The Taylor Family

2011-11-20T21:01:00.001-08:00

Today we had an early thanksgiving in fernley. Cousins, grandparents and turkey, so much fun!
Sent from my iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

Thanksgiving at grandmas

2011-11-20T20:53:00.001-08:00

Our girls at play

2011-03-03T07:48:00.000-08:00

We are in DC!!

2010-12-04T16:53:00.000-08:00

Patrick had to come to Washington DC for work next week, so we decided to bring the family out a little early and enjoy a little vacation. Too bad the work trip is in December though... it's COLD!! Much colder than we're used to in Death Valley. We traveled all day Thursday, and the kids were great on the flights, much better than expected. Yesterday we did the National Zoo, and decided to walk back to the hotel instead of take the metro becuase Leah had fallen asleep. We also didn't dress them warmly enough, and by the time we got back to the hotel the girls were freezing and screaming and it was a mini nightmare. But we learned our lesson and dressed the girls super warmly today, which came in handy since we also had to walk a million miles once again. Today we went to the top of the Washington Monument, then went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and the American History Museum. All awesome. We also saw the National Christmas tree, but they aren't lighting it until next Friday, so it wasn't as good as we'd hoped. A few more touristy days here, then Patrick starts working Monday and the girls and I are headed to Philidelphia to stay with our fabulous friend Stephanie while Patrick slaves away. We're having a ton of fun despite the freezingness! Here are some picture highlights:

At the top of the Washington Monument

National Zoo. The kids liked the statues better than the animals.

But the did love the aquarium portion.

Riverside

2010-06-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

Right now we are in Riverside, CA. Patrick had some training here this week so we all came along to enjoy the warm (not HOT) weather. And I get to blog! So here ar some pictures from the last few days:

Kaiya loved playing in the water fountain. She got soaked but didn't care.

The girls loved these birds. They talk a little but they mostly fight and bite each other.

We found a fun little cupcake shop and Kaiya was so excited to pick out and eat her very own giant cupcake.

We also got to visit our friends the Rasmussens in Bakersfield before we came out to Riverside. They took us on this wagon pulled by horses. Kai loved it but Leah screamed the whole time. We still had a lot of fun visiting though!

We've had a great time in Riverside and wish our mini vacation could last longer!

Our Home:)

2010-06-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

I took this picture of our house the other day. You can hardly see the house, but here's our front yard at least. We are very fortunate to live in the older neighborhood, so we have trees. The newer houses have no trees for shade. Kaiya loves this yard, especially the stream that runs through the front. She loves to explore and get really, really dirty. I don't love to clean her up every time she goes outside, but I suppose it's worth it to see her having so much fun.

Children's Museum

2010-06-17T08:04:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we took a trip to the Las Vegas Children's Museum and the girls had so much fun. This was also the first time Leah rode forward facing in the car, and they seemed to think that was pretty great. ...And this is how they looked at the end of the day.

Happy Birthday Baby Girls!!

2010-06-16T15:26:00.000-07:00

Kaiya turned 3 in April and Leah turned 1 in May! It's kind of fun to have their birthdays so close together because we were in birthday mode for about 3 weeks. We had seperate celebrations for them, and here are some pictures of each party (although I couldnt' get them into an order I wanted):

Leah stuffing her mouth with her very own banana cupcake. The joy!

Leah was supposed to wear this party hat for cake, but I forgot until the end of the party. She didn't really care for it anyway, as you can tell.

Happy Birthday!

This was Leah's present. It's a big bouncy toy that looks like a kiddy pool. The girls enjoyed the bouncing and it's a good way to burn their energy when it's too hot to go outside.

For Kaiya's birthday we had a little party with just us at home, then we took her to Las Vegas to the zoo and to breakfast at the Rainforest Cafe. Here's her and her daddy walking around at the zoo.

Breakfast

We stayed at the Excalibur. It was Kaiya's "princess hotel".

Kaiya's pink cake with pink frosting and pink candles. She had been requesting this combination since Patrick had his birthday in December.

Leah is Walking!

2010-04-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

Leah took her first steps the day before Easter and this video is from a few days after that. She looks so cute walking! She's still a little timid about taking steps... it might have something to do with a certain big sister who pushes her over when she tries....

New Updates!

2010-04-18T21:26:00.000-07:00

Today is Kaiya's third birthday! We are in Las Vegas becuase we are taking her to the zoo and out to lunch tomorrow for a celebration. And luckily enough they have internet at the hotel so I get to update the blog!! Here are some of the recent pictures we've taken. I wish we could put up some from the last 5 months, but it would take too long to post all that I would want to share!

The fam at Easter. We took the girls to Furnace Creek Inn for their annual egg hunt.

Kaiya really liked hunting eggs this year. When she would find one she would say, "Where's another egg?" excitedly.

Easter basket fun.

The girls are playing together a lot lately and one of the things they like to do is to look at books. So cute.

This is a funny story. Kaiya has pretty much given up napping, but I still occasionally try to put her down when she seems like she needs it. I have to put her down in my room now that she and Leah are sharing a room, because they won't fall asleep at naptime together. So after a while one day I went to check on her and I found her this way: she was wearing Leah's Easter dress inside out on top of her own clothes and had found my high heels. She was pretty sure that she looked great.

Fun at the park.

Leah's bedhead.

Bathtime!

The girls got a wagon for their birthdays from Grandma. They love to ride in the wagon and I love that it has a sunshade!

We had a great visit with the Lawsons when we took a trip to Carson in March. Here's a picture of Kaiya and Trevor, who were born on the same day.

We took Kaiya and her cousin Miles to the Carson Children's Museum and they had a great time making a mess and having fun.

Leah is tired at breakfast at my Grandma's house.

St. Patrick's day cuteness.

Why I work for the National Park Service

2009-12-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

It's certainly not for the pay. But there are a lot of perks. One of them is training. In the ten months since I started working at Death Valley I've started training to be a firefighter, emergency medical responder and perform search and rescues. And those aren't even parts of my actual job description. On top of all that, for in depth training we are sent to some of the most amazing places. For example, for the first two weeks of December, I went to the Grand Canyon for training. And I do mean at the Grand Canyon, not close to it. A short walk and we could be on the rim at any time. As I continue my career, locations such as Yosemite, Hawaii Volcanoes, the Statue of Liberty, Washington DC, Gettysburg are all places that we fully expect to live/work/train at. And those are just some of the reasons we love the NPS!

The photos below show the changing weather I experienced while there (in reverse order). It was great weather for the first few days, then it got cold and started to snow, and kept snowing. Normally 18" of snow and -10 degrees might not be too bad, but coming from Death Valley, I almost died.

(On a side note, Crystal and the girls were unable to come along this time, but instead her sister and 2 kids visited for a week. Also, her brother and 2 boys came to visit. Do I love my family?-Yes I do. Am I glad I was gone when there were 6 kids (4 under the age of 3) & 4 adults trying to go to bed?- Yes I am.)

Some videos

2009-11-22T15:27:00.000-08:00

I thought I would put some of our recent videos on the blog while I have a chance, so here goes:

Leah falls asleep in the highchair about ever 3rd or 4th time she's in it.

I meant to put a different video on instead of this one, but now I don't have time to change it. So here's Kaiya singing and then grabbing the camera to see her "Kaiya movie".

Kaiya in her Halloween costume saying her Japanese words.

An Update

2009-11-20T13:16:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged in a while due to the extreme slowness of dial up internet. But since we are here in Idaho with civilized internet, I thought I would take the opportunity to post a bunch of pictures from the last 2 months or so. I don't have all the pictures here that I wanted to post, but here's a pretty good update of what we've been up to in no particular order (mostly because I can't figure out how to drag and drop pictures wherever I want them anymore... what the heck?) So here we go: This is a picture of Kaiya's first time sitting in the regular seat on the airplane (and Leah's first time flying) on our way here
Kaiya loves pushing Leah in the swing at the park

These few pictures are from Kaiya's first time painting. She painted a snake (a new love these days... I don't know where she got that) and really enjoyed it.

Kaiya loves to dress Leah up in her dress up clothes. Unfortunately for poor Leah, this often means that she gets a hat right over her face and can't see anything. Most of the time she likes it though.
Kaiya and Leah in the Ball Pit

Leah loves the ball pit and will sit in it for quite a while playing with all the balls.

Here's Kaiya Trick or Treating for the first time. She caught on rather quickly. Normally she's really shy and won't even look at people she doesn't know, but once she realized she was getting candy she would say "Twick o Tweat" and go right up to people. So funny.

We dressed up in our Japanese garb and went out together. Most people didn't know what we were supposed to be, but we still had fun. Also, in our neighborhood, there's our kids and one other family with kids. Needless to say, not everyone was ready for Halloween. We tried to go only to the houses of people we knew, but sometimes if the porch light was on next door we'd go there too. Kaiya got some interesting things in her candy bag as a result, such as some mixed nuts wrapped in aluminum foil, and a few handfuls of change. She didn't seem to notice though.

Leah sometimes falls asleep in the highchair. So funny.

Leah has been eating solid foods for a few weeks now and always makes this face when she tries something new. She usually ends up liking whatever it is though and so far I haven't come across anything she won't eat. These are the other Halloween costumes the girls had. I thought they were super cute, but Kaiya didn't like to wear the Giraffe very long. So we opted to wear the kimonos instead.

One more of Kaiya playing dress up/toys. Mostly she just likes to empty out all the baskets and make a giant mess.

So that's what we've been up to! I'm hoping we get a chance to put a few videos on before we leave, so check back!

Congratulations!

2009-11-19T15:53:00.000-08:00

Patrick finished his Master's Thesis! He has been working so hard on it and is finally finished! We are in Idaho this week for his defense (which he did Monday), so that means I get to update the blog too! And once I put pictures on our computer, I intend to do just that. But I am so proud of Patrick for all of his hard work and for doing such an awesome job!

