Madeline Eve and Emersyn Kate

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

First Day of Kindergarten!

Madeline's first day of school went off without a hitch! Wish I could say the same for her third day (the day I am writing this), when her bus driver drove right past her stop even though Chris was standing there waiting! Yikes! He quickly drove to the next stop and got her off. Hopefully all the kinks will be worked out and that won't happen again. But that aside, her teacher is new, but seems great and very sweet. I think she'll have a good year. She gets on the bus in the morning with all the big kids and it's been funny to watch her. She knows a lot of the older kids and so far they are taking good care of her. Last night, our neighbor Nick asked her if he could sit with her on the bus tomorrow. She told him, "If I find you, then yes I will." He said, "Ok, well save me a seat." He's a 2nd grader; it cracks me up that he's asking to sit with her. You go girl! And Tuesday morning, she asked a little girl Kaitlyn to sit with her and said, "Let's hold hands Kaitlyn!" And they did. I'm sure I'll have more stories to post about her school days, but for now here are her first day pictures.

The Duellman boys, ready to walk with her to the bus stop!

There goes our big girl!

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Summer Fun!

We had a great summer. It was busy, but a good kind of busy (see all the previous posts below!) Here are some pictures of some recent fun in August.

We were able to have a quick visit with Mia, Nora, and James in Williamsburg at Mia's best friend Amy's house. It was great to see them and Maddie loved playing with all of Amy's boys' toys (she has 3 boys!). I realized we need some more cars and superhero stuff in our house. Mia has been so good about coming back to the East Coast since moving to Colorado. Maddie and Nora have been together just about once every summer. They are so much alike, it's pretty funny. Wish they lived closer!!

Madeline and Livia did a musical theater dance camp one week where they learned a routine to Mulan music and had speaking lines. It was cute!

Emmie's first time in the Barbie mustang convertible!

Loving life outside now that she can walk!

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Maddie's 5!

A big milestone, Maddie is 5! To celebrate turning 5 and starting school in the Fall, she wanted to get her ears pierced, so that was her big gift. I went to the mall on the Saturday before her birthday to check out the place to get ears pierced and asked when they would have two people to do it. They told me there would be two people there all day and not again during the week, so I came home and told Maddie that if she wanted to get them pierced, she could do it that day. I then realized that I never told her it was going to hurt. So I had to explain that it would feel like a shot and be over quickly and then she started to have second thoughts. So I told her that she didn't have to do it and could wait until she's older and she said she'd wait. I told her I would ask her again when Emmie woke up from her nap. When Emersyn woke up, I asked her if she wanted to go and she looked at me and said, "I think I'll wait. No (then paused)....let's go, let's do it, let's go right now!" It was as if she wanted to go real quickly before she changed her mind. She did great, closed her eyes, squeezed my hands and did not cry. She got pretty butterfly earrings and loves them. We had our families over on the weekend before and then had a little ice cream party with a few friends during the week and went to the waterpark on her actual birthday. Then Grandma had a little party for her at their house the day after. Once again, Maddie had a week-long celebration for her "day"!