the paquettes

Archive Page 45

Mar

rough ridin’

Categories: Asher, Ella and Rilyn

Yesterday we went to the Austin rodeo. I took 250 pictures. I kept 50 of them. Why so many? Poor Asher had a rough first time at the rodeo, and it was easy to snap away because he gave me so much good blog material! 😉 Today’s post will be about the pony ride.

First thing we did when we got there was the pony ride, and if you know Asher, you know “animal lover” is not how you would describe him! I was surprised at how he got on the horse without crying.

You can tell he is hesitant, but no tears yet!

all three riding

Then something happened. A realization that he was riding an ANIMAL.

Here comes the look…I’m about to cry

Get me off

GET ME OFF!!!!!!!!!

Daddy to the rescue who got Asher off mid-ride

Rilyn riding

Ella is a natural

Ella

Mar

at the end of the rainbow

By Julie P. 1 Comment

Categories: Asher, Ella and Rilyn

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Ella, Asher, and Rilyn wearing their green!

If you have no clue what is going on behind the kids, click here.

Mar

more spring break

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Asher, Ella and Rilyn

On our little spring break getaway in College Station, we also visited the Children’s Museum. I didn’t even knew they had one, but they do-it’s pretty small, but the kids still had fun!

the kids got to walk on the ceiling 😉

play “grocery store”

climb into a rocket ship and get on “TV”

James attempted to teach them checkers

Sunset at the Octaranch.

Bathtime for Asher!

Mar

a little nostalgia

By Julie P. 1 Comment

Categories: Asher, Ella, James, Julie, photography and Rilyn
Tags: Texas A&M campus

James took a couple days off and we went to College Station to take the kids to the Texas A&M campus. James and I walked the kids around and we showed them where we lived, our classes, our first kiss…it was so fun and a beautiful day!

First stop, to visit the Bonfire Memorial.

Both James and I had never been to the Memorial, but we both were in school

when it collapsed on Nov. 18, 1999

We went to the southside where we showed them my dorm:

and daddy’s dorm across the way

southside commons

Dunn

Then we went inside to the Commons lobby and showed the kids something very important to James and I-the ping pong tables. These tables are where our relationship started…long talks were held in this very room, getting to know each other…

James showing the kids how he played ping pong and lost to mommy a lot! 😉

class of 2026

class of 2028

class of 2030

No campus tour is complete without visiting Heldenfels. We both took classes in there and James was an supplemental instructor (SI) for many Chem 101 classes. We went inside the classroom to show the kids what college is really like. Rilyn asked if my teacher would remember me. 😉

pretending to be students in class

We walked this route many times…

Academic building in background

I did the best I could with this picture…it was waaaaay sunny and the fountain was drained, but here is Fish Pond, the site of James and I’s first kiss.

All Faiths Chapel, where we went to Upstream every Thursday night. Many lifetime friendships were formed here, the Spirit moving in ways we could have never imagined…

Kyle field

This is new in front of the “ring building”

future Aggie ring wearers

Ella took this picture-not too bad!

class of 2001

Mar

flashback friday-spring break style

By Julie P. 1 Comment

Categories: James and Julie

In honor of spring break, here are some of our spring breaks of the past!

In 2000, we went to southern California with some college friends and checked out Disneyland, my home town, and Big Bear. Here we are at Huntington Beach, my “home beach” growing up.

only one person in this photo that we don’t keep up with-not too bad!

Becca, Scott, Matthew, James, Julie, Noel, Carson

This is spring break 2002. We went to Las Vegas. This is us on top of the Stratosphere!

Halim, Jen, me, James, Noel, and Carson (by the way, Carson is now moving to

Austin, so that makes 5 out of 6 in this picture living next to each other!)

This is spring break 2005. We went to Colorado to go skiing. We all stayed in one huge cabin, it was a lot of fun and this was the first time we left Rilyn for so long!

my brother Jeff, Noel (who sprained his arm on the trip), Dean, Halim, Carson

James, Kim, Angela and me (Ryan is taking the picture and the Richardson’s were

there, they just brought newborn Cole and weren’t “available” much!

Spring break 2007-we moved to Manor from Houston! I can’t believe it has been 4 years now! James looks thrilled here.

getting ready to load the truck

While James was doing “the moving thing” and preparing our house in Manor for us, the girls and I were living with my parents for 3 weeks!

I can’t believe they were so young when we moved here!

Mar

photo booth!

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: James and Julie

Just found these pictures from the Austin Stone staff Christmas party “photo booth” last year. So funny! (Why I thought that hat would be a good idea to wear, I don’t know. And James? His “outfit” is just creepy!)

And with some of our best friends that we’ve known for almost 14 years!

the Suhs and Paquettes

And just for fun and because I like looking back at old pictures…

Halim and newborn Rilyn (July 2004)

pre digital picture days, so forgive the cut out (it’s from my scrapbook)

one of Rilyn’s baby showers (April 2004) Angela in the center (Kim, Becca, Katie,

Casey, Angela, Yuna, Jen)

Mar

putting God first

By Julie P. 1 Comment

Categories: Christianity and Family Nights

We did a quick family night on Tuesday night that I really liked. If you go to the Thriving Family website, you can check out the whole activity. (We did the school-age activity.) The key message for our girls was when we’re not intentional about putting God first in our everyday life, there tends to be no time for praying, serving, and reading the Bible. But when we put God first in our lives, everything else fits, (things like getting homework done, chores, playing with friends, TV time, etc.)! In our family, one simple way we put God first is every morning before school we read a passage of scripture. Last year it was Proverbs, (we would read Proverbs 9 if it was March 9th). This year we are reading Psalms. Then we pray together for our day, our teacher, our friends, and our school. It takes a total of 5 minutes each morning.

Back to the activity (we used walnuts instead of golf balls like it suggests on the website):

The rice represents daily activities that are “unspiritual”. If you put the rice in first,then try to fit the three walnuts in (which represent reading the Bible, praying, and

serving one another), everything won’t fit in the jar!

But if you put the walnuts in first (put God first in your life)

before all the rice (the daily activities)

then everything fits in the jar!

Mar

dry off in Aggie style!

By Julie P. 1 Comment

Categories: Asher
Tags: Texas A&M towel

Asher’s 3rd birthday is next month and I just got his birthday present in the mail today! (Yes, I’m a planner.) He needed a hooded bath towel and I just couldn’t resist when I saw these ~~darling~~ manly hooded bath towels on etsy! The woman who makes them has a business called Monster Threads and she can make them in any sports team you want! Seriously, check her site out, the towels are so creative! The hoods look just like your favorite helmet! I picked the number ’24’ for his back because he was born on April 24th (which is Easter this year!!)

Ella is my model because I didn’t want Asher to see his birthday present!

back of towel

side view 1

side view 2

Mar

more Saturday in motion

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Ella and Rilyn

Ella swinging away on our “boat swing” as we call it.

rilyn

It was the girls’ idea to throw balls in the air when I told them I was trying to practice taking pictures of objects in motion (with some drag or blur) and keep other objects in focus. Here’s what they did!

Girls in focus, balls-not.

Mar

saturday afternoon

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Asher and photography

A Saturday with no plans=me wanting to do a photoshoot with the kids. I wanted to go to the park, but the weather was rainy this morning so I had to wait until after Asher’s naptime, and then I was too exhausted to drive anywhere with three kids. I settled for the backyard. Today’s shoot was me trying to hone my photography skills of capturing objects in motion while keeping other ones in focus in the same shot. Since Asher hasn’t had much face time lately on the blog, here are some of my favorites of him today.