Christmas Giggles

After watching the kids in front of us sit on Santa's lap then collect their bag of candy, Elina excitedly walked right up to him, sat on his lap & gave us a big smile. When asked what she wanted for Christmas, she replied "treats". Of course...what else would she want. That's what everyone else was given, and she wanted some too!

Little Bunny Foo-Foo

One morning, Elina found an old wand I had made in Young Womens. She proceeded to go around the house, waving it at everyone and saying "I'll turn you into a doon (Goon)! It was so cute, that I decided to "theme" our Halloween costumes after Little Bunny Foo-Foo...her new favorite book/song. I'll let you see if you can tell who we are:)

The Paragoonah Pumpkin Patch

Pumpkins, here we come. Elina was excited to pick her own pumpkin at the

"Paragoonah Pumpkin Patch" for our little playgroup. As we jumped out of the car though, her enthusiasm switched focus. She immediately found a stick and started poking at a rotting pumpkin. When I asked if she wanted to find one to take home, she had completely lost interest!
"Katelin, lets SMASH them", she exclaimed instead! So much for my sweet little girl :)

Leaves, Leaves, Everywhere!

One beautiful fall day, Cindy and I decided to drive up the canyon and check out the fall leaves. We couldn't have asked for better timing. The soft, autumn breeze kept us cool and not too hot. It looked like we barely caught the change in colors. We even found a beautiful turn-off spot that overlooked the valley. I was a little disappointed because Bryce couldn't come with us.

When Monday came around, we decided to drive up and see if there were any left. After dodging cars left and right, it seemed like the mountain was crawling with "leave hunters" I have never seen so many camera's on Cedar Mountain before! We returned to our "special" spot only to find three other vehicles had discovered the same thing. It's a good thing the mountain had room for us all :)

Thanks Matt & Jeralyn!!

For Bryce's Birthday, Matt & Jeralyn gave him some flower bulbs. We planted them at the first of Spring...and by mid-summer, ta-da!! Beautiful Flowers.

I'm not even sure what they're called, but they are a marvelous addition to our yard! Thanks guys :)









Elina is either EXCITED for the new flowers, or annoyed that the bright black & blue vehicle behind her is ruining her picture!























Jenna can't wait to touch them! Yay

Washington or Bust!!

After months of counting down, our Washington/Alaska trip arrived at last.

"The whole Gang" - We actually took this photo on the last Sunday of our trip, and was the only one with everyone in it. I'm surprised at how well it turned out. After a long, fun-filled week, we were very tired, Leah was about to throw a small tantrum, and I'm turning Aaron sideways because he decided to "spew" dark red marion berries down his best Sunday shirt! Crazy, but typical moment of our trip.

While at Grandma & Grandpa Caines, we practically lived outside. We couldn't have asked for more perfect weather. Even on the hottest day, it was still nice and cool in the grassy, tree canopied yard :)

At any time of the day or night, Elina could be seen carrying a book around. She LOVES to read!!! One day, she entertained herself for 2 whole hours reading Grandma's book collection!

I was extremely nervous to take Aaron to the beach. A few miserable/screaming hours in the car, arriving at a typical cold/windy northwest beach, and trying to keep dirt out of his mouth was not my idea of a great time! Luckily, it was quite the opposite. I was able to distract Aaron in the car for a relatively calm drive, it was the most perfect, sunny day and the kids Loved to run back and forth through the shallow, warm water. Aaron hates the grass, and I had assumed sand would be the same. On the contrary, as soon as I put his feet in, I couldn't keep him in my arms. He squealed, laughed, splashed, crawled...and only ate one mouthful of dirt! What a beautiful beach experience!!


Aaron mastered going up the stairs, and even learned to be a little cautious instead of diving down them (after a few small falls, of course :)

(Elina is in the pink hat looking right at the sea lions) We are soo happy that Grandma took us to the zoo. Elina talked it about it for days afterwords. She is really into animals right now, and could have just sat and stared at each exhibit. It was quite the treat!

These are a few pictures from our daily walks down to see the horses and cows. We never did get to feed the horses, but we tasted a few blackberries, and wound down from the day none-the-less. There were soo many good pictures, but these are a few of my favorites!

Cousins, walking off into the sunset! What a classic shot!

Usually, by the time vacation is over, I am ready to get home and back to routine. This time was different though. I never wanted to leave Washington. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. Sooo, here we are at the airport with luggage, car seats, fish, strollers, etc. I'm sure we were quite the sight!

Thanks everyone helping us have such a memorable vacation..for the rides to and from the airport, sleeping at houses, spoiling & loving us, the sushi, etc. etc. We love you all!

