tiny dancer

Grace is our tiny dancer. She loves ballet. I mean, she loves it and she's quite good at it, too. Very coordinated for a three year old.

Ballet is a class that all girls - from the preschool program up to year 12 - have to take every year at the school. (She goes to an all-girls private Catholic school.) There is a beautiful ballet studio on campus, but it's being remodeled at the moment, so they have class in a multi-purpose room. Grace tells me she likes her ballet room better because it has mirrors everywhere and she can stare at herself. I guess she'll have to just push through using the multi-purpose room. What a hard life.

The parents were invited to an open class a couple weeks ago. It was so adorable I didn't stop smiling the entire hour. I had a good laugh at how serious Grace took it all - she was telling other little girls when they were off-step or when they needed to stop dancing. What a bossy little ballerina :)

This would be such a great picture if it wasn't blurry. I was using my crummy point-and-shoot camera. Bleh.

Tell me those little feet in first position aren't the cutest?!

sisters

i love these girls! just one more reason i'm ready to move back to america...i miss them!!

Texas

Ava and I took a little trip, just the two of us, back home to Houston. Most of my family (and none of my friends) had met Ava, so it was a really great time. Bruce stayed back in Aussie with Haylee & Grace and the three of them had a blast....and ate at McDonald's for every meal for 10 days, I'm fairly certain :)

It felt so good to be back in America - back at home with family, friends, and familiar surroundings. I didn't get to see nearly as many friends as I would have liked to, but 1 week goes by so quickly. I miss all of my friends.

It's been good for us to live here in Australia, but we are very ready to get back home.

Playing at Mimi and Papa's house with Aunt Janelle and her weiner dog, Sophie. Ava was completely smitten by that dog! She loved her!
Giving Aunt Janelle some loves.

Bruce's sister, Katie, and her kiddies got into town just about 2 hours before we had to fly out of town. It was really great to see them. Ava was loving her cousins!

Playing with Papa and Sophie the weiner.

I love this!

Ava eating her first donut. She made a huge mess, but loved it, so it was worth the clean up.

Bath time in the sink!

Isn't my mom pretty?!

Ava was such a little trooper. My mom, sisters, and I drug her everywhere with us that week: shopping, going out to eat, more shopping, .....she's such a good, good baby.

We did play with Aunt Keisha, Uncle Kyle (my youngest bro and sis) and also Gradma Marilyn (Bruce's mom), but I never got and pics. Dang. But what really matters it that we had a really great time with them!!

bunny rug

Australian's call a bundled up baby a 'bunny rug'. So here's our ever-adorable bunny rug!

We are into Winter full-force here....it's freezing, but my girls look so cute in their winter gear :)

potato

Last week Haylee threw a potato and it hit Grace right in the mouth. It, of course, did some decent damage - as a large potato would hitting your face straight on.
I was getting potatoes out to cook last night and Grace said to me, "Mommy, please don't throw potatoes at my mouth. It hurts. It makes me bleed. Please, please Mommy, don't throw a potato at me."
I said to her, (trying really hard not to laugh) "Gracie, Mommy would never, ever throw potatoes at you."
To which she responded, "Well, Haylee did and it hurt. Please don't throw it at me, okay, Mommy?"
Poor little girl! She's completely traumatized by potatoes.

Bright

Last week we took a vacation up to Bright. It's a beautiful, quaint little mountain town and because we are going into Autumn, the weather and scenery were gorgeous. We had a really great time together! It's about a 3.5 hour drive and all three girls did so well in the car - we were so proud of them. Anyhow, here's our week in photos. Enjoy!

Just oustide the log cabin we rented for the week.

The family room of our log cabin. We loved, loved the wood fire place. It was so cozy during the cold nights!

We took a family drive to the very top of the mountains. We hiked around and the girls loved all of the nature and getting dirty :)

Haylee was so adorable. She said to me, "Mommy, I take off my shoes. My feet wanna feel the rock." Okay Haylee.

It was COLD up there and her little tosies were little pieces of ice. She didn't even notice.

Playing in the town square.








After we showed Gracie & Haylee what fun a pile of leaves can be, they didn't stop!

Our home for the week. Oh, it was beautiful! The river ran along just off to the side of it. Perfect for fishing.

The girls getting their fishin' poles ready for a good fish in the river....they were SO excited.


Ready for the big catch.....

.....YAY! Way to go Gracie & Haylee!! (or daddy, but who's really keeping track??)

Happy Mother's Day Mandy

Happy Mother's Day Mandy. You are teaching our girls so much and they love you for it. You make us happy. Haylee's face says it all. We couldn't do this without you. I hope you enjoyed your special day and your nice gifts too (especially your cool new bike). We love you.

Happy Mother's Day - Mom

Happy Mother's Day mom. I love you. Thank you for your example and all of your sacrifice. You are one incredible mom to have raised all 5 of us. You did it and even stayed sane...mostly. :)

oh.my.heck...this KILLS me!

46 seconds of funny. real funny.