Celebrating America Over the Years

I am looking for every excuse I can NOT to pack. I am so over it. I feel it is very urgent that I post pictures of Ava and Macy from previous 4th of July holidays. It is way more important than packing. : ) I said I wanted to post old pictures of them for every holiday so here we go.

2008

I am not sure what we were doing on the actual 4th of July but I know we took a trip to my Aunt Di and Uncle Keith's house boat in Hot Springs sometime that month.  We moved to Fort Worth at the end of the month so we spent all of July with grandparents. I remember that the girls started sitting up, cutting their first teeth, and started saying "dadada" during our time at the houseboat.

2009

The girls had a 4th of July parade at school. I remember we left straight from the parade and went to Arkansas. We spent the Holiday in Little Rock with Grammy and Pawpaw.

2010



Mom and Dad came to visit us in Fort Worth. We went to a little festival/celebration in Arlington and enjoyed a petting zoo, street performers, festival food, a live band, and fireworks. The girls still talk about it. They had so much fun.

Watching Fireworks

Good times. It's fun to look back and see how much they have grown. Alright, well I guess I'll get back to packing. ugh! Saturday is the big move day. So excited and ready to get settled into our new home!



Heritage Children's Center

As our time in Fort Worth comes to an end, I want to post about something that we will miss very much. Ava and Macy's home away from home, Heritage Children's Center. They started attending this sweet little Christian daycare/preschool when they were 13 months old. I was lucky enough to be able to stay home with them until they were 8 months old. When we moved to Fort Worth, I started back to work so we had two college girls (one was actually in grad school) keep Ava and Macy on alternating days. After the first semester, we decided to ease them into daycare so they went to HCC 3 days a week and one of the girls, Marianna, came to the house 2 days a week. When they started HCC, Macy wasn't even walking. They were in Ms. Jehnny's 1 year old class and soon fell in LOVE with  Ms. Jehnny. She cared so much for each and everyone of those babies in that class. I felt so comfortable leaving my girls in her care every day. Then they moved on to Mrs. Jennifer's 2 year old class. They learned SO much from Mrs. Jennifer and Mrs. Andrea. They could name all of their letters by March of that year when they were just a few months over 2. They also learned the days of the week, months of the year, and counting to 10. This past year, they moved on to Mrs. Norma's class. This was the 3 year old class and Ava and Macy were the youngest ones in the class but I really pushed to have them move on up to that class even though they were only 2. I felt like they had learned so much from Mrs. Jennifer and were ready for the next step. In hindsight I think it was the right choice. They had a little bit of trouble adjusting to the high expectations of a 3 year old class in the beginning, but ended up doing really well in that class. They learned how to write their names and how to color within the lines (Ava can color within the lines really well, but Macy doesn't quite have the patience for it). They can name all of their letters and the sounds that the letters make. Mrs. Norma had a really great preschool curriculum where each letter had a character associated with it and Ava and Macy were so receptive to this and learned so much about letters and sounds. They came home every week singing about Apple Annie, Benjamin Bunny, and Cathy Cook.

I think I have found the preschool that I want them to attend in Frisco and it seems to be similar to Heritage, but we will still miss the familiarity and comfort of their home away from home. Here are some pictures from their time at Heritage. Most of them are from this year but there are a few others from the past couple of years.

This is a picture of Ava before their very first school party. It was Valentines Day.

This is the "After" picture. This is Macy, but notice the crazy hair and jelly all over the arm of her shirt. I think they found out they like  to party!

Fourth of July Parade. July 2009

Western Day in 2 year old class. January 2010

First day of 3 year old class. August 2010

Preschool wears Macy out. Her teacher sent me this picture. Apparently she just fell asleep in the middle of the floor. It wasn't even nap time!

Thanksgiving Feast. November 2010

Macy at the Christmas Performance. They sang Happy Birthday Jesus. December 2010

Christmas Party. December 2010

The petting zoo came to visit the school.  January 2011

Valentines Day 2011

Shaving cream fun!

Silly hat day during the last week of school. Notice the hats in the background. We went through fireman hats, cowboy hats, and fancy church hats before they finally decided on Tiaras.

Mix Match Day during the last week of school

Macy and Ava with Mrs. Jennifer. She was their teacher in the 2 year old class.

Besties. Macy, Ava, Mackenzie, Brylee, and Savannah. These girls have been together since the beginning. They love each other!

