Goodbye Angel

We had SO much fun with our elf over the past couple of weeks! The kids ( and me ) can't wait for next December to roll around so she can join our family again!!! There were a few tears shed when it was getting close to it being time for her to leave but it ended well and she wrote the kids a special letter letting them touch her and say goodbye, it was sweet! I'm so glad we added this new Christmas tradition to our family. Till next year Angel, XO from the Suettas!

Gettin' Christmasy

I'm finally feeling pretty ready for Christmas, minus ALL of the wrapping that hasn't been done yet! The cards were mailed this week, the lights went up on the house, Christmas cookies were handed out and all the gifts have been purchased! This is a pretty big accomplishment for a procrastinator like me ;)

We decorated sugar cookies on Thursday with my brother & Danielle. Norah was very into it (as I knew she would be) and Nolan decorated a few but was mostly participating so he could sneak frosting and sprinkles. I'm pretty sure we had to separate out his cookies due to contamination from licking!

Today Casey and I are off to White Pass to do some skiing!!!!! I am super stoked to try out my new skis and gear I got this year for my birthday. The kids are with my dad all day ( thank you Dad) and they are planning to make snowflakes to send to Sandy Hook Elementary where the tragedy took place last week. The kids are on winter break through the first week in January and I am so happy to have them home and all to myself!

The next few days are gonna be a good kind of busy! Watching the hawks game with friends, going to my sis & bro in-laws for Christmas Eve church service and an early dinner is set for Christmas Day with my fam before I head to work for the night.

With all if that being said and all the fun and exciting stuff going on I'm still feeling like something is off/missing this season! That something ( actually those people) would be our best friends! The kids are missing their buddies and ask about them daily and ask when we can visit! I'm asking the same thing, when can we visit?? And I just plain, flat out miss my bestie!!! I really hope a trip to HI will be in our family's not too distant future!!

Week 1 with our elf

Here's a review of what Angle our elf was up to during her first week with us......

Day one she showed up at Grandma & Grandpas in the Christmas tree with a book explaining all about her.

Day two she made a snow angel in powdered sugar on the kitchen counter,
messy :)

Day three she sat up next to our nativity scene with letters to the kids from Santa himself!

Day four she had a tea party with 2 Barbie friends and a transformer.

Day five she spelled out a message for the kids in red and green M&M's saying "be good"

Day six she flew up to daddy's hang board with an ornament to help decorate our tree. The kids said now daddy can't do pull ups today ;)

Day 7 she was a naughty little elf and snuck into Norah's lipstick and wrote "only 10 days till Christmas!!!" On the bathroom mirror.

Angel the Elf

The kids' elf came this morning while we are at the inlaws for the weekend! She flew up into the Christmas tree and left the book explaining her Christmas tradition for them! The kids(especially Norah) are super excited she is here. Just last night while Skyping the Newgards the kids got to meet their Elf AJ and wondered where theirs was. Our elf had perfect timing coming this morning ;) Norah quickly named her Angel and Nolan was agreeable to that. They've been super well behaved today, coincidence??? The kids are wondering how she's gonna get home with us since we can't touch her, I assured them she'll find her way home in the morning!!! I think this is gonna be a really fun tradition. Better late than never :)

Love my littles!

Just a little post about my little loves! My little lady has been making us pretty proud parents over the last month. She had a great patent teacher conference in November, then got an award for responsibility at a school assembly and she came home with an outstanding report card this week :) I've also been volunteering in her classroom on Thursday mornings and her teacher can't say enough nice things about her! Just the kind of things every momma wants to hear. She is doing great in her swimming lessons and is just so fun to spend time with!

