Sometimes they can be the best of friends

Syd and Court holding hands...

twinkle toes

Samantha misplaced her favorite shoes last week, Tuesday, August 17, to be exact. We have torn this house apart and couldnt find them anywhere. Today Samantha is cleaning her room getting it all cleaned up for Namy and Papas visit and she picked up her black long sleeve leotard that was in the wrong drawer and lo and behold her shoes were stuffed in there for some dang reason. She was sooo happy!

Courtney woke up dry!

Today was the first day since school started that Courtney didnt wet the bed. It's been driving us crazy but I think it's just been an adjustment period. School is tiring especially for her. Yesterday I picked them up from school and asked if they wanted to go to the library. Sydney said yes and Courtney said no she was tired and wanted to go home. So I dropped her off (the perks of having Jon unemployed and home) and just Syd and I went. It's nice to have one on one time with each of them anyways. This morning I went into Syds room and she had wet the bed. She was changing her clothes but she put the dirty peed ones back into the dresser and thats when I realized she peed in the middle of the night too, she changed her clothes then to. Instead of putting the dirty clothes in the laundry basket she was putting them back in her dresser. I couldnt figure out why her bed room had a pee stench and now I know why. I had to take all of her jammies and underwear and wash them. I told her it's ok to have an accident but put the dirty clothes in the laundry basket. SO let's hope she does!

the Howe family

by Samantha

Sams mad drawing skills

Yesterday when I picked Sam up from school the teacher told me to go look at Sam's picture she drew that day hanging on the wall then to look at everyone elses. They all drew pictures of themselves. It was like her drawings she does at home but when you look at them beside other kindergartners she is a little advanced in her coloring skills. She pays attention to the details of the clothes and such. The teacher was impressed. I had no idea because that's just the way she colors. When I get it I will scan it in so you can see but for now here's one she did at home. It's suppose to be me cheering her on while she is playing soccer. She meant to spell go!

Hard at work

Sam working hard on her drawing!

clothes and Sydney

Sydney is the determined one. The one that doesnt like to change her mind or have anyone change it for her. This morning was one of those mornings. 6:30 comes rather earlier for us all. The coffee isnt made, the sleep is still in our eyes but we roll with it...unless your Sydney. last night the twinks decided they wanted to wear their matching outfits. This morning Sydney wanted nothing to do with Courtney. She waited until she was done with her bath before getting in the water. Ate this point I was still under the assumption that they were going to wear their matching outfits so while Sydney bathed I got Courtney dressed in it. Sydney saw her and said I am not wearing what she is wearing! So Courtney changed she really wanted to wear her new butterfly dress anyways and downstairs she went happy as can be to eat her breakfast! Now Sydney gets out of the tub and puts on an out fit that clearly doesnt match. I try really hard to have her change but she wanted to either wear what she had on or the outfit she wore on Friday. It was clean but it;s her second day of school so I didnt want her to wear it. Alyssa came in and tried to help but nope she was not having anything of it. SO I tried again to no avail. I even put her Friday outfit up high in the closet to show her it wasnt an option. Then she stated she wanted her Daddy. So I came downstairs and up Jon went. He came down 2 minutes later with Sydney dressed in Fridays outfit with a smug smile on her face! He's like "if 2 grown women cant get a three year old dressed and she wants to wear a clean outfit she wore on Friday well so be it!" He just doesnt get it! Oh well she's happy, dressed and at school!

afternoon in the pool!

World's tallest inflatable water slide

We met up with our neighbors at Parkway Church yesterday. They had a water slide event with a bunch of inflatable water slides including the world's tallest! Good times!!

Samantha and Jaden

Sydney and Courtney!

Samantha's first week

She is tired. It's taking a toll on her and man she is turning into a teenager w her attitude at age 5! She has had more time outs this week then probably the whole summer. I know it's because she is just so tired and so she is acting out but man is it driving us nuts. Hopefully she'll get it in check over the next few weeks. We have decided bedtime is now going to be 7:30 instead of 8.

Trinity Lutheran Preschool

The twinks started preschool on Friday. The will be going 3 times a week-MWF. They have the same teacher Samantha had at their age Mrs. DeYager. The kept calling it train preschool because they have a wooden train set in the classroom. Jon and I dropped them off and they got right to playing. Jon and I then went out to breakfast to celebrate all 3 kids are in school!! 9 'free' hours a week sans kids! woohoo!

all ready for school!

waiting for the bell to ring

They have one friend in the class Allison. She is the sister of Samanthas classmate last year, Bradley. The family has become good friends of ours so they were excited to see her!

they got a sticker at the end of the day!

Courtney said she made a friend named Samamtha and they played soccer and Sydney said she played w a little girl named Mckenzie. I have no idea if that's true or not because lately they have been great at telling stories. They seemed to have a great time and they both took naps in the afternoon! They are getting to be such big girls!

Swimming

swimming w Auntie Kim!

Happy Sydney!

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Dear God,

Why oh why did you give me three girlie girls? Girls that only want to wear dresses, have their hair done all pretty and love nail polish? Oh and the attitudes that come with these girls too? I love them to death but I sure wish they weren't so intense about certain things! Please give me guidance and patience for the next oh say 20 years. Amen! Praise Jesus!!

video camera!

Yay! My camera broke when we were in WA last month so I have been without a video camera for awhile. The camera video just doesnt take that clear of shots so I was pleasantly surprised to go to the mail box this afternoon and find a video camera form Namy and Papa. My mom had bought it for my Dad but he just never used it and they figured that if they sent it to us we would take videos of the girls doing random things. Here's Courtney singing:

Thanks NAmy and Papa it will be well used!

coloring

The girls can spend hours coloring. We've gone through plenty of coloring books and reams of paper...today they had me cut out gingerbread girls!

