Our girls

Khloe tried out roller skates for the first time! This took me RIGHT BACK to Kayla being three years old. She even kind of looks like Kayla here --- and looks so much taller in those roller skates too!

My girls somehow have become obsessed with willow trees. I remember talking to Kayla about them a long time ago and telling her how they are my favorite tree, but then out of the blue this summer, they picked up on it again and we can't drive anywhere, long or short, without hearing them yell out every single willow tree they see. I love it!

Ever since our camping adventure in Atlanta, MI over Memorial weekend, Khloe has been obsessed with campers. She's not biased towards fifth wheels, campers, RV's, baby campers, it doesn't matter, she calls them all out. Between yelling about every single willow tree and every camper, it can be quite an entertaining drive! So now I'm teaching them to identify birch trees, and maples will be easy in another few weeks, and turkey vultures.

This discovery the other day just about blew Khloe's mind:

Khloe: There's a camper with a truck!!! I NEVER KNEW THERE WAS A CAMPER WITH A TRUCK BEFORE!!!!
Mind blown. This caused us to laugh for a good 10 minutes!

Bedtime battle

Khloe has always been the "better sleeper" of our girls. Although Kayla started sleeping 12 hours through the night at 12 weeks old, around 1 year she became difficult to get to sleep (picture: crawling out of the room on hands and knees in the dark) and then between 3 - 4 years old things became difficult again. Man, those are the nights you want to bang your head against a wall --- because that would be more fun than dealing with an irrational three year old at 2:00 a.m. when you most just. want. to. sleep.

Khloe, on the other hand, who didn't sleep through the night until she was 7 months old (that was a rough time period) has been a breeze at nighttime. I felt that it was our redemption for the hard time Kayla gave us as a toddler. Khloe was easy to put down and once she was down, there was no waking up until morning.

That is, until she turned 3 years and 3 months old. Now she's developed this aversion (aka stubbornness) to staying in her bed [some nights] at bedtime. There is no secret formula of discipline, bribery, convincing, or manipulation that works. We're in the middle of those Terrible Three's right now. (When will people stop saying "terrible two's??) She will sit on the floor at the edge of her room quietly organizing photos, she will stand in the hall screaming, she will sit on the stairs singing playing with the baby gate, or sit on the landing smirking at her outright boldness. We've just got to dig our feet in and hang on tight for the wild ride this bedtime battle may be for our strong independent three year old!

So, after two hours of getting out of bed and being put back in bed, this is where we left her to [eventually] fall asleep.

 How is this more comfortable than your warm bed? It doesn't matter to you; its just that its not your bed where your supposed to be so your happy. Girl, you should be cold and tired! This was two hours after your bedtime! 

Summer bucket list

Lemonade stand.
Check!

Kayla has been asking to do a lemonade stand for the last two weeks, but it just hasn't been the best timing for one. Shouldn't there be hot sunny weather to have a lemonade stand? Yeah, well we haven't had any every single time she's asked to do one. I felt bad pushing aside her idea, but I didn't want her disappointed for lack of sales, going through all that work to set it up, if it was cold and grey outside.

Well, summer is almost over and we can't wait around for nice weather! Luckily the weather cooperated for an afternoon lemonade stand. Aren't they so cute?! They - and Khloe - proudly and loudly yelled "lemonade for sale!" for hours. And guess how much they made?! $10.39 in 1.5 hours! (Not sure about the $0.39 part!) Not bad for such a short amount of time. You would understand if you tried the best fresh squeezed lemonade you've ever had. The sale ended when they ran out of product, which went quicker than they thought after they poured themselves each two glasses (they were thirsty!) and Khloe wanted two also. We'll have a lesson on profit margin gains/losses next time.

For now, summer bucket list item checked off the list! And I have one happy (rich) girl!