Having Fun Together

Elina and Aaron were both exceptionally playful today, and at the same time. I couldn't help but take some videos. (In the rocking-horse video, Aaron is actually okay, despite the suspenseful ending.)

Our Baby is Growing Up!

I was going to post a little video of Aaron doing his army crawl, but decided to make a little movie of Aaron's 7 months of life so far!! Wow, time does fly!

So, here's to you Aaron!

Fun with Nursery Rhymes

The other day we were going over some nursery rhymes with Elina. For fun we like to leave off the last word or two of a line in a book that she is familiar with, to see if she'll be able to fill in the blank. Here are a couple funny ones that she said:

Bryce: "Little boy blue, come blow your..."
Elina: "...nose"

Bryce: "Humpty Dumpty sat on a..."
Elina: "...tuffet"

So Funny It's Dizzying

This past Sunday at getting-ready-for-bedtime, Elina was spinning in circles for fun. She got dizzy, and fell and bumped her head against a little night stand we have for her. We were a little nervous about it as it looked like she hit the corner of the night stand with her eye. Thankfully she didn't, and we saw the bump on her head above her eye. But to make sure she could still see ok, I held my hand over her other eye, and asked Kathy to hold up some fingers for Elina to count. I asked her how many fingers she saw, and she said, "one, two". Good, she seemed fine.

Then--classic Elina--while still lying on her back, she lifted up her leg and brought her foot right in front of my face, and asked, "how many feet do I have?"

Kristy is my inspiration

Kristy is always"one-upping" me in the Creative Motherhood section, so I decided to get off my lazy duff and do something with Elina. Digging through my old college books, I found some science & math fun books for small children. Soo, today we went on a nature walk. I wrapped wide masking tape around her waist and we walked around the neighborhood looking for small objects to stick to it! How creative is that!! Elina loved it, and found all kinds of things...including a pop bottle top. I don't know if that's really considered naturistic, but it stuck none-the-less.

Cousins, Here we come!!

We FINALLY made it!! Our sickly children have kept us from traveling up North for months now. We decided to take advantage of a work conference Bryce had in Orem. It was Elina & Aaron's first time in a hotel. Elina jumped all over the bed saying "This is soo fun", over and over again. When that got old, she started pushing every button in sight. Yes...especially the big red call button on the phone...fun times :)

It worked out perfectly to visit Kristy & Nathan. Cindy, Sheri, and their kids were able to come down on Friday for a huge swimming party!! Well, sort of. We tried the hotel pool, but there wasn't a kiddy section. Next was an awesome outdoor kid swimming place but it was tooo windy and dusty. Sooo, after poor, tired Cindy & Ryan headed home, we walked down to the 1950's Community Pool. They wouldn't let us use our cool floatys I so carefully packed, and the water was FREEZING! We had a fun time none-the-less. Elina even jumped off the side of the pool a couple of times. The next evening, Nathan and Bryce took the kids to see some horses while Kristy and I whipped up a fast pizza (as fast as anything homemade goes)!

I took advantage of the perfectly warm and windless Saturday to snap a couple of shots of my darling little boy!! What a CUTIE :)

Thanks everyone for spending time with us. It's always great to see family...especially since we don't know when we'll see Cindy & Ryan again!

Bye Bye Young Women

I'm learning that when I hear about a certain topic over and over again, I should probably pay attention. That's what happened a few weeks ago. Bryce and I were able to go to a Temple session for the first time since before Aaron was born. (hooray for solid foods) We also had a special lesson in YW to prepare for the Oquirrh Mt. Temple Dedication as well as in Sunday School. As I sat through these lessons, I thought, I really want to learn more about the Temple and strengthen my testimony about it.

Well, it should have been no surprise when the Bishop called me into his office and said he had good news and bad news. The bad news...it was time to be released from Young Womens. The good news...I was asked to teach the Temple Prep. Class!!

Wow, I feel like I was just getting the hang of everything, and we had soo many fun things planned for this summer. I don't even get to go to Girls Camp :( Oh well. I've decided that I was never meant to get "comfortable" in any calling...that means I've learned what I need to and it's time to move on. I'm going to miss the girls, but I am also very excited to teach about the Temple!!

The Incredible Lunging Baby

Aaron vs. the bubble-wrap

http://dashwire.com/share/6VaVLWYC

More on the Ward Party

This is what Elina was doing at the activity where Mommy bumped off Jack Frost. :D

http://dashwire.com/share/tMKygAgO

Who Killed Jack Frost??

That was the question on the eve of April 17, 2009. Our ward conducted a Murder Mystery Dinner (it was more like clue). If you can't tell, my secret identity is Miss Scarlet and Bryce is Colonel Mustard. Wow, this is the season of disguise!

