You Might Want to ...

get a Facebook page if you want to keep up on pictures of the girls! With me working and keeping up with the daily duties of every day life, it's hard to get on here and update this thing! Pictures on the blog can only be uploaded one at a time whereas I can upload hundreds at one time on Facebook! So, if you just can't wait to see an update on us then go to www.facebook.com and create yourself a page! You can set it to private if you'd like so only those that you are friends with can see it ... then search for me and request for me to be your friend! If you're lucky, I'll accept your requests ;)!

Maybe one day there will be enough hours in a day that I can sit down and update the blog again ... but until then, I'm sorry, but it's just not going to happen!

Field Trip to the Pumkin Shed

Last Thursday, Rylee and her class took a field trip to the Pumkin Shed! The kids got to see the farmer feed their baby calf, then they got to feed the goats! The farmer shared with us the difference between hay and straw ... which, I must not have been paying much attention cause I don't know the difference! The kids then got to pick out their own pumpkin. The idea was that they would go out into the field and pick their own ... however, rain put a damper on that idea. Instead, the kids got to pick from a selection of pumpkins!

Maddie and Rylee at the Pumpkin Shed!
Rylee was super excited about their field trip!

Ms. Julie convincing Maddie it's alright to feed the goats ... Rylee had already fed them and LOVED it (see facial expression)!

Rylee and Maddie with the pumpkins they picked!

We had to put the pumpkins in bags because they were so wet!

Orange is an awesome color!

The class once we got back from the Pumpkin Shed! Ms. Julie is the teacher on the left and Miss Laura is on the right. If anyone is wondering, Gus is the little boy in the front row on the right with the red shirt under the blue!

(Picture quality, again, stinks. I had to use my phone because I had forgotten my camera - that was a surprise!)

Harvest Homecoming Parade

Rylee's dance performace team was part of the Harvest Homecoming Parade! I got to be part of parent patrol and ride along with the girls in the truck during the parade ... 4/5 year olds are quite entertaining!

(Pictures were taken on my iPhone, as I didn't have my camera on me ... I had given it to Marty. Tara has some great pictures of the girls that she is going to get me!)

Avery and Rylee before the parade!
The theme of the Harvest Homecoming festival was Mardi Gras - all the dancers wore these masks!
Rylee, Avery, and Maddie waiting for the parade to start!
They were suppose to perform at the festival, however, we got LOTS of rain last week and they actually closed the festival early the day we were suppose to perform ... BUMMER!

Quite the Character

I usually don't argue with the girls on what they wear ... unless it's too cold/hot for something or it's just too small/big. This is the reason that Macee is seen in things like this dress often ... it's the one thing she seems to always pick out of her closet! So, the blue dress is what Macee wanted to wear this particular day, but don't worry, it was a bit chilly so she added her new lined Crocs and a hat! If the outfit wasn't entertaining itself, when I asked if I could take a picture of her outfit, I got these poses!

Huber's Farm

We made our 2nd annual trip to Huber's farm for our pumpkin picking extravaganza! We, again, had their delicious buffet for lunch - apple salad, cole slaw, sweet rolls, green beans, corn, fried chicken, and ham ... topped off with cobbler for dessert! mmmMMMmmm!

Macee with her big ol' plate of food! YUMMY!
Ry about to dig into the deliciousness!

Rylee kept talking about swinging on this tree while we were eating ... little did I know, she actually meant "SWING!"

After lunch, we headed to the spot to get onto a tractor that took us out to the field to pick our perfect pumpkins for this year!

Rylee and Macee treking through the field ... in search for their perfect orange pumpkin!

Has Rylee found it?

Daddy is the designated carrier of the pumpkins once we find them!

I love this time of year and this little tradition we've started!