Summer weekend

Summer weekends are flying by! What happened to August? Why must August fly by so quickly? There's still plenty of summer left in my book. One way I gauge that is that there's still two Rockin' the Rivers to go! Yay, we LOVE our Thursday Rockin' the Rivers!

This weekend we were honored to be invited to celebrate two important birthdays shared on the same day - Alexis turning two and Todd turning forty! They split their parties up so we could celebrate with Alexis at her house on Friday and Todd's beach party on Saturday. Going to Todd's party on Saturday caused us to miss another significant milestone event... my 20th high school reunion. Only I wasn't interested in attending it! I much preferred hanging on the beach with the people I wanted to see!

 

What a good sport you are Dr. Todd... wearing a Mini Mouse party hat on the day you turned 40

 Kayla, Khloe and Paige

Of course Alexis shared the spotlight at her party and let Todd blow out candles too

Alexis just loves our girls... and our girls love Alexis

On the way to Alexis' party we passed by a U-Pick flower farm that I've always wanted to stop at but have never taken the time to. After accepting that this detour would cause us to be a few minutes late, I did a u-turn and went back to the U-Pick farm. What a wonderful experience! Oh yes, and Lindsay looooved the flowers. 

 

What fun! We were given these lovely baskets to carry, cutters, and I had a beautiful assistant to do all the work.

 I had to scrape together my last few dollars and some coins to put together a bouquet. Kayla picked out and cut every single flower herself.

 

 

And Khloe enjoyed herself too

Kristi and I and a few other friends wrapped up the weekend by continuing our sister tradition of doing the Float Down.  We had such a FUN time! Then our night wrapped up with a spontaneous late night dinner, bonfire, poison ball game, and hangout with 20 neighbors - they just kept coming and coming! This is what I love MOST about summer... and will MISS about summer too!

 Float Down winners

Beauty rest

It's 10am on Saturday morning and where is your family? Mine is still sleeping! Aren't they so cute and cuddly???

2nd Annual Color Fun Run!

We did it! The Color Fun Run tradition continues, and this year Aaron joined us! Don't you think he looks good in fushia?! I don't think I've ever seen Aaron in so much pink before!

We had SO much fun! I was so proud of us for running our first 5k (hopefully of many!) as a family. It's such a great community event - no competition, no intimidation, just pure family fun. They have a DJ, rock wall, and several inflatables - all which the girls loved the most. The route is what makes it so awesome - it follows the waterfront the entire time and winds through a park, providing enough distraction and entertainment for me that I almost forgot I was running. It was the perfect summer weather for running too.

 We're ready!

3 - 2 - 1- go! The race is on!

 

I'm quite proud of myself; I've never officially ran a full 3 miles before [for fun, not being chased, without stopping] and to be honest, I did look for shortcuts a few times, but Aaron pushed me to run the full distance. Last year I did the race by myself with three girls under six pushing the stroller and so we did sneak a few shortcuts jogging/walking about 2.5 miles. I'm impressed with Aaron too - he pushed the jogging stroller the whole time - not easy on all those hills! I'm proud of Kayla too, she ran half of it and joined Khloe in the stroller for half. Even when Kayla was tired and couldn't go anymore, she sprinted through the finish line with us! Funny story: when planning for the run, Khloe repeatedly insisted that we NOT bring the stroller this year because she was "so much bigger and can run really fast" and Kayla wanted the stroller because she'd prefer to be pushed. Khole pointed out that "Kayla, your bigger than me because your shoes are bigger and my shoes are smaller and so you can't be in the stroller, just me". Yes, we agreed with you Khloe!

 We did it! We finished the race! Next up, the final color throw!

 Alissa and me

 You bet we're in for next year!

Cousin fun!

Annual family reunion in Indiana - so much fun!

Isabella, Caynah, Aleah holding Evie, Sophie holding Alec, Charlie, Bruce, Ethan, Kayla, Khloe and Cohen

All that's missing is Kempton and Beau... and sweet girl Aniston Lynn who was born just 24 hours after this photo was taken!