Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night! :)

I have so much catching up to do.... December has been a whirlwind but it's been lots of fun and we have so much to share.  For now, we just want to say.....

MERRY CHRISTMAS!  We hope that you had a great Christmas with those that you love.  We are feeling very blessed to have 2 healthy, happy boys and have so many people who love us. 

2010 Christmas Card

Here's a sneak peek at our 2010 Christmas card....I love putting these together and sending them out to our loved ones....can't wait to get them in the mail!! :)

Classic Greeting Christmas 5x7 folded card

Make a statement with Shutterfly Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Photo addicts best friend :)

So, some of you are lucky enough to see what happens to all of the pictures that I take each year....but some of you probably wonder what I do with them besides share them with you on this blog. I love sharing those moments here, but at the end of each year I am always trying to find ways to be creative with our pictures and ways to share them in new and unique ways with our close family and friends and those special people like my Grandma who I am not anticipating joining the world wide web revolution any time soon. :)
I take (literally) thousands of pictures each year. Carver's first year I took over 2000 pictures...and my addiction to capturing our families memories has only gotten worse as we have expanded our family and continued to grow.

Shutterfly has been one tool that I have continued to come back to year after year to help me be creative and share our most precious memories. Each year we make a calendar, like these http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars , so that we can relive those moments over and over.  Unfortunately, our calendar designs from the past 2 years have been discontinued, so I am not able to share them with you here, but I will share another project that we love!  For the past couple of years we have made photo books for the boys to enjoy memories of special trips or of their adventures from throughout the year.  Here is one we made for Carver after our trip to Disneyland in the fall of 2008:

Click here to view this photo book larger

This is something that he still loves to look at frequently.

Another project that we love is Shutterfly's personalized mugs http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-gifts/photo-mugs .  They are great for the grandmas and grandpas and Great Grandma Edna even took hers to show off to all of her friends at church. :)

The project I am working on now is getting Christmas cards ready to send out to many of you.  I love Christmas time and I love sending great Christmas cards to those we love.  Shutterfly has some awesome cards to choose from, like these http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-cards .

So, now you know what I do with all of those pictures.  Keep your eye on your mailbox for our Christmas card, coming your way soon.  And hey, you never know, maybe you'll be the lucky recipient of another unique and creative gift that I will have so much fun making, with the help of Shutterfly! :)

Happy Halloween

Halloween has come and gone....the kids had lots of fun...or should I say Spiderman and Batman had lots of fun? :)

 We Carved pumpkins....

 Kayden couldn't quite make up his mind what he wanted to be, so he was a clown for school and spiderman for trick or treating....

 Went trick or treating at Memaw and Papa's house...

 And did a little :) trick or treating around our neighborhood.....

 I think they did pretty well....

Happy Halloween! :)

Hawkeye Madness

Go Hawks!!

I love traditions....especially ones that involve family and Hawkeyes football.  Last weekend we had our annual tailgate and Hawkeye fun day with my brother Alan, sister in law Sara, niece Ava, and nephew Connor.  We had a great time and the kids looked so cute all decked out in their Hawk gear. :)

Hello Again!!

As you can probably tell by the lack of updates lately...the Banker family has been busy, busy!  We're loving life...here's what we've all been up to....

Carver
Carver just finished up his first quarter of Kindergarten and he is of course doing great!  We had his first conference with his teacher and she had all good things to say.  He has easily met or exceeded all of the expectations for Kindergarten for the first quarter (he has pretty much met or exceeded all of the expectations for the year!).  His teacher, Mrs. McClellan was very impressed with everything he has been able to do so far but especially his math skills.  When she asked each of the students to count out blocks to 5, 10, and 31 most of the students counted each out individually.  Carver was a little bored with this, so he easily counted to 5 and then just continued from there to count to 10 and then, just to show off he counted to 30 by 2's (he's such a smarty pants!).  Since then he has been showing us how he can count by 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, and 10's to 100 and beyond and he is even multiplying!  Besides his awesome math skills he knows 32+ sight words and is doing a great job of starting to really sound out many words.  Besides being such a smarty pants Carver has continued to show his athletic abilities, doing a fabulous job playing flag football this fall.  I'm loving seeing Carver really become such a big kid....he's loving school and making lots of friends and we're so proud of him.

