New Pictures

Here's a couple of our new family pictures!

SCHOOL!!!

Oh Man! I just barely posted about the end of school last year...I only posted one picture of our summer trips...and school already started two weeks ago!

Max is my big first grader now! He really enjoys school and of course, is a very smart kid! He's growing up and I can't believe it...but I still try to get hugs and kisses from him as much as possible and we still get/have to lay down with him, tickle his back and sing him a song when he goes to sleep! I love it.

Here's Max with his best buddies, Aden and Lucas.

And with his best girls...

Ellie and Payton!

It really is too bad that I'm so bad at blogging these days...we had such a fun summer! Besides Waterton and Spokane, we went to Utah for a Mano family trip in Park City and for Taryn's farewell, we went to Southern California to Legoland and multiple temples with Taryn, we got to spend time with Wendy and Jason and their kids from Hong Kong, we had a very extended family reunion in Vegas, we went to San Francisco and took the scenic route home (for 14 hours!), we had a visit from our good friends the Boyles, and we went to Utah again for a Holland family reunion and to see Rhett and Amy's new baby! Whew...what a summer!

Waterton, Canada

See look...two posts in a row!

The day before school got out we flew to Spokane for our first trip of the summer. From there we drove up to beautiful Waterton where we took almost 650 pictures! I don't really know how to share all that we saw and did there, so for now I'll just post one picture...this is at Cameron where the lake was still frozen over and the snow still deep! It was an amazing trip where we could spend all day outside and never get bored, where we were reminded what true "nature" is, and where we saw 13 bears!

Kindergarten Program

The thought of trying to catch up on my blog has been very daunting...it's kind of like pulling off a band-aid, just do it quick! So here goes... Max finished kindergarten with a little program and award ceremony. I took pictures, but unfortunately deleted them by accident...luckily we have good friends that took some and actually know how to work their camera!

Celebratory slushies with best friends the Lys and Salos! Max, Lucas and Aden were all in the same kindergarten class and had a great year together!

Field Day

I can't believe my first little baby Max is so grown up now! (Still waiting for that tooth to come in though!)

Payton the fashionista?

So, the girls have wanted to dress themselves for quite some time now. I usually let them choose when we're staying home, I give them a couple options when we're going out, and they always pick their own pajamas. Here's what Payton chose to wear to bed the other night. Ellie loves to wear dresses and pretty clothes, but Payton has quite a unique sense of style. She loves to wear her winter hat (even in the summer and often accompanied with fluffy boots), she loves pants and t-shirts, and she almost always wants her shirt tucked in (so that she can look like daddy because when she grows up she wants to be "just like daddy"). I wish I could say that this look for Payton is rare, but she dresses like this quite often!

Happy Easter...

I know that it's now June...but I'm playing catch up...again.

This is the ONLY good picture that I have of Easter this year.

Actually, I'm hoping that Neil has some better ones on his camera, but if not...the scrapbook is going to be looking a little sad. We did do fun things though, Grandma and Grandpa Woolf came to visit, we had an easter party and egg hunt at the park with some friends, and the kids got pretty good easter baskets (although the easter bunny did forget a few things and only remembered them on monday and Max's basket was a little sparse as the easter bunny thought he'd/she'd gotten more for him that he/she actually did and didn't realize it until late saturday night).

Happy Birthday Max!

Max turned six! We celebrated his birthday with a Lego Party. We had lego car races, a mini figure obstacle race, lego bingo, lego pizza and a lego cake.

I think Max had a good time...

This was my first real attempt at fondant and thanks to some tutorials via the phone from Karisa,

it didn't turn out too bad.

Max had a great birthday week: he loved all the presents that kept arriving in the mail, we went to the county fair, Max and I got to go on a date one night, we all went to dinner another and Max picked ribs for his birthday dinner at home.

Happy birthday Max, we love you!

The Lion King

Max, Neil and I got Lion King tickets for Christmas. We went to the show in January and it was so fun taking Max to his first real theater production. We all loved it of course!

Who want's to look at Christmas pictures in March?

Probably not many, so I'll make them small and quick....good thing I didn't wait until tomorrow to do this because I'm sure even fewer would want to look at them in April!

What's this...a new post?!?

I know it's been forever and probably no one checks our blog anymore...but here are some pictures of when Neil's dad came for a short visit in December.

With 9:00 church now, I never have time to curl Ellie's hair in the morning and there's no reason to do it on a regular day, so....pretty much we've only curled it twice! Good thing we got some pictures because it may never happen again

The Mano Family

We went to Utah for the holidays this year and did lots of things...including taking this picture of my whole family.