Our performing girls

Cami had her Christmas concert for kindergarten last week. It was so sweet. She's just too funny with her facial expressions. (I went back to look at Alaina's kindergarten concert, and you should totally watch them if you have an extra minute, here and here. They are priceless. Seriously.) Here's Cameran in "Away in a Manger" for your viewing pleasure:

Alaina had to miss her Christmas concert because she had mandatory Nutcracker rehearsals at the theater that evening. She was a soldier and an angel this year, performing in 5 performances over 4 days last weekend. She did a great job. The surprising thing is that Alaina has decided to take a break from ballet and take a theater class instead. Here is a bit of her angel performance:

We're gearing up for Christmas. The girls have been gone since Tuesday night in Ft. Wayne and I have spent the week shopping, as I was WAY far behind. Luke was a trooper shopping with me all week. We'll travel to Ft. Wayne to pick up the girls Saturday morning and head back in time for our church's Christmas Eve service. It has been a nice break with them gone, but I have to say I have missed them at times. I saw a rainbow the other day in the car, and Lucas didn't understand why I was so excited. The girls would have appreciated my excitement. :)

Merry Christmas to you all. I pray you feel our Father's peace and love this holiday season.

Looking back over the last year.

Lucas celebrated his first birthday last week. It was a really hard week for me. I don't know if it was because I think this is our last or because he's been such a joy or because I just love babies so much, but I really mourned him turning one. It was a rough day for me.

So I thought I'd look back on the last year, month by month, to see how much Lucas has changed. And how we have loved every minute of him. You'll also see that *he* didn't mourn a MINUTE of his first birthday celebrations. :)

Lucas is doing great. He's such a happy kid. He's really walking now - attempting to walk aroud the house instead of crawling to his next destination. He LOVES to make noise - by banging with his hands or even better, with anything long and hard, like a dowel rod or plastic baseball bat. :) When he's not hitting things with hard objects, he's dancing to music (any kind, even music on TV shows or commercials) or wanting to read books. Over. And over. And over. He would read the same book 20 times in a row if I let him.

He weighed in at 19.5 pounds and 28.5 inches at his well-child visit. Such a big boy! I mean, not really, he's really in like the 15th percentile, but it's all relative. :)

The girls are still just as completely smitten with him as the day he was born. They really find so much joy in him, and him in them. It's really wonderful to see it in action.

We're looking forward to the holidays, spending Thanksgiving with family. It's so crazy to think that we had a 2-week old baby last Thanksgiving. How time flies...

Will update soon. Promise. :)

Fall trip to Kelsay Farms

Each year, the girls beg to go to some kind of fall farm festival. And each year we go, but we've never found a farm that we've loved and go back to each year.

So this weekend, we tried out Kelsay Farms. It's located south of Indy in Whiteland (just about 5 min from Greenwood). I was instantly drawn to this farm because the admission price includes ALL activities. I have never seen this before at any farm we've visited in the last few years. It's always a few dollars per person to get in and then a couple dollars per activity on top of admission.

The first thing we did was the 5 acre corn maze. It was huge. And thankfully, they give you an aerial picture of the maze so that you can use it to help navigate your way though. Plus, there's a fun game you can play by finding 5 questions and answers along the way. (You turn those in for a free pencil.)

When we finally found all 5 Q&A's and made our way to the exit, the girls ran to the hayride. It was a nice rest after walking around 5 acres in circles! After we rested our legs, we grabbed a quick snack. Surprisingly, the food was pretty reasonably priced. (We got a hot dog, string cheese, Cheetos and 4 drinks for $7.)

Rested and fed, we went to the huge "bale mountain." It was basically a huge playground made of hay bales. The girls LOVED it! Lucas even got in on the fun.

We also visited the calves - only 23 days old! They were so cute.

The girls also played in a "corn crib." It was basically a sand box, but filled with corn kernels instead of sand. It was so neat. There was even a slide in it. Alaina had Cameran bury her in corn! That was, of course, after Alaina found a Taylor Swift poster.

Our last stop at the farm was the Moo Choo Express. It was a tractor pulling cow trailers behind it for kids. It was the funniest ride!

By this point, I had a cranky 11 month old and a tired husband, so we ended up leaving before experiencing everything on the farm. We were there for 2 hours and we still missed out on the magic show, face painting, milk parlor and barn tours, and the rope maze. There is seriously a TON of things to do at this farm.

You should totally go. It's open each weekend in October (Friday, Saturday & Sunday). Check out their website for hours and special activities lined up for each weekend. (One thing that looks especially fun is going trick or treating in the corn maze!)

We received free tickets for our family to visit Kelsay Farms. BUT, we had a great time and I would have written this post even if we had paid for our tickets. You really should visit. :) If you are going to go, leave a comment and let me know. I have one extra ticket that we didn't use (kiddos under 2 are free) that I would LOVE to pass along to you!  (sorry! the ticket's been claimed.)

And so it begins.

School, that is. Summer break is officially over and my kids are growing up too fast.

