The first half of August was still summer break so we were able to have some lazy days before school started. One day Hailey decided we should break up in teams and make something special for the other team. Brynley was on my team so we made play dough for Hailey and Aubrey. (The first batch of play dough was for Brynley to keep her busy so she didn't continue to make a mess for me or ruin the surprise Hailey and Aubrey were working on.) Hailey and Aubrey made a card with their hand prints and flowers out of tissue paper for me and they made a card with kisses on it for Brynley and a life saver bracelet. They put so much effort into their surprise and it was so creative and cute.
Aunt Mich'ele's birthday is in August so we had her and the cousins over for lunch on her birthday.
Another day when Brynley and I were napping Hailey and Aubrey managed to blow up this little pool and fill it with water and when we woke up there was water fun to be had.
Here are the back to school pictures. Hailey started 4th grade on a Wednesday and Aubrey started kindergarten on the following Monday.
After we took Hailey to school Brynley and Aubrey had a little tea party. Brynley is in her "potty training suit". She decided to wear a swim suit this day and it helped her realize she needed to use the potty so the next day when she wanted to wear her swim suit again I let her and by the end of the week she was fully potty trained.
After we dropped Aubrey off for her first day of Kindergarten Brynley had to keep herself occupied so what did I find her doing...painting her nails. I guess I have to keep a better eye on her now that her sisters are back in school.
One afternoon Brynley fell asleep on the counter while I was drying my hair, she woke up extra early that morning so the noise of the dryer put her right to sleep. (I of course didn't leave her there, she transferred to her crib quite nicely)
Brynley decided she was old enough to start making her own lunch. I came out and she had gotten herself salami, and some crackers to put nutella on. A lunch of champions!
The next few pictures are of our 12 year anniversary. The girls surprised us with breakfast. I am pasting an insert from Hailey's journal that I wrote about the event because it was pretty amazing.
"Today is mine and Charlie’s 12 year anniversary. It is also
the end of the first week of school and I was super excited to sleep in but
didn’t know if that would happen because Brynley has been waking up early
lately. To my surprise Charlie and I cracked our eyes open at 8:30 in the
morning which was great to sleep in and surprising we hadn’t heard Brynley yet.
We also smelled a burning smell and wondered what the girls were up to. I
thought I should go check but I knew that if Hailey was trying to do something
special for us she would get upset if I ruined their surprise so I said to
Charlie “I guess they will come get us if something is really wrong” and he
said that was his philosophy too and we both rolled back over in bed. Around
9:30 the girls brought Brynley to us and told us to stay in the room. At 10:30
they said we could come out. When we came out the table was set with heart
shaped pancakes and eggs on everyone’s plate and a fruit platter in the middle
of the table with blueberries, grapes, clementine’s and cherry tomatoes and
everyone had a glass of orange juice. The girls were also dressed up cute in
dresses and bows in their hair. They had also made a happy anniversary sign
that ran across the bay window. I couldn’t believe they had made a breakfast
like that. I didn’t notice at first that the pancakes were heart shaped and
then when I saw that I was even more surprised. While we ate they told us they
had made one pancake at a time and then cut them with a heart shaped cookie
cutter. Hailey said the first batch of pancakes burned and then they turned
around to see the sign falling down at the same time and they threw their hands
up in exasperation but then they tried the next batch and they turned out
perfect and they were so excited they jumped and cheered. They also had cleaned
up all their mess and we didn’t see any sign of cooking except for a few dishes
in the sink. It was pretty amazing. I didn’t know Hailey could cook by herself;
she has helped me a little in the kitchen but never done everything by herself.
The girls worked really hard together and used great teamwork; I am very proud
of them and feel very blessed to have such sweet hardworking daughters. It took
them three hours to pull everything off plus taking care of a toddler who I
guess they fed pancake scraps to because she was hungry in the middle of it
all. All I can say is it was a great start to our Anniversary day."
We took a picture of ourselves in the evening. Grandma watched the kids for us and had them spend the night with her so we went to dinner and then went home and enjoyed a quiet evening and morning together.
