Christmas 2013

Yeah, so it is almost the end of February and I'm just getting updated from Christmas… Life has been pretty wild since the beginning of the year with Mark and I both putting in lots of extra hours in the office. I think the only picture that needs an explanation is the final one. Amelia's teacher Ms. Lisa texted me the picture with the caption, "Amelia's favorite holiday song." It just so precious and although she didn't exactly get the words spelled correctly it is pretty easy to follow along!

Amelia is Five!

Wow! Yes, I say this every single birthday but I cannot believe that Amelia is five! This past year has been a great year for Amelia. Some of the things that she loves: her little sister (especially when she follows her orders), Raintree, her new Junie B Jones books, one on one time with mom or dad, Shirley Temple drinks, going to Johnny's for tater tots, family runs in the big red stroller, the color purple (still!), pepperoni pizza with ranch and her new Minnie Mouse stuffed animal.

She got a custom cake made by EE. It was the character she requested and EE let her pick out all the toppings. Yum, a strawberry cake with candy on the top :).

A few friends came over to celebrate with her!

Thanksgiving festivities always coincide with Amelia's birthday. After the Raintree Thanksgiving feast Amelia was very concerned that we were not going to have dinner rolls at Thanksgiving. The night before Thanksgiving mom, Amelia, Juliet and I made dinner rolls from scratch. We quickly learned to just give Juliet some of the dough and let her do as she wished with it....

The five year old and daddy!

This photo made my week! Amelia's teacher send it to me with the subject, "Amelia's Favorite Holiday Song." I think it was JuJu who responded, "absolutely adorable" and I could not agree more!

Fairies!!!

This year's halloween costumes were seriously the easiest. Both girls wanted to be some sort of a fairy however the "type" of fairy they wanted to be kept changing but with we have enough wands, wings, etc to accommodate almost all types of fairies. I believe they settled on a purple butterfly fairy and a rainbow fairly. We had a great Halloween trick-or-treating with some other families in Lawrence!

Art for Baby

The girls had a blast making custom art for their new cousin's room!!! And it took me so long to post these that said cousin is already but here but we will save that for another post :). I don't think it will surprise anyone how Juliet chose to paint. Obviously staying within the lines is not a motto Juliet follows....

Pumpkin Patch

A colleague of Mark's lives on a beautiful piece of land north of Kansas City and happens to have a pumpkin patch as a "next door" neighbor. Her family hosts a party each fall that starts with a hay ride to the neighbor's pumpkin patch and then returns to their land for a campfire cookout. It was an awesome way to spend a picture perfect fall Sunday!

Well she has been a Kansas resident for  coming up on a year so it was time she learned to jump hay bales. Amelia was slightly unsure at first. Many of the other kids at the party have been in the past years so they all could hardly wait for the hay ride to start before they were jumping off and onto the hay bales.

Juliet was NOT unsure.

With the land being north of Kansas City they get plenty of airplanes flying over to/from MCI. The kids were all in heaven with the wide open space, hay to run on and watching planes fly over.

We were able to get the girls off the hay bales and over to the pumpkin patch.

Thank goodness Juliet was there to pull our pumpkins. Yes, she desperately needs a hair cut which I took care of tonight. Her bangs are by no means straight but at least we can stop calling her shaggy.

Happy 70th Poppy

We spent a weekend in Galena, Illinois to celebrate Poppy's 70th birthday. Of course since Mark and Tom share a birthday it was also Mark's birthday but the big 70 overshadowed Mark's big 35...

getting ready for the alpine slide

mission: beat Georgia and Uncle Tomme

Amelia's first chair lift ride!

Sadly, all the iPad's may have been the cousin's favorite part of their weekend together.....

a quick trip into Chicagoland for a much missed Sunday Super with my Chicago/Kansas Girls! The guest of honor was Ms. Bernadette!!!!

Amelia's darling drawing from the car ride home! She said the top pink triangle is her bedroom and the bottom one is my kitchen. 

End of Summer

scenes from the end of summer

We really took advantage of the pool at our rental complex! We spent many nights having takeout pizza by the pool. The big news in the pool was that towards the end of the summer Amelia started swimming on her own! She told Mark one day that she didn't want her floatie and low and behold she swam on her own!

Juliet leading the way to the pool. On one of our last pool outings Juliet decided that she needed to see what would happen if she dumped an ENTIRE bag of tortilla chips into the pool. It is a black bottom pool. It was a total mess. Thanks to the Cates family who attempted to fish out soggy chips with us... The rest of the chips sunk to the bottom and covered the black bottom pool. Oops.

balloon animals with Norah

Picking fresh green beans at Pendleton's farm. As for the haze in the picture that is called Kansas in August. For those not familiar with Kansas in August that is what we call insane humidity. I adore Amelia's face in this picture as she is looking at the train like she has never seen one before. I wonder if she was trying to figure out why there were not people on the train and where the train stop is OR wondering what in the world is wrong with the weather in Kansas.

Juliet and her beloved summer hat

 the girl can't use a fork but thank goodness she can eat edamame with chop sticks.