Calico

2009-09-17T12:27:00.001-07:00

On our way back from a visit to our friends in Palm Springs (which we'll blog about at another time), we stopped by a ghost town called Calico. It is very commercialized now, but still pretty interesting. It's a lot like Virginia City for those of you who know it. The main reason we went was to get our first family portrait. For the countless thousands of pictures when we couldn't get Kaiya to smile, this one actually worked out best that way. Her and Leah both look very 1880s. I guess they were just born 120 years late. Leah had been screaming the 30 minutes leading up to the photo and was asleep about 2 minutes later, so we got pretty lucky. It may be a little odd for a family photo shoot, but we like it.

What We've Been Up to

2009-09-05T08:52:00.001-07:00

It has been a while since we've posted anything, not because we haven't wanted to, but because of our lame dial up internet. So if anyone still reads our blog, here's the latest from us. We recently moved into another house in the same area, and are getting all of our things put away in new places. We really like the new house, and since it's right by the playground Kaiya really likes it too. When we were still in our other house, and during the hottest part of the summer (130 degrees outside), our air conditioner broke, and for a week the temperature inside our house was above 90 degrees. Luckily, we had our window air conditioner from our house in Idaho, so Patrick installed it in our bedroom and the four of us camped out in there.

Leah seems to finally be over her colicky stage, and is becoming quite a happy baby. She still isn't laughing, but smiles all the time and last week rolled over for the first (and only, actually) time. Here are a few updated pictures of her at 3 months.
Kaiya got a new "big girl" bed when we moved in to the new house. She was really excited about it and has done really well with the transition. We have been really lucky and she hasn't tried to escape from the bed yet. She just lays down and sings and plays a little and then falls asleep. She even waits for one of us to get her when she wakes up in the morning instead of climbing down by herself. It's great. The girls and I are also trying to get out more so we don't go crazy being in the house all the time. Last week I took them to Beatty (an hour away) to a little candy shop that also sells ice cream. Kaiya was so excited to pick out her own ice cream and eat it all herself (this is the first time we've let her). She of course picked chocolate so it got everywhere, but it was worth it to see how happy it made her.
That's basically what we've been up to, and now that Leah is screaming again (she gets mad when no one is paying attention to her) I better end this.

Look Alikes? Not so Much...

2009-06-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

My friend Stephanie recently posted on her blog a picture of each of her kids at the same age and the same pose to show how similar they look. You could guess which one was which, and then look at the answer. I guessed, and was totally wrong. She even has a boy and a girl, but they look so much alike, they are practically identical. It was a fun post, and made me think of how I thought our girls would look alike. When Leah was born, both Patrick and I were surprised that we hadn't just had another little Kaiya. So I thought I would post a picture of each of them at one month old to show how different they are. Of course, they are baby pictures, so they both have the baby look, but you can see that they don't really look alike. But we think they are both cute:)

In other news, we took Leah to the doctor for her 6 week checkup. When we told him about her crying pattern, he said, "so she has colic". I was trying to convince myself that I could have a baby without colic, and since she wasn't crying all day long like Kaiya did, just keeping to the entire evening, I thought maybe it was normal newborn crying. But apparently 5 hours in the evening isn't normal. So even the going off of dairy didn't seem to help, at least not enough for me to continue restricting my diet so much. The funny (or not so funny) thing is that her crying got much worse after our trip to Carson for her blessing, and with Kaiya her colic started right after our trip to Tokyo. We've decided never to travel with a newborn again.

Blessing Day

2009-06-24T12:43:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago we took a trip to Carson for Patrick's 10 year high school reunion, and while we were there he blessed Leah so that the family could be there. Despite all the chaos of the trip and trying to get everyone ready for 9am church, Leah did really well and didn't cry during the blessing. She was even awake the whole time. Patrick gave her a beautiful blessing, and it was really nice to have family and friends there for it. Here are some pictures of our little cutie in her blessing dress:

This picture kind of summarizes how Kaiya felt about Leah getting so much attention.

First Video

2009-06-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

Poor Leah is the classic second child. By six weeks old I'm sure we had at least 500 pictures of Kaiya and several videos. We have considerably less of Leah. Even though she has been smiling for 3 weeks now this is the first time I've attempted to capture it on camera (amazingly, I was successful on the first attempt) and this is also the first video I took of her. I wanted to get her smiling on video, but instead, she sneezed, and Kaiya politely responded, "Bless you Leah". I thought it was cute anyway.

The Whole World is a Stage

2009-06-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

I know the setting of this video is kind of odd, but it's the only place she will hold still long enough to film even a short movie. A few months ago, Kaiya started repeating the songs she has been hearing. At first it was just portion of them, but now there are several songs she knows all the way through. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, ABCs, Popcorn Popping, Once There was a Snow Man are some of the songs she sings all the way through now. She usually won't sing the whole song unless she's doing it for herself, but this filming site is the other location that seems to be her stage. We are super proud of how fast she is picking up new words and that for the most part she even knows what she is saying. Not Bad for a 25 month old.

Week in Review

2009-06-03T15:59:00.000-07:00

Today is Patrick's first day back at work after his 2 weeks off and home with us. Besides Kaiya not taking a nap and Leah having a few screaming bouts, it hasn't been too bad. Hopefully things will continue to go well. This week finally feels like we're getting out of the fogginess of having a newborn and resuming somewhat of normal life. At least sometimes. We took Leah to church Sunday for the first time. Here's a photo of the girls in their matching dresses:Too cute! I hope they don't hate me for it, but I like to dress them up to match. Leah did pretty well for her first time. But I remembered why heels aren't the greatest when you have to pace the hallways. We also tried giving the girls a bath together. We had only one incident, where Kaiya tried to help rinse Leah's hair by dumping a cup of water over her face, but besides that She was really good, and you can tell by the photo that Leah seems to like the bath just as much as Kaiya does. We took Leah to her two week checkup last week. She's gaining weight and doing great, but we were a little concerned that she was becoming very much like Kaiya was as a newborn. Kaiya began crying more and more every day and at about 3 1/2 weeks we knew she had colic. So we spoke with the doctor about that, and he suggested I eliminate dairy from my diet for 4 days, then on the fifth day start eating it again, and see what happens. So I did. Leah seemed really happy for those 4 days, and we thought maybe we were wrong and she was going to be fine. Then I went back on dairy the fifth day, and everything fell apart. It reminded me so much of Kaiya as a newborn. So we had a difficult day and I'm back off dairy. And now Leah seems fine again. Unfortunately for me, this means no ice cream or chocolate, not to mention all the rest of it, for some time. But it's definitely worth it to have a happy baby. Otherwise, Leah is getting bigger everyday and finally filling out her newborn clothes. Kaiya is (most of the time) liking her new role as a big sister, and Patrick and I are trying to function on less sleep. But we've survived the first 3 weeks!

More Leah

2009-05-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more pictures of the newest addition. She's already a week old! Also, the results for the baby game are in, and Laura Rasmussen is the winner!! Amazingly, she was only off by 2 hours on the birth day and time, and 3 ounces on the weight! Hopefully she'll be that close on guessing for her own baby! By the way, I can't believe I came in absolute last. So much for motherly instincts.

Leah Rachel Taylor

2009-05-14T11:07:00.000-07:00

She's here!! Our little Leah Rachel was born Monday morning at 5:48am. I started having contractions Sunday afternoon, and by dinner time I knew it was the real thing. I wanted to stay home as long as I could, so after washing dishes, sweeping the floor, picking up toys, and putting Kaiya to bed, we tried to relax a little and watch a DVD. I still didn't feel like I was ready to go to the hospital, so after a while we tried to go to sleep. I couldn't sleep at all, and at about midnight I decided we were definitely going to have to go to the hospital before morning. So I got up and started fixing Kaiya's food for the next day, since we were going to leave her with our neighbor, and we finished packing up and got ready to go. After our neighbor Nathalie came to stay with Kaiya, we started our 2 hour drive to the hospital. after a few bathroom stops and one very curious gas station attendant, we made it to the hospital around 3am. When we got there, I was only dilated to 3, but the contractions were coming really close together, so we were admitted. I didn't want to be hooked up to anything, but the nurse insisted I wear the fetal monitor and come back to the machine every 20 minutes to check it, so I wasn't able to walk around as freely as I had hoped. Patrick was so amazing during the whole labor. He rubbed my back during every contraction and helped me stay focused. After about 2 and a half hours the nurse came to check our progress, and said I was at about an 8. I was so relieved. I never thought during the labor that I couldn't do it anymore, but there were a few times I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it anymore. But once I heard how far along I already was I knew I could make it without any drugs. It was only a few minutes later that my water broke, and right away I needed to push. I told Patrick to go get the nurse, and when she came in she started yelling at me to stop pushing and wait for the doctor. I told her I couldn't help it and when another nurse came in to help she said "it's too late, she's crowning". So they flipped me over and the nurse delivered the baby as I lay sideways on the bed. It all happened really fast, but everything worked out great and the baby and I were totally fine. The doctor showed up about 15 minutes later, a little surprised that everything was overwith already. It was an amazing birth and this recovery has been so much better than it was the first time around. We're all home now and getting used to having a family of 4. Kaiya loves her little sister and wants to help out all the time. I realized when we were putting these pictures up that we don't even have a decent picture of the child yet, so more to come. But that's the good news for now!!

Monster Catch Up Post

2009-05-06T11:15:00.000-07:00

No, we haven't had the baby yet. There are still 9 days until the official due date, so we'll keep you posted. I have been wanting to blog for weeks, but haven't found the time to go down to the visitor's center to use the wi-fi, and when we thought we could blog at the computer center down here we found out we were wrong. Apparently, you can't use a USB drive on certain government computers, and we were blocked. We finally figured out a tricky way to do it, so here's our catch up of April: Kaiya's birthday, Patrick's new job, and Easter. The pictures are in backwards order, but it would take far too long to switch them, so use your imagination.

