Happy Holidays

We had a wonderful Christmas with our families!  There was even some snow on the ground this year which made it feel even more like Christmas.  We spent a few days sledding down the hill into our park.  It was great fun and definitely helped keep our busy little 1st grader entertained.  We will be spending New Year's in McCall once again this year.  Curtis will be turning "36" on December 30th and skiing in McCall is what he always loves to do for his birthday.  We are excited to get Paige back on her skis.  Last year all she wanted to do was go through the trees with her daddy.  We will see what this year brings :)

Christmas at Aunt Heidi's
Paige had so much fun making memories with her cousins
Gavin, Jenna and Eli

Grandma Billie just had to buy these crazy/NOISY hats for
Zakary and Paige

What a December!

So far our "usually" fun preparation for Christmas has not been so joyous.  Thank God for our sweet little Paige who keeps us preoccupied and laughing at all times!

Here's a little recap of what the past 16 days have brought to our home.  We have been very excited to have our furnace and A/C replaced.  Well, this took place last week with nothing but head aches, back aches, smoke inhalation, a broken pipe and holes in the sheet rock.  We are slowly in repair mode which brings a  house full of sheet rock dust and yucky wallpaper removal.  Paige and I have pulled out only half of our Christmas decorations this year.  She has been so busy with her school and after school activities it hasn't seemed to affect her at all.  Phew!

To help get us in the Christmas spirit, we have enjoyed a few holiday festivities.  We love to take part in the tree lighting ceremony at Locomotive Park, watch the Christmas parade in Clarkston and, most of all, listen to Paige sing in her school Christmas concert and dance at her Christmas dance recital.

There are only two days of school left until Christmas vacation.  Paige is not very happy about that as she loves school so much.  We will have Christmas Eve in Juliaetta, Christmas morning at home and then traveling to the Tri-Cities to spend the day with the Fryer Family.  We will then be hitting the ski slopes ! 

Wishing everyone a Very Merry Christmas

The Life of a 1st Grader

Each week we are surprised by our Little Miss Paige.  Thought I would share a couple of funny stories with you.  Last week we had parent teacher conferences and Paige is doing very well.  She is one of the top readers in her class and knows exactly what is expected of her throughout each day.  Her teacher informed us that a boy in her class wrote a story about how Paige kissed him on the lips.  Oh my!  This mama was panic stricken.  No more iCarly for her!  When I asked Paige about it she said, "no mama, I did not kiss him, he kissed me on the cheek, twice".  This boy has liked Paige since the first day of Kindergarten.  So cute!  The other story I am sharing happened last night while getting ready for bed.  She was telling me how she learned a really bad word and didn't know if she should tell it to me.  I thought, ok, here we go.  Up to this point she has seemed oblivious to what a bad word is.  She was nervous and finally said the bad word,  "Big Chunka Stupid Butt".  She was very embarrassed and thought I was going to be mad at her.  How am I supposed to be mad at that?  She is so sweet and so funny.

The Tutu Witch!

It is amazing what you have around the house to put a Halloween costume together.  Paige is wearing her tap dance tutu from last Spring and then I dug out my long black wig and witches hat from years ago.

  She loved her costume even though her wig was itchy and the wind kept blowing her hat sideways!

"Thriller"

This year Paige had the opportunity to learn Michael Jackson's Thriller Dance with a group of dancer's.  She practiced every Saturday in October to prepare for the big performance at our local Downtown Trick R Treat party.  Their group danced 3 times down Main St.  Paige did a great job!

Dance teacher Shawna and Paige as Zombie's!

All dancers dressed up as Zombie's.  It took lots of persuading to get Paige to put on white and black face paint, but once she saw the finished product in the mirror she was excited! 

Visit to the pumpkin patch

I believe this was our 5th annual trip to the pumpkin patch with our great friends, Stephanie, Kael and Natalie.  It was definately more work this year!  The pumpkin patch seemed to be 5 miles away and there were no carts for hauling, what seemed to be, 50lb pumpkins back to our cars.  Oh well, we had fun together no matter what.  Paige had so much fun that she cried half the way home!


2010



2008





2006



2006

It is so fun to look back at pictures from previous years!  Kael and Paige are 12 days apart in age.  They go to different schools and don't get to see each other as much as we would like, but they are still crazy about each other and have so much fun.



Happy Fall!

Whew!  The month of September flew by for our family.  I would like to say that life is going to slow down but I just don't think it ever does when you have a child.  Paige absolutely loves everything about school. She wakes up way too early "every morning" with such excitement to start another day.

Paige has decided she wants to take Jazz/Hip Hop this year instead of Ballet/Tap.  She is currently learning the dance to "Thriller" to perform at the Halloween party downtown.  Every Saturday in October she will have practice for two hours.  I was a little worried about that but she does great and loves it!  We have taken in a couple of fair's this month.  This picture was taken at our local fair.  Paige is posing in front of her class artwork.  Her class won 2nd place for their little farmer drawings!  I took a four day trip to Wisconsin for my friend's wedding.  Curtis did a great job getting Paige to and from school.  Paige lost her 2nd tooth while I was gone.  I was a little worried about the tooth fairy forgetting to visit but he did good!  We are excited that Fall is finally here.  We have yet to visit the pumpkin patch but are looking forward to such a great photo opportunity, buying apples and apple cider.