Ms. Independent

Miss Isla has become Miss Independent lately.  Instead of having Ryan or I walk her to school and stand with her in line she has politely asked us to stay in the car while she walks by herself to stand in her class line.  Even though my heart cracked a little, I agreed.

So every morning Ryan or I drop her off and watch her walk to her class line:

And then sit in the car and watch/stalk her until she goes into the school.  I may or may not shed a tear each time she does this.  She is getting too big.

Another sign of her getting to big - she lost her first tooth!  She was SOOOO excited as it happened at school and she got to wear a tooth necklace with her tooth safely inside it the rest of the day. Apparently this is a big deal among kindergartners, you're pretty much the talk of the classroom.

Happy girl showing off her new smile:

 And her special necklace:

Drew's Selfies

I love scrolling through my phone and finding these pictures:

This one was my favorite:

This kid is always cracking me up.  He is full of it:

Thanksgiving 2014

Isla's class held a special Thanksgiving celebration and all the parents were invited to attend.  It was super cute.  We got to sit with Isla and draw pictures of what we are thankful for:

Then the class introduced us to a Thanksgiving song (that Isla sang over and over and over):

We stayed in town on actual Thanksgiving and hosted some of our family.  I took no pictures as I was busy cooking and visiting.  The only picture we managed to get was all of us on the couch watching the Seahawks beat the 49ers:

Go Hawks!

Snow Day - 2014

We got hit with our first snow storm pretty early this year.  Now that we have a kindergartner a snow day is actually a real thing in the Skene household.  Luckily I can work from home!  We decided to keep Drew home too so they could play together:

Halloween 2014

Halloween sort of snuck up on me this year.  Thank goodness I bought the kids costumes early or I would have been scrambling around trying to find something for them to wear.

Since Isla didn't have school on Halloween they had a celebration a week early where the parents were invited to come to the school and watch the kids parade from classroom to classroom in their outfits.  I was pretty impressed that all the kids in the entire school dressed up.

Isla (as Elsa) before school:

It was hard to get a picture of this one as she raced from classroom to classroom,  Such a shy one:

The weekend before Halloween I let the kids carve pumpkins (although I think Ryan and I were the ones who ended up doing most of the carving):

They turned out great:

Mack didn't like the pumpkins taking over his perch in the front yard:

Isla getting her scary on:

On actual Halloween day Isla decided that her Elsa dress was too long and annoying so she stole my cat costume.  We headed over to the Hamilton's and walked around their neighborhood with our cat and ninja:

The kids ran from house to house and collected a record amount of candy.  This trick or treat thing is catching on quick with my kids.  Thank goodness we had a wagon to carry the little ones home!

Capri

Our last stop on our two week vacation was Capri.  We had to brave the streets of Naples to get there, but we made it (and I never need to go back to Naples).  For our last three days we didn't do much sight-seeing, we pretty much relaxed and caught up on sleep.

Once we arrived at the marina we had to take a taxi to our hotel.  It was a really bright pink convertible - Ryan loved it:

Our hotel was awesome.  They had a bottle of prosecco waiting for us in our room and this was our view.  Rough life:

View of our hotel as we left for dinner the first night (Hotel della Piccola Marina):

The next day we hiked up to ruins of an old castle (a really old castle that was built in 47 AD).  The views on the way up and down were breath taking:

We ran into some "wildlife" on our way up.  First was a gecko - can you spot him?:

The next was some goats. High on a hill was a lonely goatherd, Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo. Sorry couldn't help myself:

The ruins were pretty cool:

As were the views:

The rest of our time in Capri was spent lounging and eating delicious food by the pool.  We even treated ourselves to a message.  It was heaven:

But as our trip came to an end we were anxious to get back to our babies and everyday life.  Although I think we are ready to go back now.  It was a trip of our lifetime . . . so far and we want to thank our family for making this possible as we wouldn't have been able to do it without you!

Rome

After the wedding weekend in Venice, Ryan and I boarded a train to Rome.  We didn't have much time - about 24 hours - to sight see so I booked us a room at a boutique hotel near the Coliseum as that was my favorite sight in Rome when I visited in college.

But, first thing first, I had to get my good catholic boy to see Vatican City.  He was pretty overwhelmed by all the opulence and all the people:

After the Vatican we headed back to our hotel and took an evening stroll around the Coliseum:

Can you tell Ryan was fascinate with it based on all the pictures he took?  I don't blame him, I had the same reaction back when I first visited.  Since the Coliseum was closed when we got there we decided to go back the next day before we left and take a tour:

On the way back to the hotel we grabbed some dinner (which consisted of a panini and a bottle of sangiovese) to eat up on the rooftop patio.  Not a bad view for dinner:

I'm so glad we stayed at this hotel because it gave Ryan a fairly good aerial view of Rome:

 The next morning we were back up there having breakfast and taking more pictures:

Then it was off to the Coliseum and the ruins surrounding it:

We could have spent the entire day there, but Capri and relaxation where calling our names so we said bonjourno to Rome and boarded the train for our last stop.