Christmas Eve Night!

 We got all ready to go to Christmas Eve service and then we were going to wake Nolan up from nap and get him ready real quick and go.  We wanted to get there early because they had some fun activities going on at church.  Poor Nolan woke up with a 102 fever after being fine all morning.  We decided to give him some Tylenol and go anyway.  We were already all ready.  We still made church but were running a little later then we had planned.  He was a trooper but really did not feel very well.

We still managed to get a few pictures in front of the tree:

Cookie Making and Decorating!

We kept up with our yearly tradition of making our homemade sugar cookies for Santa and then decorating them on Christmas Eve morning.  I love our sugar cookie recipe.  They are the softest best sugar cookies ever and they still are soft a week later!

Ugly Sweater Party and Gingerbread Houses

This year Ryan and I had fun attending another Ugly Sweater Party:

Family Christmas

The Thursday before Christmas we had our Christmas with my sister's family and my Aunt and Uncle before they left to go back to CA.

Fire Station

We took a trip to the Fire Station to show my Aunt and Uncle where Ryan works.  The highlight was the wild ride in the fire truck Ryan took us on through the neighborhood!  Kaylee had fun riding captain and honking the horn.  I am sure we freaked out a few neighbors!

My lovely blurry camera

Tea for 8!

One night while my Aunt and Uncle were here we had a little Christmas tea party.  My Mom brought over the old tea cups and we had some tea and yummy snacks.  Pinky fingers out and English accents were a must!

Memaw pouring our tea

Train Park

Each year we also love going to the train park.  This year my Aunt and Uncle were in town so it was fun to have them join us!

Polar Express 2014!

We had another fun year at the Polar Express!  I can't believe it was year 7!  We actually did not think we were originally going to go this year.  We kind of thought the girls really would not notice if we did not go??  Thought maybe it would not be a big deal anymore after 6 years??  Then all through the summer they started asking about it, and then would keep asking.  So I think it was the beginning of October when Ryan and I decided that I guess we will go so we better see if we can still get tickets!  At least with Ryan and the girls schedule we can be flexible and go during the week because we figured reserving tickets in October that was all that was going to be available.   We found an open Thursday night in December and decided to book a room in Flagstaff instead of Williams....it is fun the get the package deal in Williams but booking in Flagstaff was tons cheaper and it worked out great anyway.

This and That

Sometimes I just have a few random pictures so I thought I would put them into one post:

Yea to Alexa for completing her reading program and her 1st math book!!!

Christmas Show

This year in the beginning of December the girls were involved in the church kids christmas show.  Kaylee was in the kids choir and Alexa was an Angel.

One more celebration for the Birthday boy!

We always have to hit up 31 Flavors to get the Birthday person their free ice cream scoop....and of course ice cream for the rest of us too! :)

Good Morning Birthday Boy!

Normally on someones Birthday we do a special breakfast in the morning but this year for Nolan we decided to go out and have breakfast at the Deer Valley airport so we could watch the planes land and take off.  We thought that would go perfect with his dusty themed party and he is so into airplanes right now.  Memaw and Asher joined us.  From the moment we walked into the restaurant everything was "dusty, dusty!!"  It is really cute, they have planes hanging all over the ceiling.  This time we got to see lots of planes land and take off.  We had gone here last summer and we hardly saw any traffic.  We learned that most small planes don't have air conditioning so it is too hot to fly here in the summer.

Happy 2nd Birthday Buddy!

My favorite little guy turned 2 on December 1!!  I really don't know how my baby is already 2!?!?  I still look and think of him as my baby, even though he has gotten so big!  This past year has been so fast and it kind of snuck up on me.  Nolan is such a blessing to our family and I feel so lucky to have a little boy.  He has brought such fun and excitement to our house.  The girls just adore him as well and he just loves his big sissies.

The night before his birthday we had a little family party for him in the Dusty theme.  He had never seen The movie Planes before but has a little ride on toy that is Dusty, and just loves Dusty and gets so excited to see Dusty, and all planes are called Dusty.  :)  So the girls decided he needed a Dusty party.  :)

I had fun fun making his Dusty cake!

Thanksgiving Day

This year we had my Mom and my sister's family over on Thanksgiving.  I just love this holiday and all the yummy food!

The girls signing Aunties Thanksgiving book

More Halloween!

Lately I tend to use my phone for most pictures because my camera does not always take the best pictures lately.  But now my phone is also not taking the best pictures either.  Fun! I actually plugged in my camera the other day and found that I had more Halloween pictures on there.  Oops!  I guess I forgot I used it that night.  :)

My cute kiddos!

Thanksgiving stuff

As Thanksgiving was approaching we had fun doing some Thanksgiving activities and learning about the history of Thanksgiving.  I did a 5 day curriculum with the girls about Thanksgiving and we had fun reading Thanksgiving books, doing some simple projects, math sheets, writing etc. that was all about Thanksgiving.  It was geared towards kindergartners but Kaylee had fun joining in!

