Summer Vacation at the Beach

So I had typed a whole lengthy post about our vacation and somehow lost it and didn't have the heart at the time to type it all again. So here we are a few days later and I thought I would at least add something! We had a really great vacation. Our first vacation with all of us and Ellie seemed to enjoy it. She did fantastic on the car ride there and back as did the other girls. 12 hours in a car is no small feat for 3 active girls but they did great with very little complaining. As for actually liking the ocean and beach, I think the jury remains out on that one for Ellie. She liked the tidals pools the few times she was able to play in them...and did seem to get used to the ocean the last day or two. She didn't like the crashing water and wanted mommy to hold her a LOT. But she really did seem to have fun. Both Mackenzie and Ainsley of course LOVED their time at the beach. We had 7 days of amazing weather which was a first for us. Usually there is a day or two of rain and a day or two of just cold yucky weather but not this year. Fantastic every singe day we were there with maybe a passing shower in the evening one night. We enjoyed going to the boardwalk as always and also spent a day at the local zoo which all of the girls loved. We even brought along Rachel, the middle Luke daughter to keep us company. She was a huge help with the kids and we enjoyed having her with us. For those of you who follow this blog and don't know...we vacation with our friends the Lukes every summer. I think this was our 6th summer at the beach with them and we LOVE it. We don't get to see them very often as they live in PA and are missionaries with World Impact. They run a camp that allows kids and families from the inner city to come and taste of life outside the city. They have invited us on their vacation for the last six years and we have now acquired a love for the beach!!
Enjoy the pictures and I will post video of Jeff surfing soon!

Ballet Recital

We are back from vacation but before I post about our vacation I thought I should catch up with the past few weeks. Mackenzie and Ainsley had their ballet recital the night before we left on vacation. I don't know if this is their last year or not but they really did a great job and I have noticed that ballet has helped them both with their poise and confidence. They have mentioned wanting to do gymnastics and so we will need to make a decision but we have really enjoyed ballet this year and the recital was enjoyable as ever. We aren't able to take pictures at the performance but we are able to take pictures at the dress rehearsal and so I do have some cute ones of the girls. Enojoy!












I thought I would also include a picture of my friend Alison and I. We are wearing the same shirt to the ballet recital. While that in and of itself would not be so odd I guess, the fact that our parents were college roommates in Maine and that we both live in KY, our girls go to the same ballet studio, they have their recital on the same night AND we are wearing the same shirt... now that is just plain crazy!!

Second to last day of school and Caterpillars

We are so excited that today is the second to last day of school. Some of Mackenzie's friends have been out of school since Friday and we are excited that this school year is almost done. Mackenzie will miss her friends at school and hopefully I will do a good job of getting her together with at least a few of them. She will also miss her teacher as she has really enjoyed having her and has done really well this year at school. But we are looking forward to a summer break to relax, spend more time as a family and enjoy the summer. We leave this friday to kick off our summer on our annual trip to the beach. It will be Ellie's first and I am wondering what she will think of the ocean and our time at the beach. But as always we are excited to be going and looking forward to seeing our friends the Lukes, who invite us on their annual vacation with them. Yes...they are crazy! I will spend this week getting ready to go and keeping up with the last week of ballet. Mackenzie and Ainsley have practice on stage Tues night and than their dress rehersal the morning of the performance on friday...in between their will be cleaning, packing, playing, and more packing. We should be ready to go by Friday.
On a side note...Ainsley loves caterpillars which is why it is particularly funny that I have a caterpillar tatoo. I got it because it was small and cute and the tatoo place didn't have any small cute frogs. I wanted a frog but all the ones they had were large and quite ugly so I resorted to the caterpillar. I don't actually like the creepy crawly things but my tatoo is quite cute. I got a package in the mail this past week which had some clothes from my friend Sarah..in the package she also included a gift for me. She had found it shopping and thought I might like it. As you can see from the following picture, I have very cool friends:) The caterpillar that she sent me is almost an exact replica of my tatoo even the colors of it. Amazing! We have given it a place of honor and prominence in the house:)

Mackenzie's Awards Ceremony

On Friday Mackenzie's teacher did a closing end of the year awards ceremony. It was really nicely done and Ainsley and I had a good time. The kids sang a bunch of songs that they had learned and that lasted maybe 10-15 minutes. Then Miss Quinlan, Mackenzie's teacher, had an award ceremony for the kids and awarded them each a certificate based on something positive about this year. Mackenzie's was outstanding reader and I am so proud of her. Her teacher gave a short little speech on each child in the class and how she has learned from them. She also wrote a personal letter to each child in the class and then made them each a DVD of pictures she took of them all year put to music. It was really well done. After her presentation she showed the slide show of all the pictures she took over the year put to music. It was really cute. We then had pizza, chips, soda and desert. A very well put together hour long presentation and Mackenzie did great. I did take a couple of pictures and got a little video before my battery ran out. Unfortunately I forgot to pack the spare, and missed recording several really cute songs that they did..:( But at least I got some of Mackenzie before it died.

