Summer flew by and school is here!  I love being back in a routine.  We're all happier that way.

On Tuesday, we started our Little Learners Preschool at our house.  I love teaching Lizzie and her friends.  I've got a great group again this year!


We had a super first day and had a lot of fun.

Wednesday was Lizzie's first day of "big" preschool.  She's at the same church school she went to last year.  We LOVE it and she was excited to go back.  We had donuts for a back to school breakfast and then headed off to school!

Are we 4 or 14????????

My mom always took my siblings and I for a first day of school treat, so of course I do the same with mine.  Lizzie and I went to Orange Leaf for her favorite, frozen yogurt.


Also on Wednesday morning, Ellie started her Mothers' Day Out group I'm doing with a few of my friends.  She had a fun morning playing with other 2 year olds and I enjoyed a couple of hours of me time!

Over the long Labor Day weekend, we went with 3 other families to Port Aransas.  We all piled into one big beach house together and had a fun weekend.  We hung out at the beach, shared meals, swam, laughed, played and stayed up late playing silly games that created several inappropriate inside jokes. ;)  It was nice to get out of town for a few days and since going to the beach was on our summer bucket list and we never crossed it off...it just worked perfectly.  Here are the highlights...


Our girls loved the sand and the ocean.  Neither were huge fans when we went to Puerto Rico last year so this was a pleasant surprise.  Ellie kept taking off into the waves so she pretty much had to live in her puddle jumper.








It's so much more fun to go to the beach with friends.  The adults had people to talk to and the kids had others to play with.  Lots of fun.








The pool was tiny and we had to share it with the people next door, but we made it work!






The guys brought home shirts for us girls.  Correction...they wore shirts home for us girls. ;)

We wrapped up our summer vacation by heading to Illinois to spend a week with my parents.  We miss them and they miss us, so problem solved!  My parents were in the process of moving into their new home so we were happy to go help and explore Illinois.  We had such a fun time and can't wait to go back!

The girls did great on the flight there.  We were lucky to be on a partially full flight so Ellie got her own seat. I set them up with Amazon Instant Video and we were good to go for the 2.5 hour flight.





I love my parents' house.  I should have taken some pictures of it but just didn't think to.  My favorite part is the corn field in the backyard.  Beautiful!


We spent one day in Decatur where my dad's office is.  We went to the Children's Museum in the morning and the zoo in the afternoon.  The girls loved both and so did my mom and I.























We spent the next day working on the house.  I'm not sure how much help I really was, but we did get a good bit accomplished.  The girls enjoyed stomping down the packing paper. ;)



We took the girls to the park that evening and it was chilly!! We had to run home to get jackets!






We spent the next day in Chicago.  We played the perfect parts of tourists, visiting The Bean, Navy Pier and doing a bus tour of downtown.  We had a great day exploring and having fun.













It was time to head home the next day!  We loved our time in Illinois and can't wait for the next trip!!