Summer Play Time!

Yesterday was the first official day of summer vacation so we decided to meet some friends at Riverside Park to throw rocks in the river and play on the park equipment.  It was a beautiful morning!  Emma and Samantha were determined to skip rocks.....

Clara was fairly content to just stay in her stroller!

We decided to walk across the bridge to look down to the river.  The kids were fascinated!

This is Clara's best friend Brittain.  They were born a month apart from each other and love to play together.  We pushed their strollers next to each other and they even held hands while we walked.  I grabbed the camera to get a picture and suddenly they became very camera shy - no matter how hard I tried. :)

The big tree stumps were fun to climb on!  (Noah, Ryder, Griffin, Emma, and Samantha)

It was a great way to start the summer - many more adventures to come!

Transitions

In the next few weeks we will be moving to a new home which will bring lots of changes for Clara.  She will be in a new house with her own new bedroom and hopefully a nice new "Big Girl" bed!  Since that means several changes at once we decided that we should try to begin the transition from her crib to a bed before she moves into a new room.  We didn't want to throw too many changes her way at once.  Her crib was great but it is time consuming to take apart and put back together so we thought it would be nice to have one less hassle when we move.  We knew she would love seeing her new bed!  We put it low to the floor, added her favorite stuffed animals, and included a big new pillow to snuggle with. 

We told her how exciting it was and what a big girl she is becoming!

She seemed very happy and thrilled with all of the attention!  This was going to be a breeze!!!!  I laid her down for her nap with her Ba-Ba (bottle with milk) and turned on her fan and quietly snuck out and closed the door.  A few minutes later.........

......THIS is what we found!   She very successfully pulled out her drawers from her dresser and then proceeded to scatter her clothing everywhere!

And knowing that only Clara would want to ADD to the chaos, she got into her collection of Lincoln Logs and Legos and dumped them all out as well!  Bless her heart....

It's possible we were a little too confident in her ability to transition to her new bed.  Unfortunately, we had already taken her crib to the D.I. pod where it is gone forever.  Thankfully we have a wonderful play pen that is working quite well for her to sleep in and keeps her contained.  Perhaps it will be her "transition" for now and we will try with the big bed another time. [SIGH....]

Last Day of School

Well second grade and fourth grade have come to an end......boy did that go by too fast!  The girls both did wonderfully this school year but they were happy to see the end come.  Mark met them at their classrooms to take a final picture.  You can see the relief on their faces as they know that three months of freedom are ahead of them!

Here is Emma with Z.Z. - She is a very nice girl who was a good friend to Emma this year.

We have lots of big plans for the summer that we are excited about.  Plus, Emma and Samantha will be attending a new school next year so we are really looking forward to that!  Happy Summer everyone!