Hallie's First Day of Kindergarten

Today is Hallie's second day of Kindergarten and I'm still blubbering about how fast she's grown up! Every day she asks me, "Mom are you going to miss me again today?" To which I reply, "YES! Will you miss me?" And she says, "Well, I will kind of but I have a lot to do in kindergarten that keeps me busy, Mom." And just like that, I'm no longer the most important thing in her life. How did that happen? Well, let me start at the beginning... her first day of Kindergarten....



She was so excited for school to start that she begged to go shopping for her school supplies a month before... so we did. And she picked out a Rapunzel back pack which she thinks is rather cool.

I took Hallie to school her first day, and she was kind of mad at me that I didn't let her ride the bus. She didn't understand that I needed this more than she did. When we got there, Hallie lined up with the rest of the kindergartener's and then the kids went inside and I was left on the sidewalk wiping my tears as Sydnee said, "You're crying Mom!?" I didn't care if she was embarrassed, my little girl was growing up and I had a right to get a little teary eyed. This is Hallie's teacher, Mrs. J who she draws pictures for all the time, it's sweet.

At the end of her first day, Daddy was able to come home from work early so he and Grandpa came with me to pick her up which she loved being able to show them her class and her school.

Hallie had a great day at school. She loves her teacher and has made a friend named Faith in her class already. Here she is at her desk.



Today, I let her ride the bus. They were doing some construction work at the beginning of our street, so the bus couldn't come to our house to pick her up like it normally would so we started walking to the end of our street to catch the bus and instead of going around the construction, Hallie was fully prepared to jump right over that construction site to catch her bus. As I told her to go around the construction instead of over it, the construction workers laughed and made comments about how excited she was to get on that bus! She hopped on the bus and waived with a big smile on her face as it drove off.

A Visit From Grandpa!

The last week of summer was a fun one because Grandpa Voge visited from Utah! The girls were so excited to see him, and Hallie was excited that Grandpa would be there for her first day of Kindergarten. When Grandpa arrived, Sydnee told him, "I'm so excited, I missed you Grandpa." It was so sweet. Then they grabbed Grandpa's hand and gave him the tour of our new house. Grandpa came for a relaxing visit, but little did we know that our basement would flood the week prior to his visit, so while he was here, he was a HUGE help in putting the basement back together which we so appreciated!

Grandpa played Candy Land and Memory with the girls and pushed them on the swingset, read books to them, let them play games on his laptop,

and he surprised them with these cute dresses they wore to church,

and these aprons to help Daddy bake in.

He even surprised Cam and I by replacing all our light switch and outlet covers to white ones instead of the old almond colored ones, wow what a difference they make!

On Saturday we went to the beach where we swam and built sand castles with Grandpa.

Here's Grandpa teaching Hallie how to skip rocks.

We rented kayak boats with the kids and went kayaking on Lake Erie. Hallie got into that boat and started rowing like she'd been doing it since the day she was born...no fear. Who does she get that from? (not me!)


I, on the other hand, wasn't too happy about being in this unstable boat 8 months pregnant with our kids who didn't really know how to swim, not to mention the water was pretty rough. But, I went along with it (saying lots of prayers in my head that we wouldn't flip over) and it ended up being a lot of fun! I'm glad Cam talked me into going, despite his laughing at my fear of the rough waters the whole time! Sydnee was so relaxed that she fell asleep!? My kids def. didn't inherit my "worrying" gene.


On Sunday, Cam and Hallie took Grandpa to see the Kirtland temple and the Morley Farm where the saints gathered when they arrived in Ohio in the 1800s. These are some amazing church history sites that we are fortunate enough to live close to.

It was such a fun visit. Thank you Grandpa for visiting, we miss you already!

Hallie Rides a Two-Wheeler!

Hallie is the type of person who, when she puts her mind to something, she doesn't give up until she does it and that was true for learning to ride a two-wheeler! She picked it up so fast, fell a lot, but got right back on until she figured it out and she had the best coach ever... Dad. Before getting her on the bike, Cam gave her instruction on how to find her balance like this...

okay Dad, stop showing off. Sydnee and I sat on the driveway cheering her on saying she was doing so well to which she replied through tears, "Ya, I'm doing well learning how to FALL!?" But she got right back on and tried again.

There she goes...

Daddy didn't even have to run after her and that's something to be proud of.

So to celebrate, we treated Hallie to ice cream and that night she rode her bike an entire mile without falling... woo hoo!

Cam's Graduation/Anniversary Weekend Getaway

Wow, that's a mouth full, but boy did we squeeze a lot into one weekend celebration. The real reason for the weekend getaway (yes, without the kiddos thanks to Grandma and Uncle Ryan who stayed with them at home!) was to attend Cameron's MBA graduation in Indiana from IWU. His graduation ended up being the same weekend as our seventh wedding anniversary so we decided to make a weekend out of it and celebrate in a fun way.

So, to start the weekend off, we headed to Indianapolis, IN for the day to celebrate our anniversary.

We spent time downtown biking along the White River Canal in what they call "surreys" (or side by side bikes) and we got a great view of downtown.

Then we were off to the most exciting part of the day: to eat an amazing once-in-a-lifetime authentic Brazilian dinner at Fogo de Chao's. Cam was so excited about eating here since he served his mission in Brazil and the experience was amazing and pretty close to Brazilian food.

The atmosphere was so fun, every one was in costume, and the taste of the food was delicious. When we sat down, we helped ourselves to a Brazilian salad bar which is mostly fresh vegetables and a few light deli meats and some interesting cheeses.

