Happy Birthday Makenna

Makenna turned 7 on Saturday. We had a great time celebrating. We had donuts for breakfast and then she opened her family presents- some clothes from Grandma, some jewelery from Oma and then some earrings from mom and dad. Yep I said earrings... with a card that said we had decided to let her get her ears peirced... something she has been begging for for a while now.

We had a great party with 7 of her friends. We made our own pizzas, had a pinata, decorated cookies and did cake and presents. It was a good time for all. Everything ran quite smoothly.

After her party, we took her to Claires to get her ears pierced. Here she is picking out her birthstone for her very first earrings. She was eager and excited. She was a bit nervous but she wanted it badly enough that she was very brave.Here she is getting it done. That face she made was as bad as it got. No crying, screaming or even whining. She is growing up way too fast!

And then on Sunday we went to the Thomas' to celebrate her birthday with them since they couldnt make it to her party. We had the bottom of her birthday cake left so it worked out for us to sing to her again.

Happy Birthday Makenna! We love you SOOOOOOO much!

A Visit to Oma and Opa

We spent a week visiting Oma and Opa at their new place in Lancaster PA over Labor Day. Here are some photo highlights:

Oma and Emmitt. Unfortunately Oma broke her foot/ ankle/ leg a couple of weeks earlier so she wasnt as mobile as she would have liked. The kids were still able to have a great time with her.

We met Opa for lunch a couple of times. It was always fun!We had to visit Hershey and all it had to offer including Chocolate World, Hersheypark, the Chocolate Spa (mom only) and the outlets. We took just the older two to Hersheypark one night. The few pictures I took didnt turn out very well because it was dark but we rode every thrill ride in the park and had a blast!

The other kids in this picture are the Clements kids. We met up with Kevin's old freshman roommate Tom and his family. Our kids had a really great time together. Brayden is still talking about them.

Here's Emmitt and Opa and me on the "chocolate ride." He was quite scared of the singing cows so we had to turn him away whenever they were coming up. It was pretty funny.

Here's Emmitt crawling around at Omas house. Such a great smile he has. He learned to clap while we were there so that was pretty exciting!

One day we took the kids over to the stables where Oma keeps her horses and let the kids spend some time with the animals. They LOVED it!

Even Emmitt who is afraid of most stuffed animals really seems to love real animals. He wasnt at all afraid of these horses or the dogs at Oma's house. I was quite suprised by that.

10 months old

This update is behind but the pictures were taken on August 29th so its fairly accurate. Emmitt is crawling everywhere. He can now pull himself to standing on the couch and chairs and things. He also did climb a couple stairs the other day so he is a big bunch of trouble... cute trouble but trouble nonetheless. Its a great age. He is a good little kisser and he tolerates my constant squishy hugs and cuddles. He is just so much fun!

Brielle's First Day of Preschool

Brielle goes to Preschool this year at Carriage Hill Elementary which is where Brayden attended first grade. Its run by the school district and provided with the intent to help kids who have "identified needs." Brielle was chosen to be a "peer model." The funny this is that so far her class only has 9 students and all of them are peer models. The teacher is Ms Sara but she had a baby right before school started so Ms Jill is the teacher now. Brielle loves going. It has been great. Most everyday she tells me a rundown of her day- in order of how everything happened and she includes the story and the snack. I am always very impressed with her memory. Yesterday though she made me laugh when she got in the car and I asked her what she did today she gave a big sigh and said "mom I'm too tired to tell you what I did today."

My Funny Girls

The other day Brielle said to me:

"When I grow up, first I want to be a princess, then I want to be a hair styler and then I want to be a mom"

....long pause.....

"but moms, they have to do a lot of work"

(Amen to that!)
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At the zoo a couple of weeks ago, Makenna observed:

"The funny thing about animals, is that they don't have clothes, and you can see alllll their parts."