July

 July seems like a blur.  How are we already in the month the kids go back to school

July we got to see more family :)

We're so glad they moved back closer to us and our visits will be more frequent

I think only at uncle pat's house does bamboo cutting into cool drinkware happen

May/June

 Our computer bit the dust so the updates have been non existent.

May was pretty uneventful for us but June was our best month in a long while.  It was so nice to have celebrations and spend time with family we dont see often.

First I have to throw in some pictures of my hottie of a husband 

Mother's Day

Bomba and Monki came for a visit...I always stink at getting pictures 

The kids finished school the first week of June.

Aryas teacher asked if she could be tested for the gifted program and ended up testing 2 grade levels above so she gets to be part of something pretty special next year.

And casen is officially off to middle school!  He got all a's all year long and gets to take advanced classes next year as well.  He even already got to choose his classes for this coming school year and it has been crazy to think about how grown up he is.  Caleb and I got him some complete book sets for a small graduation gift and he has already blown through them all this summer.  Hes completing book number ten right now.

We then got to enjoy more family time.  We had an awesome visit with the other Geiger fam :)

This year it worked out that Caleb and I got to share the same day.  Caleb was the sweetest and made the day special for me.

He had the bakery make this cake for me :p

And even got all the cheesy decorations I love 

I'm pretty thankful to get to spend my days with the best

And lastly but definitely not least, we got to celebrate casen turning 11!

This year when I asked him what he'd like his birthday theme to be, he asked if he could skip a theme and just have the color blue.  I think thats a sign hes officially too grown up.

Caleb took him to a surprise laser tag and arcade day

And this year he got a pretty significant gift.  A tv for his room and an Xbox to go with it.

...a comfier chair will probably be coming for Christmas 

He requested brownie sundaes for his dessert.

Just the beginning 11 years ago...

April

 March was a pretty undocumented month for us.  Caleb is part of the honor guard in his police department, meaning he attends and is part of the ceremony for the police officer funerals in the state.  It was unfortunately a busy month for him in that department, so we're going to skip right to April.

We've been continuing to plug away at our home.  We've lived here for almost 3 years now and Caleb is still putting up with my crazy ideas to make it just right.  

We of course celebrated Easter  

Caleb had to head into work that evening so instead of a typical Easter dinner we opted to all sleep in and have a big brunch.  It was so much fun and I think how we may keep it from now on regardless.  It makes for a lot more room for Easter candy.

The kids had spring break so we did some park exploring.  We asked them if they could do anything at all on break what would they choose, Jo chose going out to eat at Rock Bottom and Arya said she really just wanted to paint, so we also enjoyed dinner out and loaded Arya up on canvases and paints.

The weather has been magical this month and the kids and I have really been enjoying keeping an eye on baby bluebirds that joined our little bird house a couple of weeks ago.

And easily the best part of our month was the concerts.  I think the best part for me was watching the kids sing at the top of their lungs to songs we were singing in high school at the same time all of us were getting to enjoy the brand new stuff.  

February

 February was a bit of an odd month here in Virginia.  The RVA area has never had an ice storm and this month we had two.  

The kids got quite a bit of time off of school for it.  Since it was ice and sludge more than snow they made one of the saddest snowmen I've ever seen, but they loved it.

Casen had his dreams come true for the superbowl.  He's proudly been sporting his Bucs gear all year, (when Gronk made the switch to the Bucs, Jo did too.)  I forgot to grab any pictures, but we had all the normal fun goodies for celebrating and I did grab this clip of the kids fully enjoying the halftime show...much better than last year when we couldn't even let them watch it.

Valentine's Day fell right in the middle of everything being shut down and most people without power.  We had such a fun day with the kids with lots of Mario Party and the flower delivery guy somehow braved the roads.

I think the best part of our entire month was the whole families favorite band released a new/old song and announced that we'd be able to enjoy their concert next month.  We grabbed tickets and both the kids requested some band tees (I think that's one of the proudest moments emo parents can have really.)  It's really nice to have something to look forward to in these crazy months and also that we somehow ended up with two kiddos who love the same music as us.

https://youtu.be/2nWmBJxW9q0

Thankfully we are back to our 65 and sunny winter and we're onto March!

Arya turns 8

 Our sweet little lady turned 8 yesterday.

I think this year she has grown more than any other year.

She still loves all the same things, although I think drawing has topped Barbies this year.  

Cooking has become her newest obsession.  She helps me make dinner almost every night and bakes any chance she gets.  She got a cookbook for Christmas and has been really enjoying making recipes all on her own.  She can even whip you up some tacos if you ask.

She asks me almost every hour of being home if there's anything she can help with.  We hear I love you 50 times a day and she really just is the sweetest.

Her birthday theme request was puppy. She requested meatloaf, coleslaw, and blue box mac n cheese for her birthday dinner.  We offered her choice of literally anything she could want and that was her choice.  And neither of my kids love cake so her choice was brownie sundaes for dessert.  She had school until 430 so I failed at getting many pictures.