Last Day!!

Today was the last day of 1st grade! While I do have to say it is hard to believe that 1st grade is over, I do admit that I am ready for summer break!!

I think Jennifer is ready for summer break as well. She was excited for the last day of school. I think she was so excited because her class was going on a picnic so she got to take a sack lunch. Jennifer took her lunch a lot through out the year but this was an actual sack lunch, with a juice box!

 After today we will have a 2nd Grader!

 Of course Mikayla wanted her picture taken with Jennifer. (Ignore the pj's and messy hair!)

 In case you didn't know she was excited about taking her lunch today, one last picture with it!

Jennifer had a great year in 1st grade. It really was fun to watch and see her learn so much! She has grown in many areas. But now it has come to an end. We are looking forward to warmer days ahead filled with lots of playing outside, going to the pool and just well just having a fun summer.
Now that school is officially over we can being the count down until vacation!

a new button

So many people have observed lately that Miss Kelly girl has been missing her fashionable tube and backpack that seemed to be with her all the time. Well here is the deal, Kelly still uses her feeding tube. In fact she is hooked up about ten each night and is feed through her feeding tube all night long. We turn it off in the morning and then bottle feed her through out the day. Kelly is doing well at taking the bottle but hooking up to the pump at night is our way of making sure she is getting enough formula in a twenty-four hour time span. It is kind of our safety net for now. This is sort of our plan until after Kelly's heart surgery in August. Kelly will be sporting her G-button until she is at least two, even if we are not using it, which of course is our ultimate goal.

Speaking of her G-button, yesterday we traveled up to Mayo to get a new one. They usually change out the button after about six weeks. So Kelly got a new button, this particular button is actually different than her first one. It is slightly smaller in size, which I kind of like. And they also showed Bill and I how to change out her button. The doctor told us it was really easy, I was a little skeptical at first, but she was right. It will be a lot easier than I thought. So if Kelly's button were to come out for some reason (let's just say a big sister happens to pull it out or Kelly gets a hold of it for some reason) we can now put it back in.

 Mikayla went with us yesterday and so she kind of missed out on a nap and then the girls went to bed a little later than normal. So this morning Mikayla was a little tired. I asked her if she wanted to take a bath and her response was "no". A few minutes later, it may have been more like seconds later, she was laying on the floor, asleep.

 I knew she was tired because she laid down while watching one of her music videos. Usually she is up signing and dancing along to the songs, not this morning.

 Later in the day while we were waiting for our adoption social worker to come for a visit, Mikayla was wanting to take pictures. So we took a few self portraits.

 And a picture of Kelly was in order as well. She really is a cute, cute baby!

rainy day

So it seems rain has kind of become the norm around here. So what do we do when there is no school today and it is of course raining?

Well to start the morning off our girls thought we needed to put together the large foam letter mat that Mikayla had gotten from mama and papa for her birthday. They proceeded to have a little party on it!

 Showing off their "moves". 

 The girls then went down the basement to "play" for a few minutes. You never really know what is going to happen when they go downstairs without supervision. This is what Jennifer came upstairs looking like. Who can blame her really? We did after all just put all this stuff away a few weeks ago!

 After bundling up, for a snowstorm, Jennifer thought it would be fun to go play in the rain. It is hard to see but she is on the red horse swing. This didn't last long though.

I would have voted to sleep in on a rainy day off. But as you can see my girls were not have any of that. I suppose maybe, just maybe, this was a little more fun than sleeping in.

Oops!

This morning we were getting ready for a visit from Mama and Papa and so we were making brownies to have after lunch. We decided to put a few chocolate chips into the batter for an extra treat. Well a few more than we expected ended up in the batter.

If you look closely you can see the empty chocolate chip bag in Mikayla's hand and she is trying to look sad, not very convincing. 

 Bill and I both turned away to put stuff in the sink and Mikayla decided that we should put the whole bag in the batter! We couldn't really scold her because we were both laughing so hard!

 Chocolate chips anyone?!

 Bill then tried to scoop out the excess chips into a bowl and Mikayla proceeded to dump them back in, twice, before Bill wised up and moved the bowl away from her!

