Brooklyn Turned Five

Sweet Brooklyn turned FIVE on Aug 28th. This is a huge milestone. She is officially a kid...long gone are the baby and toddler days.

 

My dear friends Christie and Jinger have daughters that are good friends of B's who have birthdays on Aug 26th and Aug 27th, so we decided to go big and do a three way joint birthday party. A pony party was the theme...and yup, we had real ponies. It was amazing. I contributed very little, as Christie is a professional wedding planner and truly has a passion for throwing kids parties (planning them specifically) and Jinger has the same passion.

 

Brooklyn talked for days and still does about how thankful she was for her party. All three girls had the time of their lives and the tiny guests did as well. It was a fun filled, wild and crazy day. All the decorations were hand made and thought up by Christie and Jinger. I helped assemble :) 

 

Natalie (4), Brooklyn (5), Elsa (4)

Dionne, me, Kristin

Potato sack races = hilarious

Look at those cupcakes and cake (Christie made all of them). Amazing

This was while we all sang "happy birthday" to the three girls.

B & Kali

The mom squad: Me, Christie, Jinger

I'm not sure what lead Ben to lose his shirt, but I would be more surprised if he HAD kept it on all day :)

First Day of School 2013

What?! It's time for school already? The summer truly flew by...but in all honesty I've been itching for the routine to come back into swing for the past few weeks. We all need it.

 

Today was Brooklyn's first day of her final year of preschool. She is doing pre-k again which is m/w/f from 9-11:30. She is with a completely new group of classmates, but with one teacher from last year and one new teacher. I prayed a LOT about this decision and am excited to see how the year shapes up. I have a feeling she and I are going to grow a lot this year. 

 

Ben started his first day of preschool as well. He is in the two's class at the same school. So they will both be going the same hours on Mondays. He had a very rough morning at home, but as soon as we got to school he walked right in, hung up his back pack and off he went. He gave me a big kiss good-bye and was totally fine. I adore his teacher, teacher Kathy, and I think she is going to be a perfect fit for his personality. My favorite part was when I came back and was walking up to the school. His little class was walking in from the gym back to the school and walked right by where I was standing. I tried to slink back behind a tree for fear of how he would react if he saw me. Each little guy and gal was holding onto a ring attached to a rope. The girl in the front spotted me and started yelling "teacher, that's Benny's mom" "teacher, Benny's mom is here" "that's Ben's mom" over and over. Finally Ben looked over and saw me. He just kept walking, staring at me like he wasn't quite sure what to do or say. Finally a big smile broke across his face and he yelled "Hi mom!!" My mouth hurt from smiling so hard. 



The day was a total success. Can't believe I'll have a kindergartener and one in two days of preschool next year. The days are LONG...the years truly are short.

Hawaii- Part Two

The picture below is the view from the ground level at our condo. We had sun every day, a couple of sprinkles here and there, but for the most part the weather was perfect.

We went on a hike on the southern part of the island called Waihei Ridge. This was one of our favorite activities. It was an amazingly beautiful 5 mile extremely steep hike. We were huffing and puffing 1/2 mile in.

The hike from the parking lot to the entrance.

This was the baseline view- so this was where our car was parked. It was stunning from start to finish.

 Surfing one day. We killed it (well, sort of :)

 Naps every day because we COULD!!

 One of my favorite evenings was at a restaurant called the "Sea House" that overlooked this beautiful inlet, but the weather was very wild, the waves were really rough and it made for a very majestic evening. Plus the food and my view (my mr.) were pretty spectacular as well.

 On our last day we took a bottle of wine and a late lunch to the beach and just talked, read, swam and played. I decided to practice some yoga poses and ended up proving my age with my hand stands. We had a blast. It's amazing how much fun you can have just doing nothing when you are with your best friend in a place that absolutely delivers beauty at ever corner. I genuinely LIKE my husband. He is the most hilarious, witty, charming, thoughtful person I know...but mostly the funny :) That is one of the reasons I fell in love with him. I didn't realize how often I laugh at his jokes, but don't have the head space to really let myself LAUGH and enjoy him, just his presence. That alone was lovely. It goes without saying that I love him, but I think when you have been married and comfortable for a while, add a lot of life's curve balls, jobs, moves and a couple kids to the mix, it's not a honeymoon every day. We didn't even realize how much we NEEDED this time to just talk about anything and everything un-interrupted, and to just look each other in the eye. It was invaluable time.

 

 

We went to traditional Hawaiian luau

The drinks they served (Mai tais) were seriously pure sugar. Matt kept joking that we were going to be leaving with a parting gift of diabetes. We had a great time because we were together and it was pretty awesome people watching, but I'm not sure we would spend the money for it again.

Final sunsets on the last day.