First Day Of School

I am way behind on this post, but better late than never, right? Gwen and Grace both started school on August 18th, and I cannot even begin to describe how excited they both were. They asked me about it for weeks-"Do we get to go to school today Mom?" So the night before we had baths, laid out cloths, made Gwen's lunch, and packed their backpacks. They were so excited...I was so nervous/worried.

Gwen-Kindergarten

Grace-Preschool 4yr Program

Georgia-she didn't want to be left out, silly girl.

Gwen was so excited to ride the bus. It was really hard for me to put her on the bus though-I couldn't stop crying. Gwen did so good though. She came home from school and said, "It-was-AWESOME!!" She continues to do good on the bus and in school. Her teacher said she just loves her, and that she's doing so well that she might have to come up with some extra stuff for Gwen to do in order to challenge her because she is just breezing through things. Gwen loves gym, music, the library, computer lab...everything!! She has an awesome teacher, and just loves school.

Gracie was anxious to go to school as well. Her preschool is only half day, and it's about 10 minutes from our house. I take her and pick her up every day, and while the first day was kind of hard for her because she is pretty shy, she came home so excited and happy. Gracie still looks forward to going to school every morning, loves having little bits of homework every week, and just loves having so many friends to play with. Gracie's teacher says she is doing very well and is such a sweet girl in class. Her teacher and assistant teacher are fantastic, and Gracie just loves school.

Georgia had a bit of a hard time at first with her sisters being gone so much, but she has done so well since then, and actually enjoys the time that we have together, whether it's running errands, or cuddling while watching cartoons, or helping me clean/do laundry. It's been wonderful to have one on one time with her so much, and we feel so blessed to be in a wonderful town with great schools and amazing, loving teachers for our kids.

Pretty Pretty Princess Halloween

So I still have some things to catch up on here, but I figured I'd go ahead and do Halloween. Because it's been so warm here (and I guess it usually is every year) we were told to wait until a day or two before Halloween to carve our pumpkins so they wouldn't rot too fast. So we decided to wait until the night before. Sunday after we finished dinner we started carving our pumpkins.

It was really funny. As the girls were finishing up, Robbie cut the tops off of their pumpkins and started scraping the sides, so all they would have to do was pull everything out. Gwen had picked out a pretty tall pumpkin, and for some reason it was a lot more goopy than the other two. So when she stuck her hand in, she wasn't too pleased.


Grace wasn't too happy about touching the goop inside her pumpkin either, but she didn't complain as much about it as Gwen did. After a minute or two, she really got into it.


I had to help Georgia, and even she wasn't too sure about touching the pumpking goop, but she really got into it and had a lot of fun.

Right before dinner we made some Halloween sugar cookies. We had a lot of fun, even when the girls tried to eat the flour we dusted on the table (and Georgia tried to eat the cookie dough). We cooked the cookies while we ate so that they would be cool and ready to decorate after carving our pumpkins.

When the time came to decorate the cookies, the girls were so excited. They iced and decorated pumpkins, frankenstein, skeletons, bats, spiders, and the word Boo. Lots of sprinkles made it on the cookies...and lots on the floor.

When Monday finally came around, the girls were so excited to wear their Halloween shirts (even though they had already worn them a couple times throughout October) to school. Gwen and Grace both had Fall Festivals at schools, and Gracie even got to wear her costume to school (Gwen wore hers on Friday). They couldn't wait to go trick or treating.

So I started asking the girls back in September what they wanted to be for Halloween. I swore last year that I wasn't going to make their costumes this year because it was so much work and so stressful, but I didn't have much of a choice. Gwen was the first one to come up with her costume. She wanted to be Ariel from The Little Mermaid, but not the mermaid version. She wanted to be human Ariel, wearing the pink dress that Ariel wears to dinner with Prince Eric.

So I searched and searched for something to make this dress out of, and finally found something at Goodwill about 2 weeks before Halloween. I found a pair of girls size 16 capris, and with a little fabric, a woman's slip, and some ribbon, her dress turned out pretty good. I made a quick tutu to go under the dress and poof it out, but it bunched up and looked funny. I also made a hair clip similar to the one Ariel wears in her hair with that dress out of the same ribbon on the dress and pearl-like buttons. It really did turn out pretty good, and Gwen loved it, which is all that mattered.

When Gwen decided to be a princess, Gracie decided she wanted to be a princess too. She decided that she wanted to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast. I figured if I was going to make Gwen's dress, I might as well make her dress as well.

