Happiness

...Is running up, and then rolling down a huge hill with your sisters...

An afternoon spent rock climbing...

Doing fall crafts...

Getting funny face paintings {Emma had a pink squirrel and a black spider, Alyssa chose a bird and an octopus and Rebekah had a ladybug and a pumpkin}...

Visiting the long-lost painted turtle cousin of our runaway pet...

Discovering a "secret" outside door to a "hidden" indoor playland...

Hiking and enjoying the beautiful Fall weather.

A Saturday at the Urban Ecology Center Fall Festival = lots of fun and 3 very happy girls!

A Day on the Lincoln's Farm

I love history and I love being able to visit and take the girls to see historically significant places. Especially when we have had the benefit of reading about the places and people who made history there before our trip. On two different days of our vacation we went to Abraham Lincoln's birthplace in Kentucky and his childhood home in Indiana. Below are a bunch of photos from the day we explored the Lincoln's farm in Indiana.




This is the gravesite of Nancy Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's mother, who passed away from milk sickness when Abe was nine years old. She is often credited with imparting the love of reading to young Abe, an interest and passion that was later further encouraged by his stepmother.

Alyssa standing in the corn fields where Abraham would often get into trouble when his father found him under a tree reading, instead of doing his field work. Later in life President Lincoln would frequently quote his father who had always told him, "I can teach a man to work, but I can't teach a man to love to work."

Do you see Rebekah in the corn?

The girls sitting in front of the foundation of what used to be the log cabin where the future president grew up.

The foundation itself. Hard to believe that a family of four, and then later a family of eight {after Thomas Lincoln got remarried to Sarah Bush Lincoln who had three children of her own, and a cousin moved in with the Lincolns} made the tiny room into a home.

Across the path from the foundation stands a replica of the Lincoln cabin. Rebekah looked into this small pasture attached to the home and asked my Dad if the sheep were dead.

I think if she had the chance to rephrase the question she meant are they real? Yes, they are quite real...either that or the National Park Service has invested in some very sophisticated animatronics. The whole scene looked so tranquil and perfect, and that's what I think Rebekah was getting at.

A look inside...



Climbing up to the loft where the children would have slept in beds of hay, and without any pillows.


Working hard on her Junior Ranger book, using a makeshift desk out back from the cabin.

Hard work on the farmstead.

Emma in the meat locker. There were several practices in times past that would have kept me from enjoying life to it's fullest. This passing as refrigeration would have to be one of them.

Visiting with the very real sheep.

After spending some time on the farm, we took the Twelve Stones trail back to the visitor center. There were 12 stones/bricks from buildings of significance for Abraham Lincoln along the hike. It was neat to read stories about the general store where he worked and how he entertained many of the customers with his stories, perhaps getting his first taste of winning over an audience with his story-telling and charisma, and to hear other accounts of cases he argued in court and about how many political "failures" he had before he was elected to office.

And the nature was beautiful!

It was a fun day and a neat visit to a great National Historic Site. One of the books I frequently read to the girls ends with the declaration that some people view Abraham Lincoln as our greatest president ever. The last two times we have read the book, before I can even finish that last sentence Alyssa is nodding her head in serious agreement and both times she has said, "True, so true." We have lots more photos and at least a few quotes by Lincoln, so maybe I'll have to work on a president's day post in honor of our favorite president. I'm sure that in the very least Alyssa will approve, and be eager to read it :-)

Back to the Drawing Board

Two full weeks into the school year and I think we are getting back into the swing of a more predictable schedule. The girls love their new teachers and have been enjoying school. Our evenings have been full of gymnastics practices, singing lessons, auditions and homework. Busy, but a good kind of busy. I feel like everything happens so quickly at the beginning of a new school year ~ no real significant transition between laid back summer days and the much longer (though somehow I still never seem to accomplish everything I need to get done) school days.

A quick run down of the last couple of weeks:

Alyssa has an ensemble role in The Milwaukee Repertory Theater's A Christmas Carol, and she just had her first costume fitting last week.

In it's 37th season, this is the second longest running A Christmas Carol in the country. Alyssa is excited to be a part of it!

I couldn't believe we hadn't been inside The Pabst before her audition process earlier this summer, it's a really neat old place. These chandeliers line the window/wall area where Emma and Rebekah sat to do homework while we waited for Alyssa to come out of her fitting.

This is the first year that Rebekah has real homework, other than nightly reading. She loves having work just like the big girls. I'll be curious to compare these assignments to other work that she will be doing in just a few weeks, and then again to the assignments later in the year. 1st grade is a pretty big jump, lots of new learning each week!!

A few of the cute folders that the girls decorated with stickers we got on vacation and the Bible Quiz questions that have been keeping Rebekah very busy.

