SISTER SUNDAY

Cuddling with your sister on a lazy Sunday afternoon watching Veggie Tales.

Does life even get any better than that?!

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR

Everyone say "cheese", it's family picture time!

This year we bribed with candy that the girls had never had before, 

so the smiles in these photos are technically brought to you by Runts.

Thank you Wonka candies!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again,

I LOVE OUR FAMILY!

DAYS OFF MEAN DAYS OUT

Even though we're heading into the end of September, we have been enjoying some seriously nice weather. So nice in fact, that they cancelled school yesterday because the buildings have been overheating.  

So Brinlee was home!  

And then today we got up and got going and realized Tim had an empty schedule for the first time in a long time.

So he was home!

And when we have days off, and super nice weather, we can't help but get out and about! 

Yesterday was splash pad day,

and today we took daddy to the zoo to see the dinosaurs!

I do love these kind of days.

HAPPINESS IS...

...an elementary school dance with the two best little dancers in the world!

AWESOME NEW KICKS

What you are looking at here is pure joy.

Here, I'll show you. 

Zoom out.

 Zoom out.

And there it is.

A girl and her awesome, brand new shoes.

Hard to top that kind of happiness.

See what I mean?

HERE WE GO

This super handsome stud of a fella got all spiffed up this afternoon 

and had me snap a few pictures of him, 

then we spent a few hours putting the finishing touches on his application,

and then we spent several hundred dollars...

And then we hit submit!!

And that was that.

Tomorrow morning residency programs all over the country will be seeing this face!

It is a pretty good looking face.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE BEST

Well today was one of those days. 

You know, the ones where you get to feel all the feels and go to bed emotionally exhausted?

This morning McKenna and I got Brinlee off to school and then decided to head over to the library.  Our stash of books was getting a little old, and an outing to the library is always a favorite.  Plus it was a story-time day with McKenna's favorite story-time guy, Zac.  She thinks he is SO funny!

So we went to story time, then we played with the toys, and read some books, and picked out a nice stack to take home, and McKenna was a darling angel, and we basically had the perfect time!  

Then we got out to the car,

and it wouldn't start.

I don't think it's any big secret that I've been a bit irritated with poor Bertha the Blue Van for quite some time now.  She has been the best van!  Lots of good miles and memories in the books with her.

Buutttt,  it has been LOTS of miles, and she is getting old, and it's definitely starting to show.  Lately she seems to be just one problem after another, and it has became a little annoying, a little inconvenient, and more than a little expensive.  And it's always me that seems to suffer! Every time Tim drives the van it seems to work just fine.  But I've been stranded with a tired and burned-out Bertha more than once now, and today was kind of the last straw.

Luckily we had the stroller in the back of the car, so I loaded up McKenna and all our books, called Tim and left a VERY unhappy "I wash my hands of this, you better deal with it and I never want to drive that car again!" message, and we started the walk home.  

I can think of very few times that I have been that irritated.  I didn't have a mirror on me to check for sure, but I'm pretty positive I had literal smoke coming out my ears.  I was so mad I was on the verge of tears.  I wouldn't say I was walking per say, more like stomping and huffing along, cursing that poor van under my breath and thinking about the chocolate ice cream at home in the freezer that I was going to burry myself in as soon as we got home.  

I decided to take the route that walks us by the duck pond (another favorite outing), and not long into the neighborhood I realized that my mumbling and grumbling had been drowning out McKenna's little voice.  I asked her what she was talking about, and she said "Mom, look!  Doze are such bweefadul cover-fo weaves ev-we-where!"  

(Translation: Mom, look! Those are such beautiful colorful leaves everywhere!)

And she was right, they were popping up everywhere!  Not on every tree yet.  But several of them were definitely starting to dress out of their Fall side of closet.  And it was bweefadul!

 

So we slowed down to a bit more relaxed of a walk, and we collected, leaves, and pine-cones, and said hi to the ducks, and got home to that chocolate ice cream smiling and in a much better mood.

The van is currently being towed to the mechanic.  

And I am still irritated about it.

And I still plan to take over driving the gold car.

But boy am I thankful that it wasn't raining today, 

and for beautiful fall leaves starting to dot the trees, 

and for this amazing, fun, happy, sweet, perfect little partner I have to bring a smile to my face and make even my not-so-perfect days feel just about right.

She's the best!

LOOK OUT!

Here Comes Spider Man!

A couple weeks ago we went to the library.  

Brinlee found a fun new book and discovered that there is a world outside of Disney princesses. 

And we've been in the thick of a new fetish ever since.  

Superheros!

She's intrigued by most all of them, but so far Spiderman has her heart.  She LOVES him!  We did some shopping at the thrift store and lucked into some fun new wardrobe additions.  And it's all she's worn!

Tim couldn't be prouder.  He's always been a superhero fan himself.  

