Sweet Siblings

Just thought I would post this sweet picture of my kiddos!

big brothers make the best buds!

I did this painting for my friend Amy, she is expecting her second son in November and the boys will be sharing a room.

Ariel's in her big girl bed!

The Transition couldn't have gone any smoother! She is doing great in it!

Update on first day of school...and Ariel made a milestone too!

This morning I went to the gym...third time this week thank you very much (I had been slacking and sleeping in a lot!) and then came home and got the kids ready to take Caleb to school. He had a great day yesterday. He didn't take much of a nap but he did lay down and rest. He had homework last night...can you believe it? We had to decorate his traced hand on a sheet of paper with stickers, markers and we even got the glitter out too! He enjoyed meeting new friends and was VERy eager to go back today!

While Caleb was at school yesterday, I spent a lot of my time on the computer getting my new website up and going. You can view it here. This site is great because it allows people from all over the world to see it without having to advertise and unlike ebay, you don't bid on it and it stays up for four months or until someone buys it!

Caleb has also been learning to ride his bike and we let him ride for a bit every evening when it cools off. He is getting pretty good at it. After the kids played outside last night we brought them in to give them their bath/shower. Caleb takes showers now and Ariel takes a bath...both in seperate bathrooms now since Ariel thinks it's fun to point and play at Caleb's anatomy! Anyway...Ariel likes to sit on the potty while I get her water temp just right, so she did like she always does and then she got up and said "Pee Pee Potty?" and I said "Yes, that is where you go pee pee." And I looked down and she HAD ACTUALLY PEED IN THE POTTY!!!! I was SOOOO happy for her. We jumped up and down, clapped our hands and shouted "YAY, for pee pee in the potty!" I tried letting her go without panties for about 30 min today and she ended up having an accident, we will keep trying though!

Ok back to this morning. As soon as I dropped Caleb off at school I came home and started vacuuming and cleaning out my van. Ariel has recently created a fear of the shopvac since over the weekend she pushed the green "on" button on it and it came on....I have never seen her run so fast to me before...it was quite funny! So I thought that I would let her play in the garage while I vacuum since I was sure that she didn't want to be in the van with me while the vacuum was making its loud noise. Well, I started vacuuming and Ariel comes walking up to me with the dark stuff on her hands. I turn off the vacuum and realize that it is paint on her hands. She of course had this nice boutique outfit on and I automatically grabbed her hands and we rushed to the bathroom. I tried to wash it off with water and soap but it just made a bigger mess...It was oil based paint! So, I tell Ariel to stand at the sink and just leave her hands in the water. I rushed to the kitchen to get some paper towels and then to the garage to get some paint thinner and after 3 trips to the paint thinner can I finally got it all off of her...and the sink!

Where did the paint come from you ask? Well Dan has been repainting a used tile saw in garage, I apparently thought that he had been using spray paint all this time but he had also been using a roller and he left it out accidently and Ariel automatically went straight to it. She surprisingly didn't get ANY on her dress...thank goodness!

Well my laundry just beeped gotsta go!

First Day of School

Today marks the first day of pre-school for Caleb. He will be in the 4 year olds class at First Christian Church in Bentonville, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 8:30-2:30. He knows several other kids that go there...Ainsley, Will, Rylan and Trinity but they are all in different classes so I am sure that he will meet tons of new friends!

I got up and went to the gym this morning at 5:30 and then went to Wal-Mart to get gas (I was on mile "0" on my mileage keeper...I was pushing the limits, I know!!) I decided to treat Caleb to some donuts this morning for his first day of school. I got him chocolate with sprinkles. We NEVER have donuts...he actually called them cupcakes if that tells you anything! He is going to do great at school and I am so excited for him!

I tried to get a picture of him and his teacher but she was running a little late this morning so we will have to try to reinact our first day again sometime and get a picture with her!

Chowing down on his cupcake...er...I mean donut!!

WOW...he looks like a big boy here...I can't believe it!

Sunday

This morning the kids got up at 8:00 which was nice since we don't all get to sleep in these days. We had breakfast together and then I started getting ready for church. I let the kids play with my necklaces and bracelets while I got ready and they had a blast. I hardly ever let them play with them since I heard a horror story of a little girl that got strangled from getting her necklace caught on a doorknob while playing.

Dan took a picture of me doing Ariel's hair for church.

And then one with both kids.

When we came home from church, Dan happend to look out of the corner of his eye and saw this huge turtle. We figured he came from the field across the street to get in the shade since today it broke 100 degrees.

And a picture of Ariel...I tried to take one of Caleb but...well...he was not cooperative!