Our girls do love to help in the kitchen, this particular day Mikayla was just extra helpful! The brownies were still good, they just had a few more chocolate chips than first expected!

a little birthday fun

Today Mama and Papa came up to do a little birthday celebrating with the girls. With the craziness of being gone for almost a month we knew a big party for the girls wasn't going to happen. So this year the girls just get a few little parties, which is always fun too!

Mama and the girls!

 Mama made some cupcakes to for us to enjoy and she decided to wait and have the girls help her decorate them. Of course the girls thought this was great!

 Of course there were also presents for the birthday girls!

 A purple longer dress, this was one of the only things Jennifer asked for her birthday. As you can see she is over the top excited about it.

 Mikayla loves the movie "Tangled" right now. So she got a Tangled baby. She loves her.

Mikayla also got some magnetic letters. A huge hit with both the girls. Mikayla has already had a ton of fun with these. They are going to fun to have, it is great to listen to Mikayla say the letters and count them, in her own way of course.

 My grandma and grandpa came to help us celebrate too. They were of course in love with Kelly.

 And my birthday just happens to fall right in between Jennifer and Mikayla's so I got to celebrate with the girls too!

 Of course it is always fun to spend the day with family and celebrating birthdays makes it all the more fun!

new wheels

Okay so this first picture has nothing to do with the rest of the post but it is a cute picture so I had to include it!

Now onto the new wheels at our house. The new wheels are Jennifer's and she is beyond excited about her new ride! Bill researched long and hard to find the best tag-a-long bike for this girl and this is what we ended up with. After just one ride we are loving it!

 Mikayla also scored some new wheels today, new to her anyway. Bill was helping a family pack up to move this afternoon and they gave him this trike for the girls. Mikayla needs to grow a few more inches before she can reach the pedals completely to make it go but she looks darn cute on it.  

 The picture is a little blurry because the two of them are going so fast!

I even got a turn riding with Jennifer. Bill is going to love riding with Jennifer. When she gets to peddling she can make the both of us go, I stopped peddling a few times and just let her do the work! Although she gets mad when you stop peddling and quickly lets you know to start again.

 While Bill and Jennifer took one more turn on the bike the little girls and I had some fun waiting for them.

 Kind of hard to hold a baby and take a self-portrait! 

 Love this smile!

Look for Bill and Jennifer whizzing through a neighborhood near you soon! Jennifer is loving this new "bike" and wants to ride all the time, I love it!

Excellent Talent

Today at school Jennifer's class is down to the letter "E". And "E" stands for Excellent Talent, which means the kids had a talent show. For Jennifer's talent she picked a song from the Vacation Bible School video that we will be doing this summer at church. She learned the song and the moves and performed it at the talent show. She did a great job! Here are a few pictures and a little bit of her performance on video.

You will notice another familiar face in the pictures. Yes Mikayla decided she should help Jennifer perform her talent. As soon as Jennifer walked to the front and the music started Mikayla was on her feet and walking to the front too. Of course Jennifer's teacher said she could come up and Jennifer thought it was great to have her sister perform with her!

Mikayla did get a little nervous a few times, there were a lot of kids watching her! So you will notice Jennifer trying to get her to dance a few times. And you may hear Jennifer say, "No Mom just me." I starting doing the motions a few times and she was quick to tell me to stop! She had this, what was I thinking reminding her of the moves!

Dressed up girls

All three of the girls were dressed up today and of course I couldn't let the opportunity pass to get some pictures. Sometimes though getting a good picture of all three girls is easier said than done!

Jennifer is more interested in Kelly than getting a good picture!

Mikayla is starting to have enough of this game. We are slowly starting to lose her.

Mikayla is starting in with the funny faces...

And now she is officially done. Pouting a little bit for the camera.

Jennifer and Kelly were still going strong though.

I was able to get another smile out of Mikayla. She really is a funny girl!

And we lost her again.

"What, we get to go inside and have popcorn and watch a movie?" That makes everything better!

Not sure if this photo shoot was successful or not. I'm sure there will be many to come...