Hot Lava by Alexa

Alexa has come up with a new song and she wanted me to share it with all of you.

Ben's First Day of Preschool - 4 Yrs

Ben had his first day of preschool this week. I cannot believe how fast he is growing up! He knew exactly where he was going and told me that he was fine and basically pushed me out the door. It kind of broke my heart!

Alexa's First Day of School - First Grade

I am late with posting Alexa's first day of school pictures, but here they are. I can't believe that school has started once again. It just feels like we were finally getting settled into the summer routine and "Bam" it's back to school time. I will say that it was a little easier for me to drop her off this year - no tears, but there still was that nagging feeling like you are forgetting to take something with you when I left. Yes - I was the dorky mom who had to take a picture of her in the classroom this year!

She did wonderful though - as you would expect from her. She was excited to find out that she got the teacher she wanted, plus an extra one. She has class with two teachers once again. She said to me "last year was so much fun with two teachers - so this year is going to be great too!"

We are so proud of her and Ben is too!

Alexa's School Program & Teachers

Alexa and all the Kindergartener's at her school performed a program for their parents and the rest of the school on Thursday. Several of the kids in her class had speaking parts, including Alexa who was Cinderella. She was so excited to be able to wear the dress that Aunt Angie got her and she looked so beautiful. When her music teacher Ms. Tyler introduced her all the kids "OH" and "AHed". She just beamed! Here are a few of our favorite shots from the performance.

These are pictures of her class singing their song in the program.

They are such a good group of kids!

Alexa in performing action - saying her lines and singing.

Finally - here is Alexa with her teachers - Ms. Jacob and Ms. Crossetti. She invited them out for ice cream and they kind enough to accept her invitation. She was so lucky to have such wonderful and devoted teachers.

We thank you Ms. Jacob & Ms Crossetti for all you have done for Alexa and all her classmates!

Ben's Preschool Graduation

Ben had a program on Wednesday for his graduation from preschool. He is not headed to Kindergarten just yet - (thank goodness - he is growing up too fast) - his portion of the Graduation program was more of a Promotion program. He will be in the 4 year old class next year and we could not be happier of his accomplishments for this year! Here are a couple pictures from the event.

Ben and his classmate in singing action!

Even though I had someone step in front of me this is one of my favorite shots of Ben and his teacher - Ms Kim - and here is

a better one minus the blurb.

Alexa and the Art Show

Alexa is very crafty and creates several things on a daily basis. She has also told me on occasion that she wants to be an Art Teacher when she grows up. I credit her wonderful art teacher - Ms. Lagerstam - for being such a wonderful creative influence on her. Throughout the year her teacher had selected several of Alexa's pieces to be on display at various art shows around town and even gave Alexa the Young Achiever's Award for the Arts. Here is a picture of Alexa showing off one, of many, of her creations!

Thank you Ms. Lagerstam for being an

excellent creative influence for Alexa!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

This is what Alexa decided to wear to school today - as it is Wacky Wigged Out "Go Green" day. She has 4 ponytails all with green ribbons tied to them - all her idea! She loves to go all out and celebrate Holidays that's for sure.

Hope you have a

great "GREEN" day!

Lots of FUN!

I know - two post in one day - AMAZING, but I just couldn't help but to share of week of holiday festivities with you all. We started on Monday by digging out all of the holiday decorations from the basement, Tuesday we put the up the tree - just the tree no decorating that day, Wednesday we put on the lights and ornaments and Thursday was the garland and a few decoration around the house. It was nice spreading it out the whole week. We played Christmas music and enjoyed an hour of decorating each night. Here are a few pictures from the fun!

This is my favorite, a view of what the tree sees. Brad was being creative with the picture taking.

Our fun did not end on Thursday, but on continued on. Friday night we met up with my Dad, Step-mom, my brother's boy Hayden and my step-sister's daughter Coralynn for a ride on the Polar Express! We all boarded the train and the kids dressed in their pajamas. We had hot chocolate and enjoy a ride on the train where they told the story and had a few musical numbers to go along with the fun. Santa even visited each cabin! It was so much fun.

