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!

Last Day.....

We went our last day at sea relaxing by the pool. After breakfast, we went straight there and stayed there until time for dinner. The pool wasn't really big, but Ashton and Maddie enjoyed it.Ashton even started just swimming around without his shark float. Alex and I were both very suprised and thrilled. :-)As you can see, Maddie wasn't having a good time too! They even had lunch poolside! The girl next to us was painting her nails and offered to do Maddie's. Of course, Maddie was all for that! We had another nice dinner and then called it a night. We were BEAT after our lazy day! This little pig was holding our chocolate when we came back after dinner.

Cancun

Thursday we woke up to dark skies. We were a little bummed since it was our last day on land. We had plans to rent a car for our day in Cancun but we still didn't want it to be raining the whole time. :(

As we were getting off the boat, everyone was buying ponchos to try and stay dry. It was extremely crowded because two Carnival boats had come to port at the same time. WOW!

Once we got a car, we just started driving the island checking everything out. This was a guy with a roadside market. I got this picture as we drove by. I love the big grin on his face!

This is where we had lunch. I tried not to look around too much because it kind of grossed me out, but I have to admit the food was probably the best I've ever had. I was a little nervous but pleasantly suprised. :-)

The kids loved that we got a jeep and they had no booster seats!

Luckily, the rain eased up and we got to go to the market area and walk around some. The kids didn't exactly love the walking but it was a nice break.

Ashton did like getting his picture made with the policeman in front of one of the shops though. Maddie, however, was slightly scared. :(

Here are just a few fun pictures we got right before we got back on the boat. We had a little snack at the mexican restaurant at the port and the kids got some cute balloon hats made.
Ashton with his pirate hate and sword. Maddie with her flower.

When we got back on the boat, the kids went to Camp Carnival for just a little bit while Alex took a nap and I got ready for our last formal night dinner. Maddie enjoyed the face painting they did. I'm not sure about the angel here, but it was cute!

I'm not exactly sure what this one was.

Snorkeling

Here are just a few of the pictures we got with the water camera on our stingray and snorkeling trip.

This is the four of us with the captain holding a stingray with us. You really can't see the stingray in this picture, but there are others.
Maddie trying to touch it.

Alex holding one of them.

This one was trying to get Maddie to rub her and splashed her in the face. :-) It was like she was trying to play with Maddie. It was cute!

Here is a great shot of Ashton snorkeling.

Grand Cayman

What a view?!? This was overlooking the spot where we had breakfast on Wednesday morning.

Of course, afterwards Alex got this picture of the kids acting like pirates. LOL

Alex and I neither one can remember what they called these boats, but they are the "taxi" type boats that carried us in to the dock. This was the only place we didn't pull right up and get off the boat. Instead we went down to the third floor and out the side. Kind of seems weird, huh?!?!

Wednesday was the day we booked an excursion for. We wanted to take the kids snorkeling and see the stingrays, so we got in a bus and went to this little neighborhood looking area and boarded another boat. There was lots of iguanas in that little area, which the kids were very curious about.

They were all just laying around sunbathing as we left the dock and headed out to the sandbar.

This was a picture as we headed out to our first stop.

Ashton & Maddie did pretty good with the excursion. Maddie was a little scared of swimming with the stingrays at first but she warmed up and eventually even touched some. Ashton, on the other hand, stayed on the boat after about five minutes in the water.

They were really neat. They'd just swim around you, brushing up against your leg almost like asking you to pet them. We'd touch their underside and they'd go on. The people that took us out had names for all of them. One was pregnant and they held her quite a bit. It was pretty neat. We got some great pictures of Alex holding them too with our underwater camera.

After a little time swimming with the stingrays, we got back on the boat and went to another place and got out and did some snorkeling. Ashton and Maddie both got a little overwhelmed at first but then got in. Maddie was in full snorkeling gear riding on Alex's back and Ashton laid over a life perservor to do his snorkeling while holding my hand. We looked like a wreck I'm sure, but hey.... it worked!

Here is Ashton and Maddie trying out a coconut which they quickly determined was NASTY!

My family right before we got back on the boat for the day.

And we can't leave out our puppy at the end of the night!