Goodbye training wheels!

Bella can ride a bike without training wheels! Over the Summer, we went to the track by our neighborhood and Jason took the training wheels off of Bella's bike. She let daddy help her for awhile then took off without him! We were laughing so hard. Jason was very proud!

She is such a big girl!

I love how happy and proud she looks!

Isabella is six!

Yep, our baby girl is 6 years old! Here are some pictures from her party.

We played "Stick the fairy on the flower"....

Made princess picture frames...

ate lots of food and cake...

and opened presents...

It was a wonderful evening with our friends and family!


Happy Birthday Baby!!

Busy Summer

Actually, to say that this Summer has been busy, feels like a huge understatement. Jason and I celebrated our 8th Wedding Anniversary! EIGHT years!! I still feel like the luckiest girl in the world. We always take a picture of ourselves on our special day...

We accidentally blinked on this one but I think its cute!
Does it look like Im getting old? Hmmm. If so, maybe its because Ethan keeps doing things like this:
He was running on the river rocks at the creek and slipped. His face slammed down on the next rock and blood was gushing everywhere. I posted this picture because he looks ALOT less beat up here. I swear, having Ethan might just make me go gray before I turn 30!

We spent alot of time at our neighborhood pool and Bella is now a great swimmer. Poppy and Mimi bought swimming lessons for her again this year. She can jump in the pool and swim down to the bottom to pick up toys! Here she is with her instructor, Karen.

Bella also performed in her very first ballet recital. (Second girl from the left) She did such a great job and she was so pretty! The best part was that she got a trophy. We are very proud of her.

We spent the fourth of July in Arkansas with Jason's family. As always we had a wonderful time! There was homemade icecream (amazing) and lots of quality family time. The very best part was when Aunt Linda came out with curlers in her hair and scared Ethan. He covered his eyes everytime she came close which made us laugh so hard.

Back in February, we bought tickets to the Schermerhorn to see Diana Krall. It was such an amazing performance. Diana Krall is my favorite! She sang some songs from her new album and 3 or 4 Nat King Cole covers. Very romantic night- thank you Jason!!

I'll leave you with some recent fishing pictures. This is the kids favorite thing to do with their daddy!

We had a great summer and I hope that you did too! Big things ahead for us- Bella starts school in 2 weeks and its going to be just me and my boys during the day. I've been crying about it alot but Im also so happy for her. Kindergarten is going to be so fun- but I will save that for another post!

Spring update!

So much to share with you!

We have had a very eventful Spring! We go to a new church called SlowBurn. They have an excellent children's program and the kids love it so much. They love to tell us all about their time in class and the things they learned. For the Palm Sunday lesson (We actually meet on Thursday nights), their teacher, Mr. Steve (Cherrico) apparently got on a stick horse or donkey and walked along the palm branches that the kids laid out for him. They were so excited telling me and Jason all about it. They screamed "Hosannah! God save us!!" in the car the WHOLE way home. We had to reenact it for a couple of weeks until the palm branches had enough.





Easter was wonderful. We spent the whole day at Poppy and Mimi's house. We had a wonderful lunch and the kids spent alot of the afternoon flying kites with Poppy and having easter egg hunts!

Bella is kind of competetive...





We also went to the Franklin Rodeo! They have a big parade when they come to town and the kids loved it. The cowboys throw candy out of their trucks and the marching bands from the different high schools make it really fun.






On the way out, we met Ms. Teen Rodeo Tennessee and Bella was just SO excited. She signed a picture for Bella (and the boys) and as soon as we got home, I had to tape on the wall in Bella's closet. When we were driving home from the rodeo, Bella said it was the best night of her life :)

Memorial Day was fun- we woke up early and took the kids fishing at Centennial Park. Of course they just catch sucker fish and we throw them back but its still very exciting for them. Bella is so good at casting her line now. The kids think daddy is just the greatest when he takes them fishing!






There is a new duck family and they kept coming up to us so I took alot of pictures of them. Arent they just the cutest things?



After that, we took the kids to get pizza and parked to watch the airplanes take off and land. The boys especially love when we do this..






The kids are so easy to entertain right now, obviously. We are very close and really enjoy being together! The neighborhood pool is finally open and this year the boys are actually getting in the kid's pool instead of crying about the water!







I am looking forward to long days at the pool. Bella starts Kindergarten in the fall so I need to make every moment count. See you soon!!