Merry Christmas

This was taken EARLY in December

Miss Cecelia has gotten super tall so that dress was a little short

We found this adorable dress courtesy of Target

The cardigan was courtesy of Mommy not following washing instructions and shrinking the sweater.

My loss is her gain!

This cutie will fit in her Christmas dress for at least another year.

Our annual Wegmans Christmas Eve discount ornament and breakfast trip

We were happy we got some nice antibiotics in Celia yesterday so she wasn't sharing her Strep throat germs with everyone and could sing in the church choir!  

We do wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and A Very Merry Christmas

Happy Birthday Audrey

Okay, my plan for the New Year ( mind you January, so I am giving myself time) is to keep up my blog.  But for now enjoy the many faces of Audrey.

Happy 8th birthday to my amazing little girl.  You are a spunky, crazy, funny, and awesome girl.  You are the best little sister to Celia and you keep us laughing all day long.

Happy Halloween

Rain Cloud and Bird watcher for 2018

At age 11

An interview with my 11 yearold.  I mean to do this every year!!

What do you want to be when you grow up:  architect

Favorite thing to do: read, draw, sing, 

Favorite book:  Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian

Favorite Movie:  A House with A Clock in It’s Walls

Favorite sport: swimming

Favorite food:  mashed potatoes

Favorite subject in school: math

Good Friends: Vanessa, Grace, Addie, Elena, Courtney, Julia, Denali

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Greece

What are you looking forward to? The next Percy Jackson Book

This is the year in which I have sighed and said "Oh Celia" many times.  I love my oldest so much and she has a sweet heart but she is beginning to get the teenage attitude of life's not fair and why do my parents get to tell me what to do.  And I get it, I remember that struggle.  I have told her that we are in this together and we need to figure it out.  I am not writing this to poke at you Celia, it is a memory of what was going on at this age. 

Audrey and Celia continues to be so close and they love to play with each other.  They argue between the hours of 7:15 and 8:15 am, weekdays only (that would be from breakfast to when it is time to leave and there father gets to miss that fun part of the day)

She is smart and continues to do so well in school.  Celia loves to read and is still obsessed with all things Rick Riordan.

She loves to sing,craft, draw, write, play with legos, and play dollhouse still which is Audrey's favorite thing to do with her sister.  I thank her in my head a million times for still hanging onto that little girl part of her.  Because when she is 17, believe me I will look back and think that age 11 was such a little girl.  I think in all honest that Celia understands not to rush this growing up thing and I love her for that.

She had an amazing summer swim season and so we are testing out winter swimming.  A month in and she is enjoying it.  But she also made honors chorus (only 10, 5th graders make it) and she has church choir on Wednesdays so we are really busy.  We are trying for 3 swim practices a week when she really should be going 4 or 5 days but luckily we picked a laid back team.  The  practices for her are now 90 min long which seems so long but she is enjoying it!

I am enjoying being able to do more with Celia.  She actually did a 5k with my Mom this weekend and it was fun for both of them.  I love getting to know her a little more each year.

The Parking Lot Baby Turns 11 (2018 pictures by Pete)

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

Back to School

Well it's done...  Back to reality, back to school!  Luckily swimming does not start for 2 weeks and Auds does not have a soccer game until 9/8.  So a bit of an ease into reality.

Ms. Audrey is headed into her last year with her sister at her school (until high school).

She is in class with her good friend and neighbor which makes her very happy.

Ms. Cecelia is going into her last year of elementary school.

She is also taking on winter swimming this year!

I am so happy to have been able to spend the summer with these two girls.

I will miss them (shh... don't tell them).

But I know that as with every school year, they will grow, have fun, and make some new friends.

So here we go girls, onward and upward to a great school year for all of us.

Beach Trip

The girls and I are not ready to go back to reality so we soaked up this last celebration of summer with our beach trip.  Enjoy some pictures from our first few days.  On this trip, Audrey for some reason reverted back to age 4 when Mommy had to be in the water with her at all times.  I have no idea why that happened this trip but I was in that water ALOT.   I am talking hours at a time, even though she will argue it was not enough.  But the water was gorgeous this trip and never really got very rough.

It should be noted that Audrey caught more fish then Pete this trip and she never actually went fishing.  Randomly she caught a fish in her hand and we kept him in a bucket for a little bit.