A Story By Sydney

Last night I went into Sydney's room to give her one last kiss goodnight and turn off her lamp.  On the pillow next to her, I found this story.  It's very cute.
When Me And My Mom Turned Into A Smurf
by:  Sydney Reif

Update!

I've been wanting to post tons of pictures on my blog for a while now, but of course the card reader on my laptop broke.  Great!!  I finally got my pictures off of my camera, but I had to use an old external card reader, a rubber band and a magnet to get it to work.  Geesh! 
Anyway...
Briana had her first day of dance last week!  This year she is taking ballet & tap and musical theater jazz.  So she dances two days a week.

So far, she LOVES it.  Best part of all?  Those jazz shoes she's wearing on her feet.  She's been wearing them around the house like slippers all week!

Today was Sydney's big day.  She started piano lessons!

She absolutely loved her lesson, and came home and practiced for an hour! 

And, while Sydney was practicing her piano, Briana thought it would be the perfect time to practice her viola, so we had a very musical house today! 

While the girls have been busy with all of their activities, I have been making pillowcases! 

My mom's new store is doing a pillowcase drive for kids with cancer.  So that's where these babies are going.  We got tons of stuff like this when Sydney was in the hospital, and we loved it all, so I am really happy we can give back now.  And, can I just say, aren't those pillowcases cute?!  I love the tree fabric the most.  Might have to go back and get some more of that for myself!

Monkey Bars

Sydney has been practicing the monkey bars at school recently.  And, in typical Sydney fashion, she just took off and started doing them all on her own last night!  I'm so proud of her!!

Feathers & Monuments

Briana went with four other girls to a friend's house yesterday.  They were planning to make the Washington Monument out of rice krispie treats to share with their class.  Unfortunately, the monument didn't turn out.  But, Briana had a fun time anyways, and she came home and made her own monument to share with her class today.  It turned out awesome!

And, to add to the excitement of our day, we put feathers in the girls hair!  Briana has been dying to get feathers ever since school started. 

They cannot wait to get to school and show off to everyone today!

Camping

Now that fall is almost here, we will be embarking on many camping trips.  As much as I love camping, I am slightly more willing to go in the fall time than in the hot summer months.  This past weekend, we took a one night camping trip in Iowa.  I got a little concerned on the drive there (with no air conditioning) (and the sun beating down on me) when we took a wrong turn and ended up on this road. 

Doesn't look like much of a road, does it?  I tried not to think of all the horror movies I've seen where the family gets lost in the middle of nowhere and the car breaks down and they are all eaten by aliens.  We somehow came across a little lake with two nice looking horses drinking from it. 

"Girls!" I yelled, "look at the horses!" 

Briana rolled down her window and called out to them, "Hey, fellas!"

And guess what?  Those horses came trotting right over to us!

They couldn't come all the way over to the car because there was a fence up, but I'm pretty sure they would have otherwise.  At least we knew we could escape our murderers via horseback if necessary. 

We did finally find our way to the campground, and we set up camp for the night.

And there's Mike's new grill!  It worked out perfectly.  Mike grilled up dinner for us, and it was delicious!







After dinner, we drove over to the lake that's at the campground. 

The girls discovered that there were hundreds of teeny, tiny toads hopping around everywhere!  Of course, we had to catch some.



The rest of the night was pretty calm.  We ate smores.  The girls played in the camper and Mike and I gazed at the stars while we were sitting around the campfire.  We woke up the next morning to rain, so we had to pack up pretty early.  All in all, a good, easy (did I just say that?) camping trip.  I suppose I'd be willing to go on a few more before winter gets here.  Maybe.

Hot Air Balloon

Last night Mike came tearing in the house after work and told me he just saw the hot air balloon van with a trailer pulling into Lake Zorinsky.  "They're going to be taking off soon!  Let's go watch!"  He told me.  We threw on our shoes, got into the car and sped over to Lake Zorinsky.  It took forever for them to set it up, but we got to see the balloon take off right in front of us (and in the middle of a few football practices). 

Baby Blanket Love

Some friends of Mike's from work had a baby a couple months ago, and being the awesome wife that I am, I crocheted them a little baby blanket.  It's my first baby blanket, and I will be a little sad to part with it! 

I'm just going to have to make another one for myself.

I asked Briana to be my model while I was taking pictures of my beloved baby blanket, and as it turns out, she's too big to fit under a baby blanket anymore!

She's still just as cute though! 

The blanket turned out great.  It's really dense and thick and lovely.  That is one lucky baby! 

P.S.  We crackled our nails after school today!  They turned out awesome!