Stickers!!!

 

Yep, a sticker chart that Emma loves.

I'm really thankful this is working.

 

We are decreasing Emma's Binky time.

 

She was doing great without it during the day and only using it at night and naps but then she got sick. And, since then she's been pretty attached to it and I haven't had it in me to pull it away. So now we do the stickers. She earned a little present pretty quickly and we are working on filling up a much bigger chart now and really hoping that's all it takes.

 

Sweet girl Miss Emma. Oh, she chose a small Doc McStuffins doll :)

 

 

School Orientation

 

Well, this morning we had two preschool orientations!

Yep, TWO!

 

Next week Lily and Emma will begin school.

Lily will go four days and Emma two days.

 

Praying that these smiles continue!

Summer Summary

Well, remember this post?

 

We have been crossing things off slowly but surely.

 

We made Moon Sand.

Our Summer Rock Collection.

We collected rocks from all of our adventures and the girls painted them.

We then wrote the date and event on them.

We ate rainbows!

Sisters are loving sharing a room.

They are growing, growing, growing and filling up our growth chart :)

We made fun snacks like cereal necklaces.

We made ABC animal posters.

We had fun "buffet" lunches.

The girls looove these. A little bit of a lot of stuff.

We read 100 books!

Lily has her favorites now and most of them are very classic books.

We are very familiar with the hold and renew policies at the library now :)

We painted our sidewalk and driveway.

 

We had great S'mores evenings.

We ate tons of veggies fresh from our garden.

And, we loved watching the planes while

we ate lunch on the hill at the Botanical Gardens.

 

Other things we did were:

Play hopscotch

Caught Fireflies

Watched Fireworks

Met Daddy for lunch at work

We had a Scavenger Hunt

We went camping

We went swimming and to a pool

We went to a new park

We went to the movies

We almost have an entire USA magnet map

We went to a baseball game

We went to Busch Gardens

Harborfest 2012

We went to an outdoor concert

We took a family trip

We went to a Bounce House with Daddy

We ate dinner outside

And, we watched our first sunset as a family

 

Sad that summer is over but we had a great time!

And, it begins...

The stomach flu/virus thing that started with me and three days later hit Lily and then three days later hit Emma. With this thing lasting three or so days a person, it took us awhile to recover. Took up the majority of our August, making the days of needing to be close to the bathroom, the couch or our beds very long.

So, it started Thurs, Aug 16th and lasted until the end of that next week on Aug 24th or so.

So, no pictures.

Luckily, we were all better and ready to do things, fun things and then the rainy weather began.

Boo.

Then because of the rain, the girls got a cold that turned into a cough. A really ugly cough. But, the tell tail signs never showed up...no fever, eating fine, sleeping fine (with delsym of course) so no need to go to the drs. Finally the nose stopped and then a few days later the coughs cleared as well.

Ready for the sickness to be over.

Friend Day

 

A day full of friends and a tour of Hampton Roads.

1. Visit with Shawn and Peg and their boys Evan and TJ in Yorktown.

2. Short visit with Tim, Abby and Nate...love little Nate!

3. Gotta love ending our day with a Monster Truck party :)

Happy 4th Birthday, AJ!

 

And, love finding spare batteries in the car :) at the end of our friend visits.

Happy August!

We had one amazing morning :)

Summer Photos

Coloring

With all of their toys, games and puzzles

they choose to color the majority of the time.

Lily has progressed into controlled coloring and in realistic colors.

Emma is still working on her fine motor skills but is getting a lot better.

Needless to say, Daddy has a special file at work that holds the many, many

coloring pages and drawings they make for him.

BG Afternoon

We woke up this morning happy to have Daddy home and we asked the girls what they would like to do today.  Lily looked at us with her grown-up face and serious voice and said, "I would really like to go to Busch Gardens today. It would be so much fun for all of us, I think".

So, we went.

We did an afternoon/evening trip and it was great!

Lily with her favorite Street friends.

Fun on the Tea Cups.

One of Emma's favorite rides, the Balloons!

First time on this ride and after the "worker" went around securing their seat belts came and found us to tell us that Emma needed one of us with her. So, Mike squeezed in :) And, he was thrilled about it. hahaa...

We went on countless rides, saw shows in the Illuminights show, had dinner, went on a boat ride and had tons of fun in the cooler weather. They got to choose some jelly beans as their special treat...

and we caught the nightly fireworks as we were heading to the parking lot tram.

So much fun.

These girls love Busch Gardens and ask to go constantly :)

Our Week

I'm backdating so much right now...my only clues are pictures. I do know that this week Mike was in MD for three days and it's pretty much a blur. But here are some pics when I remembered to take some.

Blueberry Picking and trips to Target

Teaching Miss Emma to do the dishes :)

Writing stories in her journal.

In between visits from friends, trips to Target, dips in the pool, playing outside and reading books the week went really fast. Why is it August already and why does it feel like summer is over?!?

:( Just a few more weeks left.