School Days!

I can't believe this is Sadie's last year at Preschool!!! We were talking to Sadie the other day how she is going to grow up so big and get married and have her own babies and she said, "I don't ever want to get married, I want to stay a kid!!" Boy do I feel the same! As much as I can't wait to see her do all she is going to do, I just wish I could freeze our girls at every stage! When we first had Sadie, so many people would tell us, "enjoy them because they grow up so fast!" I remember thinking, yeah yeah! But I truly understand now what they meant! I just get nervous about her going to school and it's all over! Those fun times we get to have at home together are gone! She's all grown up!! I just wish I could freeze time! So I guess I can a little bit with these pictures! Here is Sadie with her teacher, Mrs. McDonnell. She really likes her. She is a very sweet and loving person! This was at the "Meet your teacher."

Sadie so excited to go to school!
In front of the little school sign!
Lucy had to get in on the action!
What a big girl!
Walking to class!! WooHoo

Here is her classroom!

Sadie standing by her cubby! Her class is the Mighty Tigers!

We love you big girl Sadie! I love how determined you are! You definitely know what you want and work you hardest to get whatever it may be!! I LOVE your eye for fashion! You always know exactly how you want your hair done, and what you want to wear! Yes, we have struggled with the outfits, but you have really become good at picking out cute things! I am impressed with your ability to match! I LOVE that you are such a BIG helper! You have always had a connection with others and how they feel! You know when someone is sad and you always try to help them feel better! I love that! You are the BEST big sister ever! You take such good care of Lucy and teach her so many things! You are a great example to her! I love that you two are the best of friends!

WooHoo!

So Sadie has had absolutely NO interest in letters! I have tried so many different ways to help her with her letters and she just doesn't want anything to do with it! I've gotten multiple different tracing books/boards, etc! She half does it once and will be over it! So Chris and I BOTH sat down with her a few weekends ago to try to help her. We bribed her with some ice cream...and low and behold...

She did it! Obviously the circled one is hers! She just puts too much pressure on herself saying she can't do it. Or if it isn't perfect she has to erase it or scribble it out. So I am trying to focus on trying again and again, and that it doesn't have to be perfect. I am just so proud of her. Now she has a little more confidence in herself! Yeah Sadie! You are getting so big!

Cruise!

Jamaica:

Here we are having lunch on the beach in some Dr. Cove Beach or something like that. It was a little beach club type thing. SO BEAUTIFUL!!! The water at all of our stops was absolutely amazing. I am used to murky freezing cold ocean water, well and then murky hot water here in TX. Let me just tell you, it was in between and PERFECT! You could be up to your neck in water and still see your feet! So pretty. During lunch it started to pour but we were under an umbrella so we waited it out and soon enough, the sun came out and we got to enjoy the water!

These guys came over and sang, "Can't help fallin in love with you" or whatever it is called, by Elvis. It was cute!

Okay, I wanted this picture to show how clear the water is and let me tell you, this was no easy task! It was so hard to keep ALL of our feet from not sinking! It took us forever! People were probably thinking we were freaks, which I guess we are! So here are our feet! We went with our good friends Eric and Sheila Mott.

Another foot picture. You want to document it, but who wants a million pictures in their swim suit!?! So hey, feet are good!! :) Chris was done with it, so Sheila and I were the only ones game!

Back on the boat up on deck with Jamaica behind us. We made it safely home. Those markets were a little scary! And they separated me and Chris! AHHHHH!!! They kept pulling you into their own store to look and buy "something small." But every store had the SAME stuff!!! I have seen this stuff 50 times!! But they just kept saying, "you live, I live." We were glad to be done with the market. So hot too!

Me and Sheila!!

Chris and Eric being tough!! I don't know if it was their shaved heads and sunglasses, but they got offered drugs ALL the time!!! Crazy!

They can't keep their true identity from showing!! :)

Cayman Islands:

We went snorkeling! My first time. I was a little nervous but of course I loved it! We went around a coral reef and there was a HUGE fish and I was all by myself and it totally started coming right to me! I freaked and swam to find Chris. He didn't believe me. Here we all are, ready to go! Chris, Lanae, Sheila and Eric

We looked so silly! So I had to make it worse!

I don't know why we all kept doing "thumbs up!?!"

We had gone to some shopping seminar on the boat that talked about the shopping at all the ports and the chick said that Cayman had the BEST shopping in the entire world. Great deals, blah blah blah. So we were all excited to shop and it sucked! Nothing special, nothing great! So that was our only disappointment. We wished we would have gone to the beach and not "shopped."

