Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The Biggest Looser Begins!!

Okay Jill (and anyone else who wants to join us) -

Today is our official WEIGH IN day! I weighed in this morning ... let the exercise begin! You don't have to post your weight but every Wednesday you have to post how much weight you have lost. Let's hold each other accountable and have fun doing this!!

My weight loss goal is 19.5 pounds! Ugh -- how embarrassing!!
Next Wednesday we will post how much weight we lost. I better go to the gym now:-)




Saturday, December 27, 2008

Christmas Day

The kids got lots of silly string this year! They had so much fun with it. Here's Zack at Aunt Darcie's house terrorizing the neighborhood:-)
Mike getting ready to squirt Kaelyn.

RUN!

I'm not sure what's up with the 6 year old riding the Segway w/o hands?? Daddy???

Aunt Loni and Zacky on the treadmill.

Aunt Loni and Kaelyn w/ a Christmas present.

Aunt Darcie and Kaelyn





Brian is helping Zack and Kaelyn register all of their new pets on the websites.

Kaelyn and Zack Christmas on Christmas morning. They were SO excited for every present this year! It was so much fun watching them!!

Zack getting silly stringed. They have NEVER laughed so hard!

Digging into presents

Mike, me, and Loni all got Segway of TEMPE sweatshirts from Darcie and Brian.
Kaelyn has been wanting glasses FOREVER! Aunt Darcie got her a pair of non-prescription classes to wear around. Here's the two of us with our glasses on:-)
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Eve








Here are a few pictures of the kids making cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve.
After they made cookies, they opened the usual 1 present on Christmas Eve ... (new PJ's to wear to bed on Christmas Eve:-) It's our family tradition to get a new pair of PJ's on Christmas Eve. So everyone can wake up with new pajamas on Christmas morning.
We also visited one of Mike's friend's on Christmas Eve, Anthony. They have a huge family party and everyone eats Menudo together. Mike and the kids have taken a HUGE liking to it!!


Monday, December 22, 2008

Zoo Lights



We went to Zoo Lights last light with Pipebomb, Jenna, and baby Mckenna. Here's the pictures...
































































Sunday, December 21, 2008

Graduation

(Scroll to the bottom of the page for more graduation pictures.)

I finally graduated this Friday...It was such an awesome day!! I posted the pictures that were taken with my camera but I will be getting more pictures that were taken on other cameras soon.

This week has been so amazing! On Wednesday Mike TOTALLY surprised me by flying my sister Jill into town. I seriously had no idea that she was coming for my graduation! Mike told me that we were having one of his co-workers over for dinner but he had been plotting with Jill the whole time. At about 5pm there was a knock at the door and my kids were looking out the window. Kaelyn said, "It looks like Aunt Jill" to which I responded, "no, I'm sure it's just the neighbor". When Zack looked out the window and said, "no, it's Aunt Jill!!" Still, I had absolutely no clue!! When I finally opened the door there she was ... in full glory --- Ahhhhh! I quickly called Darcie and told her the great news and she immediately rushed over to hang out with us. The 3 of us stayed up really late participating in some sisterly bonding time:-) SO FUN!

On Thursday Jill, Zack, and I met Kaelyn at school for lunch. It was so cute .. we ran into Kaelyn's teacher in the hallway and she told us that Kaelyn was on "cloud 9" because Jill was in town. She said that she had been "glowing" all day long. We ate lunch together and then Jill and I ran a few errands/shopping. Darcie rushed back over to my house after she got off work and the 3 of us got to hang out again.

On Friday we all went to my graduation and then out to lunch at Sweet Tomato. Graduation was great and I was so blessed to have lots of friends and family there to share the experience with me.

Darcie and Brian had us over for dinner that night. Brian is a master cook and prepared some delicious soup for us. Thanks guys!! We had another late night of "sister time". We stayed at Darcie's til about 2 am just chatting away!

On Saturday Jill, Mike, and I all went to our gym and worked out together. Jill and I decided that we were going to have a "Biggest Looser" challenge. We both love the show and have a few pounds to loose so we figured that we'd try to help each other out. After the gym we went to Michaels and got some materials to make ornaments for our Christmas tree. After that, we went to church and then to Caramba's (the restaurant we go to EVERY week after church). Jill and I stayed up late chatting and doing laundry.

Today ... Kaelyn and I dropped Jill off at the airport. Sniff Sniff

Monday, December 15, 2008

School's Out For Summa! (or Winta)

I can hardly believe that I am FINALLY done with school, my last day was almost 1 week ago (last Tuesday). It was a bittersweet day for me because I was super excited to finally be done with school but I was also so sad to leave the kids. My actual graduation is this coming Friday morning at ASU. The degree I will receive is a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education.

