The Most Beautiful 3rd Graders Ever

So today was the day, the day our two beautiful girls went to 3rd grade. It was a perfect morning and always bitter sweet to see the girls head into the school all by themselves. (me taking a pic from my car window)





























Its tradition to take a few pics of them the morning of their first day of school. They are growing up and becoming more and more beautiful.



















This is Momma getting sentimental.. (Tator Tot wanted to be apart of all the hugging and kissing towards the end too.)














And this is Daddy getting silly with the girls. Of course!

An Olympian Post!

Ok, a cheesy title, but get ready this is a long post packed full of adventures, pictures, miracles, and triumphs!! Click to enlarge any photo for a better viewing.

BACK TO SCHOOL!
The girls find out who their teacher is later today- the anticipation is killing us! They have all their new clothes and backpacks organized and ready! (Thanks to both sets of grandparents for their annual school shopping support. ;) Yes, they cleaned and organized their own closet!

















We recently went on a Back To School Photo shoot with the talented Charity Stephens and her daughter. We had so much fun. We loaded up the car with outifts, makeup, jewelry and drove through the city looking for great places to shoot pictures.
I took these behind the scenes pics, and Charity of course took the amazing photos.











These two are pics from her blog- check out the Stephens Photography website and her photography blog.
























































Big D is soooo excited about school too, he wears his backpack all day long! He is in a season where he likes to wear all his Lightning McQueen clothing. In this pic, he's wearing his McQueen backpack, shirt, and undies. So cute.



















This boy needs to start back to school. Recently, I noticed all the lights in the house were on. Then I found this (and took a quick pic) Such a smart boy-using a spatula to turn on lights. We need to funnel his energies into to numbers, shapes, colors, and the alphabet!












ICE CREAM!
Ok, so we have the "Ice Cream Man" who drives in our neighbor with his loud music trying to sell over priced icecream to kids. Well, we gave in the other night, and let the kiddos finally have an ice cream. What a mess! (BTW- Im a bit skeptical of those ice cream trucks and what kind of people run them)















RURAL ADVENTURE!
These are a few pics we took from our adventure out to our Papa and Grannys. They live far out in the rural/country parts! Where the deer and other wildlife are frequent.

























This wasn't a posed picture- I found these boys like this in their "natural habitat"!! (Playing with their phones)

















Can you guess what our brave daddy is doing? Yes, he is killing the bees that attacked her poor boy on his arm, he had no idea what happened to him! Those things are cruel!!
















A MIRACLE!!
I have to brag on my hubby, he brought home flowers the other day. Boy was this momma blessed and bewildered! Arent they beautiful. Its been a couple of weeks and their still alive and well!


















TATOR TOT!
Cant post without him. He is doing and saying so much these days. His favorite thing to do these days is stand at our second computer and type on the keyboard. Thank goodness the computer locks!
He also really enjoys walking his mower and eating! This boy can EAT...and does often!!











TRIUMPH...
....in progress-there has been improvement with the poop training!! I will post later with the details...but we are praising the Lord for betterment in this department.

HANDS!
We finally got a new printer (thanks Nana) so now we can finally print. But not only print, we can scan, fax, and copy! We have been doing alot of copying of the hands. Here is a picture of the handprint photos I put up on the wall- I thought was so cute.
















BLAST FROM THE PAST!
We have taken our Wii to a new level. We now have it online. (This may be old news to all of you Wii-ers but we are excited!!) We we can surf the net, check the weather, or even email. But whats been real fun is we were able to download online some old video games. Like SUPER MARIO BROS. Just like the good ole days! Not only do the kiddos have to set a timer to limit their use on the Wii, Mommy needs to set the timer too!













TORTILLA PIZZAS!
One of our easiest, most favorite things to make is tortilla pizzas. Gather any type of marina sauce, tortillas, mozzerella cheese, and pepperonis. Spread the sauce on the tortilla, sprinkle cheese, then add pepperonis (we like to make smiley faces) Cook at 360 degrees until cheese has melted and the tortilla ends look cripsy. Wallah!!-- a yummy kid size pizza!













LAST DAYS
So these are our last days of summer. We are soaking up each day hanging out at home. (Playing in rain, enjoying playdoh, conquering Mario Bros, baking, taking walks, and doing lots of pretending!) Soon another season will begin!! We are so very excited!

POOP HELP PLEASE!!

Our sweet Dylan has perfected the potty training...but not the poopy training.

