10 Year High School Reunion - Football Game

In September we took a trip to Las Vegas for Daniel and my 10 year high school reunion. It was fun to see everyone after 10 years! The first night of the reunion was the Homecoming football game. Before the game we watched the parade.

The kids are I flew out a few days before Daniel. Those few days are always challenging. The kids don't behave quite the same when we are out of town and Dad is not around.

There are plenty of tantrums...

being goofy...

and getting into things.

We did some swimming.

This kid LOVES the water. He was even willing to go without his life vest and tried swimming across the spa!

The kids watching to Homecoming parade. We were pretty disappointed with the floats. I guess there was a lack of school spirit this year.

Addie and her little friend Aiden.

The kids liked all of the candy that was being thrown from the floats. I love his
"ooooh" expression.

After the parade we headed to the football game.

Cheering for our team!

Me, Anna and Ninfa. Two of my besties from school.

I think they were waving at the kids in the homecoming court on the field. We stayed just past half time to watch the Homecoming King and Queen get crowned. Our senior year Daniel was Homecoming King and Ninfa was Queen!

Two of my other good friends from school, Suzanne and Steph.

First Day of School 2011

Addie started her second year of preschool in August (more like pre-k). I saw this idea on Pinterest. You have your child write their name on the first day of school on a white/chalk board and take a picture of them holding it. That way you can see how your child changes through the years and their handwriting as well.

I also threw together a banner (very last minute) that hopefully I will use every year to display the picture I took of her that morning (with the sign).

Addie is in a different class this year than her friends. At first I thought there was a mistake and was kind of upset that they didn't honor our request to have the three of them together. Then the lady that runs the office explained to me why her teacher last year had suggested that she be separated from the 2 boys. I guess there were some issues of possession with the boys over her. The teachers thought she might do better and start to become more of her own person if she were away from them. The first day of school I was still very leery (honestly I am still wondering if it was the right choice to keep her in a separate class) but her new teacher says she is doing well. I'm not sure if she is making any new friends but I guess there is still time.

This to me is funny. When I had Johnny I made these tee-pees (called pee pee tee pees I think). I never really used them. Addie thinks they make fantastic party hats for her dolls! She even wears them herself sometimes. At least they are getting used. :)

Vinyl Projects

I've been working on lots of new items. Some are just for fun (or gifts), some I make and realize I don't want to make anymore of them and then there are a few that make it into my etsy shop.

Made this for our friends when they had their baby girl.

Laptop decal, apparently not that popular. I like mine though.

For Halloween this year.

This idea came from a friend of mine. She wanted to make them at our Super Saturday (when all the women at church get together and craft, chit chat and eat!). This is actually pretty popular.

The other item we made at Super Saturday.

I have more pictures of my creations that I'll post later!

New Camera

I know I've mentioned that we got a new camera. We got it back in August. Here are a bunch of random photos from the first couple of days of trying to learn how to use it.

One of the settings you can put it on is black and white.

It just happened that we had Jack and Brody over that day. They were so nice to let me use them to practice on. These two are too cute.

This is one of the other effects you can do. I think it's called sketch. Makes for some interesting, almost scary photos.

Another effect is called miniature. I'm still not sure how it works but this picture is kind of cool, right?

Love the expressions. :)

My baby girls.

And she is learning to dress herself. At first I really struggled with this but then I realized she wasn't going to listen to me when I told her it doesn't match so I've made this one of those battles that I choose not to fight anymore.

Addie's Salon

Addie and Johnny love to play with the little play beauty kit they have (ok, it's Addie's but really Johnny plays with it just as much as she does!). I managed to catch them playing one afternoon. I love how Johnny is just sitting there eating while Addie is styling his hair.

The pictures are a little blurry but she went through four steps: brush, flat iron, curling iron then blow dry.

Zoo

In an attempt to catch up on posts I am going back through all of our pictures. Some might be repeat posts but I don't want to leave anything out!

This summer we bought a family pass to the zoo. It's good for a year and gets us in to a bunch of places for free or a big discount. We don't see the sun here much so during the summer we get out whenever we can. It's always such a huge task getting sunscreen on my kids. I love Johnny's face in this one!

His favorite exhibit were the fish. He kept putting his hands on the glass and talking to them.

Addie got to ride a camel. She was soo exited. Can you tell by her face? She held on to the ticket until it was her turn, showed it to the workers then held on to it the whole time she was on the camel. She loved it!!

She was less sure about feeding the birds. At first anyway.

Then she was fine. :)

I tried to get a picture of Johnny similar to the one I have a Addie found in this post. He was less cooperative.

Ragnar 2011

I thought I had already blogged these but I can't find it. So if you read my blog and you've already seen these, sorry.

This summer we ran the Ragnar Relay again. It was more fun this year for 2 reasons: 1. I didn't have Johnny D with us nursing every 2 hours and 2. I knew what to expect this time! We talked to the truck dealership down the street from our house and they loaned us this huge Suburban. It was a pretty nice ride, although by the end it was REALLY hard on the legs to get in and out of it because we were all sore! We did get lots of looks and "wow, that's big" comments.

We did pretty well running too. I think I only walked a little on the third leg. It was uphill and hot!

We had a guy park next to us at one of the exchanges in a regular sized Suburban. It told us that our truck was giving his a complex. So one of the guys put this on the window.

Our team name.
We were trying to advertise the Trucks, Trucks and more Trucks for the dealership.

Our group. Again this year we failed to get a photo of all 12 of us.

So happy to be done and add our metals to the ones from last year!