Kaiya turned 2 on the 18th of April!! I can't believe my baby is 2! It seems not that long ago when she was just learning to sit up and all that other baby stuff. She had a pretty good birthday, although plans had to be shifted many times and things didn't work out quite likeIhad planned. But she didn't really seem to notice. This giant giraffe was a gift from her Grandma Ginger. Kaiya has a love for Giraffes and has quite a few of them. The funny thing is, they all have names, well, labels really. We already had a "big raffie" (they are all called something raffie), so this one was deemed "big daddy raffie". She also got a baby raffie and a tiny raffie for her birthday.

Kaiya enjoying cake

She really wasn't sure about the candles. At first she didn't want anything to do with them, but then she wanted to touch the flame, so Patrick ended up blowing them out for her.

Remembering her love of balloons

The cake. We went with a jungle animal theme for the birthday, so I attempted a character cake. It's a lion in case you couldn't tell.

She really got into opening gifts this year. At Christmas, she still was not even interested in trying to tear open the paper. What a difference 4 months makes. And yes, that is the Elmo Live she is opening. If you were thinking about purchasing this toy for your child, please reconsider! Not kidding, it's not a very good toy. At least we got it for half off.

The birthday girl:)

Patrick had to work on Kai's birthday, so we decided to drive out to Scotty's Castle and go on his tour. It's really amazing and Patrick is a great tour guide! He was embarrassed because I took pictures of him, but of course I had to do it! The following are some of what I got.

Ginger came down for the birthday and met us at the castle for the tour.

Just starting out at the front of the house. He's in costume, by the way. He wears his regular ranger uniform when he's not giving tours.

Here's Easter, in random order. The first one is, obviously, the cake. I wanted to put Easter eggs on the top but, not thinking ahead, I colored all the frosting green.

She really is having fun hunting eggs. Classic Kaiya face.

Kaiya in her Easter dress

Examining the contents of the basket.

And the Easter morning shot. After waking up to an Easter basket, she was convinced that every morning she should be getting a present, and would ask where her present was upon waking each day. Having her Birthday the same week reinforced this idea with her, and it has taken a few weeks for her to realize that not every day is a present day.

Well, that's what we've been up to in the last few weeks. Other than that, we finally (at 36 weeks) found a doctor that we liked and are now driving to Las Vegas (a 5 hour roundtrip drive... with a 2 year old) every week for appointments. Needless to say, we are all anxiously awaiting this baby's birth!

Sand Dunes

2009-04-05T12:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we visited the sand dunes and let Kaiya play in the sand. It was really fun and amazing to see huge sand dunes out of nowhere. She loved walking around without shoes and trying to bury our feet. The sand was perfect this time of year, not too hot, but warm enough to play in. We're having a ton of fun exploring and figuring out all there is to do here.

A New Home

2009-04-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

We stacked all the boxes and bins in the dining room before we loaded them into the truck, and it seemed to be pretty fun for Kaiya to explore while it was there.

Patrick loading the truck. We stuffed it so full that there was no possible room for anything else, and a few things got left behind. So sad!

Here are some pictures from our move and the new house. I wanted to get some of the inside, but haven't done it yet (like so many other things), but here's the front of the house and the view from the patio. It's really amazing to look out so far and not see any other buildings. We are getting settled in the new house and really like it. Kaiya and I have been swimming nearly every day and she's found a new love. She cries every time we have to leave. But we're having fun with swimming and exploring while Patrick is gone 13 hours out of the day. He's also loving the new job. He's still in training this week, getting to know all about the park and creating his own tour, which he'll start giving next week. The pregnancy is still going great (thanks for asking!). I'll go see the new doctor in another week and we're really hoping we like him and everything is good, since we've got only 6 more weeks to go!

We Made It!

2009-03-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

We made it to Death Valley! We drove down Tuesday and Wednesday, and Kaiya was amazingly good on the drive. I expected screaming the whole way, but she was pretty content to play in the carseat, at least the first day. We moved in to our house, and I have been taking pictures to post, but forgot to load them on the computer, so next time. We don't have internet at home, but the visitor's center does WiFi for a few hours a day, so the blog lives! We also dont' have cell service, but got a landline instead. It's like we're living in the 1970s. So far we love it here. The house is great and the view is beautiful! More later with pictures when I can remember to load them!

A Cute Photo

2009-03-18T12:22:00.000-07:00

It's Kaiya's first pose! She'll often smile for the camera if I ask her to, but she never holds it long enough for me to actually get the picture. So here's her very first smiling pose.

In other news, things are getting crazy with the move. We are leaving here next Tuesday morning, and want to have everything packed by Monday. Patrick is working through Saturday, of course there's church on Sunday, and I have my very last appointment with my midwife Monday morning. So it's finally starting to feel like we've got to get things done! We're not sure if we'll have internet access once we get down there or not, so I'm hoping to do at least one more post before we leave... if I have time.

A Baby Shower!

2009-03-14T12:21:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went down to my mother in law's house for what I thought was a baby shower for my sister in law who just had her baby last month. She came to the house thinking that it was going to be a baby shower for me. As it turned out, it was a surprise baby shower for both of us! I didn't have a baby shower with Kaiya, since we were in Japan, and didn't expect one this time since it's our second time around and we are (most likely) having the same gender. So I was so excited when I found out. A lot of people came up from Carson (where we are all from), including my dear friend Angie Davis. I couldn't believe that people would drive all the way to Idaho for our baby shower, or that my mother in law Ginger would put all of it together for us. It was way more than I would have ever expected and so nice! We had a lot of fun with food, gifts, and a lot of people. Unfortunately, I was caught so off guard I didn't take any pictures! Luckily I was able to get some from Ginger. Here's a few pictures of the fun: A cute decoration:)
The only picture of me and Meghan (and baby Clayton)

Kaiya helped me open the gifts, and even got some herself! Ginger got a bunch of cute matching outfits for the girls. I'm so excited for them to wear them!

And lastly, we took a few belly shots while we were there. I have been such a slacker about taking any photos this pregnancy, so I wanted some cute ones for the baby's album. They didn't turn out great, but here are some of the better ones:

We tried to get a shot of Kaiya kissing the belly, but she wouldn't hold it long enough. This one is a semi-hug.
And the true belly shot at 30 weeks. I can't believe we have only 10 more weeks to go!

Messy Messy

2009-03-10T13:19:00.000-07:00

This is what happened the other day when I gave Kaiya peanut butter oatmeal and a fruit smoothie for breakfast. Have I mentioned that she's messy?

Happy News!!

2009-03-03T13:08:00.000-08:00

It's official! Patrick was offered and accepted a position at... Death Valley National Park!!

Patrick will be giving tours at Scotty's Castle. He starts March 30th, so we've only got a few weeks until the move!

Some people might be wondering why we are so excited to be going to Death Valley. For one, it's the largest National Park in the contiguous United States, so there will be a lot to do and see. But even more importantly, it's a permanent position. Most people who desire a career in the National Parks will have to start out doing seasonal 6 month positions for several years before they will be able to get a permanent one. For obvious reasons, moving every 6 months isn't really practical for us. So we feel so lucky and blessed that Patrick was able to get this job. The National Park Service is so much more competitive than we thought it was going to be. Some people think that you can just transfer to whatever Park you want to work at, but in reality there are only a few parks that offer permanent positions in Patrick's field (interpretation) each year. And there are usually several hundred applicants to each opening. The application packet is huge, including a seven page resume, all college transcripts, and essay questions about how well suited you are to the position. It is then mailed to a regional office, where it is ranked along with all of the other applicants and given a score from 0-100. If you score above 90, then it is forwarded on the the hiring official for the Park you applied at. It is then compared against the other applicants, and the hiring official will select 3 candidates to interview. She first calls the employer and current supervisor, and if she is still interested in you, you will get a call to schedule an interview. The interviews are by phone and normally last for about an hour. After doing all the interviews, the hiring official will usually select one from the three. But sometimes they decide not to hire anyone after all. It sounds simple, but the process usually takes about 3 months.

We have been waiting to hear on this job for 6 months. Patrick applied in September, was interviewed twice in November, we were told they would be hiring before the new year, and then in January, then February, and just when we had given up entirely on the job, Patrick received a call and an offer.

After so many months of applying for different positions and being uncertain about our future, we are both so excited and happy to finally know where we are going and that Patrick's career in the National Parks is becoming a reality. There will obviously be many challenges to living in Death Valley (the hottest, driest, lowest point in North America), but we are just looking forward to this opportunity and feeling grateful for it. And of course, we hope that many of our friends will come visit!

Valentine Fun

2009-02-20T14:43:00.000-08:00

I have been slacking on blogging lately, just like on everything else, but here are some pictures from our Valentine playgroup activity. We let the kids cut out sugar cookies and then helped them decorate. It was a lot of fun and not as messy as I had feared it would be. It made me want to try more creative things with Kaiya and not always be so worried about the mess.

Yoga

2009-02-12T19:34:00.000-08:00

I recently started doing my prenatal yoga DVD again. I was doing it during Kaiya's naps a few months ago, but these days by naptime I am usually ready for a nap myself. I don't like having the TV on while Kaiya is awake, but I figured I needed the exercise and it's mostly just music and slow movement, so it's probably not that bad. Kaiya is really good while I'm doing it and mostly just plays with her toys all around me. But I guess she has been paying more attention than I thought, because the other day I caught her in a position like this: I asked her what she was doing. She looked up at me and simply stated, "yoga". Now she goes around doing her "yoga" (which is basically her in any position putting one leg up in the air and shaking it) all day. It's so cute and so funny!

Welcome Baby Clayton!

2009-02-07T13:59:00.000-08:00

Congratulations Meghan and Jake!! Clayton Paul Rhodes was born February 6th at 3:45am. He was a whopping 8lbs 12oz! We went to see Meghan and the baby in the hospital yesterday evening. They are both doing well, and the baby is so cute! It was so fun to hold a newborn again. They are so light! Kaiya wasn't sure what to think of him, but overall, her impression seemed favorable. She kept trying to share her toys with him, and didn't seem jealous at all when Patrick or I held him. We are so happy to have a new nephew!

