first grade!

another moment when i ask myself, "how can it be!?" today was ella's first day of first grade! she was very ready to go back to school today. she popped out of bed, got herself ready, ate a yummy breakfast, and she and daddy were out the door! and just like that...another year of school has begun. most of her friends from her class last year are in her class again with a few newcomers. and we are very excited about her teacher this year...her friend, "G's" mom...MY friend, Lane! i know she will be a fantastic teacher for this class!

our proud first grader...


and if you care to compare these pics to last year's first day of kindergarten...go here! :)

6 years old!

how can it be? and i kept telling her that i didn't want her to have a birthday...to stop growing...and she just didn't listen to me! this day has been long awaited for her. she has been counting down the days for a while now! so 6 years ago today i had my first child and she is growing into a precious "big" girl now!

this past year she has changed a lot. maybe going to school had an affect on this. one big milestone is that she learned to read! when she read her birthday card today, i get so excited and surprised every time i hear her reading something! she has developed this huge fondness of her brother (not that she wasn't fond of him before)...but something has been different this year. she really enjoys his friendship (most of the time) and really absolutely adores cute little "evie". and also with growing older comes the struggles between being a little girl and big girl. there has been a lot of whining this year and a lot of drama! little things can tend to cause melt downs and drive mommy & daddy crazy! the whining has gotten much better lately thankfully :) ella loves to be with her friends. she is always asking when she gets to see them. and she is definitely my social/activity girl. every day she wakes up and asks what we are doing that day. or this happens the night before. my mom says i was the same way when i was little! her imagination has taken off....she is great at playing by herself at rest time. she has been so creative with her art (yesterday she made a little 3D town out of cardboard). she enjoys playing restaurant, having tea parties, and playing with her stuffed animals.

my sweet ella is very loving and very sensitive. i have enjoyed seeing these things develop in her. i'm sure with our new baby coming, she will change even more this next year as she takes on the little mommy role!

happy birthday ella! i hope your 6th birthday is as fun as you've hoped it to be!!! WE ALL LOVE YOU!!

this was evan's gift to her...doesn't she look cute? and who doesn't like a birthday donut? she was so excited about breakfast this morning!

camp cousinfun 2008

well our 2nd annual camp cousinfun has come and gone! this year's theme..."water, water everywhere" was definitely a hit! i took a ton of photos...here are the highlights of everything we did:

ACTIVITIES:
all the kids painted the cousin camp banner and decorated their new camp tshirts.

Hilly Pop (my dad) demonstrating how water in drinking glasses can make a tune.

the kids made their own lava lamps with oil and water. adding an alka seltzer tablet made it super cool!

other activities included testing objects to see if they sink or float in water, watching what happens to celery dipped in colored water, learning about the water cycle and the 3 forms of water, and the older cousins did a puppet show about water conservation!

GAMES:
they played some fun water games outside. here is evan playing "drip drip drop" (aka duck duck goose). you had to pour the water in the cup on the "drop" person!

a relay race trying to fill a bucket with a cup of water that had holes in the bottom!

the girls trying to catch as much water as they could in their cups from the sprinkler.

they also played Marco Polo outside by tagging people with a cup of water.

MUSIC:
we sang some fun songs about water (my sister always comes up with such fun songs!). the JAWS song, singing in the rain (with a twist), and others!

and at night, rusty would play guitar and we would sing a few worship songs together.

SNACKS:
my mom made these cute flip flops with the kids using nutter butter cookies & icing...yum!

watermelon smiles.

other snacks we did were fishing poles (big pretzel sticks) with bait (pnut butter & marshmallow creme) to catch goldfish, swimming pool (blue jello) with teddy grahams, sea turtles (oatmeal creme pies, nilla wafer for head, pretzels for feet).

FIELD TRIPS:
if you ask evan what his favorite part of cousin camp was...he'll say "the water treatment plant". who knew this would be so impactful! here we are sporting our hard hats getting ready for our tour. it really was quite fascinating to learn what happens after our water goes down the drain and how they clean it!!

we also went to one of the gwinnett county water parks one afternoon. the kids had a blast on the waterslides and lazy river.

the dads took the kids fishing saturday morning. they were unsuccessful in catching anything, but a few of them learned how to cast correctly!

we also went swimming one night at their neighborhood pool. and another thing we did was break up into 3 teams and had a scavenger hunt at the local mall. we had a list of things all associated with water and had to go all over the mall to find them...and take a picture of our items.

