a nice relaxing weekend

Friday after we picked the girls up from school, we headed over to Vidor to hang out at Amy's house. Their cat had kittens and guess who fell in LOVE with them? Yep....Sarah. 

 




















She couldn't get enough. She stayed outside almost the entire time playing with them. We had to make her come in a few times to cool off because it was soooooo hot outside. But in her defense, they were pretty dang cute!



And guess who else fell in love with the kittens?



Shocking, right?! I thought he didn't like cats!

We also celebrated Maggie's 2nd birthday!

She is so adorable! We are all quite smitten by her!

























The kids spent the night. We had planned to pick them up the next day, but Amy called and said they were having so much fun with them that she wanted them to stay another night. So we spent the day relaxing since Aaron's back was bothering him. Then we went out to dinner Saturday night. Jessica brought the kids home on Sunday afternoon. It was so nice to have some quiet, alone time, but we sure were glad to have our noisemakers back! The house just isn't the same without them!

i never thought i would be this mom

Tonight as we were trying to leave for our church activities, we discovered that Bailey was missing. We drove around the neighborhood looking for her for 15 minutes before I finally told my sobbing little Sarah that we had to stop looking and go on to church. I tried to tell her not to worry and that Bailey would be home when we got back. I reminded her how many times Bailey had gotten out before and how smart she was and that she would find her way home again. I seriously wasn't worried about it.....at all. In fact, I was pretty convinced that I would be just fine if she didn't ever come back home. After all, she drives me crazy how she will still go potty in the house from time to time. I could seriously use one less stress in my life.

We arrived back home around 8:30pm to find that Bailey was still not home. So we didn't even get out of the car. We just drove around looking for her again. We didn't see any signs of her, so we came back home. I was surprised that she wasn't home yet, but I told Sarah that one of our neighbors had probably picked Bailey up and tried to bring her home and saw that we weren't there, and were probably waiting for us to get home to bring her back. So we waited a few minutes and by 9pm, there was no sign of her. Aaron even got home from his meetings and we out looking for her too. I told the girls they had to go to bed though because it was a school night. Sarah was so upset, and it took me a while to get her to settle down. When I finally got her to bed, Aaron had come back home. Still no luck. So we went to bed too, kind of expecting her to come barking at the back door in the middle of the night.

But that never happened. I woke up around 2:30am and couldn't go back to sleep. I was thinking about something Sarah had asked me on the way to church. She said, "You don't even care, do you Mama? Did you ever even like Bailey?" The truth of the matter is that I am not a pet person. I never have been. But I really did like Bailey in the beginning. She was so little and so cute. However, I came to discover that my love for her was conditional upon whether she choose to go potty outside or inside. And it was so frustrating for me because I would almost always be the one to find it....usually by stepping in it. Which pretty much infuriated me. And the thing is she knew she was supposed to go outside. She would just go inside when she was feeling lazy, or when she would get mad at us. So no.....I wasn't Bailey's biggest fan. But I never wished any harm to come to her. In fact, I did sometimes wish that on one of her adventures she would find an owner that would love her unconditionally. And I honestly thought I would be completely fine with that. But to be honest.....I missed her. I couldn't go back to sleep because I knew she wasn't there to alert us to an unusual sound like she did back in December when there were lots of burglaries going on in our area. And I just wondered if she was okay. But even if I hadn't missed her, there was no way I could just do nothing. I knew I had to let Sarah know that I cared and that I tried and that I had done all I could do to help bring Bailey back home.

So while I couldn't sleep, I started working on a flyer. I finally went back to bed around 4am. When I went to wake Sarah up at 6am, the first thing she asked was if Bailey was home. She started crying again when I told her no. She was heartbroken, and said she didn't want to go to school. But I told her she had to go to to school, but that we would go put out signs and flyers after I picked her up in the afternoon. So I spent the good part of the day finishing the flyer, printing it, and making signs.



I was going to go put some out before I picked the girls up, but it was thundering and looking like it was going to pour at any second. So I waited because I didn't want them to be ruined right after I put them out. I went to pick up the girls and it still hadn't rained, but was still thundering and really dark like it was going to pour at any second. So we went straight to Walmart and bought some contact paper. We came home and spent the next 30 minutes covering all of the signs I had made earlier. After we were done, we went and put out the signs, and by that point it has started raining. I sent the girls into a few businesses to ask if we could put a sign on the corner of their property. I figured it would be harder for them to say no to two cute girls. It worked at a few places. We put signs at the busiest corners and decided we'd stop for the day and put the rest of the flyers out tomorrow when it wasn't raining anymore. We got home a little after 5pm. I had just told the girls to start on their homework and was about to start dinner when we got a phone call. It was a girl that said she thought she had our dog. A few minutes later she was driving up into our drive way and handed us Bailey. She told us she saw her running around by the apartments by our house and stopped to get her. She said she didn't know where she belonged since she wasn't wearing a collar, so she took her home and kept her overnight. She said they were waiting to see if someone would put up signs about her. So as soon as she saw the signs she called. We thanked her for taking care of Bailey. I almost cried. I was so glad she was back home. And so was this girl.



Bailey was gone for about 24 hours, but it seemed like longer. I sure learned some things from this experience, and I think the girls did too.



So thankful for happy endings!

First Day of School

I can't believe another summer has come and gone. But it has, and today was the first day back to school for my sweet girls. We had a little photo session before we headed out.



My sweet Sarah!



Seriously can't believe she's in third grade already.



Here she is with her new zebra backpack.



Since they wear uniforms, a fun backpack is one of the few ways they can let their personality shine through.



And the shoes too.



