First Grade and Baptism

 Abby started 1st grade two weeks ago! She was excited and ready to see all her friends and explore her new classroom the first morning. 

Two weeks in and we are still mostly excited! Some days she really wants to stay home and play with her toys or the dog. Some days, she is up early and ready to go! We are discovering that first grade is a lot more work than Kindergarten! The teacher reviews her work and gives a smiley face, she will have spelling tests starting soon, she is already doing a lot more math each day, and she is learning cool facts. When at the high school football game on Friday, the national anthem started playing and Abby immediately whispered to me it was written by Francis Scott Key. I love when school facts collide with real world stuff!

We have three kinder friends in our classroom and that has proven to be good. Abby loves that she knows someone and luckily, she sits in a pod of desks with two sweet girls from her Kindergarten class. I love that both of these girls are quiet which is a good influence on my chatterbox!

I did not request a teacher for Abby through the school. I really prayed about it and left it up to God and He answered in a couple of cool ways. First of all, Abby's teacher has a peanut allergy! How cool is that- she is new to our school and a first year teacher and the decision makers didn't even know that! I love that God matched them up! In my mind, I had hoped for Abby to get a certain teacher and now that we are two weeks in, I am already seeing why she would not have been a good match for my child. Nice reassurance to not try and plan everything for Abby, but trust God!

Speaking of trusting God, after Abby accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior on July 31st, we scheduled her baptism and it happened on August 30th. She was baptized by her Daddy with our children's pastor, Mrs. Patty, sharing a little about Abby and her walk to Christ.

We are so proud of her and her decision to want to grow in her relationship with Christ. She is deep in her questions, big in her worship, and she is sensitive. We've taught her the phrase "break my heart for what breaks yours" and she is already trying to see the world differently. I have no doubt this will make parenting her my biggest challenge and my greatest reward. 

We gave her a little angel necklace to remind her little people can be big messengers for God. I hope she never forgets that. Her best little buddy Michael and his Mom Natalie came for the service. Natalie has been a wonderful example to Abby of the kind of love Christ has for us!

I so glad my Mom and Chuck were also able to drive over for the morning.

Our family on her big day! Congratulations Abby for making such a big decision and trusting God with your life. We are so proud of you and look forward to helping guide you toward Him.

Girl Trip- Day Three at the Dallas Arboretum

Our last day in Dallas before driving home was spent at the Dallas Arboretum. It is a beautiful large garden and we'd never been before, but will certainly go back! We started in coats and ended with sleeves pushed up! The weather was perfect!

Our first stop was the Rory Meyer's Children's Garden. It was so well designed and super educational! Check out the celery slide and pea boat.

These were found in the incredible edible garden along with this silly veggie art! This whole area taught kids about gardening, food's importance to your body, dirt and soil types, etc. It was fun to teach her more about where the grocery store is stocked from.

There was also a whole weather section that showed how wind is used to pollenate, water and sun make plants grow and the other more sever weather's damage to plants. Abby stood on the sun dial and it was right on- 11 AM!

I jumped in the wind tunnel with her! Total and complete silliness!

Nana helped Abby shoot water to make the orange pieces spin and then she proudly did it by herself numerous times.

I loved this flower area- it felt like Honey I Shrunk the Kids!

There was also a fun little cottage playground area with over sized bugs!

After the children's garden we had lunch on a covered patio inside the kids area. The lunch spot offered tons of healthy options- I loved it! We had sandwiches, carrots, apple sauce and yummy non-soda drinks like Texas Tea.

After lunch we walked the main gardens. I feel like visiting in May would be ideal! Lots of things starting to wake up for Spring.

I'd love to see these trees in bloom! 

I am no gardener- I think this is a white Dogwood. I love trees that just cover themselves in flowers in the Spring. Leaves are so boring when flowers can be seen.

They have seasonal displays and we saw the peacocks made from greenery and flowers for their big tails. There were a handful of them and they were really impressive!

Overall we had a really fun day and girl trip! We had good weather, a pretty happy camper with us, and the right shoes to walk without blisters!

We might have even made a little tree hugger out of Abby!

Girl Trip- Day Two

Wednesday was our light day on the trip- we knew the zoo would be lots of walking for Nana and crowded, so we wanted to do something a little easier that day. It also was the coldest day so we looked for indoor activities. My friend Erin is a big fan of the Urban Air Trampoline park nearby, so we decided to go jump there on Wednesday morning.

Abby and I had so much fun! It was a blast for both of us and a really good workout. I had fun and was out of breath!

