1st day of 1st grade!

1st day of 1st grade and our 1st year at Nola Dunn!! Elliott was so excited for school this morning!! He rushed through breakfast...and quickly brushed his teeth...and then grabbed this sign so I could get a pic of him. Emily and I walked him to his classroom...he asked if I would stay for 1 hour!! ha ha!!! I told him 1 minute. I am so so glad and grateful that he is still at an age where he LOVES school!! I hope it lasts!! Emily doesn't really know what to do with herself this morning! I can't wait to go pick him up!!!!

Splash Pad....again!

We are trying to get in as many fun water activities as we can before the end of summer. I'm not brave enough to take 2 non-swimmer kids by myself to the pool yet...so splash pads it is. And Emily has been venturing into the water!!

She kind of loves it!

This was right before Elliott got her completely in the face by the other water gun!! Emily will play in the splash pad...but she hates it when her face gets splashed!

Elliott is such a caring big brother...he helps Emily out...and Emily loves to follow him around. I LOVE seeing them play together!!

Crazy Hair Emily

I thought I'd document Emily's crazy morning hair!! A lot of people comment how pretty her curls are. But they are work! She has all these really cute ringlets....but if it doesn't get brushed....they turn into matted dread locks. I've had to cut some of them off before. In the morning...I spray her hair with detangler and run a brush through it. I've heard you should never touch curly hair with a brush...and should use a comb....but there's no way a comb would get through those snarls!! At bathtime, I run a different brush through her hair right after washing it. And then it just air dries...into these really cute curly ringlets. 

On lazy days...or ornery Emily days...I just through it up into a ponytail. The other day, I told Emily it was time to get ready to go....meaning to get dressed. She ran into my bathroom (where we do her hair in the mornings). I ignored her...and was focusing on Elliott. Then I called for her again and said we need to get going. She ran out into the living room....puts her hands out in desperation and exasperation and said, "Mommy, my hair's a mess!!" Ha ha!! So we hurried up and did her hair! Crazy girl!

Splash Pad in Kennedale

I told the kids we'd go to the splash pad this morning. The kids got all dressed in their swimming gear. I found out our usual splash pad was going to be way crowded due to the library holding their end of summer party. So we went to a different one. As soon as we pulled up....a daycare let loose....and Elliott refused to go play. He said there's way too many kids. So I googled and came up with this one in Kennedale. It's about 30 min away....and there was no way I was going to give up since the kids were all dressed up for a water day! So we headed out there....it was a nice park. I really like it. AND....Emily finally played in a splash pad for the very 1st time!!! This is HUGE for her!!! So proud of my anxious ridden girl!!!

Emily's 3rd Birthday!!!

We had such a fun birthday party for Emily. We spent the week at my parents in Arkansas and also celebrated it with Joel's family. I LOVE this little girly girl of mine!!!

Here's her Elsa cake. I also made a dress cupcake cake last year for her. It's been my favorite to make because it's so easy.

 Oh so serious during the singing. If you know anything about this sweet girl of mine...you know she doesn't prefer for ALL the attention to be on her!!

She LOVED opening her presents. She was oh so delicate and quite slow about it. But she loved it!

And of course...she loved her cupcake! I love these pics!

Helping Daddy put her scooter together....that she calls her "bike".

I can't believe this sweet little girl of mine is already 3 years old!! Love her to pieces...and our little family would be so incomplete without her fun, sweet, sensitive personality in it.

My new car!!!

My car died!! But the good news is that I got a new one!!!

We'd been thinking about getting a new car since we are expecting #3. My old car won't fit 3 car seats. But we finally decided to try to make it work and get more narrow car seats. And then my car died....so much for that idea!!

We were on our way to get my sister from the airport...she was coming for the weekend!! We were almost to the airport and Patrick noticed that the steering wheel was shaking pretty badly.  So we stopped and he checked it out. The radiator fan was loose and gave the radiator a little crack. He thought he could fix it when we got home.  We barely made it home. The fan just tore up the radiator...and would just dump the radiator fluid. When we were almost home, he had to stop almost every block to refill the radiator with water so it wouldn't overheat the car. It was awful. 

We are planning on driving to Arkansas in 5 days!!

So on the way home...we were thinking about maybe we should look at new cars. Miriam offered to watch the kids while we headed to the dealership.

Everything worked out perfectly! I really do feel like this was a "meant to be" moment. It would've been awful if this happened to us on our trip to Arkansas. My old car model was known to lose its transmission around my mileage...and we could tell it was starting to get problems. So even though Patrick could've replaced the radiator...we didn't want to pour tons of money into that car anymore. We were really grateful that Patrick's parents could get us the friends/family employee discount!!!

And I LOVE my new car!!!

July 4th Weekend

We had a fun July 4th weekend!! Friday we all hung out together as a family...fishing...botanical gardens...we found a nice walking path...and let's not forget chick-fil-a for dinner!

Saturday...we went walking again. We hung out with some good friends and some good food. And then we went  and watched fireworks with them and other members in the ward. It was such a nice fun afternoon/evening.

Here is my attempt at getting a pic of my 2 kiddos in their 4th of July get up. Why won't they both cooperate at the same time?!?