Cell Phone Pictures

I am terrible at remembering my camera- luckily I have a cell phone that takes decent pictures. Here they are with some captions- and a lot of them are kind of old...

Ashlee's 12th birthday!

Mother's Day 2011

 

Baylee's ENT visit for her hoarse voice. Found out after they scoped her she has vocal cord nodules- and it's not common for 2 year olds to have them already:/

Ashlee Adi and Aly after their Orchestra concert- and they all received their gold medals for passing off advanced songs- 6/2013

Baylee and Gisele- these girls LOVE dress up! 6/2013

Ashlee trying to learn how to flip the ball in 8/2013

Scary scary storms! Ashlee has conditioner in her hair because we rushed her out of the shower to run across the street with us for safety 2013

5 family garden, many hands make less work!

Lexi and Ashlee BEGGED to sleep on the trampoline, we didn't think they'd last the whole night- but they did! 2013

One of my favorite pictures of Lexi bunting the ball 2013

Ashlee and Aly at Orchestra camp at the University of Arkansas. They stayed for a week on campus and loved it!

Happy 4th of July!! 2013

These 4 kids have grown up together, such cuties! 3/2013

Our new home in Minnesota! 8/2013

Ashlee and Baylee- little twinner soccer players! 9/2013

Belle is back with us! 9/2013

Halloween with Pocahontas and Belle:) 10/2013

Carly's 3rd grade teacher has what's called "College Friday" and the kids are encouraged to wear college shirts to get the kids setting goals for college. Carly wrote a letter to South Dakota State to ask about their fashion design program and they sent her back all these fun things.

Corn maze fun!

 More corn maze fun!

Baylee got a stomach flu that caused her to throw up for over 30 hours every 20-30 minutes. She was so weak she couldn't stand anymore, and I was a bit panicked! She looks asleep in this picture, but she's actually awake, she just was too weak to open her eyes and lift her head. After some anti nausea meds and finally getting her to keep fluids down, it took another 2 days but she was back to her normal silly self.

Lexi's first season playing basketball

Ashlee playing basketball- first time for school

Carly was so excited to start her basketball season!

All the mom's at Grandview Lodge- we were a little tired??

Baylee as Mary for her preschool play

 

 

 



Snow Fun

We have learned you have to embrace the cold to enjoy living here- and the girls have honestly LOVED playing in the snow as much as possible. I have tons of pictures of them sledding- they love to throw on their snow clothes and head out, sometimes for 3-4 hours!

 

We had some crazy crazy cold days here, school was cancelled for extreme cold, wind chills between -50 and -60. It warmed up to 0 degrees- who ever thought I'd think 0 is warm... But my kids love being outside sledding, and with the snow being hard and frozen it's perfect for sledding.

Darrell and Ashlee were out cleaning up dog poop- fun huh?! And with the extreme temperatures the poop freezes and you have to get shovels to chip it out of the snow. While doing that they decided to climb the hill in the back yard and start chipping out a snow cave.

It was hilarious to watch the girls play in the cave, sled, and climbing the mountain of snow to get on top of the cave was entertaining as well. The snow was so hard, they had to kick in foot holes to pull themselves up on top of the hill.

 

After another couple days of cancelled school from extreme temps Ashlee and Carly decided to take the shovel out and chip another cave in the hill, with an adjoining hole so you can talk to each other through the hole. Carly and Baylee were in them for hours- with breaks of sledding of course!

Lexi's Honor Choir Concert

 

 

Lexi and her friend Paige after their Honor Choir Concert.

 

It's really fun to watch Lexi grow and develop in her skills and talents. She is very modest about her talents- and it's been nice to watch her start to not try and hide her talents, but to share them.

The choirs here in Minnesota aren't as strong as they were in Bentonville. It's hard for Lexi, because most of the kids in her choir class are just taking the class for a credit- they don't really like singing. So with All Regions and Honor Choir she enjoyed it so much more since everyone there had to audition.

We love you Lexi and hope you continue to work hard developing your talents!!



Bentonville Or Bust!

We left early and headed south the Bentonville- we were all really excited to see familiar faces, and have some warm weather!

The drive was uneventful, which is just how we like it! My friend Carrie was out of town for the holidays and let us stay in her home while there. We got there around 6, and after unloading the car we were ready to drive and see friends.

We went to the Patterson's first- and there was some shrieking and screaming coming from some little girls. They were so excited to see each other again. Soon Bingham's came over and then Hooper's. Darrell stayed at Carrie's and slept- he hadn't slept well the night before and with the 10 hour drive he was asleep by 7:30.

We were able to see so many friends and get so many play dates for the girls. Friday night the Bingham's hosted a dinner in their home, the kids were running and playing while the adults chatted and played games.

Saturday we took the kids ice skating. None of us have ever ice skated, but the kids picked it up pretty quickly. Baylee was grumpy for the first while, until the older girls started helping her. By the time the skate session was over she was loving it!

Sunday we had dinner at the Patterson's and then headed to the Hooper's for dessert. It was also time to start saying some goodbyes. I hate goodbyes!

We have become so close with these families- I definitely consider them family. I know my kids feel the same way also. I was worried this trip would be a set back for my girls and that we'd have a lot of melt downs, but over all the kids did really well! Only a few melt downs- but I anticipated that.

Monday morning I had a doctor appointment scheduled for my feet. After x-rays and discussion I had two cortisone shots, one in each foot. They are incredibly painful, but not as painful as walking around in constant pain from the fascitis. After the appointment I had to stay off my feet- and we had to get packed up.

Ashlee had a few friends sleep over, so they all were leaving by the time I was done with my appointment. The hardest thing was I wasn't able to finish saying goodbye's to all my friends. I focused so much on each of the girls having their time- I was feeling a bit sad to not get mine. (I know it sounds a little selfish.)

Here are some picture's-

 

It was such a great trip- we loved being able to see so many friends and can't wait to go back and visit again!