Kip's Birthday

 

Kip turned...some age older than he had been before...on March 6th. He had a great birthday. Since that time he's had several dance parties to his new music from Grammy and we've played a LOT of games of Dominion Seaside and Intrigue. It's been lots of fun!

Becca's Birthday - the big number 2!

 

Becca had a great time on her 2nd birthday in spite of the fact that mommy was still recovering and couldn't do much for her. We ate a great dinner of noodles with red sauce. Then we opened presents. She loved that part.

 

For desert I had picked up cupcakes. She liked the frosting but didn't eat much of the cake. And now she's 2! Such a big girl!

Foot Surgery

 

I had foot surgery done on January 20th. I had a bone spur removed from the ball of my left foot that had been causing a lot of trouble for years. It wasn't a bad surgery and I recovered quickly. The kids were a little frustrated by my recovery time, though, and insisted on joining me on the sofa if I wouldn't get off to play with them.

Go Lego Fun Speed Builders

 

The 9th of January was the official Jr First Lego League competition day at OMSI. William and his team (Olivier Van Hooff, Robert Young, Spencer Istook, and Elizabeth Weiler) met there, set up their display and then waited for their turn to explain it to the judges. The place was packed and they divided all the competitors into two groups. The first group went and played and the second met with the judges. Then, after lunch-break, the second group went and played and the first met with the judges. Our group did a good job. They had researched the travel involved in getting a Nintendo DS game from the factory to the store and then to someone's house. They made a nice little Lego display with a container ship, crane, delivery truck and minivan. They enjoyed telling the judges all about it. They each got a medal to take home and were all very excited to have done it.

Grammy & Grandad's at Christmas

 

We had a really good time at Grammy and Grandad's. The hot-tub was a blast - especially helpful with Anna's nasty cough.

 

Anna learned to not fear the dog.

 

William learned to not fear the dog, too. Becca learned to enjoy the dog unless she moved in any way, then Becca ran from her in terror.

 

We really enjoyed seeing Craig and Lesley's kids, Enoch and Sarah. They are getting very cute and Becca thought they were a lot of fun.

Christmas Day 2009

 

Kip and I didn't get up early enough Christmas morning. William and Anna were forced to wait impatiently for AGES while we finished sleeping in.

 

They were very happy when we did get up and the unwrapping began.

 

Becca enjoyed it, too.

 

We are very grateful to Grammy and Grandad for letting us spend Christmas with them.

Kaysville Christmas Eve

 

We went to Kaysville for Christmas eve at the home of my mom, Grammy, who looked like a cheerful Christmas elf that night.

 

 

We enjoyed the presence of Uncle Trevor as well as Aunt Janean and Jeremy for the evening.

 

We all opened some of our gifts that night. The kids weren't very excited by the clothes they opened, but when Janean opened a box full of packing peanuts, oh, and a lamp shade, the evening was saved. The kids spent the rest of the night throwing packing peanuts in the air and having an amazingly good time.

Salt Lake Christmas

The first part of our trip to Utah was spent at a hotel in downtown Salt Lake. We road Trax around to the Chrildren's Discovery Center and the Planetarium and walked over to see the lights at Temple Square. It was fun to be right in the heart of the city.

 

Becca found the dollies at the Discovery Center and thought they were all just for her. She loved pushing them around in the stroller and putting them to sleep in their beds.

 

William and Anna played very well together in the water area and in the building area. William would make new friends and then introduce them proudly to his sister.

 

Anna discovered the heater in the hotel room and had a blast (haha) letting it blow on her.
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Christmas on the 19th

Because we were leaving for Utah on the 20th, we decided to open some of our presents on the 19th. I didn't want to have to pack them all there and back. I had decided to give Becca a dollhouse. She was THRILLED with it and could hardly be bothered to open anything else once she found it. She just sat and played with all its little pieces.


The other kids enjoyed all the gifts they got. They wished they could bring them all with us to Utah.

Gingerbread House

Anna, William and I built a Gingerbread house on November 27th. It had a few run-ins with gravity. One of the side walls broke into 3 pieces and one of the roof slopes shattered into 10+. It was lucky that the frosting managed to hold it together. I put the frosting on and the kids pushed candy into it. It turned out pretty good. Becca quickly discovered that she could reach it, especially if she pushed the stool into the right spot. She managed to eat a fair amount of the candy off it over the course of the month. Anna enjoyed helping her. William was more interested in wrapped candy from the candy bowl.

