First Day of {Preschool}

How can my girls be in preschool already?!? I wish I had a pause button because they are all just growing up way too fast and I. DON'T. LIKE. IT. We are doing a little co-op and they are so excited about it!


{Kelsi}


{Kortlin}




This was taken the second week at our house {Claire, Hallie, Kortlin, Lucy, Kelsi, and Alisa}

No more training wheels!

When this kid decides he wants to do something...he does it. We tried last summer teaching him how to ride without training wheels and he didn't really want anything to do with it. Then toward the end of this summer he started begging and begging to teach him again and it was always on the days that we just didn't have the time. Today he decided he wasn't waiting any longer and started riding around the driveway, so I held on to his bike and we ran up and down the street twice and a few minutes later he was doing it all by himself. I guess when you wait until they are older they can just teach themselves! Now he is just working on growing another inch so he can ride his bigger bike.

Love is Sweet {Keli's Bridal Shower}

I have been waiting for this day forever. I have always wanted to throw my sister a bridal shower and the time {finally} came! The weather was perfect, food was perfect, it was a lot of fun!






For more pictures and all the details go here.

P.S. Happy Birthday to the best brother anyone could ever ask for. We wish you were here celebrating with us! Love you!

Marbles

Last year a friend told me about this and it worked so well! We stopped over the summer and I wish we wouldn't have. We are getting ready to start it up again so I just thought I'd share. Anytime the kids do something with only being asked once (eat dinner, clear table, homework, clean up toys, etc..) they get a marble. If they do it without being asked, they get two. It has made our life SO MUCH EASIER! The kids do things all the time without being asked over and over and over. They take their marbles and put them in these cute little jars.

Then they save them up for all kinds of fun stuff. We printed out a list of things they could trade the marbles in for and hung it on our fridge to remind them. Some of the things were family pizza/slumber parties, ice cream, going to the movies (these were all things they would work together on - which was fun for them) or personal ones such as TV/Wii/movie time. (For example, 4 marbles=30 minutes of playing Wii.) These all worked great for Caiden since he is older but the girls didn't quite get that they could trade the marbles in for stuff. This time I have added a "Mom Bag" that is full of all kinds of small things they can trade for. Every time I go to Target I grab a few things out of the dollar section or candy that is on sale.

I think the girls will enjoy this more because they will actually see what they are getting for the marbles. Only thing to remember is that you don't take any marbles away for bad behavior, you just try and make the whole thing a positive experience. The kids loved it and have been begging us to start it again, I was just waiting to get my bag filled with good stuff.

Labor Day Weekend

Chad and Becky invited all the family to come up and celebrate big Cayden's birthday for the weekend. First, we all went bowling on Saturday.



Then we went back to Chad and Becky's house to eat dinner before heading to Williams to listen to Chad's band perform.

They played outside at a fun little restaurant called "Wild West Junction." The cousins had a blast dancing all around and the girls loved dancing with their cousin Paige.



On Monday I was busy getting stuff ready for Keli's bridal shower so Rich took the kids to the duck pond by our house and met Chad and Becky and the kids over there. They drove Chad's remote control boat all around in the water which Caiden has been begging and begging to do for months.