the dress

I took the annual pictures of the girls wearing my wedding dress when we were at the park a week ago...

my favorite of zoe...looks like its right out of a bridal magazine!

my favorite of ava...so dainty!

zoe's first haircut!

Zoe has been asking for a haircut, so we finally did it tonight after bath. She sat nice the whole time :)

Before...


During...
After...






She's happy! So am I; it looks pretty cute!

zoe's dresser

This dresser used to belong to my Grama Sally, and probably most of my aunts and uncles...there is one drawer with the name "Susan" engraved in the face of it :) Zoe needed a dresser, so we brought it out to Montana with us and I gave it a face lift. I took the knobs off and sanded it down, then primed and painted it. Too personalize it, I added some pale green stripes to the sides (Zoe likes stripes...maybe she's part zebra? she finds them soothing, and exciting too). I also added some glass knobs to sweeten it up.







I think it turned out pretty good. Ava wants one like it so we're searching for another inexpensive dresser that needs a little love. I've got a bunch of other projects going on too, lots of updating :) I miss having a garage, I can only do these sanding painting projects when the weather cooperates....snow is not helping!

snow!

Being from Minnesota, I've trudged through snow up to my knees to trick-or-treat as a kid, but this is September!!! We got a couple inches of snow on Friday! Most if it melted by evening and today its 62 degrees :) I'm not ready for winter! (ever!)

going on a treasure hunt...

this one's for you Sue...

going on a treasure hunt
x marks the spot with a circle and a dot
big boulders
little boulders
cool breeze
tight squeeze
bugs crawling up your back
water streaming down your back
gotcha!

My aunt Sue does treasure hunt; the girls are addicted and ask for a treasure hunt before bed every night. :) Zoe has the whole thing memorized, except she changed blood to water somehow...hey it fits too!

Uh-huh!

"All the kindergartners are here, uh-huh!"

Ava's class does this cheer in the morning when everyone in class is at school :)

Gymnastics!

Ava and Zoe started gymnastics last week and they LOVE it! Ava decided she wanted to try gymnastics this year and just do her own dances at home ;) (They both wear about 14 outfits daily on the weekends...leotards, old dance costumes, dress-up clothes, tap shoes, ballet shoes, tutus, you name it!...and then they put on dance shows for us) :)

Ava's getting ready to hop off the beam

Ava's class is first and so Zoe had to wait a whole hour for her turn! She must have asked at least 30 times, "Is it my turn now?" She was SO excited to start! She practiced "balancing" back and forth on that white line over and over until it was her turn. She loves her teacher Miss Cassie and tries to sit right next to her and stand right next to her any chance she gets. It was funny, when they were done with one activity, Miss Cassie said, "okay everyone, follow me" and she turned around and walked backward to make sure all the little ones were following. So, what does Zoe do? She turned around and walked backward too!

kindergarten!

Ava started kindergarten on Wednesday and she LOVES it! She and daddy went to the orientation meeting the day before the first day of school and she got to meet her teacher. When we got home that evening I asked her what she thought of her teacher. "I like her!" I asked what she liked about her..."She wore a yellow dress. She had a kind voice. She had my favorite color hair." :) Her favorite thing that she did was putting a blue cube for cold lunch and a red cube for hot lunch. :)

Outside our door, ready to go to school!

After school we stopped for some dairy queen

She had a great day!

The only complaint she's had all week is: "Kindergarten isn't long enough. You come to get me too soon. I want to stay there longer!" We've heard all kinds of fun rhymes and songs and chants that she's learned this week, she cracks me up!

alive at 5

Every Thursday all summer, different locations around the city of Great Falls host Alive at 5, which is basically a block party with a band, food vendors, and beer stand. Oh, and the bouncer for the kids. :) We've gone to it a few times this summer, most recently when Heather, Liz, and Ben were visiting. It happened to rain just as we were getting there, so we hung out under the store eaves along with the other alive-at-5ers with our beverages until the rain cleared. That's when dancin' in the street began! Ava and Zoe (and Daddy for a little bit) danced like rock stars! Ava even got into a little break-dancing toward the end, I don't know how I missed that video-opp, but the one I do have is pretty cute too. :)

an older guy walked up to Ava and told her,
"Darlin' you have the best lookin' boots in town!"

Zoe jumped in this puddle and ran through it so many times that by the time we left, her skirt weighed more than she did.

happy birthday ava!

Ava was stoked to have an "all about Ava" day for her birthday

The Polly Pocket camper that Zoe gave her was a big hit!

we had some fun at the Farmer's market



again!

a mini cake with 10 ring-bearing cupcakes...a girl with 10 fingers...coincidence? I think not!

gotta love the frosting on the face!

we went to the Montana state fair that evening, Ava couldn't get enough out of feeding the goats, she even started scrounging some food up off the ground that they missed!

she played a game and picked Wonder Woman for her prize

Zoe picked a ducky for her prize,
which she named...Ducky :)

Wow! Did she LOVE the rides! She was squealing with delight the ENTIRE time!

And she was more than bummed when it was nearing 10pm and we were out of tickets! What a fun way to spend a birthday!

the move

The girls were AWESOME on the road, our best 14-hour+ ride ever! (Two times, at that!)

While in St Cloud, along with visiting family & friends, we had to stop at a few of our favorite places that we (mainly I) miss (caribou, chipotle, a REAL target...the one in great falls is like a 1/3 the size and so out-dated I thought I had stepped in a time machine....anyone remember when the makeup was in the jewelry department? there was only one food aisle? no pharmacy? food avenue had neon lights?...yeah that's what its still like in montana. LOL! I miss our target, especially now that the st cloud ones have full grocery in them!) ANYWAY, we stopped at Val's and ate lunch at munsinger gardens, a little chipmunk...not shy at all...kept pouncing around us hoping for some fries too. When Zoe saw the river, she got all excited and said, "Oh, the river! My daddy loves to fish on that river!" Boy is she right; that's one biggie that daddy misses!

A big thanks to my parents' friends Brett & Brenda for letting us borrow their trailer. This thing is huge. And yes, we filled it. A big thanks to my dad for pulling it out to Montana. You're the best!

empty...

...filling...

...and full.

At Theodore Roosevelt National Park in ND.
We saw one lone buffalo way, way down there.

The living room mess

...and the girls room.

yeah...fun...no...not really.

the fun part was going back to the hotel and going for a swim with Grampa!

While Ben was here we played some mini golf,
only a few blocks from our house, nice!
(and he played lots of disc golf with Jamie)

It was a very hot day when we played mini golf, and Ava's thought was that it just had to be an ice cream day. I couldn't argue with that.