August 2017

Rick found a huge mushroom in the yard and
the kids wanted to hold it. Gross, haha.

The kids were playing outside while Rick and I
finished dinner. I think she was trying to get
our attention, haha!

Garrett drew this picture for me. He said it is me and him
and all the hearts are how much he loves me.

This was on the back of the picture Garrett drew. I can't believe
he sounded that out and wrote it himself! "Der mom" = Dear mom.

Sam's Club trip with the kiddos!

Big sis helping little sis with her nails.

I guess the cereal cabinet didn't get clicked shut
(we have the child-proof things on them) and
Brenna snuck into a bag of cereal. Her face!

Garrett is a little book worm. I still can't believe he is reading
and still has a whole year before starting kindergarten! 

Garrett is going through a phase where he always wants to
sleep on the floor in his sleeping bag. It seems so uncomfortable!

Brenna loves taking baths in the "bih bah tuh"

We have been to Smith Lake Park several times now. It's close to home and isn't very busy because it's tucked back in the woods. We love going there!! 

At the park with our friends.
Kye, Garrett, Kimbri
Grey & Brenna

They loved swinging together.
Grey & Brenna

It's still hot here! The kids enjoy
a lot of water play in the backyard....

...and popsicles.

We still hadn't used Kimbri's birthday coupon to
Toys R Us so we went and did that one afternoon.
She picked out a toys from the dollar section with her
$3 coupon and got a free balloon, crown, & giraffe.

Garrett has been WAY in to these dry erase learning
books. He gets them out almost daily and does them.
I love that he loves to learn!

Tried a new recipe for oatmeal cream cookies. They turned
out SOOO yummy!! 

Brenna has been obsessed with the potty lately.
No, she is not potty trained but she is showing
a lot of signs that she's getting ready!

A frog they found in the backyard.

Kye an Garrett dressed up like Spidermen. 

Kimbri was the spiderman on the right in this picture. 

Garrett has loved having some friends that are
boys to do boy stuff with, like guns, swords and
super hero dress ups! 

Brenna loves helping mommy cook.

Tried another new recipe... baked ziti. Yum!

Brenna's poop stance, ha!!

Kimbri wrote me a card that said "Hola Umegos". Haha!
I thought it was so awesome :) 

Brenna being a dare devil standing
on the block bucket.

So... taking 3 kids to a craft store isn't easy. I've had to take them a couple of times now because I needed supplies for the quiet books I make for my Etsy shop.  The last time I went I had this genius idea that I'd give Kimbri my phone and that she could take pictures of stuff. It worked so good and I'm totally gonna use this again next time, however, Kimbri starts school soon and Garrett will be starting preschool next month so it will definitely get easier going to craft stores soon! Out of hundreds of pics I deleted, I had to keep a few because it was so funny to see all the pictures she took.  Garrett's facial expressions were hilarious! Here are a few of them:

Building forts out by the tree.

They tied the rope to the tree and then put the bucket
on the rope and then attached the other end to the fence.
They get pretty creative playing outside.

Kimbri Starts 1st Grade!

 August has been a fun month! And now that we are at the end, Kimbri is starting school. I can't believe it! This school year is going to be weird having Kimbri gone all day long. I'm excited for her though. She is going to love making some new friends here in NC. She is really excited about riding the bus, again (she loved that last year), and she can't believe that she actually gets to eat lunch at school. Kimbri thinks that's pretty awesome. I love her so much and can't wait to hear all about her new experiences at school!

Also, I didn't realize till just a few weeks before school started that the public school we are zoned for requires uniforms. I wasn't too sure about it but was trying to be upbeat and excited for Kimbri's sake. The one thing that stinks about it is that I already had bought a bunch of school clothes on clearance last year for this year, and now none of them are "allowed". I guess she'll have clothes for the weekends and holidays! And really, she looks pretty dang cute in her little uniform outfits :)

Another thing... school starts at 7:50!!!! She gets on the bust at 7:17. I feel like this is so early for these young kids! I was expecting school to start around 9. But oh well! I guess we will be getting our body clocks switched to going to bed earlier so we can wake up earlier!

