Catching Up!

Yes, yes, I know I've been out of touch! I have many photos to share, so sit back and enjoy highlights from the last five months!

Hannah and her China girlfriends at the Hannah Montana concert movie this winter.

We gave the girls cute tee shirts for Valentines Day (Hannah Montana, Curious George and Tinkerbell).

Rachel's favorite thing to do on a rainy day (or any day, for that matter). Around the holidays, her reading skills really took off, and she reads all the time now! But we knew from the time Ray-Ray was a toddler that she'd be a reader. Instead of filling her crib with stuffed animals like other children, she'd fill it with books to look at before falling asleep. Sometimes there would be no room for Rachel! And she would often follow us around with a stack of books, pleading with us, "Peese wead! Peese wead!"

The girls and I got pretty crafty this winter. Rachel and Abbie made all their Valentines for their classmates - sponge painted hearts sprinkled with glitter. We had quite an assembly line going to make nearly 40 cards!

Hannah used hearts cut from card stock to turn Tootsie Pops into flowers for her classmates.

I made these treats for Rachel's group's Gotcha Day party. They're rice krispie treats cut into heart shapes with a cookie cutter. I used icing in a tube to write the Chinese character for "love" on each one (no small feat!).

We celebrated three Gotcha Days over the last six months...


First, three years with Abbie in November...

Then, five years with Rachel in February.

Reenacting the red couch photo with Rachel's group.

Then... (that's Rachel, second from left) ...and now!

The cake we served at Rachel's group's party!

Hannah's red couch photo eight years ago... and this April!

And our annual family photo!

Uploading all these photos is taking forever! I'll post more later this weekend! Stay tuned...

A Letter From Hannah's Art Teacher

Dear Parents,
With your permission, I would like to submit your child's artwork into the Illinois Art Education Association Student Art Show. Each year the IAEA collects forty pieces of outstanding student artwork for display at the fall conference, and at locations throughout the state...

The forty artworks selected are professionally matted and framed for exhibiting at schools, libraries, board offices, conferences, and private businesses. A reception honoring the winners, their teachers, parents, and administrators will be held at the IAEA State Coference in Galena, IL in October...

We're so proud of our budding artist!

Birthday Portraits!

Every year, we take the girls to have their birthday portraits taken. This year, they all had a great time posing for the camera. It was difficult to choose just a couple of favorites - I think our family is going to keep JC Penney's Portrait Studio in North Aurora in business!

So here they are - Hannah, age 9; Rachel, age 6; Abigail, age 4, and the Sister Love 2008 portraits!