The Alston's: August 2010

The First Day of School

The kids are back in school! They were so excited! Emma just started 2nd grade, John is in afternoon kindergarden and Gracie is in Circle Time. Here they all are on their first day of school...

Emma's best friend, Annie is FINALLY in the same class as her! They are so excited to be together at last! Here is Annie and Emma with Annie's sister Claire and Bryson, our carpool buddy.

John was sooooo excited to start kindergarden! (Well, maybe he was just excited about his new Star Wars folder he got to bring with him!)

Gracie was so excited to help her brother go off to school. She just had to wear her backpack!

Here is John with Claire at the kindergarden playground right before school.

Lining up to go into class. This is about when I started to tear up! Just look at how cute he is!

Wondering what is going on...

A little turn before he was off into kindergarden...Here is his teacher Mrs. Cammack. Emma had her for kinder too!

And here is Gracie... all ready to go to Circle Time! She is such a social butterfly. She was excited to go to school and play!

Our family reunion this summer was at the Alston cabin in Forest Lakes, AZ. It was so fun! The kids had a blast with theur cousins and we all had fun enjoying some coller weather in the mountains... even a little rain and hail! We did so many fun things. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the week up there!

Here are the kids at Woods Canyon Lake. We had fun fishing and canoeing. The kids even played in the water to cool off!

Here is Grace, Rachael, Emma, Christopher and John.

Our little blondie Gracie having fun in the water.

John-John enjoyed fishing in the lake. The fish weren't biting much but he had fun anyway!

Emma loved playing in the water and canoeing with her cousins.

Me and my babies! (Not quite babies anymore!)

We had fun watching the squirrels eat peanuts out of the feeder.

He is Emma in the tree fort.

Little Kaitlynn had her 1st birthday while we were at the reunion. She is such a cutie! Grandma made her cupcakes. She was a little scared at first with the singing and squeeling from the kids but she had a blast! We all did!

We did a service morning at the cabin and the kid's job was collecting rocks and making the borders on the driveway with them. They are the best of friends!

Pretty Gals!

Emma and Grace had their pictures taken. They looked so super cute! We took some pics of them before they went to the photo shoot. Here they are twirling...

Can you believe she is getting so big!!!

And here is our little princess...

As Grace said: "look me twirl mommy! I soooo bootiful!"

They grow so fast! I am trying to soak in every precious moment!

New York in the Summer!

Emma and I flew to NY for my little sister's bridal shower in July. It was so fun to spend one-on-one time with Emma and see my family. We spent a lot of time with the bridal shower but we found some time to relax!

Here is the moon rising over the bay. It was truly beautiful watching it from the porch at the cottage.

This is the view of Lake Ontario from the cottage. My parent's cottage is on Little Sodus Bay right next to one of the Great Lakes.

My parent's cottage in Fair Haven, New York.

Emma was so excited to fly in the airplane!

My mom bought this super fun blow-up jet ski for the kids. Emma loved it. The thing actually proelled in the water and she had a blast steering it and squiting the water gun attached to it. The water was so warm we loved playing in the bay!