Photo session

The kids know that when we all start having cabin fever Mommy pulls the camera out...

2011 valentine card

Pop Heart Valentine's Day 5x7 folded card

Modern greeting cards and party invitations by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Blue ticket day

Today was very exciting as Autumn received TWO blue tickets. Blue tickets are a school-wide reward system for good behavior. There are 10 issued per day for the whole school so Autumn was so excited to get 2 of them in one day. She called me at work to tell me all about them (one was for helping a boy in her class go to the nurse and another was for using manners on the bus). I had to work late tonight but Daddy took the kids to Chick-Fil-A to celebrate. Big news in this first grader's house!

Holiday fun

I've been bad about updating this blog and one of my goals for this year is to be more frequent about it. It looks like I only posted 10 updates last year so I don't know if anyone even bothers to check it anymore! But if so, here are some highlights from our holidays...

In early November Autumn lost both front teeth. It took a while...one was literally hanging by a string but they essentially "fell" out of her mouth. No pulling or any potential of pain for this kid! So of course we all began singing about 2 front teeth and Christmas for a while.

At Thanksgiving we celebrated with Chris' Dad and family and all the boys made Mommom's (Chris' grandmother's)  famous candy cane cookies. MomMom has been gone for over 7 years so it was nice for them to remember what one of her treats tasted like.

We visited Santa at Christkindlmarkt for the 3rd year in the row.  Apparently this is the real Santa and all the others that we might see are his helpers.  Autumn pointed out that all of her wish list gifts began with the letter "S"...a suitcase, scoop ( a board game), and a surprise. Joshua's gifts began with "T"...Toy Story 3 movie, Toy Story 3 Toys and a tractor. Very convenient for Santa.

Hard to believe that our nephew Daniel is one already. His birthday party was fun. Look at that happy guy!

I helped out in Autumn's classroom a week before Christmas as they were making gingerbread houses. It was my first opportunity to spend an extended period of time in the classroom and see how they interact with their Spanish curriculum. You can see her here in the front of the room with the classroom rules next to her. Luckily she can understand most of what the teachers say and was able to translate for me. :-)

Her finished product!

On December 18th we went to see the Nutcracker with Carolyn and Brooke. We went out to lunch first and had a fun girls day.

Autumn received some baking tools from Aunt Michelle and Uncle Jeremy which she opened Christmas Eve morning. We had to head home and bake cookies that afternoon to leave them out for Santa.

After church Christmas Eve we had a lovely dinner and fun time at Chris' moms. Our outfits were provided by her too....don't we look festive?

The kids waited in the basement while Santa did his magic under MomMom's tree.

Santa brought Joshua a new bike at MomMom's - what fun!

Reading 'The Night Before Christmas'

Christmas Morning! Autumn was thrilled to receive some new board games.

Santa answered Joshua's wish with an RC Toy Story car.

The "surprise" for Autumn was in the basement...a cardboard playhouse she can color with markers. Joshua got a spaceship.

Joshua also got a little bag of coal in his stocking with a note from Santa asking him to listen a little better to Mommy and Daddy. It made quite the impression as he cried. Uncle Robbie reassured him that a little bag was nothing...he got a whole stocking full of coal one year.

We had Christmas dinner with the Landis clan this past Sunday. We had fun making gingerbread cookies together.

Autumn won the prize for the most candy.

All of our creations.

All in all, an excellent Christmas. We are happy for a new year to enjoy each other as a family!

Hershey Half Marathon

Yesterday was the inaugural Hershey Park Half Marathon. I decided to sign up when Chris and I went there for our anniversary in June and when I told Carolyn about it, she decided that she would like to train for a half and see how she did. After months of sticking with her training plan, and after a successful 10K race 2 weeks ago, she was ready to conquer this challenge! We drove out Saturday with the kids and went to the race expo, kids fun run and then to the park, where we were able to enjoy the rides for free from 6-9pm. We headed to the Hershey Lodge to rest our heads for the night and we all fell happily to sleep.

We awoke to a beautiful, slightly chilly morning on Sunday and Carolyn was a pro, getting dressed in the dark after having all of her race gear laid out the night before. (She did plenty of "reading up" on race day preparations ahead of time). We ate our Cliff Bars and headed to the race site. We arrived more than an hour early, got great parking and spent the time enjoying the pre-race excitement, warming up, and laughing at all of the Hershey Bar characters who were milling about. We lined up and literally bumped into 2 girls that I know from a nearby neighborhood. The gun went off and we were off and running!!

It was a great course, with amenities every 2 miles and plenty of volunteers. What a beautiful morning and the miles ticked away. Carolyn was chatty and breathing comfortably the whole time. We both had our GPS watches on and I was hoping we weren't going too quickly halfway through as we were averaging 8:05-8:10 miles. It got a little windy and hilly along the second half but Carolyn was a champ. Before we knew it, we were at mile 12 and heading back toward Hershey Park. The finish was in their large sports stadium and Chris and the kids were waiting for us inside. Here we are as we just got into the stadium. Carolyn is in green and I'm in yellow.

As we rounded the corner, Carolyn took off in a full sprint. If you look closely at this picture you will see that I am laughing hard because I literally couldn't keep up. I have never had as much energy as she did at the end of a race!!

And here we are crossing the finish!! The time on the clock is when the gun went off, but it took us about 30 seconds to cross the starting line, so our actual finish time is under 1 hr 48 minutes! Carolyn did fantastic!! I literally couldn't keep up with her and you can see she finished 2 places ahead of me.

Afterwards, we met up with the kids and Chris and enjoyed the great post-race spread and the high that comes with a race well run. We ran very consistent miles and I think Carolyn has potential to best her time if she would so choose. Especially after she peeled off her sock to reveal a large blister that she began to notice at mile 6. She didn't say a word about it until the race was over and I still have no idea how she ran so fast at the end. I am so proud of her and so glad that we could share this awesome experience together. We are blessed indeed!

Buh-Bye Summer!

The summer is over, we are sad to say, but we enjoyed a beautiful Labor Day. We took out the slip-n-slide for the first (and only) time all summer. Should've thought of this one earlier...our grass could've used the watering!

Warming up in wrapped up in towels in the sun. It's great to be a kid!

We love corn on the cob and enjoying our patio for dinner.

Autumn's outfit was ready for the next day...the first day of first grade!!

Look closely at the note she put at the top. It says "Hola" and she planned to give it to her teacher. (She learned that from Dora the Explorer.)

Ready for her first day of school!

Autumn came home very excited about her first day of school. I was a little worried about how she was going to do. I have heard that first graders are often exhausted, especially if they only had 1/2 day kindergarten, which Autumn did. But more critical, was that fact that she began in a Spanish immersion program and I knew that her teacher was not going to speak a word in English. I wasn't sure what her reaction would be like on the first day. But she came home all smiles and said that it was a little "different" but that it was "pretty fun" and she likes lots of kids in her class. On the first day of school they learned the days of the week, numbers 1-10 and began colors. She said the teacher is very nice but that she doesn't understand much of what she says. Um, yeah! But they say it's amazing how quickly first graders will pick it up. Here she is at the first grade open house with her teacher, Senora Montes-Kelly, last week.

And here's her schoolwork that she brought home today. :-)

Where has summer gone?

I just realized that I haven't updated this since May. Shame on me! We are leaving for the shore tomorrow morning for 3 fun days at Ocean City, NJ. But when we get back I will surely post updates on all our summer adventures!