Christmas Lights

The day after Thanksgiving Butch came over to help us put the Christmas Lights on the house. We had bought all new LED lights to keep from overtaxing our power supply. Becca was very helpful with the set-up. Then, she worked on the swingset while Dad and Butch put the lights on the house.

Becca's Happy Song

This is a video of Becca being happy from the 24th of November.

Halloween

We had a great Halloween. We took our time getting going that morning. At 3:00 we suited up in our Halloween best and headed to the local trick-or-treating strip of shops. It's the one in Tanasbourne with Safeway, Trader Joes, Kinkos, etc. It's a pretty popular event. You go in costume with your bags and stop in at each store for a candy. Becca had the cute factor going and got extra here and there. And my definite favorite was the cinnamon bread given by Great Harvest. SOOO good. The kids were forced to share that with me and Kip. We stopped inside Safeway and asked if they had a large sheet of cardboard we could have. I had finally gotten around to reading my Halloween issue of Family Fun that morning. They had a picture of a "house-o-lantern" with a big window in the front filled with a cardboard jack-o-lantern face cut out of cardboard and lit from inside. I just HAD to do it in our window. Luckily, Safeway hooked us up. We took our candy and cardboard home (after a stop at cold stone for some ice cream treats because we hadn't yet had enough sugar) and spent the rest of the evening cutting the cardboard to fit the window and carving a face out of it. It turned out great. And next year we'll even get it up before Halloween day.

Grandma

In case any of you were wondering about the fact that Grandma was mentioned in the last post but not included in the pictures, I thought I would post a photo as proof that she was there.

Pumpkin Patch Trip

Grandma K came out to visit us for my birthday. She arrived October 9th and stayed the weekend. On Saturday morning we all went to a pumpkin farm in North Plains. We had a great time playing in the straw and doing the hay maze. We chose some really nice pumpkins to take home.

The kids loved having their Grandma here. Becca wanted to be with her all the time and William and Anna hardly gave her a chance to breathe. We were sad to see her go on Monday morning.

Pears

It's been a really long time since I posted an update. I just thought I'd show you all why. This is box one of about 5 more. I've been canning pears every time I have a free moment. Unfortunately, I've fallen behind on a lot of other things and decided that pears are almost more work than they're worth. Hopefully, William and Becca will enjoy eating them enough to make me feel better about the slave labor I've done...

School Started

I just realized that I never posted about school starting. Oops. William's first day of school was September 8th. William was very excited about going to 'all day' school as a first grader. We packed him a lunch the night before and headed out the door at 8:15 with his sisters in the stroller. At the school, all the kids were being herded into their classrooms by organized moms with cameras. I didn't have mine. Oh well. I checked him in with his teacher and pushed the girls home. At the end of the day (3:00) I was back outside the school to pick him up. All the organized moms were there again with their cameras. Alas, I hadn't thought to bring it then either. So, my picture of William is on his exit from school the second day. But he seemed happy enough then and he didn't look that much different from the day before.



Anna started preschool on the 9th. She was excited to go because she got to have one of the teachers from last year in her new class this year. Of course, I didn't remember the camera at drop-off, but I did manage to get it for pickup.

OMSI September 15th

I took Anna and Becca to OMSI with Jo Istook, Jared and Rachel on Tuesday the 15th. The girls really enjoyed it. William was sad about missing it, but he has enough fun at school that he got over it fairly quickly.


Becca enjoyed getting wet in the water area.


Anna enjoyed playing with "Flubber."


They posed for a nice picture in the little kid soft play zone.


Then Anna decided having pictures of her taken while flying through the air was the best thing ever.

We all had a lot of fun and we intend to go back as often as possible during the rainy winter.

Princess Becca

Becca found one of Anna's old Halloween costumes and decided to try it on. I thought she looked adorable. It's also a nice picture because you can see both her chipped front top teeth. She's into living dangerously.


Bribed with a piece of candy, she let me put the Barbie wig on her head. I couldn't get the camera up fast enough for a great picture but it's nice to get an idea of what she would look like with hair.