And Middle School?! Really?! How did this happen so fast?



I'm pretty sure I'm more nervous about it than she is.



What a cutie!



I asked her if I could hold her hand and walk her to her class.



She politely declined. :(



My sweet babies! John David got his little notebook and seriously wanted to go to school with the girls.



He was so excited to get to walk them to class!



This is where we parted ways with the middle schooler!



I didn't even cry, but I did hug her and tell her I love her. And John David stole a hug too!



This is where I may or may not have gotten a little teary eyed.



Then we walked Sarah to her class. She was really nervous because she wasn't sure if she was going to like her teacher.



She was getting frustrated with me taking pictures.



She said, "You don't have to take pictures of everything Mom!"



After leaving the school, we headed over to Cracker Barrel for the "Back to School" breakfast. Then we came home and while I was folding laundry, John David crawled up on the couch behind me and fell asleep. I guess I'm not the only one who thinks it's hard getting back into the early morning routine.



When he woke up, we made cookies for the girls. He was so excited when it was time to go pick them up!



I loved hearing about their first day back. Katie said she likes Middle School because "we have so much more freedom." She is excited to have different teachers for each subject.



Sarah had a great day too, and has decided that she does like her teacher after all.



We're looking forward to a great year!

how we spent our summer

Since I've hardly posted anything we did all summer, I thought I would do a post of some of the things that kept us busy. Here goes.......

*We made our first road trip to North Carolina without Daddy. Our niece Jessica came along with us to help me with the kids and driving. It went surprisingly well. I was kinda nervous about going without Aaron because he usually drives the entire way. And on the rare occasion that he does ask me to help drive, I get so sleepy after just a couple of hours. But we made it there and back without any major problems. I give all the credit to the many prayers I know were offered by our awesome family.

*We made 543 friendship bracelets. Aunt Kristen taught the girls how to make friendship bracelets while we were in NC and they loved it. They taught me how when we got home and we made quite a few during the summer. I have to admit....it was very fun and quite addicting!



I love how this rainbow one turned out.



Katie really got into it and made Tors, Olympic, Threat, & Maplewood colored bracelets. And I made her the YW value colors bracelet.

*We spent way too many days to count at the waterpark. It was our bribe for getting the kids out of the house early to go exercise.

*We had tons of sleepovers with friends. Hardly a day went by this summer when we didn't have the girls' friends over or either they were invited to a sleepover.

*We had a blast watching the summer Olympics and cheering on Team USA.





We loved watching the swimming, volleyball, soccer, diving, and track & field, but our most favorite moment was without a doubt watching the women's gymnastic team win gold. They were amazing!



*We participated in and completed the summer reading program. The kids love doing this every summer, and they especially love getting the rewards after they're done.




*Katie and I had a reading contest. Since she is going into middle school, she moved up into the teen summer reading program. The good news about that--she only had to read 5 books to complete the program. The bad news--she had to write a short book review. She wasn't happy about that part at all. So in order to motivate her a little I challenged her to a contest to see who could read the "Skeleton Creek" series first. Yep....she beat me. But that's completely fine with me because it was just what she needed to get her motivated. It was so much fun reading the same series with her and talking about it afterwards. By the way, it's a really fun series!



















*Made a quilt for "Quilts for Kids". I read about this program on one of the craft blogs I read and thought it would be really cool if the girls and I could make one over the summer. They loved it and so did I! Such a fun way to teach them the basics and give service at the same time. LOVE it!



My amazing friend, Raeann showed me how to do the binding so now I know how to make a quilt from start to finish! Wahoo! It's so easy....and sooooo much fun!



*We made these to hang in the Katie and Sarah's room.



Katie even hung them herself. Not how I would have done it, but she wanted to do, so I let her do it like she wanted. LOVE this cute, fun girl!



*The kids (mostly Katie) learned to cook.....a little. So it was mostly macaroni and cheese and ramen, but you gotta start somewhere, right? Plus, it's helping them become less dependent, which is a good thing. They also made brownies and cookies.....from scratch.



It was a great summer with my sweet babies!

closing down the waterpark

We have made several attempts to get Aaron to go to the water park with us this summer, but it just hasn't worked out. So when we found out he didn't have anything on his schedule for tonight we decided to make it a family night at the water park.



It was so nice because it wasn't crowded at all.



The girls had a blast on the big slides.



Katie even talked Daddy into going down the green slide with her.



John David had a blast on the little slides.



And just hanging out with Daddy.



We love Daddy time!

hard work really does pay off

Katie decided back in April that she wanted an ipod touch. We don't normally just go and buy our kids new toys, gadgets, etc., other than birthdays or special occasions. Especially $200 toys, gadgets, etc.! So we told her if she wanted an ipod she would have to save up the money and buy it herself. So she began talking and planning how she was going to earn enough money for an ipod. I seriously thought she would give up after a few weeks and go blow all she had saved at Justice or something. But she didn't. She saved her report card money, and allowance, and babysitting money, and even the spending money Paw Paw gave her for our trip to North Carolina back in June. She saved every penny she could get her little fingers on. It was impressive. She kept her eyes on the prize and never looked back.

A few days ago, Aaron came home from work and asked her how much money she needed for an ipod. She told him, and he told her she could earn the rest of the money she needed if she would go help him on a job. So, she went and worked with him and earned the rest of her ipod money. She was so excited to say the least, and insisted that we immediately go to Best Buy and get her ipod. So we did.



She's pretty proud of herself. And I'm proud of her too!



So this is what she's been doing ever since we got home.



I have to admit....it is pretty cool. So now I'm trying to think of a reason to ground her so I can play with her new toy! :)