A FUN FALL WEEKEND!

Ever since Mikayla started school...she has been constantly singing. She will sing everything. On the night of James birthday we set up a stage (her toy box), she dressed up and then put on a concert. Here is one of her songs! We even had a spot light on her (a flashlight) to make it even more star like. I think she might be the next American Idol in a few years!

Here is a picture of Mikayla after we finished decorating a pumpkin for our October family project. She was so proud of her work. We ripped the orange paper and she glued it onto the paper. Then she decided what shapes she wanted on it to make it a jack-o-lantern. Then I helped her cut them out as she needs to work on cutting out shapes. This was the finished product. She is very proud of it.

For the past 3 years we have joined our friends Rachel and Tom at a pumpkin patch/cider mill in St. Johns-just north of Lansing. This year my mom and Brian and our friends Andrea and Pat met us there too. It was a chilly day, but we still had a lot of fun. Here a just a few of the pictures from the day-I didn't do a great job taking picture because it was so cold, my hands were freezing!

Mikayla driving the truck with Grandma!

Picking out her pumpkin!

Riding in the wheelbarrow with our pumkins!

In the pile of pumpkins!

September fun!

WOW! I am sorry no updates. Life is so busy with school! We are getting in the swing of things slowly. I can't believe that we have been back to school for a month now. Mikayla is loving school too. This is a picture of her last week when I got to take her. She is standing by her locker!

We have had a very busy month. Mikayla is now sleeping in a big girl bed.

We also took a trip to Illinois for our nephews 2nd birthday. We stayed at a the hotel that James mom works at and went to the indoor water park. Mikayla loved the water slides once she tried them.

So we have had lots of fun in the month of September. Mikayla is loving school...her class has 10 boys and then her and 1 other girl. She doesn't seem to mind. I am posting a few more pictures of her from the month. We also enjoyed going down to the Art Prize in downtown GR. This weekend we are headed to the pumpkin patch...we are looking forward to it...and hoping for good weather. Down at the Art Prize in front of the GRAM water fall! One of the top ten-the Nessie-on the Grand River! VERY COOL!

Mikayla's family homework for school. She had to decorate a pumpkin! We ripped paper and glued it to the pumpkin.

Back to work tomorrow!

WOW...I can't believe 13 weeks has gone by already-yes this was our longest summer off in years. It has been a wonderful time home and Mikayla and I have had lots of fun spending time together...as much as I love being home all summer-it makes that transition of going back to work very difficult. We have been easing into it for the past few weeks. Mikayla is going to a wonderful childcare provider that I have known since before Mikayla was born. Linette is her name-I had both of her nephews in my preschool class, so she was very excited to have Mikayla as an addition to her home and Mikayla has loved going there the last few weeks. Along with the new childcare provider a few more new things in our lives are:

So as most of you know, Mikayla is going to school this year. She will be going 5 mornings a week to the ECSE (Early Childhood Special Education) program in Wyoming (the district I teach and we live in.) She will recieve speech and physical therapy sessions and it will be so nice for her to be in the school setting. She loves learning and is totally ready to go. I am trying to be super excited for her but it is also hard to believe our baby is going to be in school 5 days a week. She is growing up so quickly! So I will be taking Mikayla to Linette's in the morning and then the bus will come and pick her up at Linette's, she will go to school and then get dropped off back at Linette's. So she will be starting school next Tuesday and she is very excited and looking forward to it!

I feel very blessed to have a job this year and excited that I am still teaching 1st grade. Changes for me this year are that I am at a new school with many new staff members. I am looking forward to meeting all of them and getting to know them. It is hard to be up at the school and not know anyone, but I have been slowly meeting them and everyone seems so welcoming so far. Along with the new school this fall I am also taking a graduate class. This is almost my last one-I have 1 more class after this one and then I will write my thesis and then have my Masters. I am looking forward to having this done...not only for the pay raise, but also to have it done and not have to go to classes in the evening. Thankfully my mom lives so close and is able to help with Mikayla on the nights that James has to work! THANKS MOM!