He drew up this note for her lunchbox tomorrow.  I won't say how long it took him, but I think it will be a surprise she appreciates  :)

A superhero day for our super little lady.

LET'S GIVE THIS ANOTHER GO

Remember back in May when we first thought about having this girl try out the potty?

Then we tried again just a few weeks ago at the end of July/start of August?

Well it's September now, and we are giving this yet another try!

Wish us luck!

SURPRISE, MORE SHOTS!

Brinlee brought home a note from school the other day that said she wasn't up to speed on her vaccinations and that we needed to get her in for some shots.  I was pretty confused.  We've never skipped or missed any doses with her, but when I called the school nurse she said there was indeed a problem.  Want to know what the problem was?

The school district is really  strict about the amount of time that passes between each round of multi-dose vaccines, and according to the district standards, her second dose of Hepatitis B from back when she was 6 months old was given to her a whopping 3 days early... and they wouldn't count it.

We probably could have put up a stink about it, but we decided to bribe Brinlee with candy and just go in and get it taken care of instead. A few months ago when we had been in with her I had promised her that she wouldn't need any more shots for a long time.  Little did I know.

I felt really bad.  But she was actually a really good sport about it, bless her heart.  Here she was right before the shot (that's supposed to be a thumbs up... we'll work on that later).

I didn't take pictures of her after the shots, they wouldn't have been nearly as happy looking.
But the lollypop did help!
And now she's all approved and good to go.

...sheesh...

SLSS VOL 10: AND THAT'S A WRAP

Goodbye August, you really were awesome!

SLSS VOL 9: NOT GONE, JUST BUSY

You might have noticed that our last several posts were very Tim-less.

While we were soaking up some sun and living up a super fun and practically perfect summer,
poor Tim was super busy.
He was on rotations on top of studying for and taking a batch of board exams.
We really didn't see a lot of him, which was a bummer.

But he hasn't disappeared.
In fact, we had an anniversary!

8 Years,
Go Us

SLSS VOL 8: BRING IT ON KINDERGARTEN

Well, the long-awaited, blessed day finally came.

Our awesome little Brinlee is no longer a "soon-to-be", 

now's she just official.

And she is LOVING it!

Her school day doesn't start until 9:00, but she was up and ready to go by 6:30.  A little early for my taste, but it did give us lots of time for a few first day of school festivities.  We packed her first lunch, ate a special breakfast, picked out her first outfit from her stash of new clothes, took lots of pictures, and then headed out the door!  School is just a block away, so we get to walk there every morning.  Though, for her first day she didn't actually do much walking, 

she skipped and hopped most of the way :)

Then it was a hug and a kiss, time to line up, a few tears from mom (none from Brinlee though, she was ready, and did I mention SO excited?), and then she was off!

I got over being sad quicker then I thought I would, I guess her excitement rubbed off on me. By the time McKenna and I got back home I was pretty recovered and surprisingly just giddy to hear all about her day!  Maybe this next phase won't be so bad after all?

I did wonder about her all day though and how she was doing with such a busy, long day full of totally new things.  I prepped for her coming out totally overwhelmed.  But when 3:00 came and that door opened, out bounced the happiest most excited little girl I think I've ever seen!  And that's when I knew that this phase really won't be as bad as I thought after all.  She was exhausted, but she had loved every minute and couldn't wait to tell me and McKenna all about it! And I loved that!  Hearing about her day is one of my favorite things.

Speaking of McKenna.
I had wondered if we would have a bit of a hard time when this little one lost her full-time play partner.  And it was a little rough at first.  She was bummed.  When we got home that first day and she realized her days weren't going to be as full of sissy anymore, she was pretty sad.  I spent the first couple of schooldays dropping off Brinlee, and then walking home and cuddling a very tearful McKenna.
But it didn't take her long to realize that sissy does come home, and in the meantime, I have mommy and all of the toys to myself!  She still doesn't love it.  Every day she asks probably 14 times if it's time yet to go pick up sissy. But she is a little more ok with Brinlee leaving. And she is a super fun little buddy!  It's been kind of nice to have her one on one a bit more and see a little different side of her.  A bit more of her personality blossoms out when she's not trying to mimic so much, and she has been so sweet and so fun!

While Brinlee was gone for her first day, McKenna and I stayed busy getting ready for our "K" party (K for kindergarten, of course).  We went to the store and McKenna picked out all the things she knew Brinlee would love, and then once Brinlee was home, we had a celebratory dinner.  We made little pizzas, wore party hats, ate cupcakes, and listened to every detail of the Kindergartner's big day. It was perfect.

We had to party without daddy.  Poor Tim was out of town taking a board exam and missed all the fun.  He was super bummed.  But you better believe that a very excited Brinlee was more than ready to spare no details and get him all up to speed the next day when he got home.

Oh I can't say enough about this girl.
I'll just leave it at she's completely amazing,
and we love her, love her, love her!
And she's going to knock this whole kindergarten thing right out of the park!