a new year

The unofficial end of summer has come and gone and we sent Miriam back to school last week.  She had mixed emotions about being back at school, but was overall pretty excited.  She has a great teacher and we are looking forward to seeing how she will grow in 1st grade!

six {!}

I'm not sure how it happened, but six years somehow have passed by since our beautiful Miriam entered the world and joined our family.  What a blessing she is to all of us!  We are so proud of her.  Today (and this weekend!) are full of celebrations for our Miriam Jean.

sparkly princesses

We certainly have our share of pink, purple, sparkles and anything girly in our house.  Here are Miriam and Abbie modeling some new crowns they made a few nights ago.  This kept them busy for almost an hour!  Miriam put hers together completely by herself while Abbie sat with me and we did it together.  They even had to match the colored jewel to the number on the crown.  A fun project for all!

splish splash

A few weeks back, I bought a slip 'n slide for the girls to use this summer.  They all love it!  It's nice because the kiddie pool is usually too cold to swim in....even on the hottest days.  I usually forget to fill it in the morning and have it sit out all day to warm up, so the slip 'n slide is a fun way for the girls to cool off without freezing.  Even Ella likes to splash in the little pools of water from it.  Miriam and Abbie have also been taking swimming lessons this week, so they are getting lots of time in the water!

Weekend road trip

Last weekend, we (minus Ella and plus Matt's sister) traveled to Indiana to attend Matt's brother's college graduation.  It was a lot of driving in a short amount of time...but also a lot of fun!  The girls both did really well in the car.  I had stocked up on a handful of toys from the dollar spot that I pulled out every few hours to entertain them.  We also watched a few movies and had some iPad time.  Plus, having their auntie right in the back with them was quite helpful!  We thought it would be a bit too long of a drive for Ella to join us, so she stayed with my parents.  We look forward to when she can road trip with us someday, too!  Here are some pictures from the weekend...

our latest accomplishments.

...and by "our", I mean the children.

Miriam:
Reading. I love this so much. I feel like she's had the fundamentals for reading for awhile--even before Kindergarten--but her confidence has really helped her get that extra push to actually read on her own. She still struggles with confidence a bit...sometimes I give her a book we own and I know she can read it but she thinks she can't and then won't try. But any of the books she brings home from school that her teacher says she can read, she will. It's been really fun (especially as a former elementary teacher) to watch her learn this. One of my favorite milestones so far!

Abbie:
Puzzles, potty training and painting. That pretty much sums it all up! Abbie is wanting to everything like her big sister, so she is learning much along the way. She always surprises me with how well she can do puzzles, and she loves to do them, too. Potty training...well, that has been in the works for awhile now, but she does almost everything on her own. That helps me a lot, too! And painting...she asks me to do this all the time. So we do it as often as we can!

Ella:
Walking and talking. This little girl has taken her sweet time with walking. She is a master scooter (I will post a video sometime soon of that), so I feel like the normal transition from crawling to walking isn't quite there for her. She definitively could be fully walking if she wanted to, but she often just plops down and scoots along. But everywhere I take her, people repeatedly comment on how they just love watching her scoot! I just want her up and walking so I can take her outside. Scooting on the muddy grass will not do wonders for my massive laundry load! And talking...I think "bye" was her official first word. She is so used to saying it each morning to Matt and Miriam when they leave for the day. It comes out as, "daaa!" and she always waves, too. She's working on "hi" and pretty much signs her other "words."

It's so fun watching them all grow up in their own stages!

please take a picture

For some reason, Miriam is a very nostalgic child. Just as she recently reminded us to make sure we had pictures of her in the snow this winter, she also keeps asking us to take a picture of something she's made or wants to remember. I'm not sure what has sparked this in her...but someday we will look back and see a ton of pictures of Miriam and her day-to-day play and creations. This is the beauty of digital photos! Here are a few of her recent requests for pictures...

silly slinkies

Snowman

Miriam is on Spring break this week and we were able to go to my parents' house for a quick visit. Even though Matt and I got the flu and also gave it to my mom, we still had a good time. On a non-sick day, Matt and my dad took Miriam and Abbie outside for a bit. Since the snow is finally melting a little, it also made for good snowman-making weather. We actually never got a chance to make one this year even though we had so much snow! I just love seeing this picture of my dad with the girls because I have several of my sister, brother and I standing in front of a similar snowman growing up. My dad always puts the top hat on top. The girls loved it.

growing up

I have commented to a few people lately that although my days and weeks sometimes seem long, the months and years always fly by. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but it often feels that way. Sometimes I find myself just wishing for time to go by so that we can hurry out of these intense and often challenging days of parenting. But then I look at these pictures and wonder...where did that time go? I need to constantly remind myself to live in these moments, no matter how hard they are.

a house full of girls!

the kidlets

Lately I've been calling our kiddos "the kidlets."  Not sure why, but it's stuck.  Here we are lately...  

We were shopping at Menard's and the girls were hugging in the cart.  Priceless.

When we play outside, we put this little one in her stroller and she usually will happily sit there for quite sometime.  She's such a content little girl!

Matt took the girls to a park the other day.  Abbie loves to swing (especially like how she is in the picture above).  She jumps on with her stomach and flies away.

Here are the girls sitting with Matt at his work computer in our basement.  I love Miriam's face in this one!