Past due zoo

Awww, how did I miss these? We've been organizing and reorganizing our electronic devices, routers, drives, files, blah and blah and in all these past weeks and months of computer limbo, I forgot about these photos. How could I? It was my birthday after all. 

Our trip to the zoo was a special event because it was our last "hoorah" before summer ended, before  KINDERGARTEN started. It really was meant to be one of our last "fun free" days we would have before the daily routine of school. What a great way to spend my birthday - not at work and with my girls!

It rained the entire drive down to the zoo, but once we pulled in luckily the rain stopped. Unfortunately the storm left behind heavy humidity and no breeze; thankfully the sun was not out to add to the heat. Next time we will remember to bring a wagon for all of the girls, as well as we hope to see the polar bears next time too. If it was too hot for us, I'm sure it was too hot for them.

 Enjoying some dip'n dots to help us keep cool

 The Penguinarium House

Checking out the zebras 

(Funny thing about this photo I noticed afterwards... the "keep off the fence" sign... haha! Oops!)

Keeping cool, or trying 

 The polar bear exhibit was cool, and cold!

And, goodnight.

 My birthday presents from (all three!) girls

Fall

Crafts in the morning, with Dad

Crafts in the afternoon, with Mom

Khloe and neighborhood friend Sotria making leaf prints

 Decoupage leaf craft

Discoveries

The setting: Kayla and I are the first ones downstairs in the kitchen in the morning. Kayla is sitting in the leather recliner in the living room, I am getting breakfast ready.

Kayla: Mom, have you heard of Justin Beiber?
Me: (Long pause. I'm too busy trying to hide my smile, not laugh out loud all while shaking my head). Yes I have. How do you know about him?
Kayla: I don't know. (Her standard response when she wants to protect the innocent)
Me: Did you hear about him from a friend at school?
Kayla: Yes. My friend Olivia has a Justin Bieber folder. (Thankful our daughter has a Cinderella folder! Who buys their 5 year old a JB folder??)
Another long period of silence.
Kayla: Am I allowed to say his name?
Me: (Again, hiding my smile) Yes honey. He's a musician. He writes songs and then people can listen to his songs and music on the radio.
Here we go, I'm thinking, this is just the beginning of her introduction to pop culture by a class of other 5 year olds! I had a friend just a few weeks ago ask if Kayla knew about JB yet and I laughed and blew it off. Of course she doesn't! My friend warned me... just you wait, she said! Well, she was right. That didn't take long.
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Not only did Kayla discover Justin, we discovered that Khloe can climb the foyer stairs all by herself - on the outside of the rail. Yes, that tiny little ledge on the outside of the step. Not cool. Kayla screamed loudly for us to come and there was our little monkey ALL THE WAY AT THE TOP of the stairs hanging onto the rails on the outside little ledge. Khloe was happy and proud. We were not. Oh my. Heart attacks for all of us.

(I had to share this email I received from my Grandma. She sent this to me after she read this story of Khloe. I love hearing stories like this! I think it's so important for Kayla and Khloe to know these stories. These sorts of stories are priceless and tell our family's history long after many of us are gone. Even I hadn't heard these two stories before. Thank you for telling these stories Grandma! Here you go!  Sheri,  I think I know where Khloe gets her climbing genes?  They are from your mother.  I don't know how young Lorraine was when we were in the barn with some company (that's not usually where we entertain company!)  and not paying attention to the children, I guess.  We found Lorraine up on a ladder that slanted up to the haymow....the kind of ladder you can fall through.  She would not have been able to get into the haymow ( I never could hardly make that move....however, I never could hardly get three feet off the ground!) and I am sure she would not have known how to get down.  Thank goodness, Grandpa was there to do the rescue.  He remembers it, too.

I won't go into telling you about Lorraine and Diann starting up the road to see Grandma when they were so little.  Yes, I guess I will.  I was hanging up clothes in the back yard and I heard a car horn.  Talk about a heart attack.  They were on the road walking up towards my folks.  The car had stopped.  Hope Khloe will not get that idea!

Love you all.  Grandma

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The setting: Kayla and I were in the car driving home from gymnastics having a conversation about Kristi's upcoming birthday party at our house.
Me: Kristi's party is going to be in our basement, in Bar Faust.
Kayla: Oh? Is that because we have more puzzles downstairs? Does Kristi want to be where there's more puzzles, because we don't have very many puzzles upstairs.
Me: Yes, probably.
Kayla: So does Kristi get to pick all the games we're going to play? Or is she just going to tell us what games to play?
Me: She'll probably want to hear about which games you want to play too.
Kayla: How many other kids are going to be there?

Just get here! We're read for your party Aunt Keekee!

No training wheels!

It was a big BIG BIG day around here! Kayla learned to ride her bike without training wheels! Go Kayla! Woooooooohoo!

Okay, summer can officially end now. That was quick. That was easy. There she goes. And that's that.

 We paused during our bike ride to admire a cute little (actually, they're not so little) praying mantis on the side of the street

We had a goal this summer and it was to have Kayla learn to ride her bike without training wheels. She was willing and ready to learn, but to be fair to her, we just didn't commit the time she needed to learn this new skill.  I was not going to put away bikes yet until we put in our time running up and down the street, helping her balance on two wheels. So here we are, summer is gone and fall is here; and I've been feeling bad about not reaching our goal yet. We wanted to pull out bikes next spring and be ready to go with no training wheels!

