Gingerbread houses

Before school got out for Christmas break I spent some time at school helping Maddie's class. One morning, we made gingerbread houses. I did it last year with Ashton's class and I was thrilled to get to help again this year with Maddie's class.

Maddie really got in to working on hers. She put so much on there you could hardly hold the plate it was so heavy! ;-)

Here is a picture of her entire class getting started. The kids had a great time!

Christmas Programs

Ashton and Maddie each had their own Christmas programs at school. Ashton's was on the first night and his class, along with all the other first grade classes, sang "We wish you a Merry Christmas", "Feliz Navidad", and "Jingle Bells".

As you can tell from the pictures, Ashton wasn't thrilled about this deal. :(

The next night, the kindergarten did theirs and Maddie was super excited.

She did a great job and really got in to her little moves!

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

This past weekend, Alex and I hosted our first Ugly Christmas Sweater Party. Last year, our friends Becky and Nick had one at their house and invited us. We had a great time and this year we decided we would host it at our house. We had lot of yummy foods, played some girls verses guys pictionary and exchanged some dirty santa gifts. I haven't laughed so much in a long time!Here is a few pictures of some of the couples that came. I am missing a ton of people but we got a group shot in all our wonderful outfits. :-)

I'm already thinking about next year's outfit. It must be a winner.

Preds Game

Ashton's hockey team got the opportunity to play on the Predators ice during an intermission a few weeks ago. He was so excited and several of our friends went to watch and support him. It was neat. I got some cute pictures of him and his team. They got to take shots against Nash in the net, which Ashton really thought was cool. He came back to his seat after and told me Nash was NOT a good goalie. LOL

Thanksgiving School Feast

Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I went to school to help with the kids Thanksgiving feast. The kindergarten kids all line the hall together to share in their "feast". Here is a picture of Maddie waiting.

Right before the kids got to eat, the entire group sang a song they'd been working on and it was cute to watch. Maddie did a great job with the motions and I think she may have had all the words. :-)

Ashton's class did their feasts individually as classes. Here is a shot of him in his pilgrim attire in his room. As you can tell, he isn't thrilled to have this on. LOL

I'm glad I got to share in their feasts at school just before we began preparing for our family Thanksgiving. :-)

Pirates, Pirates and more Pirates

Maddie's class has been studying pirates at school. Mrs. Dawn is a fantastic teacher and loves to do fun things with the kids. For this series, she borrowed a friends blow up pirate ship for their class.I got some great pictuers of the kids coming in to check out their surprise. They were so excited!
I spent a couple of days in their class helping them paint and build them a pirate ship prop. The kids have to help as much as possible and this is what we came up with.
It is open on the back side so that they can go inside and act out their stories. Alex helped with making the anchor for them to throw out and also the boat stirring wheel. I thought it turned out pretty cute and the kids had a lot of fun working on it. I'm so glad I get to be apart of these things. :-)

Hockey

I've been amazed and how much faster Ashton is getting on skates each week. We're really proud of him. Here are just a few pictures of him at practice a couple of weeks ago.

Its just so darn cute to watch him. Passing the puck with Alex.

Skating in to it.

We might just have a hockey player on our hands! ;-)

Princess Breakfast

Lebanon High School did a fundraiser a few weeks ago. It was a princess breakfast where they told the girls about being girls of good character. Katrina and I decided to take Maddie and Kaleigh and support the school. Here is Maddie and Kaleigh coloring at the table while we waited on things to get started. They had a decent amount of people there, but the space was a little bit of a tight fit for everyone. :(

Here is Kaleigh picking out paint colors for her face painting.

Meanwhile, Maddie was playing a game with some of the other little princesses. :-)

Happy Halloween

The Perrys always start their halloween off with chili then hit the streets for trick or treating. This year we were joined by the Reeds, the Hardings, Sarah, Andrea, Colbie and Katie. It was fun to have some other little ones to run door to door with and Sarah was great at running right along with them. :-) (Thanks Sarah!)

As you can see, we had a variety of costumes. Kaleb was a transformer (which his mom LOVED), Ashton was a hockey player (after picking out another costume and then returning it), Maddie was rapunzel, Lillie was a sock monkey, Kaleigh an ice cream cone and Colbie was a puppy dog. I am not sure how I didn't end up with a picture of him, but he was cute!

We started out with the three girls and Colbie in the wagons, but some how Katrina ended up with these two and her doing all the work! I'm not sure how that happened.
We had a fun night and glad we got to share it with friends!

Ashton's birthday party

Saturday afternoon, we celebrated Ashton's birthday at the bowling alley. He loved his party so much last year that he decided he wanted to do it again. We took glow jewelry since they turn out all the lights and Ashton thought that was the greatest thing ever. :-)

Ashton got some great gifts and we were glad all his friends got to come and enjoy the afternoon with Ashton.

