WOW!! This year is getting away from me!!

On my goodness!! I realized my last post on the family blog was late August....I'm better at keeping up my my photography blog then the family one!! (www.lifecapturedbykaty.blogspot.com)

Between school, Daisy troop, playdates, birthday parties, & my photography hobby, I can't remember to blog about all the fun, I'm too busy DOING it!:)

Well, I will hit the highlights:

Sadie's birthday was in August 25th.

For the 16th celebration in Perry, Tori & I ran our 2nd 5K of the year. The Cherokee Strip 5K. We only trained for a few days, but we beat our time from the first 5k!! 33 minutes! We came in together!

We are playing outside more lately ever since we got Tori & Russ' playset!! They said we could have it & the girls have played outside more than they ever have!!

I found some roller skates at a garage sale for a $1 each!! The girls had a blast!!

Mom's birthday, I made her a picture with a map of Edmond, OK & Jacksonville, FL.

We had a get together at mom's house with the extended family to say good-bye to Tori, Sadie & Lana.

We went to the Braum's family farm again with the Daisy troop.

We had a great time with Ryley & Mary's families at the Storybook Forest this year!

As I type this, Tori & Russ are getting ready to leaving for Florida in 2 days!

I'll have more to share in the next coming days: Tori & Russ leaving, OSU homecoming, Halloween, Lydia's birthday, Beauty & the Beast play, the pajama party.....can you see how the blog is the last thing I think about?:)

Spelling words!

My Lydia is a natural worry-er! She is always wondering how things are going to go or what to expect.

So the first week of school, we were talking about homework. I said that the homework calendar said that spelling words would start next week.

She asked me, "What kind of words?"

I said "Words like 'cat,' 'dog', easy ones, ya know,"

She replied "I hope it's words like 'cat', because I can spell that, but not words like 'international.'"

I assured her that I didn't think the word "international" was going to be a spelling word for next week!:)

Lost another tooth!

Lydia's second loose tooth was hanging on by a thread! I knew on Monday morning that it was just going to fall out any second!

When I went to pick her up on Monday afternoon (August 22), she says, "MOM, I lost my tooth, but I can't find it!" She had tripped on the playground in the mulch & it fell out & she didn't even know it!:)

She had to draw the Tooth Fairy a map for the Chisholm playground so she could find it!

First Day of School 2011-2012 year

This year, the girls are at the same school, Chisholm Elementary. Lydia is in first grade in Mrs. Crutchfield's class. Caraline is in Pre-K & in Mrs. Scott's PM class. They both had a very good day!

Knee-slapping funny kids!

My girls are pretty funny!!!

Today we had a "teach-able moment" with Lydia. We have been reading a first grade basal reader this summer for reading practice. We were on the 4th basal, which would have been a book a first grade class would read in December or January sometime. She was doing really well.

She has some maps in the play room & she was asking questions about the maps. I remember that in that 4th basal, I had seen a story called "Me on the Map" (which I remember from teaching at Bryant). I said, "I have the perfect story we can read!" She was excited, but really didn't want to read it herself, but she did read most of it. She did a pretty good job!

After she read it, I told her "That was a first grade story that they don't read until after Christmas time & you are reading it now!" She laughed & hugged me & I told her she should be proud of herself.

I started reading the comprehension questions at the end of the story. The first questions was "What have you learned by reading this story?" Lydia answered, " I learned I can read better than I thought I could!" I laughed so hard!! That is SO true!!!

Ava Jayne

My youngest cousin, Lindsay, had her third daughter, Ava Jayne, on July 27th, 2011. We went to meet Ava in Pawnee at Grandma & Grandpa's house.

Red River, New Mexico 2011

We went to our favorite vacation spot this year: Red River, New Mexico. It was everything that we remembered it was from 2009! We stayed in a motel that was across the street from the Community House. It was perfect, we could just walk over to the events. We learned to play drums, built boats & raced them in the river, played games on the lawn, listened to some Music in the Mountains, took a nature hike, hung out with family & fished.

Caraline caught her first fish & ate it too! She thought it was yummy!

We really enjoyed the cooler temps!! We always have a wonderful time!