4!

Our Emily turned 4 last week and I'm still in denial about it!! She, on the other hand, couldn't be more excited. She thinks she can do anything now that she's four. She keeps saying, "this is pretty hard, but I can do it because I'm 4 now." I love her new found confidence ;) And we're milking it for all it's worth. We remind her, "now that you're 4, you should be able to try everything on your plate," etc. Ha!

Now about this 4 year old... She's sweet, silly, sassy, spunky, smart, and spirited! She loves everything having to do with superheroes and princesses, loves to dance, play with dolls, dress ups, and stickers, and would probably watch kids youtube all day if I let her (don't worry... she only gets it for a few minutes each morning)! She does not like fire, eating foods that are even a little bit hot (or eating most foods in general), getting her face wet, or shots.  She is incredibly thoughtful and loving toward her sister and is usually very patient with her. She's going through a pretty whiny phase right now, but other than that she's an all around sweetheart and totally fun to be around! We love her to death!

Last Tuesday, Emily woke up to breakfast in bed, 4 balloons, and presents! We had preschool on her birthday so we got to celebrate with treats there and then I took her for a surprise mommy/daughter date to get manicures and pedicures. She LOVED it and asked if we could go back for her next birthday. I see a new tradition in the future! For her birthday dinner she chose chick-fil-a, her favorite! It was a perfect day!

Stay tuned for pictures from her super cute superhero party!!

home projects

It's so fun owning a home! We've been in our home for almost 4 years and we've been gradually working on projects along the way. There's still a lot we'd like to do in the future (our back patio is next on our list!), but we've had a lot of fun with some recent DIYs :)

Last summer (2015) we tackled our kitchen. Our kitchen was very dark with black granite and brown cabinets. While I would've loved to have changed both, we settled on painting the cabinets white. The project took way longer than we anticipated, but I'm very happy with how it's lightened up our kitchen. I still hope to change the backsplash someday, too ;)

Here's the before:

I'm embarrassed to admit how long our kitchen was in disarray like this!

Here's the after:

Onto the next project... Some of you may remember last year, when I helped my mom do a wood treatment on her HUGE living room wall. It turned out amazing!

So, as "payment" for helping her with this big project, my mom gave us the leftover wood that she had. Our wall was much smaller, so it took a lot less wood and work to get it done. We installed our wood wall in our study this spring. It's one of my favorite things we've done to this house so far! I love it!!

My big project of the summer was getting everything ready to teach preschool this fall. With that, it meant converting our playroom to a preschool room.  I was a little heartbroken when we had to say goodbye to our love sac and couch, but I knew we needed the space. And they're hanging out safely at my parents' house, so maybe we'll have them back someday :) After a few ikea trips, our preschool/playroom combo was ready! The preschool kids are all loving it!

Before:

After:

^this has been done since we moved in, but I don't know if I've ever posted a picture of our "book nook"

summer catch up

Once again, I'm way behind on my blogging! So, once again, I have a ton of photos to dump onto the blog ;)
We had an awesome summer full of playing, relaxing, and swimming at least 3 times a week ;) It was perfect!

When we got back from our trip to Fort Wayne, Emily started in swim lessons. I thought she would love it because she swims all the time and does so well with her puddle jumper... I was wrong :( She was so excited the first day, but as soon as she found out she would have to actually go under water her attitude changed. She cried day 2 through day 5 through the entire lesson! It was only an 8 day class, so she cried for most of it! I was proud of her though, because she never fought the teacher and never ran out of the pool to me. She just kept saying, "I don't want to go under water today!" But she still did it and for the last 3 days she got up her courage to get through it without crying! It was one of the hardest things I've had to do as a parent so far-- seeing her go through something that was so scary for her, but I really am so proud of her for never giving up! And thanks to Ms. Lori for being so patient with her!!

her face at the beginning of the week

sheer panic when she realized she was about to go under water

her face at the end of the week... big improvement!

^this is how Addie felt about swim lessons ;)

Midway through the summer, my oldest sister came into town with her family. Her youngest daughter is only 2 years older than Emily so they have fun playing together. The kids decorated cupcakes, went on a trip to build-a-bear and had a lot of fun playing in the rain!

all 5 siblings were in town, so we went out for a siblings lunch

We rarely get to go out with just the adults in the family because someone's always babysitting the kids. We made an exception while Wicked was in town and all went out together. We went to eat at Brennan's and then they took us by bus to the theater. We were the first ones on the bus, and we found that it was a party bus! My brothers had some fun practicing their pole dancing moves before more people arrived. It's the hardest I've laughed in a long time!! We had so much fun going out all together!

On the last week of summer we had a vacation bible school with our church. This year it was Egypt themed, and I got to help run one of the shops. Emily was also old enough to participate in one of the families this year and she had a blast! I thought she might be worn out by the last day, but she loved every second of it! She was so sad that it wasn't going to continue after the week was over!

Addie got to hang out in the nursery all week and they made Egyptian bracelets one day

love this girl! she was one of Emily's best friends during the week!

More summer fun:

Addie's still super snuggly, but she hardly ever wants to cuddle with Emily. Emily was showing her some affection while she could ;)

Uncle Stevie and Aunt Shianne took Emily on a movie date

my morning workout buddies

washing the golf cart

Grant celebrated his 29th birthday!

sometimes, when Addie gets really mad, she strips off all of her clothes!

And here's a whole series of Addie's "cheeeeese" face, because I have about a hundred of them!! Love that girl!