Baby Lover

Our very good friends had their baby girl the other day.  Savannah has been waiting to hold that baby for nine long months.  She sat patiently in the waiting area while we waited for Nola to be born… asking me every five minutes if she was here yet.  The moment when she finally got to hold Nola was priceless.  Savannah was so happy and just beaming.  Needless to say, we have made several visits to see Nola since her birth.  Who doesn't love holding a sweet newborn.

Savannah and her uncle Scotty.  This picture makes me smile because I have the sweetest picture from when Savannah was a newborn of Scott holding her.  Seven and a half year later and Savannah is holding his newborn.  I love it.

The whole gang… baby Nola has NO idea the craziness she was just born into.

2nd Grader In The House!

I can not believe how quickly the last two years have flown by.  It seems like only yesterday that I was registering Savannah for kindergarden… second grade snuck up on us fast.  She was so excited to be back at school… she loves her teacher and has friends in her class.  All is right with the world.  I can already tell that this is going to be a great school year.

Perfecting Her Study Habits

It's no surprise to anyone that Savannah reads all the time.  She is a book lover… she reads her books cover to cover and then re-reads them.  Her latest thing she has started doing is note taking while she reads her educational text book type books.  She writes down "interesting facts"… at least that's what she told me she was doing.  She used two of her dollars to buy two spiral notebooks for her notes.  She has also asked if she can circle and underline things in her books.  Seriously… totally normal seven year old behavior, right???

OMG… Disney Videos Are The Best!!

I'm still sorting through the hundreds of pictures that I took while we were at Disneyland… it will probably be a few days before I get any posted here on the blog.  In the meantime, how about some videos!  Those are way more fun than pictures anyhow.  

Our group selfie before our ride on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad began.  I got to sit with the two little girls… they were hilarious!!  I am so glad that I took video of them riding the ride.  Let me warn you, there is a lot of high pitched squealing… so maybe lower your volume.

The Radiator Racers ride in CARS Land was by far Ryder's favorite ride.  He almost did not get to ride it… technically he was not quite tall enough, but the worker did not really check well (lucky us).  Ryder had the biggest smile on his face the whole time he was on the ride.  Then when we got off the ride he kept telling us how awesome that ride was.

Her Happy Place

The beach really is Savannah's happiest happy place.  Beach Savannah is a totally different kind of happy… I love being with her at the beach… if you ever get a chance to spend the day with her out in the sun and sand, you should take her up on it.  You will see a side of her that rarely comes out.

Mermaid Sighting

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you… that is indeed a mermaid tail.  You can imagine how crazy excited Savannah was when we gave her this mermaid tail as a summer surprise.  What little girl doesn't want to be a mermaid.  Especially a little girl like Savannah who loves swimming more than just about anything.  It takes some getting used to… having the tail on is forcing her to perfect her dolphin kick.  It is quite a workout.  After day one with the tail on she was exhausted.  By day three she had finally figured out what her legs needed to be doing in order to swim properly with the tail on.  It is by far one of the best purchases we have ever made.  Totally worth the money… I highly recommend you purchase a tail if you have an ariel loving swimmer on your hands.

You can tell by this video how tricky it is to swim in the tail.  This was right after we gave it to her.  You for sure have to be a strong swimmer to even try swimming with the tail on.  Thank goodness for my awesome underwater camera… perfect for catching a mermaid in action.

Savannah's Garden: An Update

Holy wowza, Savannah's little container gardens have taken off.  She has tomatoes that are ready for picking pretty much daily.  Her little green peppers are coming in like crazy and she finally had her first ready to pick squash and zucchini.  The squash and the zucchini were by far Savannah's favorite picks of the day.  She LOVES squash, doesn't matter how it's cooked and she has been patiently waiting for zucchini so we can make zucchini bread.  I love that her veggies are all starting to produce, makes all the work worth it.

So many tomatoes.  We have had to give some to family and friends because we have more than we can eat.  Awesome, right!

A pepper!  She ended up not enjoying the flavor of this pepper, but Eric and I really did.  