It's going to be a great year for Kimbri, I just know it! Rick gave her a blessing before school started. At first she wasn't too sure and didn't really want one but let Rick do it anyway. Afterward, she couldn't stop talking about her blessing and kept asking for another one. I think she really felt good about it and felt the spirit through it. I'm so grateful for the power of blessings in our lives.

Kimbri's class list! She has Mrs. Espinal.

School supplies list for 1st grade.

Selfies that Kimbri took while
I was doing her hair.

Getting her hair done for the 1st day!
I love when she lets me do her hair.

I felt so bad sending my little girl of with so much STUFF!!
The school supply list was no joke. Her backpack was stuff to
the max and we still had some left I had to send in a grocery bag.
Not to mention her lunchbox, too!

Look how loaded that backpack is!!
So many school supplies!!!!

The sunrise on the first day of school!

She specifically wanted a picture on the
piano bench and asked me to send it to dad.

Poison Sumac

After nearly one week of dealing with a weird rash we FINALLY figured out what it was! Poison Sumac, which is similar to poison ivy. 

The kids play alllll the time outside. We have this random tree in the backyard and when we first moved in I noticed, what I thought was, a weed growing on it. I didn't think much of it.

Well, fast forward to the week before school started and Kimbri woke up with a weird rash on her face. It then spread to her neck. We gave her some allergy medicine and it didn't really seam to help at all. We took her to the "back to school night" with this crazy red and botchy rash all over her face... yikes. 

After that weekend it started to fade away and I thought we were in the clear when all of the sudden Garrett woke up in the middle of the night with these crazy red bumps in all sorts of places on his body-- his ankle, arm, face, etc... It was so bad and really driving him crazy with the itching that I took him in to the pediatrician. She said try medicine and anti-itch cream and we were on our way. I consistently used it with no improvement after 2 days and felt like I was at a loss! I called the pediatrician and she said she would prescribe stronger doses of oral allergy medicine and cream. I was beginning to get so frustrated! I reeeallly didn't think that would work if the regular Benadryl and Zyrtec wan't working. 

Finally I turned to the internet.... haha. I asked, and posted pictures, on a group I'm in on FB called Lives of Doctors Wives and someone immediatley asked if it could be poison ivy because it looked similar to a rash they had when they had that. We hadn't been to any parks or on any hikes where I thought they would've been exposed so I was doubtful....

But then I realized... THAT RANDOM VINE ON THE ONLY TREE IN OUR BACKYARD!!!!!

I took a picture of it and looked up photos online and sure enough.... its POISON!

After talking to a few other people about it here in NC, apparently poison sumac is common around here and the vines will just start growing wherever. Yikes! So now I have banned the kids from going over near the tree. It's sad because they loved building forts out there and playing between the tree and the fence. And now we have to figure out how to get rid of it... 

At least now we know what it is and Garrett was able to heal from it. It took nearly a week and a half for his to fade!! He had to start preschool with crazy marks all over his face and body and I had to assure the teachers it wasn't contagious. Craziness!!

Brenna's Birthday

I can't believe our sweet little Brenna turned 2 years old! Rick had to work late on her birthday so her actual birthday wasn't super exciting. But since she's little and doesn't understand, we got away with it, I guess.

We woke up and snuggled in bed for a while. Her hair was something wild and so we of course had to document it ;)

Her sweet little smile gets me every time. 

Brenna played with the quiet books for probably
close to 45 minutes in the closet! She loves those.

Gma & Gpa Haycock gave Brenna a huge stack
of coloring books and some markers. I can't
even say how much she LOVES coloring.
She sat coloring for a solid hour after opening
the present!

One night when Rick DID have off, we made up a batch of homemade ice cream and made banana muffins as her birthday "cake". It was yummy and she didn't care either way or which what the food was, she loved it anyway!

Playing with some window clings before church
we gave her for her birthday.

I forgot to mention that the day after her birthday, a Saturday morning, I took the kids to Chick-fil-a for a fun breakfast since Rick, was again, working. They had a blast and it was fun to get out of the house and let them play their little hearts out after eating some eggs and hash browns. Yum!