Fall Family Photos (2019)

We had another great session with Dyan for this year's fall photo shoot.  We tried so hard to look fall-ish, which was hard given that it was over 90 degrees.  We mixed it up a little this year and went to Norfolk's Neon District for our session.  It was super colorful (as you can see) and really fun.  Enjoy!

Until next time, cheers!

Lunching with the Kiddos

We had a busy shortened week with all of our normal activities.  On Friday, I got to take treats in for Ryleigh's class to celebrate her birthday.  Ryleigh's class had earned the "privilege" of eating in the classroom, which made handing out the treats super easy for this mama.  

Afterwards, I stuck around to eat lunch with RJ.  

Over the weekend, we celebrated Ryleigh's birthday and enjoyed our rainy Sunday with some quiet time to do chores and just hang out. 

This week is pretty standard.  Kiddo activities will provide the usual busy-ness.  Then my parents come in Saturday night and Ryleigh will compete in her first gymnastics meet as a Level 3 gymnast.  She is excited and nervous.  

As always, pics to come.  Until next time, cheers!

Happy 8th Birthday, Ryleigh

It's official.  Ryleigh is now 8.  She is super excited to be 8.  She has told everyone that she is now 8.

Turning 8 was a day-long celebration.  We opened gifts.  I made fluffy waffles.  We had a birthday party at Glazenfyre.  We ate dinner at Ryleigh's choice, Chili's.  And, then she stayed up well past 10, playing with her Echo Dot by asking Alexa to play music and read her stories.  She had a great day!

Happy Birthday, Best Girl!

Nice Long Weekend

We enjoyed a nice long weekend.  While Jip still had to do some work, he was able to do it from home.  And, we accomplished a lot.  The front porch is decorated for the fall/Halloween.  Most of the props for NMCRS's vehicle at the USO's Trunk or Treat are done (thank you, Jip, for making a pirate mast, ship's wheel, and helping me with the cardboard bow for the pirate ship theme).  Jip also started a Christmas decor project based on something I fell in love with on Pinterest last year.  He got a couple of new tools out of it and I'll have to find my best painting skills when his part is done.  I can't wait to show you!

Even though Monday was a day off, the kids had a busy one.  They both had to complete Virtual Learning Day projects.  Ryleigh did a Venn Diagram to show what Benjamin Franklin and Christopher Columbus had in common.  And RJ made a video about something in his environment that others might find surprising.  A few Jip edits later, we have this:

RJ also went to Minecraft Camp all day at Code Ninja.  They were nice enough to feature his project on their FB page.

Ryleigh went to a birthday party and then straight to gymnastics.  Both kiddos were exhausted.

This week, on top of our normal busy-ness, we celebrate a couple birthdays.  :)  Ryleigh has been telling people she's 8 for the last 3 months or so, but we'll make it official on Saturday with a family celebration and a party with her friends at a pottery painting place.  I avoid telling people my age, so we'll make it official at some point this week with dinner out.

As always, pics to come.  Until next time, cheers!

Filling You In

Well, it has once again been two weeks since my last post.  In that time, kids went to school.  We had our family photo session with the amazing Dyan (yep--I've seen them, but I still have to narrow them down to what we want).  I went to DC for the NMCRS International Conference while Jip herded the two cats known as RJ and Ryleigh.  Ryleigh received the Special Me award for her class for the month of October.  Jip had lunch with the kiddos.  RJ entertained another NMCRS volunteer's two boys with some Nintendo tutorials.  The neighborhood block party kept the kiddos entertained for a few hours.  Ryleigh hosted a sleepover.  RJ went to a sleepover.  Amy studied.  Jip went to the storage unit multiple times because we're still getting used to having more than one crate of Halloween stuff.  :)

So, pics of all of these lovely events?  Here are a few...

While we are trying to narrow down our photos with Dyan, we did receive the kids' school pictures.  Yep, these are exactly why I have a mini-session with Dyan every fall.

This week should allow us to get back into our routine for about a week, then we get to have a virtual learning day on Columbus Day. :/  We don't know what the kids' assignments are yet, but hopefully they won't be too painful.

As always, pics to come.  Until next time, cheers!