We finished out festivities last night with watching the movie "The Polar Express" in front of a nice warm fire in the fireplace. It was a week full of so much fun and so many exciting memories!

Halloween Fun!

Here are a few pictures from Halloween. The kids dressed up and went Trick-or-Treating in their costumes. Alexa was a cute bunny and Ben wanted to be a Scuba Diver. They looked so cute in their costumes! Ben was a little under the weather, but we dressed him up and let him go to a few houses for treats. They also had some time with Dad carving a little pumpkin. They had so much fun!

Alexa was sent to the Principal's office!

Today I got word that Alexa was sent to the Principal's Office - oh the horror! Come to find out there was a wonderful reason for it. She was selected to be a member of the "Principal's Club". From the brief explanation I got - it was for being respectful to others, being helpful, polite and an all-around great student - I think it is like getting "Student of the Month" for her grade. She was so excited about it and she got the honor of visiting with the Principal this morning. She received a certificate, a candy bar and an invitation for lunch at a later time. She was elated and so proud and we were proud of her too! I wish I could of been there when they called her name at the assembly - I am sure the look on her face was priceless! I am so glad that her first trip to the Principal's Office was for a positive reason - my next thought is "Boy, Ben has big shoes to fill" the poor thing!

Pumpkin Patch

Today I took the kids to the Pumpkin Patch after school. Alexa was to go on a Field Trip with her class on Tuesday and Ben was to go last Tuesday with his class, but the weather did not cooperate on either of those days. So with the sun out today, I thought we better go or we may not be able to this season. We grabbed our boots and off we went!

Here's a picture of the kids discussing that the pumpkin is yellow - not orange! Alexa's friend Maddie came along too!

Reason 1 - Where my time has gone

Things have been crazy around here for the past few months, as you know with the lack of postings. It seems that with chasing after the kids and all the other things I was obligated to do, I just didn't have a whole lot of free time. This project is one of the reasons for the lack of free time. I have been working on this bunch of wedding invitations - 165 of them to be exact. My hubby's cousin is getting married and she asked me - what an honor - to design and make all of the wedding invitations. I was so excited that she asked and got busy designing a few samples for her - I will eventually post them as time allows (keep reading and you'll find out why I say this). Since she has finally gotten them out in the mail I think it is ok to share them with you.

Here they are in all their glory!

Hayley is a very simple type of gal and her tastes are very similar to mine, so it made designing her invites super easy. The one she chose was the first one I came up with. We modified it a bit to fit her budget. The orignal was a folder, but to save a little on costs we went with the pockets on the back of the invite to hold the few things she was sending with it. Please note that the picture shown is of my wonderful babies, she placed a picture of her and her fiance in it's place. I think the whole thing turned out really cute. Let me know your thoughts.

So my posting will not be regular (as it took me almost a day to publish this one) for a little while longer as, I guess, I did such a great job on Hayley's invites, that my brother-in-law's fiance has enlisted me to do their wedding invitations as well - 224 of them. They are a little more detailed than Hayley's and I will show it to you once I get them finished and Muneeba has sent them out. Until the next post - take care and happy stamping!

Ben's First Day of Preschool

Sniff, sniff. . .

Today was Ben's first day of Preschool. I once again found myself weeping! I thought that it would be a little easier since we just went through Alexa's first day of Kindergarten, but nope - I cried all the way home. Lucky for me he only goes for 2-1/2 hours on Tuesday's and Thursday's. So tomorrow I will have him all to myself once again!

Muneeba & the Kids

Muneeba came by to help work on her wedding invites and Ben & Alexa kept themselves occupied by playing dress-up. I am sure Ben will love these pictures when he is older!

