She's Off to Kindergarten

My sweet baby girl left me for Kindergarten a week ago tomorrow. She was so excited she shot out of bed when I woke her at 7am. She carefully chose her first day of school outfit, eagerly ate breakfast and off we headed outside for pictures and to wait patiently for the bus. Lucky for her and me she doesn't get on until 8am! Neither one of us are morning people! I have been excited for this day to come, the beginning of a new chapter in her life. She is so ready for kindergarten. Eager to learn, make new friends, and enjoy her new school.


And then it hit me...... the walk down the driveway to wait for the bus, my emotions took over and I cried. I was not going to cry, not going to cry, she was ready for this and so was I. But I couldn't help it, just yesterday I was holding my newborn baby girl in my arms and now I'm sending her to kindergarten. I tried my best to hold it together, not let her see I was crying.



And there she went, up the steps of the school bus. I cried hard then. I felt like I had just sent her to the wolves. I was no longer protecting my baby. I couldn't help it, I had to cry. Who was going to reassure her that it was okay, make her feel comfortable in her new environment, not me! Bradley tried his best to reassure me and said, "if you think its bad now, wait until the day she gets married!" I guess he's right that will be worse.



I was so anxious for 10:30 to come and have my little girl back safe at home with her momma. She came home, all excited and anxious to tell me all about her first day! The report was all good, she loves it just as I knew she would.

Lauren's Kindergarten Open House

On August 18th, we attended Lauren's Kindergarten Open House. This was the time for us to meet her teacher, put away her school supplies, see her locker, and go over any questions we had with the teacher. I of course had lots but both of us were anxious for the big day.



Lauren's teacher Mrs. Clark seems really great. I think they will have a good year together.



I can't believe she's old enough for kindergarten! Seriously, where did the time go!



Mommy and Daddy love you so much sweetheart! We are so very proud of you and can't wait to see where your life leads. You are going to do great things!

Illinois State Fair

The perfect end to the summer for us is the Illinois State Fair. The kids and I ventured up to Springfield last Tuesday to enjoy the day. We got to see our heifer that was showing in the Angus open show and lots of my college friends. Then we took in the Little Farmer exhibit, the FFA barnyard, Milk a cow booth, the U of I piglets, and of course some rides. We had a great day and ended it with a trip to see the butter cow and a cream puff for mom and ice cream for the kids.

After a hard days work....

Yes that is grease on his face......

Our New Puppy Sadie!

On Monday August 9th we brought home our new puppy Sadie. For those wondering, she is half rat terrier and half Australian shepherd who was rescued from the pound by a lady who runs a kennel rescue. She finally healed up from her staph infection and we were finally done with our crazy week of vacation and Macie's baptism. She did great on the drive home and only cried a little the first night. Now two and half weeks later, she has figured out how to escape her pen and is picking on both the cats and the kids nipping at their heels and begging them to play. She is a great dog overall though with a good personality. I finally bought a puppy training book today and am looking forward to teaching her to quit nipping. She knows sit already so we're on the right track I believe. If you have any great tips on dog training I'd love to learn more!

Macie's Baptism

Macie was baptized on Sunday August 8th in Elmwood. Only Lauren and I attended from my foursome since Blake came down with a fever on Saturday. We decided it would be best for Bradley to stay back with him. Whatever he had, I caught and ended up on an antibiotic 5 days later! Yuck! Anyways, the baptism was great. Macie just snoozed most of the day away. Delaney wasn't interested in the tricks I had up my sleeve to keep her in the church to actually watch the baptism, so I ended up taking her to the nursery. She was much happier then. I sure do with our church had a nursery!!! Julie and Andy served an awesome meal afterwards at their house. Notice the beautiful cake Julie made! She's inspiring me to try decorating for Blake and Delaney's joint 2nd birthday party.

Ozarks!

We spent the first week in August with the Bartlow Family in the Ozarks. We enjoyed boating, swimming, eating out, playing, and just overall good family bonding. The cousins had an awesome time together and so did the rest of us. I'm very blessed to have a family that all gets along and enjoys being together. This vacation means a lot to me since I don't get to see my family as often as I'd like.



One of the highlights was taking Lauren, Addie, and Brenna tubing. They really got onto it this year and really enjoyed it! They all liked going fast and hitting bumps. One of our other highlights awas going to Bear Bottoms and enjoying the water slides. The older cousins loved it and well so did the Bartlow siblings! We were like little kids on those slides. Even Blake got to enjoy them even though he wasn't technically tall enough. Good thing the boy has no fear!



When we weren't on the lake we enjoyed spending time in the condos. The three toddlers became pros at ring around the rosy in and out of the pool! Blake loved his new cousin Macie and even tolerated watching something on TV rather than tractors! Miss Delaney loves Barney so we watched a lot of that while everyone was waking up in the mornings.



Our final night out. Nothing like a cruise on the lake at sunset. It was beautiful! Thanks to Aaron and Andy for sharing your boats with us!

Working Boy

Blake loves Saturdays at our house because that means Daddy is finally around and he can go work outside with him instead of just play. Our recent project has been preparing for our cattle fencing to go in. We installed an automatic waterer a couple weekends ago (behind on blogging as usual) and Blake helped out. He thought it was a mini pool and tried to dive in the water and if Bradley had not been standing there, well lets just say it would not have been pretty! You'll notice it was very muddy here since we had just had a few inches of rain the night before so Blake enjoyed that aspect of the job as well. He ended up losing his shoes in the mud and then ran around barefoot and taste tested the mud as well. Mud is good for the skin right???