End of Summer

We had a fun end of summer, full of birthday parties and family fun.

Emma was invited to a birthday pool party for her classmate, Remington. The kids loved swimming together, and I got to catch up with several moms as we lounged beside the pool.

Hallie attended her classmate, Abby's, cupcake themed birthday party. There was a craft, cupcake decorating, and face painting!

We celebrated our nephews, Nathan and Benjamin, who both have summertime birthdays.

The girls have been asking to visit the zoo all summer, and we made it happen a couple of weeks before school started.

The zoo has fun play/climbing areas for the kids throughout the park

We love this butterfly bench!

I've successfully managed to avoid the reptile house at the zoo until this visit. And for some reason most of the snakes were wide awake and moving around their cages in their slithery, creepy way. As a result, I now have plenty of nightmare material. This enormous boa constrictor was verrrry interested in Hallie. She thought it was cute that it was trying to "lick" her through the glass. *shudder*

The girls seem to just get cuter (and hairier) all the time!

We ended our day by visiting the zoo's petting area. There were plenty of young goats who loved getting attention.

The zoo provided brushes so kids could brush the goats' coats. 

The last Friday before school started back, the girls and I had our annual "Mommy and Me Day," where we spent the entire day doing fun activities, buying toys, and eating whatever they wanted.

Our first stop was Bounce House, an indoor playground full of inflatable jump houses and obstacle courses.

After a couple of hours of running and bouncing, they chose Panera Bread for lunch. 

We sat right by a window at Panera Bread, and I couldn't get over how gorgeous the girls' eyes looked in the natural light. So I took photos to share with Dan, who said he'll need to buy a shotgun to keep the boys away.

After lunch, we shopped for small toys for the girls.

Then we headed home for a Toy Challenge Scavenger Hunt! I had collected some toys from thrift stores and hid them around the house. The girls got a clue to help them find the first toy, and they had to complete a challenge with the toy (build it, figure out how it works, etc.) before they got the clue for the next toy location. It was a lot of fun. 

This was a "Goldi Blox" engineering/construction toy that they had to build before they could move onto the next toy. 

I gave the girls haircuts at the end of summer, and Emma just wanted a trim. I took 3 inches off her hair, but it didn't really change how it looks, so she was happy with that.

Hallie's hair, however, had grown down to her waist! I had never cut it, so it still had those pretty baby curls. But it was getting hard to brush because of all the dead ends, and she dipped her long hair into every food she ate, so it was almost always dirty.

I took off about 6 inches, and it's so much more manageable now!

She LOVES her shorter hair! She said that the older girls at school were always asking if they could braid her hair because it was so long, but it hurt when they brushed and braided it. She's hoping that now, everyone will stop messing with it! Ha!

All too soon, it was back to school time.

Our beautiful girls on their first day of school.

Emma is in 3rd grade this year with Mrs. Fox

Hallie starts Kindergarten with Mrs. Boyce. 

We pray that they'll have a wonderful year of learning, growing, playing, and making great friends and memories.  We hope that everyone at school will stay healthy, especially since the COVID Delta variant is on the rise. We pray most of all that the girls will come to know and love Jesus more this year.