My Birthday

It's my Birthday and I have only 1 request..... uninterrupted fun time with my little family! And so my wish came to be.....

We started the fun at the Yosemite Mt. Sugar Pine Railroad.

We enjoyed the fall colors along the ride.

We enjoyed the history.

We enjoyed just being together.

Then with bikes loaded, we continued on to.....

Yosemite!!

One of our very favorite places to be!

The weather was beautiful, the fall colors were in full swing, the waterfalls were flowing....

It was slated to be a perfect weekend!

We rode our bicycles all around the park. With Daddy as our tour guide.

We drank in the breath taking beauty.

We savored our time together.

We took lots of silly pictures and movies!

We even chased a bear!

One of my very favorite things about the weekend was watching our girls ride their bicycles. It is hard to explain how fun it is. Adalie's little legs pumping so hard and fast her bike wobbles, Josiah leading the pack, practicing skid marks, and seeing them ride side by side down a corridor filled with fall colors and they hardly watched where they were headed as they chit-chatted along.

I am so very blessed to have a family that loves me this much!

Thank you for yet another very special Birthday!

Crazy Hair Day

Crazy Hair Day
(Piper, Kaia, Josiah, Adalie and Riley)

Mrs. Lemmon's 1st Grade Class (and Adalie) sporting their crazy dos!


And she finally mastered the monkey bars and was so excited to show off her new found talent!!

I remember hours and hours of recess time on the bars!!

Fun Fun!!

Because

Because they DO love me!! One day Josiah comes home from school and disappears with Adalie into the play room for what seemed to me forever!! And then I closed my eyes and waited for my surprise .... and this is what I saw. My heart burst with joy! Life doesn't get any better than this!

I am the luckiest girl in the whole wide world!!

Tooth Fairy

The Tooth Fairy in this house has been a crack up. I'm not even sure how it began, except that Josiah LOVES notes. Loves to write them, loves to give them, loves to receive them. So it would make sense that the Tooth Fairy would leave Josiah a note. But this simple act opened a big can of worms... Josiah began sending notes BACK to the Tooth Fairy. And boy does she ask some good questions of the Tooth Fairy. Like... what do you look like?, can I see the dress you wear?, what do you do with the teeth you collect?, how big are you?, is there a Tooth Fairy for each country (1 time we lost a tooth in Norway)?

OH MY!!

But my favorite Tooth Fairy exchange is the most recent. Josiah decided that she was going to leave the Tooth Fairy a gift along with her tooth as a thank you. So, she made a tissue paper flower and left a quarter for the tooth fairy to find!

So sweet!

Tooth Fairy pillow borrowed from Amma who made it to collect Daddy's teeth for the Tooth Fairy!

Soccer 2009

Soccer Season 2009 has begun and we are having a blast. Josiah is playing on an all girls under 8yrs team, The Swarm. And Adalie is playing on a co-ed under 5yrs team, the Wild Horses.

Josiah had a break away, dribbled all the way down the field and her shot on goal just misses.....

One minute later, Brooke is driving the ball down the field, Josiah is running with her, Brooke passes and Josiah scores!! Her 1st goal ever!!

The girls celebrate a hard earned goal!

Coach Seth and The Swarm. I am so proud!

Adalie's team warming up before their game.
(Kaiya, Adalie, Quinton and Kiva)


The Wild Horses lined up and ready to play. It was so cute to tell Kaiya and Adalie that they could only hold hands out on the field until the ball was kicked off!
(Kaiya, Adalie, Nyviah, Kiva and Tawah in as goalie)

So far Adalie LOVES soccer. She asks everyday if today is soccer practice. Her enthusiasm is fun to watch because being the smallest one on the team means she works that much harder to get the ball! She is quite the firecracker!

Adalie and Sage cheering for Josiah!

This week we had a very special guest at the soccer fields... Cousin Sage!


Can't wait til next Saturday!!

One of those days...

Today was one of those days. One of those days when you ask yourself what have we done? We have created a girl that expects people to treat her with the same kindness that she treats them, and to sincerely say they are sorry when they don't.

And so because of these expectations, today was one of those days where you see your daughter with her feelings hurt. You see her rightfully angry at the injustice and truly saddened by her options of response.

And your hands are tied, you have no recourse, you have no advise that is helpful, you can't make it all better.

The only thing you can do is give her a squeeze, look into her tear filled eyes and say "well, I love you!" And in your heart you fiercely pray that she will keep her heart of compassion, that she will not lose sight of empathy, that she will not be hardened, that she will always be so sweet......

Sharing

Josiah's 1st day of 1st grade sharing. So many things have changed with 1st grade.... its alot harder..... the days are longer, there is no free play time, no arts and crafts everyday, added Social Studies, sharing is only once per month.... aye aye!! This is not Kindergarten anymore Dorothy!! But she loves it and is learning ALOT! So here is the long awaited share day..... she shared her goofy google straw glasses from Adalie's Birthday and it was a BIG hit!! The kids loved them!!

and a 2 for 1 for me..... it was also Cousin Piper's share day!! YEAH!