What are they up to now...

Eliza's first day of "cwass"

With all the talk of Kindergarten, we didn't want Eliza to feel left out. So we made a deal -- Mckinlay gets to start Kindergarten and Eliza gets to start "dance cwass" (as she says).

(pause to tie shoe...)

She had her first day and LOVED it. I think she felt pretty grown up and liked the fact that it was her thing.

I love this girl so much! She is the sweetest little thing (except for when she is not!) and her little voice just kills me. I never, ever want her to grow up. She is just too darling.

She is going to miss her playmate now that Mckinlay will be in school all day, but I'm really looking forward to devoting more attention to her. I think being the "big sister" will help her even out her little...um...temper -- for lack of a better word. (Remember the: except for when she;s not part!?)

First day of K!!

To say she was excited for school to start would be a major understatement.

Just look at this series of photos:

This series says a lot too...

Eliza is really gonna miss having her best friend/worst enemy (you know, it changes from minute to minute...) around.

I can't believe how grown up my little baby is!

It's a fact she reminds me of all the time:

"Mom look how big I am! I look like I'm 7 already!"

And really, she does. I had to laugh seeing her next to the other kids on her class.

She towers.

"Hooray for Kindergarten!!"

Back to School Night

The night before school started we had our "back to school dinner party!"

Both girls got their new back packs -- Mckinlay's for school, and Liza's for dance class.

The girls decided they wanted to put on a fashion show to show off their new clothes to Ty. It was pretty cute. I'll have to load the videos later...

Then we presented the Kindergartner with the, now traditional, back to school GIANT cookie. It was a fun night!

This is our family theme for the 2012-2013 school year. I made this to hang on our wall:

So far, the girls are pretty excited about working on kindness...but it's only been -- like -- a day.

Hazel's Blessing Day

Mckinlay, Eliza and Hazel have all been blessed in the dress I was blessed in. I love it! It's such a sweet little dress and I love that we have pictures of all of us in it at this same age.

But it's a good thing we didn't wait any longer to bless Hazel or she might not have ended up in it. Her neck is so chubby, I couldn't do up the top button in the back!

Here are a few pictures from the day:

I love this sequence of shots. She's kind of a ham:

I love this sweet, sweet girl!!

Summer wrap-up.

Here is what the rest of our summer looked like according to our iphone & ipod:

The girls discovered the joys of playing Barbie! We had lots of fun making a homemade Barbie house.

We loved on Hazel a lot.

We did lots of summer projects -- here we're making tie-dye shirts.

These girls became even better friends. Now that Liza is getting older, they have so much fun playing together (except for when they don't, of course...).

When I'd go and check on them at night -- I'd often find they decided to have a "sleep over" together on the floor of their room. It's makes my heart pretty much melt.

Brennan, Alli and fam came to visit. We're pretty sad they just moved all the way to Japan, but we're so glad we got to live close for the past 3 years.

"8 is great!" Ty and I celebrated out 8th anniversry.

This is how we'd go on walks around the neighborhood. I'd have Hazel strapped on in the sling and the girls would have their puppies in their slings. I'm sure we were quite the site!