Amazingly Delicious

2009-02-04T13:05:00.000-08:00

This might just be one of the greatest chocolate chip cookie recipes ever. We made this last night and I had to share it on the blog because it's so good! The cookies turn out big, thick, and soft, and they are delicious! We made ours a little smaller than the recipe calls for, and we also added a little cinnamon just for fun. Try it out and you won't be disappointed!

INGREDIENTS
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS
1.) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
2.)Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3.)In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
4.)Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Our Texas Trip

2009-02-03T14:01:00.000-08:00

Do you ever procrastinate blogging something just because you know it's going to take forever to blog it? We got back from our Texas trip about a week ago, and we had a ton of fun and took a LOT of pictures. So I've been putting off posting about it on the blog because I knew it was going to take a while to load all the pictures and write about it. And I was right.... We decided to go to Texas in December (around the same time all the snow started to fall... coincidence?) and were so excited when we heard the weather was supposed to be in the 70°s all week while we were there. We were not disappointed. It was warm most of the week and we were able to get out and do a lot of things. It was so fun to see my family, and Kaiya had a good time, except for the occasional squabbles, playing with her cousin Miles. Here's a bunch of pictures of what we did:

We went to the Texas State aquarium in Corpus Christi one of the days we were there. It was a lot of fun to watch Kaiya and Miles watching the fish. Unfortunately, my favorite part of the aquarium, the otters, were sleeping, so we didn't get to watch them play.

We also got to go to the beach one day. We went to the Padre Island National Seashore, and we got in for free since Patrick is a National Parks employee (sweet connections). It was a little windy, but we loved watching Kaiya explore the sand. She liked to run out to the water's edge and then run back before it touched her feet. Unfortunately, her coordination still needs some work and she fell in once. After that she was a bit more cautious, but it was so fun to see her explore and play in a new environment.

She loved to grab two handfuls of sand and then give them to me. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she wouldn't be able to collect it all.

We also went to the Corpus Christi museum. They had so many interesting exhibits, including the reproductions of the Columbus ships, but the kids mostly just liked playing in the kids area, which was also incredible. We didn't get to look around as much as we would have liked, but it was still a worthwhile trip.

Patrick and I in front of one of the Columbus reproductions. We dress like that sometimes to go out.

My dad loved reading to the kids every morning.

We took the kids to the park a couple of times. Kaiya was so excited to get outside again that she never wanted to leave.

At the lake near my parent's house.

The last day we were there we went to San Antonio with my parents and did a lot of fun stuff. This is us at the Alamo. There are way too many people there to get any good pictures.

We also we to the safari zoo, where this ostrich attacked our car. This place is so cool; you drive through at like 5 mph, and you have a bag of food and toss it out at the animals as you drive by. They get really close (sometimes too close, as in the case of this ostrich). Kaiya loved it.

We also went to the Riverwalk, and had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. By the end of the day we were all tired, so the environment of this place was a bit much (thunderstorms every 30 minutes, animal sounds, a TON of people) but it was fun and we got this amazingly huge and delicious desert to celebrate my birthday.

We had so much fun in Texas and wish we could go there more often, especially in the winter!

A Little Patrick Humor...

2009-01-09T12:42:00.000-08:00

The other day Patrick and I were discussing my birthday. I told him that I didn't want him to buy anything, just make me something. I then said something about him making a fancy meal. He replied, "Hey, I never said fancy, can't I just build you a shelf or something?"

Later in the evening we saw an Olive Garden commercial, and started talking about how we had gone there last year for my birthday. Patrick said, "I know, I'll make... the money to take you there!" I love my husband.

Old Wives

2009-01-06T13:52:00.001-08:00

I thought it would be fun to compile a list of some of the Old Wive's Tales about gender prediction and see what their prediction for this baby would be. Here goes:

1.)If you carry out front, boy, if you carry wide, girl. Boy

2.)If you crave sweets, girl, meat or cheese, boy. Boy

3.)If you get uglier, girl (girls steal their mother's beauty). Boy (I did get much uglier with Kaiya, but luckily this time I've stayed the same ugly)

4.)Pregnancy acne, girl. Boy

5.)Dry hands, boy, soft hands, girl. Boy (although I think winter has something to do with it)

6.)More comfortable lying on the left side, boy, right side, girl. Girl

7.)Craving orange juice, girl. Girl

8.)Extreme nausea during the first trimester, girl. Boy

9.)Baby's heartbeat over 140, girl, under 140, boy. Girl

10.) If the baby's father gains weight with mom, boy, if not, girl. Girl

Looks like the Old Wives are predicting a boy this time. However, we had our ultrasound Monday, and the doctor is predicting a girl!! Take that Old Wives! Everything looked great with the baby, except that she is breech right now so it was really hard to see her. She was all curled up with her bottom down, so the tech told us she could only say that she couldn't see any boy parts. She gave us a 60% chance of having a girl. That's barely better than guessing. But then the Dr. came in and looked around at a few different angles, and said he was 99% sure it's a girl. But there was really no good view, so we are prepared for a possible surprise in the delivery room! Here's the photo we got, but like I said there were not really any good views, so this is the best they could do.

And here's one of the belly just shy of 22 weeks.

Since most of our friends are either expecting or have recently had babies, what did the Old Wives predict for you? Were they right (if you know yet)?

Happy New Year!

2009-01-06T13:17:00.000-08:00

Last year we started the tradition of having fondue on New Year's Eve. This year, I was too tired to do it New Year's Eve, so we had it New Year's Day. It was just the three of us, so we had a small spread, but it was fun and Kaiya loved her first experience with fondue.

Patrick showed her how it was done

She then took matters into her own hands...

Needless to say, it got messy. But it was fun!

Patrick's Birthday!!

2008-12-31T14:39:00.000-08:00

Patrick had December 25th and 26th off for Christmas, and his regular days off are Sunday and Monday, so we planned to stay in Nampa through the weekend. The only problem was that Patrick had to work Saturday, his birthday. So he drove back to Hagerman (a 2 hour drive) Friday night, since the snow was supposed to start falling again early Saturday morning. He made it home, worked Saturday, and then was supposed to drive back Saturday night for a dinner and of course birthday cake. He made it about half way, but the roads were so bad that he was sliding all over the place and once even slid into the median and got stuck. Luckily, he was able to get out and make it to a town with a motel, but that meant that he didn't make it home for the birthday dinner and cake I had spent all day making for him. Needless to say, it was not the best birthday for him. I was pretty sad too, but grateful that he was okay, and we saved the dinner and cake for the next day when he was able to make it back. So here are some pictures of Patrick's belated-by-one-day birthday:

(Finally) enjoying the birthday manicotti.

Here's Patrick's cake pre-Kaiya. He thought it would be fun to teach her to stick her fingers in the frosting and lick them off.

A video of her doing so...

And the cake post Kaiya.

Even though it was postponed, we had fun celebrating Patrick's 28th birthday and only hope that next year's event goes more smoothly!

Christmas Day

2008-12-31T13:56:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas was great (as Christmases usually are). Kaiya's still not to the wake up early-tear through presents-go crazy stage, so it was really relaxed and fun. We got her a slide (as mentioned in a previous post, she loves to slide, and now that it's winter and we can't go out, we thought she would enjoy one for inside). This is a video of her coming in to see it Christmas morning. I was hoping for an excited face, some talking, and smiles, but the video is actually sort of funny because there's none of that. You would think she had seen the thing a hundred times, but that's just how Kaiya reacts. It takes her a while to get excited. I assure you that now the slide is her favorite thing in the world.

Here's her sort of smiling once she had done it once or twice.

Kaiya got some animal crackers in her stocking and once she got those open, she was content for quite a while. It might have been her favorite present.

Here's Kaiya actually opening a present (this might have been the only one she did on her own)

And enjoying a wooden color puzzle we got her.

Patrick and I ended up getting each other the same DVD. We had purchased the Japanese version of Shall We Dance a few months ago and lost it. I guess we both thought we would like to have it again. The really funny thing was that we had wrapped them in the same paper and opened them at the same time too.

I was so excited to get this rain chain. They have them all over Japan and I loved them. Now we just need a house with a rain gutter. And to live somewhere where it rains.

This picture is funny because I tried all day to get pictures of her smiling and enjoying Christmas and was unsuccessful. A few hours later, she found the cat and couldn't stop smiling and giggling. Maybe next year we'll get her a cat.

This video is sideways (obviously. I totally forgot in the moment that I can't turn videos) but it's so cute! Kaiya got this bouncing tigger and likes to bounce along with him.

And finally, here's Kaiya wishing everyone a "Mewy Kimkink" and a goodnight too!

Christmas Eve

2008-12-31T13:27:00.000-08:00

Patrick had to work Christmas Eve, so we didn't get to Nampa until evening. We were lucky though that we made it just before the big snow storm hit. We did actually have a little party, but I forgot to take any pictures of it. I did, however, remember the camera when we opened gifts with Meghan and Jake before they went home that night.

Here's Kaiya with a very pregnant Meghan (her baby is due February 2nd) and her husband Jake.

Kaiya enjoyed playing Santa that night. She was so funny. She wasn't interested in what was inside the gifts, just delivering them.

Grandma helped Kaiya open her present

Kaiya got two new blankets Christmas Eve. She loved them and kept laying on them and saying, "soft, soft". After the festivities were over, she layed with her blankets under the Christmas tree and told me that the tree and ornaments were, "boofull" (beautiful). So cute.

First Braids

2008-12-23T13:38:00.000-08:00

Today was our first attempt at braiding Kaiya's hair. It's getting so long and shaggy that I've been trying to come up with new things to do with it. Hence the braids. She sat pretty still for it, better than I expected her to actually, and they stayed in pretty well until nap time. I think she looks pretty cute!

Winter Fun

2008-12-23T13:35:00.000-08:00

We got a lot of snow over the weekend, and yesterday decided to take Kaiya out to play in it. We wanted to build a snowman, but the snow wasn't wet enough, so it didn't stick together and we weren't able to. However, we did throw snow at one another and took a few pictures.

