Some Christmas Photos

It is REALLY hard to get these 2 girls to take pictures right now. Hailey likes to move FAST and want to look at the pictures as soon as you take them, or even before you have snapped the picture and Zoe waits patiently, but then looks silly because she tries to smile for such a long time waiting for her sister. The woman who watches Hailey during the day and used to watch Zoe boutght these beautiful dresses for the girls. They love them and would wear them every day if I would let them.

Just To Make You Smile

I love this picture of Hailey. It is silly and so her. She is wearing her favorite doctor glasses, her mouth is dirty and she has the cheesiest grin going. ENJOY!

I DESPISE Writing

I really do not like writing papers. Good thing I was never and English major! I have written so many papers this semester. I should be writing my vision statement right now, but am having writer's block. A vision should be at most a paragraph long, but no, this professor thinks it should be about 1500 words, APA style. That translates to about 6 pages with an abstract (summary) before the paper begins. Trust me, if you cannot sum up your vision in a paragraph, I will stop listening to you. Okay, thanks for listening. I need to get back to writing. I also have a 2500 word case study to write by the 6th of December. Haven't even started that one.

Okay Finally...

Carrot harvest! Some were HUGE!

Ragamuffin child! Love the little bib!

Stealing frosting from her birthday cake!

Murphy Dome!

It has been a LONG time since I have posted. I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. We have been busy around here. Zoe is really enjoying kindergarten, she is reading a lot of words already and those words she can even put together and read short books. I am very proud of her. Hailey has been working very hard on wearing big girl panties. It was almost an overnight thing and is doing GREAT! She loves the new panties that she has picked out and wears diapers only at bedtime and is waking up dry!! Zoe is leaving tomorrow for Anchorage with her Auntie and Josh to see The Lion King in Anchorage. They are flying down to Anchorage, going to Chuck E. Cheese's, visiting the zoo, swimming and then finishing the weekend with a performance of The Lion King. I am jealous!! Enjoy the pictures.

First Day of Kindergarten

Zoe started school on August 17. There are 7 kids in her class, 5 girls and 2 boys. She is having a great time. She loves helping me make her lunch each night. She is also having fun choosing from all of the jobs in the classroom each and every day. Sorry, the first picture looks really grainy. Zoe is really proud of her bag, she colored the whole thing by herself, it was a birthday gift from her grandma and grandpa.

Carrot Harvest

We harvested some carrots the other day. Both Hailey and Zoe have been picking them at Grandma Evie's but finally ours are ready. They love picking them, wiping off the dirt and eating them. There is nothing better!!! I have to say thank you to my wonderful Dad for building the box for me. He built it, and added the dirt for my birthday-he did it early though so I could plant it before we left on vacation in May.

Tomorrow is the Big Day!

Tomorrow Zoe starts kindergarten. I am excited for her, but also kind of sad. She is excited yet a bit apprehensive, so that kind of makes me glad. I can't believe how fast time has gone! She will always be my little girl!! I love her to death. She is staying at the same place that she went to preschool at, and there are only 6 kids in the class. I am very excited about that part. She will be getting a great education for her first formal year!!! I also like that she gets to do her gymnastics during the day. We will all survive, just another phase in life. Hailey will be visiting Jeraldine 2 days a week, and then staying at a friend from my childhood's home the other 3 days. She will have a playmate her age and she really enjoys being over there. We love Jeraldine's because they get loved on so much!!! Have a great school year!

Angel Rock

It has been a couple weeks now, but we hiked to the top of Angel Rock with the rest of the Staiger Family. Shannon's brother, wife and kids were in town for a couple of weeks. We had a lot of fun and the two older kids did really well. Zoe did the whole thing by herself without complaining and it was hot. I took lots of pictures, but am not posting too many.

Happy 5th Birthday Zoe

Bike rides in the morning

Face painting fun at Como Park

Rides at Como-she is so brave-it really shocks me.

My oldest turns five tomorow. I cannot believe that 5 years ago I became a mommy. The time has gone SO fast. Happy birthday Zoe. I love you. Hope that you have a great day.

Things we do when it rains

Zoe has gotten good at her sequencing cards. She has moved on to storytelling cards. She has names for all of the characters and tells a good story with the cards. Impresses me.

Brewster is a good sport. She was using his ears as reigns and pretending he was a horse.

Dancing ballerinas. I have to buy some more kid music-we listen to it and dance A LOT!