So tomorrow is the day...we are back at it-bright and early 7:30-nothing like getting us right back into it. So I am leaving you with a few new pics of our night at the Hudsonville fair and our zoo trip today! Enjoy! I hope you like the new background...thought it would get me back in the groove of school!

Hudsonville Fair-Mikayla wouldn't get her face painted, but loved getting her hand painted. She also had fun on the rides...the slide was her favorite!

At the top of the slide!At the bottom of the slide!

Driving her first truck!

Riding DUMBO!Trip to John Ball Zoo with friends-feeding the ducks!

Cowgirl Ellie and Mikayla!

Summer fun...the end is near!

Mikayla and I went on a fun weekend on the East side of the state. James had to work so we made it a girls weekend. This was kind of my last activity before getting back into the school mode. We started out our time at Ella's 3rd Birthday party. Mikayla had a blast on the car bouncer, eating cake and playing with all the kids her age. Mikayla even had her first sleep over with Ella...Mikayla was sleeping before there was any girls giggling all night long. On Sunday we went to my Aunt Tammy and Uncle John's house and had a blast swimming in the neighbors pool and then over to my cousin's house to play with their 3 girls in their pool. It was the 90 degree weekend and so the only thing enjoyable to do was play in the pool. It was a fun filled day. Then Monday it was off to the Toledo Zoo. We met our friend Jess, Ella and Brayden and then Sunshine and Jackson and my friend Andrea even drove down from Ann Arbor to join us for part of the day. The skies were looking a little dark in the morning so we weren't sure if we would be able to make it through the day without rain...but in the end we did. The kids had a blast even though it was SUPER HOT. The Toledo Zoo was a very nice zoo with some animals that we hadn't seen at our other zoo tours of the summer-the Elephants and Gorillas were our favorites. I think Mikayla liked our train ride the most! We were exhausted on our ride home, but we had a wonderful time. We were very excited to be going home to see James though-we missed him while we were away. James was working on our new addition to our garage a nice storge shed-he got most of the siding on while we were gone. So it was nice to see his accomplishments when we got home too. It was a nice to spend time with family and friends before I have to get back into the swing of school. Next Tuesday is my 1st official day back...but this week I have been at a conference at school to get 2 graduate credits-so I am pretty much back to work. We found a new childcare provider this year. She lives in our school disrict so Mikayla will ride the bus from her house to school everyday! Mikayla love it there and she is really excited to start school. I can't believe that she starts in a week and a half and my baby is going to school! But she is looking forward to it and I know it is what is best for her, she will learn so much and make many new friends. We also have been having fun getting ready for school and shopping for new "school" clothes! Sorry for the long update...but I hadn't updated in awhile so I wanted to get everyone caught up on our lives! Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Ella's birthday party....

The Toledo Zoo-

I tried a new program to have more pics altogether-not sure I like it, but you can see that we had a fun time at the zoo!

End of summer fun...picking tomatoes out of the garden-trying out bikes at Toy's R' Us we are getting Christmas ideas already and then acting funny while waiting at Olive Garden for dinner!

Day at the beach...

We had a wonderful time at Holland State Park beach today. It was really windy and we did spend lots of time in the water, but the waves were large and it took both of us to hold onto Mikayla as she jumped in the waves and played-we didn't want her to get swept out. So we didn't get any pictures of our time in the water. Mikayla had a great time flying a kite-she has been talking about flying a kite since the last trip we had at the beach and there was several people flying kites. So James brought our kite to fly today-she loved it. The whole view they are small in the bottom right corner and then the kite is the left above the roof.

Eating a snack and lunch while laying on the blanket with daddy!

Getting buried in the sand. This is the first time she has done this-she loved it. She would get out of it and then say, bury me again.

This time daddy made Mikayla into "Ariel" the Little Mermaid. One of her favorite princess!
Buring daddy-Kayla thought it was fun to try and chop daddy's toes off with the shovel-she thought she was tickling them-not so much!