Happy Birthday Nana!

Happy Birthday Nana! 

Here is the second half of our day, spent at my Uncle Marc's for swimming and food. It was a very wonderful afternoon of family, food and fun!

Here is my Papa, with Mark, Rich and my Mama.

My Aunt Kim with my sister.

The kiddies swimming!

Getting warm!

Here are my Nana and Papa with their five kids:

from left to right - Chip, Kim, my Mama, April and Marc.

These five kids have had lots of kids themselves, my cousins, some of whom are my very best friends! And now some of those kids have had kiddies of their own. 

My Papa and Nana are the best top of our family tree!

 I adore this family, we have the greatest time, so much laughter and love! 

Happy Birthday Nana!

Happy Birthday Mark!

Happy Birthday to Mark! My husband and my Nana share the same b-day, so in the am, we as a small fam had breakfast at our favorite spot, The Coffee Shop. In the pm, we headed over to my uncle Marc's house for dinner and swimming. (Post to follow.)

The men in my life.

My sweet girls.

Mama and Papa Rich

Pretty Ruiz Girls!

Karsten goes back to K-Prep

If you have followed my blog for at least a year, then you will know how much I loved Karsten's Kindergarten Prep program with Mrs. Gleason. The program was truly everything I could have asked for and I met the most AMAZING teacher in the world! 

Before Karsten graduated the K-prep program, Mrs. Gleason made the kids promise when they learned to read, to come back to her class and read to them. So here we are, at Mrs. Gleason's K-prep class and Karsten is doing the reading! 

He chose Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?

Here's Karsten and the wonderful, Mrs. Gleason!

Karsten reading to the class, he did so well! He would read a page and then show the kids the pictures, it was so cute!

Since Karsten has left K-prep, Mrs. Gleason switched districts from Gilbert to Higley. The school she is at now is definitely much farther than the previous elementary school she was at before, but the program she has is so great, Ella is now enrolled for this coming year. I am so excited! I'm so happy that she will be back in our lives again day after day . . . she is that fantastic!  

Congrats to Karsten, you did fabulous and I am so proud of you! 

Field Day at CRRE

Karsten had his first Field Day at his school. I was able to take a couple of hours off of work to help out and I was so glad I did! He had so much fun, and I love being able to be with him at his school events. Here is Karsten with one of his best friends, Kaliee. 

Here's the team I was in charge of! Look at those little munchkins!

Little Miss Taylor was on my team!

I thought this was so cute . . . they were doing push ups between their events. What dedication!

Here's Kar in action!

I love seeing him try so hard and have so much fun! He can be a tad bit hard on himself though, if he doesn't win, so I was beyond happy that they didn't keep score. It was just for fun and exercise. Perfect! It really was a wonderful morning! 

Now, if only I could get myself going and go for a run also! :)

Happy 30th Birthday (Celebration), Megan!

Happy Birthday Mimi! We celebrated Meggy's birthday at the Improv and then I was supposed to go out afterwards, but after many, many sake bombs and lemon drop shots, I needed to go home. Sorry, Mims! I still love you tons and tons (and she had a fabulous time without me anyways)!

The party started here for me, at Sushi 101. Marky and I had dinner with Mojo (real name, Renee') from my work and her b-friend, Beau. I probably shouldn't have tried to keep up with a 23 year old in the drinking department, but we were having so much fun!

I was slipping by this point . . . look at my hair! Ha!

At the Improv, my Mama and her fiancee', Rich. They look so dapper!

The sake bomb crew, happy at the Improv.

The Paulus girls!

Hair cuts and Ice Cream!

What's better than Daddy cutting your hair and then having an ice cream treat afterwards? 

Nothing! :)

Yummy!!

Happy!

Inaugural Pool Party at the Wilson Home

So, Mark's parents built this AMAZING pool and had an AMAZING party to celebrate! The weather was perfect, the pool was too chilly for the Mama's but the kids had a fantastic time swimming (and so did my husband)!

Here is Mark with his brother, Dustin.

Just one part of the Wilson family (Mark's step-father, Dana is one of six wonderful children)!

Here is Dana's sister, Auntie Elizabeth, with her husband, Greg, and daughter, Sloane.

Me and my boys - Karsten and Jaden!

Mark's mother, Karen, and our former family trainer, Matt.

Mark's dad, Mark III, and his girlfriend, Christa.

Me and my baby girl!

Mark's sister's husband, Jeremiah.

Karsten and Jaden, so ready to swim! They were so patient, waiting to go into the pool!

Mark's grandma, Grammie . . . this is the outfit she came out in! She is fantastic! Love her to pieces!

Look at my little man! What a dare devil!

And this is where he gets it from . . .

Looking forward to many more family fun days at the Wilson's! Yeah!

Happy Easter 2010

Happy Easter! I'm not a very good Catholic, I hardly ever attend Mass . . . the kids and I do talk about God and He is a part of our lives, but they do not understand the meaning behind Easter. I should change that soon - add it to my ever growing to-do list. Anyways, I do have fun at Easter, it's not a high pressure holiday, but it's fun and the weather is usually fab! I really enjoy decorating for the festivities. This year, I'm not supposed to shop (crazy, right?) so I was trying to find decorations for cheep, cheep. (Do you like my Easter pun?) I found Peeps and colored paper fill at Target (speaking of Heaven) and created decorations that adorned my house! I used votive and tea light holders I already owned, put the fill at the bottom and placed a Peep on top. I got different colored Peeps for different rooms of the house. The only downside to using food as decoration is that my mom started eating my decorations! :) Ha! I really liked how it turned out though.

Family pictures:

My best buddy . . .                                                                                                           

The daughters' with their girls!

Mila and Rich with their grandbabies . . . 

Megan and her friend, Lauren 

Auntie Izzie with Ava Beans

Digging into the Easter Baskets!

Hunting for eggs . . .

Look what we found! 

My mama and I

The munchkins!

Hope your Easter was as nice as ours! xoxo