Kindergarten Bound

Camryn was thrilled to go to school today.  First day of kindergarten.  I think I was less nervous because I got to take her to her first day instead of some big yellow bus shuttling my baby off to the big kids school.  She is not riding the bus because it comes too late for Craig or I to help her get on the bus.  Parents have to be there to get the kindergartner on and off the bus, so we had to enroll her in before/after care at the school.

Here are some pics from this morning. 

She got up and dressed really fast to take a picture with her Daddy before he left for school.

She has to get up early enough to eat breakfast at the house now.  And here she is having a healthy meal of Apple Jacks.  Yuck! 

Headed to school.  Showing off her all pink backpack.  She is so proud of it.  She picked out patches that I sewed onto the front of the bag.



And we're off.  SOOOOOOOOOOOO excited.  Darcy is just chilling out.  Not sure what the big deal is.



Little sister has been dropped off and the big girl arrives at Discovery Ridge Elementary for her first day.

In front of her classroom.  The school's mascot is the Stars.  Her teacher had put a name of each kid in the class on a star for the entrance to the classroom.

And since it wasn't time to start school yet, we checked in at Chatauqua which is the before care at her school.  They had tons of toys and games to play with.  One of the neighbors was there as well, so she knew someone right away.  She kept telling me "I'll miss you, mommy."  I'm not sure if she wanted reassurance that I would miss her too, or if she wanted to make me feel good. 

Good luck, Camryn!

Summer Fun

Well, the lack of posting has been due to our crazy summer schedule.  I swear our life slows down when school is in session and a routine has been restored.  And I have not taken that many pictures this summer.  Not sure why.  Maybe having a increasingly heavy baby on my hip grabbing at the camera while I'm trying to focus is the cause.  Ha!  Just too many blurry photos.

I will start with the most recent because it's what I remember most.  And then the others will just be some random summer pictures.

I took the day off to play.  Camryn, her friend Marley, and I went to the city museum for the day.  And I mean the day.  I figured we'd be done in a few hours, but we got there at 10 and had to leave at 3:30, still not getting to play with everything there.  I hadn't been since they first opened, and this by far has to be one of the coolest places to take a kid.  I would say at least 4 years old would be ideal because there were a lot of stairs we climbed up and down to go to different sections.

We climbed this rope up the wall and once at the top we got to slide down a pretty steep slide.  Cam was a bit nervous about sliding at first but once I went down with her a couple of times, she was good to go.  It was fun!  And it was nice to see other adults having fun.

Here Camryn is driving a school bus.  It was fun because they could punch all the buttons and even open the door, which was caged off, because where she is sitting she is actually off the top of the building!  This bus was on the roof and hanging off the edge.  Once I pointed that out to Camryn and Marley they looked at me in disbelief.  Then they looked out the window and started screaming!  LOL!

OK, so a mild ride, but these girls hopped on to go through the tunnel a few times.

They turned into butterflies in the art center where they had their faces painted.  When the gal pulled out the glitter paint for the finishing touches you would have thought it was gold.  They were so excited.  (As a bonus the lady even painted a sunflower on my cheek.)

Two painting butterflies.

Back up on the roof, these lily pads were fun to leap on.

And then at some point, the girls decided to leap off the lily pads.

And then they got even more wet.

Two soaking wet butterflies.

And the butterfly paint came off.  Ah well.  So I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around with a sunflower on my cheek and two little girls without paint on their face.  Ha!  I'm sure people thought I was weird for having my face done but not the girls. 

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OK, backing up a bit in the month.  Darcy began walking on July 16th!  I tried to blog about it.  Even had a video to attach, which I will attempt to attach again, but have had no luck.  Sorry if it doesn't work.  She has been so funny to watch.  She walks with her hands up in the air.  And when she does she always has this look of accomplishment and a "see what I'm doing?" look on her face.  It's been a break, a small one, but at least a break on my back as she is walking more. 

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Below are several more pictures from the summer.  Some from June and others from July. 



Charlotte, Camryn, Pepper & Dylan at the annual Horn 4th of July BBQ.

Neighborhood girls dancing to Justin Bieber songs.

Told you this was in random order.  This is is before Darcy was walking around.  Craig tried his hardest to work with her when she would let him.

Little Miss Firecracker.  Isn't she so pretty?

Finally the rain stopped just in time to set off fireworks.  As we waited for the daylight to completely go away the girls set off sparklers.

Not pleased with having to inhale the smoke. Ha!  At some point someone wanted to light a smoke bomb too.  Oh my!

Jon Moore and Ryan contributing to smoke screen by burning off the last of the sparklers.

Half of the firework watching crowd.

The other half.

Congrats to Camryn

Camryn's graduation from pre-school was tonight.  She is growing up.  Love her to pieces.

Camryn with her teachers. Ms. Brittney and Ms. Megan.

Looking back on the last 12 months

When I think about the last 12 months, I equate it to survival.  Sure my life was drastically altered when I lost my job but I'm talking more about what an impact Darcy has made on our family.  I joke with people that I looked so much younger in my pictures a year ago.  I do feel like I've aged.  Darker circles and more gray hair.  I would say it's safe to say that Darcy has been a challenging baby. 