This has been such a long journey for me which started WAY back in 1995!! As I started out my college career I decided to pursue a degree in English Education .. just like Nana:-) My senior year of high school I managed to save up enough money working at Mega Foods to attend my first semester at ASU. My first semester was an amazing experience! I felt so ... so ... independent! The following semester I could not afford ASU so I opted for Chandler-Gilbert Community College. I loved this semester too!

After my first year of college, my family moved to Idaho and I moved into a apartment. At that time, I changed jobs (started Discover Card) and increased the hours I was working each week. Unfortunately, I didn't really have the time or money for school ... boo hoo! I worked at Discover Card for about 10 years and managed to take a couple business classes at the University of Phoenix and Glendale Community College.

Once Zacky was born in 2005 I began to stay home with my kids and take some on-line classes at Rio Salado Community College. As much as I LOVED staying home with them I really needed to do something to get out of the house. Mike and I talked about me going back to school. We were blessed to have Polly, Marlon, and Trisha down the street to help us with the kids on the nights that I had school and Mike was at work. I most certainly would not have been able to go back to school without such a supportive family!! Thanks guys!! And the rest is history!! I started the teaching program 2 years ago and I am finally finished! The time has gone by so quickly!!

In the process of completing the teaching program, I have developed a HUGE sense of school pride. I absolutely love ASU and I get excited whenever an ASU game is on! I am already telling Kaelyn and Zack that they have to attend ASU like mommy:-)

I have gone back and forth about graduate school. Not about whether or not I will attend, but when I will start. As a teacher, I will be required to continue my education. You are not required to attend graduate school, but I figure if I have to take classes anyway they may as well count towards a degree:-) I'm still not 100% sure what I will do at this time. I am just going to relax this week and possibly make a decision after Christmas.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

~I love Christmas~

On Sunday I wanted to spend some "girl time" with Kaelyn so I arranged with Mike for him and Zacky to hit the road for a few hours. Zack found out that our girl time activity was to make a gingerbread house and he insisted that he was going to stay with us. After several minutes of trying to convince him that "man time" was much better than making a gingerbread house we realized we needed to come up with a new plan. We ended up deciding that we would both spend some 1 on 1 time with each kid.

First I stayed home with Kaelyn and she made her gingerbread house while Mike and Zack went to the park and for a pretzel with cheese. Then we switched kids and Zack stayed home with me to make his gingerbread house and Mike took Kaelyn to the movies. I must say, at first I thought it sounded too complicated and I tried to simplify things, but Mike really wanted 1 on 1 time with both kids.

I really enjoyed my time with each kid. It was so nice to devote 100% of my attention to each of them for a few hours. You could tell by the sparkle in their eyes that they enjoyed it too:-)

Zack's gingerbread house


Kaelyn's gingerbread house


Yesterday my school had a small faculty Christmas party for the employee's children. Santa showed up with a gift for each child. As Santa was giving out the presents the kids were immediately tearing into the packages. Kaelyn was one of the first kids to get her present and she just sat there patiently waiting for Zack to get his present before opening hers. My friend was shocked at how sweet she was .. truthfully, so was I .. but it was such a tender moment to watch.

Zack was the very last kid to get a present. We thought he might not get one at all for a while because both of Santa's bags were empty! All the teachers and I were running around tracing Santa's steps to see if the present had fallen out of his bag on the way from the "North Pole". Finally, Santa realized that Zack's present was stuck in the bottom of the bag. Poor little Zack was sitting there wondering what was going on and why Santa had forgotten him. Once he finally went up for his present everyone was cheering for him (which is why he looks so scared standing up there by Santa).



Monday, December 8, 2008

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas (the explanation)

Okay, I'm not sure what is going on .... for some reason I can't add text to my last post. So this post is just an explanation of the post from yesterday.

The kids had their Christmas play on Friday night. They did so well and we were so proud of them. Missy, Bryce, Jenna, Pibebomb, Amanda and her kids, and Darcie were all able to come see the little gems perform. The church said they video taped the play so I will purchase a copy for you Indiana folks to enjoy. The pictures of the kids wearing black are of Friday night before the play. (All the kids wore black in the play.)

The pictures of the kids in the snow were taken over at Missy and Bryce's house. Their neighborhood is amazing, they brought in snow so we had to go join in the fun. Lot's of snow, hot cocoa, hot cider, and cookies! I have more pictures to post from this day but I want to add the text along with the pictures. Some of the video clips require an explanation:-)

The last picture was taken on our way to Seth's state championship football game. We were running around all day and the kids had not eaten yet so we stopped at McDonalds. On the way to the game, Zack fell asleep mid-bite. What you see hanging out of his mouth are his fries! It was SO funny!!

Tomorrow is my last day of student teaching!