Ready for spring!

We've had a great winter.  I can't believe that I haven't updated the blog is so long!  Time is cruising by and I guess we are just too busy having fun.  It's been a very cold winter but we still managed to have a lot of fun.  I think we are all ready for some son and warmth but we all know it will be here before we know it.

The kids are doing great.  Nolan is loving his daycare at Kelly's (it's no Stephie's but he still enjoys it a lot).  Tessa LOVES going to school everyday.  Last night you would have thought that she won the lottery with her excitement.  She got her first chapter book and the girl was on top of the world.  It was adorable.  That love of learning, reading, and enjoying school has been awesome to see from her.  I hope it continues.  Nolan will start 4K in the fall which he is very excited about as well.

Here are a few pics to highlight the last few months of fun. 

 Someone turned 34...Happy Birthday Daddy!

Tessa's two front teeth

Just tonight I had a thought that time is truly going by too quickly.  As Tessa looked up at me with her two front teeth missing I couldn't help but sit back and think about the time just cruising by.  My baby girl lost tooth number six tonight.  She was so excited.  I love nothing more than watching the kids have pure joy written across their smiles.  She cannot wait for the tooth fairy to come tonight.  There sure is something special about being young, isn't there?!  Something changes in us when we get older and I am not really sure why.  As we are entering a brand new year, I am going to try to have more of the same perspective on life as my 6 and 4 year old.  Smile, laugh, be silly, get excited to be around people I love and that love me, and have no worries.  Life in the eyes of a child is so magical, so precious, and so refreshing.  Love my kiddos.  I want to enjoy the little things about each day just as they do.

Merry Christmas 2013

What a super fun Christmas once again.  It's such a fun time of year that makes us all realize how lucky we are.  On December 1 we had a special someone join our family until Christmas day.  Millie, our little elf.  The kids loved having her around.  The kids had so much fun getting up each morning to find where Millie had moved to while we were all sleeping.  Her cousin Mort was at the Lane's which made it so fun for the kiddos to chat about them.  The only thing that I didn't love about having Millie here was the kids having to say goodbye to her so Santa could take her back home.  We hope that Millie comes next year :)

We did a lot in a few days over Christmas.  That is one nice thing about having our families all so close.  We just have to bop around and are able to catch a little bit of everything. 

We are so blessed and look forward to what 2014 will bring for us.

Tessa came home from school after shopping at the school giftshop and she couldn't resist giving Nolan his present right away.  All that he had on his Christmas list was a hot wheel.  Sure enough when he opened the gift it was a hot wheel that she had picked out for him.  What a cutie.  Man I love those two.  She was so super excited to give it to him.

Tessa's Christmas concert... She did such a good job.  She loves singing.  She would sing all day long instead of talking if she could.

 Let the cousin fun begin!

"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way...!"  The kids singing Christmas Carols as we anticipate the arrival of Santa on Christmas Eve.

My favorite gift of all.  Tessa's gift for me with the bag decorated saying "I love you".  My favorite part of Christmas is the pure joy of the kids.  They are excited 100% of the time.  They love every minute, they don't stress about a thing, and they anticipate the day for so long.  Seeing their excitement is priceless.  The last two pictures below show just how happy they were.  Just happy about life.  Love them.

Fall Fun

It's been a very fun fall so far!  Quickly fall is turning into winter as we've already been sledding.  The kids thought one inch of snow was enough to go sledding in and I think they were right, it worked pretty well :)  Below are a few of my favorite pics from the fall.  We had a wedding and Tessa loved this swing.  What you can't see is that it was pouring rain but that didn't phase the kids at all!  They loved playing in the pouring rain.  There were tons of kids there but at one point I looked over and saw Tessa just swinging away.  She was in heaven, what a fun swing!

The second picture is from the UW homecoming parade.  It's a super fun parade and as you can see from Tessa and Nolan, they were pretty excited.  Derek had football that evening but mom joined us for the fun.  It was a fun night :) 

Halloween 2013

Halloween 2013 - We had an adorable little construction worker and Minnie Mouse with us this year.  Both kids loved bopping around town going door to door trick-or-treating.  They would run up to a door, say trick-or-treat, and Nolan would ask every single person who answered the door what their name was.  He often wanted to stay at each door to have a conversation with the people who lived there but would quickly realize that the other kiddos were already moving on to other houses so he'd sprint away.  Our little guy sure isn't very shy!  Tessa had a great time too.  After we came back over to "our side of town" Nolan was ready to be done but Tessa wanted to head around our neighborhood.  I'm so glad that she did, we are lucky to have the neighbors that we do.  They were all so sweet to Tessa and several of them had special little packages set aside for Tessa and Nolan.  With most of them having grown kids, they know how special Halloween is and wanted to make it special for our kids.  Another fun Halloween!  Another fun night with the Lane crew...but I'm bummed I didn't get any pics of them!

Nolan turned 4!

As requested by the birthday boy, we celebrated Nolan's 4th birthday bowling with some of our favorite people.  He had an absolute blast.  The little guy smiled the whole time, cheered for others, tried to rush people along so he could get another turn, and had a blast.  It was a very fun evening.  Crazy that he is four already.  Life sure goes quickly but it sure is fun.  Happy 4th Birthday Nolan, we love you.  Sorry for the late post buddy, we've been too busy having fun!

Tessa's heading to first grade!

Someone was sure excited to go to school on the first day!  Tessa woke up and flew out of bed so excited about her day.  I'm pretty sure she smiled all day.  Hard to believe that she is in first grade already.  We started our day with number one pancakes for first grade.  Of course it was an extra special day so we needed to put sprinkles on it. 

Nolan has also started a new daycare.  We started our day very similar to Tessa's first day except we had K pancakes for Kelly.  He was so excited and felt like such a big boy heading there all by himself.  He's really enjoying it.  It's definitely going to take some getting used to not going to Stephie's but hopefully we all adjust.  Stephie sure was one of a kind.

Here's to a great school year for everyone!  Derek and I also started the same day Tessa did.  We sure need to enjoy each day we have because the older we get the faster the days go by.  And as Nolan would say..."Someone is almost four!". :)