Another month in the can! I can't believe time is ticking right on by. It seems like only yesterday we were out to dinner with Devin and Charm and were saying "Wouldn't it be fun to go to Disney World together? We should do that next year!" Well that was about 13 months ago now and we leave for our big Disney World trip this Friday! We are so excited! We are driving down to Salt Lake on Friday and flying out on Saturday. We will be there for 10 days! We are going to stay in a vacation home that is in the same community we stayed at when we went a few years ago. Devin and Charm and their three kids will be staying there too, so we had to get a pretty big home. It even has it's own swimming pool and game room! We are pretty pumped. Hopefully it is as nice as it looks from the pictures online!
But we will talk more about that when we get back!
This past month has seemed sooo busy. Avery started her preschool at the end of January. She absolutely loves it. She actually says "No!!!" and runs away from me when I try to pick her. It's somewhat embarrassing… lol Caleb enjoyed Tae Kwan do for the first few weeks then kind of seemed to be "over it" towards the end, so I don't think it will become a permanent fixture in the activities line-up (that's ok with me…) Gabe LOVED basketball this year. They only lost one game and it was the one I missed because Caleb and Avery were both sick that day. He has really improved on his skills. I wish he could do it year-round, but this really is the only opportunity they have to play it on a team at this age.
Another thing that kept us busy this month was Gabe's Science Fair. They call it a Science Fair, but it really isn't optional. It is required for everyone in the third grade to do a little project/display/presentation for the teacher. Gabe did his on "the Magic of Magnets". Basically we ordered some strong magnets from Amazon and played around with them using water, wood, cardboard, legos, etc. to see if we could still get the magnets to move a safety pin through them. It was pretty fun (and knowing how to design a tri-fold poster with some fancy graphic designer skills and my photo printer may have come in handy…;)
What else! Oh! Valentine's Day! I was lame and we used store-bought Valentines this year. Gabe chose "Despicable Me" valentines and Caleb chose these cat and dog ones.
Gabe's class party was out of this world, amazing! Those room parents he has really go crazy. It was like prom. They had reserved the gym so they could have karaoke on the projector screen (microphones, speakers, and all!), they had a chocolate fountain with tons of fruit, crackers, and treats to dip. They had a photo booth area with little photo props (mustaches, glasses, etc), they had a craft table, they had their valentines to exchange, it was just a blast. I actually felt a little bad for all the other third grade classes that were probably just sitting in their classrooms walking around and putting valentines in each other's little decorated Kleenex boxes and that's it! haha
Caleb's party was pretty great too - no karaoke… but they DID have a professional photographer (Noelle Murray, also one of the moms) that set up a little photo area that was ADORABLE and took each kid's picture. They did their party as like, a little formal dinner party. So each kid was given an invitation telling them to wear their Sunday best and bring their favorite stuffed animal. (Caleb insisted on taking this tiny beanie baby turtle, which I was like "Why are you choosing that?" haha, but he insisted!) They had little table cloths and centerpieces and everything. It was so cute.
Avery didn't do anything special at preschool that I know of, but I doubt she knew the difference! ;)
My Etsy shop has been making me really happy lately - not even necessarily that it's been super busy (maybe that's why! lol) but more so because I feel like I am selling more wall art, which is what I really enjoy doing. I still like doing the wedding programs, like once a day is fine, but when it's all I do in a day it gets a little boring (the money is nice, but still…) So I am hoping I can keep adding more and more things and get that to keep up! I started using some different social media (like Instagram) at the advice of my friend Stacey, and I think that has helped too. We already got out taxes done (which was a source of stress for the past year - wondering how much I would owe and how it would all play out), but I am so relieved over it. We did have to pay in, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The lady who does our taxes seems to always know the best ways to work everything out. I'm excited to get to keep most of the money I had saved now and save up for something more fun in the future with it! (A new car down the road… paying with cash perhaps??? That would be nice! ;)
Oh! And somewhere in there we had a fun Superbowl party at the Milner's house. The Packers sadly messed it all up and didn't make the Superbowl at the last minute. :( But it was still fun to watch and eat the food. The Patriots beat Seattle so it was still okay. ;)
Oh! Another thing… I did some modeling! haha It was kind of a random thing, but I saw these dresses on Instagram that I loved and the girl whose business it was happened to live in Rexburg! (what are the odds?!) So I went over there to try one on and she asked me to model for her website. So I will post a couple of picture of me. haha I got a good discount on the dresses, so that made it worth it!
So that's about all I can think of for now! I am waiting for my pictures from my phone to download into my dropbox so I can get them posted on here!
