cause catching up is hard to do...

If I tried to recap everything that has happened since we've been home from vacation, I'd have to write a book, a not-so-entertaining book, so I'll spare you the details and just give you a quick breakdown.

Adaleigh started big girl Pre-K. She goes for a full day at a public elementary school. Cannot believe how fast that happened! She loves it there. She loves her teachers and her friends. She actually pouts sometimes on Saturdays and Sundays when she wakes up and realizes she's not going to school that day.

Her first day of Pre-K. Love her stance. My legs hurt just looking at this. haha.

First time in her classroom and she's smiling! Success!

Adaleigh has also been very active outside of school and keeping me active. She's taking ballet, tap, gymnastics, and hippity hop at local dance studio. She's also playing soccer. She says her favorite activities are ballet and gymnastics because her friend from school is in those classes, but from the outside looking in, it seems she enjoys the hippity hop dance class the most. Next year, we will be downsizing to hopefully 1 dance class and 1 sport, so I'm really trying to figure out what she likes best before she breaks our budget. Oh wait, she already did! haha. That's what kids are for, right?!

My soccer princess after her first game. <3

In August, Alex and I celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary. Where does the time go?! In honor of making it 6 years, we bought each other new wedding bands. Okay, more like Alex bought us both new wedding bands. Haha. But isn't it the thought that counts? ;)

Aubriella is keeping me busy in between all of Adaleigh's school and activities. She's now 16 months and a silly little girl. She cracks me up all the time. Her favorite things to do are wave hi, give fives, and play peek-a-boo. She likes to say "nose" while touching my nose, but beware if she says "eye" while you're holding her, she WILL poke your eye. lol. She loves to dance and giggle all day long. I absolutely love these pics I took of Aubriella last month. I may not be a professional photographer, and I may not use photoshop, but I still love taking pictures of my beautiful girls. I do need to practice though, several of the pictures turned out blurry. I was so bummed when the cutest shots were the blurry ones. :(

One fun thing we did lately was go to The Rock Ranch while my parents were in town. Adaleigh had fun, besides chickening out on the pony rides "because they stink". Haha. She loved the train, the paddle boats, tiny town, face-painting, all the little rides and playgrounds, and fishing. It was lots of fun. I even did the little zip-line they have.

We also got to go to the Pumpkin Patch we visit almost every year. We only got to spend literally maybe 30 mins there because the Alex could not miss any of his Alabama football game. haha.

Anywho. Today (well technically yesterday) was my birthday! Hello there 26, you snuck up on me pretty quick. Not sure how I feel about being closer to 30, but for now, 26 feels good. I'm 1 class away from my Bachelor's degree. I'm excited to be done with school, but not so excited about the student loans that I'll have to repay. Also, not so excited to start a real job hunt. I've been back at Starbucks for over a year now, and I'm starting to feel my time to move on is coming. I'm not sure I want to jump back into a full-time job again, though, so for now, Starbucks will do just fine. :)

Roadtrippin' Part 3!!

So from South Dakota, we traveled to Minneapolis, MN. We were absolutely exhausted by the time we got there. We found a great hotel with a indoor courtyard right off our hotel room back door with a great laundry room. (This was a blessing because I did laundry a lot on our road trip!) We crashed that night so we could regroup because there was still plenty of fun to be had. The next morning we went to the Mall of America and spent a lot of time in Nickelodeon Universe.

Then we drove around Minneapolis and found this cute park with a waterfall, old train depot, and some yummy famous BBQ down the street...

As you can see... we added a new member to the family that day... Adaleigh's "Ming Ming" pillow from The Wonder Pets. She carried that around everywhere for a while. She's still very attached to it. That was a great $5 souvenir.

Next stop was Milwaukee, WI and Racine, WI. Had to get some cheese and see the beach on Lake Michigan!

Lastly, we headed to Chicago... one of my favorite stops! We stayed in a gorgeous hotel within walking distance of the Bean! When we first got there, it was late, so Aubriella had to go to sleep. Alex was pretty tired from driving, so he stayed in with her while Adaleigh and I walked to Millennium Park. It was an absolutely gorgeous night and so much fun to enjoy the city at night with Adaleigh. The next day, we all went as a family. Adaleigh played in the fountain and we found the big kid's tent they have set up during the summer where she did crafts, games, and we watched a drum concert. After all that we walked to the Willis Tower and went up to the Skydeck. Such a beautiful view of the city. The lines weren't as bad as we thought either. It was definitely worth it.

After Chicago, we had a couple other things planned for on the way home, but we were so tired that we drove through the night and came home a little earlier. It was an amazing vacation, by far my favorite vacation ever. Not much can top a cross country roadtrip with my family! :)