Sam is officially a Kindergartener!

A big day in the Howe household today! I woke up a little earlier then the alarm clock (Sydney crawled in our bed for the first time all by herself at 5:45) At 6:30 I went in to help Samantha get up. She was soo excited. She took a shower ate breakfast (I was worried about that since she doesnt like to eat for like 2 or 3 hours after she wakes up) She had a mini cinnamon bagel w cream cheese and class of chocolate milk. She really wanted to ride the tag along bike so I pumped up some tires and at 7:40 we were out the door. Alyssa stayed the night so Jon and I could both go. It was a rather quick drop off. No tears just a big hug and kiss!

The twinks and I walked to pick her up. We wont be doing that again for awhile...it's too dang hot (102*) for a couple a 3 year olds and their 41 year old mamma! Tomorrow they will stay home and the bike it is! Way to many cars trying to pick kids up plus the school is maybe a quarter mile from the house so I dont think I will ever be driving! Samantha said school was a lot of fun. She met 5 new girl friends and 1 boy friend. She doesnt know anybody's name so we told her tomorrow she has to come home w at least one name! She was a little bummed on the whole playground thing..the kindergartners have a separate one that is all gated up and doesnt have monkey bars or a "telescope!" She said she saw Jessica (3rd grader) at lunch but she was on the big kid side so she couldnt talk to her but she said she smiled at her. She did have tears in her eyes though because her "job" for the day (or week she doesnt know) is garbage. She thinks it might be all week because she didnt pick up any today! Other then that it was a fun day for her. We took her to cold stone creamery for an after school treat which of course she thought was awesome! An after dinner swim to finish off the day...and early to bed! As Jon said when we got back "One down, two to go!"

Courtney loves to swim

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

the last weekend of the summer...

Samantha starts Kindergarten tomorrow! She is so excited...as I type she is upstairs cleaning her room so I can bring all her new school clothes that we bought a couple weeks ago. She isnt even complaining!!

Yesterday my computer crashed. Thankfully most of my pictures were backed up I just lost 1/2 of July and all of this month. I was all caught up on my blogging so I have the best of the ones I lost anyways. The one thing I am really bummed about is my Quicken account... I rarely back that thing up so I have to start from scratch (all those accounts ugh) and this new drive isnt liking the old version I have so I have to buy a new one. What a pain!!

Today I was looking through the paper, we started getting the paper on Sundays and Wednesdays because of the ads...Jon is so getting into the coupon thing- he went to the store this afternoon and used $50.87 worth of coupons so the bill was only 21.97 but I digress...I found a couple theaters that are only $3 so we took the kids to see Marmaduke. This particular theater that we went to has $1.50 Tuesdays too! this bargin hunting is awesome!

DSE open house

Samantha (K) and Jessica (3rd)

Dreaming Summit Elementary had their open house this evening. Samantha got to meet her teacher, Mrs. Neusse (rhymes w messy.) She also got to check out her class room. She gets to sit at the green table! The teacher also had color her name that was on a star and she hung on the window when she was done. We already have our first home work assignment. The teacher gave her a worksheet to fill out and draw a picture of herself! I think she is really going to enjoy Kindergarten!!

what?

Today Sam came in my room with a pair of Sydney's shorts. She wanted to wear them (at least she asked first) I said "no way they are way to small for you" and she said in that little whiny voice that really gets on my nerves and says "But Mom, I don't have any shorty shorts!" Where did this child come from? My response was only "bad girls wear those" and she was like "what?" I then just said "no, go put on your own shorts" She did but moapingly...

Slide Rock State Park

Slide Rock State Park

One good thing about Jon being unemployed is midweek day trips! Today we went to Sedona and checked it out...we ended up just going to the state park. It was crazy busy...I would hate to see it on a weekend! Very cool though! The girls sure are daring especially Sam...She was definitely the youngest to take the plunge! All Jon kept thinking was "We don't have health insurance!" (We are in the process though) I wish I could have gotten video of the natural slide...crazy fun!

Simply Beautiful!

The swimsuit models

Silly posers

Sydney kept telling me to take her picture today
this is her serious pose

all smiles

the water was 65* but it was like 98* outside so it felt pretty good!

the rocks were super slippery...up above was a really cool natural water slide that we did a couple times but it was kinda scary. They all did it twice but Sam did it by herself once too.

posing again!

Sydney

like I said she kept telling me to take her picture!

Courtney

this was nice gentle flow that the girls loved

they were having so much fun!

Courtney and Daddy!

we ended the day with a swirl!

**I was texting Kim on the way home and I asked her if she had been there...Her kids would love it... she tells me that she was told not to go there because you get Montezuma's revenge! Oh great! The sign did say the water hazard was low. The monsoons just came through so hopefully the water was high enough and fast enough to keep it clean~

swimming

Today was a huge swimming day. Alyssa spent a few hours in our pool with them this morning (she showed Sam how to dive) and in the afternoon was spent at the Berles for a swim play date. I think it was a total of 6 hours...I bet they will all be asleep by 8 pm tonight!

Here are a bunch of videos...
1) Sam dives
2) Sam backwards dive
3) they all jump
4) Sam flips
5) Sydney Jumps

I just realized Courtney didnt get any of her own video time...oh well next time! She did awesome swimming on her own. She swam across the width of the pool. She was a little mad at me for backing up while she was swimming but I proved to her that she could do it! Way to go Court!!

the golf range

It was a cool 81* muggy rainy day today so Jon thought a good outing would be the double decker golf range...

Sydney concentrates...but not for very long

Samantha is really getting good at it!

Courtney just loved to make the ball roll out to the net. She did figure if she threw the ball it would go farther!

Samantha always the poser

*pictures from the camera phone