Making Mayflower boats

We are excited to announce.......

Baby #4 will be joining us in June!

This is how we told my Mom and sister's family when they came over on Halloween:

We had the pumpkins all lined up on the table and we waited to see how long it took them to notice the #4 pumpkin!

Halloween stuff!

Finally getting around to posting Halloween!

Love these 3!

Schneph Farms Field Trip

Every year we always love going to a pumpkin farm for part of the whole fall experience.  Sometimes we get our pumpkins there and sometimes we just go to Fry's for $5.  :)  But either way we have fun going and letting the kids do all the fun activities.  This year one of the homeschool group's field trips was at Schneph Farms.  We had not been to this one in a few years but thought we would give it a try.  This one was always fun, just far and a little more expensive.  Going with the field trip we got a big discount and we only had to pay for food.  It was nice more things were include in the price.  We went on a Friday morning so it was nice to not be as crowded and we were lucky it fell on a rare cool morning.  Made it so much nicer!

The girls got pumpkins painted on their arm right after we walked in

Early October happenings!

The first Saturday of every month Home Depot has a kids craft.  We took the kids in October to make an ambulance.  

Apple Picking

In mid September we got to do our fun tradition of Apple picking.  Our favorite farm for apple picking was open again this year so we were excited to head back there!  This year we were joined by my sister and family and her friends from small group.

Our School Room

Here are a few pictures of where we mostly do school!

A new kind of first day!

Right after Labor Day we experienced our "new" kind of first day!  Not only was it so nice to start after labor day, no more beginning of August :), but we are also now homeschooling!  We are just about 2 months in now and I am loving the schedule, the kids like it too.  :)  No more crazy running running around to pick people up and in and out of the car all day, so nice!  Alexa is done before lunch and Kaylee is done about 1:30 with her core subjects.  I still have her do a little more reading in the afternoon and maybe some writing practice but she is totally done by 3-3:30.  Before she was just getting home at that time and then would still have lots of homework after being exhausted from the day.  Now she has the whole afternoon to be a kid and play.  It took a few weeks to really get used to everything but we have a schedule we follow everyday to make sure all school work and chores are done and it seems to be working well!  We joined a homeschool coop and on Wed after lunch the girls have PE and then a park day with other kids from the group, and then Kaylee has also just joined the girl scout troop with the coop group that meets a couple times a month.  We have also gone on a few field trips with the coop.  With all that, Mom's group every other Tuesday morning, and Wed night and Sunday church we are keeping busy....a good busy though and not constantly waking Nolan up from a nap or in and out of the car.

Here are pictures from our first day.  Still wanted to make it special for the girls :).

Nolan 21 Months!

Now that Nolan is 22 months tomorrow I thought I would do a 21 month post for him.  Makes perfect sense to me in my usual late fashion! :)

I don't have a current weight for him because his next well check at the Dr won't be until 2, and luckily have not had to go for anything else recently.  On our home scale that is always a little off says he is about 35 lbs!!  I think that is a little exaggerated but I don't think he is far off.  He is a tall, big boy!  In just the last few weeks I have noticed his vocabulary really expanding.  He will now try to say and repeat so many words.  And some words that were hard to understand before like for "ball" he would say "doll", he is now saying ball.  He is just the cutest, sweetest little boy and we all love him so much.  I love when I ask him a question he will often say, "hmmm", or "lets see".  So sweet!  He loves his sisters so much and loves when they play with him.  Loves to play outside in the water table and his sandbox, so thankful it is cooling off.  Loves to dance in the family room when we have music on the TV.  Has now discovered how to open all doors, and the refrigerator.  Will be getting those things to put on the door knobs later this week.  :)

Likes to do some coloring during school time!

Visit with the Studderts and First Sleepover!

We love when our friends the Studderts come in town.  We always have a blast catching up and the kids have so much fun playing together!  My sister was so nice to host and we had swimming, lunch, and of course some ice cream!

Swim Lessons!

In July all the kids took swim lessons at the PV pool!


Nolan and Asher had their little class:

4th of July 2014

Prescott!

You know what this means........

That's right!  It is time to go to Prescott for 4th of July.  For the last several years we have made rice krispies treats to take with us to the parade.

Final CA Post! My favorite picture!

This is my favorite picture of the kids right now so I thought it deserved a post on it's own.  This was just a picture that one of the bride's maids snapped as the wedding photographer was getting ready to take the kids picture.  It looks like something you would see in an old fashioned picture frame.  Love how you can see the photographers lens!

Asher, Alexa, Kaylee, and Nolan

Cali Continued~ The Wedding!

Wow, I made it to the day of the wedding!  I just realized earlier that I have now been blogging this California trip for over a month!  I guess that is what happens when you are trying to get ready for homeschooling, and starting homeschooling.  So much for getting caught up before school starts.  :)
So here are the fun pictures from the wedding!

Our beautiful flower girls!  They had so much fun and did such a great job!  They both looked so sweet in their little dresses!

