Happy 6th Birthday!

My girl,
How has it been 6 years since you blessed our lives? It seems like yesterday the doctor was handing me the most beautiful little baby bundle I had ever seen.  I look at you every single day and I am amazed by your beauty.  You are the sweetest most thoughtful little child I have ever met. You care about your family, your pets and your friends. You are hysterical. You make up the silliest songs all the time. Daddy and I just laugh at the things you say.

I know you have been nervous about turning 6 because you are worried you won't be my baby anymore. Sweetheart, you will be my baby when you are 6, 26, 56...forever.  You will always be my baby.

This has been a huge year for you. You started your first year of school and it had been so much fun to watch you learn, create new friendships and be part of a wonderful school family.

I can not wait to see what your future holds. I hope you know no matter where life takes you, daddy and I will be here for you every step of the way.

I love you more than you will ever know my Tinksie.

Love,

Mommy

Alex,

It's been such a wonderful year for you!  You started school and made new friends, grew into an avid little reader and so much more.  Your happy smile and fun loving inquisitive personality light up the hearts of everyone you know. 

Each and every day you make me smile and make me even more proud to be your daddy.  We get to do so much together and I can't wait to see what else we have ahead. 

I always thought that being a daddy meant I had to teach you things. And while that's true, what I didn't know was how much you would teach me. Because of you I laugh more, I look at the world in a whole new way and most of all you have taught me what is important. 

I love you Alexandra Rae and no matter where you are or what you do for the rest of your life, your daddy will be right there with you...even if you can't see me.

Summer, week 1

We hit the ground running the first week of Summer!  

Alexandra loves to be in the kitchen so we've started having little cooking sessions where she has to read me the recipe, help measure ingredients then finally enjoy the things we make! It's been so much fun. So far we've made strawberry jam, hummus and mini muffins!

We spent the rest of our week going to the library, playing on the slip and slide with friends and going on family bike rides each evening. 

At gymnastics Alexandra received a medal for all of the hard work she's been putting into her advanced class! I can not believe our girl has been doing gymnastics for almost 4 years!

We ended the week by having a sleepover with one of her sweet friends from school. The girls had so much fun running around the backyard with sheets over their shoulders like Elsa capes!

Red, White and Blue

This sweet girl of mine loves everything red, white and blue. I think it's because she knows her birthday falls 5 days after the 4th of July.

This year she helped me make a cute wreath for the door. She asked me months ago if we could make one for her birthday, but she wanted it to look like a flag for July 4th. I love the way it turned out!

I also found cute little popcicle stick flags on Pinterest so after a quick look in our craft closet I found all of the supplies we needed. 

These little flags may be my favorite thing ever. They turned out so cute!

They look adorable in the planters on our porch along with the wreath!

Last Day of School

This, like so many other post, is long over due!  We are 2 weeks into summer and it is already flying. 

Alexandra had such a fabulous kindergarten year! I can't believe how fast it went by. We absolutely loved her teacher, Miss Krueger. I was lucky enough to be able to volunteer in the class room once a week so I was able to get to know each child and really get to know Miss Krueger. 

Alexandra just thrived at school. She is reading well beyond her grade level so I'm making sure we keep reading over the summer. 

Alexandra made so many sweet friends this year. I have just loved all of the kids and parents from her class. We had hopes that her class would loop since several kindergarten classes do that at her school. (Looping is where the kids and teacher stay together from K to first grade so they already have a relationship, the teacher can get right back to teaching since she has first hand knowledge of their levels and they know all of the class rules and expectations.)  Miss Krueger warned us over Christmas break that she and her boyfriend (who loves in Louisiana) were getting serious and looking at their next steps for the future and sure enough, they became engaged this spring. We were so happy for her but a little sad at the fact we knew the class would not be looping with her.  So this summer our beloved Miss Krueger is moving to Louisiana. Happy and sad. 

Knowing she was leaving made the last day of school a little harder. Alexandra was very sad she won't see Miss Krueger next year but we've promised her she can email, text or write her letters any time she wants. 

My girl is excited and a little nervous for 1st grade. She is worried she won't know anyone in her class. I assured her between her 15 other classmates and friends she made in the other 5 kindergarten classes there is a very good chance she will know at least one other person in her class. Now we are just waiting until mid August to see who her teacher will be. Miss Krueger taught 1st grade at our school for 6 years and loves every single 1st grade teacher and said we can't go wrong with any of them so it relaxes this mommys mind a little!

Alexandra and her Miss Krueger

Spring Break (part 1)

Alexandra had her first real Spring Break last . Josh took off the entire week...it was fantastic! 

We stayed home the first weekend then woke up bright and early Monday to head to Galveston.  While we were getting ready Alex asked if we could stop at the American Girl store. 

Once we arrived in Galveston we had lunch then headed to the Railroad Museum. My girl loves trains! I love that she can share that with her daddy :)

From there we went mini golfing. Alexandra said that was her favorite part of the trip! 

After golfing we relaxed in our hotel room for a little while. Alex had fun playing with her new AG stuff. 

That evening we went back to The Strand for dinner. We had a yummy meal at Willie G's. We talked Alex into sharing a dessert with us instead of getting we own!  It was enormous and delicious! 

We left the following day and spent some time in Houston before we made it home. 

Weekend Recap!

My parents came in town this weekend! Josh and I had big plans for a date night Saturday and massages Sunday...unfortunately Josh wasn't feeling well :( 

My parents took Alex to dinner Saturday while we stayed in, ordered Chinese and watched the Olympics. While it wasn't what we originally planned it was nice to stay in!

Everyone slept in Sunday morning! My parents and I took Alex to Michael's while Josh rested.  It was so much fun walking around and filling our carts!

We found these fabulous tiaras!

When we were done, my dad dropped my mom and me off for massages. I figured since they were alread booked, I couldn't let them go to waste and my mom was happy to step in! My sweet dad took Alex to lunch and then to Best Buy where she helped him pick a new phone case. Apparently he picked a boring black case even though she showed him every colorful case they had!

We spent the rest of the weekend home, hanging out and watching the Olympics. 

This brown blanket gets lots of love in our house!

This morning Alexandra slept until 8:30 then made her way to the couch to snuggle and watch the end of Cars. Josh was in heaven!

Since we've been watching the Olympics every night Alex has started learning the different names and abbreviations for the contries. Today she worked on her Olympic "dots" and flags for the countries! 

Valentine's Day 2014

We had such a fun Valentine's Day! I love how kindergarten celebrates every holiday!  My sweetheart wanted to take a little something to her teacher!  

At school they had an ice cream sundae party. 100 five to six year olds, two rows set up buffet style with topping equals happy kids!

My little valentine!

That evening we planned a super romantic night with 2 other couples and their daughters. Nothing says romance like the bowling alley!

We had so much fun bowling boys vs. girls!  The kids were soo sweet cheering each other one at every turn! We are to thankful to have friends we love and kids who all get along!

My #1 Valentine!