We {heart} NCC Preschool!

There is no doubt about it, I am in love with North Coast Church Preschool! It really is amazing. The kids have been there for just about a year now, and they have loved every minute of it. From the amazing teachers to their friends, classes, activities, chapels, and just the fact that I can visit them while I'm working is just incredible.  Just a few pics related to preschool, as of lately...

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So apparently NCC has incredibly delicious trees that these caterpillars flock to - every year! I took a stroll along campus and found at least 2 or 3 trees that were just covered in crazy looking catepillars. The Preschool harvested the caterpillars from one of the trees and the kids got to watch the process the caterpillars go through to become beautiful butterflies!

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We got ot take one of the caterpillars home and watch the process ourselves as well - here is the butterfly it turned out to be!

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Throughout the school year Matthew's class has been digging deep into the alphabet, devoting weeks to certain letters - well this particular week they were learning about the letters Q and U - and what better way to discover how connected Q and U are than by having a wedding for the two lovebirds ("they never want to be apart, they're great buddies") - it was really an adorable idea, complete with dancing and a cake reception following, lol

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The class also had an egg incubator this year and hatched little baby chicks of all different colors - M & K were absolutely in love with them and wanted to hold them any opportunity they got!

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That's just preschool as of lately, there will be a lot more summer fun to come  :)

What a Blessing to be a Mom!

Mother's Day 2013 - this year both kids were in preschool at North Coast, so both classrooms had little celebrations that made Mother's Day that much more special :)

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Matthew's class had "Muffins with Mom" - we got to sit and eat muffins with them, and they gave us a photo they had taken (and colored) and why they love us (lol)!

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Kaylie's class had a Mother's Day Tea and Grandma got to come too! It was so fun sitting (in teeny tiny chairs) with Kaylie and having tea, so special. This is such a great pic of Grandma & Kaylie :)

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Me and my girl, love her so much :)

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The teacup was the size of her head, lol!

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On actual mother's day - 3 generations (4 really, Gigi was inside!)

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Working a dinosaur puzzle with Kaylie, what fun it is to be a mom :)

Chocolate Festival 2013!

What a better way to celebrate Mother's Day than with chocolate, chocolate and more CHOCOLATE!!! This year I got to help out Heather once again down at the Quail Botanical Gardens Chocolate Festival in Encinitas (check out last year here!) - it's always fun getting to visit while making all the pops (just about a thousand, to be exact) - however I was quite popped out for awhile after that, haha!

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Mid-dipping - we had 5 flavors this year:  Chocolate Brownie, Vanilla Butter, Red Velvet, Lemon Lavender and Pink Champagne....delish!

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All set up and ready to go! 

(Yes, Heather was on TV! She was on the show Sugar Dome on the Food Network!)

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It was pretty darn hot this year....even with a "shade" over us, the sun blared through and we lost quite a few pops that way. Oh well, we still had fun and sold plenty :)

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Had to get one of these for both of the kids - one of the booths had fun molded chocolate things, including these frogs, lizards, and much more :)

1st Annual GG Camping Trip!

Sometime at the beginning of the year, an idea starting floating around in our Growth Group....a group social? Weekend BBQ? Beach day? No, better yet, a group a camping trip....Ok hold on there, a group camping trip? Including all the kids?!?!? Let's just say I wasn't totally sold on the idea....not that I don't want to have fun with our kids and friends, we just didn't grow up campers and it kind of overwhelmed me. Give me a hotel any day and I'll be a happy "camper" (haha). Anyhow, the date was picked, the campsite chosen, and before I knew it it was the beginning of May and we packed our car to the brim (literally) with camping gear we gathered and were on our way to Cuyamaca! Despite my initial aprehension, we had a great time. Hopefully next year I'll be a little better prepared, but the kids had a blast and that was the most important thing! Here are a few photo memories from our first annual GG camping trip, I really hope it's not the last!

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Our amazing, wonderful, blessing of a Growth Group - our best friends :) 

From L-R (pretty much) The Kamerlanders (Kyle, Ronya, Calin, Callie & Cole) The Turners (Alex, Melissa, AJ & Miles) The Vias (Aaron, Tiffany, Caleb & Becca) The Davidsons (Andrew, Jessica, Samuel & Micah) The Tafts (Brad, Rachel, Adriana & Jet) and then us!

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Matthew and Kaylie had such a great time together, as always. I just love their sweetness together :)

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On a hike to the falls :)

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Just beautiful :)

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Matthew loved the falls - slippery rocks and calm waterfalls that you could slide down, even with an innertube (we'll have to bring one of those next year!) 

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The Vias brought a zip line, home made by Aaron - the kids LOVED it!

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Kaylie enjoying her first official campfire S'more - soooooo messy!!

