Awards, Dance class, and Potty talk

Kendall all ready for dance class

the back view of her outfit and her bun

Avery before her class

posing with her bear David

showing off her arabesque which she already learned at gymnastics

The past few weeks since I last wrote have been fairly eventful around our house. To start off, shortly after we returned from our Colorado vacation, Scott found out that not only was he named a Top Dentist (periodontist category) in Ft Worth for the second year in a row, but he was also named by his peers as a Texas Super Dentist! His name will appear in Texas Monthly Magazine this fall. . . I forget which month exactly. I am extremely proud of him of course. He is doing so well in his practice and it is growing steadily now. He has four full-time employees and one part-time now, which has made his life easier and less stressful. That's always a good thing! Avery has been busy all summer with gymnastics and swimming lessons, and just this week she and Kendall have both begun dance class. They are each taking a ballet/tap/tumbling combo class-- Kendall's is Wednesday mornings and Avery's is Wednesday afternoons. They were both SOOO excited to wear their outfits and shoes and have their hair done up in a bun like real ballerinas. Kendall said her favorite part was doing a back roll, and she kept saying that she had "Super Duper Fun!" Avery's favorite part was dancing around like a butterfly. When I went in to get her at the end she said,"But I don't want to leave yet!" I guess we made a good choice of an activity to enroll them in. Another bit of exciting news is that Kendall is now potty trained! The plan was always to do it right after our Colorado trip, but I was procrastinating a little because I thought it was going to be a huge battle. Boy was I surprised! We went and got a princess potty that plays music, let her pick out panties and got a big bag of M&M's for rewards and by the second day she had it down! She has still had some accidents here and there of course, but even then she tells me she has to go and we just can't get to the bathroom quick enough. The best part is that she has been keeping her pull-up dry at nap time almost every day as well! Those things are so expensive, so the fewer we can use the better! And the icing on the cake is that now that she is potty-trained, it seems that she views herself as a big girl and is becoming more independent in other ways as well. She wants to put on her own shoes, buckle herself in the car seat, walk rather than be carried when we go places. . . now if we could only get rid of her lovey and stop the thumb-sucking! Oh well, at least she has 3 more years before she goes to kindergarten!

Colorado Trip- Part Two

American Basin

The second half of our Colorado trip was spent doing some traditional outdoorsy-type things. Wed. morning my parents watched the girls and Scott and I took our rented jeep up to American Basin, which has amazing views. There was a gorgeous mixture of wildflowers, waterfalls, streams, and snow patches. Once we reached the basin we took off on foot toward Handies' Peak. Unfortunately we did not make it all the way. I got altitude sickness (the worst!) with a horrible headache and upset stomach. So we started back down, only to have to stop for an hour and half for me to sleep a little and recover enough to walk down the rest of the way. That evening we went over to Gunnison to eat dinner and then let the girls play at the park. They had some HUGE slides and I couldn't believe how brave the girls were to go down them. Unfortunately Kendall got twisted around in the gigantic tunnel slide and was scared of it from then on. When we returned to the cabin that night I still didn't feel well, so the girls gave me some flowers they had picked outside and helped make me a bed on the couch where I could relax. It was so precious. Thursday Scott and my Dad took Avery fishing at Deer Lakes and Kendall, my Mom and I hung around the cabin and went out to feed the neighborhood woodchuck or marmot, whichever it was. That night we all went out to Lake San Cristobal right outside Lake City and Scott, my Dad, and the girls all fished. The girls gave up pretty quickly and went on to the sport of rock throwing, but my Dad was lucky enough to catch one rainbow trout. On Friday Scott and my Dad went fly fishing with a guide for most of the day, and my Mom, the girls and I went shopping in town and got some neat souveneirs. We left on Saturday morning and arrived back home late Sunday afternoon. It was such a relaxing trip and we made so many great family memories-- truly what a vacation should be!

another pic of American Basin and the hiking trail up to Handies Peak

king of the mountain

beautiful waterfall cascading down the mountain

me by a big patch of snow

HUGE tunnel slide in Gunnison

Kendall going down a smaller tunnel slide

Avery fishing with her Barbie fishing pole (Kendall's pole was Disney Princess)