Kaiya trying to figure out what happened to her toy and Patrick making a snowball to throw at me.

These were the icicles Patrick took off the house.

Kaiya wasn't sure about snow. After all, it's wet and cold. What's to like? After a while, she started saying, "In. Kaiya. Window." Meaning that she would rather go inside and look at the snow out the window.Just some pictures of the yard, and the 4 foot icicles hanging off the house.

The bamboo is still green, but couldn't escape the snow.

Box Canyon

2008-12-18T17:25:00.000-08:00

We did this hike a couple of weeks ago (you might be able to tell by our lack of coats, hats, scarves, mittens, and SNOW) but I forgot to blog it until now. We had a really nice day and wanted to get out of the house. Patrick knew of this hike nearby into a really pretty canyon. I was a little skeptical about going in once we saw this sign, but after some persuading from Patrick we began our hike. It was definitely worth it. The hike was beautiful, even at this time of year, and it was really nice to get outside. Patrick packed Kaiya the whole time, and despite some minor protests she had a good time. Once we could see water that's all she cared about.
When we got to the bottom, this is what we saw. It was a beautiful waterfall and Kai was totally enchanted by it. She just sat and stared at it for a long time. It was so cute. We ate lunch at the bottom before going back up, which was much more work than going down. It was a fun day, and I wish the weather were warm enough now to do this again!

Proud Moment

2008-12-15T10:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Patrick went into the nursery to get Kaiya and they were in the middle of their lesson. They were talking about Joseph Smith, and the teachers were holding up a picture of him and asking the kids who it was. None of the kids knew, and then Kaiya's little voice piped up with, "Joe-yef" (Joseph). The teachers were really impressed, since Kai is the youngest one in the class, and of course we were so proud of her! We are really amazed at how much she is already learning and comprehending. What a smart little girl!

Do I have to pay for this?

2008-12-08T13:11:00.000-08:00

Since Kaiya was born in Japan, this is really my first experience dealing with OB visits in the US. Today we had a Dr. appointment. It's our second one. The first one with all the questions and the exam was taken care of by a PA, so this was our first time meeting one of the 5 doctors in the practice. We have to drive all the way to Twin Falls, which is about 45 minutes away. Then we sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes. Finally, it's my turn, and the nurse weighs me and takes my blood pressure. The doctor comes in, finds the baby's heartbeat, asks if I have any questions ( I don't), then tells me to schedule to come back in 4 weeks. So we leave. An hour of driving and waiting and 5 minutes of doctor time. So we left the office, and I couldn't help but ask myself, "Do I really have to pay for this?". Next time I think I should just call and say we're still alive and feeling fine, I'll save you 5 minutes of your time. Not to mention save myself $100.

Something I Love about Kaiya...

2008-12-04T12:20:00.000-08:00

Kaiya has this story called "There's a Wocket in my Pocket" by Dr. Seuss. It's just a silly rhyming story that we read sometimes before bed. The first few lines go something like this:

"Did you ever have a feeling there's a Zamp in the Lamp? Or a Nink in the sink?"

Whenever I read this to her, she always nods her little head in all seriousness like, "yes, I've definitely had that feeling". It's so funny and makes me laugh every time.

Why we love Daddies: Our Friday Night Camp-In

2008-11-29T14:02:00.000-08:00

Doesn't it seem like Daddies always do things that are more fun? I try to do fun things, but they just don't seem to compare. My fun things are outings, going to the park, or making play dough. Daddy fun things are always a little more extravagant. For example, last night Patrick decided we should set up the tent in our living room. Just for fun. When he suggests things like this, I tend to think mostly about the work it entails, while he thinks solely about the fun. So we attempted to set it up in our living room. It was a bust. Our tent is actually bigger than our living room. But that didn't stop Patrick. He then decided we ought to try to set it up in Kaiya's room. We had to move furniture around and it still barely fit, but we got it set up. Next we put Kaiya's playpen and an air mattress inside and we were all set. Kaiya played in it for a little while before it was time for dinner, bath, and bedtime. I thought she might be nervous about sleeping in a strange place, but she seemed to like it. She kept pointing at the walls inside and saying "tent" every two minutes. Very cute. She fell asleep and we went in when we were ready for bed, and we all slept in a tent. In Kaiya's room. And cleaning it all up this morning was a lot of work. But it was a lot of fun and we made a memory. That's why we love Daddies.

Thanksgiving Fun

2008-11-29T13:50:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2008-11-26T13:10:00.000-08:00

You Guessed it!

2008-11-21T13:07:00.000-08:00

Amazingly enough, everyone guessed correctly! We are pregnant again! Thanks for all of the congratulations and well wishes. So far this pregnancy has been SO different from my last. I have hardly been sick at all, just tired, I haven't fainted, I can eat pretty much whatever (except for a baked potato, yuck), and my baby belly has already appeared. The tentative due date is May 15th, and we are about 15 weeks along. So far, so good! We also want everyone to play our baby game, and guess the gender, due date, etc. It's really fun, so please guess if you haven't already! Just click on the yellow expectnet link on the right. We will continue to update you on any new developments, and in the meantime we'll be searching for the perfect name, waiting to find out baby's gender, and prepping Kaiya on becoming a big sister!

She's Not Always Serious...

2008-11-20T13:52:00.000-08:00

The other day Kaiya started making these crazy faces. We thought it was pretty funny, so we wanted to share them on the blog. Don't mind my incessant laughter; she wouldn't keep doing it if I stopped laughing at her. Turn the sound off if you must.

And just something Daddy has been teaching her...

We'll give you 3 guesses...

2008-11-14T14:18:00.000-08:00

1.)

2.)

3.) The newest edition to our sidebar (Click on the Expectnet link). Happy guessing!

Good Times in Hagerman

2008-11-13T20:52:00.000-08:00

With so little to do for fun in Hagerman we've been pressed into finding new things to do for fun. One activity is fishing. Did you know over 90% of the trout served in American restaraunts comes from the Hagerman Valley? Neither did we, probably because we rarely eat fish and when we do it's usually in sushi form. At any rate, because of all the hatcheries here, there is great fishing. I hadn't fished much in years but starting in fall I started going out about once a week with my buddy Dylan. Luckily he knows more than me about it so he can help out, but he's not obsessive about it so it's still fun. We certainly haven' t caught anything that will win any records, but it's still a fun weekly activity.

A Masterpiece

2008-11-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

We bought Kaiya some of those bathtub crayons and she's in love. They're actually really cool. They write really easily so she doesn't have to press hard (which can be a problem with regular crayons), she can write under water, and they wash off so easily. They are a great toy in the bathtub. One problem: she recently began sampling them as food. I thought taking them away once or twice when she did that would cure her, but to no avail. Does anyone have any suggestions for getting kids to NOT want to eat crayons?

Halloween Cupcake

2008-11-12T14:10:00.000-08:00

I made pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes for Halloween, and we decided to let Kaiya have one for her Halloween treat. She went to town on it! Doesn't she just look satisfied in that last picture?

The Costume

2008-11-12T13:58:00.000-08:00

By request:) here are some of the shots my mother in law took of Kaiya in her costume. You can see it a little better in these photos than in the ones I took. The first one is what I started with. I sewed it all by hand because sewing machines and I do not get along. Usually, I'll attempt to sew about once a year, and then remember why I don't like it, but this turned out to be a really fun project, and something I might even attempt again!

Halloween!

2008-11-01T14:36:00.000-07:00

Our Halloween was great this year. It was a lot of preparation and work, but it was really fun so I guess it's all worth it. On Thursday, we had our ward party, but before getting ready and going to that we carved our pumpkins from the pumpkin stand.

This picture is kind of scary, with me wielding a knife so close to Kaiya, but rest assured no harm was done.

Here's the end result with our little family of pumpkins. Patrick did his and Kaiya's.

Kaiya, checking out the pumpkins

This isn't a great picture, but I wanted to get the back of her costume so you could see the wings.

The costumed family on our way to the ward party. In case you couldn't tell, I am a bumblebee, Kaiya is a ladybug, and Patrick is a tattooed biker guy.

Here's Patrick and Kaiya at the ward party with their prizes for WINNING the nursery age and the adult costume contests. I was so excited about it. I made Kaiya's costume, so I was especially proud of the win. We almost lost to a cute kid in a poodle costume, but luckily, the ladybug won out. Some people in the ward had thought that Patrick wasn't wearing a costume, but was just some guy off the street in for the free food. I think many were relieved when he went up to be judged for the contest. I told Patrick that I was so excited that we were a family of winners and he said, "yeah, well, except you". If you know Patrick you know that's funny, not mean, but I thought it was hilarious and couldn't stop laughing.

I wish I had taken better pictures of Kaiya in her costume. It turned out so cute and I was so pleased with it. I am not very proficient in sewing, so it was definitely a project for me, but I really enjoyed doing it!

On Halloween day we had our friends Dylan and Cassey over for a mini Halloween party. That meant another day of baking and cooking and cleaning for me, but luckily Ginger, who was out for our ward Halloween party, stayed the night and played with Kaiya while I got things done in the morning. We had a good time with them too. We had a Halloween dinner, plenty of treats, and watched Hocus Pocus after Kaiya went to bed. Of course by the time they got to our house, I was exhausted from days of sewing, baking, cooking, decorating, and cleaning, so I didn't take one picture! I'm mad at myself now, but I guess it will have to live in our memories (and on our blog). Halloween was really fun this year. Now we just have to put all our decorations away and get ready for Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin Stand

2008-11-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday we had plans to go to a pumpkin patch with our playgroup. When we got there, I quickly observed that it was nothing more than a fruit stand with some pumpkins and gourds. Apparently, the other moms thought it was just as good. Oh well, we had fun once I got past the disappointment of not getting pictures of Kai in a real pumpkin patch this year. She ran around getting into mischief while I tried to force her to pose so I could get some good pictures for my scrapbook (and the blog, of course). Needless to say, I didn't get many good pictures and Kaiya caused some trouble. Here are some of the sort of okay pictures we got:

This is Kaiya when I tell her to smile for me. So cute!
This is Kaiya and her friend Amy trying to hug the fruit stand mascot.