So I went searching at Goodwill and found a pair of women's size 4 capris and with some fabric and buttons, her dress came out pretty good as well. I also made a scrunchy out of some of the yellow satin that her dress sashes are made out of to look like the hair crown Belle has around her bun when wearing the yellow dress. Gracie loved her dress as well.

Georgia is absolutely obsessed with the movie Tangled. Whenever she sees anything from the movie, she spazes out. It is her favorite movie to watch, and she wants to watch it all-the-time! So it wasn't much of a shock when she said she wanted to be Rapunzel.

I made Georgia's dress too. One of the main reasons I decided to make their dresses was that most of the Princess dresses I found online and at stores were at least $30, and I just wasn't willing to pay that much for a Halloween costume, let alone triple that price. To make the dresses from scratch was going to be pretty expensive too-over $50. Which is why I once again went searching at Goodwill and found a woman's size 20 purple skirt, which ended up being perfect (except for a little long, which I fixed) for Georgia's skirt. With some lace fabric, and ribbon, the skirt came out really cute (even though the skirt looks blue in the photo and the lace looks yellow-I swear it isn't like that, it was just the lighting in the room). I had to make the bodice from scratch, but it wasn't that big of a deal. When I had been thinking about making the dress from scratch, I bought the pattern for the Rapunzel dress, and in there were instructions on how to make this really cute Rapunzel hair. Georgia loved it-she bugged me all day long to wear her dress and hair.

The girls had a blast trick or treating and we had such a fun Halloween together. Gwen already told me that she wants to be a pink flamingo next year....hahahahaha....not happening, but we are looking forward to making new memories and having more fun together. What pretty pretty princesses I have!!

Pictures From The Summer

Just some photos that I had on my phone or camera from the past few months.

Right after we moved here, and were still unpacking and organizing, it was easy to let the girls go and play with their toys in their playroom. One of the first things that they did was dress up. Georgia was a fairy princess.


Gracie loves everything fairy so she dressed up as Tinkerbell.


Gwen decided that not only was she going to dress up like a princess, but she was going to be super girl as well. Gwen, the superhero princess!!

Georgia has always had an obsession with shoes, so when I bought these ones, she immediatly became attached and wore them around everywhere for almost a month. They were her shoes, not mommy's.

Right after moving here we signed up to do the reading program through our library. The girls finished the whole program and not only got medals but these cool inflatable airplanes (that are now destroyed-oh well). They loved playing with the airplanes.

Before we moved we bought a bunch of popsicle makers-one set is star shaped, the other is rocket ship shaped. As it started getting hotter and hotter this summer, Robbie decided that chocolate (and eventually chocolate/vanilla mixed) pudding pops sounded really good. They were really good...just ask the girls.

Right after coming back from our vacation to Vermont, the girls had been coloring in the car and left some crayons in it. When Robbie went to work one day about a week later, this crayon fell out. This is the result by the end of the day...it had gotten to 117 that day.

Just some random fun photos from the summer.

Grace's Birthday & Party

Starting to get caught up-finally. We were on vacation back home in Vermont when Gracie's birthday came around, which was great because she got to spend her birthday with both Robbie's side of the family and mine-and Gracie loved it.

We spent the first part of our vacation at Rob's parents, so we had a celebration with them the day before Grace's actual birthday. Rob's mom made brownies-the girls absolutely love "Grandma's brownies," especially when they get to help decorate them with sprinkles. The girls and I went out shopping with Robbie's mom, while he went out and did something fun with his dad. We all got together for dinner, presents, and sang happy birthday. Grace couldn't stop smiling.


The next day was Gracie's actual birthday. Before we left Rob's parents, his mom took us to a really neat children's museum and the girls had a blast playing and exploring and learning new things, especially in their robot exhibit where they got to control part of the robots there. Afterwards we headed to my parents where all my siblings (minus one of my brothers, who is on his mission in Taiwan) came over to help celebrate Gracie's birthday. She had a blast playing with all her cousins, eating cupcakes, and opening presents.


Thanks to everyone who made these two days so special for Gracie and for all the wonderful gifts she received. It makes her feel so special and so loved to have that much attention and that much love focused on her, and it fills my heart with joy to see her so happy. Thank you.

My deal with the girls is that they have to wait to have a birthday party with friends until they are in Sunbeams. Gracie was so excited to finally be old enough to have a party. She decided that she wanted an under the sea party just like Gwen had for her first party, and since we already had most of the decorations, it was pretty simple planning. I decorated the living room with strips of plastic (made from a plastic tablecloth) to look like water, and then hung paper sea animal cut outs that I got from a party store for Gwen's party around on the walls. While looking online for party favors and bags, I found these cool tissue paper and cardboard fish that can hang from the ceiling, so I got a package and we hung three in the living room and three in the kitchen.