Then they brought fried caramel bananas, garlic mashed potatoes, and some type of Brazilian corn bread to eat with your main dish which were 15 cuts of different meats= D.I.V.I.N.E.

The way it works was you flip your coaster over to the "green" side and a half a dozen waiters dressed like this...

would bring you each cut of meat on spits until you flipped your coaster to the "red" side which meant, "STOP! I feel like I'm going to burst!" But of course we couldn't stop there. Cam had flan for dessert

and I had strawberry cream. What a way to end the night, and well worth the few pounds we added to our belly's!


Cameron's Graduation Day...
The next day we drove an hour north for Cam's big graduation day!

He said that's when it started to feel like him finishing his MBA was real; what an accomplishment, he's such a great example of dedication and diligence I couldn't be more proud! Here are his other classmates who graduated with him...

...and back at home, my Mom (miraculously, which I was rather impressed with) figured out how to see Cam's graduation ceremony live online so Hallie could see him walk across the stage too! I asked Hallie if she could hear me screaming on the computer, and she said, "No because I was yelling!"

Hallie loved seeing Daddy on the computer, yay Daddy!

Before heading home, we met up with our good friends (who we miss dearly!) from Indiana, the Winter family. It was so good to see them again and catch up. I took a picture of Hallie's best friends, Lana and Rose, and their missing teeth and new cat they got since we moved away.

And Michelle got a kick out of seeing my prego belly.

As if the weekend couldn't get any better, it did. My Mom had painted the baby's nursery for me which was such an amazing surprise! I felt like I had been the recipient of an Extreme Home Makeover!

I found the vintage baseball nursery bedding collection a couple months before so my Mom had seen the bedding when they visited in July and it got her creative wheels turning starting with the pictures and frames she made for the baby's room because as she said, "The walls just had to have something baseball too!" I couldn't have chosen the colors better myself and the "denim" affect she did on the lower half of the wall turned out amazing.


Cam and I have been so burnt out painting the rest of the house like mad so the nursery just got put on the back burner, hoping it would get done before Bentley's arrival, and thanks to my Mom it did!! My Mom is just amazing painting until the wee hours of the morning while the girls slept. Thanks Mom, I can't thank you enough, what a wonderful gift! Next time you visit, no more projects!

Hallie's Swim Lessons

This was Hallie's first year of swim lessons, and she did so great the first day that they moved her up to level 1 instead of level P! She is such a fish... literally, she loves to go underwater, and loves to swim, has no fear of water so I knew she'd enjoy swim lessons and learn quickly. Hallie's favorite part is when they throw rings in the water and they have to dive underwater to get them.

These are all the kids in Hallie's swim class, she's second to last... shivering. Two of the three teachers, Rachel and Jamie, were the same each day and they usually had a third teacher helping out or just being "lifeguard."

During class, Hallie's learned how to do a back float...

a front float...

and how to hold her breath or blow bubbles while swimming.

Here's Hallie jumping off the diving board. Any time she gets to jump in and go underwater is her favorite. Now they jump in without life jackets, just a noodle holding them up. Of course their teacher, Rachel is there to catch them and bring them to the top :)

Even Grandma Drake was able to take her to one of her swim classes while Cam and I were away for our weekend getaway (stay tuned for that post). She did great, we're so proud of her!

Serious Conversation

I've had a couple of serious conversations with Hallie lately, she really analyzes and thinks about things that she shouldn't need to worry about at her age. The other day, Hallie said, "Mom, if you ever had to go to work, I could take care of me and Sydnee." I said, "You could!? What do you mean?" Hallie replied, "Well I could make breakfast with the cereal and milk and then for lunch I would make sandwiches with turkey and cheese and miracle whip. Then for dinner you could draw a map of which buttons to push on the microwave so I could make hot dogs for us, since that's all I know how to make. Isn't that a good plan?" I was SHOCKED that her little mind came up with all of that and then I was more shocked that she was even worrying about having to take care of her and Sydnee if I ever went to work. So I said, "That is a good plan! But good thing I don't have to work huh?" Hallie said, "Ya, but if you ever did have to go to work, you could only be gone for one day cause we would get sick of eating hot dogs for dinner every day."

Cameron's Finally a Master!

Cam's last day of studying for the rest of his life (yes, that's right, no more schooling... ever) was last Wednesday as he submitted his final touches on his 40 page business plan for his last class in his MBA program.


And in the last two years he's...

• studied over 1,248 hours
  
• completed 14 classes which is 56 hours of attending class, all worth 42 credit hours
• written a dozen papers
• taken at least 30 tests/quizzes
• commuted a total of 32 hours back and forth to his class in Indiana after moving to Ohio
  
• and completed his program with a 3.957 GPA!
  

I couldn't be more proud of his accomplishment! How he did it with a family, and his YM's President calling for most of the two years, I have no idea, but I'd like to think I had something to do with that behind the scenes :)

So to celebrate his first weeknight home without having homework to do in two years, the girls and I surprised him with a "Relaxation Survival Kit" that contained all the things he can now enjoy like an iTunes gift card to buy some music, a TV series on DVD, some of his favorite snacks, a pillow for him to relax with, and the girls and I surprised him and took him on his first "golf outing" that night... okay it was just to play putt putt, but we went on a THURSDAY night!?!? Something we haven't been able to do in two years! We could never do things on a week night with Cam, so it was such a fun treat. Hallie said the thing she looks forward to most is playing with him in the evenings as much as she wants, and that's something Cam is very good at doing.

I'm so grateful for your sacrifice Cam, and even more proud of what you've accomplished! And somehow, you were able to still be a great father and husband during all of it, we love you and congrats!