September finally!

The beginning of September, meant two things in the Camp household - starting school and Maddie's long await Day Out with Thomas. Maddie could not wait for either one! As great as the summer had been, it was time for all of us to get back into a normal routine!

We went and met her teachers Mrs. Spelman and Mrs. Baird. And the most exciting part for Maddie, Caroline was going to be in her class again this year!

Emalyn would have nothing to do with taking pictures with her teachers!

But here is one of all of us before we went

Can you tell my mom took this picture? Centering the picture is not her forte. :)

The lighting wasn't great...I'll have to remember that next year. 

First day of school went well. Maddie ran down the hall to see her friends. Emalyn screamed, but I didn't get a phone call to come get her so it obviously was too bad!

Day Out with Thomas

 

Family picture in front of Thomas.

Listening to Conductor Jack - another favorite!

And here they are riding on the train:

Notice that Carrie and Maddie are beside each other and Emalyn is by herself. :)

And of course we had to stop at the inflatable slide before we left.

In other exciting news, we got to celebrate the upcoming arrival of baby Hayes, Neel and Graham's second little girl.

Four Years Old!

Okay, so I didn't get all of the posts done before the New Year, but my goal is to slowly keep adding them!

Here is the one that I started in August when Maddie turned 4 and am just now finishing!

I can't believe it has been four years since my sweet little baby was born! There were many days with meltdowns in the middle of target or fighting my ever-so-strong two year old to buckle her into the carseat that I didn't ever think the long awaited 4 would ever get here!  And it is as wonderful as everyone had promised! It is so nice to be able to tell her to go put her clothes on and make her bed in the mornings and for her to be able to hop in the car and buckle her own seat belt. Not that life with a four year old is walk in the park, she still has her moments (as do I!).  But it like music to my ears to hear her say "thats okay" after I tell her we can't go do something or she cannot have something right now.  Not to mention that when go do something that is fun - it is still fun at the end (I feel like so many times I would think of a fun outing and about half way through I would wonder what I was thinking).  

So now onto the big day- her birthday was full of her favorite things:

Donut Den

Bebe even surprised her there with a princess balloon!

 (And yes, she had an icee for breakfast!)

Caroline

Can't believe I forgot my camera, but we went over to Caroline's house, made kool-aid playdough and the girls got to play. I think Maddie's day would have been complete by nothing more than getting to play with Caroline on her birthday. They adore each other to say the least.

McDonalds

Afterwards, we let her choose where she wanted to eat lunch - which was McDonald's of course!

And we finished it off with dinner at Noodles & Co (her choice)

Her birthday party 

Its so nice having birthdays in the summer when you can just play in the backyard. So we blew up several inflatable pools and let the kids run around. It was nothing short of a miracle, but the black rain clouds literally cleared 15 minutes before her party started.

I decided I would attempt to make her invitations this year - I searched Etsy for ideas and here is how they turned out:

I ordered a birthday banner for Emalyn this past year from this shop on Etsy, which means Maddie had to have one for her birthday too - thought about trying to make one but Chris quickly shot down that idea - gotta have someone to keep me in check when I start thinking adding things to my list :)

But I convince him that a ribbon topiary for the centerpiece would not be too hard to make. Wish I had taken pictures along the way, but it was not hard to make at all. A detailed crafty (not artsy) project is right up my alley . I don't mind spending time on something tedious - I just know my limits and know if it takes artistic ability I have none! I already had the foam topiary form, so all I did was cut piece of ribbon and pin then in a loop to the topiary form. 

Okay, enough about the decorations and onto the fun:

Maddie with her cousin Macie, my little cousin Bailey, and Anna Claire, a friend from church.

Maddie with Carrie and Emalyn. 

I have to laugh because when Neel and I were pregnant with Emalyn and Carrie we thought they would be best friends - and they do love each other. But it is Carrie and Maddie who play together and Emalyn is either 5 steps behind whatever they are doing or off totally by herself!

During one of our mommy & Maddie days this summer, I took her in Michaels to get a few things for her party. We walked in to get ribbon and walked out ribbon, paint, paint brushes, and bird houses for everyone to paint! The girlfriend loves an art project (she comes by it honestly).   

Maddie was on cloud nine during the party, Emalyn on the other hand was in a little bit of a mood that day - she didn't want any of the grandparents (who she usually loves) holding her.

Instead she choose Julie Mayfield, one of the moms from church and Neel to hold her - as if 8 months pregnant Neel needed to be carrying one more thing!

