Let's start with.... Christmas

Since I left the blogging world around Christmas time, Let's just start there! And of course, here's the scrapbook page of our Christmas - showing all the cute little Rasband kids in there Christmas jammies.

Nate & Emma were SOOO excited this year, that they woke us up at 7 am. And little Abby, it being her first Christmas, woke up at 8:30am. How do I get them to all do that?

The big present this year, was Nate and Emma's scooters. They got spoiled and got to ride them around the house until Spring came - now they are outside permanently!

Parker was excited for his Thomas jammies, and his book that started the scrapping obsession. Oh if I could relive that moment over again!

And Abby was just looking for the biggest piece of wrapping paper tossed aside, thinking that it would make a great treat. Christmas was GREAT!

From Christmas to...... Um, Christmas in July!

OK, OK, OK, I know it! This is BAD! I got in trouble a couple weeks ago by Shannon, who said that she keeps checking in and it's STILL Nate's Christmas Program. The good thing is that Shannon usually sees me around at church and stuff, so she knows that I am living, but for you who I don't see - you probably have a good enough reason to wonder if I've fallen off the face of the Earth.

I can't really even say I have a good excuse, either. No huge catastrophes, just living LIFE! All though I will say that I have found a new obsession, which probably digs into my blogging life. For Christmas I made Parker a photobook at Shutterfly.com of all his favorite things. It was SO super easy, and SO super cute, it got me thinking. I checked into digital scrapbooking - I didn't really think I would like it. But within a week I was ADDICTED! I highly recommend it to any of your girls out there. It's so easy, and I am well on my way to getting caught up with scrapping our family memories. And another bonus - there is no set up, or clean up, and no one is spilling my brads all over the kitchen floor! What could be better! So..... my ONLY real excuse for not letting you know about what's going on in our family is that when I'm on the computer I'm usually scrapping. I will try to have a balanced life and do ALL that I need to on the computer, and still have time for my family in real life. Open to any suggestions out there......

I woke up this morning, with a to-do list, and I have finished some of the things on the list, but one that just kept coming up (which really wasn't on the list in the first place) was to "update" my life. Which brings me here to our blog.

So much has happened in the Rasband house since Christmas that I think I'll just start from there and try to bring us up to the present. How does that sound?

Kindergarten Chirstmas Program

Nate's Kindergarten Christmas Program was yesterday morning. And what FUN that was!!!! We took 65 pictures just trying to capture all of Nate's facial expressions. One of the other kindergarten teachers told me today, that it was planned to put Nate on the front row to help out with the singing. Let's just say he used his Rasband voice, and there was no way you couldn't hear him! He used his all to sing!! In one of the songs they sang about the nativity, and Nate was picked to be one of the wise men.Hope you enjoy the pics!"OHHHH, I'm the loveliest Christmas tree! Ho, Ho, Ho, He, He, He"Singing with his ALL and MORE!
One the wise men

Nate's 6th Birthday

On December 9th Nate had his 6th birthday! Can I believe it's been 6 years allready? NO! It's gone by way too fast! We were sick the day before so we took it easy. But we still opened presents, ate cake, and played train. It sure was a fun day to just spend together! Happy Birthday Nate!!!!! (This is my 1st attempt at a slideshow - here's crossing my fingers that it works)

Nate's 6th Birthday

Abby Girl

As a mom I've been feeling guilty. The more kids I have the less the younger ones get. Nate has a whole baby scrapbook filled with pictures, Emma - half a scrapbook filled with pictures, Parker - 4 scrapbooked pages, Abby - NOTHING! And I feel like I haven't taken a picture of her since she was born. It really isn't true, we've taken pictures of all the kids together, but nothing of just her. And she has grown SOOOOO much. I weighed her last week on our scales at home (so I'm not sure how accurate) but she weighed as much as Parker!!! It was time I took some pictures of my not so little girl who is now 7 months old!

From Mullet to Man

So Parker has been in need of a major haircut I just haven't known quite what to do with it. It was a little long in the back, but it had such a cute curl as you can see. His hair was described by Uncle Dustin to be "business in the front, party in the back" We got a good kick out that. But it was time to clean in up a bit. So not knowing how to really fix it, we just took the clippers to it on the shortest guard. So know it's just military style.Here are the before pictures:

And here is the little man now: