Zoey's 1st birthday!

Our stubborn little Zo turned 1! She is so full of life and character, she's sometimes a handful. She definitely makes us laugh and keeps our toes ready to move. She is a sneaky one and uses her smallness to her advantage. These two pictures fit her perfectly. She has never been very cuddly but is always willing to blow you kisses or give hugs and then go about her business. We all know she has lots to do and destroy. We all love this sweet little girl to pieces.

We didn't do much as I'm that mom that says she's one she won't remember. I still stand by that. Yes she still gets presents and such but it's not extravagant. We waited until Grammy and Grampa could join us for her tiny festivities. Happy First birthday Zo!

Baylee is 6!

For Baylee's birthday, we decided to take a mini trip instead of doing a friend party. Have no fear, she was in on the decision. I think it was a great one too. We found ourselves in Indianapolis for the weekend.  We told the kids where we were going but did not tell them anything we were doing just in case we decided to abort mission at any point.

We started off by visiting the Children's Museum, which is ginormous. We had a good time despite the large number of people. While there were some cool things there like digging up bones, little tunnels for the kids to crawl through and things to climb on, a train with simulated train ride, I found a lot of it of mediocre interest to all of us, even Bill Nye, aka Cody. The Avatar display was pretty interesting though. The dollhouses were amazing. The toddler section was probably where the kids ran and laughed the most. Tanner got to sit in a bobcat and was thrilled. There was a slide and sand to play in and there was hardly anyone in that section. I LOVED the blown glass sculpture. I would like one for my living room.

We then headed in the direction of our hotel for some food and the much anticipated swim time. What a great time swimming, the kids probably could have played in the water all night long.

The next day our first destination was the mall. I know most of you are thinking " whoop, big deal". Well for us it is. Our mall has about 10 operating stores and it just so happens I am incredibly cheap so to give in and buy something full price at the mall, it's a huge deal, especially wait for it.....BUILD A BEAR. I knew Baylee would love it. She was a bit shy about the whole process but she definitely enjoyed it from the picking out to the naming and bathing of her Kelsey kitty to an entire outfit. I think Cody may have had a small heart attack when he paid for it, even with my coupon. But she has loved it and plays with it often.

After that, we did shop a bit and Baylee got a crown, button, and stickers to wear. Many kind people said Happy Birthday to her as we walked pass. The diva adored that process. Then we got some food while waiting on Cody's ipad screen to finally be fixed after a year and a half of a shattered screen. It was a good weekend for him too! We then topped off the trip with a visit to a chaotic Chuck E Cheese.(Excuse the bad photos from Chuck E cheese, I had to use my phone that really hates moving pictures. My camera has been acting up sporadically.)Tanner and Zoey got some prizes too, so it was a fun trip all around. Baylee got home to a few presents from extended family as well as one from us. She loved her birthday celebration and she deserved it!

We had a great time celebrating Baylee and the joy she has brought to our lives over the past 6 years. We LOVE LOVE LOVE that girl!

Christmas Dance Performance

Tonight we had Baylee's dance performance. Her class danced to Frosty the Snowman. They did pretty well for not practicing the dance nearly as much as I would've thought and have been working more on competition routines.

 In case you can't tell as I didn't get as good of a video this time, Baylee is third from the left and ends in the very front. Her class got the same costumes as she had last year but in the way of the loaner Christmas costumes, this was a very good thing!

Note to all of my readers.....she has on more makeup than I do....it's a dance team law. Yes it is sometimes odd but it's the life of a dancer and this dance mom is going to have to deal!

Oh you want to see it? Well here you go.

Happy Christmas, we love you all!

2nd Half of July

We had the Bagelfest Parade. Baylee got to ride with her dance team again. She was sitting behind the banner and we couldn't see her well. We learned people just love Tanner and Zoey. They were throwing them hoards of candy and giving them things. Tanner would say thank you everytime and loved waving at people. Zoey had fun sitting in the road surrounded by candy being thrown to her.

There was lots of pool time for the kids and gardening and some canning. We also started with the kids learning how to shoot the .22 rifle. They both love it. Baylee already has her aim down and is quite spot on when she tries.

We had a playdate at the park with Izzy and Hannah. The kids had a blast. Sorry for overload of park pictures, I love park pictures. I can almost always get real smiles because they are having so much fun.

Please note: there are and will be in the future, pictures of Zoey that seem to have nothing going on. It would be documentation that I got a ponytail in long enough for a picture. She HATES, I mean HATES anything to be in her hair or to have her hair fixed. We have to be sneaky and usually have bribes for each hand when it's put in. One day maybe she will let me put fancy things in her hair, until then, she rocks her plain mullet!

Lilli's last week

We started off the week with a show at a library in Decatur. It was a live reading and performance of books. It was a lot of fun and the kids laughed. Zoey was being a crazy lady running around, of course. We then had a picnic at Hannah's mom's house and played in the yard for a while before heading home.