Coming out of her first singing lesson of the school year, so excited to show her teacher her Jamie Grace t-shirt from the concert G&G took her to this summer. Alyssa and her teacher, Ms. Alissa worked very hard on Jamie's song, Hold Me, and it's now one of Alyssa's favorites!

How Rebekah keeps busy during singing ~ being a monkey and dancing in the hallway as Alyssa sings. The day I picked her up from school in the monkey bar pic, she had this skirt on inside out. It's what our girls call a tutu skirt, with one fluffy mesh layer and a more solid pink silky layer for coverage. She came walking out of the pick up line with the pink part on the outside and the puffy tutu part completely covered up. She looked like a silly weeble wobble. Taking care of clothing adjustments independently, just another back-to-school change she is getting used to.

Another thing we are trying to get used to again ~ sometimes eating dinner on the run. You won't catch the girls' complaining, they love pizza :-)

Emma had her first {and only} meet of the fall on Sunday. She was so happy that her friend Halle could come see her compete. Everytime I watch them together I wish we could do it more often! Then, when my parents arrived at the meet and Chloe was with them, Emma just lit up. Chloe's parents and my parents are good friends and Emma just loves Chloe. There was likely many other things Chloe could have chosen to do on a Sunday afternoon other than drive the over four hours round trip to see Emma's meet, and Emma was beyond excited she was there!! All little girls should be as blessed as Emma to have a sweet teenager to look up to and one who takes an interest in them and is as amazing to them as Chloe is with all our girls.

The meet itself was good, I thought all of Emma's routines were nice, she did however, score a little lower than what is usual for her. One of my occassional frustrations with the sport {and something I need to develop a thicker skin about and just get over} is that certain teams seem to do more favorably in some competitions and with the great subjectivity of the scoring process it doesn't always feel like everyone is on a level playing field. The meet did serve it's purpose though, Emma got her "move up" score and can now celebrate that compulsory gymnastics routines are in her rear view mirror. Hooray for Optionals, which is a different level of competition where the gymnasts get to work and perform more to their specific strengths rather than perform the same exact routine as everyone else.

It's Fun to Turn 6 in Holiday World!!

We celebrated Rebekah's birthday at Holiday World, in Santa Claus, Indiana. One of the cutest theme parks ever! Get ready for enough pictures to feel like you've been there yourself :-)

If her smile on the first ride of the morning was any indication of how the day was going to go, we were in store for a beautiful birthday. Holiday World is such a great park for young families. Not only is their a great mix of rides at different thrill levels, but also free sunscreen and free pepsi products all day long. Just can't beat a deal like free!

The cutest nursery rhyme train ride.





I love wooden roller coasters! Something about the rattling noise and the shaking of the tracks as you fly over them wondering if it might crumble underneath the weight of the cars, it's exhilarating. The girls couldn't decide which of the three big wooden coasters they liked the best. Bert the Conquerer rode The Voyage, and it was pretty scary and FAST...my earrings felt like they were going to rip right out of my ears. The other wooden coasters here are The Raven and The Legend ~ all were pretty cool, way beyond what these pictures can show on their own! Click the collage to see the individaul pics better.

We tried to get Rebekah to go on the coasters that she was tall enough for. She wasn't loving it, poor thing. I've kept hoping that if she'll just get on the more thrilling rides, (and really, the front car of this one was a puppy dog face, how bad could it be, right?) she'll finally find one that she likes ~ but I'm starting to think she's not much of roller coaster {or anything fast or spinny} kind of girl.

Too bad her big sisters didn't like it much either.

Don't worry about her too much, this was like a minute and a half after the puppy dog experience.

She also could have done without this log ride, but they are way too fun to not even give it a try.

Some of her most favorite rides:








Not this one though, it was definitely more of a big sisters only ride:


A couple of the older girls' favorite rides with Dad.

Not pictured here beyond this photo is almost half of the park, Splashin' Safari the waterpark. Like the roller coaster collage above, this photo also does not do justice to the cool waterpark nestled in all those trees back there. There was just no way for me to safely bring the camera in there, and still be able to play with the kids. Now that we are home, I am disappointed that I don't have any photos, but the afternoon spent completely focussed on playing with the girls in the wave pool, going on all the slides, lounging in the lazy river and riding the Wildebeast {the best water coaster, ever!} was more than worth it!!

Holiday World has such a friendly feeling to it. We loved it. It was such a nice day, and the sweetest birthday for Rebekah. We had a little cake in the hotel after a long day in the park, the perfect ending to a much anticipated birthday. Rebekah will tell you it was the best day of the whole vacation, and I'm sure that has everything to do with the fact that it was her birthday, but it sure was special!

How different things were six years ago. There are times when I have a hard time believing that Rebekah, our baby, could possibly be six. Then there are other times, like when I look back at photos like these that it is almost hard to remember what our family was like before she was born :-)