Big News

As in huge...epic...GINORMOUS!!

You want to know what it is....

Like, really want to know...

Okay, I'll stop now

We're NOT moving to Texas!!

Let me say that again...we're NOT MOVING AT ALL!!!

Ryan accepted a position with a new company two weeks ago

They might be kind of familiar to you as I'm sure many of you have either owned or remember those annoying commercials

"Dude...you're gettin' a..."

Yup, that's right, Ryan's going to be the new Dell guy...he's been working on his acting career in his spare time

Yeah, right! You won't be seeing his face on the TV and he won't be who you call for technical support. I honestly don't even understand what he does and I'm okay with that. Keeps the excitement in our marriage! :) This opportunity fell into Ryan's lap and God paved the way from start to finish.

God listens and answers prayers,

 every single one of them my mom prayed against our moving

Seriously, that's what she and I believe half our church prayed for the past 5 months

...the other half, well, we'll deal with them later (insert evil laugh)

So we will continue to reside in the lovely state of Michigan with our fantastic family and friends. We won't have to sell our brand spankin' new home!

Ryan's office will be based in our home. He will have to travel but not as much as he did with his previous company.

I won't bore you with pictures of all the great things that Michigan has to offer...

Just know that I will not miss the boots, belt buckles and rattlesnakes of Texas

and two last words

Go Green!

Down on the Farm

I'm not really a farm person per say. I mean, I love the idea but I don't think I could handle the smell, poo, dirt, poo, mud, more poo, the work it involves. In other words, Ryan's not quiting his job to become a farmer anytime soon. However, I will take any opportunity to expose my children to something new so we stopped at the local 4H fair on our way to the cottage a few weekends ago.

The girls loved it...wait...the girls LOOOOVED it! Rows and rows of every farm animal you could imagine. Molly would talk to the animals in this high pitched voice (she does this at the zoo too) 

piggy bob-bum (Sophie speak)

feeding a calf (although this one looked like a teenage calf)

after spending some time with the animals we ventured on over to the rides/attraction part of the fair where we found the always fun "ride the pony around in a circle" ride.

Sophie was a pro

and if you're wondering where Molly is, she was attached to my leg whining "i do, i do"

so we paid the man and munchkin got her turn

she squealed and giggled the whole time

"mommy, i horsey" every time she came by

miss fancy pants riding all by herself

Now for those of you who know me well, horses and I don't have the best history. I've never been thrown off or anything, we just don't get along. I think they are beautiful creatures, from a distance. I have already informed my sister-in-law, Danielle, who was very much into riding and owned a few horses back in the day, that if my girls take any interest in horses, she has to deal with it.

Okay, sidetracked, back to the fair...

Next on Sophie's agenda was to go on every ride she possibly could

*cue Mommy and Daddy buying lots of ride tickets

So we started off small

little trucks going around on a track, nice easy ride

check out Sophie's hair in this picture, it was so humid out

this was about the second lap around and she was already showing us the next ride she wanted to go on

this one

note the thin lap strap keeping my babies in, I'm always up for some adventure and encourage my kids to try new things but I was just waiting for Molly to decide she was done and climb out

going up

and up, and Molly proved me wrong, they both loved it and pretended to drive their spaceship the entire ride

then Sophie spied her next ride to conquer

the alligator roller coaster

I watched her get measured by Ryan to make sure she was tall enough, she just made it. As she climbed in I realized how much she has grown over the past year. Last summer at a place like this she would have had her hands over her ears, face buried in my neck the entire time. Now she's willingly trying new things like roller coasters.

and she's off

she didn't cry, but you could tell she wasn't exactly enjoying it

After two times around the gentleman working the ride stopped it and she immediately said, "thank you for the ride" and hopped off.

I was so proud of her!

We hit a few more rides and took some more pictures

Sophie's photography with a little assistance from Daddy

please ignore giant teeth

I can thank my dad for those :)

more Sophie photography

The next day was spent at the cottage partaking in our favorite activity: swimming

Apparently baby wanted to swim too

and it's important to carry a juice cup with you at all times

A fun time was had by all!

Sad to see the summer go, but also excited for what the fall as in store!

