Adriana's birthday party

This year for her birthday party, Adriana decided she wanted to have it at Jump 4 Fun instead of her usual bar b que at our house. Adriana had a great time playing with all of her friends. Here is a picture of her going down one of the slides. Joey even had a great time at his big sissy's party.

By the end of the play time the kids were all getting a little daring and decided to all go down the slide together. Surprisingly only a few minor accidents happened. Here is the kids going down the slide.
Here is the giant pile up at the bottom of the slide.
Here is the sign at the outside of Adriana's party room.

A picture of all the kids sitting down getting ready for cake.

Singing Happy Birthday to Adriana.

Adriana making a wish and blowing out her birthday candles.

A picture of the birthday cake Adriana picked out. Surprisingly she picked out a ballerina barbie over her typical princess cake.

A picture of Adriana, Kaitlyn, and Grace hanging out.

Adriana and all her presents. Boy was she a lucky little girl!

Adriana opening up her presents.

One of the many gifts Adriana got.

All the kids scoping out all the new presents Adriana got.

I want to thank everyone who was able to make it to Adriana's birthday party. She really had a great day! I asked her what her favorite gift was and she said everything was her favorite because she had so many great friends!!!!!

Adriana's birthday pictures

Saturday morning I was planning on taking Adriana to get her birthday pictures taken. I asked her how she would like me to do her hair and she said she wanted it all down and curly of course. So I spend an hour and a half curling her hair with a small curling iron. I got done and her hair was very curly so I sprayed it as much as it would hold. We immediately left and headed up to Sears to have her pictures done. Go figure, by the time I got there all her curls were already out :( Gotta love the humidity. Anyway here is a few of the pictures we had taken.

Our ugly tree comes down!

We had this pine tree in our front yard that I have hated since we moved into our house. Well year after year I kept asking Chris to get rid of it, but he insisted we needed it because it kept our house shaded (which really it did). Well finally after 5 years of our front yard grass not growing from all the sap and pine needles he told me he would cut it down! Plus the tree was about dead anyway. So I am finally free of ugly tree!!!!! Here is some pictures of Chris and his dad cutting the tree down, of course I forgot to get the pictures of it when it was all gone. I will take them and add them as soon as I can.

Adriana's first day of preschool!

Adriana had her first day of preschool on Wednesday morning. So realistically this is her 3rd year of preschool, but I still have to do my first day of preschool pictures! She did really well. We met her teachers the week before and saw that she had some of her same friends in class that she had last year. She was so excited to get back to school. She goes to school on M/W/F from 9-3. I'm trying to start getting her ready for when she starts all day kindergarten next year. I figure if she gets used to going to school 3 days a week all day, adding in the extra 2 days won't be as big of a deal for her. When I came to get her she said she had a lot of fun and loved her new teachers, not that I really expected her to say anything else. So here is her first day of school pictures.

Andrew's 1st day of preschool!

Andrew started his first day of preschool on September 2. He has been so excited to start school since last year when we would go and drop Adriana off at school. We've been talking all about school for the past several weeks. Well the first day finally arrived. That morning he told me he was excited as we started getting ready for school. I think he was more excited than I was. We got all ready and drove to school. I walked him into the door and down the hallway to his big boy classroom. He started putting his bookbag on the rack right away (I guess he watched his sister do this many a times). His teacher showed him his nametag and off into the classroom he went. Adriana and I showed him around his classroom and showed him where the bathroom was so he wouldn't have any potty accidents. He was busy playing with the trucks and we finally got him to move. He didn't seem too interested in the bathroom and came back into the classroom to play at the sensory table. I told him that I was leaving and I would be back for him in a little bit. "Alright mom" was all I got out of him. I'm on the verge of tears and he could care less.
Well it finally came time to pick him up and we were one of the first cars in line so I could be one of the first to pick him up. As we were pulling up to get him I saw that he still had on the same clothes I dropped him off in (thats a good sign that he didn't have any potty accidents.) Ms. Gail, one of his teachers, was standing there with him as I stopped to pick him up. I asked her how he did today and she said he did awesome! I was so proud of my "big boy!" I asked him if he had fun at his new school and he said yes then I asked him if he wanted to go back and he said no! Well I guess we will have to work on that. I'm so proud of my big boy!

Joey's pictures

So I started feeling a little neglectful for not having Joey's picture professionally done. The poor little guy has only had his newborn pictures taken professional and thats it. So I finally got him up to Sears to have them taken. These are almost his nine month old pictures. I think he was getting tired because he was just wanting to stare and not much into smiling. Hopefully we will get them done again before he turns one. Here is a sample of the pictures they did.

apple, peach, and blackberry picking.

While we were camping at Pere Marquette over Labor Day weekend, we decided to spend Saturday apple, peach, and blackberry picking. Not very often do you get to take advantage of picking everything, but since it was all available why not?! The kids had a great time picking and sampling all the fresh fruit. Here the kids are on the wagon getting ready to head off to the orchards. Our first stop was apple picking. It was honey crisp apples which are a very crisp apple and great to eat. Here is a picture of Kaitlyn picking some.

Here is the picky Adriana picking some. She had to stop and exam every piece of fruit she picked to make sure it was perfect. You can bet I was eating the apples from her bag :)

Andrew on the other hand was not too picky about what he chose. If it came off the tree, it went into his bag. Or else his mouth. I think he ate more than he actually kept. It was a great way to get him to eat a healthy lunch at least.

Here is Jacob picking some of the apples as well.

Here is the kids waiting for the tractor to come get us so we can head to back. Aren't they the sweetest little hitch hikers you ever saw?!

Here they were trying to look like a spider with eight legs. Well it was close at least...hehehe

Here is Joey eating one of the peaches. Boy did he love all the peaches and tomatoes.....both he and mommy were a sticky mess by the end.

Loaded up on the wagon with all of our apples and peaches getting ready to head back to do some blackberry picking.

Adriana picking some blackberries.

Apparently blackberries are a favorite for Andrew since he definitely ate more than he picked. I guess momma should be trying more fruit for him.

Just a cute picture of Andrew and Joey. It was a great time picking and I think all the kids had a lot of fun! We will definitely be doing some more picking this fall!

Camping with Sunny!

This weekend we finally got up the courage to try to take Sunny camping with us. She has not been camping since last year when she was a little more controllable, but we thought we would give it a try. She actually did great and was probably the best one! She was in heaven too! She loved all the walks she got to take and of course all the attention she got from all the strangers wanting to come up and pet her. I think she has officially earned herself a spot on the campouts! Here is a few pictures of her.
This is her and Joey just lounging in the shade. Here Sunny is lending Joey a hand as he tries to climb on her.

Joey and Sunny.

Here is Andrew taking Sunny for a walk (although I'm not sure she is listening to well to him).
And finally here is Sunny just enjoying some time to herself in the shade.

Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!

Friday was my niece's 13th birthday. She came camping with us over the weekend where we got to celebrate the big day. Its hard to believe little BooBoo Bear is already 13! It seems like yesterday she was just Adriana's size. Time goes by so fast! I hope you had a great birthday Kaitlyn!!!!