Kayden
Kayden is LOVING preschool!  He is doing such a great job and his teachers just love having him in class...they are always telling me they want to take him home, but I think we'll keep him. ;)  According to his teachers, he is always eager to do whatever they have the students doing and is always the first one to follow directions and do just as he's asked.  It is so funny seeing how different his personality is than Carver's though and really seeing that coming out at school.  He is a lot more quiet and doesn't have to always be the leader or first in line like Carver always has.  He also is very smart and is learning a lot and it's actually kind of funny that he seems more artistic than Carver and really takes his time and does a great job on his art work.  He and I have also been doing a music class once a week and he loves that too.  He really likes the special attention that it gives him and it gives him another opportunity to show how smart (and what a good dancer) he is. :)  He's also taking swim lessons and is becoming a fish like his brother....I love seeing how much he is improving each week.  Kayden is also really maturing and slowly growing out of his 3 year old frustrations and tantrums.  I think that Carver going to school and K-Man having an opportunity to really discover himself has made a huge difference with this.  That being said, he still has his moments.  He has had many tantrums in the car over the last several months where he kicked the car door when he was really frustrated.  So, yesterday he got mad and decided to take a different approach and dump a whole bottle of water on the floor.  I was ready to lose it when he says, "but I didn't kick the door," like he was so proud of himself....I really had to hold back the giggles on that one. :)  So, as he's growing we're enjoying more smiles and less ornery K-Man.  He keeps life interesting and keeps us on our toes and we're loving every moment of it. :)

As far as Chris and I....Chris is still working hard, working on his PhD, running, coaching, and being a terrific daddy.  I just ran my 3rd marathon (the QC Marathon) and actually learned a lot from my first two so I was able to improve my previous marathon times by 20 minutes, finishing in 4 hours and 24 minutes. :)  Besides that I am keeping busy running the boys around and enjoying some me time a couple of mornings a week while both of the boys are in school.

BuhBye for now!!  :)

Pictures!!!

So....I've been terrible about getting updates up lately, but I know that many of you like to see pictures and know what we are up to so I figured I'd give you a little peek at what we've been up to through some pictures from my facebook page until I can get a full update up very soon (hopefully by the end of the week). :)

Fall Pictures....click here....
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=88802&id=1409036650&l=2be19a8183
More flag football pictures....
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=89888&id=1409036650&l=2b1c441a89
Quad Cities Marathon pictures....
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=84461&id=1409036650&l=e8ce73d555

Enjoy! :)

Flag Football

Flag football season is here and I don't know who's more excited...the little guy or the big guy. ;)  I can honestly say that Chris has been looking forward to this day since we found out we were having a boy 6 years ago. :) 

"Both" of the boys had fun and Carver did a great job playing center and snapping the ball.  I was very proud.

Kayden....the Preschooler!

I'm sitting here trying to enjoy the quiet of having both of the boys at school....but I can't!!  I miss them!!  I really can't believe that I have a preschooler and a kindergartner. 

Kayden was soooooo excited about starting preschool this morning....he's been talking about it for days.  When I dropped him off this morning he didn't even want to give me a hug...he just wanted to go and play!  I must say, as hard as it is to see my boys growing up it is nice to see how confident and independent they are.  They love to take on new adventures and they both LOVE school. :)

Here are some pictures from the little man's first day of preschool....

And a couple of videos, so you can see just how excited he was! :)

Almost time for me to go and get him....YEAH!!  :)

Our Little Hawkeyes

Today was kids day at Kinnick Stadium and the boys were so excited to see the Hawkeyes practice and to get all decked out in their Hawk gear.  They looked adorable as always in their new Hawkeye football jerseys....

When we got to Iowa City I couldn't resist taking this picture...I have a feeling there will be a similar picture taken when my little Hawkeyes become big Hawkeyes. :)

The boys were so excited to get into Kinnick stadium and take in the sights and sounds of Hawkeye football.  They both loved watching the Hawks practice, but especially Kayden, he was watched so intently, holding his football the whole time asking when he could play.

Daddy loved sharing his love of Hawkeye football with his boys....

I did too....

After watching the Hawks practice, the boys were ready to play some football....

We're ready for a great Hawkeye football season....bring it on!! :)