Annabelle's first day

Annabelle had her first day of first grade at Walnut Grove Elementary School yesterday! She was so excited, she was up at 6 am, reading in her room cause she couldn't sleep. This girl lives to learn and be social, two things that going to school provides. Her favorite thing about this year...well two things: she got Mr. Peterson (her favorite teacher), and she gets to eat lunch at school. She was so proud of herself, the first thing she said to me when she got off the bus, was; "Mom! I ate all my carrots!". You give them a little independence and they prove you proud! I am hopeful that this is the first of many good decisions this little beauty of mine will make :)

Camping in luxury

Annabelle with two of her buddies, Isaiah and Mikayla

All of the kids (minus the 3 Sweeney kids who left a day early)

The whole group

I just followed in suit with Ella...

Kristen, Jenn and I

The Curry family went camping for the first time together as a family over Labor Day weekend. It was a really great time "roughing it" at the Thousand Trails Campground in Chehalis, Wa. If you have never been to Thousand Trails...while yes, we pitched our tent and made our own food, we also had access to a pool, a hot tub, mini-golf, and other fun things for the kids to do. Not so serious camping, but FOR SURE the way to go with kids! We went with our lifegroup and had a grand total of 17 kiddos, 12 adults and one large group campsite, where the kids gleefully rode bikes together, swam, and ate lots of other people's food. Kinda a dream for a kid. It was really a lot of fun, and we really couldn't have asked for better cohesiveness within a group. The kids did fabulously. We even got a compliment from the older couple staying at a campsite across the road from us. Not too shabby!

Daddy's little Lakers fan

Thanks to the brightly colored clothing options at Children's Place, Ella can root for her daddy's basketball team, and look stylish. And yes, Ella picked this outfit all on her own too, that is the beauty of it all :)

rockin the 80s in the 00's

Oh yeah. Annabelle is sportin' the side ponytail today (totally her request), so I put her hair up, and she runs into the bathroom to check it out and comes out struttin' like she is walking the catwalk...then says, "hey Ella come look at my hair". Ella replies: "ooooh". Annabelle says: "is that a good oooh, or a bad oooh?" Ella replies: "a bad oooh."

Toes!

So we painted Ella's toes for the first time the other morning, a sparkly pink! She was so very excited! We are working towards painting the fingernails, but she has to stop chewing them off first! She has incentive now. I'm hoping it works! At least she has stopped chewing off her toenails. :-/

Fashionista?

I just had to post a few pics of Ella's recent fashion. She has been all about picking her outfits lately, and we can't help but smile at the awesome creations she comes out of her room wearing :) There are so many more, but here a few that we actually captured on camera...

A blessing to me

So, as you all know, I like to run, and have been doing so for the last few years pretty consistently. Running to me has been my release, my exercise, my breath of fresh air, and a challenge when I run in races. But it also is time away from my family when I train for a race. This has been a spot of contention in my marriage over the last couple of years, and mostly because my husband did not understand what running means to me, and was not happy with my absence. So as we worked and talked through this rough spot, Chris began to let it go, and at least partially understood why it was so important to me, and became less angry with me for taking runs. This year has been even more amazing, as God has now given my husband a desire to be more healthy, and he has lost 40-50 pounds, by eating healthier and RUNNING! I had secretly hoped that one day I could run with my husband, that he would see the joys of exercising outdoors and that we could do this together. It is hard to get away for runs together with small children, so when my mom came to visit in June we went on our first run together, and I must say, I got a little emotional. I feel like I have a new husband, and it is so wonderful to enjoy running together! Pics of weight loss will come soon :)