Live Laugh Love

Playing Tag in the Front Yard

2009-09-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

Jaren and Jenna have been enjoying the beautiful weather we have been having by biking, swinging on branches, playing hopscotch, bubbles, hula hoop and tag in our front yard. Jaren learned how to ride his bike without training wheels this week which is super exciting, and he did it all on his own. He just put his mind to it on Tuesday night and within 30 minutes or so he was riding from our driveway to a few houses down the street. There were only a few minor crashes involved in the learning process also.

Jaren's First Day of 1st Grade

2009-08-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

Jaren started first grade this past Wednesday! Andy started back to school today. We didn't get any pictures of Andy's first day back, but here are some good ones of Jaren and Jenna on Jaren's first day last week.

Children's Museum Visit

2009-08-10T08:56:00.001-07:00

The Children's Museum has a Star Wars exhibit right now and had many of the characters there early one Saturday morning. Jaren and Andy were both equally excited about it!

Summer Vacation Photos

2009-08-10T05:57:00.001-07:00

We had a wonderful trip down south to visit Grandpa Max and Joanne and then Rich and Kristy and family. Here are some highlights of our trip in July.

Jaren's Kindergarten Spring Picnic Program

2009-06-08T15:56:00.000-07:00

Jaren's class and the other two kindergarten classes put on a Spring Picnic program with a lot of wonderful songs about bugs and taking care of the earth. Nana, Papa and Mimi joined us as well!

Trips to the Zoo

2009-06-08T13:56:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of a couple of trips we took to the zoo in the past month.

Easter 2009

2009-04-15T11:46:00.000-07:00

Easter Egg Hunt

2009-04-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

A church near our home had a free Easter Egg Hunt with 7,000 eggs this past Saturday so we took the kids over there. It was their first "official" hunt, and they were both a little overwhelmed by the spectacle of it. It was well-organized by age groups so everyone came away with plenty to celebrate.

Mimi Visit and Beautiful Spring Day

2009-04-03T06:13:00.000-07:00

Mimi came for a 2-day visit this week, and we had a chance to get outside and enjoy a beautiful Spring day! Here are pictures from our afternoon outside (and a some inside as well).

Nana's Birthday Party

2009-03-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

We recently celebrated Nana/Judy's birthday at her condo. Here are pictures from our celebration!

The Three Little Pigs

2009-03-05T11:46:00.000-08:00

Jaren's kindergarten class put on the story of "The Three Little Pigs" this past Friday night after they had been studying fairy tales over the past several weeks. Jaren was the little pig whose house was built of sticks. He did a great job with all of his lines, and we had Nana, Aunt Allie and Mimi there as well to cheer him on. The last picture is Jaren with his teacher, Mrs. Rogers. We celebrated by taking him for ice cream afterwards.

Jaren's Birthday Celebration

2009-02-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

Here are photos from Jaren's 6th Birthday Party at home and school!

Christmas at Mimi and Papa's - January 2009

2009-01-30T05:51:00.000-08:00

Here are photos from our time at Papa and Mimi's to celebrate Christmas with them and Rich and Kristy and family!

Day at the Museum

2009-01-28T17:54:00.001-08:00

Jaren and Jenna enjoyed a fun day at the Children's Museum

yesterday with their friends Elias and Elena!

Elena and Jenna enjoy the comfy chairs at the museum.

Super Jenna!

Jaren is serious about his driving here. I hope Elena is wearing her seatbelt!

Jenna, Jaren, Elias and Elena

Jenna riding the carousel.

Jaren enjoying the carousel.

Best Buddies together again!

Elena and Jenna enjoying the fish.

Jenna wearing her goggles to dig for dinosaurs.

Elias and Jaren digging for dinosaurs.

Snow Day

2009-01-28T17:42:00.001-08:00

We enjoyed a day in the snow today since Andy and Jaren's schools were both canceled! Andy says that we got about 11 inches.

Christmas Day at our House

2008-12-26T13:20:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful Christmas day at our house with Papa and Mimi, Nana, Aunt Allie, Dan, Uncle Claude, Aunt Joyce, Colin and Alex! Jaren and Andy were excited to play with their new Air Hog helicopters and build their new legos sets (dinosaurs and police cars). Jenna loved playing with her new Playmobil Dolphin pool set because it is an excuse to play in water and her new microphone and stand was a hit with both kids. It was just a special blessing to spend the day hanging out with family!

2008 Christmas Card

2008-12-23T09:12:00.000-08:00

Make a Smilebox greeting

Christmas Cookies

2008-12-17T06:22:00.000-08:00

We have a new annual Christmas tradition of making sugar cookies and decorating them. All went well except that we forgot to put in the 2 tsps of vanilla extract, and I think that Andy spent more time cleaning up the kitchen afterwards that it took us to actually make and decorate the cookies!

Oh, Christmas Tree...

2008-12-13T09:02:00.000-08:00

We went out to our local Christmas tree farm last Saturday in what seemed like blizzard-like conditions and picked out our tree and came home and decorated it. The first pictures are the finished product of the tree and outtakes from our annual Christmas photo. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving 2008

2008-12-01T16:34:00.001-08:00

On our way home from celebrating Thanksgiving with family this year in Michigan, we stopped at the World's Largest Christmas Store...Bronner's! What a fun place to start celebrating the Christmas season. We let the kid's each pick out an ornmament and an advent calendar filled with chocolate for each day. Jaren chose a Grave Digger Monster Truck ornament, and Jenna stayed with the Hello Kitty theme that she had going from her birthday this year. They also got to chat with "Santa" and have their picture taken with him which was a first for both of them.

Halloween 2008

2008-11-03T08:13:00.001-08:00

We celebrated Halloween by going to our church's Trunk or Treat on Friday night. Jenna was Mike Sullivan from "Monsters Inc.," and Jaren was a clone trooper from Star Wars. You would have thought Jenna was a celebrity by how many little kids and adults came up and commented on how cute her costume was or how much they loved "Sulli" on Monster's Inc.! One little girl even asked to have her picture taken with Jenna. We came home with enough candy to last for a year. The next night we went to Nana's house and showed off their costumes.

Field Trip to Farm

2008-11-03T07:56:00.000-08:00

Jaren's Kindergarten Class went on their first field trip this past Friday to a local farm, and Andy took the day off of work and went along. As you can see, they had a lot of fun! Enjoy....

Fall Break Hike

2008-10-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

We enjoyed part of our Fall Break this weekend going on a short hike in a beautiful local park about 5 minutes from our house. We were teasing Jaren that he had found the "world's largest leaf!" Happy Fall....

Big Nino's Pizzeria

2008-10-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

Jaren's kindergarten class (as well as the morning and all-day classes) opened "Big Nino's Pizzeria" for one night only at their school this past Friday night. They had made invitations, menus, placemats and order forms, and then had a pizza making lesson from the Domino's man earlier in the week. That evening they escorted their guests to their seats, had a small program with pizza songs and poems, took their families orders and then served them. I don't think they made them do the dishes though! Jaren had a lot of fun and has enjoyed playing "restaurant" at home ever since.

Trip to the Pumpkin Farm

2008-10-14T10:19:00.000-07:00

Birthday Girl!

2008-09-26T16:23:00.000-07:00