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a really nice Memorial Day Weekend. We did almost nothing the entire weekend. We did get together with friends after church on sunday for a picnic but that's about it. The rest of the time was spent doing some things around the house and RELAXING which was fantastic and much needed. Jeff finished Mackenzie's room so I will post photos of her room and a few of Ellie with daddy's Boston Red Sox hat on...very cute:) We also took the girls for a hike in Gunpowder Creek Park...at least I think that's what it is called. It is in the back of our development and they love hiking back there. The girls all had fun and Ellie did well in the backpack. She did get down and run around in the tall grass in the field but it took her a little while to warm up to the tall grass. While we were walking down the gravel trail, we heard a bird saying what sounded like haw, haw, haw. Jeff turns to the girls and says, "that was a monkey laughing at us." Ainsley was convinced it was a monkey but Mackenzie says, "no Ainsley it isn't a monkey, it's a bird." Where Ainsley promptly turns back to Mackenzie and says," Mackenzie, birds say tweet, tweet, not haw, haw." I was rolling laughing so hard. We then had to explain that we were pretty confident that there weren't any monkeys living in the woods of KY to Ainsley! Here are some photos of the weekend!

The Children's Museum

The girls and I went to the Children's Museum in Cincinnati a week or so ago when Mackenzie had the day off because we use her school to vote. Our membership expires today and I wanted to get one last visit in and the girls had a blast. We were there from 10:30-almost 4 and they did really well. We have been able to use it much this year and so we have decided not to renew for next year. With both girls having different school schedules it just makes it difficult to get there and have enough time to spend. So I made the most of our last day there for a while. We may get memberships to the zoo this summer as Ellie hasn't been there and I think she would love it but we will wait till after we get back from vacation for that...anyway enough rambling and enjoy the photos!

The Awana Awards Ceremony

Mackenzie and Ainsley recently had their Awana awards ceremony.  They each completed a book this year which was fantastic and they also each had a verse to recite.  We have short video clips of them both I believe so enjoy!

Loss

I am sure that many of you who read and follow this blog already know about the loss of Maria Sue Chapman, youngest daughter of Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife Mary Beth. They have adopted three girls from China and Maria Sue, their youngest daughter, had just celebrated her 5th birthday. I can't imagine the pain they are suffering through right now as a family and I just wanted those who read this blog to be aware of this so they can pray for the Chapman family.

Here is a webpage that you can view to see a video of Maria Sue and there's a link to click to donate in her memory to Shaohannah's Hope, the adoption foundation set up by the Chapmans:

http://chapmanchannel.typepad.com/inmemoryofmaria/

Ainsley's preschool graduation

On Friday evening of last week, Ainsley graduated from preschool. It is amazing really how many graduations our children will go through over the next years of their life. I am sure that I will find each one equally amazing but there's something about preschool graduation that is just so unbelievably cute. All these little kids standing on stage singing songs and quoting verses and poems that they had memorized over the year..and me thinking.."are they REALLY old enough to go to school?" Seriously I think we are growing kids MUCH small these days. They all looked like adorable little shrimp...they're going to be eaten alive at school. But oh well I hope for the best. And they were really cute!
Ainsley made it through without any mishaps and even talked into the microphone! Each child is asked what they are going to be when they grow up. Ainsley actually said..INTO THE MICROPHONE...that she wanted to be a teacher. I thought one of the most profound thoughts mentioned by one of the little girls when asked what she was going to be was "myself." Pretty insightful for a 4 year old. Here are a few pics of the evening and I think maybe a video clip...enjoy!

Mulan and Ellie's 1st birthday invite

I took Mackenzie and Ainsley to see Mulan. They loved it. It was performed by one of the local high schools in Covington and it was really well done. Jeff stayed home and had some bonding time with Elie which was also good. She had a lot of fun with him and I had a lot of fun with the older two. We determined Ellie would never make it through as she really doesn't have a long attention span. Maybe in a year or so she will be able to make it but not yet. I didn't get any quality photos of the girls during this adventure and no quality photos of the show either but it was lot of fun.

The next morning Ellie had her first birthday party at totters otterville in Covington. It was for one of her little friends that is in our adoption playgroup and she seemed to have fun. She didn't play a whole lot with the other kids but liked wandering around and seeing all the new things. She of course at like a champ..pizza, cake and ice cream...she will sit and eat forever it seems. Or maybe it is that it takes her forever to eat! Food lasted her through the presents and then it was time to leave. Here are a few pics of her time there. There are some post pics of her asleep in her car seat. Apparently her first party wore her plumb out!