Avery’s Money-maker….

The TRUE story on how Avery lost her first teeth. ;-)

FINALLY!!!!!

It has finally happened for Avery Grace. She has finally lost not one, but TWO teeth!!
I got a message from the school nurse this afternoon letting me know she lost her first tooth.
Then it was followed by a second message saying she lost a second tooth.
She told me she pulled the first one out in the bathroom. The second one she pulled out shortly after that in her classroom.
She is on cloud 9 and can’t wait to see what the tooth fairy brings for TWO teeth at once! OY!

This is what she looked like…..

30 minutes before she licked the water out of a toilet.
Just sayin’.

The best of the rest…

I realized I left out a couple of pics from Memphis that I wanted to blog.
When we are in Tennessee, there are tons of little ones which can make bath time very time consuming. Sooooo….I just might have made the command decision to bath the kids outside with the hose after they were done swimming. Don’t judge me!!! You know you have considered it, just never followed through due to guilt, what the neighbors would think, feeling like your kids might feel like a dog….or maybe all of the above. Me myself got over all the guilt quickly when I thought about the time it would save me that evening. Sue me.
Caroline was up first.
She loved the idea of an outdoor shower….
Until…..it was time to rinse off in the hose. I guess the water was a bit cold.
Graceyn was next and could not wait!
Even the cold water did not faze her, she thought the whole thing was hysterical!

They don’t look too traumatized do they? Lol
While the little ones were getting washed, the 4 year olds entertained themselves.
When it was their turn to get an outdoor shower they showed us just how excited they were at this new way of bathing.

Lucy found the kids getting bathed like her quite amusing!
This is a street we go down near my parent’s house to go to one of the outdoor malls. The kids and I LOVE it, it is so beautiful! It is basically a tree tunnel. 

Avery Grace near the really cool moss covered tree in my parent’s back yard.
My mom and little sister Holly are starting a little frame business. They wanted me to take pictures to use on their future website. I wish I had a picture of the frames they make to show you…they are very pretty.
I took a couple shots of Holly by the moss covered tree also.
Very pretty!
When Alex and my older sister left, all the kids wanted their picture taken with her. She is always the belle of the ball, if you know what I mean.

Jackson was especially happy to have Alex there. He loves being with his cousins.
We won’t all be together again until Christmas. :-(
Bummer.

Wordless Wednesday….the resting princess.

 

 

“Are we done yet?”

An hour with Grandad…

My dad is a pilot with the Fed Ex corporate side. Every couple of months my dad flies a “big wig” into our area and gets to stay for a couple of hours, or if we are lucky a couple of days.
Today…it was  for about an hour.
Savannah has never been on a plane before so we decided to take her to see the plane Grandad flew in on.
This is why I carry a little point and shoot in my purse. To torture my kids. To capture unplanned memories!
Savannah was definitely the most excited of the bunch. She kept saying over and over how this was her first time to be in an airplane! Of course, she has no idea that most people do not fly on little private jets….I’ll save that little surprise for when she is older. ;-)
Caroline on the other hand is the old pro after riding on an airplane from St. Pete’s to Moscow and from Moscow to Texas!
Here is Jackson dreaming of the day when he will be flying in his OWN private plane.

Nana soaking it all in. She even asked to use the bathroom!
Avery Grace has been on Grandad’s planes on many different occasions when she was younger. He took her to work with him one day and she disappeared. He found her a couple of minutes later in one of the airplanes in the hanger. Turkey!
She also remembered where they keep the candy.
Grandad let Jackson make some announcements over the intercom. We were informed that we needed to buckle up due to some upcoming turbulence.

Don’t ask me why I am posing like this. I have to get my “dork” out a couple of times each day. Seriously…ask my kids.
When Grandad put the air conditioner on, cold smoke came up all over the floors. The kids thought this was super cool, as you can imagine.

The smoke brought out Jackson’s evil genius.
Though our visit with Grandad was very short this time, it was very memorable for the kids. Jackson even told me he felt like a kid again being on the airplane.
And if all of that was not good enough, my dad gave us the left over catering!!! Yummmmm!
I love you Daddy!!!! Thanks for putting up with my overly excited kiddos! :-)

And so “it” returns….

Twas the night before school started, when all through the town, the parents were cheering. It was a riotous sound! By 8, kids were washed and tucked into bed...when memories of homework...filled them with dread! New pencils, new folders, new notebooks, too! New teachers, new friends...their anxiety grew! The parents just giggled when they learned of this fright and shouted upstairs...GO TO BED, IT'S A SCHOOL NIGHT!

Today was the big day for Jackson and Avery Grace to start back to school. Jackson smiled for me in the picture below, then wanted me to take another one that showed how he REALLY feels.

I guess he is not looking forward to it much.

I walked Avery to her room today. She gets sooooo embarrassed when I try to photograph her out in public. Even though EVERY other kid was also getting photographed by their parentals. I brought my big camera with the wrong lens for a gal who stops for 2 seconds to placate you and then walks away. Most of my pics were blurry. SHOCKER!

  Can you see the look of horror and embarrassment here? She would not even look at me! Ha! Things have not changed much since last year.

Last Friday was her “meet the teacher”, she was a lot more agreeable that evening. Of course we were running late and one of the last families in the classroom.

Here she is with her new teacher…

Here she is unpacking all of her school supplies for the year.

Her locker…

Her school now starts 10 minutes earlier, 7:50. Dag gone if that 10 minutes is not going to kick my butt. She was only tardy once last year….I pray we are as lucky this year.

I would love to say that today was peaceful, quiet and relaxing….it wasn’t. The little ones do not start pre-school until after labor day (like normal people). Until then I have to wake up at the butt crack of dawn AND tend to little ones all day. Sigh….better get over my night owl tendencies…and fast (says the woman typing a blog post at 11:35pm ).