Laritz Family Update

Happy Fall Y'all!
We're in full swing now! Seems like we've always got something going! I wanted to post a little update for y'all. I always catch up with pictures, but never with the day to day stuff!
Marty is loving his new job. The drive to and from work isn't always the greatest, but I think he sees it's worth it because he likes his job that much! I am working at the YMCA in the Kids Adventure Room and also have been doing paid childcare at church one night a week! These enable me to be able to take the girls if I need to and I don't have to worry about waiting to go to work when Marty is home - the girls can just go with me! It's actually a perfect fit for a stay at home mom! Rylee is a busy bee with school and dance. We've been dancing a lot lately, in preparation for Harvest Homecoming festivities. Today, we were in a parade (pics. to be posted when I can get some from our friend, Tara) and Thursday, her dance team performs! We have decided to enroll Macee into KinderGym again and let her try the dance thing out - whichever one she likes best is what we'll go with! She kind of enjoys going to the Y with me when I work, but hopefully as she gets used to it, she like it even more!
The girls have already had trips to the doctor this season. Rylee had a double ear infection and Macee the onset of Strep Throat. Both have been on antibiotics and we're hoping that this will be it! Both are back to normal, full of enery and spunk! Marty and I are battling head colds. It's a bummer that we've already been sick and fall weather really did just set in here in Southern Indiana! I went this evening and bought a humidfier for one of the girls bedrooms, so now they both have one. I also stocked up on cold medicine, kleenx, and nasal spray! Tomorrow, I plan to spend some time spraying things down with Lysol. Seriously, bring it on germs! ha!
Looks like October is just going to fly by for us! We've got something every weekend it seems! We're looking forward to another trip to Michigan in a few weeks - Marty wants to take the girls to his dad's cabin further north in Michigan so they can see and play in all the leaves. I'm hoping to make a trip to Brazil also, hopefully on a weekend during the Covered Bridge Festival. Next Saturday, I'll be working the University of Louisville football game against Southern Mississippi with DanceWorks - it's Homecoming for UofL, I'm hoping we'll make some good money to put in our dance account! OH! and let's not forget Halloween ... this year the girls are dressing up as Sharpay and Gabriella from High School Musical! Surprising? Nah!
Happy October to you all! I will continue to be a bit better about updating the blog on a more regular basis!
XXXX

Happy October!

The girls dressed the part on the very first day of October! Decked out in their festive Halloween pants and orange hair bows (Macee's hair bow is a pumpkin)!

Happy October to all our friends and family! We hope you have a spooktacular month!

Day of Rest

In Early Childhood at church, they have been learning about Creation. Each week has been a different day and they talked about what God created on that day. Of course, the 7th day was the Lord's day of rest, so in celebration of that, we all wore our jammies to church last weekend!

I'm glad that God created rest, I LOVE REST!

The girls, in their ballerina jammies, ready to celebrate the day of rest!
Day of Rest bulletin board at church.

Lookie there, see anyone familiar?

A picture of a picture of the girls and Mommy at the Day of Rest celebration! Yep, even Mommy wore jammies!

Puppy Princess

Miss Ellee is getting quite big! At her last vet appointment, 2 weeks ago, she weighed 20lbs already! This picture was taken of her around that time and I can see how much she's changed in those couple of weeks!

She adapting and really fitting in with our family! There are days when she aggravates me to a phone call to Marty to tell him to get rid of her! We all love her though and know that things wouldn't be the same without her around!

The girls have come a complete circle with her! When we first got her, you would always find the girls on the back of the couch - as far away from her as they could get. Nowadays, Ellee runs and hides from them! I was getting ready the other morning and could hear the girls playing with Ellee, then all of the sudden El comes running into the bathroom and gets in her usual spot (behind the toilet), but this time she curled up as small as she could in the corner! Poor puppy!

Ballerina Jammies

Grammy and Mommy went shopping for the girls some fall and winter items at the outlet while we were in Michigan. We always find some great things, but these jammies are, by far, the greatest! Complete with little tutus, the girls love their new ballerina jammies! Yes, they do wear the tutus to bed!

Striking a pose!
Little dancing divas!

Rylee LOVES a cute tutu!

A Little Slice of Plastic?

When we go up to Michigan, it's known that we HAVE to have Jets Pizza! It's AWESOME! This time though, there was a little surprise in Marty's slice! He found a shard of plastic in his pizza!

It's alright, we'll still order it each time we're up there!

The piece of plastic in relevance to the pizza slice.

It's below the slice of pizza, triangular shaped!
There, you can see it better! Marty had thought one of his teeth had fallen out!

Paddle, Paddle, Fish!

Rylee loves to go out on the lake on Grandpa's paddle boat when were up there! This time, Macee went ... and I'm pretty sure this was her very first time!

Rylee and Macee in their life jackets, ready for a trip out on the lake!
Macee is contemplating it, she wasn't too sure about the life jacket, the boat, or the water!

Rylee with her tackle box ... totally decorated with Disney Princess stickers!

Headed out ... Macee found it safest to ride on Daddy's lap!

bye-bye!

making there way out ...

further out

Can you see them? They're out there!

Best Frienemies!

Rylee and her BFF, Maddie, are in the same class this year. Also in her class is Gus, the lil' boy that Rylee said was her boyfriend last year because his hair is like her daddy's. Well, Gus is now both Rylee AND Maddie's "boyfriend" and it's gotten intense between the two girls.

Yesterday, Maddie came over to play before dance. The girls were in their dress up stuff and we're pretending that Gus was there. They started to bicker a bit about who Gus was going to marry and why. Gus was going to marry Rylee because her dress was white and Gus likes white. Gus was going to to marry Maddie because her dress was pink and he likes pink. They didn't break out into a screaming fight, just were bickering - like friends or even married couples do (I know of a few married couples who bicker like this that I could use as prime examples!) and it wasn't anything I was concerned over too much. Yesterday, my concern was more over Rylee becoming such a control freak when she is with her friends and wanting everything to be the way she wants it to be and not being as willing to share her things with her friends. We chatted that out lastnight and I thought we were good...