It's really hard to tell in this picture, but I hung a fishing net in the corner as another decoration. The ariel poster on the wall was one of the games we played...pin the crown on ariel, which the kids loved.

I like doing an art or craft project with the kids at each of the parties, as part of their party favor. For the two parties that Gwen has had, Rob and I made a bunch of fishing poles out of dowels, string and magnets, and bought some wooden fish that the kids colored with paint markers (ariel party), and we decorated aprons with puff paint and made our own pizzas(princess and the frog party-tiana likes to cook). I get the Disney Family Fun magazine, and it always has cool ideas for art projects or family activities. I saw this idea in there. You take contact paper, cut it into any shape you want, then mix up some fabric paint with water, put it in a spray bottle, put the contact paper anywhere on the t shirt you want, then spray the shirt with paint. It didn't really turn out like I had hoped. I am not sure if we mixed the paint the right way or not, or if we didn't have the contact paper down as well as we should have, but the paint leaked throught the shirt, made the shirt stick to the cardboard we put in between the front and back, and leaked under the contact paper. The kids had a blast and didn't care that it didn't turn out, but I think we are going to try it again sometime soon to figure out what happened. Still-all that matters is that they had fun.

And we played a couple of other games too. I made up a treasure hunt for the kids. I made up a bunch of rhyming clues for them, and wrote them on wavy pieces of green construction paper so it looked like a message on seaweed, which is what I told the kids it was. I actually told them that they were messages from Flounder (Ariels fish friend) telling the kids where to find the shark's treasure that Ariel had found (in the movie-the sunken ship-not really a "treasure" but the kids don't really remember the details from the movie and didn't care either). They had a blast searching for the treasure, which was their goody bags (little boxes in the shape of and looked like treasure chests).

The last clue of the treasure hunt mentioned that they had to be quiet when they found the treasure or the shark would get mad and come after them. Knowing the kids wouldn't be quiet, I ordered (because there are only two party stores in a 45 mile radius from us, and neither carry sea creature pinatas, and neither did any of the craft stores or walmart or target) a shark so they could "defeat" the shark and save their treasure. The loved it (you can see the net in this picture).

I made cupcakes cause they are so much easier to give to little kids that cake and forks. I tried to decorate them in a cute way, but it didn't turn out the way I wanted. I colored the icing blue, sprinkled blue edible sparkles on them, then either put sour gummy worms on them to look like octopus tentacles coming out of the water, or cut a swedish fish in half so it looked like a fish head was coming out of the water while on the other side of the same cupcake, a fish was diving back down and all you could see was the tail. The kids didn't care if they looked right or not...they just wanted something sweet to eat.

Georgia always seems to eat the icing first, and then eat the cupcake. She gets the icing all over her face, and a friend of mine looked at her and said that it looked like she had made out with a smurf. Too funny not to share.

Gracie got some fun presents from her friends, and even from her sisters. She had a great party and was just super happy to have a day to play and have fun with her friends.

I still can't believe that my sweet little Gracie-Grace is 4 years old now. She is growing and learning so much, and I am so glad that she is my baby and I am so proud to be her mommy.

Funny Girls

The girls have really been silly the past two weeks. Here's a funny story from each of them.

Every Tuesday night I have been taking a cake decorating class. So last Tuesday, after I left, Grace went up to Robbie and said, "Daddy, I have been trying and trying for weeks, but I just can't fly!" She then got up on a chair, starting flapping her arms like wings, and said, "See Daddy...see!?! I just can't fly!!" She also told me the other day that she really wished she had super powers.

Gwen has been very lucky to have one of her Primary classmates in her kindergarten class as well. Our Primary program is this coming Sunday, so this past Sunday they were practicing in the chapel. Gwen and her friend sat together and colored a picture for their kindergarten teacher. Monday morning I got an email from Gwen's kindergarten teacher. She said that Gwen had given her the picture, and told her that she and her friend had colored it for her while at church. Gwen's teacher then asked her which church the two of them go to. Gwen said, "Oh, it's the church with all the chairs on the back row." I laughed so hard when I read that email.

