Labor day and other stuff

We have been so busy getting into our school routine and getting ready for Haiti that I have not been able to update the blog. The girls are doing good in school. Hailey is in the young 5 class at preschool and is loving it and doesn't want to leave. Mackenzie on the other hand had a rough start and even had to go and talk to the "principal" on her third day. She is now getting the hang of it and is getting good reports every week.

I have started a bible study with some of my free time so I am enjoying spending time getting deeper into the word and getting to know some of the women at church better. It is hard to believe that we will be going to Haiti in 2 weeks. It seems like forever ago when we made the decision and turned in our paperwork and now it is just around the corner. We will be building walls at the new church they are building and also spending time at an orphanage that just opened up.

Here are some pictures some are from the creeper trail during Labor Day weekend and others are just random. There is one of Hailey in her new T-ball outfit, I love the pants, she is having fun and is much better at hitting the ball off the tee than she was this spring. Hope all of you are doing well.

Turning 5 and Preschool

It is so hard to believe that Hailey turned 5 yesterday. So much has happened in the past 5 years and it has all gone by too fast. Hailey is an amazing little girl who has an amazing nurturing and loving personality. She is a great big sister and a big helper to me around the house. She loves playing with animals and pretending she is taking care of them and loves playing games.

One of the pictures is Hailey with a fish she got for her birthday. She was so excited about her fish and couldn't wait to start taking care of it. We woke up on Sunday morning and went to tell the fish good morning to find that it was dead. We had a very tough life lesson before church but we are taking her to the store next week to let her pick out a new fish and ask the store how to take really good care of it.

We are keeping Hailey in preschool this year and she will be doing the Young 5 program 4 days a week. Mackenzie will also be going 2 days a week. We met their teachers the other day and took our school supplies. They were both very excited to go to school and are very excited to start next week.

Sweet Summertime

It is so hard to believe that summer is almost over and that the girls will both be in preschool soon. We have been busy this summer but with good things, like going to the pool and playing with our friends. Last week we went to go and visit my parents and got to watch Mr. Maddox for a few days and the girls loved playing with him. Here are a few photos from this summer.

new rooms and more

We decided to move Mackenzie's bed for a few reasons. Her bed was along the wall that the window was on. We found out one day while standing outside talking to our neighbors that when we put Mackenzie to bed she stands in her windowsill. The other reason is that when she moves around at night she bumps the ledge of the windowsill and then starts crying. While playing outside today I got the urge to go ahead and re-arrange her room.

After rearranging her room Hailey got jealous and wanted her room to be different so we redid her room as well. I hope you enjoy the pictures of the new rooms.

The rest of the pictures are from Hailey's dance recital over Memorial weekend. She was so cute and did a great job. While she had fun she has informed us that she like gymnastics better so hopefully she will be doing that this fall. There are also before and after pictures of Hailey's hair cut and a few pictures of cute Mackenzie.

Spring!

Spring is here and we have been busy. Hailey has started tee ball and is loving it. She is on an all girl team called the Lady Cubs. It is so cute to watch all the girls run after the ball and learning how to throw. The field is near a farm and the farmer has a little plane and took off during one the games and all the kids just stopped playing and watched the plane fly by. Mackenzie is little miss hollywood and won't go anywhere without her sunglasses. She is starting to really let her personality show and she is hilarious and loves to dance.

We took the girls to the Columbia Zoo after one of the tee ball games and Hailey had a blast. She got to ride a horse, feed a goat and got to pretend to milk a cow. Mackenzie was content riding in the stroller and being pushed around everywhere. The only time she got really excited was when we went to the aquarium and she got to see the fish.

Yesterday Hailey's class had an Easter egg hunt and all the kids had a great time. One of the little girls was out that day so the teacher let Mackenzie have the girls basket and Mackenzie got to run around and find eggs for her with Hailey's class. She had a blast and would get so excited every time she found one.

Wow, it has been a long time since my last post. Our church is having their consignment sale in a few weeks so I have been busy going through and organizing, entering and tagging items to sell.

We have done a lot since the last post but unfortunately I don't have a ton of pictures. First of all we took Hailey to the circus for the first time. We had a great time and she absolutely loved it. Brian and I hadn't been since we were kids and it was a lot more entertaining then we thought it would be. We couldn't believe that we were able to make it through the whole show and not have to buy anything (I am sure that will change the next time we go) and they tried the best to appeal all the junkie toys to kids and charge parents a fortune for them.

Mackenzie is in her clumsy phase and has fallen down a lot. This is her first black eye. About a week after that she fell and got a really good goose egg on her forehead. She was sick a few weeks ago and then on some antibiotics that messed with her stomach. But we are much better now and still clumsily going along. The biggest change for Mackenzie is her transition to her big girl bed. She is doing really well but she won't sleep on her pillow or under the covers. She sleeps at the foot of the bed on top of the covers. She has only fallen out twice so far.

We tired to get a picture of her in her bed but she didn't want to get her picture taken and as you can tell she didn't like her big sister in her bed either.