Halloween Parties at School

Friday, the kids' school celebrated Halloween with Fall Parties. I started in Maddie's class with her friends. We made pumpkin frames with a picture of them from the pumpkin patch, had some cupcakes, fruit and a chocolate fountain. The kids had a great time.

We ended the party by letting the kids trick or treat around the room to fill up their treat bags to take home. :-)

Next was Ashton's class. We decided to make sugar cookies and let the kids decorate their own with pumpkin icing and sprinkles. It was a huge hit with all the kids.

Including Maddie! She got double party time!

After they decorated and ate their cookies, we had a few Halloween games for them to play.

When they were all done and packing up to go home, we let them do the same trick or treating thing around the room and out the door. It was a fun time in both classes. I'm glad I got to be apart of them both.

Happy Birthday Ashton

Wednesday, Ashton turned seven! He is turning in to such a big kid. I can't believe how much he has changed over the last few months. It makes me a little sad but excited at the same time.

These are just a few pictures from our birthday celebration on Wednesday at home with the grandparents.
Here he is being pulled around by Papa Monkey in his new hockey bag.

Trying on his new mohawk hat for the winter.

He had a great birthday!

I got these gorgeous flowers from Alex's mom. I love gerber daisies and I thought it was very sweet of her to think of me! ;-)

How darn sweet is this?!?!?!

Ashton is working on his reading and each night he brings home a short book to read to us. We have to check off whether we had to read it to him or if he read it to us and sign off on it. He some times gets a little impatient about wanting to read it and we can't always sit down right that second to make sure he's doing the words correctly. He got a little tired of waiting on Alex to get in there, so he started reading it to Maddie. Aaawwww!!!! I couldn't help but get a picture of that. It was so sweet!!!!!

I'm not sure if any of the words he was reading at the time were right or wrong but she was definitely paying close attention!

Kaleigh's TWO!!!!

Time has flown by!!! I can't believe that Kaleigh is already two years old. It seemed like yesterday when Katrina called to tell me she was pregnant!!!
Kaleigh had a great party! Katrina did a fantastic job with everything from decorations to fun and festive foods to entertainment for the kids. Kaleigh didn't wear her costume for her own party but the rest of the kids did. They all had a great time and LOVED the hay ride around the neighborhood thanks to Uncle Jessie! :-)

As usual, Katrina's camera card was full and her battery was dead, so I took lots of pictures for her and I couldn't help but to share some. Kaleigh had such a fun time with her little friends! I'm glad we got to be apart of it.

Principal for the day

As one of Maddie's fundraiser rewards, she got to be principal for the day. She didn't really want to do it. All the way to school that morning, she went back and forth as to whether or not she was going to. They wanted her to appear on CFE live (their morning news), but she didn't want to do that either. When I got to school, Mrs. Dawn talked to her and Maddie decided not to go through with her job. Then, CFE live began and she suddenly changed her mind. Mrs. Dawn ran her to the room where the show is done and Maddie got to make her debut at the last minute. It was super cute. She didn't speak but it was still adorable.

About an hour later, Principal Maddie and Mr. Bevis came to check on Ashton's class, where I was helping for the day, to make sure we were doing what we were supposed to.
She was even carrying her clipboard with all the places she was supposed to check on and mark off the list.

Maddie at the secretary's desk coloring her daddy a picture.

Reading Mr. Bevis' mail at his desk.

Cheese!

Be careful. You don't want to get in trouble with this principal!!! :-)

Walden Farms Pumpkin Patch

Last week, I went with Maddie's class to the pumpkin patch. We really weren't sure that morning if we'd be going or not. It was pretty cold and raining. Once we got to school the rain was easing up and Mr. Bevis had decided we'd go as planned. So, off we went. On the drive over there, we went through rain and then no rain and back and forth.
By the time we arrived, the rain had stopped and it was just cold. The kids were excited to be away from school but also a little whinny that it was cold out. We did our tour through the animals, pumped water at the well, had story time in the little cabin and ended on a hayride. The kids loved it! After we got back, we went back up the hill and picked our pumpkins and then the teachers decided we would load back up and have lunch at school because it was just too cold and wet to sit outside and doing the picnic that was planned. :( It was a fun time, despite the elements, and I was thrilled to have gotten to enjoy it with Maddie!

Hockey Time

We got back from vacation on Saturday and then Sunday afternoon Ashton had hockey. Alex is the assistant coach and I loved watching him help the kids. He is so patient, which I don't know that I could be. :( There is a little girl on Ashton's team, Amy, and Alex helped her with leanring to swing her hockey stick correctly. I couldn't help but get a picture of that. She has pink tape on her stick. Its cute! Ashton did really good. They had a little scrimmage amongst themselves and Ashton scored two goals. I was super proud of him. I am not the best with the video camera but I managed to catch both goals on camera. YAY me!