A lot of times, I’ll say, “It’s important as a mom, to set yourself up for success!”  Such as, not going out when you know the littles should be napping, keeping them fed at all times, making sure everyone is well rested and comfortable, etc.  Well, another way to say it is, “It’s important as a mom, not to set yourself up for failure!”  Such as, NOT taking three little girls who all have a sugar-tooth to a candy store!  I wouldn’t be so silly to do that, but our favorite yogurt hang-out just put in tons of candy stations, uhhh!!!  So… this time, I set myself up for failure, or I was set-up for failure!!!  No really, they were good girls.  Well, the majority of them were, hahaha! 

Nothing better than eating this breakfast in bed, prepared by my sweetie pie Anna Kate, complete with camera and photographer to capture all of our fun weekend breakfast memories!

2013 Ainsley, Sydney, Colbey, Noelle, Anna Kate, and Rose

2010 Colbey, Noelle, Anna Kate, Sydney, and Ainsley

2011 Jameson & Rose – Age 8 months old

2013 Jameson & Rose – Age 2 1/2 years old

Noelle caught a lizard on the front porch last week and asked if we could keep it for a few days.  We read up on how to take care of a lizard and ended up having a pet lizard for the week named Karley (name and spelling by Noelle).

Noelle took her out to play every day.  I know this must seem strange to those of you who mostly see the fancy side of Noelle on the blog, but she’s a big time animal lover; ALL animals that is, you name it, she loves it!  She bragged on Karley all week, telling me how adorable she was, and comments like, isn’t she cute!?!  All I could do was put myself in Noelle’s sweet little head and say, oh yes, of course she is, although I am the opposite of an animal lover.  I love watching her with animals.  It’s so cool!

Noelle helped her little sisters enjoy Karlely too!  She taught them the rules of handling a lizard and how to keep it calm and not scared!

We found a very special spot in our yard Karley would be safe in the bushes from the lawn mower.  She lots her tail when Noelle caught her, but other than that, I hope she had fun hanging out with us for a few days!  Thank God we kept her alive!

*Since our positive experience with gentle Karley last week, Noelle’s gained courage and caught lots of lizards for she and her sisters to play with, but I will say, the green ones are mean!  They are the biters and even jumpers (powerful hind legs).  It’s fun having so many geckos around the yard for the girls to play with and learn from, but I will die if one gets loose, or even worse, lost in our house!  So far so good!

Although we missed Rose very much while she spent the weekend with Poppa and Rara again, we enjoyed eating out without a screaming baby, folding clothes and them actually staying folded throughout the entire folding process, leaving crafts we didn’t finish out over night, getting sundaes instead of just ice cream, and most of all, not cleaning up insane messes, including though not limited to, changing diapers.  All in all, we caught our breaths but then we were so excited to have our munchkin back to jump right in with all her smoochy kisses, funny expressions, and keeping us on our toes.  Without Rose, we’d be bored to tears… all of us!  And as I always say, “Everybody loves Rose!”  No one meets Rose without being crazy about her!  Her little spirit is contagious!

Glad you are home, baby bug!  Mommy missed you!  We all missed you SO much! 

This was the morning of Noelle’s first day of 2nd grade!  I posted this collage on Instagram.  I like the pink border (her favorite color) and the crop, so I wanted to have it on the bloggity blog for her to have here too!

Today was our next door neighbor, Juila’s, first day of kindergarten and first bus ride home!  The girls are so excited to get to see her every school day from now on!  Sweet sweet Anna Kate is anxiously awaiting her sister’s return home in the picture on the left.  I totally remember that feeling when my sister Michele was in school.  I would look through the glass of our front doors and just stare at the driveway, what seemed like forever.  When you’re ready to go to kinder, and everyone else is, it’s hard to understand why it’s not your turn yet.  And Anna Kate is SO smart.  Anna Kate would do great in kinder this year, but it’s just not quite time (thank you God; I need one more year with this love).  I’ve been trying to make it fun for her this first week.  I haven’t taken pictures, but we’ve been all over the place (Pump It Up, McDonald’s, dentist, Clothes Closet to volunteer, and treats in between).  Rose was at Rara’s at the beginning of the week, so once she got home, we were a little more stationary (for obvious reasons), lol!

