Snow White Birthday Party

Reese Ann's birthday celebration continued when we had a Snow White party with some of her friends!  The party was lots of fun to plan for me, and she loved it all- Snow White has been her favorite princess from the very beginning!

The birthday girl and her Edie!

Waiting for the 1st little princess friend to arrive!

Our little Snow White

Decorating mirrors

Blowing out the candles!

Reese Ann is 3- First Celebration!

Our precious, spunky, girlie little princess turned three on Tuesday, September the 4th.  We celebrated all day long!  We started with balloons when she came downstairs and then onto a party bright and early at 8 am at school!  We brought donut holes to share with all of Reese Ann's friends, and her class and sweet teachers did a great job celebrating her!

This is Reese Ann's table at school (plus big brother) eating donut holes for her birthday!

After she ditched the birthday crown, she sat on her spot on the carpet in "criss-cross applesauce" style and showed off her magic wand from Miss Karen

I brought the birthday girl and Cooper lunch from Sonic and got to eat with them at school.  After school our friends Emily, Tucker, and Eady (along with their sweet mom) came over to play.  They brought balloons and princess fruit snacks for Reese Ann!  Our birthday dinner at home was with Nan, Edie, and G-Chip.  All Reese Ann wanted was a pink cupcake (Pinkalicious is one of our favorite books these days), so she was very happy when she had a pink cupcake with candles just for her!

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Reese Ann loved opening presents including this Cinderalla dress from Nan!  The cute smocked cupcake dress did not stay on much longer :)

Opening a bracelet from Edie and G-Chip

Princess RA talking to Nanie & Uncle Eric on the phone

Having tea from her Snow White tea set- her Snow White party with her friends is this next weekend

All four of us!  We missed a picture with the dollhouse that was our present to the birthday girl- guess we were videoing! 

Reese Ann, you are such a special little girl!  We are so thankful for the life and excitement you add to our lives every day!  

Your favorite food at three- hands down- is chocolate soy nut butter.  You only eat it by the spoonful!  You still like junk food but are a decent fruit eater and will eat yogurt and hummus and carrots every once in a while.  You weigh in at 31 pounds and are 37 inches tall- just about the 50th percentile for both.  

You love it when there are people around to entertain you, but also like to have the run of the house every once in a while!  Your favorite thing to play right now is dress-up.  You usually shed your uniform as soon as soon as we walk in the door for a costume (or if not you want "real clothes")!  You have spent the last six months or so clomping around the house in one of your 6+ pairs of princess slippers.  Your favorites- the Snow White ones of course- broke because you wore them so much!  Baby dolls and stuffed animals are some of your favorite things to play with, too.  While you are so girlie, you still love to go run around outside and get dirty- such a fun mix of personality!

You have been fairly rambunctious and destructive through the last year, but I definitely see signs of growing out of this (Praise the Lord)!  You have become concerned when you make messes and are a little more careful with your toys and books.  You are a sweet friend at school- always taking care of the kids who are upset.  We are thankful for your kind spirit!  

You still worship your older brother, and the majority of the time, y'all are very sweet to each other and enjoy playing together.

We have loved watching you grow and change since your 2nd birthday and look forward to what this year holds for you!  We love you so much!

Stay tuned for pictures from the Snow White birthday party...

Start of School!

We have had a couple of eventful weeks around here trying to settle into school!  Cooper is in Kindergarten- I can't believe it!  He is loving every second of it and doing very well with the structure.  It helped him a lot by starting Jr. Kindergarten last year.  He has jumped right back into reading and is soaking up all of the new experiences that come along with Kindergarten!

We decided to go ahead and send Reese Ann to the three-year-old program at USJ (called Cubs) this year.  She is the baby in the class since she is still not quite three, but she has risen to the occasion!  She loves going to school everyday with her brother and has had so much fun with her friends and sweet teachers!

Sweet siblings smiling for their mom on the first day of school!

The uniforms about killed me with this little girl although the red shoes helped it not be so painful!  Continuing with the summer of dresses, RA refuses to wear any uniform that is not a dress!

Cooper and Dan walking in with all of his supplies!  Cooper was very happy to be there!

Coop and his favorite buddy, George, who wound up in the same class again along with several other of their little friends!  Their teacher, Miss Jennifer, has handled the boys very well at the start of school!

RA getting acquainted with her classroom and one of her teachers, Miss Amanda!

What almost 3-year-old girl doesn't love a kitchen?!

Our Summer...

Our summer included lots of fun and relaxation, and we are in denial that it is over!  We spent many a weekend at the river with family, and enjoyed lots of sun and water fun!

We've had lots of play-time in pajamas including lots and lots of legos!

Our little river rat on one of the last weekends she had her "pa-pa's!"

Edie is so much fun on the wave runner with Coop and RA!

Reese Ann decided that she was ready for the "pa-pa" fairy to come because she was such a big girl.  The bag in this picture was full of her precious pacifiers that she left outside for the fairy to take to babies who need them!

The next morning, Reese Ann found a princess baby bed and a Snow White night-light from the Pa-pa fairy!

Baseball!

Cooper played 5 & 6 year old coach-pitch baseball this spring.  He wound up on a team of boys that was mostly comprised of 6-year-olds, and he didn't have any friends on the team (they have a draft starting this young).  It wound up being a great situation for him and for us.  We got to know some other families that we were only acquaintances with before the season began, Cooper made some new friends (most of which will be a grade ahead of him in school at USJ), and he had lots of fun playing baseball! 

The season included lots of father-son time since Dan wound up helping coach!

Reese Ann loved being at the baseball field cheering on her brother!  We went through many a bag of popcorn and sucker trying to get this busy girl to sit still!

 

Cooper had a slow start to his hitting, but by the end of the season and with lots of batting practice, he figured it out!

We had lots of fun this season and look forward to returning to the same team with the same great head coach next year!

End of School

Now that a month has passed since summer began, I decided that I needed to get caught up with our end of the school year festivities!  Cooper had a fabulous first year at USJ.  His Jr-K teachers and class were so great, and he truly enjoyed every minute of it!  They had an end of the school year party, and I was able to snap a few pictures from the morning.

Here is Cooper with his main teacher, Miss Cindy Wyatt.  He adored her, and she was a wonderful dose of structure for this little boy!

This is Cooper with Miss Kellie.  She was so sweet and loving with the kids all year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is Cooper with his buddy, Sam, from his class.

Reese Ann had a great ending to her year at First Pres with her Spring program.  We were so sad to finish out the year there, because she will be going onto USJ for Cubs in August.  We have a LONG history at First Pres Playschool, but the director, Miss Penny, who was a teacher when I was there 30 years ago, is retiring this year, so we went out with her!

singing her songs!

Such a good picture of all of the sweet teachers!  Now RA- much more typical pose these days!  What wonderful ladies that we will miss tremendously this next school year!

Our little performer

Cooper had his debut performance at USJ with their JrK performance of Nuts!

He is very comfortable on the stage!  He had a speaking part and a solo and did great on both!

He couldn't see his adoring fans with his sunglasses on!