Catching Up!

Blogging Again!

So I admit that Facebook has become my new blog! After being asked by several non-Facebookers if I had stopped doing the blog I decided to play "catch up." Here goes...we had a fabulous and busy summer. Allen took us along on a "work-trip" the first week of summer to Tampa. Chase, Caroline and I had a great time at the Aquarium, Zoo and musuem. It was fun, but somehow we weren't invited to come on anymore "work-trips?" I spent two weeks finishing up my gifted endorsement and am now officially certified to teach gifted, which is a good thing because that's what a do 2 1/2 days a week! Chase spent some time at "karate camp" and Caroline hit the road to SC and VA with Nana and Papa. Yes, they were brave enough to take a 2 1/2 year old in the car all the way to VA. They had a great visit with the SC family and with Kim("Berly"), Erik and Duffy. I am sure Nana and Papa now know all the words to several Dora and Barney episodes! Allen and I celebrated our 10th anniversary with an AMAZING trip to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. We were very spoiled and I hope I don't have to wait another 10 years to do it again!Chase and Caroline spent the 4th with Memar and Pop pop having lots of fun and lots of fireworks! The whole Skipper, DiBiase, Belknap, Wallace, Moore and some of the Wolfe clan hit the beach in Ft. Walton at the end of July. It was a great week spent with lots of family and friends! August was spent hanging out at Nana and Papas pool with Aunt Berly, meeting friends for playdates, and getting ready to go back to school. August 24th found Chase and mom back at school. Chase is in 1st grade and has the same teachers who "looped" up witht he class from kindergarten. Caroline still spends her days with Nana and Papa and returned to her preschool today with a few tears, but ended the day with smiles. We are gearing up for a busy fall. Chase is playing flag football and baseball(yes, we are insane!) Caroline will return to ballet, let's hope she dances the first class and not the 4th! Seminole football is about to begin and the Skipper's will be heading to Tallahassee! Aunt Berly and Uncle Erik will welcome EJ(Erik Jr.) in November! I hope to keep up with the blog through all this craziness!

My Rockstars

Chase loves Rockband and has become quite the little performer. Recently Caroline has joined in and is sharing her drumming and singing skills:) It is fun to "rock out" as a family:) School is out for summer! I am sure we will have many more family jam sessions...we've got to keep these crazy kids busy! Two more days of work for mommy and then the Rockband family hits the road with daddy! We will see how much he really misses us after we crash his business trips for the summer! First stop...Tampa:)

Chase

Baseball

Chase just finished up his 3rd baseball season. He played on the "Hooks" this season and really fell in love with the game. They had a great season, placing third in the league. The playoffs about wore us out, we played 5 games in a week! Allen was an assistant coach and Caroline, Mommy,Papa and Nana were the cheerleaders. Caroline loved going to "Chasie baseball" and became addicted to the ballpark hotdogs, chips and ringpops. It was a good thing Papa was at most of the games, or mommy would not have seen any baseball and would not have any money either. Chase is playing flag football this summer, we will keep you posted. Caroline has started ballet but has not ventured far from mommy's lap at class so we don't have an action shots. She does look pretty darn cute in her tutu though:)

Happy Easter!

Catching up with the Skippers....

I couldn't resist posting this picture, it is definitely one to be saved to use later! I have not been keeping up with the blog so I am posting lots of pictures today. Chase had his 6th birthday in January and as usually he had a weeklong celebration. Cookies at school, dinner at Dave and Busters, and a "Cowboy" themed field day party at our park. He had a blast and deemed it as "the best day ever"...until next year!
Chase continues to love school. He has become quite the reader and writer and his mom could not be more proud of the student that he is:) It is hard to beleive that he only has about 10 more weeks of Kindergarten! Time is moving too fast! Caroline loves school and wishes she could go everyday. She is enjoying hanging out with her Nana and now her Papa who retired in January. She is growing up so fast and has an amazing vocabulary and a flair for the dramatic! She adores her big brother! Chase had a big adventure in March. Allen, Chase, "Uncle Philip" and I flew out to Aspen, Colorado for a ski trip. Chase insisted he was going to snowboard and had visions of himself doing 360's off of half-pipes. He didn't quite get to that level, but give him a few more years and I will be really nervous! We had an amazing time and hope we get to do it again next year. We didn't escape injury free..Philip broke a finger on "Fanny Hill" and lucky we had connections at the local hospital so he got to continue skiing with one hand:) We got to see snow and Chase got to ice skate and sled. It was a fabulous trip! Caroline got left behind, but had fun with her Nana and Papa. We are already looking at cute pink snow gear for her, so she will get to go next time and be a little "snowbunny."
Next week is spring break and Nana, Papa and the crew are going to brave Disney World! Updates to come...