WHEW! we did a lot in 3 days. the finale was a lip sync talent show the last night...which was HILARIOUS. i'll have to post pictures (and video) of that later!!

i have a secret.

a secret told in pictures (thanks to katie!!):

so can you guess what it is? the secret is out....#3 is on the way! these pictures were taken when i first told rusty that the test was positive. we have seen our little one at our ultrasound last week and everything is looking good. BW (as ella has named it..short for "baby walker") will be due valentine's day...how sweet. little cupid baby. both kids are very excited and are hoping for a little brother. i'm still letting it all sink in...the reality is starting to hit! but we are excited about this little blessing and addition to our family!

a word from ella

as she was loving on her little brother today (which happens quite often...she can't keep her hands and kisses off of him!), ella says,

"i am so glad little evan turned out sooo cute!"

and she pinches his sweet cheeks and squeezes him tight.

i LOVE that they adore each other (23 out of 24 hours)!

before i forget...

a few weeks ago, evan woke up and told me he didn't feel good. i asked him what was wrong and he said his throat hurt. a little later i was asking him how he felt and he said, "mommy, i think i'm car sick."

hee hee.

i know he has heard me talking to ella recently about her getting car sick when she reads in the car. for some reason, he felt he had the same illness, while sitting on the couch inside. :)

book club

my friend, katie, recently wrote a post about reading the book "Growing Strong Daughters" by Lisa Graham McMinn. go read the post here....it is definitely a topic that can bring about lots of discussion. and if you would like to read this book along with other women who are wrestling with our roles as women in this world....then join in on this book club! (i don't think you have to have a daughter to appreciate and learn from the discussion!) go here for more info on that! hope you join us!

picture post part 2

so here we go with more photos...

Camping at Vogel State Park
we went camping with our friends, the Harrisons, and had a great time (despite the low 40 degree weather at night and my horrible allergy attack!!)

here are the kids all snuggled up in their sleeping bags. i was worried about them all night...making sure they were covered up and warm...b/c it was FREEZING!!!

evan drinking his morning hot cocoa by the fire :)

the kids had a great time playing together. the girls decided to act like old ladies and talk in an english accent the whole time...it was quite funny!


Dinner with the Gibbons
this is my friend amy, a.k.a. wischy, one of my best friends from college. this was a spontaneous fun night with them. we ate mexican, drank margaritas, talked and laughed a lot... and at 10pm, we finally decided it would be a good idea to take the kids home :)


r and i have been talking about how much fun it is to see our kids with our friends' kids!! it is something we talked about back in those college years...and to see them become friends is just too fun!! the gibbons girls are super sweet!

instant friends

New Duncan Creek Park
you gotta love living in gwinnett county...it seems like they are always opening new parks. and fortunately, this new one is less than 2 miles from our house!

they have a terrific area for younger kids and for older kids...and most of the area is covered with these shades!

ella's favorite was the sand area.

isn't she pretty!?

the roller slide

my cute, sweaty boy!

so that's all for now. i think i'm caught up on all our past activities. :)

picture post part 1

the last month has been a busy one and i haven't done a good job keeping up with blogging about our events. so here are pictures of some of the things that have gone down!

Strawberry Picking
here are ella and her cousin grace picking strawberries together. we try to do this every year with their cousins. the strawberries were extra yummy this time!

we went to a park afterwards and had a picnic

DCCA Field Day
here is evan with his good friend R...R's older brother was in Ella's class

Go Yellow!! Field Day was so much fun...Ella really enjoyed the whole day!
here she is with her friend in the 3 legged race...
they couldn't quite get coordinated enough to just take off!

ella kicked some tail in this bouncy ball race!! she even got to go twice b/c her
team thought she was so good! :)

this race was hilarious!!

End of Kindergarten
Ella made this ABC book for her teacher's end of the year gift.
She was in such a goofy mood when i took these pictures!

Each page represented something she learned or did in kindergarten this year...it turned out so cute. i can't believe kindergarten is already over!!

ella's tea party

the other day i told rusty that i felt like the days were going to get long this summer. keeping the kids occupied and happy is a tough job! every afternoon while evan takes a nap, ella has "rest time". this basically means that it is time for her to leave mommy alone. :) she usually complains a bit at first and says "i don't have anything to do. {sigh}" and then i list off a ton of ideas to remind her of all the things she could do.

today, i'm happy to say, that she came up with her own idea. she put on her ballerina costume and asked me to get her coloring table b/c she was going to have a tea party. about an hour later, i went to check on her (after she came and got me to tell me she had a water spill!) and this is what i found:

i never knew corn was served at a tea party. yum yum!

looks like she invited cinderella (in the stroller), uniqua (from backyardigans), tasha (her pink bear in the dora chair), and her elephant. looks like a grand time, doesn't it!!?

welcome summer

even though it is not officially summer yet...it sure feels like it in georgia! it's HOT ya'll!! and nothing says summer more than swimming. we finally made it to our pool last night for the first time this season. the kids both LOVE the pool. here they are having fun together...

i bought evan this new swim shirt from landsend and he was so excited to wear it last night. we had a friend come over to play today and he wanted to show his friend his new shirt! ( i love that smile!)

and my big girl who can't get enough of the water...showing off her new swimsuit from landsend (which i think is so cute!!).

happy summer everyone! :)