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Holli Pool Photography

Photographer + Filmographer: Stuarts Draft, Augusta County, Staunton, Waynesboro, Harrisonburg VA

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September 2019 - Letters to Our Children

Mason, Rylan, and Elli,

So many pictures this month….I’ll let them mostly speak for themselves.

Sollenberger reunion —-

Kings Dominion take 2 with Nonni and Poppy; we got to stay the whole day this time, but thunder still closed down a lot of rides for a few hours. But we got to ride lots of things, including a monster truck ride!

…followed by a half week of vacation to Snowshoe, WV! I was probably the least prepared for that trip than any we’ve gone on; not realizing that once we left Churchville, we wouldn’t have any cell phone service for the entire trip; also not realizing that there are no local grocery stores to Snowshoe and anything we bought would be extremely overpriced at their cute little mountain-top store. It was really fun, but when we visit again, next time I’ll know how to better prepare!

Sherando Lake with Nonni

Massanutten Water Park family fun day!

first day of school for both boys! (Mason you were unhappy because you didn’t have good shoes to start the year; you got some new ones soon after that and were thrilled and very thankful!)

first day of school new tradition….lunch at Dap’s!

Second day of school — we were going to play at the park, but it was raining, so we went to the mall instead!

another trip to PA - Daddy helped Uncle Levi move some stuff into his new house. We went to an ice cream place and looked at a sunflower field with Grandma!

another trip to West Virginia for the Italian Heritage Festival

Mason - -

Rylan - -

Elli - -

A few quotes from this month:

“Are we in America?”
— Rylan, asked in a sleepy voice, waking up on the way home from Pennsylvania
“When it comes to obstacles, I’m PRETTY weird.”
— Mason
“Daddy, go try Sonia!!”
— Mason, talking about the sauna near the pool

Well, that’s it! I don’t have many words this month, except that I love you.

Love, Mommy

Sunday 09.22.19
Posted by Holli Pool
 

August 2019 - Letters to Our Children

Mason, Rylan, & Elli,

So I’m way late again this month, even though I got the pictures all together weeks ago; I got distracted apparently. Anyway, here we go. We were at home the whole month of July, which was nice. We did a lot of our traditional summer things this month, like the Stuarts Draft parade/carnival, the Waynesboro fireworks, free 7-11 slurpee day, and the monster truck show. (Well the monster trucks are not a tradition for any of us except the boys, but since Nonni and Poppy were gone most of the month, we went as a family to see the show this year.) We hosted life group at our house twice, which you really loved, Mason.

Mommy went through a process of making our play room all cozy upstairs. That ended up being super fun and satisfying for all of us; I’ve been sleeping up there on nights that Daddy works at night, and you boys love coming in in the middle of the night when I’m up there. (I’ll put some before/after pictures on here).

We had a full popcorn jar from good playing together, so we had a movie night where we watched Aladdin. Mason, you especially loved that, and for the next two weeks or so, all you wanted to do was listen to Aladdin music on Spotify or the burned cd with Disney music on it that I’d made in college. This was the original Aladdin, by the way, not the new one; we had to watch this one first, obviously.

We also had a fun afternoon of going to Coal Road and swimming/playing in the water like last year. We found crawdads and watched a dog swim while we were there too.

Mason, you were awesome in the pool this year. You weren’t scared at all after the first few days. You jumped off of the big diving board on your own over and over. You practiced diving some, and you did a great job. You were also pretty brave drinking different things like “Happy” and “Calm” drinks to get the bad bugs out of your belly, although some days you just refused. We had some good weeks with you in July, controlling your anger more and getting along with Rylan better for long stretches of time. I’m proud of you.

Ry, you were much more brave when we went to the dentist this time. I didn’t have to drag you down the hallway, so that was already a step in the right direction. You didn’t like the pool as much as Mason, but I think maybe next year you won’t be as scared. You’re getting bigger and acting more like a big boy in lots of ways.

Elli, you finished your Infant/Toddler at-home speech days this month, so it was sad to say goodbye to Mrs. Kari. You’re still using a lot of the signs she taught you close to a year ago. But you have a lot more words to say with your mouth now too. We had your pre-IEP meeting, and you’ll be starting speech at Stump in August. You like to do a lot of things by yourself (as you can see in some of the pictures). You are very loud and very cute. And you loved looking at Mommy’s phone while Nonni and Poppy were in Africa this month and saying, “Lilli????”

Here are some quotes from this month:

“That should be two bites”
”That’s your opinion. I’m Poppy. You’re Daddy.”
— Josh/Mason conversation about the difference in how Poppy and Daddy eat things
“Are you sure it’s not leprosy???”
— Rylan, very worried that he had leprosy on his arm
“Wow, how could they build Olympic diving boards so high?? They would probably have to go to Harbor Freight to get all the things they need!!”
— Mason
“I scared the kitty out of his whisks!!”
— Mason
“You can only do that with permission or supervision.”
”Super vision?? Only Superman has super vision!”
— Josh/Mason conversation in the car

I love you!!

