'Strike a Pose' Voge's

Monday, September 10, 2012

Bentley: 10 Months Old

At 10 months old, Bentley is:

24 pounds, puting him at 90th percentile in weight and 92nd percentile for height... yikes!
Loves eating table foods: sliced bananas, cheerios, scrambled eggs, cooked carrots and sometimes avocado. He also loves Grandma's veggie soup and is getting so good at feeding himself with his fingers.
CRAWLING!! Nothing is off limits for this little guy either, including our floor lamps.
babbling a ton
pointing to things he wants
claps when we say, "Yay!"
says "more" in sign language
has five teeth

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Hallie's in first grade this year which means all day! She was so excited to pick out her lunch box (Hello Kitty of course), and loves packing her lunch every day. The first few days of school were kind of crazy because while doing construction at her elementary school, they ran into some bumps along the way and didn't finish construction on time for the first day (or month) of school so they had to split some of the grades up and ship them off to different churches and middle schools who had room for all the students! Luckily Hallie adjusted fine and the church that her grade goes to with second and third grade is set up just like school and Hallie is loving her class.

She insisted on riding the bus with our neighbor, Grace, the first day of school and I insisted on taking her so I could show her where her class was since I figured she wouldn't remember from orientation. But I let her ride the bus and I drove the other two kids separately and met her at her school with her school supplies. I kind of spied on her to see if she really knew where her class was and sure enough! She got off the bus and knew right where to go... smart girl.

I love listening to Hallie's stories of what her and her little girlfriends talk about at lunch... hilarious!

Sydnee: Preschool~

Sydnee went to orientation last week and the parents were allowed to stay and kind of observe what they would be doing every day in preschool. I was a little nervous how Sydnee would handle being in preschool and figured she'd be shy until she felt more comfortable. But I should have known she'd be the complete opposite! She knew her teacher's name was Mrs. Sweetapple... yes it's her real name, perrrfect for a prek teacher don't you think? So we walked into the building a little late and Sydnee yells in the hall... "Mrs. Sweetapple, where are you!?" She made quite the entrance right there, and when we walked into the classroom, everyone was looking at her so she was a little embarrassed.

When the kids got to class they decorated their name tags. Mrs. Sweetapple helps Syd decorate her nametag...

Four of the ten kids in her class are in her Sunbeam class at church, including William and Grace from last year's co-op preschool we did! Syd and William show off their name tags.

After she hung her backpack up, they had story time on the carpet and they read "Hungry Hungry Caterpillar." Every thing the caterpillar ate, Syd would raise her hand and say, "I loooove oranges!" Or "I looove plums!" And she would proceed to tell her a personal story about plums or oranges. Good thing her teacher thought it was cute! I think she'll fit in just fine.

Our 10.5 Foot Sunflower!

For Mother's Day this year, Hallie's kindergarten class brought home a teeny tiny little sunflower plant for their Mom's. It was about an inch and a half tall when she brought it home. So she insisted on planting it in the ground and faithfully watered that thing EVERY SINGLE DAY, rain or shine and we watched it grow... and grow... and grow!

We planted it right outside our dining room window so we could see it every day while we ate, but it grew right past the window onto the second story! It finally blossomed last week and we measured it thinking it was the tallest sunflower in Ohio. Measuring at 10.5 feet tall, it's the second tallest sunflower in Ohio (at least from others that were recorded online) and we have to go to the upstairs bathroom window to see the flower since it's so tall. Hallie was so mad when it finally blossomed because it was so tall that we couldn't see it from the kitchen table like we had planned. Cam and I started laughing and said, "That's so cool that it's that tall!!" She just cried and said, "I just watered it too much!!" This is the best gift anyone has ever given me:)

1st Annual Milk Jug Raft Race

Yes, it sounds just like the title says... crazy. Our ward decided to host its first annual milk jug raft race at Lake Erie and a couple of my friends and I were thinking what a ridiculous thing to do and we wondered who would actually make a raft!? Well of course our hubby's chimed in victoriously declaring that they were all so excited to make a raft and race it! Go figure. So Cam got the girls on board with building this raft and me on board with collecting juice jugs since we don't really drink milk. Cam and the girls got to work and they built a FANTASTIC raft! They even added a flag that they decorated.

When we brought it to the BBQ, I was shocked at how many families built rafts! Man was I wrong about the turnout of this activity!

Cam and Hallie put their raft in the water to see if it floats...

...and it floats!!!

Cam and the girls came in second place in the race... way to go!! When the race was done, Bentley was clapping too.

Here's a couple of the other awesome rafts that some of the families made in the ward. The Green's raft...made out of milk jug's, pvc pipes and tupperware totes.

The Blake's raft made out of wood and milk jugs...Ari and Bri are testing it out.

The Dahneke's raft made out of wood and milk jugs too...

Ryan and Becca's Wedding Part 2: Michigan

After Ryan and Becca's honeymoon, they flew to Michigan for another reception so our family got to be there too since it was closer to home. The girls were so excited to meet Becca and wear their "flower girl" dresses as they called them. The kids and I drove up a couple days before the reception to spend time with G&G, Stacey, Ryan and Becca and Cam met us up there on the weekend.

Since we had a couple days before the reception, we took Becca to Michigan's famous Pizzapapolis which has THE best deep dish Chicago style pizza.

See that huge pizza? All of us ate one slice and Ryan had about 5 or 6... crazy! He was paying for it later though.

The girls' favorite game at G&G's is Pretty Pretty Princess so they were in heaven when Ryan and Becca played it with them. Ryan looks so purdy:)

Ryan sets up for his reception... I loved the hanging lanterns everywhere. They had these at their reception in Colorado Springs too and it was so pretty when they were lit up.

Becca feeds Bentley while Hallie supervises! (I asked Hallie to help, not supervise, sorry Becca!)

Hallie followed Becca everywhere and just looked up to her so much, it was so sweet.

Did you pay attention to the first picture of Ryan setting up the lanterns? Cause that's about all the hard work he did.. the rest of the time he rode around on HALLIE'S scooter which he stole from her and at one point she was chasing him around the building crying, "I want a turn, it's my scooter!!" It was pretty hilarious. Alright, he did do more work than just hanging lanterns.

See how pretty it is? Our hard work paid off!

This was the signing table at the entrance and the walkway up to the building had hanging lanterns with candles lit in them, very pretty...apparently we used those at our reception too!?

Here's my adorable kiddos! Grandma made those headpieces for them which they LOVED! They had ribbons dangling from them in the back. They felt like princesses.

The Drake/Voge clan...

Cam's Aunt Kathy is in my parent's stake at church so she and Sam came...with gifts for the kids too which they loved. Hallie especially loves seeing Aunt Kathy because she still sleeps with the baby blanket that Kathy gave her as a baby. Aunt Kathy will always have a special place in Hallie's heart because of that:)