Moving Up

Pre-Kindergarten Graduation:

Seriously... they wore cap and gowns. It was precious. 

The ceremony was held at our church/preschool. 

Caitlyn spoke two lines:

'I am believable, Trust Me' and We are God's Children'.

She sang, I am Unique and the Elephant Song and she signed the alphabet.

The evening was wonderful.  Watching her stand on the stage and sing and speak and accept her graduation binder with her little certificate filled my heart with pride. 

Ashley and I enjoyed watching her video from preschool from last year and followed it up with the video from this year.... The videos the teachers make are PRICELESS.

Now it's summer vacation (although the weather doesn't know it yet) and she's off to full day kindergarten in the fall.

♥

Thank you Miss Judi and Miss Jenna for a wonderful year.

Ashton Turns 3!

Ashton is totally into Spiderman so of course that was his birthday theme for his 3rd birthday. 

Ashton's favorite things right now:

spiderman

monster trucks

waffles

his own truck

the color blue

cars the movie

paint and markers

Caitlyn just asked him what he wants to be when he grows up and he says... spiderman.

mickey

balloons

airplanes

buzz lightyear

his striped pants

sleeping with Caitlyn and sneaking into his parents room

riding his bike

chicken nuggets with BBQ

dinosaurs

Ashton's least favorite things:

washing his hair

monsters

the grinch

bad guys

Ashton is still sweet as can be but recently has become a little more... BOY. He jumps and runs and wrestles and gives huge hugs that are more like tackles.  I think somedays he really thinks he IS spiderman and he and Caitlyn will play and he will rescue her over and over.  oh... and he started growling... like a low loud and kinda scary growl. 

I love him and cannot believe my little guy is three.

Has it really been 2 months?!?

Alright... so a lot has happened since February 13th.  For instance... Caitlyn wrapped up her basketball season, we went roller skating as a family for the first time, we've had some wedding get togethers, we celebrated the season of lent with our church, we've ventured into new parts of our neighborhood (Caitlyn led the way for a few of our eveing walks), we celebrated Easter with our family, and we are getting ready to celebrate a certain little mister tomorrow with a spiderman themed partay. Stay tuned for a recap with photos.

Easter

 Our family at Easter service at our church.

 My kids being super cute with eachother while dying eggs. 

We had an Easter egg hunt at our house and the kids had a blast.

At the church Easter egg hunt, Caitlyn found the last Golden Egg

and she got these super cool sunglasses.

♥

February is the Month of....

LOVE!

We planted love beans last week.

They're about to sprout.

The kids are super excited. 

Caitlyn and Ashley just before the Daddy'Daughter Valentines Dance at our church. 

The picture was taken seriously seconds before they got in the car...

my closest friends know the whole story behind this night.

I almost forgot to post about our snow and ice storm of 2012.  I have a few pics of our family all bundled up sitting by the fire... but they were taken after we had been without power for over 24 hours... so I thought a picture of our barberry bush would be more apealing to the eye.

Naptime

Picture A:

Picture B:

Picture A = Mom's idea of a good nap time...

Picture B =The kids idea of a great naptime.

SNOW

Snow has finally hit the PNW.  We celebrated MLK day by playing for hours in it!

We made snow angels.

Our first ever miniature snowman!

And we caught tons of humongous snowflakes on our tongues.

2012

A quick family photo.

My handsome guys.

Four generations of beautiful ladies!

***

New Years was spent once again at my parent's house at a cocktail party hosted by Jon and Mandy.  They really know how to throw a party.  My favorite parts of the night were...

cuddling with my children while they fell asleep,

the homemade ball drop and countdown,

dance party 2012,

and waking up the next day with all my family.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas.

My children made it on the nice list again this year!

Sweater Party 2011

I almost forget to post about the sweater party.

Thought I'd slip in a collage of my faves along with a list of some of the memories.

shots

shots

shots

shots

shots

shots

EVERYBODY!

chicken feet

Riggs Rigging the awards

Rissa... the jello bartender

GG

shotskis

By the sound of this list...

it was a wild party.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Ok... 

Let's start with Thanksgiving... 

I'd say that was the beginning of the 

Most Wonderful Time of the Year!!!

Like usual... we did the Turkey Trot (no pictures though)

then I joined Mandy (Jon's Fiance... blog post and pics coming soon), 

and watched the annual Mud Bowl... 

it was rainy and cold but our hot totties kept us warm.

 Then we were off to Aunt Cindy's for an early dinner...

Where Caitlyn took over a hundred pictures on self timer... 

they turned out like this

...and this...

...and even this...

Then we went to the Riggs for a movie and dessert. 

 Thanksgiving... done!

♥♥♥

December has been filled with something on our calendar every single day and night.

Including things like...

 Hunting for our tree in the rain and wind storm of 2011

 Waiting afterwards for Santa who probably got caught in the storm... so he never made it.

 Decorating both trees...The kids helped a lot this year... 

 So a lot of my ornaments turned out like this...

 The kids were in 2 Christmas Pageants this year... one for preschool and one for church.

 Ashton was a donkey for both and Caitlyn was an Angel for one and Mary for the other.

Both had speaking parts and she memorized and recited her lines PERFECTLY

And let's not forget our annual Holiday Sweater Partay!

 More self timer shots... courtesy of Caitlyn

 This year we tried something new... shotskies. Boom!

 Collage 

Group Photo

The morning after... self timer photo... by Caitlyn.

 We baked 144 cut out cookies using my Grandmas recipe...

 Is that Betty Crocker... Martha Stewart... or Erin Riggs?!?

Then... while decorating all those cookies... 

SANTA was peaking in our windows

 ... checking to see if the kiddos were being naughty or nice.

 More self timer pics of the kids with their favorite friends. 

 silly

goofy

 fun

The best!

♥♥♥

There's still more to go...

Including...

 Caitlyn as Mary

 Caitlyn as a Ballerina Slug

 She was so perfect... I cried.

 I think this brings us to present day where Ash's sister got some deal on Living Social for a photo shoot...

A few other things this holiday season has involved, but not captured on camera are:

Basketball practices

Open House at our Pastor's house

work Christmas parties

church Christmas pasrties

My Holidork Sweater Collection at work.

♥♥♥

And coming up in this last week before Jesus' big celebration is:

Zoolights

Caroling with the kids group at church

Bunco with my ladies group

Bunco with Ashley's family (one of my favorite Holiday Traditions)

and the making of a ton of  Christmas Eve and Christmas Memories!!!

My life may be busy, but I sure L♥VE it!