Today, Steffani and I are waiting to pick up the girls and Ms. Julie keeps sending out other kids to their parents ahead of us. Jokingly, Steffani and I say something about us being in trouble. We weren't in trouble, but close enough! Ms. Julie pulled each of us into a room one at a time to inform us that today Rylee and Maddie were fighting over a boy - Gus. Today though, it had gotten physical and the girls were tugging and pulling at each other's shirts. Ms. Julie had to take the two aside and talk to them about it.

Needless to say, I'm at a loss at the moment! It's like I told Steff as we were walking out, I didn't think I would deal with this type of stuff until AT LEAST Middle School! I asked Rylee about it in the car on the way home and she said that her and Maddie both wanted to be behind Gus in line. My response was that one of them should have been infront of him and the other behind him, but of course, today he was the "Line Leader!"

So, what about Rylee and Maddie? Back to being the best of friends when we picked them up!

The joys of parenting!

THERE!

There are 11 new updates! All caught up ... for now!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Marty and the girls surprised me with a birthday cake this year for my birthday! I felt special! Rylee had said she wanted hearts and flowers on it, so there were hearts and flowers!

The cake that they had made for me! It was banana split and it was sooooo yummy!
Me with my cake!
(What's up with that chunk of hair right in the middle of my face ... in all these pictures?)

My favorite girls and me with my cake!

Blowing out the candle! We decided to go with just one - I think 26 on that small cake may have been a bit gawdy looking!

Cheers to another year!

WARNING: GRAPHIC MATERIAL ... Macee's Newest BooBoo

So, Labor Day. A day to relax and enjoy with family and friends. Our Labor Day WAS to be spent shopping at my favs, TJMaxx and Marshalls, and eating out for MY birthday! We got to TJMaxx ... we did a little bit of shopping, had a couple items picked out to purchase ... but while we were in the children's furniture section, Macee decided that she needed to climb up onto some children's chairs that were on a small platform. Marty called it, right before it happened he said, "Macee, you're going to fall and hurt yourself." Then it happened, as if it were cued by that of which he had just said! She and some of the chairs fell off the platform! She was crying - only wanted Mommy - I had picked her up and we were walking a bit when I pulled her away from me and saw the pool of blood inside her mouth. That's when I started freaking out! We, of course, rushed out of the store - leaving all our treasures behind - to get to the car so we could look at the damage without everyone and their momma looking at us! Yep, we headed to the ER! We were going to try Urgent Care, but when we called, they informed us that they would be able to stitch her up but that it wouldn't be pretty!

So, Labor Day. A day to relax and enjoy with family and friends. Our Labor Day was spent at Baptist Hospital East ER!

I have said that Macee would give us our first trip to the ER!

oooOOooo, I've got a boo boo!

We were able to get it to stop bleeding before we went to the hospital, but my Nurse Mommy instinct was that it wasn't going to heal without some help!
A close-up! It doesn't look that bad in the pictures, but trust me, it was bad! It was bad for it being my baby!

We still went out to eat afterwards! We went to Bucca's, meatballs and ice cream can make any boo boo better!

The next morning. Macee looks washed out, but that is the flash on the camera. You can see how big her poor lil' lip got - poor baby!

So, here is to prove how daredevilish Macee really is. Her and I went back to TJMaxx last Thursday and she was determined to climb on top of that platform of chairs ... AGAIN! It was a battle to NOT let her!

Pre-K First Days

Rylee has started Pre-K - her final year of preschool!

She loves it ... as we're all NOT suprised by!

Rylee on her first day of Pre-K!

This was a half day - she went with half the class for a half day!
Her first day of ALL DAY Pre-K!
Posing with her Hannah Montana lunch box! She loves taking her lunch and eating with all her friends!
(Look at this pose! She went from sweet and innocent in the first picture to diva in this one!)

Ellee sleeps ...

... behind the toilet!

When Ellee isn't sleeping in her kennel (which is at night and while we're gone during the day), she sleeps behind the toilet. I've decided she does this because it's cool behind there ... the coolness of the toilet and the floor.

(I'm looking at this picture, taken a couple weeks ago, she's getting so big!)

Birthday Tour Pt 4: Our Lil' Family

The final horrah for Rylee's 5th birthday was a small lil' celebration with our little family!

Rylee saw this skirt while we were at Macy's in Terre Haute, I was able to get it for her WITHOUT her knowing! She was so excited when she pulled it out of the bag!

I love expressions like this!
Sharpay and her Mustang!

Sharpay's prom dress! Something Rylee had been wanting!

A Sharpay doll with the matching dress!

Blowing out the candle for the final time as a 5 year old!

She's already started talking about when she turns 6 ... geez, can't we get past Christmas?