Caroline is 7 years old today!!!

I have been trying to post pictures from Caroline's birthday since her birthday (Nov 23). For some reason blogspot was having a hard time uploading my pics and kept distorting them. So finally I have pics from Caroline's birthday!

This year Caroline said she wanted a zebra princess cake for her birthday. When she turned 5 she had a zebra cake at 6 she had a princess castle cake so for 7 it is a zebra princess cake! As we continue in the Jennings tradition of waking up the birthday girl first thing in the morning and giving gifts here are our morning pics.
Everyone is giving their best morning smile:

Getting Caught Up

It has been crazy around here lately after our quick moving out of one house and into another. We are slowly settling in our new home but still have some wants in order to make it our home (like a couch). The kids LOVE the new home. Caroline loves that it has stairs and Eli and Elizabeth love the porch they can go play on while mommy cooks.


Below is a sweet picture of Elizabeth under the kitchen bar. Some of you have asked for pics of the house but it is kinda empty right now. As we hang pictures and get rugs I will have more pics. Eli loves reading. He does not necessarily want me to read to him, but he will sit for awhile reading a book.

This is really a living room shot for those who have not seen the house. But thought I would add the kids to the pic to make it more realistic.

Elizabeth loves to get in the bench with all the toys but then fusses if Eli takes a toy... silly kids.

Sisterly LOVE!!

I DID IT!!!! All three kids looking AND smiling at the camera!!!

He did it!!!! That's right Eli is finally walking!!!!

Hazards and Helpers

There are hazards that occur when you run everywhere you go. Elizabeth discovered this fact when she was running in the living room and somehow hit the edge of our chair, knocked herself down in front of the tv stand and now sporting a swollen red rimmed eye! It has not really slowed her down any.... she still runs almost everywhere! This morning Greg was taking apart our coffee table and he had lots of little helpers. They were under the table helping and taking tools out of his drill box. Love it when we can tackle a problem together as a family.

Gotcha Day!

Saturday was a busy day in the Jennings household. We had our big community garage sale that we participated in this time. Lots of prep not much sales. I think there were less people than the one in April, or maybe it was just our street. But we also served in our community kitchen that evening and in the middle somewhere we celebrated Gotcha Day. Gotcha Day is the day Eli and Elizabeth were officially ours. It was a year ago on Saturday. I planned to make a cake but with everything else going on that did not happen... so we celebrated with donuts!! Be looking for the cake next year.

WOW!

I can not believe it has been almost a month since I have blogged. It has been crazy here and I have sadly not taken many pics either.... Things will only be crazier for a while but will blog when I can. Here are some sweet pics of my sweet kids.

My mom has a cast on her lower leg and is not allowed to put any weight on it... she is not the most graceful one and thought crutches would not be a great idea for her so she found this little scooter thing that she puts her knee on and scoots around the house. Well the kids LOVE to play on it... little did she know that it would be a great entertainment for my three and that they would fight over whose turn it was....

Does life get better than this? Three kids, three smiles, three eyes looking at the camera!!! Monday was a holiday for Caroline so we all enjoyed having a "pajama" day!

Lizzy loves shoes... her shoes, my shoes, Caroline's shoes... she does not care. She will go pick out some shoes from her closet and bring them to you to put on her feet if she can't do it herself. Well she has now found Caroline's dress up shoes and those are her favorites to wear around the house. She does well with just one shoe on but has a harder time walking with two shoes on.

Mini Dance Camp

Caroline went to the "Stowaway's mini dance camp" this morning. The Stowaways are Granbury High School's drill team. She said she had a great time, but was also glad her friend Katie was there.



If you watch closely at the end of this song Caroline gets run over by her friend and falls down. I think they were supposed to all run off the floor but Caroline's friend ran before Caroline did. Her friend was so sweet to pick her up and help her walk to the side of the gym though!




Elizabeth was watching her big sister very intently. She would also start dancing when they played music. So sweet!

Eli was just happy to be there. He talked but no dancing for him.

Lost, Cold, and Dirt!

Update: Caroline was so excited she got to write her name on the board today at school.... because she lost her tooth. It is a priviledge to write your name on the board (didn't used to be when I was little). Today was a big day for Caroline!!! She was line leader at school today (she has talked about being line leader since the first day of school) and she lost her 3rd tooth when she got home!! This week has been wonderful!!!! We have had colder mornings. The other morning it was 55 degrees outside so we went in search of some jackets... unfortunately Greg only found Elizabeth's!

