Sami turns 6…

Sami’s 6th birthday was spent at Disney World…I promise…those posts will come sooner or later…

When we got back we had a small family party with Matt’s side of the family.

Two bags of Reese’s from Great Grandma (and Grandpa) Kristoff…I wish I could tell you she took her time with them, but they were gone fairly quickly! :D

She also got some really neat stuff for her and Addy (who is her American Girl Bitty Baby) to wear and use for dance classes.

She received a Nintendo DSi from us for her birthday with a few games. She loves the voice recorder! She is ALWAYS singing (gee…who did she get that from??) and now she can record herself and play it back…mix it…lots of fun stuff!

Happy Birthday to our little princess!

Trick or Treat…Smell Our Feet!

I thought I had the costumes for the girls all picked out when Sami through me for a loop this year…she wanted to come up with her own costume! We’ve typically gone into the Disney Store, and she has chosen something. I thought she would want to wear her Ariel costume from Disney World (yes…Disney posts coming soon…ha!) but she decided she wanted to be a baby. At least I didn’t have to buy anything else! ;) So here is our baby…she wore pajamas, had a lovie (aka pacifier) clipped on her, she carried a baby bottle as well as purple burple (aka her blanket) and a stuffed animal. Pretty simple. Most people knew what she was…although a few people asked why she was ready for bed…

Skylar was Minnie Mouse this year. She loved both Minnie and Mickey on our trip, so it only seemed right. She wasn’t too fond of the headband ears, but I got a few pictures of her with it on.

My mom came here for the afternoon to trick or treat with us. It’s always nice to have her with. Skylar wasn’t too interested in approaching strangers and getting treats from them. She must have known she couldn’t eat anything they were dishing out anyways! ;) She mostly just relaxed in the wagon while we filled her bucket for her.

Sami refused to wear shoes over her pajamas, so it didn’t surprise me when she was done after an hour of trick or treating. Here she is with Nana eager to head to the next house…

Skylar did take her bucket to the immediate neighbor’s house…

Then she enjoyed a yummy sucker…

Happy Halloween everyone!

Sami Looses a Tooth!

Sami lost her first tooth this afternoon! It is the bottom (right) front tooth. It has been ready to come out for awhile now, but in true Sami fashion there had to be some drama along the way. (I wouldn’t have it any other way though…ha!)

I think part of her issue was the unknown. She was really nervous it would hurt when it came out. We tried to show her how to wiggle it back and forth…we tried to grab it and pull…but in the end we decided it was best for her to just leave it alone, and let it come out in it’s own time.

This afternoon both girls were sitting on my lap and I noticed Skylar had two new teeth that had popped up recently. So we decided to look in Sami’s mouth as well. I was slightly horrified to discover her adult tooth was behind the tooth already! Yikes! It looked so big and scary! As if it was saying “Yo baby tooth…make room!” So I grabbed a tissue “just to see” what would happen. POOF no more baby tooth!

Sami mentioned Steak and Shake twice today, and since our town did trick or treat yesterday we decided to take her to dinner to celebrate this big milestone! She really wanted a chocolate shake and cheese fries.

What a big girl….

Skylar at 13 Months

Skylar is starting to make the transition from baby to toddler. To me she still looks more like a baby than a toddler, but she definitely acts more toddler like! Ha!

She is saying more and more all the time! Some new words for her this month are baby, go, bye-bye…

She still loves the laugh and learn playhouse…

Sami even gets in there with her! ;)

As you can see my phone is also one of her favorite toys! She holds it up to her ear, and says “Dada?” So cute! She is such a Daddy’s girl! Everytime the door opens she will go running for the front room super excited and yelling “Daddy!” even if it isn’t him! Then she will stand at the front door “talking” to his car…”Daddy! Go?” pointing and trying to figure out where he is.

She also thinks this fun toy from my pal Dawn is pretty fun! She closes her eyes as she hammers the balls in though, so I am always scared she is going to bop her self in the head! Ha!

Peek A Boo is also one of her favorite games! She tries to say “there she is” but it just comes out as sing songy moans…but I know what she means!

We have started giving her a fork or spoon with her meals. Thankfully I know it is about the process of learning and not the product of actually getting it in her mouth…because sometimes it would seem so much more effective to just feed her myself! Ha! But she is proud of herself when she is successful!