Mr. Nolan is doing great things as well! He's learning tons of new things in preschool and has been reading a few sight words and learning his alphabet and letter sounds really quickly. He brings home lovely seasonal artwork for me to display and next week I get to go decorate gingerbread houses with him at school! He's my little buddy and he and I get to spend a lot of time together when daddy is at work and sissy's at school. He is also doing great at swim lessons and can swim all on his own now, no floatation devices needed ;)

A Happy Birthday

This past Sunday I had my 32nd birthday! The weekend was filled with lots of fun events, some birthday related and some not! Between Saturday & Sunday I was able to spend some time with most of my family and almost all of my best friends :)

Saturday we spent part of the day
celebrating our best friends' daughter's 5 th birthday! It was a great time and such a cute little luau themed party. After the party we headed back to puyallup where I met my sister and she treated me to a nice, and needed manicure. Then we headed to my fave sushi place in Tacoma where we met up with more friends! We enjoyed a delish dinner and then headed to the Warren Miller premier. (A movie about skiing). The showing was great and got me super excited for ski season! We went out for drinks after the show and headed home! I'll be honest, I celebrated my bday a little too hard and payed for it for half of Sunday!

Even though I didn't feel amazing Sunday morning I still enjoyed my day! Casey surprised me with a new(used) pair of skis and new poles!!!!!!! He totally spoiled me this birthday :) then we had our besties over along with my brother, sister and her new puppy for pizza & cheesecake... Yummy, 2 of my favorites!

I had a great birthday weekend and ended it feeling very blessed and happy.

Halloween Festivies

Last Friday kicked off a weekend of Halloween fun! Friday morning I took my little Mario to his preschool's Harvest Festival. There were introductions by all the cute preschoolers, a couple super cute songs the kids performed for the parents, games and lots of candy! That evening we got dressed up again, this time to go to Norah's school for her Harvest party! Lots of fun there too and Norah was super excited to put on her kitty costume. I painted her face and she even got to wear a little of mommy's eye shadow and mascara. 

 Here are my Halloween cuties right before the harvest festival! 

*****

Saturday night was my annual Halloween get together with all my lovely work friends and their spouses. It is always a blast and always too much fun ;-)

Here's me and the bestie.

 Sheriff Buttercup and Deputy Daisy! 

Cowgirls & Indians for the Newetta clan this year. I'm really gonna miss not having our Halloween costume buddies next year.....just one of the many, many things that I will miss!!!

♥ Me & My Chief  ♥

*****

Sunday was spent lounging around the house, recovering from lots of Halloween party fun and lack of sleep! In the afternoon we had a family pumpkin carving session, and we had all 4 pumpkins carved in time for a yummy spaghetti dinner :)

 Casey always has the best pumpkin!

I went for cute and simple this year

 Norah carved hers all by herself for the very first time! 

She used the pieces from Daddy's pumpkins eyes to make "dragon wings"

She's creative!

 And this little monster just wanted the basic Jack-O-Lantern!

With pointy "bat" ears of course.

 Suetta family pumpkins 

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

 Last Friday Norah had no school :) and Nolan had a preschool field trip to Maris Farms Pumpkin Patch! This place is SO cool and the kids had a great time! They got to take home cute little pumpkins, take a cow train ride, place in a room full of corn kernels(I'm still finding left over kernels in coat pockets), they got to pet farm animals and play on a neat farm inspired play ground! The rain even held off for almost all of the trip!

 My new fave of the 2 of them

 Nolan's pumpkin pick

Petting the super friendly goats :)

 So glad Norah was able to join us for this field trip fun!

Being silly.......like usual!

One final shot with mommy

It was a good trip and if you're looking for a pumpkin patch that you could easily spend an entire day at this is it!!!!

I've been a BAD blogger!

And, I can come up with a million reasons why! So here are a few of the reasons why I haven't taken the opportunity to record our life happenings since July(gasp!)

• We are busy, like legitimately busy! 
• My husband hogs the computer! Not for entertainment purposes but because he uses it for work. He is working from home half of the week and uses the computer for all of his at home work.
• My son is a gamer :-/ We have no gaming systems in our house so he has taken a liking to computer games and iPhone apps. 

• We got new photo editing software, that I don't know how to use :( I could just throw unedited pics on here, but I just don't wanna!

All excuses aside, I really miss my blog and am putting it in writing that I promise from this day forward to be a better blogger. I want this blog to be something that my kiddos can look at years from now and see what our daily goings on were like. So, here is a little update on the 4 of us and whats been going on since July!