Noelle looked so cute every day this week!  If I had had the energy, I would’ve taken a picture of her every day getting off the bus for you to see how creatively dressed she was!  Every day was something vastly different from the day before.  I don’t miss too many photo ops, lol!  I love her style so much! 

Today was Julia’s first bus ride home from kindergarten!  Noelle said she was so quiet and just looked around the entire time!  The next day, Noelle packed markers and a coloring book for Julia to have on the bus.  And then by Wednesday, Noelle had packed hair accessories and did Julia’s hair in pony tails on the way home.  They are going to have so much fun on that bus, and the littles can still nap at their routine time, although Anna Kate can’t wait to join in the fun and isn’t consistently napping any more (but is consistently having quiet time in her room during nap time)!

*The past several posts were written last week and the week before.  I’m playing catch-up, so the timing on some of these posts are off.  You know that doesn’t happen very often!  Lol!  That just means this summer has worn me out!  It was a great one though!

I miss these days already!  The Pond girls are so good at creating their own fun!  All three of them have fascinating minds and think up pretend fun all the time!  I just wish we were back to the slower days of summer, when they had time to act out their ideas, although the long weekend has been nice! 

I let Noelle do her own make-up because it is dress-up.  That is our rule.  You can wear make-up with dress-up.  And lip gloss whenever.  For Noelle, make-up is art.  It’s legit.  To take it away from her, would be taking pencil and paper away from a kid who wants to be an artist.  Fortunately, Mike and I are on the same page with this parenting decision, and we will always support what we feel is best for our kids.  On the other hand, Anna Kate has no interest.  Sometimes, she will let Noelle give her a make-over, but that is few and far between.  She also never wants to get her ears pierced (thank God) or even wear jewelry, which is fine with me.  I love that each girl is unique and truly one of kind.  They are proud to be just who they are, and that is a special special thing that we are all for around here!

Sweet girl.  Her style.

By the way, I bought the necklace Noelle is wearing for me to wear to match their Easter dresses next year.  Yes, I think that far ahead.  Helps with the sales.  So… if you see it at Easter, you can giggle to yourself and know you’ve seen it before on an unusually gorgeous groom, who put on eyeliner by herself for the first time today! 

I told Anna Kate to look out the window and see if she can find her long lost love.  She was really interested in seeing if he was out there, lol!

Clothing designed by Noelle.  She is wearing one of my cami shirts (she used a bobby pin to pin the straps together in the back), one of her cardis, and one of their black bows in the middle of her chest for her bow tie.  She pulled her hair up in a pony tail, since she was the groom this time.  Anna Kate is wearing one of her favorite summer dresses from Target, complete with fancy shoes and her Rapunzel crown.  The flowers came with the wedding Build-A-Bear outfit we bought for Noelle several years ago.  The girls have enjoyed all of their Build-A-Bear accessories so much through the years!  That’s probably our most versatile toy purchases.

Cheers to weddings, both pretend and real life dream come true ones!  Looking forward to one of those really special ones coming up in November!!! 

Rewind to the beginning of August: Poppa and Rara were taking Rose to Jacksonville, and the big girls wanted to stall them from leaving, so Noelle dressed up as Santa and Anna Kate dressed up as her elf.  They had lots of Christmas in August activities planned before they were going to let their grandparents and Rose leave!

Noelle taped a white shirt upside down to her chin with packaging tape for her beard! That’s one dedicated Santa right there!  Anna Kate said her neon yellow shoes represented the shinning star in the sky over Bethlehem.  Pretty clever!

Here’s Santa and her elf giving some love, and Santa Noelle sat on the couch, very attentive to Rose’s Christmas list.  Noelle would wink at me and that was my signal to be paying attention to whatever Rose requested.  It was so adorable!

Can’t tell you what a sweetheart Noelle is!  With each year, she has matured, and with that maturity has come the most empathetic and kind-hearted little girl I could ever hope for in a daughter.  We are so blessed to have such genuinely sweet girls!  (some more consistently sweet than others right now, but deep down, the point holds true, lol)

After Christmas wishes, we had a tea party, of course!  We have a million tea parties a day!  That’s just part of being a Pond girl!  And yes, ice cream is served with our tea every time!

And after an awesome sleigh ride around the house in Jax’s bed, the big sisters couldn’t hold them here any longer!  It was time for Poppa and Rara to head back to the country with our littlest diva for the weekend.