 And the moment Miss Maddie was most looking forward to - her cake from Painted Cupcake:

For some reason, every year I forget about birthday hats. And every year, Maddie remembers! And very politely reminds me that we cannot have her birthday party without birthday hats! So of course the week of her party, we were out hunting for "crowns" that we had to have for birthday hats. Don't know where she got the idea that they had to be crowns, and to be honest, I didn't think we would find any. But I told her we would look. And we came across some birthday hat crowns, the only problem was that they had Barbie on them, which is nothing that a little sticker with a "4" on it cannot fix (thank you Darby for the tutorial).

Glad Carrie wanted to sport the "must have" party crowns:

And that was it! I was exhausted by the end of the day, but Miss Maddie definitely felt celebrated & special, which was exactly what we were going for!

What you can't see from the picture is that Emalyn is screaming at the top of her lungs on the other side - she had warmed up but was in no mood for Maddie to be hugging on her!

Bebe stayed to help us clean up-so thankful for grandparents close by!

A Few of Our Favorite Things

Finally a little down time to catch up on the blog - I'm determined to post all of 2011 before the New Year. So get ready for several blog post in the next few days...And I know I am going to regret getting out of order when I ever get to turning our blog into a book, but I thought I would start with a few of our favorite things right now - 

"Right Heres" (aka Pony Tails) - Emalyn hair has grown much faster than Maddies - she definitely has Chris' hair and Maddie has mine. Sweet Maddie did not really wear her first pony tail until camp this summer, not that we couldn't have gotten it up in one sooner, it just was such a stretch to get in all in the ponytail that it would not stay up. Well Emalyn has learned that her hair does fit actually stays up in a pony tail. So she walks around the house saying "right here mama; right here" and points to the back of her head.

You will also learn Emalyn's favorite word right now! :)

Rain Boots - I got tired of tying and untying Emalyn's shoes (I am remembering now why I bought velcro shoes for Maddie everytime) so I decided it was time to order her a pair of rainboots. And Miss Maddie had worn holes in her, so they both got a new pair (and matching, even better).

The first time I put them on Emalyn's feet, she followed me into my room saying "pretty shoes momma. "

Matching outfits - Pretty much since Emalyn was born Maddie has been all about them matching - so every night, Maddie's pjs choice revolves around what pjs Emalyn is wearing. When all the matching ones are dirty, Maddie makes sure they are at least coordinating. And now Emalyn has gotten on board and as I am getting her dressed in the morning, I usually hear her say "match sissy" in her sweet little voice. 

This picture was from our session with photographer Zach Goodyear - which was was one of my favorite things we did this year! Here is the link for the rest of the pictures: http://zachgoodyear.zenfolio.com/p587649194. 

 Painted Cupcake moved to Green Hills this summer and has quickly become our favorite spot to go get a treat!

We even went a couple of weeks ago after I picked up Maddie & her sweet friend Caroline from dance. Picture quality is not great - but captures the moment!

Now onto a blog about Maddie's birthday! Can't believe I am this far behind!

,

Catching Up

I feel like that is all we have been doing around here lately. We have been in and out of town and with me trying to learn how to balance monogramming and running a household, there has been a lot of catch up on! And obviously the blog has taken a back seat for the summer (and part of the the fall). But here are a few highlights from the rest of our summer

The Gaureke's came to visit

We went and visited Danette and her family for spring break, and they were moving back to Viriginia this summer and came to visit us in there two weeks in between leaving Chicago and moving into their new house. Danette also babysat for the Cunningham girls we were were little, so there are quite a few pictures of the four of us growing up.

Here are Dannette's "Tennessee kids" (as she calls me, Tee, Grace Ann, & Molly) with her kids & my kids on the 4th of July. From left to right: Me, Emalyn, Brooke, Grace Ann, Maddie, Molly, Tee & Austin. 

 The girls loving on Bebe.

 My girls adore "Miss Caroline;" Uncle Tee would have a lot of explaining to do to my girls if they ever break up. :)

Maddie with "silly Uncle Tee" as she calls him.

It was Brooke's 7th Birthday while they were here, so the girls went to Divas & Dudes to celebrate.

Maddie getting her "pedicare" as she calls it. 

And getting their finger nails done...

And last but not least they got their hair done. What a special day!

Maddie turned 4!

Hope to post a longer entry in the next few days, but this is at least a sneak peak!

Playing

 The girls had lots of fun having picnics for lunch and doing each others hair! (Notice that Maddie is still wearing her 4 year old crown!)

