Summer is here!

Bailey had her last day of school. We will miss Mrs. Crawford very much. She was an excellent teacher and was a wonderful person. I think she set a great example for Bailey for what school is like and taught her many very important skills both socially and academically. I spent a lot of time in the school this year volunteering for the class and helping with the school store. It feels like family when you walk in, I just love it there. We are very lucky considering the anxiety I had last year this time praying that Bailey would be accepted into their school of choice program.

I finally finished a layout. This kit has me stumped. I don't know why, it seemed so my style and I just have the most difficult time using it. I did this one last night for the Studio Calico Sunday Sketch Challenge . I really am happy with how it turned out, that is one of the best pictures I have of Kip's grandparents. Grandpa normally doesn't smile at all.

Miss Bailey attended yet another fabulous birthday party for her friend Katie. A friend of theirs painted all of the girls faces, she did an amazing job. If we end up doing a sleepover party I'm pretty sure we will be hiring her to come to Bailey's. It was really glittery when she first had it done but by the time we got home alot of it had rubbed off.

I had coffee with a friend and we attempted to go find garage sales yesterday but we were pretty much rained out. I didn't find any of the treasures that I was after, I did get a brand new AE sweater though for a buck, score!

Miss Megan is potty training today. So far we have had one accident and one success. I will take that over our previous attempts (this is our first success ever lol.)

Just as I was going to post this we have an update, we had another accident followed by 2 successes.

And that's our week.

in my absence we...

We shopped at the best toy store around. It's quaint and charming and filled with wonder for kids.

We inspected the dog statues downtown.

We ran in the new fountain for the first time.

We have spent at least 4 days at the beach already! We flew kites and played at playgrounds. We even swam a little last week.

We had Grandpa Roy visit and took him Angi, Dorothy, and Alice to see the carousal.

Soccer has come and gone. Bailey scored several goals this year and has decided she wants to play again. School is almost over. One more week and it will be summer vacation. We are going to miss her teacher, she's the best and has taught Bailey so much this year. I probably don't give myself enough credit, I'm sure the fact that we read with her every. single. day. has added to her love of learning.

I celebrated my 32nd birthday and Mother's Day. Now it's Memorial Weekend and Megan has a tummy bug. It really stinks. I had looked forward to lots of time outside, bbqs, and fun. Hopefully she gets better today and nobody else gets it. It wasn't alot of fun last night. However, since I was up already I was able to look thru the http://studiocalico.com/ gallery while she watched cartoons, and I am so excited for the June kit to come! Makes me want to get outside and take lots of pictures. The kit is so bright and fun this month, very summery. The main is honestly my favorite this month although I did add Rec League and a few goodies to my cart. I also managed to swipe Martha's monarch butterfly punch at M's today, it was even on sale.

Well I am off to tend to the little and get her back up and running. Oh speaking of running, umm my husband signed us up to run a 1/2 marathon June 19th. We've had to kick it in gear to prepare and went from 3 miles to 5 miles to 7 miles in three weeks. I'm pretty sure I have some sort of injury in my left calf, but only 3 weeks til the race so I'm going to muster through the pain, probaby doing serious damage that I will later regret.

oh and one other thing, guess who is going to see David Gray in August for our 5 year anniversary? me, that's who! So terribly excited I can't even stand it.

And I am officially a "soccer mom", tho ill-prepared

Bailey had her first soccer game today. It was freezing! 49 degrees with a windchill that had to have brought it down another 10 degrees. I didn't bring hats or gloves for anyone. No blanket for us sitting on the sidelines. No cash for the concession stand. I totally failed. Bailey doesn't really know though, she just had a good time. They were so cute, a little herd of children running around the field chasing the ball. No goalies, no scores...just good fun. My favorite was when she was going the wrong way. haha. I said before they even started I bet she runs the wrong way if she gets it, sure enough. Grandma treated us to Pizza Hut after the game since Bailey played so well.

Miss Megan is so sick. She's scaring me. She fell asleep playing rockband, literally fell asleep on top of the guitar. It was very pitiful, and that child is not one to just crash so she must not be feeling well at all. Her temp is around 102 right now so we are keeping a close eye on her. Kip is sick too and I haven't felt the best, while Bailey has a cough. Who wants to come over?!?

We did manage to make up my Amish Friendship Bread that we have been *mushing* for 10 days. Today was finally the day and it is yummy. I read on the internet that you can make it without the starter part so I might have to experiment and see if they are right.

Off to do a little relaxing.

it feels like summer

The picture above is the "almost" sleepover the girls had. As it turns out it wasn't a good idea and Megan is still too little for sleepovers with big sis, what a shocker...not really.