Cozumel:

My favorite part was that we got to swim with dolphins! I have always said, I wanted to do this before I died and now I have! It was so cool and this place was absolutely beautiful!

Chris wasn't dying to do this, and for the price, he passed. But good thing because then he could take pictures! Here is Sheila and I excited for the swim!

We got to do some "free swim" where the two dolphins just swim around you so you can pet and play with them! It was SO cool! They really liked me and Sheila because at least one of them was by us the entire time! If one swam away the other would come over! This one even let us rub her belly!!! Our dolphins were Marina and Atlantis! So cute!

The kiss!!!

Dancing!

This was too cool! We got to do a "belly ride." You held your arm out and it swam up behind you, rolled over so you could grab both fins and then swam with you like this! It was so cool to be belly to belly!

Here we are making them sing! It was too cool! You just hold your hands up and wiggle your fingers! LOVED IT!!

We had lunch at this crazy place. This guy came up behind me and put this hat on my head. It freaked me out at first because all of a sudden someone was touching me! He made one for me and Sheila and then the boys said no thank you. But he made them one anyway, but I won't post the picture because it is a little vulgar. Just use your imagination! ;) Then they made us dance on our chairs! Crazy place!

Our room attendant guys always left little towel animals in our room and this was our favorite!
Yeah we made it home and we were ALL excited! Here's the girls in the Jamaica jammies! We had such a great time and can't wait to go on another cruise!!

Jenny Lake and more Cabin fun

We always love to go to Jenny Lake when we are at the cabin. You get to take a little boat across the lake and then do a little "hike" (it's probably a mile there and back). So it is great for the kids! Grandpa Bob even made it the whole way and he just had both of his knees replaced earlier this year! It is BEAUTIFUL and so fun. Plus you can find and pick huckleberries along the trail! Sadie LOVED that! So here we are waiting for the boat. What crazy parent would dangle their kids over the water like that!?! It isn't deep and the girls were loving to look for fish!

Allison and Sadie on the boat ride.

The girls took turns sitting on Hannah's lap! They LOVE the big cousins!!

Of course the picture doesn't do it justice! It is huge and beautiful and loud!
Lucy, Allison and Sadie.
Here are some shots of the beautiful Tetons! The one with the cows, we pulled over to the side of the road to wait for our carpool of cars and I had to jump out and get this!
A moose we saw as we were driving to Jenny Lake.

After the Lake we went to the Bar J Wranglers. It was a BBQ dinner and a silly quartet group! Lucy LOVED it and was dancing in the isle and when the song would end she would say, "Again!?!" She picked up on the clapping and cheering and would clap and hoot and the end! Hilarious! Sadie didn't like to me yell whenever they would interact with the audience. It was funny. I had to represent Texas! :)

One day we rented 4 wheelers! We all had so much fun exploring in the mountains and driving crazy! I don't know how much protecting these huge helmets would do on that little head, but it looked so cute!

I LOVE when they squat down a little and talk to each other like this! So Cute! Even Lucy does it and gets right up under Sadie's face. Lucy does this ALL the time when we pick Sadie up from school and she asks if Sadie had fun! I LOVE it!

Daddy and Lucy. Thankfully Daddy drove carefully with Lucy! All the boy cousins wanted but didn't want, to ride with Uncle Chris! Gunther talked about how Uncle Chris almost killed them as they were doing donuts and "almost flipped it!" But Gunther paid Uncle Chris back when he drove them off the road (going too fast at a turn) and into some alfalfa fields. Luckily there was not a fence! Chris and Eric enjoyed each taking a 4 wheeler and doing all kinds of crazy things!

Mommy and Sadie! Sadie wanted to sit in the back but later wanted to sit up front. She even controlled the gas!!! She loved it. She would direct me wherever we went and she "found" a cool "road" that took us to the top of the mountain! It was beautiful! She was proud!We all love to go up behind the cabins and find huckleberries. So we all went one afternoon! We got TONS of huckleberries! So yummy! I don't think my girls contributed to the pot, they just ate them as they went along! Especially Sadie! She is my fruit junkie!
It was so fun! Like a treasure hunt trying to find a patch with a lot of them! Our hunt got cut short as we heard thunder and realized a storm was coming! (I LOVE storms at the cabin! The are beautiful!) We made it home just in time and then it started down pouring! So we got to be cozy and enjoy our labors!