Matthews Alive

Several weeks ago we got to go to "Matthews Alive", a fun parade and carnival in downtown Matthews.  The kids liked seeing all of the bands and floats in the parade, and they enjoyed choosing a ride at the carnival.  After almost a year of living here, we are starting to see familiar faces around town, which is always comforting.  We look forward to participating in many more fun, local events like this one!

Preschool for Maclain

After taking a hiatus from preschool since the move, it was finally Maclain's turn to go back to school in September.  She is going 3 mornings a week and is really enjoying her days there.  We adore her teacher and she seems to have such a sweet little crew in her class.  Maclain especially loves the days they get to go to music class.  She is already learning so much and we look forward to a great year!

Kindergarten

Maddox started kindergarten back at the end of August and I am happy to report that things have gone very smoothly so far.  He has the sweetest little class and we love his sweet teacher, Mrs. Granger.  I have been able to go volunteer a few times so far this year, and I am loving getting to know all of the kiddos in his class.

I take him to school in the mornings, but we decided to let him ride the bus home in the afternoons since Miller still naps during that time.  I was nervous about it at first, but he absolutely loves it.  The bus stops basically right in front of our house, so I just stand in the yard and wait for him.

We are so grateful to have had such a great start to the school year!  I can't believe it's already October!

Miscellaneous Summer Fun

In between our trips and company, we have managed to have some fun "normal" days.  We found a place that sells playground equipment and a couple of days a week they open it up in the mornings for free play.  We really enjoyed playing on all of the swing sets and equipment!

We have had friends over to play and have enjoyed digging in the dirt!

We have also done our fair share of swimming over the last few months!  Maddox and Maclain have both learned to swim without floaties this summer, which has been amazing!  There were times I thought we would never get there, but it finally happened.  Maclain especially is a little fish, and she is great at swimming underwater.  Maddox is more cautious and prefers to keep his head above water while he swims, but is also capable of swimming underwater and has been trying it more lately.  We are so proud of them!

The Little Mermaid

In July, my mom and I were able to take Maddox and Maclain to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival to see The Little Mermaid.  Maclain has been in love with this movie for a while now, so when my mom saw that it was coming she got us tickets.  I was so impressed with the show and thought it was so well done!  It lasted 2 1/2 hours and they both hung right there with it until the bitter end, but quickly crashed before we were even out of the parking lot!  Bless their sweet hearts, it was almost midnight to their little eastern time systems before we got home!

Miller's Mouth Injury

Back about a month ago, we went on a family outing one evening after dinner to get some ice cream.  We were letting the kids play and walk around an outdoor fountain area when Miller lost her balance and fell.  She hit her mouth on a concrete step and was hurt pretty badly!  It was one of the scariest moments we have had yet because all we saw was tons of blood gushing from her mouth, but we couldn't tell exactly what was bleeding.  We have never seen her cry as much as she did, and we knew she was in tons of pain.  By the time we got home the bleeding had pretty much stopped, but her mouth was so swollen that we still couldn't really see how bad the damage was.

I took this picture about 10 minutes before she fell

Poor Miller the morning after her injury

She had a really hard time sleeping that first night because she has always slept with pacis, and we decided to let her have it.  That wasn't such a great decision because the more she sucked on it, the more she bled.  I took her in to the doctor the next morning.  He was surprised that she didn't lose any teeth or need stitches.  After a couple of days the swelling went down enough for us to see that the source of all the bleeding was biting a chunk out of her tongue... ouch!

Now that about a month has passed you can barely tell anything has happened.  Her two front top teeth did get pushed a little further up into her gums, but her tongue is almost back to normal.  Poor Miller had a hard time there for several days.  We ended up going ahead and taking her pacis away completely since she didn't need to be sucking on them while her mouth was healing.  I think that was harder on her momma than it was on her! :)  We are so thankful things were not any worse!

Lots of Company!

Just before school let out my sweet friend Jamie drove to Charlotte from Newnan, GA and spent some time with us.  She was needing some time away, so she left her 2 little boys at home and came on a solo trip.  We didn't have a ton of time together, but we made the most of it and did a little exploring.  We went to Freedom Park and out to lunch on Saturday.  We spent a lot of time just visiting and catching up at our house.  It was so nice to see her!

Then in early June April and Lydia came to visit (along with 4 kiddos)!  It was a crazy few days, but much fun was had by all!  All 7 kids slept amazingly well and we were all very surprised.   It was nice having a few days to catch up and let the kids play.  We ventured out a bit and had a couple of crazy adventures ;)

And later in June my friend Katie came up from Tallahassee!  She brought both of her boys this time and it was so good to see them!  We had a close call the night they got here when her oldest son started throwing up.  Katie decided to take all of them to a hotel that night (though I insisted she stay) and by the next morning he was all better.  We took the kids to the movies and then to lunch, followed by a trip to the pool later that afternoon.  The next day we checked out Ray's Splash Planet, an indoor water park here in town.  Katie is such a special friend to me and was one of the very first people I met when we moved to Tallahassee (at Chick fil A, of course!)  I love her to pieces!  Somehow I never got a picture of Katie or her kids while they were here, but I did snap this one of Maclain floating down the Lazy River.  She loved it. :)

Both mine and Daniel's parents also came this summer!  We have had a full summer of company and lots of fun and would not change a thing!

Beach Trip 2015

Wow... it's been a long time since I have posted!  I miss doing blog updates and I am going to try to get back on track!

Well, Summer is drawing to a close and I have to say this this has been our busiest summer yet!  We have either had company at our house or have traveled to see family almost every week since May.  It's been both tiring and exciting.  I wanted to take full advantage of our flexibility this summer, since Maddox is starting Kindergarten in just a couple of weeks.

Our summer started with a bang in May when we drove to FL to go to the beach with my family.  It was a very fun trip and I am so thankful we are able to do this every year.  We always have a great time and the kids really enjoy being at the beach and seeing their cousins.

One of the highlights of our trip was getting to see our best friends from Tallahassee while we were there.  The Evers' drove over Friday night and spent the night with us in our condo and we managed to squeeze in a lot of fun in such a short time.  We let the kids swim and play in the ocean and pool, and we also went out to dinner Saturday night at Pier Park where we enjoyed a few rides. 

The Reavis family also happened to be vacationing in the same area at the same time so we crashed their dinner and stole a few quick pictures of the kids.  I was so glad to see all of our friends' sweet faces.  We miss them so much!

And just like that, our trip was over and we managed to survive our 11 1/2 hour journey back to Charlotte.  We are already looking forward to next year! :)

A Few Pictures

Headed to "Breakfast with Dads" at preschool

Miller thinks she is big enough to swing like this now :)

Loving our evenings at the park :)

Sidewalk chalk on a pretty day!

Enjoying Chick-fil-A

Playing at the creek

Storytime at the library

Headed to a pirate birthday party... this cracks me up! :)

Sharing their ice cream!