Today was a fantastic day and not one single picture to be had. It was just beautiful out, 80's with a nice breeze. After school Bailey had a play date and so we packed up a lunch and went to the park. We ended up having a super playdate because 2 other friends were at the park and they went crazy. The kids played for 2 hours and Megan had finally had enough. When we got home Meg didn't see more than 2 minutes of Dora before passing out on the couch.

Later Bailey had her very first soccer practice, cutest thing ever! I was so worried because the coach didn't seem to be very organized but she was just the nicest person. She was very kind and patient and she made Bailey feel very welcome with the other girls. It was very cute to see them all play. Poor Megan kept saying all day "play soccer ball with Bailey." She didn't even notice she wasn't with the big girls. I was smart and brought her Dora ball with us so she would have something to kick around. The practice was only about 15 minutes and her first game will be on Saturday.

Not much else to report, pretty normal day. I'm tired from all the fresh air. I'm not sure how late I'm going to make it tonight.

Yay it's Tuesday!

Not really. Tuesday isn't really that great other than it's no longer Monday. Although Glee and parenthood are both on tonight, that's exciting! And it's really amazing what is considered exciting to me now that I have kids. Ten years ago exciting would have been an impromptu trip to the casino at 2am, or going to see a concert at the last second. Now exciting is getting to watch a television show about a Glee Club lol. Funny how life changes.

This past weekend we spent Saturday doing some shopping in South Bend. It was a good time, although I was pretty tired. We finally ate at 5 Guys Burgers and Fries and it was super good. I have a feeling every time I cheat on my diet from now on it is going to be there. And by diet I mean trying to eat healthy and as clean as possible, not fad dieting, I don't do that. So after lunch we ventured to the mall and got some new spring clothes for everyone. I only got a couple of shirts at AE. It's hard because a) I tend to buy work clothes when I get new stuff even though I really need casual clothes and b) I intend on being at least a size smaller in the next month or two so I really don't want to buy a whole lot of stuff. After the mall we went to get Bailey her soccer stuff and then out to dinner.

Megan took a good sized chunk out of her head yesterday. The poor thing doesn't have much hair to begin with she doesnt need any help! I cannot wait for nice weather so we can go outside, the children need fresh air. Bailey is actually playing with a friend right now and they are getting along so well, I'm very happy about this.

Here's a layout I did for Studio Calico's sketch challenge. I kid you not this layout took me 3 hours, AND I WAS COPYING FROM A SKETCH! I hate circles and this didn't come out anything like I envisioned it in my head. Oh well, it's for the kids anyways. Another memory down, a million more to go.

Happy belated Easter. Spring break is almost over, although it wasn't really much of a spring break for us in rainy Michigan.

We had a great weekend with my sister, brother in law, niece and nephew. The girls got along so well as did the little ones. We ended up at Curious Kids Discovery Zone on Saturday since it was pouring down rain. The kids had loads of fun and road the merry go round. When we were leaving there was a "live statue" in the lobby area. Bailey no sooner asked if he was real when he moved and waved at them. The poor thing freaked out! She started crying and hid behind me while the 2 year olds laughed and waved at him. The little ones thought he was just the best. It was quite humorous.

Bailey stayed the night at Kip's parent's house on Sunday and went golfing and out to a movie. I took Megan to the library and the park. I watched The Hurt Locker finally...it was so good even though I had issues watching it. I thought my blood pressure was going to sky rocket it was so suspenseful at times. Watched Into the Wild last night which was very disappointing. Music was good but that's about it. I really wanted to love it too which made it even more of a disappointment.

Today we are heading to meet friends for lunch at McD's so the kids can play (it is still raining). Then Bailey is going to stay the night at her friend's house and we are going to come back and relax. I cleaned the whole house last night in anticipation for my Studio Calico kit which is driving around St Joseph right now. New pics ordered and all. It's going to be a scrappy day!

I better get showered and the last of this laundry done so I can truly relax today!

Kelly

Robot Hands

Megan wears 1/2 of the ZhuZhu pet hamster ball on her head and runs around saying "Robot Megan" all the time. I don't know if the hamster has ever even been in the ball. In the above picture she is showing me "robot hands." She's a trip.

Jane is coming down tomorrow for Easter. It will be the first holiday they have spent down here with us. We are all very excited for them to visit. I think Bailey is counting down the seconds before her cousin gets here. The problem is we are supposed to get rain on Saturday...grr. So I'm thinking maybe curious kids museum will be in order, or maybe Alvin and the Chipmunks II. Bailey hasn't seen it yet and its the kids movie this week. At any rate I'm sure we will have lots of fun!

Bailey spent the day at Livinia's house today. They had her, Olivia, and Zachary over to play. It looks like they had a super fun time outside all day (it was 80 degrees...unbelievable!). Considering that she fell asleep in approx 5 seconds upon hitting the pillow I would call it a success! I'm so happy she has such great friends already. I'm hoping they all can remain close for many years to come.

Happy Good Friday!