Happy Birthday Kena!

Our baby girl is 3!!  We love our Kena..she always wants to be outside, is always singing a song, and can entertain herself for hours (but unfortunately not without making a mess)!  For her birthday, we celebrated on Sunday and she invited some friends over and wanted a heart cake to celebrate.  We decorated the house with balloons and dangly swirly things and she felt like a princess!  Her nursery teacher made her a darling crown out of felt and ribbon.  Her friends brought her some fancy fake nails, a strawberry shortcake dvd, and princess balloons.

On her actual birthday, we gave Kena a play doh set, took her to burger king for lunch so the kids could play on the play ground, and later that night we attended Lily's school Christmas performance.  I included a video of Lily doing her part.  She practiced to memorize it and we were so proud of her (she is still too shy to go up on stage for Primary, so we were impressed).

Christmas 2011

This is Erin hijacking the blog.

We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas this year nice and cozy with our little family.  We spent the day making treats for Santa (we made home made oreos with crushed peppermint sticks rolled around the edges), cleaning the house (since Santa doesn't come to messy houses), and indulging in a traditional candle light feast (consisting of crab legs, gourmet aged steaks, salad, and mormon bubbly).  Later we smashed a pinata (which kena and lily made out of a fruit snack box), sprinkled reindeer dust/oatmeal on the lawn, and tried to enact the nativity with some ward members (...unsuccessfully because the next day we found out that we went to a house that looked similar to theirs a few houses down..we wondered why nobody answered and the house was dark).  The good news is that their neighbors were fortunate enough to receive a bag of homemade english toffee "from the Graybills" on their front porch on Christmas morning.

The girls were thrilled to get a Dora kitchen (especially Kena) from Grandma and Grandpa on Christmas morning (Kena calls it a "dora pie baker").  Other gifts that they enjoyed were books and colored pencils from Nana and Papa, princess barbies, snow globes, and hello kitty watches.  Riki got a rifle and I got running gear and a gps watch.  We are very blessed.

I played my violin with a quartet on Christmas in church and also had a choir performance with a flute.  It was really nice.  We are so grateful for the birth of our Savior and the gift of the atonement.

At the Park

Halloween

Disney Vids

 

Disney 2011

We had a great time on our vacation to Florida, or as our kids are saying now...a super-fun time! We visited Disney on two of the days, going to Disney Marketplace on one and then Epcot. We also visited Sea World two days as well. The girls were able to wear costumes on one of those days and do some trick-o-treating. Each of these days at the parks were long and exhausting for all of us. By days end, the girls were finally worn out which allowed for a peaceful car ride back to our hotel. Our last two days we spent at Cocoa beach lounging and swimming in the pool and ocean. It is super-good to be home!

Zealand army crawls

Someone was bored

Birthday Boy

I had a great birthday.  Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes. Thanks Erin and kids for a wonderful day.

Dancing to Dora

Go Cougs!!!

Thanks Auntie Keri for the sweet "B" "I" "U" gear.

First Day of School

Lils loves getting ready and going to school.  She gets dressed early and bounces around the house waiting for one of us to take her.  After her first day, she rattled off the class rules to us: No Screaming, No fighting, & No leaving the room without a grownup.  She loves that her classroom has a hermit crab and a fish tank.

Go Cougs

We put some meat on the Q for the football game today.  Cody and Ashy came over and watched with us.  The coug D is the most physical I have ever seen at the Y!  It looked we marched up and down the field only to shoot ourselves in the foot to end the drives.  On to another tough one this week in Texas!

Cooler Weather

The last week or so have been really nice.  We have gone on some family walks in the evenings enjoying talking to our neighbors who come out to chat.  Our greek neighbor walked with us all the way up and down the block telling us about each neighbor.  I have a feeling gossip travels just as fast here as it does in the relief society.

Mom and Dad left on Sunday and made it home last night.  It was nice to have them out here.  The highlight of their trip was getting to know more about their childhood, and their early married years. A close second would have to be the baseball game Dad and I went to.  The Pirates ended up losing, but fought hard and even took the lead late.  Thanks Mom and Dad for all your help!!

Hershey, PA

Hershey was fun and nobody got heat stroke.

Fathers Day

Happy Father's Day Dad and all you fathers!  I woke up this morning and Erin had made cinnamon rolls. Lily gave me a card that she had made and Kena made these videos for me.

Lake Erie

We went up to Presque Isle on Saturday with 6 other families from our ward.  We spent the day playing in the sand, bumping the volleyball, and avoiding Cody and his 5 gal. bucket of cold Erie water.

Princesses and a frog

It was really rainy here this spring. This little guy was hopping around in our front yard. 

Odds and Ends

Z surprised Erin today by rolling over from his front to his back and then back to front.  Erin called me all excited.  Those are the 'Firsts' that I wish I could be home to see.  Guess I will just have to take her word for it.

We have all been battling through a cold.  Z and Erin have it now while Keeks and I just got through it.

This weekend we are going up to the beach in Erie with a group from our ward to play for the day.  There are supposed to be some good beaches.  The girls are very excited, they love to play on the beach.

I cleaned out our rain gutters last Saturday.  They were stuffed full of those helicopter swirling maple seeds.  The front gutter was so packed that hundreds of maple trees had begun to grow.  The smell of the rotting seeds was horrendous.

Finally, we made arepas for our friends who ate over on Sunday.  They were good and we had a great time getting to know them better.

Add to your vocab

Keeks always comes up with the best ways to pronounce things.  The latest had Erin and I laughing for quite awhile.  The family came down to Beckley, WV with me for the day.  While we were driving, we passed an amusement park all lit up and Kena started screaming she wanted to ride the Holy Ghoster.  Our uncontrollable laughter only prompted here to yell it louder.  Holy Ghoster goes right to the top of the list followed by: torn gogs, aguymond in the sky, Daniel and the Lion King.

VA Beach

We had so much fun on our recent trip to Virginia Beach, VA.  As you will see in the pictures, we took advantage of the beach for the short amount of time we were there.  We were the first ones out on the beach playing. 

Lils became very good at timing the wave just right, as it washed up on shore, by jumping over and splashing down in the water.  Keeks had a blast inching close to the departing wave as it swept out to sea and then turning and running all the while screaming as a new wave came crashing back to the beach.  Z slept the majority of the time in his car seat which allowed us time to bump the volleyball. 

We met a family just after breakfast the first day who hung out with us on the beach.  They had two boys who loved playing with our girls.  The kids even wrote notes to our girls saying how sad they were to see them go home.  On our way out the door, the little boy gave Keeks a football. 

Wish we could have stayed longer and look forward to going back someday!  Enjoy the pictures.

Our friends brought a kite

I stood close by so the kids didn't get too crazy

Timid at first

Wanting to be buried

New pair of sand shoes

 

View from the balcony

Water was freezing, she didn't care

How does that not hurt the knees?

Run away from the wave!

Ryan and his brother played with the girls

Anything I built, the girls smashed. I gave up quickly

On the way home