I can't believe that Kaley is three years old already!!!  She is such a blessing in our lives.  I go to bed every night thinking how blessed I am to have her.  She is so smart, funny and cute!  We love her more than words can express!

She had a very fun and busy birthday this year and she loved every minute!  In the weeks leading up to her birthday I would ask her what she might want and she would always answer "candles."  All she wanted was to blow out candles.  It was so cute and so innocent.  So I decided that on her birthday I would put candles in her meals during the day.  It was fun to see how excited she was when she got to blow out the candles.  On her birthday I took her to the store so that she could pick out a little present and she picked bubbles.  She had a blast with those all day.  The next day we celebrated her birthday with my dad, who came up from Las Vegas, and my grandpa.  We had a good time and it was good to see them.  If that wasn't enough celebrating already, the day after seeing my dad, we had a big family party with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins.  She had a blast and was so excited to see everyone.  She is so lucky to have so many people that love her and we were so grateful to everyone who came!

Let's Go Fly A Kite!

Here is Kaley with her new kite.  It was so funny to watch her try to hold it without it dragging her along. 

It was a perfect day to fly a kite!

I thought this was a cool picture.

Kaley wanted so badly to fly her kite by herself.  She is obviously too little to really fly it, but she kept trying and trying.  (Richard would throw the kite in the air and it would float for a couple of seconds.  She loved it)!

These are just a few cute pictures of the kids that I couldn't pass up...

For a while, Tyler would smile so big that his eyes would close.  It looks like he's laughing but he is just smiling.  It was so funny!

Kaley came and sat next to Tyler and this is what he did.  It was so precious!!!

They love giving each other hugs!

Valentine's Day

The week of Valentine's Day I decided to try some heart hair-dos on Kaley that I got from the "She Does Hair" blog.  I think they turned out pretty cute and I thought I would share.

I need to put the point of this one down further next time, but I think you can still tell what it was.  :-)

  It was fun to get little gifts for everyone and to be together on this day of love with those I love very much!

For dessert we had chocolate bowls with ice cream and chocolate covered strawberries.  I saw the idea for the bowls a few days before and decided to try it.  I think they turned out alright for a first try.  They sure tasted great!  :-)

Happy Valentines Day!

We're Back

I have been the worst blogger lately.  There has been a lot going on and we have been pretty busy, but things have settled down so I will be playing catch-up.  We moved the day after Thanksgiving and moving proved to be very hectic.  We love it here and are glad to be settled in.  The people are so nice, there is a lot to do, and everything you could imagine is close.  Richard's commute is a lot shorter (which is very nice for both of us) and we can visit him at work now so we get to see him more.  We have had a lot of fun these last few months so I apologize for the number of posts, but these are things that I want to remember.  They are posted by the date of the event and they start on Nov. 9, 2008.  I hope to be posting a little each day until everything is caught up.  So, for those who are interested and/or have the time---Enjoy!

A Night On The Town!

Every time we would visit Richard at work we would see the Trax trains go by.  Kaley would get so excited and ask if she could ride it.  So we decided to have a night on the town and it was a blast!!!

All bundled up in the lobby of Richard's building ready to ride the train!

Kaley loved riding the "train!"  

We took the short train ride from Richard's work to The Gateway.  It was very pretty with all the lights.  In the courtyard area they have water fountains and they were programmed to spray with the different music they had playing (like a mini Belagio) and it was fun to watch! 

I thought Richard did a good job with this picture!  I really like it!  :-)

Right by the fountains there was a fire-pit which I thought was pretty cool.  It kept you fairly warm when you stood next to it which was nice because it was F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G outside!!!

We had dinner, watched some people rock climbing in one of the stores, and just enjoyed being together.  It was definitely a fun night!

Mini Photoshoot

I started taking these pictures because Tyler was finally able to get his foot into his mouth.  That may not seem like much, but he had been trying and trying for a long time.  (It may have been harder for him due to the fact that he is a butterball.) :-)  He thought it was pretty neat though and it made for some cute pictures!  

He is so precious!!!

I have been experimenting with black and white so these next two are similar but I love them both.

The Kids

Kaley absolutely loves Tyler!  She is always helping him and making sure he's ok.  She loves to give him hugs and he loves it!  Lately he has started hugging her back and it is the sweetest thing to watch!  

Tyler loves his big sister too!!!  He could watch her all day!  They are so cute together!

(They are definitely brother and sister!)  :-)

Tyler also loves to hair!  ;-)

Ringing in the New Year!

Happy New Year!!!  We had fun playing games with lots of food and all with friends and family! 

Kim and Bryan were there!  Always love when they visit!

Tyler didn't stay up to ring in the new year (of course), but Kaley made it and so she was able to celebrate with us.  This is Kaley modeling all the streamers from the poppers that we did.

My mom and her husband Dick came too.  I have gone to my mom's house every year, but this year they came to ours.  It was great to have them.

Christmas!!!

This year was so much fun because Kaley is old enough to understand and get excited for Christmas.  It was so cute to see the excitement and anticipation.  She set out cookies for Santa and since we didn't have any carrots we set out lettuce for the reindeer.  She colored a picture for Santa and across the top she wrote her letter.  :-)  Christmas morning came and she was so excited when she saw that Santa and the Reindeer had eaten the treats and took her letter.  She got what she wanted (a toy kitchen) and loved opening presents.  Celebrating Christmas through the eyes of a child makes it so special!  

We do what many people do on Christmas Eve...

We open pajamas!

This is Kaley on Christmas day playing dress-up with the gifts from Grammy.

Tyler learned how to sit up on Christmas day!  Merry Christmas to Mom!!! :-)

Cookies for Santa!

So this year I decided it would be fun to have Kaley make some cookies for Santa now that she is old enough to help.  Since she is allergic to eggs, making cookies doesn't really happen that often, but I found a recipe for "Melt in Your Mouth Butter Cookies"(with no eggs) and they turned out to be quite good.  I wasn't sure if she would like making cookies or that she would stay with it the whole time, but it turned out that she LOVED it!!! Much more than I thought she would and she was so excited the whole time!  Every couple of minutes she would go over to the oven and ask if they were done.  This is something that we may have to start doing every year.  

This is the best part!!!  YUM!

She loved frosting the cookies and she was actually pretty good at it for being two years old.

Having fun!

This was the finished product.  (I helped frost some too.)

And of course you've got to see how they turned out!  :-)

Milestone

Tyler started solids today.  It was a huge success!  He loved the cereal.  He is a good eater which is very nice.

"Timber!!!"

Tyler likes to lay by the tree.  He likes looking at the lights and likes to try to reach the ornaments.  Well, while I was in the kitchen I guess he had scooted himself over (which I didn't know he could do) just enough to barely reach the bottom row of lights and pulled.  When I looked up, I saw this...

Yikes!!!  He had pulled hard enough to make it lean like this.  To this day, I still have no idea how he was strong enough to do that or how it tipped.  Luckily, it didn't fall completely over.  :-P 

We couldn't get it to stand straight in the stand after that so we had to anchor it to the wall.  :-)