Bird Nursery

This summer we had some bird friends decide to build a nest in my new hanging plants that are hanging from our front porch. I noticed right after I hung them up that there were doves flying in and out of them quite a bit. It wasn't long until I noticed that there were nesting material hanging out of the side of the plant. I am very much an animal person so I could not run them off. We watched them everyday and soon the birds were stationed in the plant all the time I never saw the bird leave. I hated to water the plants because I didn't want to scare off the birds. I had heard that if the bird feels threatened it will abandon the nest eggs and all. But I also didn't want to see my new plants die either. I would try to water on the other side of the plant and not completely soak the birds. The bird would get scared and fly away, but that is when I got to peak in the nest. There were 2 eggs laying in the nest. It was so cool! The daddy bird sits with the nest all day and doesn't leave until the night comes and then he is released from mommy bird and she sits there all night with eggs. The birds looked identical I am guessing that I always saw the daddy bird. When I would water the plants daddy would fly away. He would fly and sit on top of my neighbors roof and watch me and as soon as I would go in the house he would come back to his nest. I would try to limit my watering to only once a week and my plants did start to look bad. It was only a few weeks and I looked out of the window to check on the nest and we had babies. They were so cute! They were bigger then I was expecting. I don't know how they fit into such a little egg. They did not have any feathers yet just a little fuzz. As little as they were they did see me and they were very scared. They started wiggling and moving around. They sat in the nest and we even got to see them be fed. As days went by the parent would go away and be gone longer and longer. We did not get to see the birds fly out of their nest because we left for vacation during that time. When we came back I found the birds had grown quite a bit and were huddled together in the flower bed under the hanging basket that was once their nest. My plants did almost die there is not much left to them now, but I didn't have the heart to stress the birds out any more than I did. It was such a nest experience and the girls just loved it!

The start of a new school year!

Lexi started back to school this week. I can not believe that she is in 2nd grade. Wow how time flies. She cut 5-6 inches off of her hair. She was ready for something new. She looks beautiful and so much older with her new hair cut and not to mention her new front adult teeth coming in. We have not seen her with front teeth in a year.

Alexis is not real happy with school and this is real upsetting for me. She came home in tears yesterday saying that the 2nd grade teachers are mean and all they do is yell at the kids and she is afraid. She is amazingly smart and has always loved school. Last year she loved her teacher and didn't want the school year to end. Alexis doesn't like change and I am hoping this is just different and she needs to adjust. As she gets older school will get harder and the teachers are going to have more discipline and not tolerate as much. I am thinking that's all it is and she will be fine when she gets use to it. I hope that there is not more to it. Only time will tell. Please keep her in your prayers.

Ashlyn is doing wonderful! I have started to home school her and it is going great. She is so excited about it. She loved going to the store and getting to pick out school supplies with Lexi. She actually said "I am so lucky that I am going to learn to read and write like Lexi". It was so cute! She is picking things up really fast and wants to do school everyday. I am limiting it to only 3 days a week 1-2 hours a day. I want her to always want to do school and not get burned out. The 1st day of school when Daddy came home from work both girls were jumping all over him trying to get his attention. Ashlyn of coarse won. She was very persistent and excited about what she had done and learned with school. Ashlyn went over every detail of what we had done that day.

My baby is 4 years old!

Wow! I can't believe that my baby is already 4 years old. It just doesn't seem possible. She is a big girl now!

Ashy had a wonderful birthday! We stretched it out about a week. Her birthday was Monday the 21st and she got a puppy cake and presents from Mommy and Daddy. We had her party the following Saturday. Mimi, Aunt Crissy, Chase, Aunt Amy, Uncle Jeff, Cousin Abby,and cousin Lilly all came and stayed the weekend with her at her house. She was so excited and had so much fun. She got so many new toys she doesn't know what to play with first. They all spoiled her!

I had searched for a neat place to have her party. I had some things that I had come up with. I was telling Chris about them when Ashlyn walked in the room, so I asked her where she wanted to have her birthday party. She didn't even hesitate saying CHUCK E CHEESE'S! I have to say the girl knows what she wants. That made it easy for me, the hunt for a party was over and we had her party at Chuck E Cheese's. She still wanted a princess party she just wanted it at Chuck E Cheese's. I ordered a princess castle cake and did everything that I could in princess. The party was a success. She had so much fun! Almost every that we invited showed up. I am very surprised that she was not afraid of Chuck E Cheese, she even gave him a big hug!

Thank You guys for making the trip and coming to help Ashlyn celebrate her 4th birthday, it meant the world to her and to me. We had a wonderful weekend! It was very special for Ashlyn to have you all here at her house.

Happy 4th Birthday Ashlyn

Summer Vacation 2008

Summer Vacation 2008

We had so much fun at the lake this past week. It was so peaceful and relaxing. The forest and lakes were amazing. For the most part we were in a very secluded area. We were in the middle of a private horse cutting ranch that was in the middle of the forest. The cabin was great! It was furnished with everything that you would need and more. It was a very cute A frame type cabin with a balcony over looking the lake. We would sit on the balcony every morning and drink our coffee and take in the clean air.

We went hiking through the woods on many occasions and the scenery was so breathtaking. We walked for miles through the trails and it was so awesome. Hiking is something that I could do everyday. The girls were big troopers. They did get tired fast but that is to be expected. We saw deer, frogs, cats, dogs, birds, craw fish, fuzzy caterpillars, scary spiders, horses, clams, geese, and lots and lots of fish. We even rescued a small kitten that was stuck up in a tree.

