Little Miss Kindergarten

Last Wednesday, Audrey went to her first day of kindergarten.  After worrying the night before that lunch was going to be too stressful for her, she had a wonderful day!  As each day has gone on, it seems her comfort level is growing.  My hugs at recess have gone shorter, she walks more easily into her room in the morning, and she has begun to occupy herself in my room before/after school a little better.  The only downfall to her days at school is that she is utterly exhausted by the end of the night.  Between the hours of 4:30 and 7:30, we have drama, sass, and tears until she falls into a snore-filled sleep shortly after 7:30.  Hopefully the adjustment period goes very quickly! :)

Here are some pictures from the first morning of school!

We're not sure if preschool will be ready for this lady next year!

Charlie got in on the first day of school pics last year, too, so we continued the tradition! 

Tooth Fairy!

In July we discovered Audrey had an adult tooth coming in behind her baby teeth on the bottom.  Naturally, as the adult tooth has grown in, the baby teeth around it are becoming wiggly.  Audrey hasn't been the best at wiggling the loose teeth, but thankfully, the sweet corn helped do the trick!  One Monday, Audrey bit into her corn and started screaming/crying.  Over the course of the next forty-five minutes, it was determined that:

1. Audrey's tooth was loose enough to come out easily.
2. She wasn't going to eat the rest of her lunch until it came out.
3. She was starving and needed to eat.
4. She couldn't just chew with her back teeth.
5. She was going to scream/cry/wail until the tooth was out.

So naturally, the only solution was to sit on her chest, pin her down, and pull out that tooth.  Once it was out, she was absolutely fine, stopped crying, and was super excited about the tooth fairy coming!

Princess Toothalicious visited Audrey that night, sprinkled her with some glitter, and left $2.00.  We are eagerly awaiting the next visit, but Audrey cannot promise extracting the tooth will be any easier!

No loose teeth for Kate yet!  This poor girl was so disturbed during Audrey's crying.  She will NOT want a tooth to come out of her mouth at any time.  She is scarred!

Vacation House

The best part of our vacation house was definitely the basement.  The basement had a jukebox and four different arcade games, which provided us with quite the entertainment!  We spent the evenings dancing, laughing and playing together.  All the adults even tried out Audrey and Kate's signature dance move.  It was a lot of fun and made memories that we will cherish!

Uncle Justin taught Kate how to truly rock when good music is playing!

Vacation: Day 3

Our final day was spent at the Omaha Children's Museum, and it was absolutely awesome.  The girls had so much fun using their imaginations, thinking scientifically, and being artistic.  We stayed long enough to experience a princess sing-a-long, and the girls were able to get their picture taken with Belle.  It was another perfect day!

Elizabeth and Audrey had fun creating in the kitchen!

Kate was busy in the bakery. :)

Obviously, the girl was skeptical if Jeremy was going to be able to pull himself up.

The upstairs of the museum was totally dedicated to dinosaurs, so the girls had fun digging for bones!

For this, the girls could color a picture and scan it into a larger picture on the screen.  Audrey is pointing to the building she colored.

Kate colored a house.

Vacation: Day 2

Our second day in Omaha was spent totally at the zoo.  To help beat the heat, we headed to the zoo as early as we could.  Our hope was to spend the morning inside, so that we could stay cooler in the afternoon with the indoor exhibits.

We absolutely loved the zoo.  Audrey was so attentive and asked really good questions, and Kate loved seeing all the different animals.  With each animal we saw, she would say, "Okay, now what?"  It did get warm, and we did get tired, but it was a day that was totally worth the cost and exhaustion.  The girls are still bringing up different thoughts and memories about what we saw, so we're glad we went!

At the end of the day, each girl was able to pick out a stuffed animal in the gift shop.  Kate immediately gravitated toward a giraffe, and even after wavering back and forth, stuck with it.  Audrey knew she wanted a cat of some sort and ended up with a lion cub.  Right now both girls are sleeping with an extreme number of stuffed animals, so these two fit right into the collection!

Once again, on the drive back to the vacation house, we had two exhausted girls snoring in the backseat! :)

Vacation: Day 1

A few weeks ago, we took a wonderful vacation to Omaha.  We stayed in a gorgeous home, and all of our stops were such fun experiences!  As we first pulled away from home, Audrey asked two minutes down the road if we were there yet. :)  Luckily, though, the rest of the trip went really well.  Barbie movies can be so captivating!

Our first full day was spent at Mahoney State Park, and there were so many neat things to do there!  We began our time by paddle boating, and the girls had a blast.  Kate was nervous at first, but once she got accustomed to feeding the fish and relaxing in the back, she loved it!  It was crazy to see how well-trained the geese and fish were for getting food from the boats.  I honestly think Audrey would have taken a few home, if we had let her!  Audrey also really enjoyed being able to paddle up front.  A few times I think Jeremy was just sitting there, while Audrey was totally moving the boat. :)

Geeka and Grandma joined us, too!

We tried to ride horses after a picnic lunch, but unfortunately, the weather was too warm for the horses.  We moved onto the water park, then, and again, the girls had a ton of fun.  We were all exhausted by the end, but in the good, summertime way!