Abby loved running and jumping into the foam pit. I did not do that one... I wasn't sure how easily I could climb out of the foam!

Check out the video of Abby running and jumping in!

After our jumping, we drove to nearby Plano for my favorite BBQ- Red, Hot and Blue. It was delicious as always. I so wish we had an Austin location. We also did a little shopping before going back to the room to rest.

Then, it was time for the moment Abby had been waiting for... her tea party at The American Girl store. She was giddy with excitement and couldn't say the words without squealing!

For Christmas this year, we bought Abby a My Generation doll from Target. It is the "off brand" American girl doll and it works just fine for us. I couldn't buy Abby a real doll and luckily she has no idea she has a generic version. 

Abby had saved her money for months and with a little help from the tooth fairy, she was able to buy the two items she really wanted- a lunchbox of food and a baby sippy cup and snack. You are looking at $38 right there. Wow.

We made an appointment to have a tea party and expected a large group to do a craft and then have a few snacks. It turned out to be our own table and this beautiful presentation of food!

It was all delicious and at 4 PM, really counted as an early dinner for us! I would highly recommend doing the tea party. 

It is $12 per person and includes all of this food and your pink lemonade to drink. 

Abby was also given a small cup and plate for her doll and the pink bow napkin rings and the flowers in the small pots. She was thrilled! 

We had a wonderful time at our tea party!

Up next, our last day was spent at the Dallas Arboretum. It was a pleasant surprise that we loved even more than the zoo!

Girl Trip! Girl Trip!

This past week was Spring Break and Marcus had a training all week in Denver. Boo for the odd scheduling of that! So, rather than sit around all week and miss Daddy, we grabbed Nana and hit the road for a GIRL TRIP! GIRL TRIP! (We named it that to take away the sadness that Marcus wasn't with us. It worked like a charm!)

We were all so excited that we left before 7 AM on Tuesday morning. We were at the Dallas Zoo before 10 AM which is a good thing because it was super crowded as the day went on. We were lucky to get decent parking and sunshine all morning! We even got a little sunburn!

It was a lot of walking for Nana but she did great! 

We rode the monorail which is a must do. It costs $3 per person but you get a guided tour of parts of the zoo you can't access by foot. And, you are up high so everyone can see!

The okapi is Abby's very favorite animal and she has only seen one at the Houston Zoo. They had a couple at the zoo and we attended the zoo keeper talk where she fed one and told us all about it.

I believe we were told this is the only koala in North American zoos right now. It was pretty cool to see- they are super fluffy and look so friendly. It sleeps 20 hours per day, so we didn't see much movement from him :)

We have been to lots of zoos in Texas- Abilene, Austin, Houston, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Waco and now Dallas. Waco is still our favorite, but I really liked Dallas too! Lots of animals, easy to get around, and a couple of really interactive spots. The food was awful and parking was pretty bad, but overall we liked it a lot!

I'll share Day Two soon!

2013 Christmas Day

Our Christmas Day was fun filled!

We had to wake up Abby about 7:30 because her Mimi was almost here and we didn't want her to miss out. We have minimized Santa in our house, so there were no new presents under the tree from overnight. We had left her a note from Holly (our Elf on the Shelf) that she was gone until next Christmas and she had fun and will miss Abby. She also praised her to all the times she saw her share, encourage and give grace to others. 

Before Mimi arrived, we sat on the floor and opened our stockings. Lots of great little things packed into those big plaid socks this year!

Mimi arrived about 7:45 and it gave me just enough time to put this beauty in the oven. I love Cinnamon Roll French Toast casserole on Christmas morning. We also had sausage balls and fruit salad. 

Abby opened new Little Mermaid legos and had fun impressing us with how well she can assemble them by herself. The directions on those were all pictures, so she did great!

Mimi opened a new tablet and had fun learning all the bells and whistles. She has an older laptop and flip phone so the world is apps is all new and exciting.

We assembled pizza balls (recipe coming soon!) and our Jesus birthday cake before heading to my Dad's house for a late lunch.

We played a new game- on the blog here- and had the most fun! The adults were into it as much as the kids and Abby was the big winner! She got a Target gift card. The rest of the prizes were little fun things- like Peppermint Oreos.

Cohen opened a new airsoft gun and the guys and kids had fun shooting in the country. We also played mafia together and learned quickly who is a good liar and who stinks! Cohen and Kyleigh could not fool their parents!

We were home by dark and brought Kyleigh home for a few days. It was a wonderful day!