Ashlee, My Ashlee

Our Ashlee is growing up so fast I don't know where the time has gone.  This girl is a crack up and full of sass.  She knows what she wants and she wants what she wants.  She is a funny girl and loves to laugh!  I wanted to put some pictures of the different faces of this girl.  We just love her so much and cannot imagine what our family would be like without her!

 Cute one day before church.  Love that her little curls are starting to show...

 The other day we took Ashlee to Build a Bear to use a gift card she got for Christmas.  She LOVED it, and she loved her new Dog.  This girl loves to cuddle, our only kid that has been one.  She loves stuffed animals and even sleeps with them. 

 Throwing a little tantrum before church right after her cute picture...

On our way to Grandma's house one day.  It was a bit cold and we were in the car that takes a while to heat up.  She was loving the gloves and the blanket, but they were both off after about 10 minutes.

 Cutie Pie after a bath.  Love her crazy hair.  It may be short and taking forever to grow, but it is still cute!!!  And look at that smile! 

 This is Ashlee's latest face when you ask her to smile for a picture.  Apparently she thinks she is smiling and looking super cute too!  The girl is crazy!

 Ashlee is a girlie girl.  She loves all things girlie and she loves all things boyish too.  She got this new purse from her Aunt Lisa and she is loving it! 

 Ashlee before church today.  At least her smile is a little closer to looking like one.  She is just a plain cutie pie, to me at least!  But I'm sure I'm quite bias.

Just wanted to add this picture to show all of her curls.  She is following in her sisters footsteps for sure!  I love it because it helps me with doing their hair.  I just have to throw some product in it and BAM it looks pretty nice.  Oh how we love this girl!  How she gives us a run for our money and we are so grateful for it!

Grandpa's Boy

The other day we went out shooting with my dad.  It was Grandpa, Ethan, Katelee, me and Chris.  We had a good time being out in nature and enjoying each others company.  Afterwards we headed out to my sisters house for a family gathering and as you can see Ethan and Grandpa were quite tired.  It makes me laugh at how similar these two are.  Ethan wants to be just like his Grandpa and I'm just fine with that. 

Elementary School

Having kids in school I always imagined was going to keep our little family busy, but I think I may have underestimated it by quite a bit!  It seems like every week there is some different activity, fundraiser or parent meeting that we need to attend or participate in.  It has been nice having Ethan and Katelee in the same school, so at least it's all in the same place.  We have gotten to attend many fun family nights at the school such as the Thanksgiving program put on by the Kindergarten classes along with a Thanksgiving Dinner (at 7:45am, my kind of breakfast), The school Carnival, Holiday Family Craft night, awards ceremonies, many PEAK meetings (once a month meetings to go over what the kids will be learning that month so we can help them at home), PIE nights (PTA at night), Book Fair, Take Your Parent to School Day and also during reading week I was able to read some books to Ethan's class.  Along with all of these I work in the class at least once a month just so I can help out and so my kids can see that I value education.  On top of all of these different activities we of course have homework, reading and spelling words to work on. 

It has been quite fulfilling having Ethan and Katelee in school as a mother.  I feel like I have some way of actually gauging now the job that I am doing with my kids.  Of course I have quite a lot of work to do, but it is nice to see my kids progressing well in their education endeavors.  Katelee enjoys going to school and is doing a very good job in her class.  She plays well with all of the kids and has really come out of her shell.  It is great to see her run around with all of the kids at the afternoon recess.  She talks about school and her classmates and loves her teachers.  Ethan is your typical boy, he does not enjoy school.  He HATES homework.  He complains about doing anything related to school, especially sight words and writing.  But he does them and he is doing very well.  He has been getting spelling words for about a month or longer and so far he has gotten 7/7 on all of them.  It's a struggle, but I hold hope that something will catch his enjoyment and it wont be such a struggle.  A mom can dream right?  

Here are some pictures of some of the school things we have done so far this school year....        

 Thanksgiving Presentation...  My cute little Indians....

  

Holiday Tree decorations for the whole school....

 School Awards Ceremony.  Ethan received the Certificate of Merit for Attendance, Recognizes All Letters in the Alphabet, Counts from 0-100 and Academic Achievement.  Proud parent moment when he got all of those awards.  (Sad moment seeing that so many of Ethan's classmates didn't get many awards...)

 Ethan's project for the 100th day of school....  In true Vegas style!

 This was Katelee's project for the 100th day of school...  Don't know why Kate's not holding it...

Take your parent to school day.  This was a fun day at school.  It was a nice time but a bit sad to see that only two other parents came to school.  

It has been nice to work in Ethan's class, to get to know his classmates and his teacher.  At the beginning of the year Ethan had Mrs. Watkins, however she has since taken a leave of absence and he now has a new teacher Mrs. Regina.  Mrs. Regina is a great teacher who really tries to help the kids learn and progress.  From working in the class the kids know who I am and don't hesitate to ask me to look at their work and help them out.  Ethan enjoys having me there also and is so sweet to me.  The other day I came in at the beginning of school to read to the class.  When he called me at work after school he said, "I missed you when you left today."  Sweetest thing he ever did say!  

Kate's class isn't so big on having parents come in to help.  In the special class that she has they usually present more of a distraction than a help.  But Chris was able to go with her to Take your Parent to school day and she LOVED it!  She has asked why I don't go to her class often and I just have to explain that we aren't really able to right now.  But I cannot wait to see her in her class setting as well!  

Although school keeps us busy I am so excited to start this new chapter with my kids!  I hope to instill in them the love of learning and progressing!