Tasting the Flavors

This was Caleb at lunch today. He has been doing this a lot since we have been watching cooking shows on tv!

Writing ABC's

Caleb has been practicing writing his ABC's. He did these without the help of Dan or me and without looking at anything! The letters go from left to right on the bottom and then wrap around on top from right to left.

GENESIS by Caleb Cole

Caleb loves to read to Dan and I now and this is him reading Genesis out of his bible!
Here is dialogue for you if you need it!

Adam and Eve
And then a bird came on his finger and a chipmunk came on his toe...not sure what he says...Eve gave him some beautiful flowers. They were in a fruit garden. (Ariel says cheese!) And they were saying "hey lets take a bite of the apple" and the snake said "hello do you want any apple?" "Oh yes, why don't you give us some." They were hiding in the garden....Ariel distracting...and the angel said, "it's time to get out of the garden."


Noah's YARK!
Noah was building a very big ship. And all of the animals out of the zoo, and all of the animals were in the boat and all of the people were in the boat. And they landed on a beautiful hill and Jesus said "Do you promise to be good to Jesus?" And he promised him he will be nice and then Jesus gave him a big big Rainbow, and they landed on a hill and the water was sh-r-ink-ing but a dove flyed by.


Tower of Babel
And the man with the red shirt wanted to build a little tower. But the king wanted to build a big, yark...no yar-d! And that man saw a big big tower.

Fun at the Lake

We went to Beaver Lake a couple weeks ago and grills brats on the grill and swam for a few hours. We had a ton of fun and Caleb keeps begging to go back!

Back to it...

I have been terrible about blogging so I will be trying to post daily now....

I ran errands all morning. We went to Teresa Jones' house to drop off her announcements, Office Depot to get hardware for our new filing cabinet, Dollar General to get miscellaneous items, such as undershirts for Caleb and PANTIES for Ariel...yep we will be trying to potty train soon! We also went to Wal-Mart to get a few food items for the weekend.

Caleb starts 4 year old pre-school next Tuesday and we need to get his school supplies and he is SOOOO excited. We went and met his teacher ( Ms. Melanie) Wednesday night, he automatically took his shoes off and said "come back later and get me mommy" it was too cute. He will have NO problem with the seperation from me, he is a social little boy. I am looking forward to having one on one time with Ariel. I need to focus on potty training and the ABC's with her.

I had a purge fest yesterday. I am participating in a large children's consignment (Rhea Lana's)sale in September to sell all the kids clothing that they have outgrown. I have 3 huge containers full of clothes to sell and I am donating a garbage bag full to Salvation Army. Then when the kids napped yesterday I went through my closet and purged two garbage bags full to donate as well. I got rid of stuff that I hadn't worn in a year or that was completely faded or out of style, figured there was no reason to keep it around. I have really been watching what I eat again and my goal is to be back to pre-pregnancy weight by my birthday (October 4) so that I can get some new clothes for the fall. I have lost 5 pounds since I have been hom from Dallas...about 8 more to go...or 10 would be nice too :)!

I am having coffee with a bunch of girlfriends from our connection group tonight. We have met every two weeks to do a book study this summer. We are reading the book Captivating, it is such a good book. It's good to get out of the house and be alone with some good friends.

I will post some pictures in a bit since I have fallen behind again. I need to go make the kids some lunch since we have been out of the house all morning long!

Announcement Frenzy

Do you remember all my friends that were pregnant? Well, they have all had their babies!!! As a baby gift to all of them, I gave them 25 free baby announcements. I thought that I would share them with you to announce the birth of all of them! There are one or two friends whom I have not done announcements for but there are still a lot of little ones now! They are also listed on http://www.peek-a-booimages.blogspot.com

The 4th of July and DallasTrip

For the fourth, Dan, my cousin Allison (she is 17), the kids and I all went to Harrison. On Friday the 4th we had a huge lunch at Dan's mom's house. We had a lot of family there and it was great to see them all. That afternoon, Allison, Dan, Dan's dad and I went canoing on the Buffalo. We did a 3 and a half hour float and it was so peaceful!!! We got off the river at around 8:00 and got home around 9:00. Dan and I helped put Ariel to bed since we hadn't seen her all afternoon (Dan's mom kept the kids so we could have some fun!) and then we shot off huge fireworks. Caleb loved them and Dan even let him light a few (eeeekkk!!)




