a little bit of me.

{hello first day.}

hello first day.

we have ALOT of you in our future...  But today was the first, first day with BOTH boys going back to school (and together!).

Mr. Noahpants packed up his brand-new Mickey lunchbox with goldfish & a capri sun for snacktime and headed on out to his pre-preschool 2 year old class (which meets 3x's a week) for a morning that was filled with lots of playing, "Glue-ing stuff" (as his teacher informed me he did at pick-up), painting (evidenced by a tee-shirt and fingernails covered in paint), & playground time.  He loved every bit of it and didn't cry a bit when I dropped him off & waved good-bye.  TOTAL.2nd.CHILD.  ;)

& Evan started Kindergarten at the same school he went to pre-school at last year.  We love the continuity & sense of familiarity that this provided him with (so perfect for a transitional year as we intend this to be).  He rocked a new Star Wars Lego tee and light-up Star Wars sneaks, and told me he loved his new class & friends.

He brought home a sweet little note about his first day...

And also a very special new "Red Plate".

& after having such a great first day, today was designated a "Red Plate" day, with dinner eaten from the special plate, while telling Daddy ALL about what goes on in Kindergarten...

This past weekend we took some time to snap a few "back to school" pics in our backyard (since I knew this AM would be craziness!).  I snagged this vintage desk from an antique mart earlier in the week (I'd wanted to pick one up for a while now...).

& I love that his sweet little Kindergarten-Style personality shows through here...  We had fun with these...  He humored be by taking these.  ;)

It's going to be a GREAT year.

:)

{five}

Today we celebrated FIVE.

(this was the pic we used on Ev's bday party invite - which will be later this weekend)

(one of us - ahem EV - woke up very very VERY early and got himself dressed and waited super-patiently - while staring & counting presents(!) - on the rest of the fam to start celebrating...)

And we celebrated with lots of Ninjago, and with "video games" & Wii, and as much "Lego" as humanly possible...

...And then we celebrated with Ninjago even a little bit more.  This was most definitely the "ninjago" birthday (like last year was the "superhero" birthday, and the year before that was the "toy story" birthday...)  (ps- thanks to aunt kimmie for the rattlecopter in the pic below - it was a huge hit!)

Happy Happy #5 Sweetpea - I love re-living the unbridled birthday excitement of a five year old through you, again.

xoxo.

:)

{last day}

Yesterday marked the last day of the 4 year old preschool year for Ev.

We've come SO far from the first day of the year, perfecting our letter writing & sounds, learning to read a few words, adding numbers together, not freaking out over sand in our shoes (well not freaking out too much at least - he tells me when he wears sandals now "i dumped my shoes a bunch of times, momma"), making new friends, loving imaginative play, inventing playground games, telling jokes, and perfecting his patented 'silly ev' voice.  ;)

I look at this shot of both boys & can't believe I'm the mom of an almost-5 year old AND almost-2 year old...?!  We are in for a super-fun summer.  :)

Preschool Graduation was today and it was ADORABLE.  One of my favorite events by far.  And it wasn't too sad, since Evan will be returning to the same school next year for Kindy, a decision we are SO very thrilled about.  :)

I'm so proud of you, little E.

xoxo, Momma.

{at 4 and a half...}

Evan turned four and a HALF about a month ago...

we celebrated his half birthdy at school, and did a little "mini-shoot" against a red brick wall the week after...

...and now I'm just getting around to blogging his half year update.  I absolutley love "storing" this info on the blog to be able to easily come back to later. 

and so, At FOUR AND A HALF, Evan...

...is all about: LEGOS, STAR WARS, NINJAS (ninjago!), and CARS.  ;)

...loves his lego mini-figures, or "guys" as he calls them, and is constantly arranging them in little "set-ups" or scenes around the houes and his room (and then saying, "Look at this great set-up I made, momma!").  Star Wars minifigures are the faves, with Yoda (a valentine's gift) being the VERY favorite of all.

...has discovered Star Wars (via the star wars lego mini-movie on cartoon network).  And since has collected LOTS of guys, and ships, and saw episode 1 in 3D with Daddy last month.  LOVES Yoda the best out out all the star wars guys, followed closely by Darth Vader.

...Is addicted to cheeseburgers (no onion, no pickle please).

...wants all his milk to be chocolate milk.

...weighs 40 lbs, and just had a HUGE growth spurt between mid-December and early February.

...LOVES preschool, and playground time, and show-n-tell on fridays when it's his show-n-tell day(!).

...likes to ask me "What today is, momma?" for a run-down of the days events, and school activities, and also in general just wants to know EVERYTHING that's going to happen before it actually does.

...still loves the Toy Story Trilogy, and Cars 1 and 2 as movie choices to watch (with Noah).

...Adores his brother Noah, and likes to call him that: "my brother Noah, and me".  Races CARS cars around the house with him, wrestles him, and plays with him any chance he gets (when he's not worried that Noah is going to "get" something from his lego stash!).

...asks endless questions and we love it.

...likes Daddy and I to both ready him a book before bed.

...wants to paint or color or draw or write with me most of the time I ask.  OR make a "card" and scrapbook with me.  ;)

...is all about "dessert" after dinner/bath now.

...and is crazy-cute and SUPER-SILLY, & loves to ham-it-up when he's in the mood too.

We love you, little E.

(photo from this weekend @ disney!!!)

:)

{Hello Fall...}

...i've got a quick scrap-book share today.

Had been HOARDING these photos for almost three years now.

until i finally broke down and used them on this page that I created for Creating Keepsakes.