Look at this little thing.  Who would have known what a firecracker she'd be.

BUT, this is not a blog entry to document how tough she's been.  For the record she is 5489% better these days.  Rather, I want to celebrate the little person Darcy is as she turns one year old!

Things that make me smile about Darcy:

• She races down stairs like no child I've seen.  Crawls to the edge, turns around and flies down backwards on her belly.  I get nervous she's going to catch a foot or knee and go flying off, but so far so good.
• We've given up on blocking the stairs to go up. She climbs over whatever we place there.
• She's fearless when she gets down from our bed.  Turns around and drops without a second thought. Then falls to her bottom and off she goes.
• She loves the little loveys I have made for her.  She will wait for us to come get her in the morning after screaming to let us know it's time to get up.  And when we walk in she is standing in her bed, facing the door with her elbows and forearms up on the bed railing.  She's always holding a lovey and when we walk in will hold it out for us so we can hug it.  She'll say "Awwwwwwww" when she holds it out. 
• She will climb on top of the dishwasher door if we let her "help" with the dishes.
• She likes to climb all the way back into the kitchen cabinets to get to the dishes I don't want her to have.
• If you get her started on pictures on the wall, she knows where every picture of Camryn is in the house.  She'll point to one and then when you take her over there she'll turn and point in another direction toward a different picture. 
• She talks to you about the pictures.  Mostly says "Go-ga?"  We think that is either Camryn or Sissy because it's typically pointed to Camryn pictures.
• She enjoys playing with magnets on the refrigerator.  I remember when Cam went through this phase (thank you Dad, for the scratch free magnets that are still coming in handy).  But what's so fun is she will have a conversation with herself about the magnets.  I've got to capture on video.  She just talks and talks.
• She isn't walking yet, but walks along the walls a lot.  She'll crawl up to a doorway, stop and stand up at the doorframe and work her way into the room.  When she sees that the wall moves in a direction different that the way she wants to go, she'll pop back down and be on her way.
• Lights up when she sees Camryn.  Will crawl over to her and collapse into her like she's hugging her.  So precious.
• When she asks for more using sign language, it's more like a clap.  At least we know what she means.
• She loves cookies as much as her momma does. :)
• She gives me zerberts on my arm.

Love you Darcy!

Happy to be a mother

There was a time in my life (well most of my 20's) when kids were not under consideration. In fact, Craig and I both had even talked about not having children.  Then we decided, at the same time really, that we wanted to give parenthood a go.  There are some very stressful days when we've looked at each other and questioned the decision, laughing that we'd have so much money we could be enjoying our second beach vacation of the year already.  But we are blessed with two beautiful girls.One is angelic. The other, not so much.  But they're equally as entertaining and huggable.  I love them both very much!

Last weekend was so great.  Wish I could bottle up the combination of the weather and the happy times and carry it with me always.

Saturday, Camryn got to take a tour of her elementary school, including walking through all four kindergarten classrooms.  She's so thrilled.  Then soccer. Chris & Jessica came out to watch her play.  She told them afterwards that she was so surprised that they came that she couldn't concentrate on the game.  HAAAA!!!!  Love that she had an excuse for it this time.

That evening, Chris and Jess watched Darcy while Craig, Cam and I participated in the Take Steps walk to help raise awareness for Chrohns and Colitis.  One of our neighbors has gone through a terrible 12 months in and out of the hospital with Chrohns disease; and a lot of our neighbors participated.  And then we all went for fishbowls at Rigazzi's afterwards. :)

Sunday, the family let me sleep in.  And I got Starbucks.  And no one was fussy all day.  Smiles all around.  The best set of gifts I could have asked for.  We had our annual brunch with Grandma Collins.  She told me when she walked in, the waitress asked her how many kids did she have.  There were probably 20 of us there.  She only has two kids but it resulted in a lot of family.  Anyway, she was laughing.  She said "I didn't want to to her I was 99." As if the waitress thought she was still having children. LOL!

Cam and Maria.
(That's icing on Camryn's chin.  That's all she ate of the large piece of carrot cake she picked up.)

I think this might be our first family pic together where everyone is smiling. :)

And I'm the only reason this family picture exists.  It only takes 20 minutes to get everyone to move.  I seriously have to herd them like sheep to get in one spot and smile.  Geesh!  Surely someone will find value in this one day besides me, right?

I got some snapshots outside after brunch.

And then we popped my mom and dads so I could hug my mom. Cam had a tea party with Dad and then played a round of checkers with Mom while Darcy messed with Gabby and went for everything on the back porch she wasn't aloud to touch.

Darcy is reading People Magazine's special royal wedding edition.

Hope all of you moms had a great mother's day.

New quirk

Camryn has started winking. And she winks all the time.  She'll yell for me, and then doesn't want to say anything. She wants me to look at her and she'll wink at me.  She's not bad at it but it looks like a lot of effor for her and it's almost a blink.  Craig and I caught her this morning practicing her winking.  Too funny.