Lost

I have searched and searched. No camera. I can't for the life of me remember where it is, when the last picture I took was (to remind me where the camera was) or where it could possibly be.

Maybe Cami took it.

Pray I will find it.

I'm totally annoyed. I pretty much could lose my head right now if it weren't attached. I wonder what else I've lost...

friendship

it's such a special thing.

yesterday, my friend sarah and i had the same last-minute idea while separately leaving to pick up the kids from school - take the kids to either the park or the zoo after school together. toby and alaina decided on the zoo.

i, of course, left the camera in the car. i'll describe a picture i would have taken:

sarah and i pushing joshua and cami in strollers, look back for toby and alaina. i see them walking, hand in hand, faces lit in pure delight - not because they were at the zoo, but because they were together. we could have been ANYWHERE. delight, simply because they were together.

they have this unique, amazing friendship. it's constant. they run to each other EVERY day like they haven't seen each other for weeks and engulf the other in a huge hug. they just truly enjoy each other.

it's crazy, because when we were both "expecting" these two, we always said: if they're the same sex, they'll have to be the best of friends and if they're not, they'll get married.

i pray for their friendship. that it endures all the crap that's ahead of them. i anticipate it being hard to maintain a friendship like theirs during the age when boys and girls aren't supposed to like each other.

maybe someday i'll turn around to look at the two of them and they'll be walking down the aisle. oh, to have in-laws like the castors... :)

Bouncer?

Alaina: Mom, when do I get to wear the bouncer?
Me: The bouncer?
Alaina: Yes, the new bouncer we bought for school.
Me: Bouncer? I don't know what you mean.
Alaina: (annoyed) Mom, the BOUNCER that I have to wear to school!
Cami: (pointing at Elliott) CAT!

Lightbulb.

Me: Oh, the JUMPER?!
Alaina: Oh, yeah, I mean the jumper!

Oh, the stories we'll have from kindergarten... The funniest thing is that this was Sunday, before school even started, and still, last night at dinner, she's still calling it a bouncer. I can't hardly stop laughing every time she says it. She's so sweet.

I'm not very good at this!

It beginning to be quite clear that I'm not very good at this whole "blog" thing. I sure have good intentions, but when it comes to actually taking the time to write and post pictures, I'm not so timely!

My brother started his freshman year at Purdue this year. (Yeah, I know - traitor.) But the girls love their Uncle Kevin even with his faults. :) Here's a picture of our most recent visit:

I just had to add this picture too - no actual event, just a glimpse into how things really are in our home on a daily basis. :)
This month has brought us many celebrations with Alaina: first, her 5th birthday! We started the day by celebrating with family over lunch. Alaina requested Rice Krispie Treats, marshmallows and M&Ms for dessert.

We then spent the afternoon having some of Alaina's friends (and their families) over to the house for a "spray" party, including the sprinkler, slip and slide, and of course, the trampoline. It was very fun, and Alaina really enjoyed her Disney Princesses cake she picked out.
The day after Alaina's birthday, she started kindergarten at Mrs. Tolbert's house (Laura, a good friend of ours). Here's her first day of "school":

Since Alaina's birthday falls 2 days after the enrollment deadline, we couldn't do public schools (which we aren't fond of here in Indy anyways!). We found an AMAZING school, The Oaks Academy - it's a Christ-centered, classical education school here in the city, just a few short blocks from our house. It's exactly what we want - Christian (truly, in every sense of the word) and diverse (in every way you can imagine). BUT, since her birthday falls 2 days after the cut-off, Alaina was placed on a waiting list for kindergarten. We decided that she would go to Mrs. Tolbert's house to be homeschooled for kindergarten (after a most gracious offer from Laura!) until (if) she got into the Oaks.

A cool update: She got in! She starts her first day of kindergarten at the Oaks on Monday, Sept. 24th. And let me tell you, she's SUPER excited! She can't wait to be in school with her friends. We'll miss Mrs. Tolbert's kindergarten, but she just lives around the corner, is in our small group, and goes to our church - so we'll see her QUITE often! :)

Cami is getting so big - she's not growing as much, but she sure acts like a little girl now. Her laugh is infectous. She just giggles and laughs so much! She really is such a sweet little girl. I'm not sure I've met a sweeter 15 month old.She is talking more - some of her words are: ball, more, Boom (for Boomer), kitty (for Elliott), bubble, mama, nana (banana - though my mom would like to think it's her!), Yaina (Alaina) and her newest, just today, hi. I found SIX, yes 6, new teeth coming in today. Four more on top and two on the bottom, taking her up to 14 once they're all in! That explains the fussiness, runny nose and not so great diapers lately!

