Alicia's Birthday

Alicia recently celebrated her second birthday, she is very proud to be two and she gladly states that she is “fours” when you ask how old she is. She has heard her sister say she is four for the past year! We had local family over to celebrate her day and we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast for her meal as Alicia really loves pancakes! Especially the fun shaped ones we make.

Alicia waited patiently in her chair for about an hour before the guests arrived. But she finally got the eat her panCake.

After eating the kids enjoyed riding the roller coaster in the basement. Alicia had a blast opening her presents and we finished the night off with some Wii games.

Birthdaygirl and Sleepyhead ready to square off!

Preschool Graduation

Adrianna completed Preschool in May and is now ready for Kindergarten. Technically she was ready for kindergarten after she came home from her first day of preschool.  She would ask us if tomorrow she was going to Kindergarten.  Both Sarah and I are shocked that we will have a kindergartner in August.  Adrianna loves school and she loves making new friends.  We had great teachers at Falcon Elementary where she went and we are very grateful for the Colorado Preschool Program that she was a part of.

Though the outdoor events at the graduation were rained out we enjoyed celebrating with Adrianna’s preschool friends.  Adrianna and I especially enjoyed the egg walk and three-legged races.  It was a lot of fun for both of us.  We are so proud of our little student!

Mother's Day

From Mother’s day to Father’s day is a pretty crazy time of the year for us. Not only do we celebrate those special days but we also have Alicia’s birthday, Joseph’s niece’s birthday, Adrianna’s birthday, Joseph’s birthday, a grandmother’s birthday, and now we added end of school activities. Unfortunately the craziness got the better of us and both Sarah and I came down with some pretty nasty upper respiratory infections. But we managed to enjoy some pretty descent celebrations.

For Mother’s day I made Sarah some strawberry crepes, and we enjoyed a pretty relaxing day making cards for Sarah and enjoying the day together. Though the girls and I try to show Sarah the appreciation she deserves every day; I know she enjoys having a day that she can call her own. Happy Mother’s day Sarah!

As you can see I am quite behind on my blogging, so I hope to catch up on the enjoyment of this time as I can. I expect to post about Adrianna’s graduation from pre-school and Alicia’s birthday shortly.

San Diego Temple

Sarah and I visited the San Diego when I first met Sarah's grandparents. As most people do we fell in love with this Temple, it is a stunning building. We decided to take some pictures of us there for our Spring/Easter pics. We are very grateful to the missionary who took time to show Adrianna pictures of the inside of the temple and who took the picture of us above.

San Diego

After staying most of our vacation with family we enjoyed some time to ourselves in San Diego.  We stayed on Shelter Island on the San Diego Harbor overlooking the bay and the city.  We enjoyed a day at Sea World, another at the Zoo, we spent some time at the San Diego temple, and we relaxed near the hotel. It was refreshing to be so close to the ocean again.

Newport Beach

While in California we were able to visit with some friends Sarah grew up with. We met up with them at the Fashion Circle mall in Newport Beach. We had a lot of fun visiting at the mall enjoying the different fountains and enjoying each other’s company. The mall even had a store especially for me, unfortunately it was all women's clothing. After we'd had our fun around the fountains, we headed down to the ocean to enjoy the sunset at the beach. The girls loved playing in the sand and enjoying the waves on the beach. We couldn't have picked a nicer place or more beatiful weather to catch up with old friends.

Disneyland Day 1 Highlights

I have been experimenting with some slide show programs. I found that Picasa throws together a pretty descent slide show movie in a couple of clicks that took me an hour to create in Photoshop Elements. That is an hour spent looking at cute pics of my girls while they sleep, so I guess I cannot complain. Anyway, here are some pictures from our first day at Disneyland. We had a great time mostly riding the rides in Fantasy Land like the Tea Cups, Alice in Wonderland, etc. Adrianna especially loved the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which ended up being her favorite ride. We ended the day visiting with Pooh and his friends Tigger and Eeyore where we got some cute pictures of the girls (primarily Adrianna as Alicia didn't want to have anything to do with any of the characters!)

V is for Vacation

We recently returned from a 2 week vacation to California.  We decided to drive so that we could visit family in Arizona along the way.  We had a wonderful time visiting family, going to Disneyland, staying in San Diego, enjoying the coast and the beach and beautiful spring weather.  Now I have about 1500 pictures to go through and blog posts to make which is a bit of a daunting task.  I hope to get some of our favorite pictures up soon.

