The End of 2010

It has been quite a long time since I updated the blog.  To me it is amazing how busy we have been, and how few of pictures we have taken.  Since my last update Lucy turned 2, and had a wonderful birthday party.  We also celebrated Halloween as an 80's couple, Belle princess, and a fairy.  We got to go trick-or-treating over at Auntie Mandy and Uncie Todd's house which was a lot of fun.  They let us walk around their neighborhood, and we also got to help pass out candy.  (Avery loved being in charge of the candy.)

Pictures of Lucy's Party and Halloween

After Halloween we went to Washington to celebrate Thanksgiving with my Dad's side of the family.  We had a lot of fun playing with everyone up there, and even got some good pictures of Papa playing Uno with the girls, and Nanny making a backpack out of a shopping bag since she didn't have two.

Next came Thanksgiving with both of our families.  This year Jason, Carley, and Cody came up and the girls had so much fun playing with him.  We really enjoy when they come and love playing with them.

Finally came all of the Christmas fun.  First we started off by going to the Singing Christmas Tree which was a great way to start off the Christmas season.  We went out and got a Christmas tree with the girls and searched all over the tree farm until we found the right one.  Next we went to the Grotto and got to see all of the Christmas light there.  Lucy is my child who is never to sure about petting animals, but she petted the bunny at the grotto.  Then we got to celebrate four Christmas' with one at home, and then one at both of our parents, and then one with all of Brett's extended family.

Pictures and Videos of Christmas

We hope that you are all doing well and enjoyed your Christmas.  Hopefully with this next year I will find a little more time to do the blog, but it might have to wait until Spring Break since that is when the next break in school is.  We love you all and are so glad to share our lives with you.

Random Pictures and Videos from the last 3 months

Pictures that Avery has taken (with permission) from my camera

The Summer has Ended

It is now September which means back to school we go. We had a lot of fun at the end of the summer and tried to cram in as much excitement as possible. One weekend we went camping at the coast, then we drove down to Oceanside, CA, Avery had her birthday ice cream date with Auntie Mandy and Uncie Todd, and finally my cousins came up from Brazil to visit. We had lots of fun doing all of these things.
For the coast we went over to Florence to test out my parents new trailer that they bought this summer. It was a lot of fun getting to break it in and play on the sand. We stayed for two days and got to play on the sand a lot. Avery even got to try to fly a kite, but it wasn't really windy to it didn't go as well as expected. Overall I think that we had a great trip breaking the trailer in and are looking forward to more trips in it.
Florence Pictures

Here we come Oceanside. We took Tamma and Grandpa with us and drove all the way down there. It took about 15 hours to get down there, but we spread that over two days. By the time we got down there we all wanted out of the car. Down there we got to play on the beach, walk on the pier, and enjoy the sun. We also spent one day at Sea World. Lucy and Avery loved it, and we had a blast there for the day. Brett and I also got to go to dinner one night to celebrate our 6th Anniversary. We tried a place in La Jolla, and got to drive down Hwy. 1 to get there. The food was great, and we really enjoyed our date night down there (Thank you Tamma and Grandpa). On our way back we stopped at Concord for the night and got to tour the Jelly Belly factor. We had a lot of fun there seeing how jellybelly's are made.
Oceanside Pictures

Avery also got to go celebrate her birthday by having ice cream with Uncie Todd and Auntie Mandy. This year she got to dress up like her favorite princess, and they dressed up as the King and Queen. I am not sure who had more fun. Them coming up with their outfits or her getting dressed up.
Ice Cream Pictures

Finally right before school started my cousin and his family came to visit. It was really great to get to meet his kids and watch them play with Avery and Lucy.

Hope you are all enjoying your first week in September.  We have been busy with back to school things.  I have excepted a full time sub job through December with Centennial School District teaching 8th grade math, and helping coach a cute little soccer team.  Brett now has the priviledge of having the girls all to himself on Friday's.  This last one they went to the zoo and had a great time.  The girls are back at the daycare they were at last year, and are so excited to be going there every day.  We hope that you are all well and pray that you all enjoy your time as the summer ends and Fall comes.

End of July

Over the last couple of weeks we have had a lot of fun going to the zoo, swimming lessons, and hanging out with family. We also spent sometime writing on our chalkboard wall. Hopefully you can tell the difference between my handwriting and Avery's, but she wrote everything that I wrote. We only practiced our A's and 1-5.














