Emma's First Soccer Practice

Our little Emma has been wanting to play soccer since she saw Abby play when she was 4. Emma would toddle around at the ripe old age of 1, kicking the ball on the sidelines.



Now that Emma is 4, she can finally play soccer. Abby has long since ended her soccer career - retiring after just 2 seasons. So, Emma hasn't seen an actual game in quite some time. But, she has been practicing outside (as you see below getting a few pointers from coach Bailey) and has talked constantly about this practice we had tonight as well as her first game a week from Saturday.


Emma did great at her first practice. She started playing immediately with her new teammates, and you'd think they had been best friends for years. She actually went after the ball. Emma was squealing with delight every time she got the ball and started kicking it towards the goal. We can't wait to watch her at her first game!

Another School Year

Our big girl (she measures a mere 4'7", 2 inches shorter then 16 year old gold medalist Shawn Johnson!) is off to 2nd Grade. She's got a wonderful teacher and is excited about the school year. Here's hoping for another great year of learning and growing!

Also, follow the link to see the pictures from the previous years.

Krispy Kreme

Our girls go to a Pediatric Dentist a good 35 minutes away; it is the closest pediatric dentist on our insurance. We've been very happy with them other than the distance. Emma had x-rays, a cleaning, and a fluoride treatment. Abby got sealants on her molars, a cleaning, and a fluoride treatment. They walked out with new toothbrushes, a toy off the toy wall, and I walked out owing $0 - there's a reason we drive so far!


Cavity free, we headed to our other favorite thing about going to our dentist - Krispy Kreme is on the way. I always promise the girls if they have a good check-up that we will stop by on our way home. So, that is what we were able to do this morning. The girls always love our bi-annual trip to Krispy Kreme, and they never get tired of watching the donuts being made. I was somehow able to have the willpower to skip on the Krispy Kreme donuts today even though they smelled and looked sooo good! Not exactly in my low-cholesterol diet though...

Great Wolf Lodge

Back in early June, we received a flyer for a summer promotion for Great Wolf Lodge. Abby went there once in May for a Birthday party, and her Brownie troop went at the end of May. Brian, Emma, and I bought passes for $30 each to be able to use the water park when Abby was there with the Brownie troop (you have to know someone spending the night there in order to buy a day pass). We had such a great time, that we decided to book a room for August thinking it would be our last little "vacation" before school started.


The girls have talked about going all summer, and Emma was very excited to spend the night since she hadn't been able to. The rooms are designed super cute with a woodsy, outdoor theme along with the kids' favorite - the bunk beds. We were able to check in Monday at 1:00 and began using the water park immediately after getting our overnight bags to our room. The day was surprisingly overcast (it's been very hot all summer), and I was actually freezing cold both inside and outside. The water parks (there's one inside and outside as well) were crowded and the lines for the slides were disappointingly slow-moving and long. A storm blew in later that evening (it hasn't rained all summer!) which meant that the outside was closed as well as all of the slides inside.


With the inclement weather, we decided to do the scavenger hunt - a MagiQuest which challenges each Magi (i.e. Abby and Emma) to point their wands at different objects in the hotel which will then light up. You have a book that "guides" you through this and gives different clues. It involved a lot of going up and down the stairs. We spent about 2 hours going up and down the stairs Monday night (along with everyone else). I took them back on Wednesday afternoon (you have 4 days to complete the game). We spent another 2 hours and had about an hour left in the hunt when the girls informed me they had blisters on their feet and couldn't go any further without food. So, $50 for the game, and we didn't even finish it. Lesson learned..


Tuesday morning, we opted to check out of our room by 9:30 instead of 11:00. If we did, we got an additional $10 off (not a big savings, but we would be at the water park anyways and not in our rooms). Since the water park opened at 9:00 and we were headed out there right at 9:00, we went ahead and checked out around 8:45. At 9:00 a.m., there were very few people inside the water park. Emma was able to enjoy the "kiddie" pool area while Brian and Abby were able to ride some of the bigger slides with very little wait. At 10:00, we hit the outside water park right when it opened. We were once again able to enjoy the slides and pools outside with very little crowds. Once again, I was freezing and the water was quite cold (believe it or not). We headed back inside around 11:00, only to discover that the "kiddie" area was now closed due to fecal contamination and remained closed the remainder of the day. Bummer for us. Luckily, Emma had been able to enjoy it for an hour that morning. We stayed until around 5:00 that afternoon, and I was very tired by the end of the 2 days. Our kids had a wonderful time, and we were able to ride several of the water slides together as a family, which was a lot of fun.

Overall, it was a great outing, but I would hesitate to go back. You spend so much money on a hotel room that you are in for such a short amount of time in order to enjoy a crowded water park when there are so many water parks in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Next summer, we will head to Hurricane Harbor for a day, bring our cooler, and save a good $300. They definitely are making a fortune at Great Wolf Lodge.

Roller Skating Fun

Abby went to a Roller Skating Birthday Party LAST summer; she had never been skating before. She spent most of the party with a death grip on the railing and tears in her eyes. My heart broke for her; how can a kid not know how to roller skate? I assumed she'd catch on very quickly. I don't remember struggling to learn to roller skate, but perhaps I did. Some of my fondest memories as a kid are of being at the roller skating rink with my Jordache jeans on jammin' to Kool and the Gang, "Celebrate Good Times." I vowed last summer that we would work on learning to roller skate. Fast forward one year later, with only 2 weeks of summer to go, we finally return to the roller skating rink (how does the time go by so fast?). Abby did much better this year. She cautiously ventured away from the railing, and I can see that if we took her on a regular basis, she would get the hang of it.


Emma tried roller skating for the first time today. She was very excited. However, when she stood up in her skates and realized it wasn't easy, the tears started flowing. She calmed down though when I took her to the carpet to practice (much easier than the slippery floor). She was getting the hang of it on the carpet and ventured out with Brian (holding firmly to his hand) to the actual skating rink floor, but didn't get much more brave than that.


Perhaps they will do better next summer...

Recycling

Having a couple of little girls around the house can bring about all kinds of who knows what from one day to the next. One of the things that they love to do is dress up. They will sometimes throw together little pieces from different outfits... or they will take one of the many outfits that they have gotten over the years and randomly play with them (be it regular clothes, old costumes, old dance outfits, etc).

Today, Emma found an old Halloween costume that we got for Abigail probably 4 years ago... a Dora costume. So, that in itself wasn't such a big deal because there was probably a 6 month period that she wore this costume a good 4 days a week. The cause behind today's post is this cute little girl comes walking into the office saying 'Daddy, can you take my picture, put it on the computer and print it for me???' What loving daddy can say no to a request like that??? (Then again, it's even harder to say no when they ask me to play Lego Star Wars with them).

So, here it is....