Ethan's First Soccer Game - 2 Videos

In second #10, you see Ethan stop the ball
on the right hand side of the screen :)

Kite Day ('09 catch up - part 6)

"Couch Shark attacks Boy!"

Just kidding. It is just our new kite, silly :)

For Family Fun night on Friday, March 20th, we ate at Pizza Hut and then went to a local park to fly our kite and play on the playground.

I had Kaylin take this shot of me

Painting Cookies - ('09 catch up - part 7)

Yes. I said painting cookies.

Ethan and Kaylin were on spring break this week (Mar 23rd). So we tried to do something kinda fun each day. Today (Wednesday) we baked sugar cookies (store bought tube) in the shape of Easter Eggs. Then I made a thin icing and used food coloring. I sterilized water color brushes and we painted our cookies!

(note that the paintbrush handles didn't weather the boiling water sterilization process very well :)

We all had a fun time.

Ethan painted an actual picture on his "leftover" cookie.

Can you see the cactus (with yellow pricklies on it) and the blue sky and blue rivers?


Ta-Da!
Britt's eggs are the top row, followed by E, Kay, and Krystin's at the bottom

Rest of December 08

.... Or should I say the restFUL part of Decembe 2008?!?

Ethan, Kaylin, AND Dan had 2 weeks off from school and work. We basically did a lot of hanging out in our pajamas and relaxing. It was great :)

Dan reading "Boy who cried wolf" as a bed time story

My "baby" is getting big :(

Hanging out with Dad



The kids drew pictures and then we made puzzles out of them for Dad's Christmas present.
I took a picture of them before we cut them up

The stockings were hung by the bookshelf with care....

At Christmas Eve service

Christmas morning. We just stayed in our pajamas all day.

Here Dan is reading THE Christmas Story.

See? I'll even post a pic of me in my jammies :)

Here I am opening my cards the kids gave me in my stocking.

A Kids' eye view of our Christmas dinner :)

Playing a family game of Battleship while enjoying homemade carmel corn (thanks for the recipe, Mom)

SURPRISE !!!!

Guess what?!? I am blogging before Christmas again!

The last 4-5 days have been a whirlwind of activity.

But it has been such fun activity that I HAD to blog about it!

Enjoy the following NEW posts.

(But again, I can't promise anything more until 2009!)

(Oh - and BTW - no Christmas cards being mailed out from us this year. We love you all, but we'll be doing good to get presents and cards out to our immediate-immediate family! So this blog will just have to suffice for updates.... maybe next year I'll get a letter made up in time....)

Kaylin's Preschool Christmas Program

OKay. The first few pics are not of Kaylin's Christmas Sing, but just a few cute misc. pics to include!

The kids still enjoy sliding down the stairs.

The Advent Calendars from Gpa and Gma Collingwood arrived.

Now for the Christmas Program Pictures.
What does the following pic have to do with Kaylin's Program?!?
Well: we had just picked up a new dress for her that day. It had red sparklies. She has red sparkly shoes - or what USED to be sparkly. They are SO scuffed in the toes they looked shabby. So Mom put red glitter glue on them to "fix" them.
They were still not dry at "T-minus-20 minutes" to leave.
Ethan is being a wonderful big brother and blow drying the shoes so that they will be ready in time. (Mom was getting Kaylin and herself ready and Dad was busy getting Krytin dressed - who had to wear a pretty dress, too, since Kaylin was) :)



Pretty Little Girl......
in (now) pretty little shoes ;)

(Christina - notice the necklace she is wearing? She was so excited. This is the first time she wore a "real" necklace. And the cross/heart reminded her of Jesus-us luv" :)


My 3 favorite kids in the whole world :)

Kaylin's Preschool Class just prior to the Program.