Avery and her Poppi at Deer Lakes

Colorado Vacation- Part One

Family pic on the porch the day we arrived

We spent all last week- from Friday the 2nd through Sunday the 11th- on a family vacation with my parents to Lake City, CO. It was so beautiful there, the weather was great, and we really enjoyed spending time together as a family. We truly had an amazing time, but there are so many pics that I am a little overwhelmed! Hmm . . .where to begin? We took our time getting up there, staying in Clayton, NM Fri. night and then reaching Lake City by mid-afternoon on Saturday. Sunday was the 4th, so we headed into town (our cabin was up on a hill on the far side of town) for the parade, then games and food around the town square. The girls caught on really quickly that the more they waved at all the people in the parade, the more candy they got. They raked in quite a pile and were so proud of it! That night we went back into town to get ice cream at the Soda shop and to listen to the band playing in the town square. Later we headed back up to our cabin to watch the fireworks since we had a perfect view. This was Avery's first time to stay up for fireworks and she loved it! She gave us the play-by-play on the whole show. Monday morning we took a tour of the Hard Tack Mine, and that night we let the girls play in the tent we had set up beside the cabin and had a campfire and made s'mores. Tuesday we rented jeeps and took the Alpine Loop drive up into the mountains and had a picnic at a scenic spot. That night we joined my sister-in-law's family and friends, including my niece Bailey, at their cabins for dinner. They all go to Lake City every year for the 4th and Scott and I went with them about 8 or 9 yrs ago, so it was fun to do again. Here are some pics from the first half of our trip.

waiting for the parade to begin

waving at the people on the floats to get candy

getting a snuggle from Kendall

having some ice cream from San Juan Soda Co.

dancing with our daughters to the music of a band playing in the town square

Kendall dancing with Mimi

Hard Tack Mine- Kendall liked to pull her hard hat down over her eyes

watching Poppi making a bench out of logs

playing in the tent

Avery & Scott making silly faces

Mimi, Poppi, Avery and Kendall

pretending to row the old boat sitting out by our cabin

Avery roasting her first marshmallow

enjoying some s'mores- obvious by the marshmallow all over Avery's mouth!

they loved having their car seats so close together in the jeep and held hands through much of the ride

our picnic spot along the Alpine Loop

Father's Day

Since we are so blessed to live close to both mine and Scott's parents now, we had the pleasure of enjoying 2 Father's Day meals this year. Saturday night we met my parents at Riscky's BBQ in downtown Fort Worth for some all-you-can-eat ribs. We did miss having Amy (my sister) and her husband along this year though since they recently moved to Tennessee. After taking a few family pics around Sundance Square, we came back to the house and enjoyed some silly entertainment from Avery and Kendall. They both decided to put on leotards and were doing all kinds of silly poses, dances, and tricks. Then on Sunday we met Scott's family at Kincaid's burgers after church. We both really enjoyed spending some special time with our Fathers this year on (or close to) their special day. And this post wouldn't be complete without saying a special thank you to my wonderful husband who is the absolute best Daddy in the world!!!

Avery, my Dad, me, and Kendall

Scott and his girls

Mimi, Poppi, Avery and Kendall

silly poses (excuse Kendall's saggy diaper under her leotard!)

Scott and Tom

4 year and 2 year portraits

Over Memorial Day weekend we had Avery's 4 year and Kendall's 2 year portraits taken by my friend Kerri at the Grapevine Botanic Gardens. It's a great little spot for pictures with pretty grass, beautiful flowers, benches, rocks, a pond and more. I convinced Scott to be in some of the pictures too. I told him it was so he could have some of him and the girls for the office-- which was true, but i wanted to do something special with the pics for Father's Day. I framed 3 of the pics and then made something called a photo panel on the Creative Memories website. It stands up like a frame, but the whole front surface is just a big photo that you can add text and other things to. It turned out great and I already gave it to Scott, so it was safe to go ahead and mention it. Here are some of my favorite pics of the girls.

Last Day of Young Children's World

Last Thursday was Avery and Kendall's last day of school at YCW for the year. The last day is always fun, but emotional. I always get so attached to their teachers and I'm never ready to give them up and move on. But now that Avery's been going there for 3 yrs, I know that I'll grow to love the next set of teachers just as much because they've all been great. I'm excited for Kendall to move up to the 2's and for Avery to start Pre-K there next year. Kendall's class got to go out and fly a kite on the last day, but Avery said they didn't really do anything special-- who knows? It's always so much fun though to go pick them up and to see their end-of-year gifts from the teachers and to get their "Me" books with all their precious little pictures of things they did during the year. This year Avery got a "YCW friends" t-shirt with a picture of her and about 1/2 the kids in her class on it. Kendall got a sand pail decorated with her name and filled with bubbles, playdough, sunglasses, a beach ball, and more. I took a few pictures of Avery and Kendall with their teachers and of them playing at the "little" playscape after school. Now they are off to what I am calling "Mommy Preschool." I decided that since there is no summer session at YCW this year, we are going to do a sort of homeschool preschool 2 days a week to keep us busy and give us fun, interesting things to do. Wish me luck! I'm sure there will be a post on that later :)

Kendall and her main teacher, Ms. Sarah. These 2 loved each other!

Avery with her outstanding teachers, Mrs. Patty and Mrs. Christi

Kendall loves to go down the star slide

Sliding together. I don't know what Avery was looking at so intently!

Kendall had fun looking all the pics of her and her friends in her "Me" book

All the big kids like sitting on the stars more than sliding, Avery included. But she spends most of her playtime now in the big 2 story playscape and running around with her friends.