First day of school...plus a week or so :)

My camera battery was dead on the first day of school, so I'm a little late in getting the annual "First Day of School" pictures taken.

I told Andrew I'll write in their scrapbooks that it was a "Beginning of the Year" picture after he called me a liar when I referred to them as "First Day of School".

Anyway, I thought it would be cute to list all their pics here to see how much they've grown.

1st Day of Kindergarten 2006

 

1st Day of 1st Grade 2007

 

 

1st Day of 2nd Grade 2008

1st Day of 3rd Grade (Andrew) and Kindergarten (Isaac) 2009

 

1st Day of 4th Grade (Andrew) and 1st Grade (Isaac) 2010

 

Beginning of the Year 5th Grade (Andrew) and 2nd Grade (Isaac) 2011

 They've grown so much!  And they're pretty dang cute if I do say so myself :)

A year later....

Well, more than a year has passed since my last blog.  Turns out that I am not a very good blogger.

I suppose that's not entirely true.  I can blog with the best of them....when I actually do it.  To be fair though, I have been more than a little busy lately.  I could go into all the monotonous details of what the family has been up to in the last year, but let's face it, none of you want that much info all at once.  Plus, most of you are friends with me on Facebook and I do update that fairly regularly.

So I guess for this blog I'll just start with where we're at right now.

School has started back up again and we are in the full swing of things.  I am on the PTO again this year, this time as the Vice President, so that keeps me more than busy. 

Andrew is in 5th grade. He's too cool for much of anything these days and has the attitude that distinguishes him as a bone fide pre-teen!  He's having lots of fun though and loves his teacher and his class. 

Isaac is in 2nd grade.  He started off the year a little rough (residual effects of last year's issues) but today he didn't cry when I dropped him off.  And, when I picked him up, he informed me that he ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some pears and some carrots for lunch!  This is a HUGE improvement from last year and I am glad to see him doing so much better.

I am also going back to school in a couple of weeks....hopefully for my LAST term!  Yay!  I have a lot to get done though, and I'm not sure if I can fit 17 credits and an internship all in this term.  Either way, I am soooo close to being done with school and pretty proud of myself for sticking it out.  In the end I will graduate with a BA in Child and Family Studies and hopefully an AAS in Early Childhood Ed.  My career plans include doing some kind of parent education or family support work in the future but I'm not quite sure that I'm ready to go to work full-time right now.  Luckily I have some time to figure it all out.

I'd like to say that I will do a better job at keeping up with the blog, but as you can tell, I have a lot on my plate.  For now, I'll just add some pictures of our summertime adventures, and here's hoping that I will update sometime before next year!

Grant and I went to Hawaii for a week in June....it was BEAUTIFUL!

 

 

The Buffaloes and the Lees came to visit in August and we had a blast at the beach and at the zoo.

 

I got to participate in the graduation ceremony at Portland State and it was great to have so much love and support!

Our friends Amber and Zac and their 3 boys came to visit in August.  All the kids had a great time together and it was so nice to catch up with Amber and Zac and show them around Portland.

 

Finally, our last vacation for the summer was a camping trip in Washington with my family. 

Wedding Week!!!

It's been way too long since I have updated here, not because I didn't have anything to write about, but because I have been so busy.  There is a lot to catch up on, but for today, I'm focusing on the wedding.

My baby sister, Amanda, got married on Saturday to Anthony Trejo.  We are so happy for them and excited to have Anthony as a member of the family (the boys LOVE their new uncle Anthony)!

So this last week was packed full of wedding related activites that kept us all so busy I think we are all in need of a week-long vacation!

First, Thursday night was Amanda's bachelorette party.  We rented out a suite in one of the hotels down town and had waaaaaaay too much fun until the wee hours of Friday morning.  It was a perfect way to spend time with my sisters and their friends and to kiss goodbye Amanda's single life.

                                                     Me and my BEAUTIFUL sisters! 


We stayed the night at the hotel and after picking up the boys at my mom's house the next day, I had exactly 3 hours to try and finish the groom's cake I had volunteered to make for the wedding before we had to be at the rehearsal dinner.

I didn't finish it all then, so I was up until 1 am Saturday morning finishing it up.

For those of you who don't know, Amanda and Anthony are not only HUGE soccer fans, but they actually initially met in college while both on the school's soccer teams.  So the following cake was fitting....

 I am pretty critical of myself and the cakes I've done so far and it could have been a little cleaner, but overall, I was pretty proud of this cake and was a hit at the wedding.

So, that brings us to Saturday and the wedding.  At this point, many of us were running on about 8 hours of sleep over the previous two nights and we were exhausted.  But, we were more excited and got an early start to the day getting everything set up and ready.

The wedding went off perfectly and Amanda looked beautiful!  I was a little preoccupied with all the wedding and bridesmaid duties, so I personally didn't take any pictures.  So until the professional ones come back, these ones I snagged from Robyn's sister-in-law off of facebook will have to do.

Doesn't Amanda look gorgeous? 

Jordan (Robyn's nephew), Andrew and Dillon (Friend of the family)

The Happy Couple and the Flower Girl

Finally, we spent Sunday relaxing with famiily at my parents house for the 4th of July.  We had lots of family members in town for the wedding so it was nice to catch up with everyone and just relax.  Amanda and Anthony didn't leave for their honeymoon until today, so they even spent yesterday with us.

The whole crew.....

Ben had to be content with my smaller LEGAL fireworks this year after his run-in with the law last year!

Sparklers.....a 6-year-old's best friend

Andrew, getting a hand from his new uncle Anthony.

Lucas was not nearly as impressed with the fireworks as everyone else was!

It was also a little bittersweet because it was a good bye party of sorts for my cousin Ryan.  He has been living here for the past couple of years and we have all really enjoyed having him here, especially my boys.  Ryan is leaving tomorrow to work in Laos for 2 years.  He will definitely be missed and we wish him nothing but luck and happiness while he's gone!  Good luck Ryan!!

So, I guess that's all.  It was an amazing week, and even worth the lack of sleep.  Now, I have to work on catching up on all the housework and homework I put aside last week.

No rest for the weary I guess.