More of these bad boys are on their vines getting ready… hopefully we have a bunch more this week.

A pretty impressive haul for a little girl's container garden, wouldn't you say...

On Her Way To 2nd Grade

I still can not believe that we are already wrapping up the school year.  This is Savannah's last week of school, and let me tell you… she is ready for a break.  If I'm being honest, so am I.  This has been a long year for all of us.  First grade was a lot more work than kindergarten… kinds makes me think that it just keeps piling on as she moves up.  Therefore, we really deserve to enjoy ourselves over the summer break.  I say "we" because, well, I am exhausted from all the school work, and reading, and math, and calendars, and meetings, and packing lunches… Ryder is probably exhausted from being up at the school with me, tagging along with whatever I have to do up there.  So yes, WE are all ready for summer!!  Savannah had another fantastic year, both academically and socially.  She made so many new friends and came out of her little shy shell more than I expected.  I really am proud of the little lady she is becoming.  It goes without saying that we are also very very proud of how well she is doing with her academics as well.  She is excelling and loving school.  On Monday first grade had their end of the year award's assembly.  Savannah received several academic awards and a handful of good behavior awards.  It was the perfect way to kick off the last week of school.  

This banner is pretty fantastic, and pretty sad all at the same time.  Thinking about her graduating high school makes me sad… and thinking about the year being 2025 just makes me feel old.

Receiving her awards from her principal.

Savannah's frist grade class.

Savannah and her wonderful teacher.

Out of all the certificates she got, Savannah thought that this one was the coolest.  She really thinks that she is a member of some special Texas Reading Club.  Kid cracks me up.

And in honor of our smarty pants little girl, I took the fam to the snow cone stand!!  

Her Own Spring Garden

A couple months back Savannah's papaw and grandma helped her get a spring garden planted.  Savannah had been asking for a long time to plant her own garden… it has been her favorite part of visiting the farm since she was little bitty, so it's only natural that she would eventually want one of her own (on a much smaller scale, of course).  We started small this spring and so far it has gone really well.  Savannah has done a lot better than I thought she was going to do… she waters them, checks them for bugs, sprays them with our homemade bug spray, rolls them from sun to shade… she is quite the nurturing little gardener.  

From left to right: 1st container, squash and a pepper plant.  2nd container, cucumber and two pepper plants.  3rd container, several tomato plants.

We will eventually be up to our eyeballs in tomatoes.  There are little green ones everywhere.

A cucumber!!!!  Her first fully matured and ready to be picked and eaten veggie.  

She was so excited to pick her first very own vegetable.  She has this cucumber chilling in the fridge at the moment.  She said that she will be cutting it up and eating it for a snack after school tomorrow.

A few of the peppers we have growing.  I am excited to try these.

Sissy's little assistant.  Always wants to be doing what Savannah is doing.  

Turns Out, She Can Run

It has been quite a while since I last posted.  So many things have happened that I wanted to share, but I just couldn't.  I just couldn't bring myself to write a single post and be okay with the fact that my g-ma would not be sitting at her computer in SD reading what I wrote.  It took four months, but I slowly started to realize that there are other people out there who missed the blog updates, Eric and I included. I did not realize what a high part of me this blog had become.  Being able to document my life as a mom has been a wonderful thing for me, and I've missed it.  So, I'm back… back to sharing my daily adventures with my little ones.  

Last week Savannah had her field day events at her school.  Eric and I were both SHOCKED to see what a fantastic competitor she was.  Girl can run… like really run… fast.  Her first event was the hurdles, which she did really well at.  Second in her group, I believe.  Her second event was the 60 yard dash (video below), she finished third in her group.  Her third event was the relay, her team got first.  The final event of the day was the tug-of-war.  Her class came in second.  

Hurdles… pretty genius whoever came up with these mini hurdles for the kids.  It was perfect for them.

Video of Savannah running in the 60 yard dash

Savannah running in her leg of the relay.  Her team was behind up until the point that Savannah got the baton.  She managed to catch up and close the gap for her team.