the paquettes

Archive Page 60

Jun

happy father’s day James

Categories: Asher, Ella, James and Rilyn

When I try to stop, (that’s hard to do!) and think about how amazing a father James is, I start to get teary-eyed. (In my old age, I cry all the time!) 😉 But seriously, “spiritual leader of our home” is the first thing I think of when I think of James as my children’s father. What a blessing to know that he wants to point our children to Christ everyday in every situation! And, he is smart and creative in the ways he chooses to do it! Seriously. This man came up with, (on a rainy Saturday), for the girls to do chores to earn money so they could buy ‘supplies’ for a person who is homeless. They went to the store later and bought a thermal blanket.
I think of James as the “funny dad” who is super goofy and loves to kid around. I am very, let’s say, ‘realistic’ and ‘down to business’ type mom and I tend to forego the ‘funny business’. James brings the laughter in our home, and even though half the time it annoys me, the kids love it and need it! Okay, maybe I need it too. 😉 Example: James declares as we are pulling in the driveway backwards that this is our ‘backward house’ because we are driving in backwards. So everyone has to walk in the house backwards and do things backwards. Drives me nuts! But the kids love it! 🙂
James is the dad who makes up stories about princesses and knights for his daughters at bedtime that will last a couple of weeks. Every night is a new ‘chapter’. He takes his daughters on dates and plays soccer with them to teach them the rules. He massages their feet after soccer games. He dances in their dance recital, not to mention all the ‘dance parties’ he has in our living room with the kids! He spends 2 hours making a birthday card for our daughter. He drives Rilyn to school each morning and practices memorizing scripture with her. They get donuts together for every scripture memorized. I could go on and on. We love you James! Happy Father’s Day!

father’s day 2010

father son

father’s day 2010

Jun

flashback friday-father edition

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Asher, Ella, James, Julie and Rilyn

Happy Father’s Day weekend!!!

me and my dad circa 1985 (6 years old?)

James and his dad circa 1980

Daddy with Rilyn (notice the spit up!) 2004

daddy with newborn Ella-2006

daddy with newborn Asher making the same face and both showing their Agge pride!

Jun

movie nights

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: parenting

I found an amazing resource through Focus on the Family’s Plugged In website. It’s called “Movie Nights.” From their website, the definition of a movie night is

“a golden opportunity for parents and children to have a meaningful, biblically based discussion about one of the better films coming out of Hollywood. It’s also the term we use for the downloadable curricula we’ve created to help you accomplish that. On this website, you’ll find two categories of Movie Nights. Each targets a different age group. The first, “Movie Nights for Kids,” includes a one-page tip sheet for parents (with an activity, plot summary, scripture verses and several discussion questions), as well as a puzzle page for children ages 6-10.
The second type, “Movie Nights for Teens,” encourages parents and adolescents to explore deeper issues with the help of more challenging, mature-minded films. These Movie Nights are more dialogue-oriented and intended for older children (13 and up), but the goals remain the same: Have fun, enrich the parent/child relationship and help children learn to analyze media from a Christian perspective. ”

Tonight we went through Toy Story 2 together. It is totally worth clicking the link to read over their movie night ‘script.’ The family activity had to do with going through our toys and choosing ones that we could donate because we don’t play with them much anymore. This is much like the toys in the film and how they face rejection as their owners grow up and lose interest in them.

I just had to share this great resource and hope that you can instill movie nights like this in your schedule!

Jun

new smile

By Julie P. 1 Comment

Categories: Rilyn

Rilyn and Ella started swim lessons today. To mark the event, Rilyn decided the very minute before her lessons started that I HAD to pull out her top tooth that has been ‘hanging out’ for a couple weeks now. So, I wiggled a couple of times and out her 3rd tooth came! She then started crying- not because it hurt, but because she thought blood would go in the pool from her mouth if she went in. I assured her she was not bleeding, gave her a drink of water, and then she happily jumped in the pool sticking her tongue through her new gap as all kids love to do!

Rilyn’s new smile

sticking her tongue through her new gap!

Jun

$4000

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Julie

What’s that floating in our kiddie pool?

Oh, it’s just a $500 Walmart gift card I received yesterday in the mail from my online offers! 🙂 I’m at a grand total now of $4,000 in gift cards/gifts on my little hobby! 😉 This offer was my fastest one yet. I started in mid April, and so it took a little under 2 months AND I only spent about $40 to get it!
If you are interested in how I do these offers, please click here. (Or ask me!)

