Family Pictures

I know that not everyone can have a professional photographer for a sister... but I do! I just love it when she says "I need to go and test some equipment can I take pictures of you guys while I do it??". Nothing like getting them done for free! Plus she is an amazing photographer :)

She even makes me look good!

My Cute family!

Not that she had to do much to make these 3 look Marvelous!

Careful He is starting to look like a teenager....

Future breaker of Boy's Hearts~

Have you ever seen a cuter 8 year old??

6 is starting to look pretty grown up

As you can see she does a wonderful job! And my kids are getting huge!

A tale of Green toes

Of all the colors that you could possibly paint your toe nails.... Green? My brother in law Tony got remarried on Saturday, to a wonderful girl that he dated in high school named Andree. I am so excited! We get along extremely well which is a relief as the last girl he dated I couldn't stand. He has 4 kids and she has 2 so together they have 6 kids! The thought of having to buy not only clothes for the wedding but new shoes for 6 kids was enough to make your wallet have a heart attack. So we decided that since the wedding was going to be just family and out in my in-laws back yard we would just let the kids go barefoot, because that's the way they would rather be anyway. Her colors where lime, silver and black so we thought that it would be really cute to paint all of the girls toenails to match the wedding colors. We were not going to do black or silver so they ended up green. As we were painting their 3 girls toes, my girls had to get theirs painted as well, and then they talked me into it. After there was 7 people with green toes my Mother-in-law decided that she needed to have her toes match her grandkids, and then Great Grandma Zaelit got in on the action too! It was such a hit that they had to have the photographer take a picture of our 4 generation's of lime green toes. We are so happy to welcome Andree, Staylee and Krayton into our family!

Again

Well there comes a time (OK well lots of times) in our life when we have to move. Unfortunately we just found out that this is one of those times. Our Landlord has decided to sell the house that we are living in so now we have to find a new one. Not that I will mind a new house so much its the packing and unpacking that I am NOT looking forward to!

Being a Mom is HARD!

I thought that this Mom stuff was supposed to get a little bit easier as the years have gone on. Yes I get more sleep, and I can actually go to the bathroom by myself. However, When you get up very early in the morning (well I do that anyway) but then you have to take you 12 year old and drop him off with a couple of well more of less strangers and say goodbye to him for an entire week just so he can go to scout camp and be a boy, its just to much. Who knew that scout camp at 12 would be harder than preschool at 3, kindergarten at 5, and first grade at 6 all put together. Compounding the situation is that 1 week from Wednesday my baby boy starts Junior high! I feel to old or maybe its young to have a child in Junior High, and to have my my other baby start first grade. I guess my kids just aren't little anymore. Who Knew!

Is summer over yet???

I was finally getting a moment to catch up on all of the blogs that I have missed, when I noticed that I have not posted 1 thing in 2 months! Well you are just going to have to deal with it! This summer has been excruciating for me. With both Andy and I trying to work and the kids trying to be at home (and not kill eachother) it has been almost more than I can handle. If you come to my house please make sure that you notice that it has not really been clean all summer. It took me several weeks just to come to terms with the fact that for the first summer ever my kids would not have a parent around with them. We were however able to find a wonderful babysitter (I refer to him as Micheal the angel) He comes in for 2 days a week, and without him the summer would have gone up in smoke (or the house, I don't want to speculate on which one would have gone up first!). I cannot wait for the next 17 days and my kids go back to school so that I don't have to sit at work and worry about them anymore. Once school starts I will hopefully be able to find my house, get my laundry done and stop going insane~ of course these are just goals you never know if they will actually happen! For now I am just going to be ecstatic that Grandma and Grandpa are being brave enough to take all 4 kids to the family reunion with them because Andy and I can't get the time off to go, so maybe I will get a kids vacation too even if its only 4 days!

Time to Graduate~

Graduation- the act of moving from one milestone to another, usually done in education.

OK well this isn't Webster its me but like every mother I dreamed of getting the perfect picture of my child getting their diploma and looking at me and smiling and me getting the best shot. Ha ha ha the universe has a sense of humor. I had 2 graduations Thursday, I had 2 chances to get it right. I got it wrong both times. Lexi graduated from Kindergarten in a cute ceremony befitting the attention span of a kindergartner short and sweet. They still all got called up by their teacher (stood on a stool) and then got their certificate. Well most of the kindergartners weren't sure what was really going on or that all of us crazy parents had been waiting to get that perfect picture. At our school you have to be there at least 30 min early if you want a parking space where you don't have to hike and you actually want to see what is going on. I was there a perfect 30 min early (good thing cause I don't walk fast and far isn't even a thought yet) got a great seat on the second row, a picture that is so blurry that I kept it for posterity even though its not really that obvious that its really Lexi. I am including the next best picture ....

Admit it she is in very cute form and she matched her black hat it style. Papa Henrie got to come to this graduation she was very excited to see him. She got even more excited when we got to her classroom and she got all sorts of treats from her teacher and all her old work that showed how she had progressed through the year (of course the candy was the most important).
Coulton's 6th grade class had a great celebration befitting their oldness. They had a great slide show (which had a bunch of pictures of our "Cole") . It also presented a great opportunity to get it right---right, to many kids all coming up to the stage at the same time, and standing in front of the teachers and well at least this is him with his diploma.
So in 2 years I will have another opportunity to get the perfect shot. I hope to have this perfected sometime in the next 5 years before Coulton really graduates. Wish me luck!

Lets Dance!

Well at the kids new school they do an end of year dance festival! All the kids get to learn a dance and dance for the parents. They held the dance festival out on the playground, and it was very warm sitting on the blacktop but it was great to see everybody dance!

Mara and the entire second grade danced to "We're all in this together" from High School musical 3. She did such a great job but kept hiding behind the kid next to her or facing away from me so pictures of her face where hard to come by!Coulton and the entire 6th grade did the "Cha Cha Slide" he was towards the back and had some really cute girls that where dancing around him, but he actually was a pretty great dancer!

Taylor and the 4th grade did the Virginia reel to "Turkey in the straw" which is a lot of coordination for 4th graders! They did so great and looked like they were having tons of fun doing it! Of course when it cam to what she was going to wear she was worried that Mom didn't know what was "Western" wear, But seriously we lived in Wyoming for almost 7 years I think I know what is western, and she looked very cute in her western wear if I do say so myself!

Lexi and the afternoon Kindergarten did "Splish, Splash" which was perfect for kindergartners! They must have practiced a TON (or maybe it was their teachers sitting in from on them helping) but they were excellent dancers. She of course was her adorable cute self for the entire dance!