After going through a series of rooms and questions, the mystery was solved!! It was me...with a rubber chicken on BYU Campus!! The nerve!

We're Getting Brave

Bryce and I grew up with white walls, and our first house we kept all white walls...so, we finally got sick of the same thing. It started by painting our dining room a nice pale yellow. It was so much fun that we decided to continue the color fest with this lovely blue accent wall in our family room and a pale lilac in our bathroom. Yay, I finally understand why people say it' s the cheapest way to make a drastic change. You're looking at under $10 folks!! The couch was given to us as well!! Thanks Larsens :) We're finally feeling at home!

Easter and the Ugly Eggs!

I know this is late, but I haven't had much time on the computer lately. I made a goal to only be on for ONE hour a day!! If Bryce and I keep it for one month, than Maggie Moo's here we come!! I'm quite excited at the prospect!

I need to document the making of the ugliest Easter Eggs imaginable. We were assigned to bring 6 real eggs and 6 plastic eggs to a little Easter egg hunt at the park. I didn't have any egg coloring kits, so I tried to make our own. The only problem was that I also didn't have plain vinegar...only apple cider vinegar. The eggs turned a sickly gray-pinkish color. Elina in her loving, helping way broke half while "carefully" setting them in the dye (slam dunking is what some would call it!) "What kid is going to want to pick this up", I thought.

When we got to the park, we discovered that we were the ONLY ones to make real eggs. Everyone else didn't have dye or ran out of time! How embarrassing. Well, I just quietly set the eggs back in the bag and brought them home for egg sandwiches!! When the Hunt began, I told Elina to go for a bright yellow plastic egg. She bent down and came up with....a rock! What? She thought it was a pretty cool rock....until I showed her that there was candy in the eggs. Then the real hunt began.

So, Bryce and I failed in teaching Elina the real meaning of Easter. Anytime anyone mentioned the word, she would automatically say "my Easter basket & candy". Oh well, better luck next year!!

What makes the trees green?

This is what Uncle Matt taught Elina while Bryce and I were at a meeting!

Grandma & Grandpa turn 80!!

Okay, we'll see if this video function works! My wonderful Grandparents (my Dad's parents Boyd & Hazel Jean Robinson) both turned 80 in October. The entire town of Paragonah turned out to their birthday!! Actually, the town has a tradition of honoring the "octarians" of the year at the Paragonah Birthday. Out of all the musical numbers, our family's was the best :) as you can plainly tell. Just kidding. I'm just glad we got to go over it once before we sang!! Yay for last minute musical numbers!!

Birthday Boy

Even though Bryce's actually Birthday is on the 24th, we celebrated on Monday the 23rd instead. What started as a small get together with a few families, turned into a "popp'n" BYOT Pizza Party!! Definition: Bring Your Own Topping :) We had a total of 16 adults and 19 children!! Fun Times.

I ended up going crazy throughout the day by trying to clean the house, blow up balloons and make 8 pizza crusts w/ sauce & cheese, and 75 breadsticks!! Of course Elina & Aaron complicated things by wanting to actually eat throughout the day...I don't understand why. Aaron wasn't feeling well either and didn't want to be let down for one second.

I've concluded that even though it was sooo fun, next time I'll have a simple cake and ice cream at a park. It would save a lot of stress!!

Thanks everyone for coming and supporting Bryce in this "monumental" moment of his life :) :) We are grateful to live in such an AWESOME neighborhood/ward!!

To Zion or Bust

Matthew & Jaralyn will moving soon and would probably never get the opportunity to go to Zion's National Park. When they decided to come down for the weekend, we borrowed a mini-van and went! We couldn't have picked a better day...sunny but not too hot or cold!

With Bryce's beard and my curly hair, we looked totally "granola" and fit right in with the "Parkies" :) haha. Leah & Elina loved the river walk and kept trying to make a run for the water. Too bad their "mean ol' Dad's" kept stopping them:) lol

Right as we were finishing our "peanutbutterless" picnic (poor Bryce), the wind picked up, so we headed for the indoor museum. A poster caught my eye on the door about how animals..especially deer become aggressive when fed. A child had been bit on the neck and another trampled, and adults kicked.....and some of those deer had not been caught and were still roaming the park. Bryce's voice interrupted my frenzied reading,

"look Kathy, some cute deer, let's take some pictures!!"

"AHHHH, run for your life", I shouted, grabbing Elina and.....well it wasn't quite that dramatic, but ironic none-the-less.

We finished the day with kite flying and dinner @ Costa Vida. Thanks Jeralyn & Matt for a great weekend!!