Ice Skating

Tonight the Youth at church were going ice skating so we decided to make it a family affair. Brooke has been wanting to go anyway. I didn't know how she would do though because I took her rollerskating once and she was terrified. But I guess it was two years ago. I wasn't feeling all that great so I just sat out with Charlotte while Brooke and Nathan did the skating.

Here they are just starting out.
She's starting to get the hang of it.
She finally wanted to do it on her own.


She did fall a couple times and after the first time we had a minor breakdown. She rested up a bit and tried again. The second time she fell she just got right back up and skating. Maybe we have a future figure skater in our future??

Charlotte's first day of school

Charlotte had her first day of pre-school last week. The first day we had to go with them and hang out and watch them play. Here is Charlotte outside her classroom. Thanks to Melanie for the pictures, my battery in my camera ran out and I couldn't find a new one.

She goes with her friends, Peyton and Whitney. Here she is with Peyton doing her favorite thing: playing in the kitchen.
Unfortunately, she cries whenever I drop her off. It breaks my heart to do it, but she's going to have to get used to it sooner or later, right? She doesn't cry for long though, and I know she's having a great time!

Labor Day Part 2

Labor Day was spent at different festivals that were going on around town. There was a petting zoo, pony rides, a car show, and more that we didn't get to.Free icee anyone?

I loved this car. I wanted one for the girls. It is so cute. :-)

And to finish off all my birthday celebrations, today I went to lunch with some friends w/o kids (plus a baby) because today was Charlotte's first full day of preschool! (More to come on that later). And thanks to my wonderful friends, I was treated to a DELUXE spa pedicure. The best pedicure I've ever had. My legs were treated to a wrap, a scrub, a hot towel treatment and more. It was blissful. Then I had my eyebrows waxed. Not so blissful, but much needed. Thanks girls!

1st grade

We now have a first grader! We went and met Brooke's teacher last week who claims to be a much nicer teacher than who she had for Kindergarten. (She had a very stern teacher who was better suited for Middle School).She has a tree house in her class :-)
Getting ready to go out to the bus.
Waiting in line for the bus with her friend, Keaton.

Just hanging around

Brooke has taken a liking to climbing trees lately. Thankfully, they're not very big trees. I snapped some pictures the other day. She calls it her "treehouse".

Happy Birthday to me!!

Well, today's my birthday. Not just any birthday, my 30th birthday. The big one. It used to seem so old, but now that I'm here, it's not so bad. I mean, I've been married for 9 years, have 2 kids, one of which is starting first grade. I look forward to the day when they are both in school all day and I can have some time to relax and get things done. If that means I have to get older, so be it. Actually Charlotte will be in pre-school 4 days a week starting on Wednesday. So I will have 3 1/2 hours to myself. It will be soooo nice! Thursday I'm taking myself to lunch and getting a pedicure :-).

Anyway, since my birthday usually falls on Labor Day weekend, I like to celebrate the whole weekend. The celebrations started on Thursday when Nathan and I got a babysitter and went to dinner at Applebee's and then saw "The Time Traveler's Wife". It was an ok movie. I read the book recently and so it was easier for me to understand what was going on. I think Nathan liked it more than I thought he was going to. It was just nice to get out with my hubby without the kids.

Yesterday, we finally got to Lake Michigan. The weather was nice enough, about 78 degrees. The water was pretty cold but we still had fun. We drove to Ludington which is a little over an hour drive.

I think it is just so pretty there. The girls just love playing in the sand.

Charlotte was not afraid of the water at all! She loved it!

We played for about an hour and then a funny thing happened. We had a grocery bag that had some snacks in it and some seagulls flew up and took some goldfish out of the bag!! Our stuff is behind Brooke in the picture above. At first, I tried to stop them, but then realized it was no use. There were probably about a dozen or so birds. The girls were hysterical and yelling and screaming over their goldfish. They run as fast as they can to our towels and started gathering everything up. They didn't want the seagulls to get the rest of their stuff and so they were ready to go. Nathan and I couldn't help from laughing. We tried calming them down, but it wasn't working. They were ready to go and ready to go NOW!! I wasn't about to let that ruin our day though. We decided to go and eat lunch because we hadn't eaten yet. We finally settled on a cute little corner cafe that was French and called "Le Serving Spoon". They had soups, sandwiches, and best of all...DESSERTS!! And boy was the food good, and the desserts even better! We were glad we just ran into this place. We may have to stop there again. After lunch, we stopped at the playground for a bit and played and then walked to the lighthouse. Then we played at the beach for a bit more and then headed home! It was a really fun day. I'm glad the weather cooperated.

Today, we had a cook-out at the Community Center with friends. We played WII and ate and hung out. It was just a relaxing day which was nice.

So far it's been a great birthday weekend. Tomorrow; who knows?