Last Saturday we went to a "dirt" birthday party! Our friend Mr. Cooper turned 3!! We were so excited to get to celebrate with him and his "dirty" cupcakes...

and dirt pit...

dirty playground...

and finally the wet dirt (also known as mud). Elizabeth thought it would be fun to eat the mud, since she liked the dirt so well earlier in the morning.

Caroline also enjoyed the mud. She made a mud bottle.I am not sure what else she did but she looks like she is wearing mud socks!

No dirt party is complete without ...

The hose down!!!

Sweetness & Laughs!

The kids had some fun times playing yesterday. I dont remember what happened or if Eli just needed some extra loving, but this is the sweetest picture of Caroline loving on Eli and him just relaxing against her. Elizabeth was trying to get on the lion while Caroline was loving on Eli. Eli posed for a sweet picture for me yesterday. Doesn't he have the sweetest smile?

This is Elizabeth's smile. She was not really wanting to give us her best smile, just a little one.
The girls still like to dance, even if they are not wearing their tutu's. All I have to do is put some music on and they both start twirling. It is the cutest thing!

Caroline found a fun activity for her brother and sister and they all loved it. There was lots of giggling and laughing and BIG smiles!

2nd Week of School

The first week of school went much better than last year. Last year Caroline received a warning on the third day of school and then again the fourth day has playground problems, ending the first week strong with another warning on the 5th day... this year.. only one warning the first week and that was not until the fourth day and it was because she was talking too much to her table-mates (she does not get that from me)! She has not had another warning thus far!! Another improvement we have made is that the first week of school we walked Caroline into the school to the cafeteria everyday! This year, just the first day since then she has been a car drop off. 1st grade is going to be better I think. The first day of school I asked Caroline how she liked her teacher and she said "good, but she is not respectful or forgiving". I asked what happened and she said her teacher just said "shh" all day. I said well what was going on that she kept saying shh... Caroline said she was reading a book and some boys were talking! We discussed how maybe those boys were not being respectful to their teacher.

I have had a complaint about not updating the blog for a bit so I took a picture of Caroline making her breakfast this morning. Such a big girl that she can make her own breakfast.
We are trying to transition Eli and Elizabeth to just one nap a day. They are not too sure they like this idea, but they are not taking great naps when I give them two naps/day. Lizzy will go to her room and pull her blanket out of her crib and then lay down with fingers in her mouth....

You think she is trying to tell me something?

1st Day of 1st Grade!

Ready to head out the door for 1st grade! Both girls have their matching tutu's and smiles. Ok the smile left, now the nerves begin as we wait in line to get in the door. Caroline decided she also wanted to bring her teacher a flower so she picked one out and brought it along with a gift.

Caroline's 1st grade teacher, Ms. Auldridge, receiving her flower and greeting Caroline.

Caroline is not in the same class as her friend Katie, but they do get to sit across from each other in the morning and at lunch! (the last two girls in the front group)

Caroline is at her seat getting everything ready for the day! Can't wait to find out how her day went.

Caroline we are so proud of the precious girl God gave to us. We know you will do well in 1st grade and can't wait to hear your funny stories from your day.

Museum

Caroline has been asking to go to her favorite museum since the beginning of summer... well we finally went on Friday (her last official day of summer before school starts). Caroline invited one of her friends to go with us and we took the long trek to Waco to play at the museum there. Eli had a great time crawling all over the place. He is holding the light pole up in this picture. Lizzy loved that hammer, if it was not in her hand it was in her mouth (how things change with the 3rd child)! She also loved driving this truck.

Ok I think it does not matter what the vehicle is as long as she can drive it. Caroline was sweet to
share the driver seat in this car.

Caroline still fits.... barely. The cars used to be her favorite thing, but I think it was getting uncomfortable because she played mainly in the house and garden area instead of driving the cars like she used to.

The school bus is always a fun vehicle to play in... Caroline even sat on top of it.

Eli and Elizabeth enjoyed the piano. Caroline did too but I was too slow to get a pic with all three kids at the same time!

Caroline and her friend Daniel enjoyed the "Indian" room where they could dress like Indians and also go inside the tepee.

Caroline and Lizzy of course loved the tea party room! This was a new room for us and Caroline enjoyed showing Lizzy how to play tea party.

Elizabeth liked this horse. She had a hard time figuring out how to ride him though.

Daniel's favorite room is the cowboy room. Caroline and Daniel practice their riding skills.