On Saturday, we had a pretty relaxing day. Allison and I went four wheeling for almost 2 hours and then that afternoon, Dan, Allison, Ariel and I all went back to Bentonville. I left Caleb with his Granny for a week so that Dan could have some time alone to work and I could go to Dallas with Ariel. I really missed him but it made it so much easier on me only having one kid to worry about.



On Sunday, Dan, Allison, Ariel and I took a 4 hour trip to Beaton, AR. This is where our annual family reunion is held each year the first Sunday in July. This year marked the 100th year!! There were cousins from all over the US that came, so it was pretty special. After we had a HUGE lunch, Dan and my mom headed back to Bentonville, while Allison, Ariel and I went on to Dallas. It took us 4 hours to get there from Beaton and by the time we got to Allison's house we were exhausted!



I spent the whole week visiting with my family. The first night I was there, my uncle Randy and Aunt Lynn were there, we had one day where my cousin Laura went shopping with us, and I spent some good time with my Grandma. We had a very relaxing week there. Ariel did AWESOME and slept in until almost 8:00 each day. I was there from Sunday and then left the following Sunday.



When I got home to Bentonville, Dan had been in Harrison helping his dad with some farm work so Ariel and I had the house to ourselves for an evening. It was great, I was able to get all unpacked and get some laundry done before the boys came home. The next day, Monday, Dan and Caleb came home and they had flowers for me...what a treat!!! It was so good to have them home!

This is her newest thing...when I get the camera out she automatically squeezes her eyes shut and then says "CHEEEEESE!" (She has her hair in pig tails here with two bows!)

All the cousins (minus Ben and Caleb).

My Aunt, My uncle Randy and my Grandma.

Allison and I

Allison is invlolved in the drill team at her high school. They are called the Chevalls and one of their uniforms includes wearing a cowboy hat. Their colors are red, black and white. We found this hat while shopping one day and declared Ariel a "Future Chevall!"

Been a while...I know!!!

Well I am going to attempt to catch up on my blogging today. Things have been really busy around here and I am just now able to get the pictures off of my camera so that I can share...so here we go!

Caleb's Thank You's

After Caleb's birthday party and after he received all of his gifts, we sat down and wrote thank you cards to everyone who gave him a gift. I asked him what he wanted to say and I wrote it for him and then he signed his name at the bottom. He kept telling me over and over again how much fun it was. When we first started he would sign his name while I would write the next thank you note and he would usually be done signing his name by the time I finished writing the note, well towards the end of our thank you list, he was writing his name so fast that I couldn't keep up! He thought that was pretty funny!

Family Night and Fireworks at the Crosses

On the 29th we had a family night at church and then had a HUGE fireworks display! The fireworks lasted for at least 20 minutes. It was the best show that I had seen in a long time and the kids enjoyed it. Ariel ended up hiding her head about 5 minutes into it while I covered her ears and almost fell asleep...it was nearly 9:30 at that point so it was WAY past her bed time. We had hot dogs, cokes and ice cream for dinner that we payed a $1 per item for.

A friend of mine Salena had this sweet little puppy that she was weaning and brought it to the church. Ariel wasn't sure what to think since he was so little but she did finally kiss it and pet his head!

These were the baptisms at the crosses that night...I think close to 60 were baptized!

My friend Casey took this picture of the 4 of us...thanks Casey for the pictures! The beautiful crosses!

Ice cream...yum yum! Jeniffer Johnson, the preschool director, passed out these glow stick necklaces that the kids loved. Ariel was putting over her head. Looks like she has tons of hair here!

Fireworks at our house

My Grandma, Aunt Debbie and cousin Allison came in town on the 30th of June. They were here for three nights and on the third night we lit fireworks (mainly sparklers for the kids) and had watermelon on the back deck.

Painting

Here's another one that I finished today. It's for my cousin who will be turning 17 in about 2 and a half weeks. She is a dancer and this is her favorite quote.

Caleb's 4th Birthday Party

I cannot believe that he is 4! We had a play date/birthday party for him at Park Springs Park on Wednesday. He had all of his friends there minus 2 or 3. He had such a blast playing in the sand and giggling with his friends!

We made cupcakes on Tuesday together. It was way more fun than buying them because he got to help me make them. I did all the frosting and decorating while the kids were napping so he didn't get to help with that but he was able to stir the batter and put ingredients into the bowls. He is a big help (and so is Ariel!).

Here are the cupcakes all set up to eat! YUM!!

The Party Favors for all of the kids.

The birthday boy waiting on his friends to arrive!

Brother and Sister playing in the side walk chalk!

Playin in the sand

Blowing out the candle

He loves chocolate!

Opening presents!

Thanks to all that came to the party. He really enjoys being around all of his friends!