Smiles

We got home from church today and took pictures of the girls. I just really wanted to capture what their smiles look like, right now, at this time.  Annie has a little jack-o-lantern smile since she lost her lateral incisors:

Annie – 7 years, 10 months old

And look who lost her first tooth!  She lost it on Monday, September 10th, just barely 5 1/2 years old.  It was pretty wiggly for a while, and she went to bed Monday night, and about a half hour later was crying that her tooth hurt.  I just kind of ignored it for awhile, thinking it was just another one of her tactics to get us to come into her room after Annie fell asleep.  Dan finally went up there, and just a few minutes later a very proud little Leah came running downstairs to show me her tooth was gone!  She had let Dan just yank it out!

Leah – 5 years, 6 months old

Annie lost both of her teeth the week before.  And I’m sure the tooth fairy was really surprised to find a note under her pillow with the first tooth.  Annie had written, “Dear tooth fairy, What is your name?  How do you get in?  What is your favrite color?  Can you please give me three dollrs?  Annie.”  Annie was so excited in the morning to see that the tooth fairy had written her back!  “Dear Annie, Thank you for writing me!  There is more than one tooth fairy, but my name is Ellie.  My favorite color is pink.  I am magic so it is a secret how I get in.  I will give you 2 dollars.  This was a small tooth.  Be a good girl!  Love, Ellie.”

Well, she lost the other tooth just a few days later, and again, the tooth fairy found a note under her pillow:

Again, so excited in the morning to discover a note from her new pen pal:

Love these girls!  Love their smiles.  Love their innocence and excitement for life.  Love the way they are such good friends.  Love their conversations.  Leah: “Annie, do you think Ellie is my tooth fairy too?”  Annie: “Of course, Leah, why would we have different tooth fairies?”  They talk about anything and everything.  Hope that never changes.

Reno Balloon Race 2012

This was our 3rd year in a row that we dragged our kids out of bed at an insane hour to go see the balloons.

They love it though.  They love getting donuts on the way.  They love walking around and touching the balloons.  They love watching them all being blown up.  And of course they love watching them take off.

This is the first one to take off . . . . and the others follow soon after.

“Annie” the Ladybug was our favorite balloon this year.  It was her first time at the Reno Balloon Race.

I can’t believe we’ve been in Reno long enough to be attending things for the 3rd time now!!  These last two years have just flown by!

Labor Day Weekend

Well, after having just done a 32+ hour road trip the weekend before, we really didn’t feel like going anywhere for Labor Day.  So we decided to just stay home and do fun stuff around here!  And man, did we pack it in!  We started the weekend off by going to the Reno Aces game (minor league baseball) with the Lee’s on Friday night.  I can’t believe we’ve lived here for 2 years now, and this was our very first Aces game!  They have a really nice little stadium right downtown.  The weather was great and it was just a really fun night!

We sat behind right field on the grass.  It was great.  Just plopped some blankets down and enjoyed the game.  The kids could walk around, roll down the grassy hill, play on the playground, and not be confined to seats.  Although I’m not sure we paid much attention to the game:) 

We moved to seats towards the end of the game.  We had to move off the grass section because they were going to shoot off fireworks after the game from back there. 

After the fireworks were over, they announced that any kids that wanted to could come down on the field and run the bases.  Our kids were so excited!  This is Archie, the Reno Aces mascot.  He’s just a big red blob who loves baseball!  Weird, I know.  Archie was waiting to high-five the kids as they rounded 2nd base. 

James was really into Archie.  He kept saying, “I want to say hi to dat guy!”

Carsen and Annie running the bases fast!

And there’s Leah! 

Made it home!

And here comes James!

This girl was so nice to run the whole thing with James!  He loved it.  The first thing he said to me when he got back, “Mom, I say hi to dat guy.”

It sure was a fun night at the ballpark.  We can’t wait to go to another game!!

Saturday morning (after an even earlier run with Adrienne) we left bright and early for Sand Harbor.  It was such a gorgeous day.  Awesome weather, awesome scenery, awesome friends!  Labor Day Weekend ended up being a Staycation with the Lee’s:)

Here’s a little Where’s Waldo for you . . . . do you see our blue and white striped umbrella close to the shore, and the navy blue easy-up right behind it?  And then Adrienne walking along the beach in her yellow shirt carrying Sadie?  Yep, we had a great little spot to spend the day:)

Look at that cute little head!

These kids just love hanging out together!

We took a walk along the path to climb the rocks.  The kids love doing this. . . .

And it was all fun and games, until someone fell trying to climb over one of those big granite rocks while holding James, and in order to protect James, that someone took the whole fall on her elbow . . . . Yeah, that hurt.

But I didn’t let it ruin the day.  Or the weekend!  We still had a great day at the lake.  And that night our babysitter came to watch the kids and Dan and I went out (after bandaging up my elbow:) just the two of us to the Rib Cook-off.  It was fun, but it was pretty crazy there on Saturday night, and after waiting quite awhile in line for some ribs, we decided to bail and go to BJs for Pazookies for dessert.  Yum!! 

Sunday night we went to the Lee’s house for games and dessert, along with the Jenkins.  Always a good time:)  And on Monday a family in our ward hosted a big BBQ, which was tons of fun.  So, it was a great long weekend, at home here in Reno, just hanging out and having fun:)  Just what we wanted.