Stella's First Day of Kindergarten!!!!!

Stella had her first day of Kindergarten today! She was super excited, to say the least!!! She had a great first day, made a couple of friends, had PE and music class. I will be helping out all week during lunch to get the children used to going through the hot lunch line, opening up milk boxes, getting lunch boxes open and stuff. It was fun to help out today.

Walking her to the bus stop which is half a block from the house.

Getting on the bus. Riding the bus is a HUGE thing for Stella, she has been looking forward to it FOREVER!!!!!!!!

Although she rode the bus to school, Porter and I still drove there to take pics of her getting off the bus!! And I wasn't the only dork to do this, there were lots of parents there photographing their little ones getting off the bus! :)

In her classroom with the Ginny, the class Guinea Pig.

Sitting at her table.....I think she was getting tired of photos by this point!!!!!!

I picked up a cake for her today and had Kindergarten Rocks written on it to celebrate her big day! She loved it!

Porter shoveling it in!

Iowa State Fair

Yesterday we headed to the Iowa State Fair. Our good friends traveled from the Kansas City area to join in the fun. It was great to have John, Julia and their 3 year old girl, Natasha stay with us for a couple of nights. The weather was cool for the fair, which was wonderful and it did rain for a short amount of time, but it was better than 95 degrees and 100% humidity!!!

Here are the 3 kids at the beginning of the morning. The only food item Mike has to have every year at the fair are these giant taters! He loves them and looks forward to them every year! :) I did notice that they even have veggie corn dogs now!! I will have to try one next year!

All the kids got a chance to milk a real cow! It was pretty cool and none of them were scared at all!

Natasha, Stella and Porter in front of the BIG BOAR! This picture does not give the Big Boar justice, he is HUGE! Stella saw him and yelled "Is that a hippopotamus!!!" It was super funny!

On the Sky Glider

Self portrait of Stella and I on the Sky Glider

In front of the Butter Cow

Stella at the Little Hands On The Farm exhibit

Porter at Little Hands On The Farm

Riding tractors at the Little Hands On The Farm

When we got home from the fair it was nap time. After I put P down for his nap I kept hearing a weird noise from his room, I went to check on him and he was under his bed with his power tools and playing with his power drill!! I told him if he didn't want to nap that was fine, but we were going to have quiet time for a little bit. I went back to check on him about 10 minutes later and I found him sound asleep under his bed hugging his flash light that came with his power tools! Too cute!!!!!!!!!!

Kiddos

I was cleaning the house today and Stella was a HUGE help without even being asked to help out!! Where has this child been hiding the last 5 years!?!?!? :) She was so proud of all the work she had done.....basically cleaning up the toy room and her bedroom floor. She made her bed without being asked and she lined up all of her EIGHTEEN closest friends on her bed. She has a small stuffed animal/baby doll (and 2 snake) addiction!
She did a really good job!

Jammin' to her CD's tonight after bath time.

Porter needed some face time with his animals. He only needs 3 animals to sleep with: Giraffe, Sharky, Dolphin....such unique names for his bedtime friends! :)

This photo totally brings a smile to my face, he was laughing SOOOOOOO hard!

Road Trippin'

We had our first official family vacation last week. It was so much fun and we look forward to it again sometime!! :) We traveled from our house to North Carolina. On our way out we stopped in the St. Louis area to spend the night with Mike's brothers family.

We went to the Arch and took our niece Grace with us. It was a lot of fun. The kids were so excited to see the Arch and go up in it. I showed them photos of it before we left on vacation and it is a pretty impressive sight! Stella, Grace and Porter are at the bottom of the photo....they look pretty small! We had to wait a bit before it was our turn to go up the Arch so we checked out the museum below the arch and still had time to burn so we wandered around outside and the kids spotted horse drawn carriage rides, so of course they HAD to do that!!

Finally our turn at the top, the kids were thrilled and not scared at all (when I was younger the little trams that take you to the top used to freak me out!) they loved taking in the sights!