Casey
My husband is a hard worker. He has been doing real estate appraisal for a little over a year now. It's had its ups and downs and we've all adjusted to his commuting to the greater Seattle area several days a week, as well as him working from home. He sometimes works really long hours but has a somewhat flexible schedule which has been nice with school starting for the kids. The best part about this job is that he is much happier doing it than he has been with any other job in the past :) He will be going back to school to take some classes for real estate appraisal certification soon. He also has gotten back into a good routine at the gym and is shaping up mighty nicely if I do say so myself ;) He is a patient daddy, especially when it comes to Norah's homework, which is not a quality that I posses. So, he does most of her homework with her and I am thankful!

Me
Right now I am really, really loving the amazing fall weather we are having her in the PNW. Fall is my fave season and this weather is a welcomed bonus. Casey and I celebrated our 9th wedding anny last week. We had a lovely sushi dinner date followed by drinks and good conversation! I got a pretty little necklace, that I am in love with too. I've also gotten back into a little better gym routine and will be trying to shed those few extra pounds that I gained over the summer from all the yummy food and drinks that I consumed ;) Work at the NICU has been extremely busy. Last year we had a very long period of low census that was scary and frustrating. Now we are in a staffing crisis. Not a single work stretch has gone by in the past 2 months where I haven't done at least some overtime. Its nice for the bank account but really does take a physical toll. Especially working nights! There have been times when I've worked 56 hours in 4 nights, yikes!

Norah 
My big girl started 2nd grade. I couldn't be prouder of her and she already got her name published in the weekly newsletter for being a responsible student. She loves her teacher and rumor has it that she will be looping and teaching 3rd grade next year, which means we get a wonderful teacher 2 years in a row. She also started swimming lessons again, and at first didn't want but after one lesson she is glad to be back in the pool. She also wants to take back up ballet so we are waiting for the next session to start up. She got a sassy new short haircut and is growing up way to fast!

Nolan
And last but not least my little man stated Pre-K! NOOOOOO, momma's not ready for my baby to be in Pre-K, cause that only means that full time school is getting that much closer.  He is doing so well in school, he loves his new teacher Miss Vera, and I think she's pretty lovely. He is learning his alphabet and comes home and tells me about the new letter he learned and about all the things that start with that letter, it's so cute. He is rambunctious and such a boy. He is a little obsessed with Sonic the hedgehog and has declared that he will be sonic for Halloween. He even does this weird little Sonic inspired run. He also restarted swim lessons and is showing off his newly acquired swimming skills for his teacher!

October is shaping up to be another busy month! We have a wedding, a visit to the in-laws, Halloween planning/parties and Casey has one last climbing trip planned before the weather gets too bad and before his best bud and climbing partner moves :( Other than that the rest of our time will be filled with school, work, gym time and kids activities as well as spending as much time as we can with our very best friends before they move in 2 short months to Hawaii :(:(


 

She's SEVEN!

 

Happy Birthday Norah Lynn

I just can't believe that my "baby" is 7!!! She's seeming so grown up these days and I don't think I'm ready for it. It really seems like yesterday that I was going into the hospital to be induced and finally meet her. So much has happened since then but it's just flown by so fast......time please SLOW down!

She's creative and crafty. She has a special little smile that I think she only shows me and her daddy! She can drive me nuts one minute and make my heart melt the next. She is sporty and sometimes sassy. She has a kind, loving heart and I am thankful for that. She has a shy side but once she knows you, you would never know. She is smart and learning new things at a quick pace, she reads and writes and does math! She just finished her 3rd soccer season and wants to give ballet another try! She is SO enjoying the fabulous weather we've been having and has a tan that I'm a little jealous of ;) And, she is gorgeous! Inside and out.

Last Sunday we celebrated her birthday with a backyard owl themed party(pictures coming soon). We had lots of family and friends join us, it was a really fun day! She deemed it her "best party ever". Just what this momma wanted to hear the next morning. Today her birthday celebration started with cinnamon rolls with candles and the happy birthday song for breakfast. Followed by a trip to the sprayground with our besties. We went home she played on her trampoline(her birthday present), spent some time getting wet on the slip n' slide that papa got her, had a bbq dinner with our favorite friends, went to see Brave and came home for ice cream sundaes and another round of the happy birthday song(thank you Newgards for celebrating with us today)!

Now she's fast asleep after her busy day, tomorrow she'll be 7 + 1 day and I'll be hoping for time to slow down just a bit and not let her continue to grow up so dang fast!

