Lydia is 8 years old!

Lydia is 8 years old!  Lydia has grown up so much in the last year!  Out with the pink and purple; in with the blue and green.  Out with the rainbows and butterflies; in with the guinea pigs and endless chapter books.  Out with the princesses and ponies; in with the ancient Rome and gladiators!

Lydia has the same teacher she had last year, which has worked out really well for her.  In first grade, her teacher recognized that she was quite bored with the math curriculum, so she challenged her to complete the 1st and 2nd grade curriculum.  This year, she joins a 3rd grade class for math.  It is hard work, and we are proud of her!  Lydia also LOVES to read! She devours all kinds of books.

Lydia has decided that swimming is her sport. She is in level 4, which requires her to do the front crawl and backstroke for 25 yards and butterfly and sidestroke for 15 yards.  She has all the skills except the butterfly.

Lydia has been talking for months about wanting a "guinea pig" birthday.  Guess what?  You can't just go to the party store and buy guinea pigs paper plates and napkins and balloons.  And what exactly do you do at a "guinea pig" party?  This was definitely going to require some imagination help from pinterest.  The decorations were limited, but I made a guinea pig cake and came up with two crafts.  I also made a "sling" for her to carry Milo around in.  Lydia praised this as "the best birthday party ever"! And I was just going for passing!

We also had a special day planned for Lydia.  Papa and Meemaw usually take each kid out to lunch and they go shopping for a present for their birthday.  But for this special lunch, we left Papa at home and it was just the girls at at the American Girl Doll store!

Giving Thanks

"Every good and perfect gift is from above..."

James 1:17

Happy Thanksgiving

 

surprise fall getaway

Earlier this month, we surprised the kids with a two-night getaway to a hotel water park we had not been to before.  It featured seven water slides, and was small enough for the kids to navigate independently, but still thrilling enough for hours of fun.  Perfect, almost.

It would have been perfect if we hadn't taken two vehicles (Bryan continued on to Green Bay after) and gotten separated and I hadn't started out at the wrong hotel.

And it would have been perfect if all three of our children possessed the adventure-seeking heart to go on all the slides without Mom or Dad the first time. (By the end of the day, this was not an issue.)

(Okay, in hindsight, I'm actually glad I didn't *get to* sit on the sidelines the whole time.)

And it would have been perfect if a couple of games in the arcade didn't take our tokens and bring overtired children to tears.

And it would have been perfect if, two days before the trip, Brett and Reggie's wrestling match hadn't gotten a little out of hand. As a result, Reggie limped his way through the trip, willing his injury not to keep him from the fun.

It would have been perfect if Lydia would finally be 48 inches instead of 47.5 inches and Mom and Dad did not have to keep talking the lifeguards into allowing her to go on the big slide.

And it would have been perfect if the car battery hadn't gone dead leading to a few heated moments of...discussion.

A few weeks later, the kids are still talking about the "toilet bowl slide"...and that mom went to the wrong hotel.  I guess what I remember about family trips as a kid is the cool stuff...but mostly the sitting by the side of the road with the hood of the old brown station wagon up and steam rolling out.

So, in other words, we had a perfect getaway.

wacky balloons and other fall shenanigans

I love our maple tree every fall!

These guys are those wacky balloons, you know, those ones you see waving their long arms in used car lots.  For functionality, the costumes were one of my worst ideas ever. But, on the upside, the trio did win "most creative" at their school party.  When it came down to the business of trick-or-treating, the boys decided to go for ease and speed and dressed as a football and baseball player.

The kids could hardly wait to sort and trade!

They're both cute.

Brett likes to make me coffee. On this particular day, he had breakfast out for me, too.

The bread spider and donut monsters were pinterest winners.  The mummy meatloaf was not.

This year, we bought the whole hog instead of half.  That's 14 pounds of bacon!