Girls & Boys

My friend Jana and I like to talk about how her son and my girls are different. Case in point: Clem likes to play with cars. He gets on the floor, pushes them around, studies how they work, makes car noises, etc. Catherine...reads to her cars.


And now we have to show the cars the picture:



Hope they liked the story!

Lost Tooth!

Lauren lost her first tooth overnight (she came into my room about 5:30 this morning to show me.) Her permanent tooth was already coming in behind the loose tooth, so you can see it in the pictures. She was so excited! She'll put her tooth under her pillow tonight for the Tooth Fairy, so I suspect I'll get another early visit tomorrow showing me what the TF brought! :)

Happy Birthday, Lauren!

Lauren is 6 years old today! She had a great day with pancakes for breakfast, a party at Frog Legs and Moe's for dinner. :) She has loose teeth, increasing negotiating skills, a tendancy toward the dramatic and a need to boss her sister. She's also a sweet, loving and wonderful part of our family! Happy birthday sweet girl!

Lauren - 6 years - November '08

Lauren - 6 months - May '03

Happy Birthday Catherine!

Catherine is 3 years old today! It doesn't seem possible that it has been three years since she was born. She had a little party with her friend Clem yesterday, and she's having a party with her preschool classmates tomorrow at school. She is such a funny, happy little girl and I'm so thankful that she is a part of our life.

Sign of the times...

Lauren came home from school today and said, "We had a new drill! It wasn't a fire drill or a tornado drill. We learned what to do if a bad person comes to the school." She then proceeded to tell me the password that the principal would use to announce the presence of a "bad person," and where their safe zones are. Scary, but necessary.

Soccer Game

Lauren is playing soccer again this fall. Today was the best game she's had yet. She scored three goals, which was her favorite part. MY favorite part was her hustle and enthusiasm the whole game. Most games she doesn't want to play and asks the coach for breaks. Today she wanted to stay in the game the whole time. She did a great job running to the ball and she had some good assists and good blocks. It was so much fun to watch her!

Important Safety Information

Ok...so I'm pitifully behind on updating my blog and I have a lot of fun pictures to share. BUT, I had to share this story.

I picked Catherine up at preschool yesterday and her teacher said they had been learning about dialing 911 in an emergency. She had colored a cute picture of a phone and the teachers had her put one fingerprint on the 9 and two fingerprints on the 1. So, as we're driving home I asked Catherine: "What do you do in an emergency?" Catherine said, "You run to the potty, pull down your pants and go pee-pee!" You know...at almost 3 years old, that's just as important as 911...!

Georgia Aquarium

We had planned to go to Panama City for the Labor Day weekend, but we decided not to travel south after watching the forcasts for Gustav. So, we headed to Atlanta yesterday to visit the Georgia Aquarium. As we were driving through downtown Atlanta to the Aquarium, we realized that some type of Star Wars/Star Trek convention was going on. (I looked it up later and it was a Dragon-Con Convention??!) Anyway, we saw several interesting costumes...! When we got to the Aquarium, we saw that ESPN College Game Day was set up in Centennial Park. Ken had fun wandering around with all the Alabama and Clemson fans while the girls played on the playground. We finally got into the Aquarium and it was awesome! We liked it so much that we decided to upgrade our tickets to a yearly membership. We plan to head back very soon.

Catherine's First Day of Preschool!

Today was Catherine's first day at Parkway Preschool! She was so excited - she's been ready to go to school since Lauren went on the 11th. (Actually, she probably wanted to go ahead and start last year! ) Her teachers are Ms. Kim and Ms. Kandy....or as Catherine says with her southern accent, Miss Kam and Miss Ka-andy. :)

Catherine's best bud Clem also started school today - he was ready to go too!!

Jana & I are celebrating our first day without any children by going to lunch later. It will be so strange to have a conversation over lunch without saying "Stop throwing your food!" "Don't hit your sister!" "EAT!" Hopefully I won't try to cut Jana's chicken for her...

First Day of School!

Today was Lauren's first day of Kindergarten. She was so excited!



We took a couple of pictures outside of the school and then she was ready to go to her pod. She told me, "I remember how to get to the Yellow Pod - you don't need to help me."

Meanwhile, Catherine and Clem got to play together this morning. They enjoyed having a snack break while playing outside:

"Meet the Teacher" Night

Tonight was "Meet the Teacher" night at Lauren's kindergarten. As we were walking to the school from the church parking lot across the street, a torrential rain storm started. Sooo...I looked like a drowned rat as we went into meet the teacher. I felt the same nervous feeling I remember from starting school when I was little. (Not that it's about me....) Anyway - Lauren was great! She is in the Yellow Pod and her teacher is Mrs. Mims. We got her signed up to ride the bus home in the afternoons. She is so excited about starting school on Monday.

Lauren & Mrs. Mims

Fun with Friends!

We went to Montgomery on Wednesday to visit Lauren's friend Trey (and my friend Edris!) We got to meet Trey's little sister Chandler for the first time as well. The kids had a great time playing in Trey's "water park"!

Getting ready for school...

Lauren starts Kindergarten next Monday at Auburn Early Education Center or as she calls it "Auburn Early Edge." Catherine will start Mother's Day Out the last week of August at Parkway Preschool. We ordered new backpacks for school and they just arrived today. The girls are so excited and can't wait to start school!! We are going to meet Lauren's teacher on Thursday night.

Beach Trip Part 2

As promised, I'm finally publishing more pictures from our beach trip. I don't actually have any pictures from the beach itself...Mom took all of those pictures!

Beach Trip!

On Sunday we returned from our annual family beach trip. The girls & I spent the week with my parents, my sister Katie and brother-in-law Bob and my brother Jay. Ken was able to come down for both weekends, which was great! We enjoyed feeding the turtles and fish in the lake behind the condo, going to the beach, going to the water park, a day at Crystal Lake with Nan & Dick and lots of seafood eating and margarita drinking. One fun highlight was on July 4th - Katie, Bob, Jay, Ken and I drove to Seaside to sightsee. Well, we ended up seeing Jessica Simpson and Tony Romo! I was hanging out of the van window taking pictures...I really played it cool. :) I will post more pictures soon.