For Grandma

This is my Grandma aka "gweat- gwamma jan"

My Grandma Jan (Hi Grandma) is the Queen of all things yarn and knitting needles. I remember going over to her house when I was little and looking at all her skeins of yarn, she always had beautiful colors. She taught me to knit years ago, but unfortunately it never really stuck. Someday we'll have to do another lesson! :)

She made each of my girls a beautiful blanket when they were babies. Gorgeous blankies!! Molly is particularly fond of hers and sleeps with it all the time.

This morning she was in a mood and when Molly's in a mood, you had better watch out. Apparently the only thing that she felt like doing was sitting.

Just sitting with her binky and favorite blankie. Normally there's a bear in the equation but this morning he didn't make the cut.

Notice the little tear by her eye, she's wasn't too happy with me.

So I just let her sit.

Sit until she decided she liked me again and wanted to eat breakfast.

"juice pease!"

Oh my Molly girl, mommy's not ready for you to grow up!

And Grandma,

Molly says "thank cou!"

Home Ec

photo credit

I signed up to participate in an online sewing class called Home Ec. I'm super excited as I seem to make stuff up while I sew and I'm hoping this class helps me to really learn the basics. My friend Bobbi Jo and I are doing it together and we've had so much fun already. We decided to be brave and take her two kiddos and my two kiddos to the fabric store together, that is 4 kiddies 4 and under and somehow we survived (thank you smarties and dum-dum suckers). We stocked up on a few items and started in on the class. They have great videos for beginners and each project is designed to help you learn a specific skill and grow on the ones you've already learned. I believe there are 26 projects total (wow!). The class itself is 5 weeks, but they've designed the projects to take it at your own pace. Thank goodness, because there is no way I could finish 26 projects in 5 weeks! Registration closed August 15th, but LA from Freckled Nest just announced that they reopened registration for two more days. If you're interested in learning how to sew I would definitely look into this class!! Let me know if you participate!

Giveaway at Twelve Crafts

Giveaways are so much fun! Elizabeth over at Twelve Crafts Till Christmas is hosting a giveaway (ends Monday) from the CSN stores. Elizabeth is awesome! She's committed herself to making all of her girls' Christmas gifts this year and started a blog to document her journey. She is so inspiring and I have a few of her projects on my list for my girls this Christmas. Best of all Elizabeth is real and honest and I appreciate that. So head on over to Twelve Crafts Till Christmas and enter her giveaway.

Sophie's First Dance Camp

This week Sophie took her first dance camp at Excel (the same studio she goes to during the school year). It was an Angelina Ballerina camp and she LOVED it! There were only three little girls at this camp and they had tons of fun dancing, making crafts, and dressing up in fun costumes. Here are videos from her performance today!

Fouth of July Festivities

We had a wonderful Fourth of July weekend, filled with fun! The four of us were completely exhausted by Monday! :)

I was a little worried as to how the weekend would go. Sophie had a 102-103 fever on Thursday, but she was over it by Thursday night. Never fun to have a normally bouncing, happy, rambunctious little one be so wiped out she can barely move. Poor thing! She came back strong though and we started the weekend off with a trip to the zoo with my sisters Sarah and Katelyn on Friday.

The girls LOVE the zoo! I taught Sophie the song that goes "we're goin' to the zoo-zoo-zoo, how about you-you-you" so now we sing that every time we go!

Ice cream at the zoo is a must

Pretty sure this was Molly's first ice cream cone, she love it!

Saturday we got up bright and early (6am for this momma), packed the kiddos in the car and drove north. We met up with my Aunt, Uncle and cousins at the parade in Cascade. It was so much fun to take the girls. We went to this parade when I was little. Of course the best part was collecting candy!

The girls decorated brown paper bags Friday night to use for their candy stash. Sophie was a bit overwhelmed by the loud trucks and sirens so she spent half the parade under a shady tree (it was HOT) with Ryan. Molly figured out the candy thing pretty quickly. She would run with her bag and grab what she could and throw it in her bag. She also collected every paper handout and placed them in her bag. She wanted to read up on the election candidates. :)

After the parade we drove to the cottage. Sophie was extremely excited to go to the "cottage at the lake" and continued to ask Ryan about every 5 minutes where we were going. She wanted to make sure he didn't deviate from the plan. :) The rest of our weekend was filled with water, sand, food and fun!

Hope you had a fantastic holiday weekend too! And by the way, I have a new tutorial I've been working on, I'll give you a hint