Our New Kitchen

Our family Christmas present this year was the remodel of our kitchen. We were very blessed to have worked with a couple this year who does custom cabinetry work and we were able to trade wedding photography and video services with them for new custom cabinets for our kitchen! Of course, when you replace cabinets, it's hard to stop at just that though, so we ripped out our entire kitchen and pretty much started from scratch. The project was completed in about a month and we were very happy to have it finished up just in time for Christmas! Here are some before and after pictures.

Old Kitchen - Angle 1New Kitchen - Angle 1 Old Kitchen - Angle 2 New Kitchen - Angle 2Old Kitchen - Angle 3 New Kitchen - Angle 3 Old Kitchen - Angle 4 New Kitchen - Angle 4Old Kitchen - Angle 5New Kitchen - Angle 5Old Sink & FaucetNew Sink & Faucet

Our Christmas Dance

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Our 3rd Grader

Yep...3rd grade! Can you believe it?! Elaina went back to school today and is already loving it. She's in a new building this year, so she's moving on up in the world! ;-) She'll be in this building until the 7th grade, so we'll be getting to know it well. She'll be taking piano lessons for the first time this year, so she's really excited about that! Here are some pictures from our EARLY morning.

As I was taking pictures in the hallway of the school, another mom passed by us and told me to enjoy the moment because it wouldn't last forever. She had just left her 6th grader who had only allowed her to take one picture! ;-) I know the time will be here before we know it when we're sending Elaina off to the 6th grade! :-(

Zachary enjoyed joining Ryan and I as we continued our tradition of going out to breakfast after dropping Elaina off for her first day of school. Isn't the little bowl of Cheerios adorable?! They gave it to him as his "appetizer". He wasn't too keen on the orange slice though.

Ride 'em Cowboy!

This week our church is having Vacation Bible School and part of the activities is horse rides. Tonight I came out with my group of kids to find Zachary riding one of the horses. It was so adorable and I was so excited because I actually brought my camera with me tonight! So I did the crazy mommy thing...you know, throw all my stuff down, dig through my bag for my camera and dash over to take pictures before his ride was over, all the while with tears in my eyes over my little "baby" riding a horse all by himself. He was so proud of himself, grinning ear to ear, and when they took him off the horse, he came running over to me as fast as his little Spongebob Squarepants short legs could carry him and gave me a big hug. It was so precious!

Elaina also enjoyed her horse ride, decked out in her cowboy boots and hat.

She Swims!

Elaina just finished her last swimming lesson and after only 6 lessons, she is now jumping off the diving board and swimming across the pool! Okay, so she had the swimming down pat, her final task was to jump off the diving board.She needed a little "encouragement"! :-)After several pushes, she decided she might as well go ahead and jump in herself.Can you say OUCH?!

I think she did a great job and we are very proud of her! Now Ryan wants to put in a pool! ;-)

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Ryan and I celebrated our 10th anniversary today. We took the kids out for lunch and then went to Frankie's Fun Park to ride go-carts.

Ryan had to work today, so we're planning on going out on a "real date" tomorrow (first time in years...literally!). The day ended, however, with a phone call from Ryan saying that he was on his way to the emergency room after twisting his ankle while shooting a story. It ended up being a severe sprain, so we praise the Lord that it was not broken and we don't have a wedding to shoot tomorrow. We do have one next weekend though, so please pray that his ankle heals quickly! I took pictures of his ankle, but I'll spare you from having to view them! ;-) I guess this was one way for him to get to come home early from work on our anniversary! It'll definitely be an anniversary to remember!

Happy Birthday Zachary!

Today we celebrated Zachary's 2nd birthday. It's so hard to believe that my little baby is 2 already! We started out the party with presents and then cupcakes and ended it with the formal ribbon cutting ceremony for his playhouse. Enjoy the pictures!


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