Happy Birthday Caroline

January is a busy month for the Skippers! Caroline turned 2 on January 8th. We celebrated with a few neighbors and Nana and Papa of course! Caroline loved singing "Happy Birthday to Me" and opening presents. We heard "more, more" many times throughout the day. Nana and Papa made her a special Dora ("Doot Doot" as we call her)cake and as you can tell from the pictures she was dressed up as the pretty princess that she is. We can't beleive she is two already. Where has the time gone? Stayed tuned, Chase turns 6 in a few days...

December 2008

We had some great pictures from some holiday events and we thought we would share(by we I mean me!) Mommy and Caroline are done with school! Hooray! Chase has two more days. We had a great neighborhood event and the kids got to ride on a "sleighride" and see Santa and Mrs. Claus. Mommy was in charge of the event, so it wasn't as much fun for her. It was also Allen's birthday this week and we celebrated it at "Santa's Gingerbread Workshop." The kids had a great time and Chase even sat on Santa's lap! For all of you that know about Chase and Santa this was a monumentous event. He has not even gotten close to him since he was a baby and he couldn't run away. Last year if you recall we had pictures of him hiding under the table when Santa arrived. Tonight after bedtime stories he called me back in and asked of there really was a "good" and a "bad list." "There sure is Chase." I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. We will share more Christmas day photos later:)

Chase's Thanksgiving Pow Wow

I decided I would finally upload this before I started uploading Christmas pictures!! Chase's school puts on a fabulous kindergarten Pow Wow each year at Thanksgiving. His tribe was the Sioux. They had a great day learning about Native Americans and participating in authentic activities. Mommy was very proud watching Chase particpate in this very special event.

Halloween, Halloween Trick or Treat!

No more candy please!! Remember when Halloween was just one night? When did it become a "season" of it's own? Hopefully, we have had our last night of tricks and treats until next year! We started the "season" with a fundraising event(see Clone Trooper pictues)which we were all supposed to attend on the 18th. Caroline took a tumble off of our bed that morning and Allen and I ended up with her in the emergency room all day. She is fine, she had 6 stitches and some Dermabond in her ear and she was healed within a week. We only wish the process of getting her stitched up had been so easy! Long story short...the only plastic surgeon available was at our fine inner city hospital "Shands" so after the 12 year old doctor sewed her up we were anxious to get out of there! Chase got to tag along to the event with the Haynes family:) Next up was the school "Book it and Bag It Literacy Character Parade." Star Wars was/is an actual book and Anakin was Chase's character of choice. He had a parade at school anf then we got to trick or treat through the halls that night and enjoy carnival games and activities as well. Caroline LOVED her 1st real trick or treating experience! You should have seen the look on her face when the 1st person put candy in her bag. She did not miss a stop and filled her bag to the top! The little stinker would not actually wear a costume, but she learned to say "trick treat!" One more Halloween party(which we did not bring the camera to), a school party and it was FINALLY the actual night! Caroline was happy to dress as a beautiful ballerina, Chase choose Anakin, Allen got another year out of his Darth Vader suit and we were off for more loot! Once again Caroline figured out real quick that this whole "trick treat" thing was a pretty good deal. Happy Halloween!

Pictures!

Random picture updates:) Enjoy!

Go Noles!

I have been a slacker blogger! I can't believe the last post was in August! So you already know life has been crazy for the Skipper's. Allen and I both said yesterday "I want my old job back!" We love our jobs, but Allen has taken on more responsibilty and is traveling more and with me working part time now our lives as we knew them have been given a shake up. That stay at home mom gig was pretty good:)

As you can tell from the pictures we have also been busy cheering our Seminoles on. The Seminoles came to Jacksonville a couple of weeks ago and we had a big tailgate "DiBiase" stlye. When mom and dad are envolved, you know it's going to be good. I do feel really old since the Wolfe girls have actually both graduated and now my two second cousins, Thomas and Christopher are attending FSU. I am the baby of all of the cousins on that side of the family:)

Kim (Aunt "Berly") and Erik came down for the festivities as well. Chase had a great weekend since he had both of his godparents in town to build forts with. We think he has a crush on Philip's friend Kelly that came up from Orlando. She is the one sitting next to him at the game. Caroline loves her "Meminoles," but Allen and I actually wanted to enjoy the game so we left her with the Alvarado's for the day. No complaining out of her since Haley and Hector actually took all three kids to the zoo.

