Happy Birthday Karlin!

Happy Birthday to our beautiful cousin and niece, Karlin! We are so proud of you and all that you have done so far in your life...you are truly a special young lady. Every time we see you we are amazed at your beauty inside and out...you are going to go far in life.

We hope you have a wonderful day filled with friends and family making it extra special!

Hugs from all of us!

Love,

Uncle A, Aunt Hollie, Ashton, Drew, Darcy and Angel

Prairie Fest Fun!

Life is good in Huxley, especially during the Prairie Fest! We had so much fun as a family this weekend and were also reminded of the kindness in this small community filled with young FUN families.

Our Winners

The Bug Contest

This year we joined the library for the "Catch the Reading Bug" program and decided to enter the contest for creating bugs to be judged and announced during Prairie Fest. We received a call on Thursday evening to inform us that we had some winners and needed to be on stage at noon on Saturday. Our bugs were "The Princess Butterfly", "Garage Garbage" and "Praying Mantis". The library was so sweet and made it a three way tie between the Allen Kiddos.

The Perfect Morning

When we woke up this morning, the sun was shining and all I could think about was some time away to unwind. Reiman Gardens is the best place to take the kiddos and sometimes a lot more relaxing just the three little blessings and myself vs. a play-date. We had a wonderful morning and Ashton was so great helping with Drew and Darcy and making sure he was a great listener...we are so blessed. I truly could not have picked a better way to spend the morning with our sweet children(too bad Daddy had to work) and thank God for his blessings. When life is tough, and it seems to be right now, I need to remember what really matters and that is why God led me to such a peaceful place today.

Blessings!

My Big Boy

This is proof to me that my baby boy is really growing up. He has always been very creative...not wanting to stay in the lines and make his own drawings with a lot of colors. I always loved his creations, but today, he brought this to me and I cried tears of joy that he had done such a beautiful job. He said that he really needed to color the sky blue and grass green...I love this kid! Our little Ashton starts preschool in a few weeks and I think maybe, just maybe, he is ready for the next stage in life. I'm sure glad it is not Kindergarten yet...I don't know how I will handle that. :)

Cecropia Life Cycle

It has been an amazing experience to witness the life cycle of our Cecropia Caterpillar. We received him from our Summer Reading Program at the library and have watched him eat,poop, eat, poop and eat and poop some more. It has been a lot of work for Mommy...fetching leaves from an apple tree down the street sometimes at 7AM and sometimes at 12AM and my favorite part, cleaning the poop up once or twice each day! UGH! So, thankfully, I was the one who was able to witness him first starting to spin his cocoon and it was so neat to watch...I watched all day and even got up in the middle of the night to see what was happening. I just couldn't stop watching, it was such a miracle to watch. I left him a nightlight on just in case he needed to see while he was spinning....I got very attached and became his Mommy. I am so happy that he made it this far and we just pray that next Spring we will see him emerge. We will now take the cocoon outside and let it get adapted to the weather changes.

Here are some amazing videos of his work.

Beautiful

Andrew just informed me of a conversation that Ashton and he had while I was teaching Kindermusik this morning with Drew and Darcy in my class. Andrew and Daddy get to do something special together each Saturday morning during Kindermusik and today was garage saling. Ashton was so kind and bought things for Drew, Darcy and Mommy. He picked out a bag of sea shells for Mommy and I guess there were two bags and he asked Daddy which one had the most beautiful shells in it. Andrew asked him why and he replied, "Because, Mommy likes things that are beautiful."

I guess that is why I love Ashton so much.

Off to display my beautiful sea shells.

The Squat!

Okay, maybe this seems silly, but I think it is a sign that my little girl is just that, a little girl. The baby days are over...tears. Andrew has been out of town this week and my dear Mom has been spending a lot of time with us, so we loaded the kiddos up to go to the "duck pond" in Ankeny. While running around, Darcy stopped and said, "I am peeing"...I love that she says this instead of "I need to pee", I am now getting used to knowing that she is not actually peeing, but has the urge. Well, what does any good Mommy do? Pulls down her pants and tells her to squat of course! My little Darcy squatted and peed for the very first time this evening...now don't you think that deserves a post on my blog? Me too!

Kisses and hugs to my little girl who now squats at the park!