She lotht a toof!

Aaaack! Where does the time go? My first born just lost her first tooth!
Somehow it makes her look a couple years older, and in return makes me feel another ten years older.
I suspect any day now I will turn around and she will be nothing but elbows and knees and taller than me.

I don't know if its my 9.5 month pregnant hormones, but with every milestone, I feel small twinges in my heart as my babies just seem to be growing up and farther away from me.

...anyway, Bryn was mighty excited to have her lose toof fall out so easily while eating dinner. She eagerly put it under her pillow to await what the tooth fairy would bring her. And I spend the night going over why we can't see the tooth fairy, why she was so shy, what she may look like and what she does with all the teeth. (one of the benefits of having analytical children).

At about 4 am. Bryn came bounding into our bed to let us know that the toothfairy came and left her a dollar!!!!!!!
A whole dollar.
I have heard rumors of kids getting $10-$20 dollars, but we figured with the dollar value nowadays, and the fact that she thinks one dollar is a lot of money, that would suffice.

She gleefully added it to her piggy bank.

But this is the best part. The part where I truly see how she has grown up.
Later that day, we heard the ice cream truck go by and when she asked if she could get some ice cream, we told her that if she wanted to use her money to buy one that she could....but the kid declined by saying that she was saving her money for a Nintendo DS.

Saving.
My kid.
(or maybe not?)

I just smiled and told her that was a great choice.
If she had lost another tooth at that moment, you can rest assured that the proud tooth fairy would've brought her a Nintendo DS.

Ava's First Day of Preschool!

Funny thing about that.
I have been awaiting her first day of preschool since she was a very little girl.
And now that today came, instead of booting her out my car door during pick up, I found myself a little choked up watching her walk into the school with a teacher.

And the thing that I both love and can't stand about Ava is she is absolute.
When she woke this morning, she told me she was going to school and was very excited.

And she was.

Thankfully, or else this morning would have been a disaster.
But she cheerfully jumped out of my car (and another step away from her little life here at home with me) into a bigger world.

A world that she is definately ready for. (although I am not).

When I picked her up, I asked her- "Ava, did you have a great day?"
She replied- "No Mommy, I had a VERY great day!!"

Man, I love that kid.

Soaking up the last few weeks of summer...

although summer really goes on until about October here.

We (meaning Tom) decided it would be alot of fun to head to the beach to catch some of the forecasted large wave swells exepcted from Hurrican Bill.
So he conned talked the neighbors into coming with us and even managed to convince the neighbor to go on his suicide mission...I mean...body boarding.

We just went to the local beach about 20 minutes away (you know, in case we needed a hospital close by). We could tell just walking up to the beach that the waves were a good 10+ feet. The shore was dotted with quite a few suicidal surfers hoping to catch a good wave or two.

I choose to hang closer to the beach. Well, not really choose, but Ava still refuses to go anyewhere near anything that resembles an ocean. So we played in the sand. (which is really just teeny tiny shells that stick to everything!)




...and enjoyed some of the quaint local cottages.



...pretty much anything to keep my mind off of Tom and his suicide mission.



Yeah, that's Tom in there "riding the wave". He pretty much got smeared to the bottom of the ocean and has the bruises to prove it.



Although he didn't get it as bad as some of the other crazy-a$$ surfers.
The rip tide was insane!



The pull from the tide was so strong that I coule barely keep my balance while walking in ankle deep water.
And after loooong negociations with Ava, I finally convinced her to touch the water with her feet...and the poor thing was pulled into the water by rip tides.
I think I may have scarred her for life on that one.

While I love hanging at the beach, there seems to be so much work in going there. Luckily, Tom is a gentleman and always helps to carry a ladies things.


The only real bad part is that I am still finding sand in places there should not be sand.

Bryn's First Day of Kindergarten!!!

I can not even believe that I am typing that.
My first born.
My lovey.
My sweet little girl...has gone to kindergarten.