Kaiya kept stealing apples from the buckets and here's a shot of her eating her loot. I think she took 4 or 5 and would carry them around, take a bite or two, then drop them. Luckily the lady who runs it was really nice and didn't even make us pay for them, although I offered.

Kaiya with her playmates Amy and Reid (still eating the apple)

She was so excited to see "pump-mm"s and kept running around pointing them out to me.

Kaiya picked out this pumpkin to be her very own. She carried it around for quite a while and was so excited to bring it home.

We enjoyed our day at the pumpkin stand, and I don't think Kaiya even noticed that it wasn't a patch.

Zoo

2008-10-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we took a trip to the Boise Zoo. It was Kaiya's first time at a zoo, and she liked it a lot. Here are a few pictures of what we saw:

Kaiya saw a Komodo Dragon and thought it was pretty interesting

At the penguin exhibit, they had a display of all the different kinds of penguins, and Kaiya went around to each one and gave it a kiss! It was so cute. We wanted to get a video, but by the time we thought of it, she was on her last one.

Kaiya wasn't sure about riding a giraffe.

This is what we came for. The Boise Zoo just got an African exhibit with giraffes, lions, and a zebra. We really wanted to show Kaiya a real live giraffe, since she loves stuffed ones so much. She watched it for a long time and was pretty interested, but I'm not sure she understood that this was what her beloved little stuffed animals are supposed to be.

We watched the lions for a long time. This one was sitting really close to us, and suddenly started stalking a squirrel that was running outside her cage. I had gone down to see if I could see the male lion, when this one got up and ran after the squirrel, then pounced up against the cage right in front of me! It was really like 3 feet away. It was so amazing! i felt sorry for the lion though. She'll never get that squirrel.

Here is a video of the gibbons. They make such a weird noise. The cutest thing was that Kaiya was imitating them while we watched, but of course we didn't get a video of that either.

She's Growing Up...

2008-10-26T18:16:00.000-07:00

Today was Kaiya's first day in nursery (sniff sniff). I sat in there with her the whole time and she did really well. It's a small class, and the other kids who were there today were all older, so they kind of just left her alone and she did her thing. She especially loved snack time, and ate more than any of the other kids I think. She was so quiet that at the end of the class the teachers asked me if she could talk yet! I know she'll open up more as she gets used to it, and she seemed to have a lot of fun. I just can't believe my baby is in nursery though! Time goes by too fast.

What Kaiya's Up to

2008-10-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

Not much has been happening around here, but I had a desire to blog and thought I should post a couple of the new and funny things Kaiya is doing. For the grandparents if no one else...

1.) She is becoming somewhat of a neat freak. She will walk around putting things away or handing them to me so that I put them away. She even cleans up after herself now on occasion. She still makes plenty of messes, but it seems like she's starting to appreciate order to things. I admit that I love it, except when she goes around the park or the grocery store picking up the trash and handing it to me.

2.) She loves Home Depot. We went there looking for a heater, and while Patrick was comparing and purchasing, I walked around with her while she ran up and down the aisles pointing at everything on her level and saying, "dat, dem, dat, dem". We had to drag her out of the store.

3.) She has discovered the joy of sliding. She used to hate it, then she would tolerate it, but recently she found that she loves it. We have a little one in the yard that she loves to go down over and over and over again. She can't quite climb up by herself yet though so that leaves me as the lifter and catcher. It's so fun to watch her laugh and smile as she comes down.

4.) Ever since we started watching the debates, she walks around the house saying, "Obama". She picked it up on her own while it was on. I guess her vote is decided.

5.) She can do errands. I can ask her to go get something for me and if she knows where it usually is kept, she can do it. The first time I discovered this was a few weeks ago. She was crying at the kitchen gate while I was making dinner, and I asked her to go get a bib from her room to give her something to do. I was amazed when she actually came back with a bib. Now I can send her to get things for me and she almost always can. She also likes to be a messenger for Patrick and I. Our house is so small we can obviously hear each other, but she takes it so seriously when we ask her to "go tell dad dinner's ready" or "go tell mom it's time to go". She's such a good little helper.

I'm sure I'll think of more things that I meant to write about after I finish this, but that's a pretty good picture of what Kaiya's doing right now. I hope you enjoyed it, even if you aren't a grandparent:)

Brrrrrr!!!

2008-10-11T14:53:00.001-07:00

I just want everyone to know that I'm cold. It's supposed to snow tonight where we live! That's outrageous. Okay, okay, you don't care.

Balanced Rock

2008-10-08T14:16:00.001-07:00

So I know we have been MIA on the blogging for the last few weeks, but here are a few of the things we've been up to lately.

In this post: Balanced Rock. Patrick somehow discovered this rock was out here, and we went to see it. We had heard it was "a little bit of a hike" to get out to it, but we didn't plan for a vertical climb. We were wearing our sandals (slippers, for all of you who have lived in Hawaii) and had to carry Kaiya the whole way. It was a bit treacherous, but we made it, and definitely enjoyed the view. This picture does not do the climb justice. It was scary at times!

The Balanced Rock itself. You can see Kai and I in the bottom right of the picture if you look hard. We thought it was going to be a little rock balanced on a bigger one, but this was huge!In all its glory.

A Family Visit

2008-10-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

Patrick's grandparents were here for Meghan's wedding a few weekends ago and decided to stop by our place before heading home. Patrick's uncle, aunt, and cousins came out for a while too, and we showed them the sites of the Hagerman Valley. We had a really good time with everyone and were so happy to be able to show them some of the fun things to do around here.

Here's all of us at Niagara Springs. The water just comes out of the rocks!

We went to a park with a creek running through it, and Patrick caught this crawdad!

Kaiya thought the water was a little cold.

But she did think it was pretty great for dipping your hands in upside down.

We also showed them Malad Gorge, a couple of local fruit stands, and we tried to see the alligator, but the place was closed. But we definitely enjoyed the visit!

A Kaiya Overload... If that's Possible

2008-09-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took a bunch of Kaiya videos because she has been doing some really cute things recently and I wanted to share. Enjoy!

These 2 videos are of Kaiya's new skill: winking! Or at least trying to. It's so cute, I had to share the videos.

This is Kaiya saying her body parts. She knows more than this, but the video was getting a little long. She's always really proud of herself when she tells you all of them, but you wouldn't know it by the complete nonchalant attitude she displays in this video.

This video is a collection of funny things Kai does. We love our little cutie!

Miracle Hot Springs

2008-09-13T10:20:00.001-07:00

We went to Miracle Hot Springs on Monday and it was so fun! We rented a private pool so it was just the three of us. Kaiya loved it and splashed and played. She kept saying "bap, bap" (bath), and I'm pretty sure she thought it was great that mommy and daddy could play with her in a huge bathtub. It was really fun to get out and do something different. And the hot spring truly was a miracle... it cleared up Kai's eczema immediately! Unfortunately, it came back, but she did have a few days of relief. I want to take some of the water home and put it in her bath!

Time Out for Couples

2008-09-10T14:20:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, Patrick and I attended Time Out for Couples in Boise. I have to say I was a little nervous that it would be sort of cheesy, and really nervous that Patrick would be rolling his eyes the whole time and that I would be paying for this for a while. But to my surprise, it was neither cheesy, nor did Patrick hate it. We both really enjoyed the whole evening. I guess I should back up a bit and explain what Time out for Couples is. I guess you could say it's kind of like a seminar for married couples. It's one night, three hours, of music and talks. I think there are different presenters at every city's event, but at ours there was one really good spiritual talk on marriage and families, given by Doug Brinley, and one really funny talk by Kim Nelson (a man) on the same subject. One of my favorite quotes from Kim Nelson was when he was talking about how men and women interpret things differently. He's talking about this and says, "Let me give you an example: am I insensitive, or emotionally consistent?" Another good one was, "Am I a couch potato, or just easily relaxed?" He was so funny. It was good to be able to laugh at some of the things that sometimes seem so unlaughable. The music was also really good. It was by Peter Breinholt. I had never heard of him before, but apparently he has a few CDs out and I may just have to get one. We had a really good time and felt renewed and uplifted at the end of the evening. If Time out for Couples comes anywhere near you, I would encourage you to look into it, and rest assured that it's not cheesy! Here's the link:

http://deseretbook.com/time-out/production?id=36

Kaiya's Tattoo

2008-09-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

The other day Patrick found a temporary tattoo in a box of stuff we were going through. He thought it would be really funny to put it on Kaiya. She seemed to like it when it was on the paper, but once it transferred to her little arm, she looked like this:

Apparently it was scary once it was on her. After a few minutes of calming down and reassuring her that it wouldn't hurt her, she began to like her new dragon friend. She even learned what a dragon says. If you've ever been curious about what a dragon says, watch this video and Kaiya will instruct you.

Peek-A-Boo

2008-09-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

Lately every time I go into the bathroom Kaiya does this:
...and waits for me to come out. It's so funny and I never cease to be surprised when I open the door and she's right there. She's also taken to carrying around these two giraffes and doing to them the things that she does throughout the day. She puts them "nigh-nigh", gives them drinks, pretends she's putting lotion on them, and yesterday she even tried to take them potty. Luckily I intervened before they got thrown into the toilet, and helped her pretend they were going potty with the lid safely closed. All in a day's work I suppose.

A Family Photo...

2008-09-01T09:54:00.000-07:00

Well, not really, but we thought it kind of looks like one. These are our National Parks friends. They were over the other night and we thought we should take a picture with them, since we as yet have no photographic evidence of our friendship. Cassey and Dylan (left) have been here almost as long as we have, and we became friends from the beginning. They came out to Idaho all the way from Tennessee. It's so nice to have friends in the area, especially friends who are also desperately seeking employment, as we are, so that we can complain and compare. Jason is a geologist and was only here for a few weeks, but we hung out with him a few times too and it was so interesting to see that these really are Patrick's kind of people. He gets along so well with the other National Park rangers and it has led me to believe that he really does belong there. So thanks for being our friends!