Mommy and Daddy love you to pieces baby girl.

{BUSY}

When I say we've been busy it's kinda an understatement, but it's ok cause I kinda like it that way! The kiddos have been playing spring soccer, Nolan's not so into it, but Norah really likes it and her team is actually good! They have their last game this coming Saturday! They are both still in swimming too but we'll be taking a break from that for the rest of the summer so we can play outside! Nolan had his last day of his first year of preschool! He took his favorite teacher some pretty orange flowers that he picked out, she loved them. Norah finishes up first grade next Tuesday, and I couldn't be prouder of how well she has done! She also has now lost both her top front teeth and I just <3 her toothless grin!

Casey has been busy with work and I have too! {we finally have babies at work and are actually busy again!} We both learned to snow ski this winter/spring and both wonder why we waited so long! We are hooked and can't wait for next season. We also recently traded in our mountain bikes for road bikes and are in full swing training for a triathlon this July!

We have taken a couple trips to the farmers market and I finally have my veggie garden planted, hopefully we'll get some much needed sunshine to help it grow! We went on a mother's day camping trip with our besties and I have to say it was my very best mother's day ever! We also took a quick memorial day camping trip, just the 4 of us :-)

Next on the agenda.... I leave for a 48 hour trip to San Diego for my BFF's graduation! Tiffany will be joining me and I am so happy to have both of my best friends together for a girls weekend. The following weekend Casey & I go on our yearly rafting trip, I cannot wait!!!!! Lots more fun stuff planned for the summer, but more on all that later.

YaY Sring!

The Suettas couldn't be happier about the gorgeous weather we've been having the past 2 weekends! We have taken full advantage of it for sure! Miss Norah learned to ride her bike without training wheels and we are so proud of our big girl! Both kids started spring soccer this week and we are looking forward to Saturday's filled with soccer games. We've taken trips to the park, went to the Puyallup Spring Fair with our besties! We have attended a few really fun birthday parties and got a good start on our yard work! Now we're headed to my little sis' to take a spin on Long Lake in their new boat!

These are just some of the pictures from the last few days! Check out Nolan's beat up dirty legs, a sure sign of a long fun day playing outside!

One proud momma!

 Yesterday my little Miss was honored at an awards assembly at her school. I had known that she was receiving this award for the past couple of weeks, and it was really hard not to slip and say something to her! So Nolan & I headed to the school yesterday morning(poor Daddy had to work and missed it) and watched as her name was called, as she got to shake the principal's hand and as she got to proudly stand up on stage with 15 other 1st graders and be recognized for her excellent self-discipline! I couldn't be more proud of my baby girl. She has worked so hard this school year and has made leaps and bounds when it comes to her reading skills! She is amazing and not only did she get an award she also brought home a super good report card this week. Way to go baby girl!!!

♥ My little Valentines ♥

 Norah with the Valentines she & I made

 for her 1st grade class!

Together we made 22 of these little cuties :)

Here she is making the "hooting" owl sound

 

  

 "He goes upside down"

For whatever reason she thought that was super funny.

I LOVE her smile :-)

 With her finished product, and a chocolate apple for her lovely teacher!

This is the Valentine she made me at the Gym after I went to work that night!

 And here's where I'm gonna be 100% honest and say that Nolan's Valentine for me ranks up there on my list of all time favorite Valentines Day gifts. He made it in his preschool class, and it just makes me smile! I especially love. love. love. all the little thumbprint dots! 

Too Cute!!!

 Here's what I made for his friends at preschool, it's a heart shaped crayon made out of melted crayon pieces. Thank you to my bestie Tiffany and Pinterest for the idea and ♥ molds.

These are what my littles got for Valentines Day from me and Casey!

I love these little sock monkeys and so did they. They also loved the chocolate but neither one cared for the convo hearts(I think they're pretty disgusting too)!

Even though I had to work we still all had a lovely day! Wednesday night Casey and I celebrated with a delicious dinner (cooked at home by me) that consisted of Parmesan chicken and prosciutto wrapped asparagus, with wine of course. Followed by dessert, which was another Pinterest recipe.... No bake Nutella Cheesecake, it was divine and I will most certainly be making it again!