Welcome 2012!

So 2011 brought us lots of fun stuff. Just in the last few months we have had lots of excitement. Ellie started 1st grade in August and turned 7 in October. I swear, she's 7 going on 17....lots of attitude there. Ethan turned 2 in August and has definitely pushed the limits of the "terrible twos". Recently we had to go to the ER because of his monkey climbing that caused him to fall on an end table and bust his mouth open. Thankfully no stitches and no major dental work needed. In December Jerime graduated from PSU with his BS in Commercial Graphics (he graduated with departmental academic honors too!). I finished up my second BS in Justice Studies through Fort Hays State University in December also. Needless to say we are all glad that the "academics" are done for awhile. Of course Jerime and I have both been looking into Masters programs, so I'm sure that we are not done with school yet :) With such a fun year behind us, 2012 has a lot to live up to, but I'm sure it will be great!

As for the New Years Eve bash....it was invite only, and only 4 were invited (Jerime, Me, and our two little spawns). The night kicked off with some pizza, homemade cheese dip (Jerime did awesome with that), s'mores (made in the oven), and some Sparkling White Grape Juice in some fancy plastic cups. All the food was great, the drinks however looked pretty but no one really cared for them. With all the sugar the kids were pretty wild and started to crash hard, so we kinda fibbed and said that the ball was dropping at 11pm when it was midnight in New York, and "celebrated" then. Ellie unfortunately didn't even make it to 11pm so we had to look on YouTube to see a video of the ball dropping that she missed. Ethan did not really care though. Then Jerime and I waited until the real midnight, but being the tired parents we are, we fell asleep on the couch before midnight.

So our New Years Eve was full of family fun, and was safe and happy (of course with a couple of sugared up kids it got a little tense and crazy at times). Hope everyone else had a great evening and has a Happy New Year. One of my MANY New Years resolutions is to keep up with my blog since I'm not so busy with homework anymore, so hopefully I will keep up with this thing in 2012.

Ethan enjoying his s'more

Ellie sugared up with chocolate all over her face.

Our "Sparkling Grape Juice"

The yummy s'mores we made (delish!)

Us vs. The Garage....

Ok, so I have this amazing talent of coming up with BIG projects at a moments notice. I have said before that by husband loves it but refuses to admit it. That being said I will inform you that this was NOT my idea, so no one should get mad at me for Jerime working hard on Father's Day.

Today we started our day out with church and meeting our new pastor. She was very nice and I know we will like her a lot. We let Jerime sleep in and enjoy the quiet. After we got home Jerime said he wanted to start pulling siding off the house and start painting...today! So we got our work clothes on, put the kids in swimming clothes, and headed to the backyard. We decided to start on the garage first and move to the house when we were done. Of course we haven't even started painting yet, but I really feel like we got a lot done. See our before and after.



While we were working on the garage the kids were playing in the water. They ran in the sprinkler and played in their pool. By the end Ellie was helping scrape the paint by peeling it off the garage by hand and Ethan was cleaning EVERYTHING with our scrub brushes. We aren't even close to done and we are all beat, but it was a fun day and we are grateful for getting to spend it together.




Hope everyone has a great week!

We were rockin'!

Tonight we all went up to Memorial Auditorium to see Ellie perform in the Jr. Starz show "School House Rock Jr." She did AWESOME! So did all the other kids, but I am pretty biased towards Ellie.

Thanks to the amazing Diane, Ethan's daycare provider, Ethan was able to sit through the entire show. I swear that woman must have a spell cast on Ethan, I can't EVER get him to sit still that long! I guess that's why I was chasing him up and down the aisles before the show, lol.

The show was great and boy could those kids sing! Thanks to everyone who came out to see the show. Ellie was so glad to see all of you there cheering her on!