Five on Friday

Happy Friday!

One

We got our Disneyland tickets in the mail this week!! We leave in less than a month and I'm so excited for this trip!



Two

We have a hummingbird feeder on our back deck and they have been so active lately!! I love this time of year when they are very active. I was able to get a few pictures of them up close last week with my camera and telephoto lens. Hummingbirds always remind me of my Grammy and I just love watching them.

Three

Yesterday was Avery's first day at her new gymnastics class. She was so excited and loved every minute of it. I couldn't take her because it was while I was at work but my mom took a few pictures and said that Avery was already asking her if she was going to get to come back right after they left.

Four
After church this past Sunday, we met up with my sister and her family for a fun filled afternoon at Six Flags. We always have so much fun there! I got a picture of the 3 older boys and the little girls, but didn't get a picture of my nephew Emerson. :-( He was there though, having fun with the rest of us.

Five
I finished up a little house project last night and thought I'd share it today. Last month when we took our pictures in the sunflower field, I knew I wanted to do something special with the pictures. They were just too cute not to display. So I thought it would be cute to frame a few of them and then pair them with a "You are my Sunshine" wooden sign that I already had at home and had never found a place to hang it. I used to sing that song to Jackson when he was a baby and I thought it was fitting since we were in a sunflower field. I thought since we've never hung anything in our upstairs hallway, that this would be really cute across from our hall bath (which also has a "you are my sunshine" theme). Once I had the photos framed and layed it all out, I felt like it still needed something else. So I looked online to try and find something else and found this super cute metal sunflower at Hobby Lobby. It wasn't quite the right color yellow to match the sign, so I also bought a can of spray paint and painted it to match! :-)

Have a great weekend!!!

Avery's First Day of Pre-K

Avery had her first day of Pre-K this past Friday morning! She did great and was so excited! She went right into her class and sat down on the carpet right next to her friend Aubrei. :-) She's in the Caterpillar room this year with Mrs. Darr and Mrs. Beel, which was the same room that Jackson was in for Pre-K. So Avery already knows both of her teachers, which makes it a very easy transition. She also has several friends in her class from the last 2 years she's gone to Lindbergh Early Childhood Education, so that made going back to school a lot easier as well. She's going on Monday/Wednesday/Friday from 9 a.m. until 12 p.m.

She had her "meet the teacher" night on Wednesday night and got to see both of her teachers and a few of her friends.

Avery also got a new backpack this year, (even though she didn't really need one). Sam's had such cute backpacks for both Jackson and Avery this year that we just couldn't pass them up. Avery's has unicorns on it!!

We also had Avery fill in this cute little questionnaire for "back to school!" I love that she says she wants to be a Prima-Ballerina Ice Queen when she grows up! Ha!

I'm sure she's going to have a great last year of preschool!!

And for comparison's sake, here are Avery's first day of school pictures for the 3 years she's been in preschool!! She's gotten so big in such a short amount of time.

Five on Friday!

Happy Friday!
Today I'm linking up with Christina, April and Natasha for Five on Friday!

One

This past weekend, my mom and I saw the last show of the 100th season at the St. Louis Muny. The Muny has become a favorite Summer-time place of mine. It's a large outdoor theater here in St. Louis and they always have such great musicals. They were showing "Meet Me In St. Louis" for the last show of the season (one of my all time FAVORITES!) so when I saw it would be there this Summer, I knew I had to see it. It was amazing, just like I knew it would be and there were fireworks at the end of the show!

(Picture: Courtesy of The St. Louis Muny)

Two

While we were grocery shopping on Wednesday evening, our local grocery store had this cute school bus photo op, so we had to get a couple pictures for "back to school!"

Three

The dance school that Avery goes to had an open house/registration last week and she got to see Anna, Elsa and Ariel while she was there. :-)

Jackson went along and got to see Batman too. :-)

Four

This past Monday, the kids both had dentist appointments. They both did great and got a good report from the Dentist!



Five

A couple weekends ago, we met up with some friends and went bowling. It was the first time for Avery and only the second time for Jackson. We all had so much fun and can't wait to go again.

Have a great weekend!

Jackson's First Day of First Grade

Today is Jackson's first day of First Grade!! He was excited this morning and got right up bright and early to get ready for school!! He has a lot of friends in his class this year and he seems to have a great teacher! I just know he's going to have a great year in First Grade!!



He had his "Meet the Teacher Night" this past Tuesday night and he was excited to see some friends and meet his sweet teacher!