Georgia is still not potty trained, and I honestly haven't been trying too hard. She has this obsession lately that whenever I go to use the bathroom, she has to come with...she's even tried to follow Robbie into the bathroom a couple of times. I went to use the bathroom yesterday, and of course Georgia followed me. She stood right in front of me and watched me until she heard me pee. Then her eyes got really wide, she smiled and yelled, "Mommy! You peed!! Yay!!!!!!!" and started clapping her hands. Had to laugh cause this is what I do with her when she uses the potty.

The things they do and say just make me laugh so hard. I am so glad that I have three sweet and funny little girls.

A Letter To Gracie

Hey Gracie girl. I know your birthday was a while ago, and I feel awful that I haven't had a chance to write until now. Please know that I wasn't forgetting about you, and that I truly have wanted to write this letter to you...I have thought about it often and about what I want to write to you.

It's hard to believe that you are 4 already. It really does seem like it was yesterday that you went from being my little 2 year old pumpkin to my 3 year old, who loved everything Tinkerbell. I can't believe how much time has passed since then, and how much you have gone through, and how you have changed and grown.

July 2010

Shortly after you turned 3, you finally got the hang of using the potty and you were officially potty trained. You were so excited to be a big girl and wear real underwear instead of pull ups. We did fun things that fall like apple picking, and we all did little preschool lessons to help you prepare for preschool and to help both you and Gwen (and sometimes even Georgia) learn fun new things. You loved doing crafts and learning cool new facts. Your favorite was telling people that you had learned that dolphins slept with one eye open for protection, and you would tell them this after squinting one of your eyes shut.

September 2010

We continued to do little lessons and fun art projects, and you really enjoyed it. You really loved dressing up with your sisters and playing games. You kept making new friends in nursery, loved playing with your cousins, and continued to be as curious as ever. You loved pretending to be a superhero, and dressed up as Batgirl for Halloween.

November 2010

We had a lot of fun during the winter months-playing in the snow, making snowmen, getting ready for Christmas. You of course had a blast at Christmas and loved everything you got. In January you hit a big milestone...you finally entered Primary. It was hard to watch you growing up so much, and even though you were a little scared at first, you loved Primary and had so much fun in your class and in sharing time. Daddy and I couldn't believe how big you were getting, but we couldn't have been more proud of you.

January 2010

We had a lot of fun celebrating Valentine's Day and St. Patty's Day by dressing up and doing fun things like making our own valentines and eating green food. The weather started getting warmer and on some days we took advantage and went outside to draw with sidewalk chalk. We would have fun at playgroup each week, and we enjoyed our trips to Grandma and Grandpa Congdon's house every few weeks.

March 2010

April was a busy month for all of us. We started packing up all our stuff and got ready to move to Oklahoma. You seemed to realize a little what was actually happening, but you were still pretty excited for whatever was going to happen. We had a wonderful time living in Vermont, and we really enjoyed our last few weeks with all our extended family, and a wonderful Easter as well. We got to Oklahoma right in the beginning of May, and while it was a big change for us in many ways, you were still excited for the change and handled it all very well, though you did ocassionally express how much you missed our old home and our relatives in Vermont.

May 2010

We had so much to do that keep us busy after we moved. You helped unpack and clean. You made many new friends in your new primary class. We got you all registered for preschool and starting preparing for the start of school. We got to visit the zoo and the aquarium, and all sorts of new places and along with them, fun new experiences. We even had the chance to go back to Vermont right before school started and got to spend your birthday with both mommy and daddy's families.

July 2011

Through this past year your Daddy and I have seen you grow and change in so many ways. You grew taller, your hair got longer, and you got slightly less clumsy (something that mommy still suffers from). We also saw you start to understand more complex problems, your memory and bravery grew so so much, and we saw your creativity and imagination really begin to shine.

Though you experienced so many new changes, and changed in so many new ways, you still are one of the sweetest and most nurturing little girls that your daddy and I know. You are so concerned for others feelings, and you just show a great love and compassion towards others.

You continue to be so easy going and laid back about things, and always so willing to help everyone in any way you can. You are a very bright little girl, with so much love, and so much heart. Your smile can lighten any sad day, and your hugs are so filled with love. You are an amazing little girl Gracie, and your Daddy and I feel so blessed that you are a part of our forever family. We love you so so much, and just as you would do anything for anyone, we would do anything for you. Thank you so much for being who you are and for being such a wonderful part of our family. We are so grateful to have you...love you so so so so much, forever and ever, Gracie girl!!

Vacation To Vermont

I know it has taken me forever to update my blog-sorry. There's lots I'd like to update on, so hopefully there will be quite a few updates over the next couple of weeks.

