Loving Lincoln

The Wedemeyer girls (Mommy included) love Lincoln. I mean how can you not when you see what a doll he is! He is the precious little boy of some of our great friends and we were lucky enough to have him come over for a little Camp Wedemeyer today while Marcy was at work. The girls had so much fun with him! Ella loved "taking care of the little kids" as she spent most of her time calling out "Okay, boys and girls, time for reading...time for lunch...etc" Though Lincoln has been promised to Audrey since he is only 6 months older than her, he has taken a strong liking to Ella and was more interested in holding her hand than Audrey's. Audrey was not happy about that! We headed to the park for a little playtime, where people assumed they were all mine since they look quite a bit alike. One lady even came up and told me "Don't worry sweetie--it will get better in a few years." This was after Ella had run off to one end of the park to swing, Lincoln was scaling a rock wall that was five times his size and I wasn't quite sure which tunnel slide Audrey was hiding in. We had a so much fun and can't wait until he comes to play with us again!

Ella pulling the kids off to the park.

" Come back Lincoln!!! You will hold my hand!"

Sweet happy girl.

Lincoln pulling his ladies away in their chariot.

Ella reading to her students.

A Little Bit of Nature

The weather was great and quite a bit cooler Saturday morning so we packed up and took the girls to the Heard Museum in McKinney. We headed outside first to the butterfly exhibit and checked out the other animals, then took a nice little nature walk around the place. It is really a beautiful park and the breeze made it quite enjoyable for an August day!

Checking out the butterflies

Running like wild Indians through a snake's belly!

Digging for dinosaur bones

Something Fun

We've had a week of some kind of stomach bug around our house and Ella has been begging to do "something fun" all week. With us finally back to normal, I decided to take the girls today to the Galleria's new play area and they had a blast. It was quite a zoo with a zillion kids there which made the girls love it even more! Why is it as a kid we don't mind crowds, but as we get older it drives us crazy?

Loving on the ladybug

Climbing the waterfall

Hugging the snake

All smiles

Rolling around with a snake wrapped around her!

Don't you just want to eat her up? :)

And this one too?

One last hug to the tiger when we were leaving. Audrey kept saying "Bye Bye Puppy"--I guess it does kind of look like Chance.

The Donut Maker

Today we went with a group to a Krispy Kreme tour and they let the kids make their own donuts! Well, they let the kids play with dough, took it away for a few minutes and then all of the sudden cooked donuts came out and the kids got to dip them in chocolate and then in sprinkles.

Here is Ella dipping her donut in the chocolate....

And here is her trying to lick off the chocolate as the Krispy Kreme worker frantically tried to get her to stop so she wouldn't contaminate everything! That's my girl...doesn't want to waste any chocolate!

Ella the Ballerina

We just got our professional pictures back from Ella's dance recital. I think our little ballerina just looks precious!

Naughty Mat

Well, our sweet easy going Audrey has hit a little "phase" and we now are convinced she is on the way to becoming a bully. After 17 months of Ella grabbing toys out of her hand, pushing her out of the way, and convincing Audrey that she always "wants" the ugliest baby doll in the house, Audrey has begun to fight back. I've caught her in the last few days shoving Ella out of the way and have seen her hit Ella saying "No!No!". The ironic thing is that she does it with a smile on her face and typically is laughing while she does it! Today, Audrey had to go sit on the Naughty Mat FOUR times--and that was between waking up from her afternoon nap and dinner! Oh brother...

What is even funnier is that Ella told me this afternoon, "I've got a mean sister mommy. Why isn't she nice like me?"

Friendship

As a little child, friendships are so easy. You don't worry about the petty disagreements and though you may fight over a toy, within a few minutes, you are giggling and hugging each other. I have been blessed with some wonderful friends and we've all gotten to share, laugh, and cry over this journey of motherhood we are on. It just so happens that our kids all fall within the same ages, so we have tons of play dates, outings, and kid (and mommy) fun! Ella always talks about her friends and every one is always classified as a "best friend." She told me last week, "Mommy I have so many best friends, I don't even know some of their names!" This is some friend fun we've had over the past week that I had to share.

Audrey and BFF Harper playing the piano.

Ella, Madelyn, Harper and Audrey having lunch.

Audrey and BFF Mallory playing at the park

Ella with BFF's Jake and Hayden climbing the big rock on the playground. She was so proud of herself for not being afraid to climb up and down it by herself this time. The boys were great coaches!

Ella meeting up with her school friends, Erin, Kyla and Hudson for some reunion time!

Summer time

A shot of each of the girls that I thought captured summer time...

Our bronze beauty Ella heading out for another day at the pool!

Audrey chomping down on some corn! YUMMY!

Circus Fun!

John took off work on Friday and brought all his girls to the circus! We left the house right after breakfast and went to the early showing of Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey circus at American Airlines! The circus is definitely a lot fancier than it was back when we were kids! They let everyone come down on the floor an hour prior to the start of the circus to see some of the acrobats and animals early. The girls had lots of fun, but it was about 30 minutes too long for Audrey!

Ella getting a great view on Daddy's shoulders!

Audrey making her way through the bucket of popcorn!!

Ella trying to keep the clown nose on.

The girls testing out the clown's motorcycle!

We had a great time and made another fun memory together as a family!

Heaven

This week, John and I lost a friend. He was 34 years old and he died unexpectedly, leaving behind his precious wife of 10 years. There have been many tears off and on this week and I've thought of how Sharon will handle this, the loss his family and friends are facing, and how tragic it was for someone so young and healthy to be taken.

I was on the couch one day after I had been crying and Ella came up to me to ask me what was wrong. I told her I was sad because my friend had died and gone to be in heaven with Jesus. She looked up at me and without a moment's hesitation said "Mommy, if he is in heaven we should be happy. He gets to be with Jesus now." How perfect, precious and true those words were. I explained to her that I was happy that Matt was in heaven, but I was sad for all his friends and family that would miss him. She looked puzzled, yet with that innocence in her voice replied "Well, he's happy in heaven. You don't need to cry." Yes he is Ella and thank you for being God's little reminder to me that He is always good, always gracious and always loving.