All girls, all the time

An assortment of pictures over the past week - all show you what life is like for Clint, surrounded by girls.   What a lucky man!

Marvelous Me

Mallory was selected to be "Marvelous Me" this week at school.  Every kid gets a turn to be Marvelous - which means they bring home a little suitcase, fill it with up to 5 things that are special to them, and then bring it to school to show their class.  Mallory was super excited about it and spent much of the weekend deciding what to put in the suitcase.

She wanted to chose her outfit for her big day - and you can see below what she feels is her best outfit.  :)

Hadley was just as excited as Mallory for her day at school because she was going on a field trip to a farm.  They go on a field trip every month and this one was an hour away! 

The insides of the suitcase:

- "Belly Button" bathing suit (2 piece suit) because she loves to swim

- Her 5 year old picture book that we made for her 5th birthday

- The picture book from our trip to Michigan last summer

- A picture of an ice cream stand she drew

- Trophy from gymnastics

Sweet Shelby

Shelby at almost 4 weeks - and yes, she is as sweet in person as she is in these pictures! 

Visitors

Todd, April and Grayson dropped by for a visit last weekend.  They brought Shelby the coolest space-age swing/bouncy seat contraption.  Shelby has bonded with the chair and lounges in it most evenings. 

April and Grayson - can't believe he is 9 months old!

I mentioned that Mallory's class is studying how things grow.  The kids were asked to bring in some of their baby items to school so they can talk about how much they have grown and changed.  I let Mallory pick 3 pictures from her baby album to take to school.  She passed right over pictures of me and Clint holding her and chose one of her and Uncle Todd!  So we decided we better snap a pic of Shelby and Todd in case she too decides he is cooler than mom and dad!

 Shelby snoozed through the visit but that was probably for the best.  There was plenty of action coming from Mallory, Hadley and Grayson!

Carnival

These pictures are all out of order...so just enjoy the cute girls and ignore the rest!

Every year Mallory's school hosts an annual Carnival.  This was our first year to attend and I was very impressed!  We had great weather and the kids had lots of fun doing typical carnival type stuff and goofing around with their friends.  Shelby was there too but we didn't manage to get any picture proof.

Mallory doing her self conscious hair twirl during the cake walk - this was the same move she displayed as she walked down the aisle as a flower girl this summer. 

Both girls stood in a VERY long line to do the bungee trampoline jump.  I thought it was likely one or both would chicken out.  I was dead wrong!

The newest big sister

Hadley is relishing her status as a big sister.  She asks where Shelby is and what Shelby is doing all the time.  Every time Hadley hugs Shelby, she says "I am protecting you, Shelby".  Very sweet.

Adopt-a-Shelby

Mallory's kindergarten class is studying how things grow - and we happened to have the perfect little girl to help them learn about how humans grow and change.  So we agreed to let her class "adopt" Shelby for the year.  I took Shelby into the class last week for the kids to get a good look at a 2 week old.  I will take her back periodically so they can see how she changes. 

Shelby sported her first dress, complete with tights with ruffles on the bottom for her debut at the school.

I had to be quick to snap a couple of shots of the kiddos...can you imagine wrangling this crowd for 7 hrs a day??

 Look to the far left to see Shelby and Mallory's teacher.  We kept Shelby away from the kids as best we could - so hopefully she wasn't exposed to too many germs!



Halloween

Well fortunately or unfortunately, I totally blew it for some posed shots of the girls for Halloween.  We opened the door to head over to Mallory's friend's house and ran into a pack of kindergartners along the way.  I immediately realized I lost my chance for any decent pictures.  The kids were off and running and there was no stopping them.  I think they ended up as a pack of 8 kindergarteners + a handful of younger siblings.

Here you can see the backs of Super Hadley and Mallory aka the Poodle Fairy. 

Shelby slept through the whole thing but at least she looked the part in her zebra costume.

Clint donned the Scooby suit - which for now wins him big points w/ the girls.  I wonder how much longer that will last before they decide it is a liability and not an asset??

Check out Mallory's poodle skirt.  It was mine when I was a kid.  So cute!

Party of Five

Our first weekend home without any help from Nana looked a lot like this...pjs in the middle of the day and a messy play room!  But it was so nice to have everyone together, without much that had to be done other than keeping 3 kids happy!

Shelby has found her thumb many times already - only time will tell if we have another true thumb sucker on our hands.

This was Hadley's original costume for Halloween.  You will see that this wasn't the final selection...

Mallory took it upon herself to inventory our candy.  I think she got tired of me complaining that Clint had not bought enough or the right kind of candy.  Once again, he was right and I was wrong and we ended up with way too much left over.

 Mallory making notes about the inventory.

Hadley - designing her replacement costume - it all began with the helmet.

Inventory complete! Is it time to trick or treat yet?

A few more hospital pictures

When I downloaded pictures last night, I discovered a few more from the hospital that didn't make the first posting.  The big girls came back for a visit on our third day in the hospital.  We had pizza together and they received some Barbies from Shelby. 

Shelby already looks very different (and MUCH bigger) than in these pictures.  She wore those striped pants again this weekend and they fit much better now.