Rhett's First Day of Kindergarten

Today was Rhett-ster's first day of Kindergarten. He did SO great! He got up and got dressed and ate a good breakfast. He was very excited to be going to the same "big" school as his bubba. Finally.

Daddy met us at the school and started taking pictures just as soon as we were getting out of the suburban!

Rhett didn't even know Daddy was there at this point!

The BIG kindergarten boy. See, I told you he was excited!!Mamma getting Sissy out of the car.Little Boy about to enter the Big World!Every desk had a jar of Play-Doh and cookie cutters to play with right when they got there. What a neat idea!! Rhett sure was excited about it."Look Daddy, I made a "K" in my play doh!"Daddy tried to snap this picture without Rhett knowing- we were outside of the classroom already... but Rhett-ster saw him and gave him a BIG smile!!

We're so proud of Rhett for having a great day. When I picked them up from school, Rhett's comments about school were:

"I got to go to Library."
"I wish I got to go to PE or Art though."
"I got to make a racoon puppet, but I didn't get to finish it, so I'll have to finish it tomorrow."
"It was SOOO long until lunch." (I have to interject that he goes to lunch at 10:45am!)
"It was SOOO long until school was over."

He did say that he had fun and he said that his teacher is really nice.

We're thankful that he did so great on his first day!!!!

Braden's First Day

Braden's first day of 2nd grade at his new school was a success! Of course, he's a typical boy, and he never wants to expound beyond "good" when asked how his day was. That's how it's been ever since Kindergarten. So, when I got a smile and a "good", I figured it was a good day. Because I'm a girl and I like details, I made the mistake (that I should know not to do by now) of badgering him with questions like, "Did you like your teacher?", "What did you do for recess?", "Did you like bringing your lunch or do you want to eat in the cafeteria tomorrow?", "Who did you sit by?", etc. etc. etc. He just gets more and more annoyed with each question and started giving me really smart-ellick answers. So I backed off. Then later, I sat next to him and said, "Braden, are you ok?" He said, "Yeeeessss, Why?" I said, "Am I asking too many questions?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Does it annoy you that I ask so many questions?" He smiled and said, "Yes." I told him, "I'm sorry that I ask so many questions, but I'm just a girl, and I like to hear all the details. It's ok if you don't want to talk about all of it. I just love you and I want to know about your day. How about if you just tell me what you want me to know from now on." No response. And again with yet another question, I asked him, "Does that sound good?" "Yep." And that was the end of the discussion about his day.
He really wants to start riding the bus, but I'm not ready for that yet. So, I made him mad and told him he has to be a car rider for at least another week.
He does want to eat in the cafeteria tomorrow, though. Even at the elementary school, they get a choice of 2 lunch entrees. Boy, he thought that was cool! And so do I for that matter. We didn't get a choice until high school when I was in school!
I think getting the 1st day over with was a pretty good birthday present!
Daddy took us all out to eat some yummy mexican food at Jose's and now he's got all 3 munchkins at the pool while I blog.
They'll be going to bed soon and my plans for the rest of my birthday are to get in my jammies, lay in my recliner with my comfy blankie, and watch more of the Olympics until bedtime. Oh, the life!

Grape Festival

Since we only live about 90 seconds away from Tontitown, we took the kids to the Tontitown Grape Festival this year. It was a bit more pricey than the Carroll County Fair, but it was also better... Better rides anyway. We only went 1 night for a couple hours. We ate a yummy hand dipped corn dog, chicken and taters. Mmmmmm!!!

The boys each got to ride 3 rides and Gracie got to ride the carousel. The boys even got to stomp the grapes. Braden said it was "disgusting" and Rhett said it was "awesome". They had 3 people go up at a time and the boys went on separate turns. Rhett won his group of 3 for who stomped the most. What fun!

And to top of the fun family night, we went to Shake's afterwards for dessert. Can you belive we had all this fun on a work night?? Yep, just another benefit of Daddy not having to drive so far to get home at night!!

Here's Daddy and the boys on the Ferris Wheel. They loved it! It cost $15 for them to ride it this one time, so there wasn't a second time...

The boys and their grape feet prints ;)

Uncle Jeff is Home!!

Ok, so Uncle Jeff has been home since August 3rd, but I'm just now getting around to getting it on the blog! We're really glad to have him home. It's been nice to hang out and spend some time with him before he heads off to his next adventure.

Here's Jason and the kids going up the escalator at XNA to wait for Uncle Jeff.

The boys got bored waiting, so they conned Grandpa into taking them down the escalator again. Here they are coming back up!
Here's Jesse holding the "Welcome Home" sign that they made for Jeff. They let us all sign it, which was so cool! To the left of Jesse is his wife Kristy and to the right is Jeff's friend Sara. Julie sure was glad to have her boy back on Arkansas soil!!! Braden was waiting for his turn for a hug too.

Our Love Shack

Jason and I have been referring to our apartment as the Love Shack. It's very cozy and feels like a home now that we've moved all of our stuff in and decorated it.

Sorry it took me so long to post pictures.

Here they are!!

Here's what you see when you walk in the front door.

Living room. What you see when you're sitting on the love seat/recliners

Our new couch, which we love! It's so cozy. The sofa part has a queen size bed that pulls out. Very handy.

Living room
My "office"

The kitchen. Small but functional. I hung the curtain in the doorway to separate the kitchen from the laundry area.

The little laundry area. Again, small but functional.

From the living room looking into the kitchen

From the kitchen looking into the living room

Hall closet. Hot water heater takes up most of the space, but there is plenty of storage for my cleaning supplies, vacuum, etc.

