A year in review.....Part 1

It has been brought to my attention that I have been a total slackerdoodle regarding my blog.  So in an effort to catch up I am going to hit the high points.  It has been one doozy of a year!!

March 2014:
We moved to Naperville, IL

March - May 2014
Already summarized through Easter and swim team but thought I'd put a couple of Easter pics - especially since I love how my hair looks!

June 2014
End of School (though I feel like I may have posted about this already, but am too lazy to look back!) and Beach Trip to Gulfshores AL with my side of the family

 Field Day at school - all the Kindergarten kids wore yellow

 How cute is Audrey??

Last day of Kindergarten

The whole gang - complete with our matching T-shirts!

July 2014
Beach trip to Hilton Head Island and a quick trip down to FL to see my BFF Stacy and SeaWorld

End of July 2014

Had a super fun visit from our friends from Zachary - Elizabeth and Lauren Bradford - and went into the city to see Navy Pier and the Museum and the zoo.

 Love this picture of the girls by the river in downtown Naperville

August 2014
Did the (kids) Spartan Race with our favorite family up in Naperville the Kuntz family, went to Wrigley to see the Cubs, and had a visit from Papa and Weecie where we went into the city to do an architectural boat cruise and the Sears tower.  And I let the girls dye the ends of their hair with Kool-Aid.....it has still not totally come out of Audrey's hair as of March 2015!

End of August 2014
Girls started First Grade at Fry Elementary

 This group will later become the Puff Ball Crew!!

September 2014

Cheering on (from afar) the Noles and a super fabulous girls night out in the City seeing Zac Brown Band at Wrigley Field.  And the Cookie learned to ride her bike!

October 2014
A visit from John and Jane and Halloween

November 2014

Girls turned 7 - what in the world?!?  They had a dance party for their birthday....sadly Audrey was sick and missed the party.  Though we did have a little party for her at our house a few weeks later (though I cannot currently find any of those pics!)

 Group shot - which I used as a Thank you note for the girls.

Went to Atlantis in the Bahamas for Thanksgiving with the Hadden family - which is so many pictures that I will start there next time.

Swim Team

The girls joined our neighborhood swim team this year - the Tall Grass Lightning.  This was their first year swimming and they LOVED it.  They were in the 6 and under group and swam 25 free and 25 back.  They improved so much from the first time trials to the final meet.  It was really amazing how well they did.  I mean - they are no where near the first heat good, but they dropped a ton of time.  As we said each meet: Do your best and forget about the rest!

 Looking adorable at swim practice!

 Hanging out with their BFF Reece

 Brooke getting ready for the time trials

 Team picture day

 More sassiness on team picture day with Reece

 Audrey on deck to swim!

 Getting ready to swim - love how they look like they are going to dive in!

 One of them swimming back....no way to tell who that is!

 Decorated car for the parade through the neighborhood before the big classic meet at the end of the season

 Audrey's side

 Brooke's side

At the classic meet with Reece and Caroline

First Visitor!

The last week of May we had our first visitor to our new house - Grandma!  It worked out great cause both of the girls were the star students for the week in their class.  So Grandma and I got to go read each of the classes a book.  And based on the pictures below, it looks like we just sat around all weekend and did some reading.  Though I know that we actually did some shopping, some dining out in downtown, Audrey had a birthday party, and the girls had their first swim meet - though it was really just the time trials.

 Brooke is showing off her star student book - each kid wrote what they liked about her and drew a picture to go with it.  Both classes did this all year long.  So cute!

 Audrey is showing off her star student poster that she decorated.

And here are all three of us in Brooke's classroom in front of her poster.

Guinea Pig Drama

At some point when the girls were four, I made some comment about them not being old enough for a pet.  They somehow cleverly got me to admit that they would be old enough for a guinea pig when they were six.  And they immediately grabbed onto this random statement and clung to it for years.  So as they were getting ready to turn 6, we pushed them off with the idea that we would look into it when we were through with Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Then around Christmas we learned that we would be moving.  So we pushed it off again.  Upon arrival in our new house, they brought it up again.  I was willing as I like little rodent pets but D was not a fan....

But the girls are persistent if not anything else.  In one weak moment, D agreed that they could get one.  So the next day we set off to get a pet.

 Meet Scooter!  So adorable!!  And he was a tiny little thing.  Super sweet and calm.  After one week, little Scooter suddenly took a drastic turn - very lethargic and seemed to have trouble breathing.  The girls were super sad and insisted that I take him to the vet.  And I did in fact take him to the vet (much to D's consternation!) He got a shot and seemed to be better, but a few days later he died.  For those of you who have not bought little pets at Petsmart, each pet has a two week return policy.  For any reason.  All you have to do is return the pet.  In any condition.  So I sadly had to take a dead little Scooter back to get my money back.

The next week we went on our beach trip.  And when we got back we went right back to get another guinea pig.  This time we decided to buy two so that they would not be lonely.  But it was very hard to find two that the girls liked.  So after two long days of traveling to all the different stores all over the area, we ended up with two little piggies.

 This is Acorn - sharpest little claws ever!!

Here is little Bessie - she was super shy.

Sadly these two little piggies did not get along at all.  They totally stayed away from each other and Acorn seemed to be the more dominate one (from all of my research on the web!) and they really did not like to be picked up at all.

So we returned those two little ladies - within our two week window again to get our money back.  At this point, I am pretty sure that we are on some type of do not sell list at all the petsmarts and petcos around here.

But they say that fourth time is the charm.  So I will introduce our new pet: Peaches and Cream!  We have had her for two months now and she seems to be a keeper!

Mother's Day Girls' Trip

 So I was feeling a little down in May - still adjusting and trying to find my place in our new home.  And as luck would have it, I was chatting with one of my favorites from LA and she said that they were going to go to Pensacola for a little girls' trip fun for Mother's Day.  I thought that sounded great and D was able to swing it to handle the girls.  So off I went (though to be clear there was a great amount of angst in me as my girls laid a pretty major guilt trip about missing the Mother's Day Tea....fortunately my friend Rachael was able to be my stand-in at the tea!!)

 My favorite little selfie!

 Me and my girls - Heather, Aimee, and Dana (preggo with little baby boy)

 Hanging out on the beach - it was cloudy all weekend but we all managed to get severely burned!  I like this picture cause it sort of makes my abs look ripped.  Clearly a trick of shadows :)

I am such a dork - this is my planking.  Do people still do that?

Other stuff since we moved....

I think that every post I start, begins with a few sentences regarding how I am so far behind!  And true to form, I will start that way again.  So in an attempt to get caught up, I am going back through my pictures and putting in stuff that I think is memorable - at least stuff that I want to print out and put in my yearly book.

We got a trampoline since our yard is so much bigger than our last one.  The girls LOVE it!  This is about the only picture of me on the trampoline - primarily cause I have had a hurt neck/shoulder since May.

Here I am on a girls night out for a friend's 40th birthday.  This was my first out-and-about time with new neighborhood friends.  We went line dancing - thus all the boots!

The girls have really enjoyed free dress at school.  And even funnier, they really have been enjoying wearing matching clothes.  I have mixed feelings about this - they certainly look cute and it is a limited amount of time that they can get away with doing it.  But I really don't want random people to think that I am making my kids match.