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! 

Dashy Cat

This is how we rang in the new year...with this little kitty checking everything out!  We were leaving our house to head to a friend's for the evening when a little cat ran out from under our car. I told Josh and Alex to get in the car while I tried to guide the cat to the side yard and leave it. The little sucker was fast and every time I tried to run away she was right there with me. We ended up taking her to our friends house with us. 

We sent an email to our neighborhood and no one claimed her. She was very clean and calm so she clearly wasn't a wild cat. The next morning we decided to put it back outside hoping she would go back home. She stayed on our porch for a while then disappeared. It was around the same time Alex noticed the kitty was not around. We had huge tears when we told we what we did so Josh walked the neighborhood looking for her. He never found her. I went out a bit later and heard rustling in the lot beside us and out came kitty. I went inside and showed Josh. He told me to get her and call our friends to see if they could watch "our cat" until we got back in town!!!

We picked her back up Saturday evening and have been getting her adjusted to our house. Cooper adores her and loves to try and play with her tiny little bell balls we bought her. We have been calling her Dashy. Sweet little Dashy went to the vet today and they confirmed she is in fact a she, is not micro chipped and is 5-6 months old.  So it looks like we have a new family member. She is fitting in quite well! We all already love our little Dashy Pie Stafin!