Love, Mommy

Holli Pool Photography VirginiaFamilyPhotographer_1118.jpg
Thursday 08.22.19
Posted by Holli Pool
 

July 2019 - Letters to Our children

Mason, Rylan, and Elli

First, I don’t even know what to say about why it has taken me so ridiculously long to get this month’s letter done. I’ve had a hard time with routine this summer, so that has made it hard to get my regular things done. After finally getting our budget up to date (after months of being behind on that), I think I finally have the momentum to get this done too!

June went by so quickly. The first two weeks were spent with me recovering from my bike injury, so I couldn’t do a lot of regular things. Then we had two weeks of swimming lessons with lots of other appointments thrown in. And the last two weeks were also spent getting our patio and shop ready to host my class’s 15 year high school reunion!

This is out of order, since the reunion was at the end of the month, but since I already mentioned it — it went really well! Katherine and her family stayed with us on Friday and Saturday night, and they helped us get all ready for Saturday. We had 8 graduates and their families come (28 people total I think…or 29?). We had tables set up in the shop to eat, and everyone hung out and talked while the kids played. It was nice to see people who we hadn’t seen in years, and it was fun to watch all the kids play together.

Rebecca’s wedding was right at the beginning of June, so I was still on crutches at the wedding. All of you had fun after the initial issue of getting Rylan dressed. The whole way there, Ry, you cried very emotionally about your outfit, and you screamed that everyone would think you looked weird and would laugh at you. I think it was because you woke up at a weird time in your nap, but you definitely acted like we were torturing you by making you get dressed.

We spent one weekend in Pennsylvania and went to the Marion festival that Saturday. I got my stitches out in Harrisonburg on the way up there.

One weekend in the middle of the month, Daddy and I had an anniversary date all alone where we spent the night at a cool Inn near Wintergreen. Y’all got to stay with Nonni and Poppy that night, so you had a lot of fun too.

Ry, we celebrated your birthday at the drive-in and watched Toy Story 4 with Nonni, Poppy, Aunt Michele, Uncle Wesley, Jill, and most of our life group. On your actual birthday, Nonni went to swimming lessons with us, and then we went to Sweet Frog afterwards. You also got to pick out a new outfit at Ross with Nike shorts, a Nike shirt, new shoes, and Batman socks. You were a happy guy.

Mason, you got to go to a skating birthday party for the first time, which you thought was awesome. You also ran your first 5k and you did so great! You didn’t even decide to do it until the night before; we had just gotten back from Williamsburg. It’s like it wasn’t even hard for you to get up and run 3 miles for the first time! (Rylan ran across the finish line with you and Daddy and then told people that he ran the race too.)

One fun adventure that I had just with you, Mason, was going to do the sleep study in Charlottesville- just to make sure everything was normal with your breathing while sleeping. It was like a whole Mommy/Mason date together, and besides the electrodes covering you while we slept, it was almost like a little vacation. We got to watch a little baseball on the tv in the room, read some books, and then go to sleep. In the morning we found a tiny little restaurant to eat breakfast where you got a waffle and I got a chicken sandwich. (Oh and the results came back all clear for the sleep study!) Also, you did an amazing job while we were there; you let her cover you in electrodes and then do your “mummy wrap” while barely moving; plus you didn’t rip it off of you while sleeping! She said you were the best!

Elli you had about a thousand appointments this month between speech and ears, and Mason you got to meet with Mr. Zach several times. Mommy’s brain almost couldn’t handle so many appointments, but somehow we made it to all of them. Elli, you’re steadily adding to your vocabulary, and we like to hear you say new things. You still speak possessively about the people you love, “my Daddy,” “my Bubby,” “my boys,” etc.

Ry, we had a date day to Big Lotts and then to Waffle House again (your new favorite date place- I think you want to go there again for our July date!) You paid the bill again, and we both got the same food as last time. It’s fun hanging out with you, buddy!

Our 100 Days of Summer Fun has turned into “However many days we can fit in….” because we lost count and I have done a terrible job of documenting the fun days with pictures like I planned to. But some of the fun days we did this month were: roasting marshmallows under the broiler, pizza night across from the counselor’s office, snow cones at the pool, free slurpees after swimming lessons, Sweet Dreams day, rope climbing at night, family baseball day, and more things that I can’t think of right now.

Here are some quotes from the month!


“Hiii seahorse!!”
— Elli, every time she saw a real horse (which I've now realized she was trying to say "horsey" but was putting the "see" part on the wrong side of "horse")
“Daddy, UFO stands for Unidentical Flying Object!”
— Mason
“Mommy’s house??”
— Elli, wondering if we were going home
“I think Uncle Ian and Aunt Heidi celebrate Friday because their last name is Fry.”
— Mason
“Daddy, bleaches are really bad!”
— Mason, talking about leeches
“You should have just asked for kitty stitches. ”
— Ry when he saw the inside stitches coming out of my leg, thinking about how I told him the kitties had stitches that dissolved when they were spayed/neutered
“Basically Elli’s friends are babies. Why would a person’s friends be dolls?”
— Rylan, talking to Nonni and Poppy

Love you, cute kids,

Mommy

Tuesday 07.23.19
Posted by Holli Pool
 
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