I will get busy and try to post more pictures:)

Our Little Princess

It is hard to beleive that Caroline is 19 months already. She is enjoying her time with Nana when mommy is at work. She is quite the little princess. She knows exactly what she wants and she knows exactly how to get it as well. Her absolute favorite things(next to her brother of course) are popsicles. When she wakes up it is "Mama," "Dada," "Chase," "popop"(no...not you Pop Pop!)

She started preschool this week in the "Toddling Turtle" class. You can tell by the pictures that it was very tramatic for her(ha-ha!) I beleive the one with her walking away from us sums it up, she was not sad to tell mommy or nana goodbye. She got a great report from her first day. Unfortunetly, she is now sick and will not be able to go tomorrow:(

Chase continues to enjoy school and was excited that his dad got to drop him off today and one of the "controls" walked him to class. Can you figure out what a "control" is??

Chase's 1st Day

Chase had his 1st day of kindergarten today at Chet's Creek Elementary School! He was very excited and such a big boy. He was ready to say goodbye before we were! The theme at the school this year is Around the World in 180 Days and the kids were greeted with a caribean music...it almost felt like a cruise send off party minus the cocktails:) Even though Chase told me I could not peak in on his classroom, he did allow me to eat lunch with him. He says he likes this school better than his other one because he gets to stay longer. We asked him if he wanted to stay at this school until he was old enough to be a patrol like the 5th graders and he said yes but he "did not want to be a control" because he "did not want to help people." Oh well, I guess we will work on getting through kindergarten and getting "white with a star" on our calendar instead of red or blue...he did have to inform us that not everyone got a star today:) Stay tuned as we blog the adventures of Chase's adventures "Around the World in 180 days!"

Chase..."You're Gonna Miss This"

So bear with me as I get emotional over my little baby going to Kindergarten! Yes, Chase will start "big school" on Monday! Stay tuned for updates on the big 1st day of school!

Our Family Photo Session

I know most of you have seen these from our photo session in Destin, but I wanted to create a slide show so that I could view them all the time as well:) This blog is also my little virtual scrapbook! Hey...who has time to blog and scrapbook?? I don;t even really have time to blog...but it is much more fun than laundry! You wouldn't know that Caroline cried through almost the entire photo session...that is a good photographer for you! They are growing up to fast! It is nice to have these awesome photos to look at when we are having a not so awesome moment around here!

Angelo and Margaret's Wedding

The Skipper's traveled to Columbia, SC this weekend for my cousin Angleo's wedding. We had a great time visiting with the DiBiase crew as well as all of our aunts, uncles, and cousins from Georgetown and Conway. The ride up with Nana, Papa, Caroline, Chase and I was interesting as I got to sit in between the two wee ones. The five hour trip took us about 6 1/2 hours:) Allen somehow managed to be in Charlotte and got to drive BY HIMSELF(only 1 1/2 hours!!)

It was great to get the little ones together. Chase and Tilden are two peas in a pod. Caroline was not too impressed with the "real baby" (Carter) as she tried to remove him from his swing to place her own baby in there! Tilden and Carter are too cute!!

Chase was not able to attend the rehersal ( a lovely 24 hour stomach bug!!) Caroline was quite the party girl. She wanted to dance and be on stage the whole time.

Angelo and Margaret had a beautiful wedding and a fun reception:) Chase until morning and was very disappointed to have to leave at 10:30(what were we thinking!!) Gabriel...when you get married would you find us a babysitter???

We had a great time visiting with all of our family, we do not get to see eachother enough! Congrats Angelo and Margaret! Best wishes for a great life together!

Try out Smilebox.com

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I know these are not new pictures but I was trying out different websites that allow you to do "virtual scrapbooking" free! I did not have any new pictures(sad but true) so I used these again:) The website is Smilebox.com. There is another cool one that is a little more involved called Scrapblog.com, it has a lot of really neat layouts and stuff you can use to personalize. Smilebox is quick and easy as soon as you load your pictures. Try it out!

Our Summer Vacation

We went to Ft. Walton Beach for a week and stayed at a great place called Waterscape. We couldn't get Chase out of the lazy river!! Everyone had a great time. Chase got to ride a jet ski, although once he realized he was out where the sharks are, he wanted nothing to do with it. Caroline is not as much of a beach baby as Chase is and did not really like her feet being covered with sand, she much prefered to play in the condo and run up and down the halls screeching! Chase really wanted to just move into the condo, but we didn't hit the lotto so we are back to reality this week:)

Check out our family photo session:

Go to......Website: http://www.destinweddingphotographer.com/

Click on..."Clients" and then "order photos" look for....

Event Name: Skipper Family

Password: Lauren