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Quote from Kayla:  ”This is the Upper Peninsula, and this is the Downer Peninsula.”  Don’t you love the logic of a five-year-old?

Aaron loves walking to work and stopping by the University Cup for a good cup of coffee.  And lately he has been picking up something else—white chocolate raspberry scones.  I have yet to try one from the UCup, but I decided to make my own (for Aaron, of course).  The plan was for Kayla and Madeline to help me make the scones during “cooking class,” but they were playing together so nicely that I let them continue with their imaginative game.  I had a little time to myself in the kitchen, which I enjoyed, and here was the end result:

I have to admit, they were quite tasty!  And not dry like traditional scones.  They actually reminded me more of a danish.  I found the recipe here.

http://www.pickycook.com/breakfastandbrunch/raspberrywhitechocolatescones.aspx

Thursday was Kayla and Madeline’s first ballet class!  And guess who their teacher is?

I started teaching dance when I was a freshman in high school and continued until I graduated.  I taught a little bit in college and also during my pregnancy with Madeline.  I took a break from dance during my pregnancy with Savannah and also last year due to a hip injury.  But this year I’m back, taking Grade V Cecchetti ballet (again) and teaching a class of four and five-year-olds.  (Madeline, 3, gets special privileges due to being the teacher’s daughter.)

Here are some pictures from Thursday.

Tuesday was Kayla’s first official day of Kindergarten!  I try to make the first day of school really fun for the girls.  Here’s a picture of Kayla with our agenda for the day.

This year the first thing on our list was walking downtown to Stan’s for breakfast.  Here are my three, amazingly bright, little students.

And based on requests from previous years, here is a picture of me, the teacher (taken by Kayla).

For our Spanish lesson, we practiced the colors by making a paper chain.  This was also good practice for patterns.

And as is customary for our first day of school, I brought out the stacking cubes so the girls could practice numbers, colors, shapes and animals.

We had a great first day and a great first week.  Tomorrow the fun continues!

Last September we spontaneously took the girls to the Dow Gardens on a gorgeous night and ended up catching some great photos.  Last Sunday, the day before Labor Day, we took the camera and went for a reprise.  This time we took Aaron’s mom along and introduced her to the amazing, beautiful gardens.  And once again, we had a little taste of Eden—of what life was meant to be like before the fall.  If you’ve never been there before, it’s worth a trip to Midland, Michigan!  I can almost guarantee you’ll experience God and His creation in a stunning, unforgettable way.

This week the weather has been gorgeous!  My house shows it for sure.  Who wants to be inside doing housework when it’s 75 and sunny?  Not me!

Last week, however, we had our share of cool, rainy days.  We had big plans for August 28, and the weather was predicted to be horrible—rain and thunderstorms all day long.

The first thing planned for the day was a trip to Aunt Tude’s Farm in Gladwin with my friend, Erin.  It was raining when she arrived at my house in the morning, and we were afraid it was going to ruin our fun.  Though it was raining here, it wasn’t raining up north yet.  So we took the girls on a field trip!  It rained just a bit before we were leaving, but it really could have been much worse.

We received a chore list when we arrived, including giving bottles to baby animals, hand feeding sheep, goats, llamas and alpacas and milking the cow.

The girls loved the farm experience, and we would definitely do it again!

The next adventure for the day was going to the Tigers game with Aaron.  Once again, the weather was supposed to be wet.  It rained hard before the game, causing a very slight rain delay of 15 minutes.  (No big deal because we were running late anyway.)  Then, for nearly three hours, the rain stopped so we could watch baseball!  It was 62 degrees and not a drop of water from the sky until the bottom of the 8th inning.  Then it started raining lightly.  The Tigers got their first two outs in the top of the 9th, and it looked like the game was going to end soon.  A couple men got on base, so they brought in a relief pitcher.  Just as he was coming onto the field, it started pouring!  Everyone was cheering like crazy!  The Tigers got the final out and won the game.  It sure was a fun night!  Sorry I don’t have a picture to post, but you know how it is.  Once you have kids, they seem to be only subjects of your photographs.

Last night while I was in class, Jen and our good friend Erin took the girls to the park for a fun evening.  Erin was trying out a new camera and took some great shots of our little ones.  Here’s my favorite.  Great job, Erin!