Then last night, before bed, he had a shower, we got his lunch ready and we read his new book, "First Grade Here I Come!" He had a book like this for starting Kindergarten last year (here's a link to the Kindergarten version) and it was so cute. I'm not sure how many more years I'll be able to find books like these so when I saw one for first grade, I just had to get it. :-)



He went to bed with a very loose front tooth and when he woke up this morning he decided to pull it right out so he didn't have to worry about it at school. It's been ready to come out for a few days, so that was another exciting thing to have happen today. Now he's lost his 4 bottom front teeth and his 2 top front teeth. Six total!! The tooth fairy will be making another visit to our house tonight. ;-)

He got a new backpack and lunchbox this year. We found the cutest backpack and lunchbox together at Sam's this year. It has planets, stars and rockets on it! If you know Jackson, you know he loves anything "Outer Space" related so it was a perfect fit for him.



Jackson with our sweet neighbor friends. Ellie had her first day of Kindergarten today and Andy had his first day of 3rd grade. :-)

Family picture at the bus stop. Next year it will be Avery's first day of Kindergarten! How is that possible??

Jackson looks so grown up in this picture and so handsome, even without his front teeth, Ha!

We did this cute little questionnaire again this year.

And just for comparison's sake, here is Jackson on his first day of Kindergarten last year next to his first day of First Grade this year.

I can't wait to hear all about how his first day back to school went today and I pray he has a wonderful, safe and successful year in First Grade!!



Our Fun, Family Trip to Chicago

This past weekend, Jake had set up a few meetings with customers he has in Northern Illinois. He had 2 on Thursday and 1 on Friday morning. So we thought it would be a great opportunity to incorporate an extended weekend getaway right before the kids started back to school this week.

We loaded up and headed out early Thursday morning. The kids and I just waited in the car while Jake had each of his meetings that day and then we checked into our hotel that afternoon. After checking in and doing a little swimming in the hotel pool, we went out to see a movie and have dinner. We went to see Incredibles II, which was great and then had dinner at Giordano's Pizza which was great as well! I highly recommend both!



The next morning, while Jake was at his last meeting, the kids and I got ready and had breakfast at the hotel. We then packed up our things and headed about an hour and a half from where we had been staying, to Gurnee, IL. We spent the entire day Friday at Six Flags Great America. We have season passes so we were able to get in free. It was a great day to be there too. The lines weren't terrible and we were able to ride several rides multiple times. This Six Flags had a ton of rides that Avery could ride, which was great! She's right at 42" and there still aren't a lot of rides at our Six Flags in St. Louis that she can ride yet. It was wonderful that Six Flags Great America had so many rides that she could ride. She even got to go on a roller coaster that went upside down 4 times!! She loved it and rode it 3 different times. Our kids are such little dare devils. We had such a fun day!!

 

The park closed that evening at 10:00, and we headed to a new hotel, close to Six Flags. We got our stuff unpacked and headed to bed. We were exhausted from spending the entire day at Six Flags.

Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast at our hotel and then drove about 20 minutes north into Wisconsin to visit the Jelly Belly Factory! It was such a fun little tour! You load up on a little train and they take you through and tell you all about the history of the company and show you videos about how the jelly beans are made. Afterwards we got a free sample pack of jelly belly jelly beans and bought a few more flavors for the kids.

After that, we got in our swimsuits and headed to a nice beach on Lake Michigan, about 20 minutes from our hotel. It was so cool for the kids to see a lake that looks like an ocean! They were amazed. It's also cool because in May we were in Florida and swam in the Atlantic Ocean, then this past weekend we swam in one of the great lakes, next month we'll be in California and will swim in the Pacific Ocean and then in January we'll be taking a cruise from New Orleans into the Gulf of Mexico. So all within a year, we'll have been to all 4 sides of the United States. We didn't really plan it this way, but it just happened to work out and we're pretty excited about it. :-)

After spending part of the afternoon at the beach, we headed back and did some swimming at the hotel.



Then we headed to Gurnee Mills Mall for dinner at the Rainforest Café and we walked around the mall for a little while.

This store called "It's Sugar" was so cute and I just had to take a picture of it with Avery because her nickname is "Sugar!" So perfect.

We went back to the hotel afterwards and just hung out and did a little more swimming before going to bed.

Sunday morning we got up, got ready and had breakfast at the hotel before packing up and heading into the city to visit Willis Tower. The kids were amazed by the size of the city and the buildings! It was such a fun experience, besides the hour wait we had just to get up to the sky deck and then the other hour long wait to get out on one of the sky deck glass ledges. However, all in all it was a lot of fun and Jackson said it was his favorite thing we did on the trip!

After leaving the city, we started our drive back home to St. Louis. Along the way, we stopped at this adorable little diner called "Old Route 66 Family Restaurant." The food was good and it was such a cool stop. Right across the street was an old Texaco station that was really cool to see.

These murels were painted on the side of the restaurant. So cool.

We had such a great trip to Chicago and we already can't wait to go back.