We then had our Dora's Pirate Adventure Play and party. Let me disclose how much I dislike Dora and shows. However, it was by far the best play for the little audiences performance yet. It was very interactive and the kids laughed, hollered, danced, clapped, etc throughout the entire show. It was sooooooo much fun. We then had a pirate party with 10 kids and 5 adults hanging out here. I had created an actual map of our yard for the kids to have a treasure hunt with a pirate prize such as a spy glass, a rubber pirate ducky,pirate mini beach ball or gold debloon awaiting them at each location. They were in teams and so there were 4 different maps so that they could go in different orders and race all over the yard but not have to have us adults split up to help too. The kids seemed to love it. We did a pirate sticker craft and had pirate masks for all of them. We had lunch and I had made homemade marshmallows cut into stars and dipped in chocolate and graham crackers. S'mores are never a disappointment. Hannah made little jello beaches. So of course, dessert was a grand slam as well. We all had a fantastic time and I cannot say how fun the play was.

We had dinner at the Compton's house one night. The treasure hunt had gone over so well, Izzy insisted that we have another one. Hannah set to work and got one together.

We ended the week again at the lake. It is always a great time. Then Sunday we had to return to St Louis to drop off Lilli to go back to Utah. We found an empty baggage claim area and played cars, and did the usually rounds on the escalators, elevators, stairs and watching security check points. It was a shorter stay due to Lilli's year round school that started. It's always sad to send her home not knowing when we will get to see her next.

 I need to throw in a section just about Lilli. I am so incredibly proud of her for going running with me and conquering her doubting thoughts of whether or not she could do it. She pushed and ran farther and in a shorter time most nights than the time before. Her face would light up like Christmas when I'd report when we stopped on how far we went and how long it took. Even the nights where we just went farther but made it home in the same amount of time, she knew to be very proud. We turned it into a very positive experience for her. I enjoyed having the time with just her and I to chat while we ran about everything under the sun. I had forgotten how quiet it is going by myself. It took a few runs to get used to it again. It was very fun running on nights around the 4th of July because we got firework shows that made the runs seem really short. We found beauty in all kinds of things while out there.

First week of July

This week I began to slack on pictures a bit but we cashed in on summer reading prizes and got the Papa Murphy's pizza kits for the kids. They got to concoct those and we made tshirts for the 4th of July. They turned out so cute!

We did sand art, which was a blast. They did a great job and had some really pretty creations....until they had the bejeezus shaken out of them. Apparently that is just too much to resist. There was most likely more make up application involved. We cashed in on ice cream cones from Sonic as well. Lots of outdoors time at home that week.

This was hilarious. These three thought they were so big hanging out in the truck with their windows down. A few questions I had pertaining to this situation, why oh why was Tanner the chosen driver? Um safety is not a concern for him. And do they realize this will be the vehicle they will get when they are of driving age? So be nice to it! 

And of course the 4th of July.  We kicked off our day with Baylee riding with her Dance team in the Sullivan Parade. It was a scorcher but it was fun for her to do. Lilli thought the cannon that is on the town square was quite intriguing. This would be the first year we have gone for our own celebration instead of heading to the chaos of the airport and RK hangar. It was actually quite nice to be able to stay home. The boys put on quite the fireworks show and of course the ladies presented quite the delicious spread with festive shirts and activities for the littles. Lilli was excited we had 4 different festive desserts and definitely needed to try them all. I should add we were blessed with a beautiful sunset. I know there are so many pictures of the kids with sparklers but they were cackling and having loads of fun and I just loved all of the pictures for different reasons. We were two very worn out parents by the time we shut her down but such great memories were made.

We ended the week with a trip to the lake for some fun in the sun. We took a lunch of course. Anyone who has spent time swimming knows you always get so hungry being out there. They all loved the water and the sand.

The last week of June

The last week of June was a bit more calm and we spent more time around the house, which I actually enjoy doing. I have a lot of gardening to do during the summer and enjoy being outside.

I always try and stay home on dance days to give the girls some down time before they have to go show off :) Lots of pool time that day.

 Baylee had a mini camp at the Nature Center. We dropped her off and went and got drinks from Sonic and hit a thrift store.  We pulled out the paints and let the imaginations run wild.

After 10 days of convincing Lilli she really did want to go running with me, welp, she really did want to go running with me. She had high level of doubt for herself. She was a trooper and it was awesome to see her do what she didn't think she could. She even did sprints with me in the end. While there may have been a bit of complaining here and there and begging for a break, she never stopped running before our set mark for a break and she kept to her pace pretty well. She was beaming by the time we got done. Running at her pace was actually a nice break for me.

We had a dinner at Cracker Barrel with the Comptons. We were that crazy crowd in the corner with 5 kids and 4 adults. The kids had a great time out on the patio.

Friday, we had Hannah and Izzy over for craft day. We made flowerpots with foam flowers and decorated little handbags. Along with lunch, the kids got ice cream treats and played in the pool. What better way to cool off on a hot day. The chair setup in all of the pictures.....they were having a meeting. Not sure what went down in their meeting as it was top secret and was continuously moved but it was fun for them, they were even all "sleeping" at one point.

We ended the week/month with chores at home, cutting the lawn, etc. Baylee went running with Lilli and I. She was having a hard time keeping up and it rained on us. I ended up running the last 3/4 of a mile with Baylee on my back. It worked out to be perfect, Lilli and I have the same pace when Baylee is on my back, so it was a great work out for me that night. We threw in a fishing excursion for fun. There are a lot of pictures from that of Zoey....she was chaos on a pier to the point of I could not really fish, so I gave up. We made a good choice on where we went so at least she was blocked in. The fishing was not exciting but it's not always  about the catch. We got rained on a little but it's all in a days work!