We left St. Louis around 4:45AM and hit the road running. The kids slept for a good 2.5 hours before waking up and they were SUPER DUPER travelers the entire trip! I was amazed at how well they did! :) We drove around 11 hours then stopped for the night, just 3 hours shy of Raleigh. We went swimming and hot tubbing then settled in for a night of relaxation! Here they are squeaky clean after bath, watching a movie in the room.

On our way to Raleigh we stopped in Mt. Airy, NC, home to Andy Griffith. My dad's favorite show in the entire world is The Andy Griffith Show, so we couldn't just drive by without stopping!!! It was a cute town and fun to wander around the main street and see the sights!

In front of Barney's Cafe

Floyd still cuts hair! He's closed on Sunday's (the day we were there) otherwise I would of had someone get a hair cut!!!

After leaving Mt. Airy we were tootling down the interstate and some one had to potty, so we pulled off to find a gas station and just happened upon this rocking chair!! Fun thing about road trips, you never know what you'll see!!

Finally we made to the Cunningham's Casa!!!! Vada, Stella and Porter had such a great time together. For some reason Vada took her sun dress off not long after we got there (maybe to access her belly button better?!?!?!) so Stella thought she needed to be undressed also!

They lined cashews up and down the hallway....

Getting ready to enjoy some good eats at the Village Deli and Grill which Pat manages and it part owner. It was so yummy, I could seriously eat there every day of my life!

Mike helped remodeled Anna and Pat's 2 bathroom and they needed to borrow some power tools from their friend, Renee. Stella fell in love with Renee's little dog!

Renee and Mark have the cutest chicken coop in their backyard, the kids loved it!

Uncle Pat was so good with S & P, they loved jumping all over him! One day we headed to Lake Gaston and stayed at the lake house of Pat's boss. He let's Pat go up whenever he pleases!! Nice!!!! We had the whole place to ourselves!

Mike with the lizard he caught at the lake.

Mike, S & P looking for more lizards or whatever creatures they could find!

Anna and Vada swimming in the lake.

Beating the North Carolina heat!

Playing legos at the lake house

After 4 nights with the Cunninghams we headed to Wilmington, NC to spend a few nights with the Gaddums! Again, we had such a good time and it was so fun to see John, Brittany, Filson and Ian. The second day there we headed to Wrightsville beach and enjoyed playing in the ocean an on the beach. Stella and Porter loved loved loved playing in the waves and digging in the sand.

Little Ian :)

Stella getting ready to go back out in the ocean for more fun!

Stella waiting for the next set of waves to hit her!

Vada getting ready to cool off in the Atlantic!

Mike, Porter and Filson in the ocean

Playing in the sand

All 5 kiddos before heading out for dinner one night. Ian, Filson, Vada, Stella and Porter

The next morning we loaded up and John took us all out on his boat and we went to this sand bar and anchored the boat and played around in the ocean/inlets all morning and early afternoon. The kids and adults had a ball!!! It was such a good time.

Stella showing off the jelly fish she caught.

Wandering around and checking things out.

Brittany and Ian

Vada playing in the water.

Our "home base"! The Gaddums have quite the set up!

John teaching the kids how to catch fishing bait

Looking down the sandbar we were at, by the time we left the place was pretty full of boats and people.

Filson and Porter playing in the sand with trucks and shovels

Stella, Vada and Porter being pulled around by Aunt Anna on the raft.

Bertie B and Ian

I left Porter in charge of applying the sunscreen to his face before heading out on the boat, obviously I did not watch him as he was doing so and he ended up with the craziest looking sunburn we have ever seen! The burn itself wasn't too bad, wasn't even noticeable the next day....just the shape of it! You can see how he got his cheeks, but stayed away from his eyes and forehead!

The day we went out on the boat also happened to be Anna's 31st birthday! Brittany made her some delicious scotcharoos!!!!!!! YUUMMMMMMMMMMM

We left the Gaddums early the next morning at 4:30AM (Stella and Porter slept until 8:30AM!)and made it 12 hours in the car. Again, the kids were awesome. We stopped at hotel and had fun swimming and relaxing.....they were zonked out!

We woke up the next morning and didn't rush to get around, we had a big jacuzzi tub in our room that they kids played in again that morning. We got back to our house around 3:30 and it was such a fun trip but it is always good to be home!! :)