Avery's First Day of School

Avery had her first day of 4K today. 4K is our 4-year old Kindergarten. She gets to ride the bus which will be super convenient and especially nice in the winter. Here are some pics we took of her with the rest of us before the bus came.

I love these two cuties. They were especially photogenic this morning, which I appreciated. :)

And here she is, getting on the big yellow bus and me, probably fixing my hair nervously. She just walked right on, sat in the front and waved out the window as they took my baby away!

I actually tried stalking the bus. But I lost track of where it went so I ended up sitting in the parking lots waitin for a long time and then was too chicken to get out of the car to watch her walk inside (I didn't want her to see me!) so it was kind of pointless. But at least it gave me some peace of mind. I didn't cry - didn't think I was going to but I was very nervous/anxious for her to come home.

She had a great day. She was excited to see me when she got off the bus 3 1/2 hours later but once we got inside she told me she had a good time and told me all about everything they did. Camryn was especially excited to see her sister, which was nice. It was a good day. Tomorrow we get to do it all over again!

Avery's Room

We recently acquired a full size bed for Avery's room so we got her some new bedding.

I repainted the "Avery" letters to match (they were lavender before) and the big masterpiece is this:

I painted it! I was pretty proud of my hard work, although it's far from perfect. I traced a picture I liked off the computer onto parchment paper, then rubbed it onto the canvas, then painted it. It turned out pretty good and Avery appreciated it. Mostly, it was just a fun thing for me to do and didn't require too much artistic imagination or anything. :)

Day Trip to Madison

On Saturday we took a day trip to our state's capitol, Madison, Wisconsin. It was only about an hour and 20 minute drive so not bad. We can't believe we haven't been there yet! It was so fun and very beautiful, situated right between two lakes, with so much great architecture and little specialty shops and restaurants to see. So first we went to "The square" around the Capitol for the Dane County Farmers Market. It's the largest producer-only farmers market in the nation and it wraps all the way around the Capitol building grounds. We got some yummy stuff and enjoyed running around on the lawn.
This is what I get for having Avery be my photographer:

Then we headed over to the Henry Vilas Zoo, Madison's free zoo about ten minutes away. It was pretty small but had some fun animals to look at and it being free, we didn't feel like we had to stay all day.

Of course the girls talked us into a Carousel ride.

By then we were wiped out from being in the sun all day so we headed back home. It was a fun little trip that we'll definitely be doing again someday.

The Park!

As you may recall, Avery got a 12" Princess bike for her birthday a couple months ago. Lately she has been riding it a lot. But mostly around in the driveway behind our house. So last week I decided to take her to Oakwood Park where there's a nice bike path around a large pond.

She did great, although going down any kind of slope was hard for her since she was still learning how to brake. Since then she's become a pro at braking, which gives her more courage to go much faster. I pushed Camryn (and her baby doll Charly) in the stroller.
We finished up at the dock and fed the ducks some leftover hot dog buns. The girls love doing this and this pond has tons of ducks so it's really fun.

Then we went over to the playground to have a picnic lunch. There was a really annoying bee, however, that wouldn't leave us alone once we pulled out the strawberry applesauce so we were out of there before I could snap a pic or two.

Summertime Fun

I haven't blogged in a while, I know! So I thought I'd give an update on what we've been up to in the last little while...

The Wisconsin State Fair is a huge deal around here so we finally decided to check it out. I went by myself with the girls so we didn't get as much deep-fried yumminess on a stick as I would have if Merrick had come (although we did get a corn dog, seen below) but we did have a great time seeing all the sights. The kids loved all the animals, even though our favorite baby doll (Baby Samuel, named after their newest cousin) disappeared in the horse stables. "It's okay, Mom," Avery said. "We can get another one at Walmart." Oh dear.

In other news, we finally got a minivan. I know, we're that kind of family now. Just need 3 more kids and a trampoline now right? It's a Toyota Sienna and we l.o.v.e. it. The kids love the DVD player. Merrick loves the power sliding door. And I love finally having my own car again.

Two thumbs up from Avery!

Last week was SO humid and hot that we absolutely could not stand being outside for more than 10 minutes. So we decided to take a trip downtown to the Betty Brinn Children's Museum for the day. The girls had so much fun. My camera died about 3 pictures in so here's all I got, a shot of Avery doing her favorite thing - crafting and coloring:

And besides that, we did a 2 week session of swimming lessons for Avery at Wirth Park in Brookfield, which was fun but she definitely needs a lot more practice. We also celebrated our 6th Anniversary last Saturday. We went out without the kids to dinner on Friday night and on Saturday we drove down to Chicago with the kids where Merrick went to a sealing of some of our friends and then we went out to lunch at Red Robin and had our first ever experience at IKEA. Man, was that place awesome and overwhelming at the same time. We'll definitely be more prepared next time, though. Merrick also finished up his summer softball league, their team finishing first. And we got a new full-size bed for Avery. The bedding is coming in the mail tomorrow so I'll try to post some pictures of her room when we're done decorating.

It's been a fun summer. Things to look forward to: Avery starting 4K the first week of September (mornings, every day), Merrick's first ever business trip to market in NYC mid-September, and both of our moms are coming for visits in Sept/Oct. Lots of fun still in store before winter hits. :)