We recently celebrated Carson & Lyndon’s 2nd birthday at the Transportation Museum and the kids had a blast!

We got the chance to ride a train and these kiddos loved it!

It’s so hard for me to believe that you are five years old.  It seems as if it were yesterday that we were on our way to the hospital in anticipation of your arrival, with a mix of excitement and nervousness (since you were making an early debut).  We immediately fell in love with you and have continued to love you with all of our beings over these last five years.

Riley, you are the most precious and endearing daughter and I feel so blessed having you to call my own.  Your personality is full of life, and your spirit is infectious.

You have the most creative imagination and love to re-enact anything you experience (waitress, haircut, grocery store clerk, etc).  While you like to spend the majority of your day role playing, your most favorite thing to do is “play school”.  You’ve become quite the experienced teacher, and we love to spend time under your bossy care!

Lately you’ve developed this cute little habit of hair twirling, mostly when you’re nervous or feeling restless.

You have a love for books and music.  Our bedtime routine consists of lots of books and reading Bible stories, and it’s become a favorite time of day for us.  You received a karaoke machine for your birthday and you have spent a lot of time singing and dancing lately.  The karaoke microphone has become quite the accessory for you when playing school too! 

You’ve conquered school and have made us so proud.  You are quick to jump out of the car in the morning, and you love your new school (although you tell us computer is boring!). 

You talk a lot.  On a recent car ride with your granny and me, you spent the entire ride hypothesizing and talking non-stop!  We giggled from the front seat listening to your grown up thoughts.

You sometimes think you are the boss in the family and have gotten quite sassy.  Although it’s not fun to have to deal with, we do know that this is a part of growing up and is (hopefully) just a short season.

You still love your brother and often times want to mother him.  It make us so happy to watch the two of you together and we look forward to watching that relationship continue to blossom throughout the years to come.

Riley, we love you to the moon and back!!  We look forward to seeing what God has in store for your sweet life.

*The above pictures were taken on 9/30, exactly one month after turning five.  Riley has developed a new love for curly hair, so she slept in rollers the night before.*

If anyone is actually reading this thing…

As you can probably tell from the lack of blog posts, we’ve been busy.  Riley turned five, Braden turned two, and a whole lot of other things are taking my time away from this thing.  One of the main other things that is taking my time is running.  I’ve committed myself to run a half-marathon on October 29 to support a close friend’s adoption.  While the training is tough and I am physically exhausted all the time, I am also so glad to be doing this.  It’s something I’ve recently added to my bucket list, so what better way to knock it off than to run with great friends and for a wonderful cause?!

The two reasons I have this blog are to document our life for our family and also to share pictures with family and friends.  So I am going to do my best to backtrack and catch up here.

For now, here’s a couple of recent pics.

Braden LOVES being outside!  He also LOVES the lawnmower and jumps at the chance to “help” daddy!  He actually held his hand while Josh cut the entire yard (not that it’s that big, but still!).

This girl LOVES ice cream!  She can easily be bribed with a sweet treat…

I cannot believe that my baby girl is in kindergarten!!  This is one of those huge milestones that always seemed years away, yet it is now upon us.  Riley has been anticipating kindergarten all summer, and once we got into planning mode (buying school supplies, uniforms, backpack), she was on a daily countdown!

The Friday before school started, we had Meet the Teacher and got the chance to meet Mrs. Porter and check out her new classroom.  Riley requested curlers in her hair the night before for the special occasion! 

Obligatory first day of school pictures…

Look at the sass in this almost five year old!

Here’s the sweet!

And her fake smile for the camera in her classroom.  She started to get really nervous as we got closer to her room, and once in there, her hand gripped my dress pretty tightly!  I think I was just as nervous leaving as she was for me to leave!  But I’m happy to report (of course) that she had a great first day (and week)!  By the end of the week, she was hopping out of our car in the carpool line, waving us off as she marched into school with confidence.

Since I’m late in writing this post, she has now been in school for two weeks.  Her favorites so far are PE and chapel! 

Just for my own memory, here’s a little note her teacher wrote after the first week:

While Riley is by far the youngest in her class (and most likely will do a second year of kinder), we are so proud of how she has jumped right into the swing of things in her new school!

My favorite time of day.  Braden has just recently started sitting still long enough for books, so it makes bedtime lots of fun.  Now, after bath, we all go into Braden’s room and have story time, and it’s usually filled with a mix of jumping off chairs, reading stories, and acting out our favorite books.

Braden loves the my first animal book (it was one of Riley’s first favorites too) and he usually just wants to go straight to the page with “daisy”!

Another favorite book is “Clap your Hands” and the kids love to re-enact all the parts.  Braden has recently mastered this upside down pose and loves to show it off!  "Watch this!”

These are the moments I don’t ever want to forget. 

The other day in the car Riley insisted that she was going to play soccer when we got home.  As soon as we parked the car, she rushed up the stairs and came down dressed (to the tee) like a soccer star.  She even grabbed a gatorade from the fridge and was ready to go!  Love this sweet girl and her imagination.  And yes, that is her “cheese” face.

I am so behind on the blog and I have so much I want to blog about…where to start?! 

We’ve been busy getting ready for Kindergarten (another post for another day) and have two birthdays around the corner.  Our days have been flying by and it’s so hard to believe that summer is already over.

These are some pictures from my sister’s house at the end of July.  The kids love playing in her back yard, and of course Riley loves to “take care” of her baby cousin!