Fall Festivities

This weekend was our little fall festival here in town.
The older two girls were both in the parade.
The temperature was great......But....there's always a "but" it was sooo windy. Oh that dang wind.

Gentry rode her bike in the parade. She participated in the "decorated bike" part of the parade.
And Lane and Kennedy rode in the girls' mustang as the future Queen & King!!!! Ha! Ha!
Cina (Lane's mom) and I thought it would be pretty cute

And surprisingly enough......I think Lane and Kennedy found it equally as fun!

Here they are heading up our street. The parade started out at the beginning of our street.

Here is Emery getting ready to watch the parade!

And here comes the Band

Here is video of Lane and Kennedy in the parade. You might have to skip the video ahead a little bit. It took them a while to come around the corner after I started filming!!! But boy were they a hoot!

You will have to scroll to the bottom and pause my playlist music before you start the video

And here is some video of  Gentry riding in the parade with her Dad's supervision!

CHEER!

Last night Kennedy and Gentry got to perform at the football game in town.
They participated in the mini cheer camp that our cheerleaders put on.

Here is a video of their performance
Gentry is obviously in the front of the line waving the poms poms like a wild woman....appropriately.

Kennedy is a few girls back, wearing the brown jacket. The ONLY girl wearing a jacket. Could have been worse. It is hard to see her at certain points because of the high school cheerleader.

Don't for get to pause my playlist music at the bottom!!!
It was a crack up.Gentry of course had no clue what was going on and about wipes out everytime she bends over.....that hair flip will get ya everytime!
And I did have to bribe her to do it with a pretzel from the concessions.
It worked. She did it. And loved it. And yes, I use bribery.

Kennedy has been dying to do this since she did it during basketball a year and half ago. She really did pretty well! And she ends the routine with a nice nose wipe on the arm of her jacket. Can't blame her though, the high school cheerleader does it at the beginning!!!

Ironically, Dana missed the performance AGAIN. The last time he was gone for some updated training for work. This time he was in Irvine, CA for...yep you guessed it......training.
The one time he is gone all year for work.
Thank goodness for video cameras.

Here are some pictures before

 Jill and Kennedy

Jill, Kennedy and Kenisyn cheering

Emery sitting on Jaydan's(Jill's big sister) lap. Jaydan is sooo good with babies.

and Emery shakin' her bootay!!!

It was a wild evening with the three of them to say the least
Thanks to some wonderful friends I had some really great help

SHE IS O-N-E!

Yesterday she turned ONE YEAR OLD.......it seems impossible!!!
But it is not. Because she really turned one.

Sunday was her party.
It was cRazY!!!
But fun!
Some parts were a little too much for her. After all she is only ONE.

Obviously she liked it. In fact she really tore into it and we had to take it away from her because she more than exceeded what amount of sugar a one year old is probably supposed to have. But she thought it was great!!!

Here is what her cakes looked like before they were dismantled! Triple Chocolate M&M on the left and rainbow on the right. Even though you can't tell it was rainbow.  It looked pretty awesome once it was cut into.  No picture of that though. Sorry.

Some Lemonade!

Kids' party favors

Here is Emery with her babysitter.  She Luuuuvvvves her Misty!

She had A LOT of help opening presents. Can you tell?!!! She freaked out shortly in to it and I ended up opening them for her with the assistance of these many small children!

Her big gift! From Mom & Dad and both sets of Grandparents. It's Pottery Barn's Anywhere Chair. And that's a slipcover.......so it's washable. Oh Yeah!

 

We also served a meal at her party.

BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, potato salad, watermelon & cantaloupe, veggies

Then last night on her actual birthday we made a trip to good ole DQ to celebrate!

 And then she got in some more play time on her chair when we got home.  She has plenty of years to grow with this thing for sure!

I think she had a pretty darn good first birthday.
She definitely did not lack for any attention......at all

She shares her birthday with her Aunt Ann (Dana's sister) and now she shares it with two more family members! Kris and Amber had their twin boys Colton and Easton yesterday morning!!! So now she has cousins with the same birthday too.

We Love you so much Miss Emery Grace. Can't imagine our family with out you. You are so sweet and beautiful. You are simply a gift from God with out a doubt.