Our lives are about to change greatly with Alaina starting school at the Oaks - she'll go full day. So my work schedule will change so that I work while she's in school rather than my 3 full days a week I've been working since Alaina was born! (I'll be working the same number of hours still.) I'll drop Cami off at daycare around 8am, then Alaina at school around 8:15am then off to work. I'll work until about 2pm and then go get Cami around 2:30pm and then Alaina at 3pm. It will be quite a transition for all of us - all working/going to school 5 days a week. Hopefully it'll be smooth.

Busy week!

We had a busy week! Alaina took a trip to the State Fair on Wednesday with one of her favorite babysitters, Katherine. They were there for hours! I should have sent the camera along, because I'm sure we would have some sweet pictures of them from that day. Alaina just came home and went on and on about how much fun they had together!

So, I decided to take the girls (by myself!) to the State Fair on Friday. It was so fun! We were there for over 3 hours taking in all the sights - and smells! :) I, of course, forgot the camera! Ugh - I was totally bummed. But we had so much fun seeing and touching all the animals. Cami just had a blast - laughing and pointing and ooooing the whole time. She kept saying "Baaa" to all the animals after we saw the sheep.

Adam left us girls for a weekend with the guys at a friend's lake house, so we decided to take advantage of the cooler weather and went to the zoo on Saturday morning. Again, forgot the camera! :) Oh well.

BUT, I do have some pictures from our evening together. We decided to have a movie night - our movie nights include dinner in the family room while we watch a movie. This is a rare occurence, so Alaina begs for them! Cami decided when she was done with her plate, she'd get out of her high chair and climb into Alaina's chair to finish off Alaina's food too!

I bet you're wondering what movie we watched?! Well, I finally broke down and we watched "High School Musical" - yes, really. Alaina has been singing those words for WEEKS now after hearing about it from a friend at day care, so I taped it off the tv and we watched it last night. I'm pretty sure I was her age when I started watching "Grease" - which is a MUCH better movie than "HSM." Here's a couple pictures of Alaina watching the movie:

Cami has learned to twirl this week - she hasn't mastered stopping before the gets too dizzy and falls, but it's fun that way right? :) I tried taking a picture and you can't tell she's doing it, but here's a picture of the girls dancing to the movie together:"High School Musical: 2" is out too - it came out on Friday, so we taped that one yesterday after we watched the first one. That's for the next movie night. I hope I haven't created a monster.....

Topsail Island, NC

We spent a week in Topsail Island (southern NC) with Adam's dad's side of the family. There were 17 adults and 6 kiddos! We rented both sides of a duplex right on the beach. It was so great. We don't get to see this side of the family very often as we are all spread out over the eastern part of the US, so it was great quality time together. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the week (yes, I know there are a lot, but Uncle Tom LOVES to take pictures so we had LOTS of pictures to choose from!!!).

Our family

The whole family

Alaina burying Daddy

Cami chillin' in the shade

Sun-kissed Alaina

Mommy and Cami

Flying a kite

Cami, so sweet

Bubbles!!!!! (my niece, Vanessa)

Strike a pose, there's nothing to it, Vogue.

Our last day :(

Sisters

Daddy and Cami

Alaina trying to use a skin board Alaina with Grandpa & Grandma Eva

Alaina's best "Rockstar" face (while singing karaoke!)

We loved our White Family Reunion at Topsail Island. Lots of good memories...

Saying goodbye...

It's so hard to do, and unfortunately, the members of the White house have had to say too many this summer.

The first weekend in July, we had to say goodbye to two families we are really close with. First, it was the Hern's - Kevin, Amy, Jackson, Luke and Emmitt. They moved to Indy a few years ago and lived two blocks east of us. They were transferred to Puerto Rico for Kev's job. They were in our small group and Amy was a really good friend of mine. Their boys and our girls were good friends - Jackson (5) and Luke (3) were playmates of Alaina's and Emmitt was born just 3 days after Cami, so they're destined to be life long friends! :)

I took the girls down to Amy's mom's farm in KY to see her and the boys one last time. We had such a great time and Alaina had a BLAST at the farm. Amy's brother and his family live down the street from her mom and they have 3 boys as well (the same ages) so the kids had such a good time together. Alaina, as the only big girl, definitely pulled her own weight!

We came home from trip to the farm to turn around and say goodbye to our friends the Woodward's - Doug, Tracy, Reeve (5), Gabi (3) and Rania (1). They moved to Malaysia (!) to teach there. Again, sad times. We did get to take some great pictures of the kids before they left though. Here's one of the kids jumping on Reeve's bed and one of Rania and Cami too!

We have such an amazing community of friends here in Indy - they are definintely our family. And now we have family living in Peurto Rico and Malaysia! It sure is fun getting to read emails and seeing their blogs about life in another country. We miss them a ton, but know they are where they should be right now. God is good.

Just not very good at keeping my friends in Indy. :) I sure do miss them...