Ashlyn carried around her little critter cage and always had something inside it. She loved the frogs and at times would have about 20 frogs in it. She called it her creatures and would say "you are my little pet". She would catch fish with her net and fill up her cage and have an aquarium. If Ashlyn was not collecting critters she was swimming. She loved to swim. She would sit there in the lake and play in the mud. When we would go inside at night to take a bath, under her swim suit and hair was completely covered in mud.

We did lots of swimming and just floating on rafts in the middle of the lake. Ashlyn even took a nap in the middle of the lake in her boat. She actually slept a while and got a good nap. The fish did like to nibble on Chris. He was always getting bit. The water was nice and warm, I could have taken a nap on my raft. Kaylee loved to swim. We had a hard time keeping her out of the water.

Alexis learned how to row with oars and loved to kayak. She got really good at it and could go really fast and go forward and backward. Chris loved the kayak too. He would take his fishing pole out and fish for a while from the kayak. The kayaks were very fun and very fast. They would fly through the water. Kayaking is something we will be doing again. Who knows maybe someday soon we will have a couple of our own.

We fished long and hard and we caught more fish. We were catching fish 2 at a time. I was grabbing the fish and getting them off of the hook. That is huge for me, I have never touched a fish and never wanted to. We fished with everything from rubber warms, cereal, dog food, watermelon, and hot dog. Hot dog worked the best. If the fish didn't strip the bait from our hook, we would catch a fish every time with the hot dog. I even caught a nice size catfish with a hot dog. Alexis was the first one to catch a fish, she was so excited. Ashlyn was even baiting her own hook and putting it in the water and catching fish all by herself. It was awesome, and the girls loved it. I caught a small fish about 5 or 6 inches long and put it in the water just hanging off the dock and I saw a huge fish swim up and take it hook and all. I believe that it was a bass. I tried to reel him in but he was so big that it broke my line. It was so exciting.

We had a blast and the vacation was a huge success. We were very prepared and organized and I think that that made it even that much better.

Ashlyn can fall asleep anywhere.

I was making dinner one night and Ashlyn was hanging out with me and we were talking and playing around. I noticed that it got very quiet and was not answering me. I looked around for her and found her sound asleep on the rug by the back door. That girl can fall asleep anywhere. It seems like every time we get in the car she will fall asleep and every time we are in a store she will sleep in the back of the basket. I know that she gets plenty of sleep. She goes to bed every night between 7:30 and 8:00 and sleeps till around 7:30 the next morning. If she does take a nap during the day she will not go to sleep very easy that night so I try to keep her from napping during the day. She is so funny!

Last Day of 1st Grade!

Wow! I can not believe how fast this year has went by. My little girl is going to be a second grader. It just doesn't seem possible. She had her awards ceremony at school and did awesome! She received 4 awards! The A honor roll for the entire year, Athletic award, Art award, and the Citizenship award. We are so proud of her. Way to go Alexis!!!!

Lexi taking over my camera

Lexi has really taken to my camera. It seems like every time I turn around she has it and is taking pictures with it. She has figuerd it out all by herself, including how to take video. I have so many video clips that she has taken of all sorts of different things I have not had a chance to go through all of them yet. She really is good at taking pictures. Here are some pictures that she has taken.

Playing with cousin Carter and Natalie

We recently visited family and the girls had so much fun. They got to spend time with Grammy and Padoo and have a big play time with their cousins Carter and Natalie. Grammy even took the girls shopping. They had a blast playing all day on the water slide.

Field Day

Lexi had her end of year field day and had so much fun. She loves to run and she is very competitive, so competitive that if she loses she loses it and cries. Field day was fun and there was no losing, everything was played in a group. So everyone won. I like the way it was done last year better. They did race against each other and the top 3 received metals. It was a blast and she loved showing off all of her metals. I think that it is good for them to win and to be proud and it is good for them to lose so they can learn that you will not win at everything you do, that is life. This field day they played and raced as a group. They did have a tug-of-war against the other 1st grade classes and Lexi's class beat all the other classes, so in a way they were declared the winners.

Happy Mother's Day

Chris and the girls took really good care of me today. Lexi was waiting outside my door when I woke up this morning and greeted me with a big Happy Mother's day hug and when I went down stairs Chris told me Happy Mothers' day and Ashlyn ran up to me and hugged me with this huge bear hug and said Happy Mother's day. Ashlyn turned around and ran upstairs, she came back quickly and game me a card that she had made for me. She drew a picture of her and me on it. It is so cute and sweet. Lexi made me many cards a flower pen and a bouquet of flowers. They gave me some new perfume that smells awesome. They took me to a wonderful mexican food restaurant with a cool mariachi band and wonderful enchiladas. I was even given a beautiful red carnation. After lunch we went on nature hike through the botanic gardens. It was so beautiful! The trees and the flowers were amazing. Every couple of steps that you would take there would be a different but beautiful smell. We saw a huge snapping turtle in the pond. It's head was so big. The girls got to walk inside of a tree. The weather was perfect. The wind was still and the temperature was not too hot or too cold, just perfect. The air was so clean and fresh. It was a great walk, very relaxing. I could not have asked for a better Mother's day. Thank you, Chris, Alexis and Ashlyn for really making my day special. I love you guys!