Alaina is now in 4th grade. I really remember 4th grade - my teacher's name was Mrs. Meyer and I learned cursive, Spanish and how to take care of a class hamster. Alaina has already learned cursive and started Latin in 3rd grade, so I'm excited to see what she learns this year. And I don't think it will include taking care of a class hamster, since right now they don't have one. :)

Cameran started kindergarten this year! She was quite nervous and a bit overwhelmed the first day, but is completely fine now. She's only going 1/2 day, partially because of cost, but mainly because I just want to spend some more time with her since I'm not working. A bit selfish I know. :)

Lucas is now 9 months old and is offcially a crazy man. He makes the funniest faces, especially when prompted. He thinks he's pretty funny, and two little girls encourage it constantly! The kid is moving nonstop - crawling, pulling up on everything, cruising around anything that will hold his weight. Oh, and chasing the cat. He LOVES any kind of animal. He is just so active - and therefore crashes every night and doesn't make a peep until morning. I'm loving it.

Adam competed in his first sprint triathlon earlier this month (Tri Indy). It was a 500 yd swim (in the Canal!!), 13 mi bike ride and 5k run. He did a great job and really enjoyed it. We had a blast cheering him on - we were able to walk beside him for the entire swim and watch him transition from swim to bike and from bike to run and then cheer him on right before the finish line. All while pushing the stroller. It was a great spectator race!

Oh, and we also spent 4 days at the Indiana State Fair (LOVE!!!). I wrote about that here if you want to read more.

I'm ready to get into the swing of a normal school week. And to see how Lucas handles not being doted upon every minute of every day since the girls will be gone. Should be interesting...

All things Taylor Swift.

Last Friday night my mom and I took the girls to see Taylor Swift in concert. Here's how excited Alaina was before the concert:

And here's how excited the girls were RIGHT BEFORE (and as) the concert started:

We had SO much fun. Our seats were wonderful - we were close enough to see her mouth actually move and at one point she flew right over us in a basket. And Jon McLaughlin sat just 3 rows in front of us, so I thought that was cool too. :) The group who opened for her was Needtobreathe. I loved them. One of me new faves.

Here are some pics from the night.

"Girl's Night"

The closest they got to Taylor Swift.

We're ready for the concert!

When's Taylor Swift gonna sing?

Alaina & Nana

Cameran & Nana

This was Alaina when she saw Taylor Swift for the first time.

Such a pretty girl.

Such a tired girl.

The basket that proceeded to go directly over our heads!

While we had a wonderful time just being together, it would never have been so great if the concert was spoiled by nasty language, slinky clothes or dirty dancing. I was so impressed and quite thankful that my girls adore a young woman who carries herself so well.

It was well worth the money. :)

Go big or go home

I think this is Luke's motto. He's sure living it the last few weeks.

I mentioned in my last post that Luke had just started pushing from his stomach to a sitting position. The first time he did that was on Saturday, June 25th. The day I posted the last post, he started crawling (after I posted of course!) and two days later, on Saturday July 2nd, Adam went to get him from his crib and he was standing up in it! So in 8 days he reached three big milestones. Now he's crawling everywhere...

Pulling up on everything...

And even climbing. (This is of him tumbling down after he crawled up.)

Luke also got his first tooth! And three more! His first tooth (up top) came in on Wednesday, July 13th and in the next 5 days he proceeded to get three more. So he now has his two top and bottom teeth. If you look closely you can see his top teeth in this picture.

We sure are lovin' this boy.

School's out!

Man, time flies. Alaina has finished THIRD grade. She had a wonderful year with a wonderful teacher. My third grade teacher called me Kathy. And once I peed my pants in her classroom during standardized testing because she wouldn't call on me when I had my hand raised and we weren't allowed to speak. It was *great* - so different than Alaina's year. :)

Adam ran a MARATHON. Yep, 26.2 miles. He ran it the first weekend in June in South Bend. It was pretty amazing. We got to chase him around South Bend to cheer him on throughout the race. We were able to see him 4 times during the race. The runners crossed the finish line inside Notre Dame's football stadium, so that was so cool (for me even just to be IN it!).

Luke turned 7 mos. old on the 10th. He's trying to crawl and cut teeth. He can sometimes get from his stomach to sitting when he tries hard enough. And he's eating like mad. The kid thinks he should eat big kid food if it's anywhere close to him, no matter if he just ate a full meal.

Cami turned FIVE on the 16th. She celebrated by having cousin Vanessa for a sleep-over the weekend before, dinner at Chick-fil-a the night before (so she could go to Kid's Night and make a craft and get a balloon hat) and then had a backyard water party on the morning of her birthday. It was fun-filled and exhausting. :)

We left the next day for our annual trip to Myrtle Beach. We had an amazing time spending time with my parents, my brother and his girlfriend and our friends the Moloney's. Luke loved the beach and pool just like his sisters. He loved kicking his legs like he was trying to swim while we pulled him through the pool water. It was like instinct took over! He did get knocked over by a wave the last day we were there while sitting in the sand at the beach near the water. The tide came in a bit harder than I expected and wiped him out flat on his back.

We took a side trip when we left Myrtle Beach to Wilmington, NC to visit Adam's cousin Curt and his family. We hadn't seen Curt and Tee for nearly 4 years and our families have changed so much since then! It really was a great reunion with them and the kids had a blast playing together. And Cami swam by herself for the first time in their pool!

The girls leave for Ft. Wayne Friday night for a week. They are looking forward to time with grandparents and we are looking forward to a little break as well! I'm already starting my to-do list, including weeding (since it rained so much while we were on vacation our yard went CRAZY!) and deep cleaning. Sounds fun huh? :)