Jun

a little dirt never hurt

By Julie P. 2 Comments

Categories: Asher

I realized that Asher hasn’t made an appearance on the blog in awhile! Well, let’s check in to see what the Busta’ Man has been up to!

splishin’ and a splashin’

He said, “Cheese!” for this picture

What boy doesn’t love sand and water?

Now what on earth is this boy doing?

Just drinking some water! (Yep, he totally slurped up this water like a dog and tried to go back for seconds!)

Jun

flashback friday-bad sweater edition

By Julie P. 1 Comment

Categories: Julie

Prepare yourself…I had some really bad sweater days. And sometimes it’s fun to laugh at yourself, so here you go!

We will start with the worst offender. (You may also remember this picture, another example of some great fashion sense.) This picture was taken with my aunt and my cousins. I’m almost surprised that we didn’t have the boys in matching sweaters with mint pants.

I’m not sure why my mom thought pastel sweaters was

a good color for Christmas (let alone any time!) And yes,

I had a bad home-done perm for about 3 years of my

awkward preteen years…sigh.

Again, excuse the perm. I totally remember loving

this sweater that I got for Christmas. The squiggles

were ‘raised up’ too, which added to the cool factor.

just another bad sweater day

It’s not so much the sweater in this picture. I think the

pants speak for themselves. I couldn’t even include my

face in this picture it was that bad.

And finally, let’s not forget to give our proper respect to the puffy-painted sweater. I had lots of these, but the picture I found today was the lucky Christmas lights one. Look how I rocked the Christmas present earrings!

I can’t claim I was talented enough to make this sweater.

My best friend’s mother did the honors-thanks Linda!

Jun

birthday festivities

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Rilyn

Rilyn got to choose one friend to bring with her to her birthday dinner on Thursday to Gattiland and she chose Cole. Very sweet. Rilyn and Cole ride to school together every morning and of course we see them all the time since Cole’s parents are our best friends since college and they live on the street behind us.

Ella, Rilyn, and Cole

Rilyn is finally tall enough to ride the bumper cars! She didn’t quite go anywhere,

but got bumped around a lot!

On Friday, Rilyn had a birthday sleepover. When the girls were over we decided to let the butterflies fly free that emerged from their cocoons the previous day.

Ella with the butterfly

At Rilyn’s sleepover, we did crafts, went swimming, ate Happy Meals, had ice cream sundaes, painted our nails, and watched movies! It was a fun-filled girly night and everyone had a good time! Rilyn was the last to fall asleep at about 11 p.m.!

ice cream!

sleepy time!

The next morning was her paint-your-own pottery party. I made a very special cake for her too that I was excited to cut into!

Ceramics N More

Rilyn very carefully painting a rainbow unicorn

getting ready to open presents

The top of my 6 layer cake

I love Rilyn’s friend’s face in this picture as James cuts open the Rainbow Cake!

Rilyn is all about rainbows so making this cake for her was so fun! I learned about it from this blog.

Jun

Rilyn’s portraits

By Julie P. Leave a Comment

Categories: Rilyn

Here are Rilyn’s 6 year portraits!

Jun

six years old!

By Julie P. 1 Comment

Categories: Rilyn

Rilyn is six years old today! She is our precious first born. She is a leader, sensitive, a people-pleaser, and rule-follower to the core. She loves Jesus and the Bible and we are praying for her one day soon to accept Him into her heart. She is responsible, smart, and beautiful. We love our Rilyn Jalie!!! Happy 6th Birthday!
We start every birthday off with walking into their room to wake them up holding a donut with candles in it and singing to them!

wake up!

Rilyn is on the top bunk and as I reached the flaming donut up to her face while taking a picture, part of her hair singed in the flames! Oops! We decided 5 candles will be the maximum limit in a donut!

blow!

So after we stunk up her bedroom with burnt hair, she walked into the kitchen to find it all decorated for her!

This face is worth all the effort!

Have to wear your birthday shirt!

She got to open one present before school (from Ella)-a Strawberry Shortcake doll!

Today is the last day of kindergarten too, so we brought cookies up to her class! How fun!

Rilyn and Ella

And when we got home, the cocoons her Oma and Papaw got her for her birthday started ‘hatching’. What perfect timing! Rilyn and Cole got to watch butterflies come out of their cocoons! Very neat!