Surprise!

It has been almost 8 months since their Aunt Kim passed from her battle with Colon Cancer.  We have had our ups and downs as a family but on May 21st Kurt and I were determined to make it a good day!  Before Kim passed, she told Kurt that she wanted the family to go on a vacation together and she would love for all of her nieces and nephews to go to Disney World.  So for the last several months, Kurt and I worked really hard to make that a reality.  We got the family together (missing the Texas Pepperells) to surprise them with the trip.

We just hung out and the cousins played outside.

When it came time to the surprise, we had gotten each of the kids a Disney shirt with their name on it.  I made up a Disney themed scavenger hunt through Kurt’s mom and dad’s house.  They were led to a box with their t-shirts in it.  We got mixed emotions out of it…mainly because they didn’t understand.

Cillian was excited.  Addi was weirded out because by the end of it, all of the adults were crying.  Averie didn’t understand why there wasn’t more clues.  Holden was only interested in putting his bag over his cousin Alice’s head and Bennet was distraught over his shirt.  It was too funny!  But after the camera was rolling we watched a welcome video that Disney had sent us and then they were all very excited….and now daily we are asked when we are going.  PS….it isn’t until next March!

We ended the day by writing messages to Kim on Flying Wish Paper.  Then you light the paper on fire and it floats up into the sky.  It didn’t work totally like it said it would but the kids thought it was pretty cool and they wrote some pretty sweet things to their Aunt Kim.

The family is so excited for the trip!  We are going to have a great time in honor of Kim!!

To Be Continued…..

Summer AT LAST!

We were so thankful for school to be over this year!!!  By about February…the monotony of it all makes this mama crazy!  I may have been more excited for summer than the kids….if that is possible!

Addison the first and last day of second grade.

Averie the first and last day of preschool.

This kid will be headed to Kindergarten in August!  WHAT!?!??!  We are in the process of trying to move and the girls will be in a new school district.  So not sure what school they will be in yet but we did take Averie to her Kindergarten registration at our current school and they took this picture.

Averie Turns 5

During the hustle and bustle of May, Averie turned 5!  FIVE!  Not sure where the time has gone!  She had been wanting a swimming party at The Riverplex ever since Addi had one there.  So a Shopkins swimming party it was.  It is a great place to have a birthday party.  The kids always have a great time!  Look at how grown up she is!!!!

 

 

NEVER trust the older brother near water!!

Dance

The girl’s dance recital has come and gone and now we have moved onto summer tumbling classes and Addi’s technique classes for competition team.  It was another great year at DDP!  Addi did tumbling and tap and Averie did tap and ballet.  Fourth year for Addi and second for Averie.    Unfortunately, I didn’t get one single picture of Addi on stage because her two numbers were really close together and when I say close…I mean there was one song in between them to change costumes.  So i had to watch both of her numbers back stage and in between her two songs, I changed her in less than three minutes in the janitor’s closet with the help of her tumbling teacher.  It was interesting!

I love the team work at their dance studio.  The kids are so supportive.  This was Averie’s tap class exiting the stage and the older kids who were waiting their turn were giving them all high fives and telling them good job.  The little ones were just beaming!!

Rollerskating

For my niece’s birthday, we all went rollerskating.  It was Addi’s second time and Averie’s first.  I use to roller skate quite a bit when I was younger….but when I was a kid it was learn to skate or be run over.  Now they have these things that the kids can skate with to help them out.  They are made out of PVC and remind me of an old lady’s walker.  They make it pretty hysterical to watch!

I just had to share this video.  By the last half of the party, the girls ditched the “walkers” and were doing pretty good on their own.  I love how Averie’s rollerskating is really just walking/running on wheels and did you notice my niece is wearing her cowgirl boots while skating?  Love it!

Easter 2016

     Averie-4      Addison-8

For Easter this year, we celebrated with Nicole’s side of the family on Saturday and then just hung out at home on Sunday and relaxed.  The family time was nice!!

 Cousins…and one crazy uncle!

Egg hunt.

We made Minion eggs and they turned out really cute!

We Are Still Here!

Ahhhhhhh…this blog is so neglected!  I don’t even really have an excuse!!  I haven’t really taken many pictures lately.  A little break I guess???  Who knows!

This winter has been pretty uneventful.  We had very little snow and so this was the only picture I got of the girls playing in the snow.

We are enjoying the nicer weather and counting down the days to summer break!!

Walt Disney World

Back in November, we went on a 10 day Walt Disney World vacation.  Our last trip was in 2013 and Averie had just turned two so she didn’t remember any of it.  We also wanted to go during the Christmas season to see the decorations.  So we left on Thanksgiving day and had such a great time!  We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside in a princess room.  The resort is huge but beautiful!  We spent 3 days at Magic Kingdom, 2 days at Epcot, 2 days at Hollywood Studios, and 1 day at Animal Kingdom.  The weather was great…perfect really….not too hot, not too cold.  We also went to the Very Merry Mickey Parade which was easily our favorite part of the whole trip.

MAGIC KINGDOM

Processed with VSCOcam with s3 preset

Processed with VSCOcam with c1 preset

 

EPCOT

Processed with VSCOcam with c2 preset

 

HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

 

ANIMAL KINGDOM

 

OUR RESORT AND MISCELLANEOUS

 

The Holidays

I probably say it every year, but this year I really mean it!  The holidays went SO FAST!!  Mainly because we decided to take a vacation and left Thanksgiving day and was gone for ten days.  It really took a chunk out of our holidays.  We have many traditions that we were not able to do because we were out of town, but that is alright.  It was a great trip!  (I will get around to posting those pictures!)  But we didn’t miss Christmas with the family.  Santa came Christmas morning and then we spent Christmas day at Kurt’s parent’s house.  Then hosted my family the next day.

Addison was very excited!  Can you tell?

But on the other hand….Millie really couldn’t be bothered with her new goodies from Santa!!  Lazy dog!

PEPPERELL CHRISTMAS

Alice really was not digging the cousin Christmas picture this year!

 

 

And of course no Christmas would be complete this year with out a little Pie Face!!!

SKOLASKI CHRISTMAS

Our niece got a small disco ball from my parents.  It was pretty cool and the girls enjoyed dancing around….I’m sure our neighbors thought we were having a mosh pit in our living room!!

Family

On October 20, 2015…we lost Kurt’s sister to colon cancer.  After fighting hard for nearly 5 years, she passed at the age of 43.  She was too young and it was too soon!  We miss her every day but we are thankful for the time we were able to spend with her and the memories we were able to make.  We are also thankful that so many members of the family were able to spend a weekend together.  We celebrated Kim’s life and enjoyed each others company.

All seven cousins were even able to go Trick-or Treating together.  They deserved it!!