Keeping Ben busy

It has been fun having only Ben around during the day - of course I miss my girl like crazy while she is at school - but, finding things to keep him busy while I get a few things done has proven to be difficult. Alexa found her old Halloween costume the other day and left it out. Well, let's just let the picture speak for itself. What do you do with your toddler's while you need a few minutes to change the laundry over to the dryer, clean up the lunch mess or even run to the bathroom?

Alexa's First Day of School

Today was Alexa's first day of Kindergarten and we marked the occasion with the famous "First Day of School" picture. She is such a brave girl! She was so excited to wear her uniform and her knee socks, which I will add she looks so adorable and grown-up in, and head off to the school. She was only hesitant for a second when we turned the corner and she saw a gym full of kids. Her teacher quickly came over and directed her where to go. She sat down quietly in line and waited instruction. I watch for a few minutes and then I just couldn't take it any longer - I turned around with tears in my eyes. Why is so hard to see your baby grow up! Here is my "First day of school" picture. I am sure that many of yours were the same.

Have a great day! (I say between the sobs!)

It was a BIG Day!

It was a BIG day at our house yesterday. Alexa has had this loose tooth for about 3 weeks now and I told her that if she could get it out yesterday (Tuesday) that I would go get her Barbie Thumbelina. She is the type of girl that had to work towards a goal - Ben however, nothing motivates that boy he will forever be in diapers. Anyway, she worked and worked at it all day. She even came to me several times yesterday to wiggle it. We wiggled and wiggled and I could tell that she was getting discouraged, but just before bath we gave it one last wiggle and wouldn't you know . . .

Guess I am going to the store today to get Barbie Thumbelina.

* * Just a note - right after I posted this Ben asked to wear his Thomas the Train underwear. I nearly fell off my chair, but we have been almost 5 hours and no accidents. Could we have a breakthrough? I'll keep you posted. * *

Plant update & what I am doing

I wanted to give you all an update on our plants. If you remember from the post "Here's what the kids are up to" that they planted seeds with their dad for our garden. So here it is a week later and this is what has taken up residence on my dining room table. 

Almost everything has sprouted - with the exception of the green peppers. Hopefully they will take off real soon, they are one of my favorites.

And since Ben and Charlie's birthday party is rapidly approaching, I have been busily cleaning and making decorations. Here is a sneak peak at the cute decor - it's a cowboy party if you can't tell. Well, I am off to do a little more cleaning while the kids are all tucked in for the night (I hope), then I am off to bed myself. Hope you have a great evening!

I've been tagged - not once, but twice!

Julie over at Julie Cameron's Studio - who is very talented and creates some of the most gorgeous cards I have seen - and Olivia over at Olivia's Creative Quest - who has just became one of "My Message Followers" and has some awesome things on her blog as well - have tagged me. This fun little game is a picture posting game. SO LET THE FUN BEGIN! 

The rules: 

Go into your pictures. Pick the 6th folder and upload the 6th picture. 

Here is what I found!

I supervise a program at our local recreation center for kids ages 1 - 7. We open up the gym, pull out all the toys and let the kids have all the fun they want. Now don't get me wrong, the parents stay to play with the kids - I just watch over and help to avoid those incidents that happen when kids get together. This picture is of Ben playing ball. I had just got my new camera the day before and decided to take it with me to play with it as they played. He really looks into the game - doesn't he!

So now I get to tag a few others to play along - up to six!

Hanneke

Ann

Tegan

Donna

Tori

Robyn

Have fun and let me know when you post the picture.

Purse post delayed, but something cute to look at instead!!

I just wanted to post a note to let you know that I didn't forget about the Sister's Purse Color Challenge. It has been yucky weather here the last few days and everytime I take a picture of my cards, they turn out funky. So, I have opted not to post the crazy looking picture and to wait until tomorrow to try again. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. Sorry!

Hopefully these cute photos will help to brighten your day. We decorated the tree on Saturday and here are some extremely adorable pictures I wanted to share.

I hope your enjoyed the pictures. I will be back tomorrow, hopefully with descent card pictures!