Abby's Night!

Abby had a piano recital tonight. She played beautifully and always does. She is so talented on the piano. I am so proud of her. She played "Variations on a Russian Folk Tune". Dan and I were able to go and listen to her with no interruptions thanks to the boys who stayed home and watched Estee. After the recital we took Abby to dinner at The Quarter Bistro, she wanted to order something really wonderful. She ordered the ALLIGATOR!! I hate reptiles and the last thing I would want to do is eat one, however she thinks it is cool that she has done something Dan and I haven't ever done--eat alligator meat! It actually looked a lot like chicken strips. Here she is eating her alligator!

She brought the alligator left-overs home and Jake was upset that we supported her buying and eating an endangered species!

Abby also had a cello AND choir concert in the last couple weeks.
She is MEGA talented girl! We are so glad she is ours and are so proud of her.

Estee's First Dance Recital

Estee had her first dance recital! I loved watching her so much. She is so excited about the whole thing it is infectious! Here she is on the first day of her dance class, with some of her cute little friends who took the class with her.
And.........the day of the recital.


Does it get any cuter?? I just love this little girly, girl doing her ballerina moves. Can you see her stitched up forehead? I did my best to hide them!
Estee LOVED this class so much, she was always so excited to go to ballerina class.



In case you still want more....check out the two videos. It might be just because I am the mom, yeah probably, but I think this is one of the cutest things I have seen! They did their routine twice, so I recorded it twice :) Estee was running circles around the other girls for probably half the time she was up in front. You can see her doing it in the first video.

Ouch!

Estee got 8 stitches yesterday!! She jumped, or rather dived into a bean bag playing around in the basement. The edge of the coffee table on the other side of the bean bag was right in the way of her forehead. It bled a whole bunch and you all would be so proud at how calm I was. Jake was home from school because his school had a power outage, and he was crying. Poor guy. Blood was everywhere and gushing from this deep gash on her head. We also had a friend over playing and he was super calm, even more than me. He must have seen something like this before, he should be a doctor someday if all that blood doesn't bother him.

Luckily, Dan was able to meet us at the hospital and stitch Estee up. She sat on my lap in the chair so I could help hold her down and calm her down. She was really upset by the needle poking her to numb things up. The two nurses and I finally got her calmed down by talking about ballerina class, promises of a play date with friends, and I also promised her a new sleeping beauty dress up dress. By the end of the stitches she was almost asleep! She had worn herself right out. She was a brave little three-year-old.
She wanted some eggs for breakfast this morning so they could "help her owie get all better". Cute!

Sisters Trip '09--Michigan

I was lucky enough to have another sisters trip this year. I talked my sisters into coming to see Michigan for the trip this year. I don't know how I lucked out to have such great sisters, but I must have been in the right line in heaven when they were handing out sisters! I admire so much about each one of them--they are the best! I can't leave out my mom here either, because she raised all of us into the great people we are today and that is enough said about how great she is! :)

We started out the trip with a little beauty night at the U of M clinic. We all got microderm abrasion and other various things to make us beautiful. It was so much fun! This is a shot of us pre-beauty treatments.

Cuties!

We are pretty crazy and decided to leave for Mackinac Island right after our beauty stuff. Beauty stuff went until late and Mackinac is a 4 1/2 hour drive--even with me driving! We scared ourselves on the way because we almost ran out of gas. At 2:30 in the morning. In the middle of nowhere. SCARY! We finally found a remote gas station really in the middle of NOWHERE. There were two men, by themselves in separate cars--seemingly waiting for a car full of women to attack. One of them wouldn't look at us the whole time. The other one stared at us the whole time. It totally gave us the hibbie jibbies! Then we started driving and talking about movies where scary things happened on the freeway, after stopping at gas stations in the middle of nowhere. AAAAHHH!

However, we made it safe and sound to Mackinaw City at 3:30am. After a good nights sleep (minus seagull noises) the next morning found us exiting the ferry to Mackinac Island. It was the most beautiful day ever--so perfect.

Watch out Mackinac Island! I love this picture that Jill took of these two.

My sisters and mom LOVED Mackinac Island, which I knew they would but I was still kind of relieved that they liked it so much! We rented really cool cruiser bikes with cute little baskets and rode all the way around the island. Slowly riding and stopping very often for LOTS of photos. The water was so beautiful and blue. The weather was perfect. You can't say that very often in MI! My sisters don't believe me now when I say how awful the weather is here, it was so perfect all weekend for them.

This might be my favorite picture from the whole trip! My cute mom cruising on her bike!! I LOVE IT. We got her these new sun glasses and told her she looked sassy. When I see this picture I can totally just hear her doing her breathing out thing she does when she exercises.

Me and Julie at one of our many photo ops!

Downtown drag in Mackinac. We should have taken a picture in front of the fudge shop which we visited THREE times in our short time on the island. It's just off to the right. :)

Jill and Josie trying out the bikes before our big ride.

Julie looking cute on her cruiser!

This looks so fun, I want to go back and spend a month there and do this everyday--or twice a day!