 

Cantaloupe

We got some cantaloupe the other day since it was on sale and I couldn't help but be amazed by the bright green skin and orange flesh as we cut into the melon. I had to snap some pictures of it before we ate them. And yes, they were as delicious as they look.

Happy Belated Birthday Sarah!

I am very late in making this post, but better late than never right?  We recently celebrated Sarah’s birthday, we spent most of the week celebrating starting with having her cousin Bob over.  The girls absolutely love having him over. Sarah’s one special request this year was to have me make a chocolate hazelnut torte, it came out pretty well even though I almost burnt down the house roasting the hazelnuts, luckily they were mostly salvageable and only slightly overly toasted.  My parents also invited us over on the day of Sarah’s birthday and we enjoyed spending time with them and my sister’s family.  Thank you everyone for helping us celebrate Sarah’s birthday!

As luck and Sarah would have it I do not have any pictures of the birthday girl for her birthday!

Missed Photo Op!

With camera phones, digital camera's, and everything else these days you would think you would always have a camera handy to capture those magical moments that you experience with your kids. Well Sarah missed one the other day when she paused with the girls to ask a team of firefighters at Albertsons where the truck was so she could show it to Adrianna (who loves firefighters, fire trucks, fire stations, etc.) One of the firefighter's didn't just show her the truck but he let Adrianna get in, turn on the lights, put on a suit, pretend to drive, and he let her spray the fire hose!!! She was thrilled! Adrianna called me afterwords and said "Daddy! I put out a fire."

After all that Sarah did not have a camera to photograph the moment, but I am sure Adrianna will enjoy that memory for a while!

What makes you happy?

It is important to learn young to be happy. Alicia latest saying is "I Happy", which is a wonderful thing to hear from a little one, especially because she means it. One thing that makes both of our girls very happy is Chocolate. And with a cake like the one Sarah made today who wouldn't be happy! I think we will call this one "Death by Chocolate Candy Cake". It is a chocolate cake with mini chocolate chips in it, topped with a decadent chocolate frosting, the sides are kit-cat bars and it is topped with M&M's. Amazingly delicious! Below is the girls reaction!

Hand in Hand

Here is a painting Adrianna and I made this past weekend outlining our hands.  I painted hers in green (her favorite color), and she painted mine in blue (my favorite color).  I really liked the outcome so I thought I would share it.  Maybe someone can make an award winning poster of this!

Valentines Pancakes

 

Feb 14th, 2009

For Valentine’s Day morning we made Valentine shaped pancakes. We have just about every shape of pancake molds imaginable and the girls love pancakes so this is a fun treat that we enjoy.  Topped with some homemade raspberry jam and whipped cream, these were more like dessert than breakfast.  I don’t think I heard any complaints though!

Why do you have kids?

My parents used to joke with us that the reason they had us was so that we could do chores around the house. At least I thought they were joking until Adrianna and Alicia took up laundry in our house. Though a front loading washer and dryer may be too low without the ($200 each) pedestals for an adult back, they are the perfect height for little ones to switch-out laundry from. All Sarah has to do is start the load and fold the load. They have even mastered the button pushing on the dryer. And the best thing is: at this age they love it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roller Coaster Crazies!

Alicia Go!

Every little girl and boy needs a roller coaster in their basement.  The girls and I played in the basement this day after Christmas trying to burn off some energy and calories from all the Christmas goodies we’ve been enjoying.  Here is a cute video of Alicia riding the roller coaster.  I love her smile at the end, and her sister rooting her on in the background: “Alicia go!”

Christmas Morning!

Coming down for Christmas morning was a magical moment with the girls. They were both very excited, and it was after 9:00 A.M. so mommy and daddy were awake and rested. Adrianna was especially excited and Alicia followed her lead. All of us enjoyed unwrapping our gifts, and watching them enjoy the moment!

Cousin Bobby came over and we enjoyed a deliciously late breakfast of Pain Perdu (Stuffed French Toast), made with Egg Nog. Yummy! After that we just relaxed, played with the new toys, including a new Wii game, and enjoyed munching on various snacks!

Our Christmas Tree

This is one of three Christmas trees. The girls have loved playing the musical ornaments and looking at themselves in the Christmas balls. They especially enjoyed getting the gifts from under the tree this morning!

…to all a Goodnight!

From our family to yours, we want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas Day!

Reading to Sister

Adrianna and Alicia love to read at night. They love to read to each other. Usually they each have to have their own book or it can get rather unruly. But for the most part we enjoy our evening ritual of a book before bedtime. I especially love how Alicia will snuggle down into Adrianna’s bed as if she were going to sleep there!