Leah Picnic

Lowville Leah, the homeschool group that we are a part of, is changing a bit this year.  To get us started, we had a kick off picnic with a bunch of families.  I was really excited to see a few different families show up!  The kids had a BLAST!  I think it's a great thing to have them be able to hang out with other kids that are also homeschooled.  What a blessing!

Marissa took these pictures after the picnic...

I'm looking forward to another great year with an awesome group!

Fast Forward to the First Day of School :)

I was dreading this morning, up until I started getting things set up.  This morning has gone sooo smooth!  The girls are excited about the new things they are learning this year and the new set up!  

First, here are the pictures for this year...

Marissa's favorite color is still yellow and she also still wants to own a dog daycare center when she grows up.  I'm starting to see some consistency here!  Her favorite subject is ... all of them!  She can't pick one and it isn't because she hates them all ;)

 Madalyn's favorite color is still orange and she now wants to be a stay at home mom! (Taking after her Mommy!)  ;)  Her favorite subject is Science...she didn't however take after her Mom is this department!

I'm excited to see what this school year holds for us!

I'm back...

Ahhhh, what an awesome 5 days off with Doug, together as a family!

It started Friday night when the girls and I headed to Syracuse to see Doug get off the plane.  We decided to surprise him again this year, so I played it off like we were going to be home waiting for him.  There may or may not have been a lie involved to get him off the trail ;)

Last year when we did this, we were upstairs sitting against the wall, so when he came through the capsule looking things, we called his name and that was that.  I had a feeling that he would look for us again this year in the same spot.  I wanted to turn things up a little bit this time.  

We decided since this year he checked his bag, that we would hide downstairs in the baggage area...behind a sign!  LOL  This year his plane was on time, so we got into place and waited.  I finally saw Brandon coming down the stairs.   He stands 6ft 6in, so he is easier to spot for sure!  I figured they wold be together....sure enough they were.  We jumped out from behind the sign and ran to him.  We got about 1/2 way there before he realized who we were and what was going on.   I was right and he had looked for us upstairs and was pretty disappointed.  There were tears and hugs and the girls complained that I was hogging Daddy, but overall it was awesome!  I'm so grateful we had the opportunity to make that trip!   

Together again!

After a long two weeks, we are together!  

Doug has 3 comp days to make up for the time he was gone. 

So please excuse the lack of blogs for the next couple of days...but we are spending time together! 

More company...

Megan brought Lily over to play with the puppies and hang out for a bit!  That means we got to see Olivia again and I got to talk to Megan a bit more about the changes to expect in the girls for the coming school year.  I always enjoy our visits.  Some of these pictures were taken while Lily and I were downstairs seeing the puppies, and the rest of them were taken with Lily hanging out by me...I promise she was there :)

Jubilee was SUPER excited to hold the baby!

She is a natural for sure :)

She loves her little ones ;)

I LOVE this picture!

Thank you to each and every person that thought about us this week and helped keep us company to make the time fly by a little quicker!  You are all very appreciated!

God sure is good!

Most of you know that Doug has been out of town (Colorado and New Mexico to be exact) for the last two weeks.  God orchestrated everything just as He always does.  See He knew that the weekend would be my hardest couple days, so He made sure that I would be busy!  Before I ever even knew what weeks Doug would be gone, I agreed to take my best friend's 4 kiddos for a couple days.  It just so happened that it was that same weekend.  It also was the same timing that I have 11 puppies!  It was a little crazy at times, but overall, it went really smooth!  Here are some pictures of our adventures :)

They LOVE to color and draw...

...and play make believe

Chase is a great game as well!  This kept these two busy for about an hour...

Sunday I was a little worried about how I was going to have time to accomplish everything that needed to be done AND get out of the house on time.  Again God saw us through and we started our morning at 6am.  We had no problems getting out on time!  They all looked so cute so we had to get a picture before we walked out the door :)

I'm so thankful that the 6 of them get along SOOOO well!

11 pups :)

For the past week, we have been helping out a friend by keeping her 11 lab puppies while she was seeing her boys off to college.  Doug built a great enclosure in our basement to contain them when we weren't down there.  We have had some friends over to help us wear them out throughout the week.  It takes a good amount of time to wear 11 of them out, let me just tell you!

But they sure are cute :)

We are not in the market and probably never will be for a lab, but this is my pick of the litter...whoever is getting her is getting a pretty awesome pup.  Her personality is AMAZING!

I love this picture!

Who knew how entertaining sand toys can be!  LOL

Too cute!

HAHA

...and we did it :)

 They will sleep for a whole...oh I don't know... 2 hours???