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Thursday, August 23, 2012

Fun with Friends

We love hanging out with our friends...even if we can't do it daily anymore we are sure to make time to get together and do fun stuff.....

Like an afternoon at the duck pond!

I love pictures like these and they are actually in birth order here, not planned!

"I'm the Statue of Liberty" Braeden :)

Camden & Braeden-5, Brandon-3, Courtney-6, Kyler & Carsten-2

All of our ducks in a row :)

And a day at the beach!

3 awesome dads hanging out with the kids by the water

An all too rare pic of my hubby and me!

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Summer Fun

One of our favorite places to spend our family time this summer :)

Saturday, August 18, 2012

I cannot believe that my boys have graduated preschool and started kindergarten already!! Where does the time go?! Camden and Braeden loved preschool and they grew and learned so much this last year. Their teachers Miss Nichelle and Miss Shannon were amazing and really loved on all the kids; they were made to be teachers for sure!

And if you think I made it through this graduation without crying you are so wrong!! :) Miss Nichelle went all out to make their school year and graduation special and she did an amazing job!

Braeden after receiving his diploma, trophy and big hug from Miss Nichelle :)

Camden getting his hug :)

Miss Shannon and Miss Nichelle...amazing women with huge hearts for children!

I snuck into the classroom to take some pictures after graduation. :)

The classroom was in a community building for the first half of the year (I don't have any pictures of that classroom)...

and then for the second half of the year it was held here (all of these pictures) in the converted 3 car garage at Miss Nichelle's new house!

It was an awesome classroom, you would never know it had been a garage!

The entry to the classroom where the parents gathered every day to drop off and pick up the kids

Family photo op :)

Promotion Time

Chris was promoted from 2nd Lieutenant to 1st Lieutenant at the end of May. I usually get to do the honors of pinning on his new rank, but this time Camden and Braeden were the lucky ones and it was so neat to watch! They did a great job!

3 attempts at a family picture and this is the best we got! In their defense, it was really bright and sunny out and they were having a hard time keeping their eyes open to look at the camera. ;)

Right house, wrong street

After looking at many, many, many houses and getting down to the wire of being "homeless", I found this house and jumped on it. It was just what we were looking for and had everything we wanted....except it was on the wrong street in the wrong community. :) We had desperately been searching for a house in the same neighborhood community as the house we were moving out of. We loved the community and wanted to stay close to our friends...preferably within walking distance (not asking much right?!). :) Obviously that wasn't mean to be because the house we are in now is across town about 4 miles...9 minutes away from our friends (I know because I timed the drive, haha). We love our new house and feel truly blessed to have such a wonderful place to call home. It is a beautiful 5 bedroom, 3 bath home with a 3 car garage and tons of closet/storage space...everything we wanted. Now we just have to be much more deliberate about getting together with our friends. No more going out front every day at 3 to hang out with my girlfriends and let the kids play....that was THE BEST! It is still a huge bummer to me, but we are making the most of the new house and making sure to have play dates with our friends. I'm sad for the boys though because there are NO kids on our street for them to play with. :( They are all 9+ years old and we never see anyone outside playing. The neighborhood is mostly an "older" crowd, bummer. Anyway, these are the pictures I took when I first looked at the house....I will have to get some updated ones on here now that we are moved in and it is decorated.