Goodbye, Summer....

We left off with a post in honor of Miss Hadley's 12 MONTH birthday celebration (Side note: I have semi-jokingly made a rule here in our house that we will be counting Hadley's age in months for as long as we are capable of doing the math....saying we have a 1 YEAR old makes it sound like our baby is growing up way too fast!). I wanted to share some pics of Hadley's special celebration, of which she actually had two. We felt so blessed by all those who joined us in wishing Hadley a very happy birthday.


I love this picture of Hadley with her cake. This expression on her face is very characteristic of her when she is evaluating a situation (as in, why in the heck are all these people singing to me?). She's serious, a bit hesitant, and happy all at the same time.


Hadley is pretty matter of fact in her approach to things. She wasn't at all hesitant to dive into eating her cake, but also didn't make a huge mess. She was somewhat methodical in tearing it apart. Too cute!

Opening presents with Daddy. I imagine in this picture she's thinking something like "Can I eat that paper?"

Hadley's birthday gift from us is a telling commentary on being the third baby in the house. There isn't a blessed thing that this child needs...almost all of what she has are hand-me-downs and suit her basic needs just fine. So, when we looked at what we should give her for her birthday, the few ideas we had were impractical. Thus, the pink wingback chair from Target. I felt guilty about this purchase until we saw how much she LOVED it. It's ridiculous...and totally adorable.

The big kids love the chair, too. :) Connor and Kylee were so excited to help their sister celebrate.

Shortly after Hadley's birthday celebrations, we took off for a two night stay at the Great Wolf Lodge. This was our second journey to the lodge, and the kids enjoyed it a lot more this time around (with our kids the second time generally goes much smoother than the first). It was part of our effort to soak up what was left summer.

Connor and Kylee had bunk beds in the "Wolf Den". They thought it was pretty cool.


Kylee and Connor both tried going down slides by themselves for the first time and they had a BLAST. It was great to watch them!

Hadley soaking up the sun.


A few days before school started, we took the kids to Kaleidoscope down at Crown Center, where they got to complete various art projects. The art sessions are sponsored by Hallmark and are FREE!



It has been a great summer, and although we are sorry to see it go, it feels good to anticipate a new school year. With both the older two at Doniphan, Hadley and I will be holding down the fort here at home. My, how the years fly by!