Even she realizes sometimes it is just faster to use your hands! Ha!

We love you Skylar…you are such a big girl now!

First Day of Kindergarten

It’s official…Sami is a big girl! She marched off to Kindergarten today, and never looked back! Our elementary school still has half day kindergarten, and Sami is in the afternoon class. Today was just the parent meeting and bus safety lesson for the kids.

When we were purchasing her school supplies I asked her what kind of backpack she wanted for this year. She said “Mom I just want to use my Tinkerbell bag that has my Barbie’s in it…” I tried to convince her to get a new bag, and she didn’t want one. She definitely doesn’t get that from me! Ha!

While the parents organized the kids’ pencil boxes the kids went off for a lesson on bus safety. I will take her to school everyday, and she will ride the bus home. It was her idea to ride the bus. I think it is a right of passage thing for her… So while I am not exactly “ready” for her to be on the bus she is, so I better get used to it!

While I finished the paperwork Sami played in the centers with a friend she knew from soccer.As is our tradition when we got to the stoplight before school we turned off the radio, and prayed. I have a good feeling this is going to be an amazing year for her!

Feeling Crafty

With Matt at work in the evenings Sami and I have been trying to fill our time with something besides TV and cleaning! I’ve been feeling I pretty crafty lately, so we have made a few different things…

(I will have to add pictures for some of these later because I didn’t have the memory card in, so I need to find the camera cord…ha!)

I made Sami a new light pink tutu to wear at dance camp this week while she made a tiny one for her Bitty Baby “Addy”….

Sami decorated a wooden flower that I attached ribbon to so we have a way to hold all of her hair clips…

For awhile Sami has been telling me that Skylar needed a “tie blanket”…we had some time to kill before her last immunization for school on Friday, so we went over to Hobby Lobby. It was just our luck that the fleece was on sale this week! She convinced me she needed a new blanket too…so she made her very own tie blanket almost all on her own!

Then she helped me make Skylar one…it is light blue with ducks (of course)

We have also made paper fans, finger painted, done our nails…fun fun!!!!

8 years…and counting!

This past weekend we celebrated our anniversary (8 years) by going to Evansville, In. We picked this destination solely on the fact that there was a nice hotel that wasn’t super expensive to go to! Ha! We didn’t really care where we were going…we were just excited to go!

We left Friday morning after Matt got home from work. It was about a 4 1/2 hour ride, so Matt slept the whole way there. We traded cars with my mom for the weekend since she had the girls (thanks Mom!) so it really felt like vacation in the convertible!!!

When we got there I got a little lost, but we figured it out and we went to a World War II war ship. It is the only one of its kind left, and my brother tells me my grandpa actually served on a ship just like it!

The ship is behind Matthew…my camera was dying so I didn’t take the time to focus really well…

There were actually some Navy reservists serving their two week duty while we were there! It was actually really interesting to hear about the history and the restoration process!

From here we decided to check into our hotel. It was one of the hotels owned by the casino, so it was really nice. I made sure we had a river view room, and even opted for the king size bed. It was so nice to get away and reconnect. We went to dinner on the riverwalk that evening. We tried the casino, but left after about 20 minutes…feeding money into a loud machine just wasn’t really our thing! Ha! We even got room service dessert…mmmm…chocolate cake!!!

When we chose Evansville I had looked online and it sounded like there were things to do besides the casino…that didn’t prove to be the case, but we had fun with what we found!

We visited Angel Mounds. Matthew had never seen mounds, so I was excited to show them to him. These mounds were very much smaller than the ones I visited as a child, but it was still interesting!

After the mounds we went to Sonic for 1/2 price Happy Hour drinks…mmm….slushies!!!!!

Then we visited Indiana’s first Victorian home. It was owned by the Reitz family. We missed the first half of the video that gave the history, but they did something with wood or milling…or something!!!! Ha!

We didn’t get any good pictures of the house…but it was extremely gaudy! Everything was really over the top…think gold leafing EVERYWHERE!!!!

Our last night there we walked the riverwalk at sunset…just watching the boats and barges work. Then we had a nice steak dinner…cashed in our casino voucher…and ordered our room service breakfast for the morning. =) Neither of us had ever had room service before, so that was a special (expensive) treat!

Love you Matthew…more and more each day!