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Saturday night sunset - just look at those clouds!

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Guess we need to invest in our own official camping gear, looks like we'll be doing it again :)

March Madness!!!

Sorry guys, this post has nothing to do with basketball (march madness has to do with basketball, right??) The past month and a half has been such a crazy whirlwind of events, I feel like I've barely had time to catch my breath, let alone sit down and blog :-/ So here I go, be prepared, I'm catching you up on about 7 weeks worth of activities.....I'll start with the big things, then round things out with some pics of day to day happenings :)

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March 1, 2013 was Kaylie's 3rd birthday! Can you believe it? 3!!! Wow. No more babies in our house, so bittersweet! We started the day with birthday donuts, then it was such a gorgeous warm day we met Melissa and the boys down at the beach to celebrate both Mel's and Kaylie's birthday!! Love that we got a pic of the beautiful birthday girls together :)

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One of Kaylie's gifts was an awesome new backyard playhouse from Grandma, Grandpa & Gigi - both kids absolutely LOVE their new playhouse, what fun! Thanks Grandma, Grandpa & Gigi - and thanks Josh (and Dad) for building it!!

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A few days later we celebrated K's birthday at the park with all our family and friends - such a fun time! I tried my hand once again at decorating a cake with fondant - I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Ballet shoes courtesy of the my talented friend, Heather - I wasn't quite ready to tackle ballet slippers yet :)

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 From Top-Bottom, L-R: Kaylie (of course), Cole Kamerlander (18mo), Logan Wilson (3), Miles Turner (3), Carter Jobin (3), AJ Turner (5), Matthew (5), Callie Kamerlander (4), Jake Patton (5), Cailin Kamerlander (6), Aiden Antoine (6), Andrew Patton (5), Aliya Martinez (5) - oh what fun!

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Next up, EASTER! Each year the holidays are more and more exciting, I love watching the kids learn, grow, understand and anticipate the special things more and more. I love that they go to a church and preschool that teaches them the true meaning of Easter, what a blessing. Of course, they're still super excited for the fun treats the easter bunny leaves behind :)

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The preschool had a big easter egg hunt for the kids one day - not sure if you can zoom in on M's face or not, but he has such a look of JOY on his face, he LOVED it! Kaylie enjoyed her marshmallows :)

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Easter morning was spent at our house hunting eggs and finding surprises in their baskets, followed that afternoon with a hunt and dinner with the Blands at my parents house :)

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Next big thing......drumroll please.....we are officially on the hunt, the house hunt that is! We kind of just stumbled into it - it's something we've been thinking about for quite some time, ready to get a place of our own, so we got pre-qualified, talked with a few realtors and the hunt began! This is probably the main reason I haven't kept up on the blog - When not at work, with the kids or sleeping, I'm thinking about, dreaming about and planning our future home....we decided after a few crazy weeks to take a week off - hence the time to blog :) While we have a local realtor for North County, we're primarily looking in the Temecula/Murrieta/Menifee area - we have (lots of) family out there, and the price is right. But we'll see what God has in store, we're not closing any doors just yet! Because of this, we've been going out there ALOT more and have gotten to spend more time with our nieces, which is SUCH a blessing! I am so excited to live closer to them and get to see them all more often - the kids LOVE their cousins, aunts and uncles, there ask us to move out there all the time:

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We got to have dinner with Rudy, Brittany and our adorable niece Emma one night :)

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Simone agreed to watch our crazy kiddos for awhile one afternoon so we could view a few homes in peace :) They had a blast with Shiloh!

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Can't leave out my latest cake pop creation - Darth Vader! 

He was a challenge and a half, but I'm happy with how they turned out. I also now know how much I need to charge for my services! An actual business plan might be forming....

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Besides the big events above, here are some other fun things that have happened in the past month or so...

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Josh and I started date nights with the kids - at least once a month, if not twice a month, we will each take one of the kids out on a one on one date - Father/Son, Mother/Daughter, and so on :) First time around I took Kaylie withe me to Rubios and Target - yes, it was a special thing for her, she asks me to go to Target all the time :)

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Matthew and Kaylie are growing up so much! One of the many days we took the bike/scooter out for a ride - they have a BLAST!

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Matthew has really gotten the hang of karate, even finished his first session with his white belt! What's even cuter is that he practices with Kaylie at home :) 

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Just because - one afternoon on our way out from preschool, M & K took a seat in the gazebo and M says "Hey Kaylie, lets take a picture like we're picking our noses?" Well why not :)

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A few of K's favorite things right now are to "blow bubbles" (dandelions)  and to pop the fuschias by our front door (when you squeeze the little buds they pop, she loves it) - our pretty princess :)

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So that's it for now - don't worry, I won't leave you hanging like that again :)