I have been dreading this day for a very long time.
I know most normal people look forward to having their kids back in school for some quieter time...I can relate to that, but I was not ready to have her gone all day.
To have someone else pick her up on a bus and drive her to school.
To have someone else make sure she arrived to class safely.

Today was the longest day of my life.

And while I know Bryn is big enough to handle school on her own...it terrifies me that her little world just got ALOT bigger, and without me in it.



Daddy went into work late, so he could help us walk B to her bus stop!


Bryn and Ava decided the bus was too slow, so they had to sit down.
(I will not be quite so early the next time- ooops).


Upon picking her up, I got the biggest hug of my life and it was clear that it had been a very long day for her...in fact I bet she'll be sleeping by dinner. I think she enjoyed herself, but was just a little overwhelmed.

I am so incredibly proud of my little kindergartener.
I am also sure that I will be very thankful for each and every day off school that we have together.

Sea World

We decided to make the most of Tom's week off and the girls' last week of summer...so we decided to head to Sea World (which is less than 2 hours away thankfully).

The weather was rainy and thundery and lighteningy all day, so we dashed from covered exhibit to dry place. And did our best to not get struck by that pesky Florida lightening.

We decided to start our day off with the Shamu show "Believe". I highly recommend it. I think it was the highlight of our day, and I was so glad we were able to enjoy it first.
We were at the back of the stadium, but it was so incredibly cool to watch these huge animals do their thing. I even got a little vaklempt.

Shamu!!


Doing some cool tricks. (or maybe getting ready for lunch...I couldn't tell) But that was one brave trainer!



....and wait for it....


SPLASH!
(and we were at the back- it was THAT big of a splash).


We also enjoyed a neat dolphin show.




Many things were closed due to the weather... Bryn was not so impressed with the rain. We weren't able to feed any sting rays or other animals in the water with the lightening.



But we managed to find a few things to do.


All in all a fun day. An expensive fun day.
If you go to SeaWorld...see the shows. I think its the shows that make it fun.
I do not recommend going to Sea World nearly 8 months pregnant though. I think I spent half the day finding bathrooms to use...but that's another story.

Happy Birthday Mr Bennett!

It's true- my loverly turns...well...another year older
(*cough 39 cough*).
All that really matters is that he has 5 years on me, so it always makes me younger.
Much younger.
Anyway, this post is dedicated to the man I love. The one I am wild about when he's not driving my crazy.
I am a lucky wife.
Our kids are very lucky kids.

Happiest Birthday Mr Bennett!



I love this picture because you see Bryn is blurry from her constant state of motion and just no matter how hard I try, I cannot take the country out of that boy!
(not many people can pull off the white tank and camo cap WHILE being sober!)

Summer Lovin' Part 2

I think I am slowly adapting to the Florida heat. The 100% humidity and degrees used to make me melt when I would go from the front door to my car.
Now, even 90 degrees, doesn't seem so bad...and I pull out the parka if it drops below 70.

I find this summer hasn't been too bad. But I am thinking it may have something to do with the fact that I need to be almost fully submersed in water or in air conditioning in order to prevent from melting into a big ol messy puddle.

So- to continue my "summer story", I have more pictures of what we've been up to.

1- We all enjoyed our July 4th weekend- complete with a parade and lots of fireworks.




Even Ava managed to not scream through the fireworks this year when her Daddy managed to find some "protective ear gear".



2- We also spent a fun afternoon at MOSH (Museum of Science and History- but MOSH sounds much more fun!).
The girls were dying to see the dinosaur exhibit. But when we got there, they were terrified to go anywhere near them. Of course I relished this, and did my best to get them to pose as close as possible to the dinosaurs.





3- And just for fun, some randomness.




Okay. I think that unofficially catches me up to date in the blogging world.
We are enjoying our final week of summer vacation, as Bryn will start kindergarten in one week! (ack!!) And Ava will be startign preschool (woohoo!!)
Off to enjoy our last few days...