Expressions of an 8 Month Old

My friend Nicole, who is a photographer, let me use her back drop set up and props to take these pictures of Payson.  I am so grateful because I am in love with the shots I got.

Payson's expressions crack me up.



This is her excited smile.  She almost looks like she is snarling.



This is her "I am about to start crawling" look. (She is constantly doing planks.  She can get around, but I wouldn't say she is full on crawling yet.)



And this is her sweet little innocent look.



I can't get enough of the "stick my tongue" out smile.



And finally the "I melt the whole family's heart" look. (Her two bottom teeth have just popped through.  You can kind of see them in this picture.)

Celebration

To celebrate these two both being big school girls and also to celebrate probably one of our last warm days...



we let them choose a night out.  Which included a trip to a local restaurant for as Carolyn says " a nice cheesy pizza."



Then a trip to our favorite ice cream place.



Followed by a walk in the woods.  Payson so was trying to get my ice cream.



I love watching these two together.  And one of the benefits of school is that  (most of the time) they play so well together once Carolyn gets home.

Preschool

Where Carolyn's issues with starting Kindergarten took me by surprise, Sidney not wanting to start preschool did not.  Sidney has always been attached to me.

Anyway no happy pictures from Sidney when she learned she was headed to her first day of preschool.  I even let her wear her favorite dress. (Sidney is still very opinionated when it comes to her clothing.  If I wear jeans and a shirt she tells me I have on boy clothes.)   But still no smiles.



So sad... Although most mornings when I drop her off I leave her crying, her teachers say she has a ball.  And of course when I pick her up she is all smiles.  Maybe I should take an after picture instead of a before next time.

Kindergarten

Hard to believe that she has been in school for 5 weeks now.



And as the ever behind blogger I am just now posting her first day of school pictures.



It has been a crazy whirl wind of a five weeks.  Here she is in front of her school.



Trying to catch one of her walking to her classroom but she was moving too fast.



It has been an adjustment but we are starting to see a lot more of these in the morning.  We are very proud of our big Kindergartener and although we were a little worried at first, we are very happy to report there will be no Kindergartener drop out in the Donehue household.

One Step Closer

Right before Carolyn started school Brian managed to complete his ACSC (Air Command and Staff College) tests (7 total) in three weeks.  Although it was a lot to cram into 3 weeks, we had no idea how thankful we would be that he got that done before the start of the school year.

(Please ignore the scary photo bomber in the background.)



To celebrate him completing we took the whole family out to dinner in the Sittard square.  I love this square!  Carolyn playing photographer again.



Sidney being silly.



Here is the Donehue version of See No Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil. HA



Brian will be Major Donehue come October 1.  All the Ladies in his life are very proud of him!

Uncle Dwight David

I need to play catch up on blogging but one of the best things to happen in the last couple of weeks was Uncle DD coming to visit us.

Payson must be pretty special for her Uncle to fly across the ocean to get to meet her.



Look they must be related they are both giving that "Are you taking my picture?" smirk to me.



Payson of course charmed him.  And Brian and I loved having an extra set of hands in the house.



Sidney had changed the most since the last time Uncle D got to see her, she is such a spunky girly girl.  She decided to call him Uncle David.  Dwight David was just too long for her.  



Carolyn channeled her GG and had many moments about Uncle DD leaving us.  She would like for him, Aunt Seana, Covey and Austin to all to move to Germany and live with us.  And if that doesn't happen she is going to go live with them.



I love this picture!