and humid day. We did some exploring but everyone got super hot. We saw this fountain and had to take a closer look...here they are mostly still dry:

It wasn't long until all the girls were completely soaked (luckily we were prepared with an extra change of clothes for everyone). They had a ton of fun!

Trying to gather everyone to leave. What I find funny about this picture is how just at a glance you can see their personalities: Sweetie isn't happy about leaving but she cooperates. Cutie Pie follows her lead and then tries to talk Popcorn into doing the same. Popcorn just likes to sit and argue or flat out ignore you!