I've been married to my best friend for 10 years! :)

David surprised me with these gorgeous flowers! They are so pretty! :)


10 years ago today was one of the happiest days of my life... I married my best friend! I can't believe 10 years have flown by for David and I! I am looking forward to celebrating tonight over dinner. My best friend is taking care of my kids and I'm so thankful for her. We really wanted to celebrate the actual day of our anniversary especially since 10 years is a big milestone for us and we've been through so much as a couple. I am so thankful to God for blessing me with such an incredible husband! He is so wonderful and I thank God I get to spend the rest of my life with him. I can't wait to see what the next 10 years has in store for us and the many happy times, laughter, and memories we'll make together as husband and wife! :) :)

Riding the bus :)

As promised few more photos of Dakota from his 1st day of school and riding the bus for the first time. We waited and waited for the bus to arrive (as you can see Emma and Wyatt were very excited for there brother to get home) and finally it did about 20 minutes after it was scheduled to be at our house. Dakota looked so cute and so happy looking out the bus window at us. :) I was happy to see him. He happily ran across the street to us and gave us all big hugs. :) He loves riding the school bus and is quite the little ladies man (he thinks 3 of the girls on the bus are cute). :)

1st day of 1st grade :)

Dakota started the 1st grade today. He was SUPER excited for the 1st day of school. He LOVES school! He had fun picking out his first day outfit (his Mimi McGee took him shopping). :) He looked so cute! His latest thing is baseball. He's collecting baseball cards now so of course he had to have a baseball shirt for his first day of school. Tomorrow he's wearing another baseball shirt. He's loving the sport! :) He was very thrilled to have a messenger bag for his book bag this year. He loves it!

I made him his choice of breakfast which was stuffed croissant french toast stuffed with blueberries and cream cheese and sausage patties. He loved every bite of it. :) Very yummy!

I of course took several photos before we took him to school. I love the sweet one of Emma giving him a kiss. He had to have one with his best buddies Hunter and Sweetie (his dogs). :) I quite pleased with how everyone gave nice smiles with the first day of school pictures (well Wyatt made a few silly faces).

He's going to ride the bus this year (amazing how they seem so much more grown up in 1st grade and I don't have the fears of him riding the bus that I had last year) but we took him to school for the first day. He's very excited about riding the bus this year. No tears this year and we're thrilled because he has the same teacher from kindergarten (she moved up to 1st grade because there's only 1 kindergarten class this year). His first day went great and he was exhausted by the time he came home. (I'll have bus photos in a later post.) Tomorrow we'll be meeting the bus bright and early a little after 8 a.m. and I will say it's nice to not have to try to get the kids together for carpooling. ;)

Another school year is upon us and I'm ready to be back into the school routine and so is Emma and Wyatt (they're ready for me to start there at home lessons... today Wyatt was asking how to make an "A"). David said today only 11 more years and Dakota will graduate! Yikes... that time will fly by!! I can't think about that yet!

Chocolate Pudding Painting :)

I once saw on Jon & Kate Plus 8 where Kate let her kids paint with pudding and I've always thought how fun that would be for a great outside summertime activity. I finally made some pudding (it didn't set up very well though) and let the kids go at it. I got a big piece of pink paper (left over from a photo shoot I had done), put the kids in there swimsuits, and watched the fun begin for them! :) Wyatt wanted nothing to do with the pudding but Emma and Dakota loved it! They dipped there hands in it starting off but then there feet. Before I knew it they were covered in the pudding and rolling all over the paper. They had a blast! We followed the pudding painting up with a water balloon fight and play time in the water. This won't be the only time I allow them to paint with pudding because it was so much fun for them!! :)

Date night :) :)

David and I enjoyed a wonderful date last night. We haven't been on one since our vacation to Aruba so we were very pleased to finally have a chance for a date. David is having his knee surgery this coming week so the timing couldn't have been any better for us. :) We enjoyed a yummy dinner at Applebee's (his fav), a quick stop at Lowe's (I know not so romantic but not so bad when it's just the two of us), and then we picked up some coffee drinks from McDonald's (we love the coffee's from there and a bit cheaper than Starbucks) and listened to a band playing a bluegrass type music in the park. The best part of the evening was having conversation without kids!! I talked David's ear off but he didn't mind to much. Once we arrived home the sky was so clear and there were so many stars out! Gorgeous!!! A highlight of living in the country in the stars are so clear and so bright! We saw a few shooting stars but then we both looked up and saw the most incredible shooting star. It had a long tail and was amazing.. like nothing we've ever seen before!! I'm so glad I saw that incredible shooting star with my husband! A memorable night with my amazing man! :)

Picnic in the woods :)

The kids have discovered an awesome rock cropping in our woods. They have spent many many hours in the woods over the last few weeks. They are building a cool fort too. Since David has a knee injury the fort won't be to it's full potential until the spring since he can't build it for them right now. Dakota has put scrap wood and used a tarp to build a neat fort right now. :) What fun memories and adventures they'll have in this new discovery place!

Today we finally were able to have a picnic in the woods on there rock fort. It was fun! We brought lunch up in the picnic basket and enjoyed eating on a blanket. I love having fun times like this with my kids and I have to remember to keep taking the time to do special things like this with them because busy times happen to prevent fun picnics in the woods with the kids. Glad we got this picnic in before school starts in just 2 short weeks.