Fortunately we have had BEAUTIFUL fall weather this past week, including this weekend. I told Kayla 'Today is the day'. She got a wrench off Daddy's workbench and took off her training wheels (she's practiced before), geared up in pads and a helmet, and off we went down the street. After five minutes of me running behind her she asked me to not touch her bike anymore. I took my hands off her bike and haven't touched it since. The rest is history.

Despite this highlight, it has been a very rough weekend for our family. On Thursday, Aaron and I spent the day in the hospital for his hernia surgery. This is an intense, rough, hard surgery and recovery; we were not prepared. Come Saturday, we realized that the over-the-counter medicine we had been giving Kayla for her week-long cough was not working; our trip to the walk-in clinic revealed she had a double ear infection. Whoa, that came out of nowhere! Then we thought that Khloe's similar coughing symptoms might be a sign of the same diagnosis, so on Sunday I went back to the walk-in clinic with Khloe (thankfully there was no ear infection). To sum up, this has not been an enjoyable weekend for anyone: Aaron is immobile and in pain day and night; Kayla and Khloe are fighting terrible allergies, and I spent the last three out of four days in doctor's offices with three different patients. I learned two things this weekend: A) I was not cut-out to be a nurse, and B) I was not cut-out to be a single mom. I have had to play both these roles this weekend, but thank goodness I am neither of these full-time! Please pray for speedy healing and recovery for everyone here! We need our "normal" back!

Soooo, Kayla's accomplishment was a ray of light in our otherwise dark weekend. She literally learned how to ride without training wheels in five minutes with a double ear infection. Aaron and I just stand in the driveway watching her ride back and forth in the street, laughing, amazed, proud.She is allowed to ride to Asia's driveway to the left and down to Sophie's driveway to the right. She seems so big riding independently in the street, yet seeing her ride away from us makes her look so small. It all happened so fast!

Despite the challenges we faced this weekend - and will continue to face this coming week - there are still many things to be thankful for. We are thankful for caring, skilled doctors and nurses, modern medicine, nearby friends and family for hands-on help, warm fall weather, and bikes without training wheels!

We're in awe with you Kayla! Great job!

Field Trip!

It was my... er, ummmm.... Kayla's first field trip! The three Kindergarten classes at Michigamme visited  McCallum's Apple Orchard today. I don't know if Kayla was more excited than me, or if I was more excited than her!

Melissa, Khloe and I met Addison and Kayla at school at 11am for their lunch, with a special lunch treat - McDonald's! We got a peek into what lunch is like for 90 Kindergarteners! The conversations, the kids, the lunches, everything... it was very fun to sit with them in the cafeteria. After lunch the kids boarded the buses to go to the orchard. Kayla was SOOOO excited for the bus ride. The bus could've drove in circles around town for 30 minutes and that probably would've been field-trip enough for her. Khloe and I rode by car and met them at the orchard.

Unfortunately, 90% Michigan's apple crop was wiped out this spring by a late spring freeze; in fact it hurt much of Michigan's economy in fruit production this year. So we went to the apple orchard to pick - not apples - but pumpkins. In the history of McCallum's Orchard they have never not had apples to pick. They, like all orchards in Michigan, have had to ship their apples in from other states for people to buy. A bag of apples? $15! We stuck to donuts. We got a hayride, picked pumpkins, ate donuts and cider, and played on the playground.

Addie, Kayla and Makenzie

We couldn't have asked for better weather! Beautiful blue skies, sun and high 60'! When's the next field trip?! Sign me up!

Two of Kayla's classmates, identical twins Madison (above) and Marissa (below) Raymo, could not keep their hands and eyes off of Khloe the entire time. They were such great little babysitters!

 Marissa, Kayla and Khloe

Driveway Art

Goodness! I just stumbled across these pictures. This was one of my favorite summer nights which was now a few weeks ago of course. I'm playing catch-up here!

We have one of those rolls of white paper in our basement that's 300 feet long by 3 feet wide. It makes a great table covering when you want kids to be entertained for a week by drawing on the table (like those restaurants that let you draw on the table with crayons) or for rolling out on the driveway for big art projects. We like to do both often. And, I just discovered a fun project to do with this paper and fall leaves which we will be trying too!

This particular afternoon we were in the driveway tracing our bodies for life-size art pieces!

First, and most importantly, all outdoor summer projects must start with what our family likes to call around here "A special drink". All special occasions call for a Special Drink. Mommy has her hard lemonade and Kayla has her grape juice/7-Up in her special glass (aka wine glass). We're ready to begin our project!

The Artist

 We are re-creating Kayla in her Ariel bathing suit.

 Like 1,000% of the time, Khloe is running through the sprinklers.

 The finished masterpiece! Well, actually, the finished masterpiece was cut-out and hung on our kitchen wall. Fun summer times!

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I love that Kayla loves to do crafts. There must be a "craft" gene that she inherited from me (and definitely not Aunt Amy). One afternoon this past Labor Day weekend she said to me (like she often does) "Let's do a craft!". Then she thought about it for a moment longer and said "Can our craft be to get out the fall decorations and put them out?" So of course we did! It's fun to go through a seasonal decorating bin when someone else is as into it and excited about everything as you are. A girl after my own heart! 

Go Lions

This time it was Daddy who picked out all of our outfits for a Sunday afternoon of football watching. Just like I might do for Khloe on a Sunday morning or for Kayla the night before school, Aaron went in every girl's closets, found their Lion's outfit and had them all laid out on our bed for us. Can you tell that someone was (a little) excited for the Lion's first football game of the season in Bar Faust?!