Back in June Robbie started talking about how he wanted to go back home for a visit before the girls started school, because other wise we wouldn't see any of our family until December when we go (and we're still trying to figure that out) home for Christmas. Robbie had originally wanted to go back in the middle of August, but the week he wanted to go was also the week Gwen and Grace started school. After a little adjustment, we decided to go back for a week and a half at the end of July and be back in time for the girls to meet their teachers.

It was the first time the girls ever flew on a plane. They were so super excited. They would ask me about it every day for two weeks up until we left. They did so good on the plane and in the airports, even with delays. They are looking forward to flying again.

We spent the first part of our visit with Robbie's parents and had a great time with them. We bought the girls life jackets before we left and brought them with us on vacation. Gwen and Grace have been learning to swim very quickly with their life jackets, so we went swimming at Spring Lake. We also went shopping with Rob's mom, went to see Rob's uncle's goat, visited family and friends, went to Rutlands new children's museum, went to the Rutland farmer's market (ohhh...been looking forward to that...Pakistani/Afghani food stand--sooooooo goooood!) and just had fun playing in and around Robbie's parents house. We also went to the Montshire museum the last day we were there with his parents to celebrate Gracie's birthday. It was so much fun. I didn't get my camera out as much, so I don't really have any pictures from while we were there, but we loved spending so much time with Rob's family.

Halfway through the trip we left Rob's parents and headed to my parents new house in North Hero. Before we moved to Oklahoma, they bought a new house on Lake Champlain and sold the house that we had grown up in for the last 14 years. It was sad to leave the house and know we were never going back to it, but their new house is so lovely. My brother in law did all the remodeling work with a little help from a couple of people, including Robbie (which is when he shot a nail through two of his fingers with a nail gun).

We spent most of our time there swimming in the lake, playing outside, playing with cousins, and having fun on my parents boat. We also took the girls fishing for the first time and just had so much fun. We were sad to leave Vermont when the time came-we love it there and miss it alot. We are so thankful for the opportunity and the job that we have now though and we were happy to get back home to prepare for school. So glad to have had the chance to spend time with family and have so much fun!!

Gwen was so excited to take her first ride on papas boat. She wanted to sit up front and look over the side of the boat the whole time.

Gracie sat up in the front of the boat with Gwen and my sister Melissa. She cuddled up pretty quickly to stay warm.

It was a pretty chilly morning so we really bundled up before going for the ride. Georgia kept snuggling closer to me but really seemed to enjoy the ride.

Robbie did a lot of water skiing and wakeboarding and just had a blast!! I have really poor balance so I don't really enjoy trying to do either, but Rob loved it, and loved riding on the raft and making the girls laugh when he'd get thrown from the raft. Gwen was super excited when we told her she could go for a ride on the raft. She absolutely loved it! She just kept going and going...it took her a really long time to decide she was done, even after they went over a couple of bumpy wakes.


Grace was just as excited to ride on the raft with Rob as Gwen was, but when they started speeding up a bit and it got a bit bumpy, Grace was quick to let us know that she was done taking a turn (though she still wanted to take another ride the other times we went out). I went on the raft with Robbie as well, but only once because we went over a really large wake and the raft came up and smacked me in my mouth really hard so I wasn't too keen to get back on.


Georgia wanted to go out on the raft too, but we weren't sure if she was too young or not, so we didn't let her go that first time like we let Gwen and Grace. We figured out later that she probably could go on the raft for a really slow ride, but after that first time out to play the water was always too choppy, even for Gwen and Grace, so Georgia never went out on the raft. We made it up to her though with all the time she got to go swimming in the lake and looking for sea shells along the beach. She never seemed to mind, and hopefully she'll get a chance to ride on the raft next year.


We took the girls fishing off my parents dock either the first or second day we were there for the very first time. Gwen refused to touch the worms, so Rob and I took turns baiting her hook (well, baiting all the hooks). Gwen has been bugging us for a long time to take her fishing, so she was super excited. She was really pleased to catch a perch.

Grace was just like Gwen and refused to touch the worms to bait her hook, so again Robbie and I had to bait the hooks, but they all loved fishing. Grace caught a perch after fishing for a while and was really excited but wouldn't smile for me when I took her picture.

Georgia was the first to catch a fish that day. She caught a bass and was super happy! She had to run back to the house to tell everyone that she had caught a fish. They had so much fun that we went fishing a couple more times, and all the girls caught multiple fish each time we went fishing-it was such a hit!

We had a wonderful family vacation!!