After leaving Mackinac Island we drove over the 5 mile suspension bridge so my sisters and mom could say they have been to the UP (upper peninsula) of Michigan. I don't think they will ever be back, so good thing we did it!

I am sure the highlight for all of them was seeing "The Big House" (I am being sarcastic). But really could their be a better picture??

We all have on Michigan shirts. Just don't tell my sisters husband who is an Ohio State fan through and through. I'll never tell. The best is my mom's Michigan Gymnastics shirt.
Later in the day (see pic below) we went to the cupcake station and someone asked my mom if she was on the Michigan Gymnastics team! She is in her 70's!

The tailgating here is out of control. We walked all over the place and saw a lot of FANCY tailgating. Wine and ham dinners all spread out. Here we are checking out the tailgaters.

This picture is from Mackinac Island. Here we are at the cupcake station in AA. So delicious! We walked here after eating at Pizza House, one of my favorite Ann Arbor places.

We celebrated Julie's birthday with a caramel cake! YUM!

We also walked around campus a little and saw the law quad which was beautiful. The buildings are so amazing.

More campus shots. It was a perfect day in Ann Arbor and at the Ward house. Michigan won in a close, good game against Notre Dame. I had my sisters in town. Weather was perfect.

I had so much fun and the time went WAY to fast. Can't wait for next year!

School is in session!

It has been crazy at the Ward household! Andy started high school, Abby started 7th grade, Jake started 3rd grade, and Estee started 3 year old pre-school!
It is busy, and fun to be in this stage of life. We are going through some growing pains as we all adjust to summer being over, EARLY morning seminary, high school starting, endless football practice, mom being on PTO board, endless forms to fill out, and multiple levels of homework that is getting harder!
I know from past experience, that we will eventually get into a groove. School started about a week and half ago. Since that time we have also thrown in three different curriculum nights, my sisters and mom here for a trip (so fun!), and of course Dan having to work insane hours.

Since Andy and Abby leave at the crack of dawn I haven't been able to get pictures of them leaving for school. I did get some cute ones of Jake and Estee.

Here is Jake on his first day. He LOVES his 3rd grade teacher!
Estee thinks she is just as big as Jake and is waiting in line right by him.

Jake was ready to get right down to business--he is serious about his school work. :)

Estee (and friend Noah) are so excited for school to start!

Teacher Miss Elizabeth with some of the students.

Estee LOVED her first day and can't wait to go back--she is a social little child!

I am so happy to have my four, wonderful, busy, great, kids in all their stages of life. What fun for a stay home mom! I just hope to keep it together!

Abby's blog

I noticed Abby put up something on her blog. It made me laugh.
You should check it out.
http://therockinbookfreak.blogspot.com/

oh, I like your....

This is what Estee says in her cute little voice all the time lately.

It's really cute. She tells me whenever I do my hair "mom, I like your pretty hair"

She told Dan the other day "I like your blue pants with a blue string" (he was wearing scrubs)

She told her friend "I like your little glasses"

She tells Andy "oh, I like your hootball hat" (football helmet)

MOST of the time this is really cute, but yesterday in Sam's Club we were walking down one of the isles. A bigger lady walked by us and I hear her little voice say "oh, I like your big....BODY!" I tried to pretend I didn't hear and walk faster, then Estee runs after me and says "mom, did you see her big" I grabbed her and put my hand over her mouth at that point. So embarrassing!

My Garden...

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE having a garden! It's tiny and it's our first year trying it, but it is the greatest to have tomatoes from the garden. When we planted in May I really thought it was kind of a big waste of money, because I thought nothing would produce fruit. I am happy to say I was soooo wrong.

It's hard to believe that these beautiful tomato plants started out like this......

Actually, they started out much smaller this was after a month or so of growing.

I went out last week and picked everything that was ripe......

Can you believe all this! I was so happy, and I knew I must make salsa ASAP!

I got some great help making the salsa, Estee had her butter knife and kept cutting tomato after tomato and saying "we're making Sa-sa" it was dang cute!

I love this garden so much, I know it is tiny and people have much more awesome gardens, but I think mine is perfect! I am wondering why I haven't done this every year?

Estee's Tea Party

Estee had her third birthday! She had a fun tea party with some little friends. She LOVED it so much. All the cute girls wore their twirly, fluffy skirts. Here they all are trying to pose for the picture holding hands--so cute! The stars of the party were:

Estee the birthday girl!

Beautiful Ashlyn who loved drinking her "tea" (lemonade).

Darling Lydia who loved the fruit.

Cute Esther (or Da-do) who is never without blue bear

Sweet Ellie, the girl of little expression, but still looks adorable all the time!--don't you love this outfit!

Awesome Abby the helper, who loves little Lydia because she sucks her left thumb just like Abby always did.

Delicious Barbie Cake.

The girls loved these star and flower sandwiches! Estee had so much fun at her tea party! She tells me everyday"tomorrow is my tea party mom". She wants one everyday!

By the way, she dressed herself entirely, including the flower on her arm, and stripped socks.

Thanks to all her cute friends for coming--she loved it!

Here is a video of the party. Enjoy!