He absolutely WILL NOT poop in anything other than his pants!

HELP! We are throwing away lots of underwear. (Cause sometimes I just refuse to wash it all out!) And we're having waaay too many toilet battles where he will sit and cry and cry insisting he cant "make a poo-poo".

Any suggestions, ideas, or thoughts??

Imperfection..and TWO weeks!

Numerous times I've heard people (who frequent our blog) tell me how perfect our family is, and marvel at how we do it because we look so put together.

Well, let me be the first to tell the world- The6Stricklands arent perfect!!!

We love this blog, and we love to highlight the good things in our family. But believe me-there are some not-so-goods in our family too- we just choose not to highlight them. :)

Also, whats seen here on the blog, only represents a little picture of our world! We experience lots of highs and lows in the Strickland home- just like any other family.

This is a picture of my kitchen- this morning!! I have done two loads of dishes since then- it looks alot better now! I could have taken more pictures of other rooms, but I didnt dare! This one was the best to share!






I mention these things because I dont want mislead any of you that we are flawless. We are a normal family living in a normal house, with normal issues!

With that said...in TWO WEEKS the girls start back school, and shortly after that the boys start their preschool, I will go back to work (the same two days a week). It has almost ALL BEGUN!

We will be taking these next two weeks to focus on eachother, our home, organizing, and preparing our family for the school year. We are withholding from anything else that might inhibit us from these last weeks at home. (You might not see much action here on our blog until then)

Happy Summer! (or whats left of it!)

Another post about big D

This boy is ALL BOY!!!!

He loves adventures....trucks....dirt and sticks...and food.























He gets in alot of trouble for hiding from us so he can eat some yummy foods like syrup, honey, cookies, and candy.

Click on the pic...

...to read more about mom's adventure to big D.

July 28, 2005

It was in the late afternoon. I at 8 3/4 months preggo was mopping. I felt like I was having contractions. I thought- no way- so I ignored and went on. Eventually these contractions came on so hard, and consistently that I couldn't ignore them any longer.

Knowing we had a scheduled c-section, based off of my last two c-secs I knew my doctor wasn't going to like knowing I'm in labor. So after timing these contractions for about 30 minutes, I called the doctor. They immediately said come in.

So I called my neighbor, a new best friend-SAM(name changed for privacy). Earlier in our pregnancies, we found out we were neighbors, and due not to far from eachother. I cant remember, but her due date was a couple of weeks before mine. We started this "healthy pregnancy" kick- were we would exercise together at least 3 times a week. It was great having a friend going through the same stages of pregnancy.

This is us at eight months?




















SO I called SAM and asked her if she could take my kiddos while I drove up to the hospital. I would be meeting Joel there. As I dropped off my girls around the corner- she opened my door and insisted she'd take me. Her hubby was home by then- he kept all the kiddos.

Here we were- two big preggo ladies- walking into the Labor&Delivery ward. You should have seen the look on the nurses face. I think I recall her saying something like "The both of you are in labor?!?" SAM quickly pointed to me and I raised my hand.

Joel rushed to the hospital- and actually got pulled over! When do you ever get the chance to legally speed? The officer released Joel and followed him to the hospital. It was confirmed I was contracting, a big no-no for high risk pregnancies. So they took me in to have a C-Sec. Dylan was born around 8:00.

That same night, SAM was determined to not have to wait a couple more weeks. When my inlaws came to pick up the girls, my mother in law will tell you- she talked to SAM's belly and told him "Its okay- you can come out now too"

After they were gone, SAM decided to go for a walk, and do other things that might bring on labor. Well- It worked! She was admitted into the hospital late that night, and had Dylans best bud early that next morning.

Yes, these boys are only 12 hours apart.

As babies we had them dedicated at the same time.



























We had playdates together, and as toddlers it took a while for them to want to play together.























It always seemed like they had the same struggles, triumphs and stages alike. Even now, they both wont poop in the potty- but doing great at tee-teeing.














That is the story of how these two boys became best buds. It was only fitting to have a joint 3rd birthday party!

Back to DYLAN

Im sorry I wasnt able to post at all about Dylan last week to celebrate his birth. So this is the week!






























We had a splashin' party for him over the weekend. It was a joint party with his best bud. I will be posting this week why these boys are best buds.





























Too cute! This was the cake made by the mom of Dylan's best bud. Isnt it amazing? Lots of cake, family, friends, presents, and fun! I will post more to come!