Is CHRISTMAS really over?

We had a wonderful Christmas and it is hard to believe it is already over. This year has really seemed to rush right on by. 

It has been wonderful being on vacation this week. The girls and I have been sleeping, relaxing, playing, shopping, and watching movies together. They both are very easy to please, which makes my life easier.

Here are some pictures of our Christmas….

The girls love baking cookies, and they did an awesome job decorating!

 

Lindsey really wanted a diary (not really sure why), but Santa brought her one. I think the keys might be lost already.

 

They both wanted the DQ Make Your Own Blizzard Maker, and Santa granted that wish too. It has been so cold, they haven’t wanted to open it yet.

 

Pillow Pets were a huge hit, thank you Nana and Papa!

 

Hayleigh LOVES Barney. Not quite sure why, but she really wanted one for Christmas. I had to order it online, as he isn’t for sale in stores anymore.

 

Me and my girls…and Barney.

 

The girls with their cousin Colby on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas (early)!

My friend Kim took the girls pictures back in October and they turned out AWESOME! She did such a great job! This Christmas card has just a few of the 200+ she took! The girls were very well behaved and the hardest part has been trying to figure out which ones to order. Here are a few of my favorites...

Grad School

I just realized that I never posted anything in November. We have been pretty busy around here. So please forgive me, I will try to be better about blogging this month. I can't believe tomorrow is December 1st!

I am in graduate school and have a huge final exam due in 2 weeks. I finished my scrapbook last night around midnight, now I can finally relax. :) I am taking a class called, School Wide Reading and I am loving it! We had to make a project with all the components of the "perfect" reading program. I made my scrapbook on shutterfly.com, which I use a lot (if you haven't made one before, give it a try!).

I am going to try and upload it, so you can take a look...On second thought, due to my students being the scrapbook and I don't have their parent's permission to post them onto a website...I better not.

Donut Day and Helicopters!

Yesterday we were at our annual Donut Day. My husband's side of the family gets together every year to eat homemade donuts and spend the day together. This has been a Chauvette tradition for years! It started years ago when Darryl was a little boy and his Memere made donuts for everyone. His Memere passed away years ago, but the tradition has continued. His aunt has been making the donuts now and they are delicious! After donuts were eaten, his uncle (who is a helicopter pilot) started to give rides in his own backyard. It was the first time that I had ever been in a helicopter. Darryl, Hayleigh and I had a nice ride overlooking the gorgeous foliage in NH! And I did not have my camera. :( Figures, when I needed it the most, it was at school. My MIL did manage to take a few photos. We had a great time and I want to go up again someday!

Hayleigh's FOUR!

Hayleigh turned 4 yesterday and it seemed like yesterday that she entered the world at 10 pounds 15-1/2 ounces~AKA Moose Hicks! She has been our little Chunky Monkey (now just Monkey) ever since she was born and she has brought so much joy to our lives! She is so loving, funny, full of compliments, and just a happy little girl! Hayleigh has her moments, but I am SO blessed to be her mom and to have her as my daughter!

We celebrated her birthday early (this past weekend) with family coming over for a Princess party. She loves all the Disney Princesses and she had a great time! She wanted to play a few games. Pass the Wand, Musical Chairs, and a Place Cinderella in the Window blindfold game. She picked out a Princess Cupcake Cake from Hannaford and she had sherbert to go with it. :) She got a lot of nice gifts and she had a wonderful time! I still can't believe my baby is 4!

Apple Picking

We went apple picking on Sunday afternoon to Parlee Farms. We have made it a tradition and have gone every year since Lindsey was little. It was so warm that we actually had shorts on this year. My SIL and nephew came with us and we had a great time! The girls loved feeding the goats, bunnies, and sheep. They have a hay maze to run around on, and a tractor ride to enjoy. Darryl and I had some warm apple crisp with ice-cream and the girls had ice-cream with jimmies. Now I have all these apples and I need to get going on making some pies. We decided to hold off getting pumpkins for a few weeks. Last year, they got moldy too fast. We will have to go back! :) I hate to see summer end, but I do love fall!

First Day of School!

We had such an awesome summer, it was hard to see it end today. Even though the weather is still very much summer (upper 90s into 100s), yikes! I can't believe that a new school year began! Hayleigh is in preschool and Lindsey is in 1st grade. They both were very excited and no tears from either of them (except from me)!

Lindsey can ride a bike!!

Yesterday Lindsey decided to hop on a 2-wheeler bike at a friends house. Before I could grab her back and hold onto her, she just took off! I couldn't believe my eyes! She drove all around my friends driveway and was doing just great! She kept saying, "When I get home I am going to have Daddy take off my training wheels". When we got home, she waited outside for Darryl to get home from work (1/2 hour) and made him take them off immediately when he drove in the driveway. She took off down the street and was so proud to show Daddy! (I think Darryl was a bit sad that he didn't have to teach her) The first thing she said to me this morning was, "Can I ride my bike after swimming lessons this morning?" Too cute! {my baby is so grown up...sniff sniff}
Here is a quick video I was able to catch before my camera battery died.

august summer blues

We have had a wonderful summer! The weather could not have been more perfect!! We have spent the summer with family and friends doing all sorts of things, mostly involving swimming and being in the sun. I always tend to get the summer blues that hit around the second week in August. I love my job, but get sad when I think about summer coming to a close. Today will be the first day that I enter my classroom to get things ready for a new batch of 3rd graders starting two weeks from tomorrow. I have been teaching for 15 years now, and I know what I have to do to get my classroom organized (and it won't take me too long), but it just means that my summer is about to end (sniff sniff).