I really do not like rain at all, but it has been raining a bit lately and we have been finding activites to do indoors. We would all prefer to be outside!

Midnight Sun Run

We live along the race route and each and every year we have a party to celebrate. We celebrate summer, birthdays and Father's Day all at the same time. This is only the second time in I think 7 parties that it has rained on us. The first time we were not very prepared, but this time we were super prepared. We had 5 large tents and the party went on as if it was sunny out. We eat and party starting around 7 at the end of the cul de sac and then around 9:45 we move all of the tents, chairs and the snowmachine trailer full of coolers to the beginning of the cul de sac to watch the race. I LOVE summer in Fairbanks.

Family Trip teaser

Medora, North Dakota (The Badland)

Playground by Great Grandma's-both of them had a great time-we visited daily

We are home from our vacation. We have been home for almost a week, but I have been super busy planting flowers, getting the yard together, planting more flowers, playing in the sun. Well, you get the picture. We had a great time with family. It was nice to see everyone and the girl's had a great time catching up or if you are Hailey, meeting cousins. We visited Medora in North Dakota, played on many playgrounds, played with kitties, milked cows, played in the hay loft, rode in tractors, went to 3 zoos, caught a Twins baseball game, visited Federal Dam, Shannon went fishing, went to the Mall of America, stayed at an indoor water park hotel (so much fun). Well, you get the picture, we did a lot!!!! Here are a few pictures, I will post more as I get a chance.

The Park

We drove to Denali last weekend. It was beautiful and there were not many people. We enjoyed our time and saw a lot of caribou, ptarmigan, moose, and ground squirrels. The girls' enjoyed running around looking at the animals. The ptarmigan allowed us to get right up next to them. Hailey really liked the noise that they make.

Kuspuks

My friend Annie graciously made the girls' matching kuspuks and they absolutely LOVE them. They are super cute. THANK YOU ANNIE!!!

Spring/Summer Came To Us

Thank goodness for the awesome weather that we have had this week. It has been in the upper 70's for the past few days and I am loving it. We have been outside nonstop and I did the Chena Rier Run today and it was 65 at the start of the race. No, I didn't win because I am not much of a runner, but I did finish in under the time I wanted to. It is kind of a crazy little race beacause there is a lot of bottle necking in certain areas, and we didn't even cross the start line until about 5 minutes later because of the way the start is set up, so we actually did really well. It was Hailey, Jenny and I.

I was Tagged

I was tagged a while back by a friend and am finally getting around to it. It was something about the sixth picture. So I wen to my favorite album, Hawaii, and chose the sixth picture. Good thing for you is that it is of the girl's, and not of me. Not sure what I would have done if it was a bad one of me. Oh ya I do to know, I would have lied and not posted it. Thank goodness it was of the girl's.

Spring

I LOVE it when the snow begins melting and it is warm enough to be outside in the evening for a period of time and we don't go in because it is too cold, we go in because it starts to get late. Zoe LOVES the outdoors, and Hailey is definitely following in her footsteps. Since I don't post very often, enjoy the spring photos. These photos are completely unedited.

Annie, I am thinking of you-I saw all of the snow and am wondering how you are managing since I know youcame to town and got a brief feel of spring here.

Colorful

I love the flowers in Hawaii.

Valentine's Cookies-The Easy Way

Zoe really enjoys baking, but I have a hard time finding time to bake with her in the evening or on the weekends for that matter. With school, work and all of the other things I have going in my life-baking has taken the back burner. On Valentine's Day-I know it was a long time ago, we used ready made dough to make cookies. Shannon was out of town and we hung out at home that night. We rolled the dough into balls, sprinkled sugar, put them in the oven, took a bath and frosted them when they cooled. She was super excited!!! The other night the two of us did start a batch of cookies pretty late in the evening, and she LOVED using my Kitchen Aid to mix the dough.

Reading-all by myself

Hailey LOVES books. Sometimes we don't get to her quick enough and she reads on the couch before bed at night. One night after bath and pj's I walked into the living room and saw her with one of her books (The Very Hungry caterpillar). She LOVES Goodnight Gorilla and Goodnight Moon. We have a pretty funny version of Goodnight Gorilla and she definitely has her favorite pages. When she opens up the book she always goes to the page with the eyeballs first-we have to say our version, she laughs really hard and then we start from the beginning.