Our little darlings...

For everyone that knows the girls, they know that Alyssa is our sweet and sensitive one, and Lainey is our tougher, braver one. Their personalities definitely come out in this pic. Alyssa is smiling and looking sweet while Lainey is either flashing a gang sign or calling everyone losers.

Bug Fest!

Ryan and Alyssa have gone to Bug Fest for the last two years. This year, Alaina and I got to go too. It's at Southeastway Park, and there are a bunch of different exhibits setup with different bugs. The first one we went to were the butterflies of course!

Our little prodigy studying the anatomy of a mosquito... I wonder if she even had the correct eye open.

And here are the girls studying live hissing cock roaches - I have no idea what the magnifying glasses were for, those things were HUGE!

Lainey pointed the way to the next exhibit...

The spiders! There were live tarantulas - it's no wonder why the girls look so terrified in this picture! I'm just impressed that Ryan was able to act so brave (since I know he was probably screaming on the inside). And finally, on to the crafts. I was very impressed with the amount of fun the girls had. They are typically afraid of bugs around the yard, so it's amazing how much they enjoyed Bug Fest.

Alyssa's First Day of School

The first day of Kindergarten has arrived. After feeling nervous and saying she wanted to stay in preschool until she was 10, Alyssa actually did great. In fact, I think she handled today better than I did! She thought riding the bus was fun and got to go on a "bear hunt" at school. So, my little girl is all grown up... nothing prepared me for the overwhelming feeling of pride and sadness I felt at the same time. I made it inside the house before I broke down. I told Lainey I missed my little girl. And, she told me "I'm still here!" She also told me to stop being sad and be happy. She does a pretty good job of cheering me up for a two year old!

Alyssa dressed and ready to go to Kindergarten
Outside waiting for the bus. Lainey is still in her night gown - hey, at least she's not naked!
The bus is here! Last hugs & kisses
There goes my little girl...
and Lainey would have gone too if I let her!

State Fair

We went to the Indiana State Fair on Sunday, and spent 6 hours there! We had a great time, but were exhausted. Plus, we had a lot of Olympics to catch up on :)

The girls petting some baby pigs
Alyssa "driving" a bull dozer
Future farmers?
Milking a pretend cow... Lainey jumped in and got her hands dirty too.
Riding a pony
Lainey looks so tiny riding her pony!

Alyssa Day

Last Friday was "Alyssa Day" since it was her last full day before school started that I didn't have to work. So, we did everything she wanted to do (within reason). Part of the day included going to the museum where Aunt Kari and Eli met up with us. We had a great time - I still can't believe that the summer is over and school is starting already!

Alyssa is dressed up as Supergirl in this pic, and Lainey is driving the cab.

Here's Alyssa making her scariest dinosaur face

Eli still needs some work on his scary dinosaur face, although he's got the "roar" down

Lainey & Eli checking out each other's horses to make sure they like their own better

Whee!!

Even though he doesn't look very thrilled in this picture, Eli LOVED riding the horsey

Our Trip to Holiday World

We've decided to follow the trend and start a blog. this seems to be the easiest way to share pictures with everyone (especially since we haven't updated our old webpage for about 2 years). We went to Holiday World a little over a week ago and had a great time. If you've never been, I would definitely recommend it for families with young kids (I can't comment on the rides for the bigger kids since we didn't go on any of them). It was very clean and had a huge waterpark. And, you can't beat unlimited free drinks!!!

The girls had a great time playing on a giant playground and going on some kiddie rides.

We took this picture of the girls...

And Alyssa took this picture of us

Ryan and Alyssa had fun on the bumper cars

And the girls and I posed on the merry-go-round

The highlight for the girls was winning this giant bear. Ryan played the "throw the ball in the milk carton" game. He had 7 chances and won with ball #5. I've never seen him try so hard with each attempt. The funny thing was that after winning, a young girl walked up next to us and won after her second attempt (it looked like she wasn't even trying).

We told the girls that they had to carry it to the car

if they wanted to take it home...

nothing like a little teamwork.