Wordless Wednesday...

Las VEGAS part 2

I have started this blog more than once, and I am determined to finish it (since we have been home from Vegas for almost 2 weeks now).

We forced ourselves to stay awake on Tuesday afternoon and evening, so the jet-lag wouldn't bother us on Wednesday (we were awake for about 22 hours, ugh!). Wednesday we spent wandering the Vegas Strip~in and out of beautiful hotels, eating, shopping, people-watching, having lunch at the Harley Davidson Cafe, and swimming all afternoon in the Pleasure Pool (so it was called). We bought tickets (2 for 1, thanks to my brother who gave us a coupon) to see Penn & Teller's magic show at the Rio that night. We had a blast! It was such a neat show, and they even came to greet the audience on the way out. We were able to snatch a few photos of them. Nice guys!







On Thursday (July 22), it was our 10th Anniversary! We spent the day doing more site-seeing in the daytime, swimming in the pool in the afternoon, and then we headed out to Nove Italiano for dinner at the top of the Palms Hotel. It was so beautiful up on the 52nd floor overlooking Vegas! We had a great time and the food was delicious! We even had a complimentary appetizer and delicious dessert all because it was our anniversary!

Las VEGAS!!

Darryl and I just got back from a wonderful 10th Anniversary vacation to Las Vegas! We left on Tuesday, July 20th and stayed until Sunday the 25th. It was the first time we left the girls that long, and we missed them terribly! My cousin watched them and they had a fabulous time being at the beach for the week.
Neither of us had been to Vegas before, and wanted to experience it without kids, so off we went!

We left Manchester at 7am and got to Vegas at 9:40am with the 3-hour time change, we had all day to hang out on our very first day there which was nice! We were like a deer in headlights the whole time! :)We stayed at Planet Hollywood right in the middle of the strip. Here are a few photos from the view of our room on the 25th floor...(the Bellagio across the street, and Paris next door)


We were starving when we got there, so we headed over to the Monte Carlo for a buffet (late) lunch and then more site seeing. (more to come....stay tuned!)

Twilight

I have seen the movie Twilight, but never read the book. Are you surprised, and shocked?! Call me crazy, but I never sat down and read all of them, like every other tween and adult female has over the past few years. I didn't think I could ever get into a series about vampires and werewolves....until now. A student gave me a Barnes & Noble gift card at the end of the year, so I thought I would pick it up. I am nearly finished and ready to read the second one. I wonder if I will end up reading all 4 of them this summer? And the Twilight saga continues. :)

playdate

My girls LOVE having friends over to play. Today Mardy and Jaiden came over on this rainy day we are having and brought sunshine with them. I just love listening to them talk, sing, boss each other around, play hide & seek, watching them pull out all the Barbie and Polly Pocket stuff in the playroom, making crafts, and just them being girls!

City Pool, yuck!

My girls and I LOVE to swim and they are both getting great at it! A close friend of ours have an in-ground pool and it is so nice to relax and enjoy it together! We have gone a few times to one of the local city pools and I have been very disgusted. We actually have 3 city pools and they are all free to get into. In a way, I wish they would charge, because they need A LOT of work. The bathrooms are nasty and today the pool was loaded with pine needles. I wish our town would spruce them up and make them enjoyable for all tax payers! They are so bad, there aren't any google images, except for this one...



My brother and his family live in Iowa and their city pool is AWESOME and looks like this...



Even my parents home-town city pool in the middle of no-where looks like this....



So if our city can't clean up our pools, I think next year we are going to invest in our own above-ground pool (it not now)!

Awesome Weekend!

We had a wonderful July 4th weekend! My in-laws have a place on Silver Lake (attached to Winnasquam) in the lakes region up north. We spent the day up there on Saturday swimming in the lake (for hours!), using the wave-runner, and being together as a family. We went to dinner at Town Docks in Meredith, and back to the camp to light sparklers before going home.







We went to York Beach, Maine on Sunday and stayed until Monday. My grandparents, my Aunt and cousins live up there. We had an awesome time on the beach all day, an awesome BBQ for dinner, then watching the fireworks over the ocean! Monday, we were right back on the beach again bright and early. I forgot to pack my camera in the beach bag, so I don't have any photos of our awesome 2 days (boo~hoo) on the beach. But here are some I took at the house. The girls had flag cupcakes at 10:25pm after the fireworks...they were exhausted, hungry, and VERY messy!