First Grader!

My teeny little Jessica is in first grade!  How can this be?! Rather than be sad about her growing up, I'm trying to be excited for all of the fun adventures she has ahead of her this year.  She's already made some great friends and she has a wonderful teacher.

August 10th was "Meet Your Teacher" day.  Jessica has Mrs. Jacobson and we both decided that she seems really nice and great!  Jessica was also excited to see where her desk would be.

The next night Jessica went with Michael on their now traditional, pre-school daddy-daughter date.  They had dinner, chatted it up about all kinds of things, and finished off with a trip to the photo booth.  I sure love these two.

Monday morning came quickly and it was off to school.  Jessica's school is doing uniforms this year and we LOVE seeing all those classy-lookin' kiddos every morning.

We're lucky enough to have a couple Kindergarten girls close by that we walk with. Jessica loves Miss Ellana and Miss Kelly.

We all said our goodbyes and sent her off to grow up a little more.  Chandler handled it much better this year.

Before long it was time to have her back and Michael was able to come along.  We're so proud of our big girl!

Loggerhead Marine Life Center

In July, and then again in August while we traveled south with Michael for work, we got to go to the Loggerhead Marine Life Center in Juno Beach, aka the sea turtle rescue center.  This is one of my favorite places we've gone since moving out here.  They have several turtles they've rescued from various situations. We were lucky enough to come during hatching time.  There was a tank full of the teeniest little hatchling turtles I'd ever seen.

The volunteers explained that it was common this time of year to go out early in the morning to the local beaches and see several of these hatchlings that either never made it past the waves, or faced other trouble, like crabs or fire ants.  He said you could also go out between 9 and midnight and you had a chance of seeing the hatchlings headed out to sea.  We decided that it was worth a shot, so we grabbed some flashlights, let the kids stay up, and searched around the beach. Sadly, we didn't have any luck. It just made for some tired boys.  :)

Ichetucknee Springs

7/21/12

We went with a group of friends to Ichetucknee Springs, where we went tubing through some wetlands.  No alligators, just nice cool water and a lot of fun.

Benjamin turns 1!!

Benjamin turned one on July 7th.  We actually spent the day in airports and on airplanes from Salt Lake City to Orlando, but he didn't seem to mind.  We celebrated the day before in Idaho and the day after back home.  Benjamin was thrilled to discover this whole new world of flavors... namely, SUGAR!!

How could you not just love that messy little face!?  

And here are all my boys on first birthdays.

Chandler - 2010

Benjamin - 2012

Fashion Show

The other day while we were at the mall, Jessica noticed a flyer advertising a back to school fashion show.  She thought it sounded really fun and when we mentioned that they were looking for kids to be in the show she FREAKED OUT!  Now I was really really really hesitant about the idea, but her enthusiasm won out and we let her go to the casting call a few days later. When we got word that she was selected for the show, Jessica was so excited! She had a great time and it was fun watching her have a fun silly time walking the runway. And yes, those moves are all her.  Goofy kid.  :)