Weekend with the Bruces
The end of August, we met the Bruces, the Agnews, and the Bernsteins at Katie's parents lake house. It was so nice to get away for a quick trip and get to catch up! Although Emalyn is not the best sleeper when is not in her room at home, so after I let her scream it out for 30 mins, I got her back up thinking she would fall asleep in one of our arms...oh no, I should have known better. She was still going strong at 11:00, running around loving being the center of attention! We put her in bed with us for the night, only for me to totally forget she was laying on top of me when I heard Maddie start crying in the other room. So of course I sat up to go get Maddie, and in the process, rolled Emalyn off of the bed. So at 4 am, I am not sound asleep cozy in my bed  but in the bathroom trying to check Emalyn's pupils to make sure she did have a concussion! Oh, the joys of parenthood!
I will definitely get in a lake but don't love not knowing what is swimming under me. So it was great that they had a pool!

Katie with Will and me and my girls. My girls loved the waterfall. 

 Trekking it down to the lake with daddy.

Always fun to have daddy at the pool!

More to come about starting school and the trip to Disney World soon! 

Summer Days

I think each month I am going to do a better job of updating our blog more often, but then the craziness of life takes over and here I am again with a lot to catch up on! We have had a great summer so far. I have loved spending more time with Maddie, (not that we have not had our moments), but I feel like the summer has given me time to work with her. She has such a kind heart and always wants to be so helpful.

The Zoo
Daddy took a half day from work, and we went to Maddie's favorite place - the zoo!

 And the train was finally open!

Princess Ballet Camp

We started June off with Maddie take a princess dance camp. They ended the week with a performance. 

Note: they were all supposed to have their hands up in the air, Maddie didn't quite know what to do. 

Emalyn just kept staring at Maddie. 

Sweet Auburn Memories

After the week of dance camp, we were off to Auburn for a wedding. 

Her first Toomer's Lemonade!

And this was Chris' favorite picture...of course!

The McCays were so gracious to let us stay at their house with two kids! 

The girls loved playing with their dog Coco...Maddie is dying for a little dog that she can walk on a leash. Bentley just sits down & will not budge when Maddie grabs the leash. :)

On the way down, we stopped through Birmingham to see Emily and Andy, two of our best friends from Auburn, and meet baby Jackson. 

 

Emalyn was in no moody for a picture. But it captures the moment none the less!

And on the way home we stopped through Clanton to get peaches and ice cream. Emalyn knows she should like ice cream, because Maddie loves it, and she screams if you try to take it from her...but she makes a face after every bite!

Playing in the Rain

I had these great plans of going to the pool every afternoon, but it seems like the afternoons that I get my act together to go, it starts to rain. I already had Maddie's bathing suit out, so I figured why not let them have fun. 

Emalyn had more fun playing with the plants I had not planted yet.

 Nights with Uncle Tee

Tee comes and keeps our girls for us once a week for us to go to our small group at church. (I don't think they leave this position on the couch, but whatever works!)

Father's Day

Maddie baked and decorated a cake for Chris for Father's Day, and she let me know we had to put candles on it too!

Girls Night

These were all of my best friends from Harpeth Hall, 5 out of the 7 of us live in Nashville. We go out to dinner for each other birthdays, and in June, Laura & Lauren were both in town to celebrate Neel's birthday. Laura and Neel are both due with baby girls in October, so there will be 7 little ones among us. Looking forward to many more fun times!

Sweet Emalyn

You think she see me hold the phone to my ear with my shoulder? :) She is in such a fun new stage right now. She has more words than I can count now, which I am so thankful for because at her 15 month appoint she just barely had enough words! Girlfriend is nonstop jibber jabber now. Not always understandable, but she knows what she is saying. She loves playing peek-a-boo, and often peers around the banister to the stairs and says "see you." She loves talking on the telephone or "ello"  as she calls it and loves her baby dolls. She went to Mothers Day Out this summer for the first time and held on to her Bitty Baby the whole day. They said the only time she set it down was to eat lunch. She was going to make sure that if mama was going to leave her that baby wasn't going to leave too. :) And her new favorite thing to do is "lellow" which means color. They have gone through my whole stack of printer paper but have had a lot of fun. (I have a lot of "art projects" to sort through once school starts back - Maddie will not let me through anything away!)

Maddie Lu

This was one morning before she went to Dragon Camp at school. She was wearing her camp t-shirt, and I let her wear her hair in a pony tail for the first time. She was so excited! I remember when she was 18 months, and everyone kept telling me it gets easier when they turn 4. And all I could think is that is 2 1/2 years away! But we are finally there. She is so fun to take with me to run errands.  While Emalyn was at MDO, she and I had Mommy & Maddie days. She got to choose what she wanted us to do, so we did everything from go to the zoo to get "pedicares" (as she calls them) to bake cakes to a have special lunch dates. We are loving not having a schedule this summer!