Princess Elise is 4!!

My sweet baby girl is all grown up and 4 yrs old today!

 My little ballerina wanted a dance party for her birthday. Luckily Grandma provided plenty of dancing attire for the day so Ellie could dance and twirl all day long in multiple outfits

We invited all of her little girlfriends over for a hoppin' dance party!

There was Aislyn, Hailey, Ellie, Chloe, Princess Elise, and Alyssa:

 It was a super fun and girly party...and Ellie was ecstatic to get a ballerina Belle!

Later, after Daddy and Cole were home we let El open the rest of her presents and we sang again and had cupcakes again :)

We all had a super fun day celebrating this spunky, sweet, funny, smart, kind, adorable, snuggly, saggy, clever precious little princess's life!! I love you my sweet Elise and I'm so very glad that you are mine!!

GG & Grandpa

GG & Grandpa came to visit!!

We have spent the past few days showing them around our little town of Washington and the few sites in Peoria. We visited Washington town square, the hospital to see where Ben works, the riverfront area, and the highlight for the kids: the Caterpillar Museum!

(Unfortunately my camera battery died right after we got there and I had to use my crappy phone camera for a lot of the pics.)

We started out going into one of the HUGE mining trucks they make and watching a movie:

Now that's a truck!

Then we got to explore all of the caterpillar trucks and tractors:

 We also got to try out some simulators:

   The kids loved all of the hands on activity and seeing everything close up!

 

  

We had lots of fun hanging out with GG & Grandpa Green. Thanks for coming to visit!!

Preschool

My princess started preschool today! 

 She is soooo excited to be starting school like her big brother, and just as excited to be in Hailey's class!

Zoo Day

I promised Cole we would do something fun for Labor Day...and then I realized Peoria has pretty much nowhere to go except the teeny tiny zoo. It was a fun zoo though!

 There aren't a lot of animals, but the zoo has done a really good job with the few they have. 

Dax loved watching and following the ground hogs:

The Australian exhibit was really fun because the animals were walking around us. It was especially fun to follow the wallabies around...

...and this one even popped up behind the bench the kiddos were sitting on :)

 What the zoo lacked in live animals they made up for in statues, which are apparently as exciting as live animals :)

 And there were a plethora of places to climb around the zoo, which Cole was pretty happy about:

  

We have a fun little zoo. It was a great way to spend our holiday.

 And to make the day even better, Daddy got home a little earlier than usual and had a little dance party with us :)

We played hard this Labor Day!!