This calls for a celebration!

We had some exciting happenings today. So exciting that a post was in order. (Wow, it's been a while.)

First up, Ellie's first day of her second year of preschool. Same teacher, new kids. (One more year til kindergarten.)

We may have had some nerves last year, but this year was a piece of cake. Ellie was ready to go with her first day of school pose picked out and everything. When we got to her school and I started getting out of the car she said "Mom, I can go all by myself." Luckily she let me take a few more pictures, and then off she went.


And in other news, we got a dog! It was time. Ellie and Chase love animals and were ready to have one to call their one. I felt good about it, which is kind of a shocker, and Danny has always felt good about it, so we went for it. Here's our new pup Rusty.

He's cute, but I can't wait til he's out of my laundry room, and roaming his official home in the backyard. One more day:)

We spent the morning at the aquarium.

My favorite part: the company

Ellie's favorite part: "seeing the fish"- the Dori or Nemo fish being her favorite.

Chase's favorite part: The water projection onto the floor that rippled when you walked (or swam, in Chase's case) on it. And maybe the clear tunnel through the aquarium.

Ellie and her fun dip

We both enjoyed Ellie's after lunch treat. Ellie because it was pure sugary greeness, and me because it was eaten by one happy girl, quietly, in the backyard, with minimal clean up. Although I think the green fingers and tongue may last awhile.

Speaking of faces.

The other day while we were enjoying watching Chase make his favorite face (it's silly, but I think it's rather serious to him), my sister in law asked if we'd gotten a picture of it yet. Actually we hadn't (I blame all those months with no camera), until now. It did take him a minute to get it right.

that's not it


that's not it either

close

a little too smiley

There she is.

The Classic Chase face

(Did I mention I'm loving my new camera?)

The face of Chase

... at the zoo.

Let the day begin.

It's hard to imagine it could get much better than that. And we hadn't even gotten out of the parking lot.

"that's a big giraffe" face


"pretty bird" face



You can't see his face, but I assure you it was a good one.


And Chase's favorite thing by far...
(and my favorite face)

You can't fake that kind of excitement.

the goats at the petting zoo.


Oh and Ellie was there too.
Actually, it was her field trip.

But I didn't see as much of her. She had more important people to hang with. No offense taken. I could never compete with the Bomma (my mom) or Mrs. B, her very first preschool teacher. She kept saying she wanted to hold her hand and then halfway through the morning she finally got up the gumption to go grab it. There wasn't much that could separate her from Mrs.'s B after that. It was sweet. The kids provided much more entertainment than the animals.

A nice afternoon and some homemade bread

We are loving our new early church schedule. We come home from church, feed the kids lunch, put who ever will go down for a nap down for a nap and then decide what we will do with the rest of the afternoon. Today I made bread. Not just any bread, yummy from scratch whole wheat bread. It turned out delicious if I do say so myself. (I'm not sure if I inherited the ability to make yummy bread from my mom or just the ability to brag about it. Every batch my mom makes is her "best one yet". Yep, that's my mom.) All with the help of my non-napping 3 year old of course. And what a helper she is. She really is a good helper. It's me that needs to practice being helped. I think I'm getting better. It went a little something like this:

All out of wheat, so we ground up some more (see picture above). We probably disturbed all of the neighbors who were fortunate enough to get a Sunday nap- this thing sounds like a turbo jet taking off. This is always a great job for Ellie.

Then there's the mixing, shaping and rise time.

No you're not seeing things, there is a ghost in this shot.

And finally, the finished product. Hot out of the oven and almost too pretty to eat. But we managed to anyway.


Before Ellie went to bed she requested a piece of bread with butter on it. When I got out one of my loaves to cut her a slice, she said (ok it was more of a whine on the verge of melt down) "not that bread mom, the other bread". Yes, she was requesting the generic brand bread from Walmart in the fridge (and yes we keep our bread in the fridge). My guess is the bread with the easiest crust to remove got her. I still say my bread is better.

Update:
This morning Ellie requested a piece of the homemade stuff and said,

"This is the best bread ever!"

That a girl. (I did have her repeat herself to make sure I hadn't made it up.) I guess she just needed a good-night's rest to clear her head.

I sure love this guy.

And I love that he just straightened up the entire house, (while I rested my aching legs) and then swooped up the kids and left me to (finish resting my aching legs), take a shower and get ready for the day. Not to mention that he also watched the kids while I went for a jog this morning. He is quite the guy. And I am very thankful for him.