Another First

Today was another "First"
It was Miss Gentry's first day of preschool with Miss Dana
Theeeee Most Awwwesome preschool teacher hands down

It is amazing what she can do with these kids. The things she teaches them. She truly has a gift.
I don't know where Kennedy would be without her.

So now it is Gentry's turn!
And boy was she ready! You should have seen that kid hop out of bed this morning.
It was the first morning since I can't remember when that I didn't have to fight her.
Now if we can just keep it that way!

 Acting Shy.....emphasis on the "acting"

 

Showing off her back pack

Ironically (Seriously Weird) today I was cleaning some drawers out in the basement and fell upon this picture.
On the back it says...Kate's first day of preschool Sept. 1987.  I would have been just shy of  4 yrs old.
So about 4 mos older than Miss G.
As you can tell the girls get their light hair from their Father. His was so blonde as a kid. You would think at least one of the 3 would get my dark hair. After all it seems like it would be a dominant gene.  But NOPE!

Walking into the School

And a picture with Miss Dana!

And so it begins!
This will be my fourth year in a row dropping a kid off atMiss Dana's!!!
Kennedy went for 3 and now Gentry.

1st day!!!!

 

Here she is!

On her first day

Pancakes w/ Peanut Butter for breakfast!

Our traditional picture on the front step

This picture doesn't need words

 Walking up to the school

Kennedy and Lane

Walking In!!!!!!

And on our way back to the suburban we met Miss Maddison
All smiles of course!

Can you tell Miss Emery hadn't been up long?

There are 3 kindergarten classes. Kennedy's has 15 kids in her's. Perfect class size. I hope and pray it will be a good year!

Oh Tomorrow.....

Tomorrow is the day
It all changes
She becomes a Kindergardener

I thought I was ready
She thought she was ready

Today she cried because she is nervous
Today I cried
I tried so stinkin hard not to
But when this cute loving face said to me through tears that she was going to miss me and she was really nervous I lost it.

GOD give me strength to be strong for her tomorrow
Oh and for myself too
I am really going to need it.

Everything Changes
I don't think I handle change very well

After all I clearly remember getting on the bus my first day of kindergarten.
I remember it like it was yesterday.
I even remember what I wore.

And now I am a mother of 3 girls.
Pardon me...but where the HELL has time gone.
My mom and I have this discussion all the time.  It's a hard thing.  Watching your babies grow so fast.

So. Dang. Hard.
Harder than I could have ever imagined

A Glimpse

I should start off by saying that YES i took the header picture with the rainbow.
It was AMAZING.  There was actually a double rainbow.  If you look right above the rainbow in the pic on the left side you can faintly see it the remnants of the second one.

However the double rainbow fell apart about as quickly as the stock market and we didn't get pulled over in time to get that perfect picture.

This was not our easiest vacation we have taken...........that might be an understatement........
The weather was awesome.  Especially since up until we were gone on vacation Kansas has pretty much been an inferno.

The views as always......awwwwesome.

However everything else was ummmm "rough" for us. This might give you a small taste.
*a 3 yr old scared of the camper and noises at night and couldn't sleep
*an 11 month old cutting her top two teeth and prone to ear infections and couldn't sleep
*a 3 yr old with a respiratory flare up aka asthma the whole trip which equaled breathing treatments 24/7
*an 11 month old who got ear infections while we were there
*an E.R. visit for the ear infections on a sunday so we could get meds
*end up being at E.R. for 4.5 hrs b/c a car crash had come in after us
*pharmacy didn't have prescribed med....pharmacist calls hospital talks to doc & they change script.......this happens 3 times and I am in Walmart for an hour
*go to leave Walmart and battery is dead on the suburban
*go to jump it......no jumper cables. Go into Walmart..again...buy new ones and friendly guy gives us a jump
*Me and the hubs avg about 4 hrs of sleep each night due to soothing sick kids
*and we were doing this in a pop up camper....in a camp ground
*Kennedy got the gold star for the trip.  She was healthy and perfect. Thankah Gawd!
*Left a day early to put ourselves out of misery

So here are some pics of some of the better moments!!! LOL!

My cousin Taylor and Gentry snuggling in the morning before breakfast

Breakfast!!! Yum-O

Mommy's Girl :)

My Mom and Dad walking with Gentry back to the camp from the lake after some fishing

And of course the girls had to get their pony rides!!!