Rylee just passed 100 days of Kindergarten.  She loves her teacher, her new friends and pretty much everything about school.  She loves coming home and having lunch with me before playing with her friends here in the ‘hood.

Brynn is enjoying pre-school as well.  She has a great teacher who has told me she’d rather send Brynn to Kindergarten next year than some the five year olds.  Wow that’s saying a lot!

In the fall we took a much needed vacation to one of our favorite spots…Disney World.  The girls really enjoyed this trip in a new way this time as it was two years since our last trip there.

A few of the highlights:  Breakfast with the princesses in Cinderella’s Castle

A lot of fun at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party (despite the rain we really enjoyed ourselves!)  This was the first time we attended and we highly recommend it.

The girls were in their Halloween Costumes..Jake & Izzy from Jake & The Neverland Pirates.

After our trip we came home to some great fall weather.  We got out and about and lots of fun enjoying my favorite season.

Another fall highlight was attending the Penn State/Ohio State game.  We took Rylee and my dad with us.  Rylee really enjoyed tailgating (especially our walk to the Creamery to get ice cream!) and the game.

Thanksgiving was a fun time with family.  One big surprise was the wedding of my cousin Becky.

We thought we were having a just a baby shower for her, but it turned out to be a wedding and then a shower.  What a great day!

After that it was fully swing to Christmas.  Our girls really enjoyed the time leading up to Christmas this year.  Their favorite elf, Max, returned and started their mornings off with some laughs.

This year Max got more adventurous or mischievous.  Either way the girls really enjoyed his antics.  I didn’t always enjoy cleaning up his messes but it was definitely worth it!

We had fun ringing in the New Year with our friends Frank & Paula again.  The kids always have so much fun together too.

As 2013 gets underway we are looking forward to another year full of fun and laughter.  The girls are excited about some of the plans we’ve made and we can’t wait to have new experiences with them soon.

Stay tuned…I promise to post again before five more months go by!

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Rylee has been VERY excited to start Kindergarten.  Every time we would pass her school in the last few weeks she’d say, “That’s where I will go to Kindergarten!”

The first day really couldn’t have gone any better.  She met two new friends at the bus stop who are not only in her grade, but in her class.  She sat with them on the bus to and from school.

When the three girls got off the bus they all wanted to play together.  That just warmed my heart.  Rylee has been in need of friends her own age and it has finally happened.

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Those three girls played together ALL afternoon.  I was expecting to have Rylee home with me so I wasn’t sure what to do with myself.

The second day of school Rylee invited her friends over as soon as she got off the bus.  So after lunch the girls came over and played all afternoon again.  I was amazed at how quiet they were.  They played in the playroom, played with Play-Doh (note to self: next time they do that outside instead of at the kitchen table) and I pulled out my beading supplies and they all made some bracelets.  What a fun afternoon!

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It’s the everything-other-than-hand-print papers that are the issue.  Truth be told…these papers wind up in the recycle bin buried under newspapers.  There have been times I’ve felt guilty about putting their creations there but there is just no way we have the space to keep every paper that comes into the house.

This morning I couldn’t sleep so I was checking out Pinterest and I found this wonderful app for my iPhone from Artkive.  (It will be available for Android in September!)

Artkive allows you to photograph your child’s artwork with your smart phone.  Then when you’re ready you can create a coffee table book of their creations.  Once you set up your account you can add each child and you can create a book for each one.  Brilliant!

With a new school year about to start I’m VERY excited to have this app.  If you’re interested go to Artkive now as the app is FREE.  I don’t know how long it will be until you have to pay for it so check it out now!

Here is a before shot of the three of us.  Notice how long Rylee’s hair is here!

Here are shots of the cuts, the girls were both great and sat very still and did what they were told.

Here are the after shots.  Let’s just say that there was A LOT of hair on the floor at the end of it all!

For those of you really paying attention….yes…my hair is MUCH shorter!