Coat closet. Lots of storage space for blankets, etc.

Boys room.

Closet in the boys room has plenty of room for all 3 kids' clothes, shoes, etc.

Kid's bathroom

Our bathroom

Our closet. Small walk-in. Plenty of space if we keep it well organized.

Our bedroom

Gracie's bed is still in our bedroom, but there was enough space for her to have her own little space. I couldn't give her the room I was planning for, but I went ahead and put up some of her wall decorations and her new crib bedding that I had purchased. She loves it!

Gracie loves to look at this picture of herself when she was a baby. We had to hang it far enough above and away from her crib so that she wouldn't take it down!

Gracie's changing table in the "hall" as you enter our bedroom. I have a picture of me with each of the kids when they were 9 months old and I plan to hang those 3 pictures here on this wall. I forgot some of them at the house, so I haven't done it yet.

All Moved In

Well, we did it! We are now officially apartment dwellers for the first time ever. You know what? We actually really like it here. I know, I know, it's only been 3 days, but still... we already like it!

I was worried about lots of things.

#1: the washer and dryer. We discovered that my washer and dryer wouldn't fit in the apartment, so I was dreading that REALLY bad. But not anymore! Praise the Lord-- this washer and dryer is actually fine and dandy. I was thinking it was going to be like my old set, but this set is MUCH newer and has a much larger capacity. And the dryer gets super hot, which is awesome. I have done 4 loads each day we've been here, and it seems to go pretty fast. So, worry #1 is gone.

#2: the office. Or lack-there-of. There is a small "dining area" in the apartment that is right off the kitchen. This is the only logical spot to put our office. I was worried about it being open and not being able to close the door on it. We have a really nice desk hutch that we bought at Brashears several years ago with our entire tax refund for that year... it's a really nice piece of furniture. We never actually used it for an office desk. It started out being my "scrapbook area" but as soon as Gracie was born, scrapbooking has become nothing more than a fond and distant memory. So, quite honestly it's been sitting in my living room in Berryville full of JUNK and collecting DUST!!! We decided to bring this because it has a door that closes and we could close in the office and my work wouldn't be laying out for everyone to see and looking junky all the time. I NEVER thought all of my things would fit in it, but worry #2 is no more! Miraculously everything has a place. I went on a little shopping spree yesterday and bought several organizational pieces for the house, and included in that were several pretty baskets to stash stuff in. I have them lined up on the top of my desk with extra office supplies, folders, binders, printer ink, etc. So, it's all stored away nice and neat.

As far as storage goes, I probaly have more storage/closet space than I had in my house in Berryville. The closet in the boys room is big enough for all 3 kids hanging clothes and the room holds all 3 dressers. There is even a little hall closet where the hot water heater is and there are lots of shelves and room for my vacuum and cleaning supplies. There is also a nice size coat closet with a shelf for all of my extra blankets.

There are 2 bathrooms which is a huge blessing. With 5 of us, 1 bathroom would be rough!

Jason and I have a walk in closet off of our bathroom which has plenty of room for all of our clothes and there are shelves for storage also.

When we started the add-on/remodel project at the house in Berryville, I got all excited and ran out and bought lots of decorations for the house. We never did hang anything up or take anything out of the packages because we knew we would have to paint the walls, so figured there was no point in hanging everything until that was done. Well, we decided to decorate the apartment with all the neat stuff I had purchased and I am so excited! After waiting so long to see everything I bought, I love all of it! It sure did make this little place feel like a home very quickly. I'm very thankful Jason put everything up for me.

I am anxious to post pictures and show off the new digs, but my camera battery died this morning and I've yet to get it charged. So, I'm hoping to get some pics posted tomorrow if I have time.

Thanks again for all of your prayers! I have no doubt that is what has gotten us through! I'm still in shock that we put it all together so quickly!!

Family Fun

This past week, Jason's Uncle Bruce (or Unca Bruce as the kids call him!) and his brand new wife Aunt Jill came to visit us from Pennsylvania. They came with lots of neat little gifts for the kids (and a pretty t-shirt for me too!) and they even took the whole Arkansas family (minus Uncle Jeff who is still in Iraq) out to dinner at the Steak Inn. Yummmmmyyyyyy!!! I had the pan fried Walleye and I'm still thinking about that piece of fish. It was the best piece of fish I've had in my entire life. I can't wait to go back. Maybe for our next special occasion. Jason's 30th birthday is coming up... and my birthday too... surely we can find an excuse to come back this way and eat there!

We had a great time visiting with them and it was so cool to see their Jamaica wedding/honeymoon pictures. Oh, to visit the beach again someday... someday I will visit the beach again. Next time, hopefully to relax with my hunny in the sun and a cold drink in my hand ALL day! :-)

Unca Bruce and Aunt Jill

Jason and Erica while we were playing cards. The FAMOUS "Allcers" family game. No, we hadn't been drinking... it was late and we had been working and packing all day! :-)

Unca Bruce with Rhett and Gracie

Here's Bammaw Julie's "pet" racoon that comes to eat her scraps. The boys were so excited to watch it. It was neat because it made us all think about Grandma Kennett. She LOVED racoons. We miss Grandma!

The Kennett Clan at the Steak Inn. Thanks for dinner Bruce and Jill!! It was SOOO Yummy!

I love this picture of me and Jason! I'm so thankful that we're still so in love after all these years!

The Krazy Kennetts... Here is the first picture. Rhett has trouble taking a picture with a nice face... he's all about the silly faces. So, Aunt Jill told him if he'd take a good one, then we would all make silly faces and take another one.

Take One!

Take Two!

This is how we get the "Krazy" in front of our name!