...THE moment that "then-baby" Evan (the child who at that time was ONLY eating pancakes and watermelon and was very, VERY picky to say the least) grabbed an apple off of the ground at our favorite MN apple orchard, and took a big old bite out of it - is something that will stay with me forever.

This page ended up as a part of CK's online edition for September, but it's without a doubt one of my favorite pages I've ever made. :)

The banner-esque embellies at the top are just punched leaves from patterned paper scraps, and then there's also lots of my favorite american crafts, studio calico, and bella blvd products included here.

Hope everyone has been enjoying Fall as much as we have been here the past few weeks!

:)

Products Used on my "Hello Fall" layout...

InLinkz.com

{Happy Halloween...}

...from all of us.  ;)

When Evan (finally) decided (with a bit of persuading on my part) on BATMAN as his superhero of choice for his Halloween costume this year, i KNEW that Noah had to be his Robin.

And after Noah was assigned "Robin", Evan had a conversation with me and told me that Daddy needed to be "Flash" and I needed to be "WonderWoman".  And we decided to indulge him - bc you are only four once - and because hopefully he will remember this for years to come.  (& that his parents were the ones to dress up WITH HIM for halloween...!)

The AMAZING Amy of 'Amy Tangerine' made Noah and my tees.  Evan & Eric ordered "built-in-muscle" costumes.  And Toby got to be SuperMan by default bc it was available in a tiny dog costume at Old Navy.  ;)

((&...ps - i LOVE my hair in the above shot!!!))

We hope everyone has a SUPER Halloween!!!

:)

photo credit on the family shots goes to my amazing brother in law, Marc - who had the brilliant foresight to take 10th grade photography class.  ;)  xo.

{Evan's "scrapbook" page}

& also the very FIRST page he's ever made.

minus any photos, but i still LOVE it.

and what i love even more is that he wandered into my office after naptime on wednesday afternoon (and while Noah was still napping) and just wanted to spend time with me while I finished up some work.  And he happens to LOVE the punches that i recently showed him how to work, and asked to use the "star" and for paper, and went to work punching.  We swapped punch shapes along the way, & the stickers were his idea -- gathered from his "supplies" in his own room.

And when he was done he said "Look Momma.  I made a scrapbook page like YOU!".

...and THAT is the best.

:)

{first day}

...of "4's".

We met his teacher and saw his classroom (and tested out the new playground equipment!) last Friday - and today set off for the "last" first day of preschool that he'll have...

...Complete with his new superman backpack, spiderman tee-shirt, and toy story lunch tote (recycled from last year that he refused to replace with an updated version!).

I sent a special m&m treat in his lunch because I knew he'd LOVE it.  And he did.  :)

& When he got back in the car at almost 1pm this afternoon he told me that he had "so much fun".  And that "playing was his favorite thing", and he named his new friends, and he said "it was great momma".  And i realized just how far we've come since the start of last year's school year when he refused to wear the art smock and we had a major debacle over painted hand prints.  ;)

and by the way - he also told Noah when he got out of the car this morning that he "was going to go do fun things" and told me to "do good stuff with Noah".  (<-- his new favorite line when leaving me to go somewhere on his own).

(noah is crying here bc i made him stand still for a photo!)

...And Noah most definitely took this message to heart, because he wasted ZERO time when we came home before completely TAKING OVER all of evan's best toys - the light up Cars cars, superheroes, and the BEST toy of all -- the new, prized batman house.

:)

{Celebrating Four.}

We've officially wrapped up "celebrating four" here by taking down the birthday banner that goes up for each of our birthdays, every year...

I just slacked a little on taking it down this past week, and also on blogging photos from ev's birthday & party, but wanted to get them up here for blog posterity.  ;)

on ev's actual birthday (the 27th) we had a very super-hero filled and themed day,

along with the occasional robot thrown in.  ;)

We opened gifts and got to hang out with Daddy all morning (who managed to skip out on work for a few hours) - noah thought that the box that ev's new batman house came in might as well have BEEN the gift.  :)

We went out for evan's favorite food - hotdogs(!) - for lunch, and then grilled them again for dinner.  And finally sang Happy Birthday and had super-hero cupcakes before bed...

...

And then last weekend, we celebrated four AGAIN with family and friends - and LOTS & LOTS of jumping!...

...and sliding.

And (what else but a) super-hero party theme...

And we now somehow have a FOUR year old.

...how is that possible?!

:)

{a scrapbook share...}

and a coupon code, too.

YAY!

first the layout...

I'm kind of in the in-between slow part of my month work-wise, and that means I get to play.  So I used favorite leftover bits of my Studio Calico August kit (& Addons) along with other product that was randomly strewn around my desk to make a page for Evan's book.

This was one of my favorite pics from the 4 year old shots we've been taking of him the past few weeks.  And I thought ev's quirky little personality (on full display in this photo!) matched up pretty well to the fun star print that's actually the B-side of this paper.

I adore the little 7 Gypsies mini calendar tickets - they are just so cute tucked next to photos and with embellie clusters on my pages.

FYI - Layout Supplies: MME Bingo paper, 7Gypsies calendar tickets, OA Boarding Pass Ledger print, OA Boarding Pass yellow grid, OA Boarding pass multi colored title stickers, Cosmo Cricket red dot paper, OA Label Stickers, OA Chipboard, JBS Star Chipboard, Cosmo Sticker Tag, Sassafrass alpha stickers, Pebbles aqua button, American Crafts sticker, AC brads, Aqua Zing!

And now for the COUPON CODE - 2 Peas is giving my blog readers FREE SHIPPING with all orders of $35 or more from August 3rd through the 5th. 

Just enter the code SHIPSW at checkout (*good on non-digital, non-phaseout domestic purchases).

Happy Scappy-Shopping Everyone!

:)