Any Ideas...?

2008-08-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

... For making toddler tooth brushing easier? Lately Kaiya will open her mouth for me to brush her teeth, but then she curls her little lips over her front teeth so I can't even get to them. If ever I get her to open so I can brush them, I will hardly have the toothbrush in her mouth before she turns her head and clamps it shut. We bought her a cute pink toothbrush and some of that toddler toothpaste in hopes that she would enjoy it more, and even try to let her do it herself for a little while before I start, but we haven't had much luck. I'm afraid her teeth are going to be rotten and she'll be one of those kids with all the silver front teeth. If anyone has any ideas on how to get your child to let you brush their teeth, PLEASE HELP!!

Lime Face

2008-08-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

Beautiful Lake Tahoe

2008-08-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from our trip to Lake Tahoe. We went with our friend Keri and two of her boys. One is the same age as Kaiya, so they had a lot of fun together. We had almost forgotten how beautiful Tahoe is!

Ancestry

2008-08-21T15:28:00.000-07:00

If anyone is interested in genealogy, I just thought that I would pass along that Ancestry.com is doing a free 14 day trial right now. This is great news because they have millions of records and are usually kind of expensive. You do have to put in your credit card info, but if you cancel the membership before the 2 weeks is up you won't be charged. Happy hunting!

http://www.ancestry.com

Anniversary

2008-08-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

We celebrated our fourth anniversary last week at the Boise Shakespeare festival. I already mentioned this in the last post, but I wanted to put up some pictures, and also say THANK YOU to Patrick for the last four years. They have been amazing, and I feel so lucky to have an eternity to look forward to with you. XOXOXO!!

This is us at the Shakespeare festival. We had a lot of fun eating Cheesecake Factory food and sitting in our lawn chairs waiting for the play to start.
Here's us on our wedding day in front of the Reno temple.
And a picture from our honeymoon in Las Vegas. Don't we look young? I'm feeling older just looking at these photos.

We're Back!

2008-08-20T08:45:00.000-07:00

We are finally home from our journey across the west. We had a ton of fun visiting friends and family, and Kaiya did so well even though we were travelling and spending nearly every night at a different place. Here's a rundown of the trip:

August 5th: Left home, visited Temple Square in Salt Lake, and spent the night with the Christley's, friends from BYUH, in Springville. I'm still mad at myself for forgetting to take any pictures with the Christleys.

August 6th: visited more friends from BYUH, the Greenleafs, and Patrick's old roommate James and his family.

Us and the Greenleafs

Patrick and Kaiya with his old roommate James and James' mom Sandy

August 7th: travelled to Delta, Utah, where we visited Patrick's great aunts and he toured the Topaz internment camp from WWII for work.

We didn't take any pictures with the aunts, but here's the post office in Leamington, Utah. I thought its size was so funny I had to get a picture.

August 8th: travelled to St. George, where our friends from BYUH, the Peltons, let us stay in their home while they were up north. Thank you so much! We went to the pre wedding celebration/birthday party for our good friend from Carson Mike Fontano.

August 9th: Attended the wedding and reception for Mike and Lianna Fontano (Congratulations!!) and travelled to Las Vegas where we stayed with more friends from BYUH, Josh and Stephanie Barney.

The "oops, I wasn't ready" picture (sorry guys, it was funny!)

The good picture

Us and the Barneys

August 10th: Left Las Vegas. Kaiya and I flew up to Reno where we visited my brother and grandmother, and Patrick drove to Manzanar, where he had to tour and do some research for work.

August 11th: Patrick drove up to Carson and joined us at my grandmother's house. Kaiya and I visited a good friend Angie Davis.

August 12th: We visited Patrick's grandparents and had a barbecue with his dad and sisters and their families.

August 13th: We spent the day at Tahoe with our friend Keri Lawson and two of her three boys. One was born on the same day as Kaiya, so it was so fun to watch them play. At night we had homemade ice cream with my grandma and brother and his family.

August 14th: Our fourth anniversary!! Kai and I flew to Boise and Patrick made the 7 hour drive by himself. Ginger babysat for us so we could go the the Boise Shakespeare festival and see Macbeth. More pictures to follow.

August 15th: We stayed at Ginger's house another night and she watched Kai again while Patrick took me shopping for an anniversary present.

August 16th: We returned home and unpacked... mostly.

August 17th: Dear friend Chelsea and her husband Derek stopped to spend a day with us on their way from Oregon to Utah. We had a ton of fun!

So as you can see we have been busy! It has been so fun to see people we don't get to visit with often enough and get out and do things. But it also feels nice to finally be home and getting back into the routine.

Patrick is famous

2008-08-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe not yet, but he was in the paper! There was a picture of him with the article in the Boise paper and the Twin Falls paper, but here's the story online if you're interested. It's about what he's doing for work. We were pretty excited about it!

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=5461039

Goats... The Sequel

2008-08-05T09:16:00.000-07:00

One of Evelyn's goats had quadruplets a week or so ago, and she wanted Kaiya to come over to see the new babies. So we once again braved the poop and visited the goats. The little goats in these pictures are only a week old! Kaiya was excited at first, but the following sequence of events may have ruined forever her love of goats after all:

Kai sees the baby goats

Kai begins to pet the baby goats

The baby goats jump on Kai and knock her down

Kai cries for Mommy to save her from the goats

Eventually she decided to teach the goats some manners by hitting them with a stick

We got to bottle feed the babies

It was really fun to see the babies and they were even cute (who knew a goat could be cute?)! They liked to jump up on us and also to nibble on our clothes. Nothing really happens in this video, but I wanted to show how loud the goats are. It sounds like they're screaming!

Sneaky

2008-08-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

The other day I caught Kaiya sneaking books into her crib. She always gets to take the book we read right before nap or bed time into the crib with her and look at it until she's ready to go to sleep. I guess she figured out that if she smuggles some books in before nap time she'll have more options or something. So she ended up with about 10 books in the crib before she got tired of it and left to play with something else. I decided to be sneaky too and remove most of the books when she wasn't looking. I let her keep a few so she felt like she had accomplished something, but I had to take most out so there would be room for her to sleep! So nap time came and we read our story. She seemed overly excited to finish the story and get in her crib, but when I carried her over and she saw that the books were gone, you could see the disappointment in her little face. I felt bad, but she was fine after a minute. Every day since she has continued to put books in her crib, and I am continually taking them back out. I wonder if she hopes that one day they will all still be there when nap time comes around...

Something New

2008-07-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

Kaiya's Grandma brought this over for her yesterday. She was pretty excited to have something new to do outside. Thank you grandma Ginger for the new toy!

Is this MY daughter??

2008-07-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

Fun, yet Terrifying...

2008-07-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

When Patrick started doing this with Kaiya the other day, I was terrified. But Kaiya's excited plea for "more!" at the end of the video says clearly how she feels about it. Needless to say, I was outvoted two to one and the terror continues.

Kaiya's Animal Sounds

2008-07-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

Kaiya is starting to learn animal sounds. You can hardly hear her "sssss" for the snake and her panting for the dog over our extremely loud air conditioner, but she does them so cutely. We aren't sure why she thinks a cat laughs; maybe because she makes that sound when she sees a cat. We have some cows that live across the street and she moos at them every day and they even moo back at her sometimes. She loves animals and loves to make the sounds, but I do wonder, does mommy really say, "ahhhhhh"? I better work on that.

Twin Falls Temple

2008-07-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday we visited the Twin Falls Temple for the open house. The temple is so beautiful! It was a really nice feeling to be able to tour it with Kaiya. She wanted to explore a little more than we wanted to let her, but overall she was really good. The open house runs until the 16th of August and then the temple opens at the end of August.

Sleeping Beauty...

2008-07-14T15:45:00.000-07:00

Flag Cake

2008-07-14T15:38:00.000-07:00

Patrick and I made this cake for a ward dinner last Friday. I saw a picture of it somewhere a few years back and have wanted to make it ever since, but was never able to for one reason or another. This year, since Patrick was gone for the fourth of July, I thought I would have to postpone my cake dreams for yet another year, but happily the ward was having a fourth of July/Pioneer Day celebration last weekend. We made the cake and I think it turned out pretty cute, thus the blogging of it.

So Lazy...

2008-07-07T11:00:00.001-07:00

Patrick is in Denver for a conference on Japanese Americans. He has been gone for five days. He won't be home until tomorrow afternoon. Today I feel so lazy. I feel like what's the point of doing all the normal housework stuff if nobody is coming home to notice. Don't worry, I'm still living in the land of laundry, dishes, and picking up toys, but I'm having to force myself to do it way more than normal. Good thing Patrick comes home tomorrow, because I need to get out of this laziness funk. Plus, I kind of miss the guy. Okay, I really really really miss the guy.

Happy Birthday, America!

2008-07-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

Kaiya's first experience with corn on the cob

Watching the parade

This was so funny. Apparently anyone who owns a car from the 1980s or older can be in the Middleton parade, because that's mostly what we saw. But this beauty of a car was trying to keep up with the others by reving the engine and such things, and totally stalled right in front of us. They couldn't even get it started again, so they had the truck in front of them give them a tow. This picture is them hooking their car to the truck in front. We had a good laugh about it.

For the fourth of July, Kaiya and I went to Nampa to spend the holiday with Ginger, Meghan, and some of the Larsens. We had a great time and Kaiya loved every minute of it. She loves her Grandma so much so she was so excited to be at her house again, and she didn't seem to remember much from when we lived there, so it was all new and exciting to her. And since the house is no longer baby proof, it was fun for me too to chase her around and redirect her from all the fun things she found to play with (like the dog food). In the morning we went to a parade, then in the evening we had a barbecue and once it got dark we set off fireworks (along with the rest of the neighborhood) in the front yard. Kaiya wasn't able to stay up for the firework show, so we did a few while it was still light so she could see them. I thought she would be scared, but she seemed to enjoy the lights, and none of them were too loud so she did fine. Once I put her to bed I was sure she would wake up during the fireworks because it was so loud, but she slept right through it all. I was so amazed. Normally this girl wakes up to whispering. She must have been really tired from the day's festivities. We had a really great holiday, even though Patrick wasn't able to be with us. Thanks for inviting us Ginger!

