Communion

Kirk had his first communion today as a confirmed Lutheran.  It was really awesome to have all four of us going up for communion as a family.  What a blessed day!

9 months old

Britton is 9 months old and growing so fast!  We had her 9 month appointment on Friday.  Britton weighed 20 pounds and 6 ounces, which is in the 75th percentile.  She was 28 inches long, which is also in the 75th percentile.  Dr. Mike said she is "perfect" and of course, we totally agree.  For her development, Britton is getting up on all fours and rocks, so any day she will begin crawling.  She's almost pulling up.  Britton lights up when Holland comes in the room and talks to her.  Britton has a very active tongue.  She can roll it, flip it, anything you can think of, she can do.  It's crazy amazing!  She has her first tooth in this week!  It's the bottom front right one and the left one is close behind.  Poor thing is having more trouble teething than Holland did.  Britton doesn't get much sleep at night while teething.  Thank goodness for meds and orajel.  We have her 9 month photos with Dixie next week.  It's going to be so cute!  Doing a bear theme and pearls theme.  So fun!!! :)

What class?

Holland, what class are you going to be in?

That's correct!  You're going to the two day, three year old class at WCS!

Today was Holland's first day of school and she was so excited!  She loves her teacher, Mrs. Wade, and has a few of the kids from last year in her class.  The morning started with the use of her first alarm clock.  She was so excited to have her own alarm clock to wake her up in the morning.  We all dropped Britton off at the sitter's and then took Holland to school. 

The kids' paint sets were out for the kids to start painting, so Holland walked right in, and started painting.  We gave Holland hugs and kisses and she blew kisses at us when we left.  She is so grown up! 

After school, we went to Braum's for ice cream.  It was a GREAT first day of school! 

Colorado Springs

Our first family vacation with the girls!  We had planned on going somewhere here in Texas, but with the 60+ days of over 100 degree weather, Kirk and I said we have to go somewhere cool.  Our trip started out with a drive to the Abilene area to have lunch with Kirk's parents.  Then, we headed to Lubbock to have supper with Kirk's high school best friend, Sean.  After supper, we were back on the road, to stay the night in Amarillo.  When we got to Amarillo, the brand new car top carrier we bought didn't unlock and open up.  It was a long night since the pack and play was in the carrier and we couldn't get to it.  Tuesday morning, my birthday, we were at Sears in Amarillo by 8am in order for them to replace the car top carrier.  We were soon on the road and headed to Colorado Springs (CS).  Once we were in CS, we went up to the Garden of the Gods.  It was awesome!  We walked around and had supper up there.  It rained every afternoon in CS.  Since we haven't had rain in Petrolia since the beginning of April, we truly enjoyed all the rain.

Wednesday morning we drove up Pikes Peak a little to go to the North Pole amusement park.  Holland enjoyed riding all the little rides and Britton enjoyed riding along in the stroller.

After the North Pole, we went to the Cliff Dwellings and then to Seven Falls. 

Thursday we drove over the mountains to Cripple Creek for Holland to ride the train.  She loved it!  Holland had been talking about train rides since we told her we were going to the mountains.  Holland kept singing, "all aboard the choo choo train, all aboard the choo choo train, all aboard the choo choo train. All aboard! All aboard!" from the Disney Channel.  Too cute! 

After Cripple Creek, we headed down to the Royal Gorge.  We drove across it (very scary!) and walked across it two times (even scarier!!).  It is very creepy since it is wood and you can see between each wood plank. They had places to eat, different places to view the Royal Gorge, and even a carousel for the kids to ride.

Friday morning we went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in CS.  It was so much fun and all the animals were out since it was beautiful weather.  The Zoo even lets you feed the giraffes.  How cool is that!?!?  The bird cage is enclosed and they let the birds fly around in the room.  It's nuts trying to make sure you don't get a surprise on your head from the birds.  They even let you feed the birds, too.  We always get the girls a stuffed animal when we go places so Holland got a giraffe and Britton got an elephant, which she loved to eat!

These ground squirrels/chipmunks are all over Colorado.  They will come up to you to be hand fed.  Well, this particular one that Holland is talking to, followed her up the hill to go see the hippos and when we came back down it ran back up on the rock to see her again.  For some reason, this particular one and Holland had some kind of connection.  Holland stood there forever talking to it and it would just get closer and closer to her.  Soooo cute!

After the Zoo, we went over to the Ghost Town Museum to pan for gold and get some sarsaparilla sodas.  It was fun to pan for gold and Kirk was awesome at it.  He found 3 little gold nuggets and 1 gold flake! 

On our last night, the girls were having a blast playing on the bed together.  Sister love.

Saturday morning we got up and headed home.  It was a wonderful trip other than the issues with the car top carrier and the massive windshield crack we got from a gravel truck.  We can't wait to go back to Colorado!

Please vote!!!

The Humane Society of Wichita County has been accepted in the voting in August for the Pepsi Refresh Project. Our project is for $25,000 to purchase a Rescue Van to transport our animals and to go pick up abandoned animals. We would greatly appreciate your help and, of course, your votes. Please remember to vote everyday during August at http://www.refresheverything.com/wichitacountyrescue. Additionally, you can text 107902 to 73774 everyday. It would be great for the Humane Society to have a new van. And if you don't want to login everyday---just text in your vote:)

Thanks for your support and time!

8 months old

Britton is 8 months old and is doing really good.  She plays patty cake all the time, says mama and dada, sits up, and is almost crawling.  Britton will push up on her hands and knees and rocks.  We will try to go to Dixie this week to do the 8 month photos.  We should have last week but we were on vacation.  Other than that, Britton is growing like a weed and is such a happy baby.  She smiles and laughs all the time.  We are very blessed with both our girls!