California~ My cousins wedding rehearsal

The main reason that brought us to California in the first place was that my cousin Lauren was getting married.  The girls were so excited that they were going to be the flower girls.  We decided to go a week and a half early and make it a fun family vacation!  I realized I did not take many pictures of the rehearsal or rehearsal dinner but here were the few I had!

The wedding rehearsal

Cali cont. ~ Santa Monica

Here are the pictures from another beach/lunch day this time in Santa Monica:

Riding the kiddy carousel on the pier.  After this we had lunch on the pier and then headed to the beach.

Cali continued~ Roosters and S'mores

I had to get Nolan with this little guy!  Yes, my Aunt and Uncle have a rooster and Nolan thought the rooster was funny.  I was just glad when he did not crow too early in the morning.  :)  Usually the rooster just walks around the back yard.  He spent more time in his cage with us all around.  

More Cali~ American Girl!

This was definitely a highlight for the girls.  We surprised them and took them to American Girl to have lunch and shop!  That morning we just told them we were going somewhere and to put a dress on, and to also put Gianna and Sarah, their dolls, in their dresses too.  They had no idea and the girls did not even remember to bring the dolls with them in the car.  Good thing we had Ryan grab them and put them in the back.  They did not even notice!

Trying to catch their faces as we drove up.  Of course my phone had to be blurry with most of them but here are the best!

Cali Cont. ~ Cute little guys!

I thought these were so cute of Nolan and Asher feeding each other at my Aunts house.  :)

More California- Gymboree

My cousin works at Gymboree and while she was on shift one night she let us come and play!  It was great fun for the kids!

Kaylee!

California Cont.

The next morning after Solvang we went to another beach close by that was pretty remote....it was a good half hour off the main road.  Ryan had heard about it and wanted to check it out.  We actually did not realize how far it was.  We were kind of pressed for time because my brother in law had to be at the airport later so we ended up only having about 45 min at this beach.  It was pretty but I realized I did not take many pictures.  Just a few scenic ones.

California Continued~ Solvang

After Santa Barbara we headed to our hotel and then went to Solvang and Lompoc.  Years ago my Grandparents took my sister and I to Solvang and it is such a cute little Dutch town.  We sort of wanted to relive that childhood memory again. :)  The drive there is beautiful... rolling green hills, farm land, beautiful houses, cooler.....another one of those places I would say I could live.  I like how it is away from the busy city.

Nolan just putting his touch on the hotel room!

California Cont. ~ Next stop Santa Barbara

We had gone to CA 4 days earlier then my Mom and sister's family.  We enjoyed a  beach day, a Griffith Park day, and time hanging out at my Aunt and Uncles house.  My Mom and sister's family drove in Saturday and we met them in Santa Barbara.

Lunch at Sambo's waiting for them to arrive

California Trip- Beach Day

In June we took a fun family vacation to CA.  We got to go for 12 days and it was so nice to have all that time together as a family.  Ryan and I both can't remember the last time we had a vacation that long.  Usually they have been just quick little trips of 3, 4, or 5 days. I have tons of pictures from the trip so it will take me a few posts to get through everything.

These first pictures are from our first beach day at Leo Carillo beach in Malibu:

This was Nolan's first trip to the beach!!

Outside Water Play

Alexa had so much fun with the little pools at her preschool water day that she wanted a little pool for our house.  Since we don't have a big pool this will have to do!  The kids love the pool and sprinkler.  Sadly we have not been out there since we got back from vacation.  It is just too hot.  Ha! Kind of funny, only in Phoenix in July can you say it is too hot to play out in the little pool and sprinkler.  I really need to try to bring them out first thing in the morning or when the sun is going down.  I can tell most days Nolan wants to go outside so bad!

She is the BEST big sister to Nolan!  He just adores her!

Last Day for a 2nd Grader!!

Here are pictures from Kaylee's last day of school:

She also wanted waffles!

Last Day for a Preschooler!

Always like to do fun things for first and last day of school!

Last day sign a must!

Pizza Party and Diploma Ceremony

Back on May 14th, Alexa had a pizza party and diploma ceremony for preschool.

Thought this was cute on the outside bulletin  board

Water Day

Alexa had a fun last week of preschool.  On Monday was water day, Wednesday was their little preschool graduation ceremony, and Friday was ice cream social day.  Here are pictures from Water day!

Mother's Day

We had a fun celebrating Mom's that day.....and Asher. :)  My nephew Asher had his dedication at church that morning so we had all the kids in big church with us watching.  Then we went back to my sister's house after for lunch and to celebrate everyone!

Olympics and Field Day

Preschool Olympics for Lex:

Mother's Day Tea and Art Walk

Such a fun event at the Preschool! I have loved going each preschool year and spending time with my girls.

Singing for the Mommies

Easter Cont..

Good thing I set up the night before.....but not many of us felt like eating the next day.

More Easter!

Coloring eggs!