The formal birth announcement

With my first 2 kids, I made and sent out birth announcements. This time around I'm trying to make it easier on myself. So here is the birth announcement. A little slow, but finished!

Our Christmas Card

I guess we're going green this year, and only doing the electronic Christmas card. Much easier and quite honestly the only way I was going to get it done this year. Simplify is the key word this year!

Merry Christmas!

For the holidays I like to do a different Christmas activity with my kids each day to celebrate the season, keep them busy, and count down to the big day. Well, that hasn't happened this year. I have to admit I'm barely keeping my head above water as I try to take care of my three kids, get them to and from school, homework completed, house cleaned, laundry done, dinner on the table, groceries in the fridge, not to mention getting ready for Christmas. And so a big thanks to Mary Jane for inviting us over to see Santa. I don't think I would have gotten it done this year otherwise. Kierstyn & Ben thought it was so fun and were so excited they got to tell Santa what they wanted this year. And amazinly enough we got a pretty good picture with our whole fam!!

Holidays Flying by . . .

Boy, what happened to Thanksgiving not to mention the first part of December. We had a great Thanksgiving with my parents and my brothers. My house was so full and I was so busy I almost forgot to take any pictures at all. I did manage to get a few in and get some Christmas shopping done as well.



And by the way Congrats to Jared & Andrea on their big news!! I'm so excited for you.

We also took a quick trip to California for a baby blessing. Here's Grandma & Grandpa with the new grandkids- Devri & Dylan.

A little backtracking. . .

Here's a few events I meant to post but never did so I'm doing a little catching up.

This is Bentley's first day of preschool! I can't believe he is already old enough for preschool. But it has been good for him to go since Kierstyn is now gone all day.




Bentley played soccer this year. He loved it! The team didn't do so well but they did win the last game of the season which was pretty exciting.





Happy Halloween! Here's Kierstyn & Ben with their pumpkins they carved. Yes they carved them with Blake's help. Below that is their costumes. Bentley wanted to be a pirate this year and Kierstyn wanted to be Princess Tiana. I think they turned out pretty cute.







This is the gang at the school fall festival. We didn't stay too long but they did have fun!

2 weeks old!

Okay, you moms out there can relate- I was so excited today because I fit back into my jeans!!! Hooray! Okay so there still a little snug but I'm getting there and feeling so much better. My sweet little girl has brought so many smiles to our house. She is such a cutie and we are so blessed to have her in our family.



I'm also so grateful for my mom for coming down to help me out. It was wonderful to not have to worry about how I was getting Kierstyn to school and what was for dinner.

Blake's parents were also able to come down and see Devri. Here's a picture of the girls.



Here's Grandpa and Devri sharing a tender moment.

Introducing . . .

Devri Megan Chappell
She joined our family on November 7, 2010 at 1:36pm. She was 7 lbs 8 oz and 20 inches long. We have been anxiously awaiting her arrival and it finally happened! She came pretty quickly and we weren't at the hospital long before she arrived. And we were home the very next day, since everything had gone so well. We didn't even get a picture of the whole family at the hospital. In fact Ben didn't want to hold her and just kept saying how small she was. But we did get a few good pictures. Like this one with big sis, Kierstyn.







Devri has a little bit of hair and right now its dark. Not sure if it will stay that way but she sure is cute. She also has dimples!



Kiersrtyn loves to hold her and is always trying to help mom out. Too bad she doesn't change diapers.



Here is our family. Just enjoying the moment, all except Devri that is.



Ben finally getting more comfortable with Devri and has held her a few times. What a cutie!



Here's a full body shot, so you can kind of see how tall she is. She is a really good baby and we have enjoyed every minute with her.


Sorry I'm slow posting. Hopefully, I'll be more on the ball now that I'm feeling so much better!

1st day of school

Another year and another new school. My little girl started 1st grade this year. And she is at a new school. She now walks to school and wears school uniforms. Its quite and adjustment from last year but so far so good.



And yes my little guy started preschool this year. This is him and Kierstyn on his first day of school. We walked her so school and then drove hime to preschool. Its only 2 days a week but he likes it.

Grandkid day at the Chappells

Here are all the Chappell grandkids! They had a great time with Grandma & Grandpa.

Our Idaho Summer

4 generations of Chappells

We were able to make it to the Chappell Reunion this year. We also got an updated 4 generation photo.

We love the 4th of July!

New wheels

Blake has been wanting a truck for a long time and once his lease was up on the car started looking. I'm the one who has been dragging my feet about it for so long (and with good reason). Anyway, I guess you can tell what happened and here is his new set of wheels. Not quit what either of us wanted.

Fathers Day

Okay, so I know I'm far behind but I haven't had the chance to post anything. So I'm attempting to catch up on our summer and get started on the fall. I had to put these cute little guys up. Kierstyn and Ben made them for Blake at a primary activity for father's day. Ben's has one spot of gray hair and he was so excited to show Blake he'd given him a gray spot. Well if you know Blake he doesn't have gray hair at all so I was laughing at this. Blake, didn't think it was that funny, but he laughed too!

Celebrating our anniversary and fathers day!

This year for our anniversary I told Blake I would like to go to a show up on the strip. He said, really, I'd rather go to San Diego. So we did. We took the kids and had a great weekend in San Diego.

San Diego Zoo


The kids favorite thing-smashed pennies!


Sea World

Moving up!

Kierstyn made it through Kindergarten and is on her way to 1st grade!! Her class had a moving up ceremony and the whole class sang a song to Start Spreading the News. . . It was really cute but I didn't get it all on video. She was so ready to be done with school and is really looking forward to a long summer vacation. She had a great year at Silver Sands and we have been very happy with the decision to go there. Next year she's going to the new elementary school just across the street and we're hoping that decision works out just as well.



Congratulations Kierstyn and enjoy the summer!!!

Dance Recital

Its that time of year again. The annual dance recital. This was Kierstyn's 3rd year participating in it. I have to say her custome wasn't one of my favorites but it was still alot of fun to watch her develop her talents. Kiertyn was most excited because she had all her grandparents there watching. She especially looked forward to going swimming when the recital was finished. I tried uploading the entire video but it wasn't working so for now here are just the pictures.

Kierstyn woke bright and early Memorial Day and wanted Blake to take her bike riding. She has been asking for a while for dad to take off her training wheels. We weren't so anxious to do this as we have tried it 3 times before with no success.



This time something just clicked! Success!!!

Memorial Day weekend

We didn't have big plans for Memorial Day so I spent the weekend making jam! Not all that exciting I know, but the exciting part for me was that all the peaches came right from my tree!