Final Summer Weekend

I received a fancy delivery from my Sweet T to celebrate our 5 years of wedded bliss.  

On Saturday we drove up to Carmel to see Jamie and hang one last time before she becomes a mother of 3.  We took the golf cart and played at their neighborhood's playground.

G kept touching and rubbing Jamie's belly and saying "There's a baby in there!"  Then she would lift up her own shirt and ask, "Do I have a baby?" 

Uh no.

Sweet Jamie is such a trouper.

Baby #3 is due Tuesday.

On Saturday evening we dined out in Broad Ripple and finished our evening with cake at the Cake Bake Shop.  That place is so charming and the cake is divine. We talked a lot about wedding day memories.  

On Sunday we went to mass and then met Mark, Marinda, Walker, and Camille down at Mallow Run Winery for another one of their fun events.  They had a Hawaiian band perform and hula dancers.  G was dying to get on stage.  

As usual, she was front and center.

Her confidence blows me away, and I'm pretty confident myself.  

The humidity was horrible, so we stuffed ourselves with melon and grapes.  

Camille fanned herself to stay cool. 

She's such a sweet girl and good with G.   

3/4 of the family.

I encouraged Mark to take his shirt off because it was so muggy, but he declined.  

Mr. Soon to be Middle Schooler fanned from the other side.

When I met Walker he wasn't yet walking.

I do love that boy.  

G received special instruction with these flingy things.  

We ended our day in my classroom where my darling husband put together my IKEA stools for tiny rears.  

While Genevieve helped ever so much too.  

Goodbye summer!

Hello to 1st Grade.

Water Parks, Shopping, and Room 94

I took Genevieve to the new water park that just opened in May with a group of my teacher friends a week ago.

She loved floating down the lazy river with Tara and her daughter Lydia.

We tried to get a picture of the whole group, but Spencer and Alex weren't too interested and my child was hollering because this was interrupting her snack of animal crackers.

This one's a little better.  

Everyone was cracking up over the amount of sun protection that I provide for my child.  I wear SPF 50 too, so it's not just her!

Here she is refusing to share with anyone, even though those are Lydia's animal crackers.  

With a bit of coaxing, some sharing occurred.  

We had such fun that we took Trinity on Saturday.  He complained the whole time that the water was cold.  If there are two things my man can't tolerate, it's being hungry or cold.  

G got tired of the water and so did her father, so they spent a lot of time on the swings.  

I lazy rivered it.  

She was a bit tuckered after that fun.

We took YaYa with us on Tuesday and had a ball.  

Mother and I were able to sneak away to do some water sliding. I shot out of one so fast and plunged into the water that I thought the teenaged lifeguard was going to have to rescue me.

I came up coughing and blowing water out of my snoz.

It was pure glamour.  

Whitney and I took Emily for a little back to school shopping.  They had their first Tory Burch experience.  They served Whitney champagne to get her to part with some moolah.  They are smart that way.  

Emily decided on some darling pointed toe flats.  

I refrained from purchasing any.  

I am about finished with my 1st grade room.

This bulletin board has since been covered with my own goodies like family photos, past class pictures, etc.

I love Peppermint Patty.

We share a similar round face shape.  

I'll be sure to bring this up during our geometry unit in math.  

My desks are in a double u shape.  Not W, but double u.  

Get it?

That middle table is where I will set up a writing center and hold writing conferences.  

I'm getting $5 stools from Ikea this weekend, which slide right under the tables and save ever so much room.

No name tags on the desks.

We don't do that until they physically walk in the room.

Our school is fairly transient.  

My Smartboard, classroom library, calendar, and listening rug.  I have had that purple velvet chair since my 1st year of teaching in 2001.  It sits very low so that I am down close to my little munchkins.  They all tend to think I'm so huge anyway, so this puts me at their level for read alouds and such.

I'm wondering who my shoe/foot rubber will be this year.  I always had a kid or two who would just touch my shoes when I read.  

Maybe if all of my footwear wasn't metallic gold, then they wouldn't be drawn to it like crows.  

Wish me luck on a good year!

It's been a while, but I think I'll fall back in the groove quickly:)

A Trip to Aunt Katie's House

Sista Katie, Uncle Chip and Cousin Caroline have moved home to the Hoosier state.  No more long treks to Tennessee!  They are now only 3 hours away from us instead of 6.

YaYa, Genevieve and I went to visit for the weekend.

When we got there on Friday Aunt Katie let G drive us out of the driveway.

We visited a local farm where the girls saw pigs in their matching rompers.  

Genevieve had her first peach of the season and ate every last bite.  

We also mined for gold and did some serious swinging.  

We had dinner at G.D. Ritzy's, and everyone had ice cream.  Genevieve was particularly excited about having it out of a cone for once.  

On Saturday the girls played in Caroline's playroom, which is like walking into the American Girls Store, but messy.

YaYa rode the carousel with her 2 lovies.  

Caroline led the way.

You can rent these little stuffed animals to ride and Mom, Katie and I sat in those massage chairs as Caroline and Genevieve navigated the mall.  

It was hysterical.

G warbled "When I See an Elephant Fly" from Dumbo the whole time.  

$6 for 10 minutes of pure bliss.  

Aunt Katie treated G to her first Build a Bear experience after I bought her an Anna dress.  

Caroline showed her the ropes.

We had a great weekend!

My summer is drawing to a close.  I received my class list yesterday and my classroom is coming together.  I'll post pictures when it's all up and ready to roll.  

4th of July

Genevieve had her nails painted in honor of finally pooping in the potty.

She uses it for her other business, but had been holding out on the big #2.

She admired them all day, and

then went back to asking for a diaper the next day to poop.

I had been duped!

Manipulated by a 2 year old! 

No more $6 paint jobs until she's using the toilet regularly for her business.

Enough about that topic.

Trinity and Papi had vacation days on Friday so we went to visit Papi and Abby.  

We celebrated Papi's birthday a week late.

G gave him a new mug with her little mug on it.   

Then she presented him with a hat that we bought in Miami. 

Papi loves a good hat.  He always wears one.  

We ate dinner and strolled along the river.  

G switched into her play clothes and got to swinging.  

Owensboro has such a lovely river walk and playground area.  

Crafty Abby made G a magic wand.  

In typical Trinity/Betsy style, we decided that Trinity would run the local Independence Day 5K at 6:30 a.m. when registration closed at 7:00 a.m.  We barely made it.  While I wrote out the check, I trusted Trinity to fill out his own registration form.  

Paperwork is not his forte.

As the runners lined up to start, a local Kentuckian in charge of the event came on the microphone and said, "Trinity Lopez, git on over here girl.  You forgot to tell us how old you are."

I so love my husband who is often mistaken for a female on paper.  

In his defense, he did circle M for male, but just left off his age.  The announcer was far more embarrassed when Beefcake Trinity ran over to announce that he was 38.  

We swam at Abby and Papi's neighborhood pool.  

On Saturday the boys went golfing while the girls swam.  

Papi stopped to pick up G for a spin on the golf cart before returning it.  

We went on a neighborhood walk after dinner. 

G was terrified of the fireworks, so we watched the Macy's Fireworks show on TV instead.   

Aunt Katie and Caroline came Sunday morning to swim and visit for a couple of hours.  This was the best picture I got!  

It was a great holiday weekend.