Ava and Macy with Ms. Sarah. We will miss her SO much. She is amazing with kids. We have used her as a babysitter this summer, but she is moving to Africa (today actually) to work in the Peace Corps and make a difference in the lives of children on another continent. She will be there for 2 years! What an amazing commitment!  Funny side note... one of our other babysitters, Marianna, moved to China. Apparently after spending some time with Ava and Macy, these girls feel the need to pack up and move half way around the world! Hmmmm.....

Recital Time

The girls had their dance recital on June 25th. I had no idea when I signed them up for dance what a HUGE deal the recital is. It seems like they pretty much spent the whole year getting ready for it. It was a really big production and fun to watch the older kids dance (for the girls and I... not so much for Ben). ha ha

They had their first on-stage appearance at the Christmas performance where they did a tap routine to Frosty the Snowman.

They are the two right in the middle.

Then, we had Mayfest where they did a tap routine to "Beat It."

For the big recital, the rehearsal was on Friday evening. Their teacher, Mrs. Christie, had warned the moms that the rehearsal can be very long and it is probably a good idea to bring things to do and eat to keep the little ones occupied. I packed each of them a back pack full of coloring books, crayons, toys, snacks, and drinks. This is in addition to their dance backpack that has tap shoes, ballet shoes, and extra tights.  This is a picture of all that we had to take to the rehearsal and the recital. I was worried I would forget something so I kept myself organized by laying it all out on our guest bed.

The girls ended up doing really well at the rehearsal. I didn't even have to break out all of the activities I brought because they were perfectly content to watch the other kids dance. I would even go so far as to say that they were some of the best behaved girls in their class. A lot of the other little ones were running around and jumping off of the steps and wearing their moms out. It is a rare occurrence that I can say Ava and Macy were well behaved so I have to brag about it for a minute!

The big show finally came on Saturday and Ava and Macy did great with their dance. When they started dance lessons, all I really wanted was for them to go on the stage without crying. I was really worried they would have trouble seperating from me and wouldn't go on the stage. Well, that was NOT a problem. They went right up there and did their thing. Macy was a little more timid on the stage but both really did great. Here are some pictures from the big event.

Getting Ready

Pretty girls 

They had to pick a "buddy" to walk with. They surprisingly did not pick each other. This is Ava and her buddy London. 

4th of July

This Fourth of July was very low-key and relaxing and EXACTLY what we needed. Our little family of four has been spread out over Texas and Arkansas for most of June so it was really nice to reunite and have a much needed day together... just the four of us. We were lazy for most of the morning and then went to the pool for a swim. The girls love it when Ben goes swimming with us because he does all kinds of crazy stuff with them. He throws them half way across the pool and lets them jump off his shoulders and all kind of things that I am just not fun enough or strong enough to do. : )

The best part of swimming in the morning is the long afternoon naps that usually follow! We grilled out burgers and hot dogs that night and then headed to downtown Fort Worth to watch fireworks. The girls were so pumped about the fireworks all day. They really enjoyed them but we weren't in the best spot so the fireworks seemed a little bit further away than what they saw last year. They got kind of bored with it about 15 minutes in and were more interested in walking on and jumping off of the wall we were standing by. I am glad that we at least saw some fireworks though. All and all, it was a really great day! Here are a few pics:

The Griller

Getting ready to leave for fireworks

I feel like I should say a note about their outfits for the fireworks. I was out of town the few days before the 4th (more about that later) so the holiday really snuck up on me. I totally forgot to get them cute 4th of July outfits or t-shirts. I had them in cute summer dresses earlier in the day but since we didn't even leave for the Fireworks until 8:00, I decided to give them a bath before we left and put them in t-shirts so that they could just get into bed easily when we got home since it would be way past their bedtime. Anyway, long story but I felt the need to explain why they are wearing too small Razorback shirts instead of cute red, white, and blue dresses. They are wearing the appropriate colors though. : )

Waiting on the Fireworks to start

You gotta have ice cream on the 4th!!

Last weekend I went to Fayetteville for my annual Girls Weekend with my girlfriends from college. I look forward to this trip every summer and had such a great time spending time with my friends. Since the last time we met (last summer we met in Austin, TX to celebrate our 30th bdays), there have been 2 babies born and an engagement within our little group. Actually, 3 babies born b/c our friend Jenny couldn't be there but she had a baby in December. It's crazy how those babies seem to all come at once! We were so excited to celebrate Andrea's engagement too.  Here we are on Friday night:

Melanie, Stephanie, Stephanie, Brooke, Andrea

I plan to create another post with a look back at pictures of the girls from other July 4th celebrations.  Remember how I said I am going to do that on Holidays? I'm too tired to look through old pictures right now. I have to gear myself up for that task.  I also have a post coming up about the girls first Dance Recital. Stay tuned......