Happy Birthday Hazel !!!!!!

Happy birthday to our sweet Hazey-Bug! It just does not seem real that a whole year could have passed already.  I was in school today thinking about where I was last year at this time and it is just wild to think about planning for my substitute and then getting the call from the Dr., "Ok, tomorrow is the day."  I left school at about 10:00am on the 25th to prepare for the following day.  What a crazy thing, to leave my classroom and know the next time I came back I would be a Momma of TWO.  What a crazy, hectic, busy, but more importantly, wonderful, blessed, fun, exciting year it has been.  We love you Hazel Gloria and can't wait to see what the future holds for your sister and you!  We love you baby girl!
Here is just a little recap:

One week before Hazel arrived!

Welcome to the world beautiful girl!

SISTERS!!!!!!

Hazel is having a Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party, so we had to take her pictures in her little outfit. I decided to use the same chair as a prop for Hazel's first birthday shoot that I used for Norah. You can see Norah's here.  I could take pictures of these two girls all day long!  I think the outfit is so cute, she is wearing it for Halloween too!  She will be a caterpillar and Norah is going to be a butterfly!  Can't wait to get pics of them together in October! :)

Rickel Wedding

We had a wonderful weekend away this past weekend. We headed to the U.P. for Ryan and Luann's wedding and had a fabulous time. Their wedding was at the Kewadin Casino in St. Ignace. We were talking on the way home and can't believe we stayed there for three nights and didn't gamble once! :) I think the best part of the weekend was meeting all of the rest of the Rickel/Laming family and friends. What a wonderful group of people! They really made the weekend that much more fun! There were definitely a lot of laughs! We missed the girls SOOOO much, but it was wonderful having a weekend away just for us! Congratulations Ryan and Luann! It was a beautiful weekend!

Drew and Jill

Luann and her parents

Love watching the groom's face
Ryan seeing Luann down the aisle

Mr. and Mrs. Rickel

Typical boys.....I guess, when they have to go, they have to go!

Road Trip

Two weekends ago we headed to Indiana to see everyone. This was the first time going to Indiana with both girls....phew....it was a little (okay, a lot) of work, but totally worth it! We had a wonderful time seeing everyone and it was great having all the kids together. The girls were so sleepy while we were there because the hour difference really hits them, but they played as hard and long as they could, and luckily slept well too! We just loved being with everyone and can't wait to get together again! Love you guys!

They had the greatest little park about 15 minutes away from Bri and Kyle's house.
I wish we had nice little parks like this around our house!

Snack break!

Big girl on a big slide

I couldn't believe how brave Norah was.  She went down this slide several times, all by herself!

Time for a little pampering with Auntie Lyndsey!

I got the girls both little princess dresses to play dress-up.  They had so much fun!

Park Time!

All us girls.....we have this tradition of taking these silly, staring off in the distance pictures.  I am going to have to go back and find the rest of them and show the series.  They are pretty hysterical!  Love these ladies!

First Day of Preschool

We cannot believe this day has actually arrived.  How can our baby be in preschool already?  She had her first day of preschool on Thursday and Drew and I were fortunate enough to take her.  I took a 1/2 day off of work, which seemed weird since it was only my third day back to school, but it was totally worth it, and my students survived a 1/2 day without me! :)  We all woke up and got ready as usual, Drew took both girls to daycare where Norah got to eat her breakfast and then about 45 min. later we met her at daycare to get her on the bus.  We took a practice ride on the TAT bus last weekend, so she knew exactly what she would be in for.  We buckled her on the bus and sent her off.  We wanted her to get as used to the new routine as possible, that is why we had her ride the bus instead of us 'taking' her the first day.  We met her at the preschool, got her off the bus and she was all smiles.  We got into preschool, she found her picture and hung up her bookbag, then we headed into the classroom where she had to find her name and put it in a pocket chart, check out a library book and put it in her basket and then she was free to go to a center to play.  She did great while we were leaving, whined a little, but did a great job!  I was actually hoping that was sign of how the whole day was going to go.  Unfortunately, that is not how the rest of her day went.  She had a little bit of a difficult day, crying and whining to go home.  I'm sure she was just overwhelmed with all of the new friends, teachers and new classroom.  We picked her up after school, put her back on the bus and followed her back to daycare where she got to go straight outside and play before lunch.  She had a wonderful afternoon at daycare where she was back in her usual routine.  She will be heading back to preschool next week and will be going through this whole thing again, except without us there.  I am going to be a nervous wreck and am just anxious to see how the day goes!  Our little girl is just growing up so fast!

I was so disappointed the night before preschool that I had not gotten around to making a cute little chalkboard for Norah to hold on her first day.  I am pretty sure I was laying in bed that night and thought, "Duh, I have a chalkboard right in the kitchen, just take it down and write on it!"  So, I did!  I am pretty sure this will be the tradition now.....chalkboard and on the deck.
First day of Preschool!  (and don't mind the scribbles at the bottom, she insisted on drawing a picture on there)

Heading to the car!

Hazel and Norah headed to daycare together.
Drew took the girls to daycare where Norah was able to eat breakfast and see her friends at daycare before heading to preschool.  

Little girl on a big bus
This is when I lost it the first time.  Drew and I got her buckled on the bus and then followed behind her in our car.  I lost it when the bus pulled away and there was our little peanut on the big bus all by herself, her little head peeking out the window watching for us.  To be honest, it was awful, but she did great and made it the ENTIRE BLOCK :) away on the bus! 

Finally to preschool.....things seem to be going pretty great....so far!

Norah had to find her name on a sentence strip and put it in the pocket chart!

Then she got to check out a book from the library.

Family picture before Mommy and Daddy left our big girl for the morning.  I held it together while I was saying goodbye, but the waterworks opened as soon as I got out to the car.  I am so glad I was able to take a 1/2 day from work and pick her up from school too.  When we walked in she was sniffling and she ran up to me crying, "Mommy, I just want to go in the car and go hhhhoooommmmeeee."  Talk about breaking your heart.  We asked her teachers if she did this the whole time and they reluctantly said, "Yeah, she had a little bit of a hard day."  I guess things can only improve from here and we know our little Norah has a hard time with 'new' things and 'new' routines and 'new' people.  But, after she gets into the routine and become familiar with everything, we know she will be a superstar at Preschool.  We can't wait to see everything she learns and all the growing she is going to do this year.

On another note, I made it through my first week of school.  It was a bit rough, but I know things will get better.  I am a 1st/2nd grade split again this year and it is going to be a very challenging year, but I am up for it!

Watermelon Day

It was so nice out last week and I wanted to get a few pictures of the girls before school started, particularly Hazel since she will be 1 in a few weeks!!! (What? I know, I can't believe it either, but we will save that for another post....more 1 year pics to come!) I have been wanting to take some juicy watermelon pictures and just let the girls dig in and get messy, so this was the day! It was so fun and they both enjoyed it....and needless to say we changed a pretty wet diaper and spent some extra time going tinkle on the potty!

Daddy had to help her at first because the piece was too big!  I finally got smart and cut it smaller! :)

This next series of pictures absolutely cracks me up.  Not really sure how this series happened, but all I wanted was a picture of the girls together and here is what we got! :)

Aaaaaa......finally got it!  It only took a couple tries!  Love these two beauties!