Goats!

2008-07-01T12:53:00.001-07:00

We now know that Kaiya was meant to be a farm girl. Unfortunately for her, her parents were not. I guess she'll have to wait until later in life to realize that goal. A lady that Patrick works with breeds goats, and she let us bring Kaiya out on Saturday to see them. Kaiya was totally at home and not even a little bit aprehensive. She would run toward the goats trying to pet them and they would run away from her. It was so funny. She probably could have stayed there all day hanging out with the goats, but once she discovered goat poop, and that it was absolutely everywhere, we knew it was time to go.

Patrick put Kaiya up on this horse and she was thrilled! She didn't even want to get off. We asked her a few times if she was ready to get down and she kept shaking her head and holding on. By the way, Patrick is holding on to her in this picture. He wanted to make it look like she was up there all by herself so he's hiding behind the horse. Just so you know we aren't neglectful parents.

A visit

2008-06-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

My sister Sarah and her son Miles came to visit us about 2 weeks ago, and I realized I hadn't blogged it yet. We had a great time visiting, and the kids had a great time playing, fighting, and learning each other's mischievous habits. Unfortunately I don't have anymore pictures because my camera BROKE during the visit. It took us a while to find the old camera so we were photoless for a while. While they were here we got the kids' portraits taken together (same time we got Kaiya's done). It was funny watching the photographer try to keep them posed and trying to get any possible good shots of them. I don't have any of the finished product, but the middle picture is a shot we took of them at the shoot. It was so fun having them here and we miss them already! (Seriously, Kaiya still goes around saying "Ra-rah" (Sarah) all the time).

Yuck!

2008-06-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

I was peed on today... twice. The first happened when I was taking Kaiya's diaper off to sit her on the potty after her nap. She was standing right next to me and holding on, and before I got her on the potty I noticed my leg felt very warm. I then set her on the potty, trying not to freak out so I wouldn't freak her out. A few minutes later with a clap of the hands she said she was done so I lifted her off. She decided to give me a hug, and lo and behold I felt the warm sensation again! It's a good thing we love our kids, becuase sometimes they are really disgusting.

It's (finally) Summer!

2008-06-20T15:16:00.000-07:00

We have been enjoying the newly warm weather for the past week. I wanted to post all of these events individually, but all of the sudden I had more to post than I had time for, so here are some of the highlights:

We visited the fish hatchery last weekend. It wasn't all that exciting, but the fish get huge! Apparently they used to grow to over 1500 pounds before they dammed the river and started a canal system. I tried to post a link to a picture of this famous sturgeon, but I can't seem to figure out how. Maybe if I figure it out later I will, otherwise, if you're interested do a google image search for "snake river sturgeon" and it's the second picture.

Kaiya played in the sprinklers one day. They were just on when we got home and she stood in the mist for a while and decided she liked it. She didn't want to get too close, but it was so cute watching her reaction to this new sensation.

Another day We got out Kaiya's wading pool and let her play. I had forgotten to fill it up earlier so the water would be warm, so it was pretty cold when I put her in. She sat down at first but then decided it was way too cold and that she'd much rather stand and play. She had a good time throwing the toys out of the pool and then climbing out to throw them back in. It's great that she's entertained by such small things.

The other day Patrick purchased a tent, so we decided to have a front yard campout. Some of you may be thinking, "but you hate camping". Well, this is true, but I have decided to give camping a second chance. So we slept out in the yard, and despite Kaiya going to bed nearly 2 hours late, she did really well falling asleep. The problem was that it got colder than we had anticipated during the night, so if you moved at all from your warm spot you could feel the chill, and she kept waking up about every half hour crying, then would fall back to sleep. But of course Patrick and I couldn't fall back to sleep quite as quickly. So at around 5 we decided to come back inside and get at least 2 hours of continuous sleep. It was kind of a fun experience, but due to the exhaustion felt the next day, an experience that I hope to enjoy only seldomly. But we're really excited that summer is upon us and that we can do so many new activities with Kaiya!

Thank You!

2008-06-14T15:46:00.000-07:00

Patrick's grandma made this beautiful quilt for Kaiya. His mom also helped and got all the material. It's a quilt of kimonos (in case you couldn't tell) and we love it so much! Kaiya likes to walk on it and look at all the different patterns. Thank you Marta and Ginger!

Portrait Day

2008-06-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

We finally decided to get Kaiya's portraits done, and despite the fact that they had to take 10 shots to get 2 good ones, they turned out pretty well. We got them at Kiddie Kandids and they did an awesome job. Kaiya's not much of a smiler for props, so we were worried that we wouldn't get any good ones, but we ended up with three good shots and in two she was even smiling. This is our favorite.

Alphabet Tag

2008-06-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm a nerd, but I always want to do these tag things because they look like fun. So thanks Keri for "tagging" me. Here we go:

A. ATTACHED OR SINGLE? Attached to a wonderful husband and sweet little girl
B. BEST FRIEND? Patrick:)
C. CAKE OR PIE? Cake, but not too much frosting
D. DAY OF CHOICE? Sunday. It's usually hectic, but I always feel good on Sundays.
E. ESSENTIAL ITEMS? Chapstick, lotion, water. I dehydrate quickly.
F. FAVORITE COLORS? White
G. GUMMY BEARS OR WORMS? Bears. Anyone who knows my inner workings will know why
H. HOMETOWN? Carson City, Nevada
I. INDULGENCE? Soft pretzels and ice cream... not together
J. JANUARY OR JULY? January! It's my birthday month:)
K. KIDS? The one and only Kaiya Belle
L. LIFE ISN'T COMPLETE WITHOUT? Family, the gospel, sweets, and a little chaos
M. MARRIAGE DATE? August 14, 2004
N. NUMBER OF BROTHERS AND SISTERS? 1 older brother and one older sister
O. ORANGES OR APPLES? Apples, Fuji apples to be exact
P. PHOBIAS OR FEARS? This goes back to question G. I had to pick bears becuase the other is a phobia... the real kind of phobia where complete terror overtakes me. If you care about me at all, never mention or come near me with one of those.
Q. QUOTE? I often see quotes I like, but can never remember them five minutes later
R. REASON TO SMILE? My daughter can make me smile 100 times a day, probably more. She's just so cute!
S. SUPERMAN OR WONDER WOMAN? Neither, not a super hero fan.
T. TAG 5 PEOPLE Okay guys, here we go... Stephanie, Elena, Ashley, Noelle, and Amy
U. UNKNOWN FACT ABOUT ME: When I was in my first trimester with Kaiya, I wore a surgical mask to wash dishes. Kitchen smells made me so sick!
V. VEGETABLES? Love them!
W. WORST HABIT? Wasting time on the internet...
X. X-RAY OR ULTRASOUND? Ultrasound... you get to see your little one before she's born:)
Y. YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? chicken pot pie
Z. ZODIAC SIGN? Aquarius, but I'm not into that kind of thing and don't know anything about it.

My FHE Board

2008-05-29T09:44:00.000-07:00

I made this to keep track of what we are doing each week for Family Home Evening, and I kind of like it. I know I shouldn't be proud of it because it's not that great, but it's kind of cute and fun. I wanted to make one of those fancy ones with a board and pegs and cute little hearts with everyone's name on it, but I ran into a problem when I remembered I am definitely not a woodworker. I couldn't have made it look cute. So I used what I had (scrapbooking stuff, of course) and I think it turned out okay.

Fossil Day!

2008-05-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the annual Hagerman Fossil Day. If you didn't know, and I'm almost sure you didn't, Hagerman is somewhat famous for its horse fossils. Patrick knows more about it than I do, but apparently there were some zebra-like horses around here a long long time ago. Now the National Parks has an office here and a dig site, and new horse fossils are found all the time. Who knew? So in honor of the horse fossils, Hagerman hosts a Fossil Day each year, and this year we were lucky enough to be present for it. Patrick was even lucky enough to be in the parade. Here are some randome pictures from our day:
Here is the Hagerman Horse itself. This is a replica of the real thing, but the horse is the state fossil of Idaho.
Here's Kaiya being cute and watching the parade. It was a perfect speed for her and she was so good the whole time. She just sat quietly and watched. We need more parades.
This one is a mastadon head, which was apparently also found somewhere around here... I think.
Here's Patrick on the National Park float. They were the only one in the parade with a float. The inflatable zebra like thing on the back is what the Hagerman horse was supposed to have looked like (if it were inflatable).
Patrick's float from the back.
Here's the car Patrick gets to drive for work. Yes, that is the Hagerman horse fossil painted on the side.
I took this picture of Patrick in his National Parks uniform the first time he wore it. It's been his dream to work in the Parks since before I've known him, so it's exciting that he is finally getting to realize that dream.
These are the shriners in their little cars. Kaiya loved that.
This is indicative of the kinds of things we saw in the parade. Like I said, Patrick's was the only float, so it was mostly vehicles driving by, people on horses, and people walking their dogs. All in all, though, it was a really fun day.

Small Town, USA

2008-05-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

We are now living in Hagerman, Idaho, population 656; make that 659 as of two weeks ago. So far we really like the town and the people are really friendly and nice (except for the person who decided to throw eggs at our car this morning... you will pay!) Here are a few interesting things we've seen so far during our stay in Hagerman:

The size of the police station is pretty funny. Patrick said they only have one police officer on duty at a time, so if you need anything at the police station you have to schedule it so they can be there.
This must be a joke.

Anyone need a "varmint gun"? Notice the "hunting supplies and discount carpet" sign in the background.

The size of the public library actually made me laugh out loud. We haven't been inside yet, so I can't say what they do have, but I guess at least they have something.

The world's first RV maybe?