Marina's First Day of Preschool

Marina started preschool today! She will be going Monday and Wednesday mornings, and is pretty excited to be just like Caden. Here are a few shots of her first day!

She and Braxton go to the same school, but have different teachers.

Sitting at her "desk"

Her art apron

She was so excited to see her name on the door with the other kids in her class.

Now that she is going to school - she gets to do the classic "thinking" pose with Papa

She had a great first day! I thought she would be sad to be away from me, but Damon said she wasn't sad at all when he dropped her off. Such a big girl!

What we've been up to . . . summer edition!

We have been REALLY busy this summer - hence my lack of blogging for over a month now. So, how about a quick recap? Mostly pictures with some writing? Sound good? Great then - here we go!!!

We did a lot of swimming - when the weather cooperated.

And some sprinkler fun, with cousin Braxton

We made a trip to visit our friends, The Wulpis, and hit up the Fort Wayne Zoo while we were there

The kids both took swim lessons at the Mooresville pool. Marina passed her preschool class and Caden made it all the way to level 3!

Dad took the boys (and me) to see "Walking with the Dinosaurs" at Conseco Fieldhouse downtown.

Concerts are my very favorite, and Damon and I got to attend a few this summer. Here I am at George Strait with Holly
.

Damon attempted to teach Caden to ride his bike without training wheels

But that didn't go too well

We also enjoyed the new walking path at the school and tried to make Gus exercise a little bit

The kids got to go to Holiday World with all of their cousins on Nonna's side

No matter how much we try to get Gus to exercise, this is still is favorite thing to do

We cheered Uncle Brent on at the Battle of the Bands

Gradndad from Virginia visited in late July. Here is a 4 generation shot .

We get to see our buddies Kathy and Charlie about once a week

Marina enjoyed some sun basking

Caden had his baseball pool party and got a medallion and a baseball with his name, team name and number on it. He carried those around for days - SO proud.

Caden is trying to earn money for a Nintendo DS. He is for hire if anyone needs anything done!

We love fairs and visited the State, Marion County and Johnson County Fairs - but our heart belongs to the Morgan County Fair - and it's food :) Here is Caden and some of his buddies on a ice-cream/lemon shake-up break.

Marina geting her hair done - with her face still painted from the fair :)

We were VERY lucky to get to spend 3 ADULT ONLY days at Dale Hallow Lake with our friends Holly, Scott, Ryan and Heather. Holly's parents, Alan and Debbie, have a boat down there and are the best hosts anyone could ever ask for It was so beautiful and peaceful - and the kids were being spoiled by Grandma Margie the entire time so there were NO WORRIES!!!!

School started on August 12th, which means Caden is in first grade and in school all day for the first time ever. This means Princess Marina and I have a LOT of time on our hands, and we haven't quite figured out how to deal with it yet. But that is another post for another time.

Caden visiting his classroom and desk a couple of days before school started

My big first grader. It seems like he is at school FOREVER and I miss him so much while he is gone. Bet that never really changes . . .

Daddy did everything he could to embarrass him at the bus stop :)

Caden has wanted to go to a Colts game FOREVER - so when Mamaw called to see if Caden and Damon wanted tickets to last Thursday nights game, I only gave a moments hesitation (since it was a school night). I am so happy I let him go - he talked about it for DAYS afterwards and wasn't too grouchy the next day.

Well, that's it for now! I promise to do a better job updating in the future. Also, I plan to start a food blog soon chock-full of fun recipes and tales of my adventures in the kitchen. So, stay tuned!