Right now we are loving to learn to write, and our imagination is growing a lot. We were at the doctors office for her 4 year old check up and she decided that she was on the mountian, the white sheet was snow, the top of the table was grass, she was wearing a snow suit, and she kept telling Lucy to let go of the string because she was holding ice with her bear hands. I love trying to figure out what is going on in the world, because you never quite know where you are. (fo














For those of you who want to know Avery is 40.25 in. tall and weighs 32.5 lbs, and just like every four year old.

We have also been doing swimming lessons for the last two weeks, and the girls are doing very good. Avery is learning to do back floats by herself and bobs, which some of you know is a huge deal. Until this time Avery has never wanted to put her face in the water. Lucy also has done really good the last couple of nights playing with her teacher. Before this she would cling to Brett and I whenever her teacher looked at her.

Hope that you all had a great July and are looking forward to the many adventures in August.

End of July Pictures

Swimming Lessons Pictures

Happy 4th Birthday Avery!!!!

Over these last couple of weeks it feels like a lot of things have been going on, but it has been so much fun. We started off our crazy weeks by going to Seaside to my cousin's wedding. (For those of you that think you might get to see pictures from their wedding before them you are sadly mistaken. I only put up one because I thought they should get to see them first.)

Seaside

Then when we got back from Seaside we had one day before we left to go camping. This year we went to Cove Palisades with Grandma and Grandpa Kimball, Grandma Murray, Mema, Tamma, Grandpa, Nana, Papa, Doug and Sally (Auntie Heather's Parents), Uncle Robyn, Aunt Heather, Annika, Jenna, Auntie Mandy, and Uncie Todd. It was a lot of fun camping with them and we had a great time at the lake.

Cove

We got back on Monday and have been waiting for today to come. Last night as Avery was going to bed she told me she was ready to turn 4 because it has been a very long time that she has been 3. Today she got extra marshmallows in her hot chocolate for breakfast. Then we spent the day at the zoo with Auntie Julia. Finally we went to McDonald's for lunch and she got to have her very own Happy Meal. Tonight we will see what her birthday holds, but for now we have set the bar high for future birthdays to come. I hope you are all enjoying your day as much as we are enjoying ours.






























Avery went down the big slide for the first time today because "4 year olds can do that."

First Week of Summer

This past week we have been getting ready for this next week, but I thought I would post a few pictures before we leave for more family fun. There are just a couple of pictures that I have of the girls playing around the house, but I want you to get to enjoy them.

Brett was working out, and Avery thought she would join him and do jumping jacks. It is my favorite thing to watch because she is positive that she is the best at jumping jacks.



Also as many of you know Avery has loved playing sleeping, and is finally starting to get Lucy to play it with her. Which basically means that Brett wont be guaranteed a nap each day.















Then this last weekend we went to Spokane without the girls. We thought we would make a quick trip up and back so we decided to share a room with Mandy and Todd. The whole way up we joked about how funny it would be if they gave us a room with only a king bed. When we got up there you can guess what happened. We decided to take a picture of the four of us in the bed which actually fit, and then we invited Robyn and Heather over and proved that you can actually get 6 people into a king size bed.

May 2010

Hope you all are enjoying your May. We were at the beginning when it was sunny, and really wish that the sun would come back. Over the last month it seems like we have been busy, but actually we have been home the last two weekends in a row. Now we are just looking forward to our summer starting (in 21 days, or 8 more work days), getting to go on vacations, celebrate 4 year old birthdays and our birthdays. In the last month it seems like Lucy has started talking a lot more, and Avery is getting her really into imaginary play. They are really fun to watch play together, and they both snuggle up with each other when Calliou is on. We hope that you are looking forward to the summer as much as us, and I hope that you enjoy the new pictures of the girls. There are also some videos of Lucy singing and counting, and Avery singing and counting. Hope we all get to enjoy the sunshine soon.

May 2010

April 2010

I do realize that we are only a week into April, but I thought I would post all of the pictures I have taken so far. This last weekend Tamma and Grandpa came up to celebrate Easter. We went to an Easter Egg Hunt at Alpenrose Dairy also with Uncie Todd and Auntie Mandy. Then they all came to our church on Saturday night and we had Easter dinner after that. The next day we got to have breakfast together and it was really a great time to get together.

Easter Pictures

Then today was our first day home this week all by ourselves. Avery woke me up this morning to read me a story, but sadly my camera was not charged so I had to do a second taping of the story. And of course it wasn't as good as the first time, but I still hope that you enjoy.


She also tried to pronounce my name, and now I am wondering what kind of parents (mine) name their kids so that even there own children (Avery) cannot pronounce it. I guess it really doesn't matter unless she is trying to introduce me to someone with my first name.




Then Lucy wanted her turn so we counted. The only number she can pronouce clearly is nine, but you will also hear her say two and six over and over again.



Finally as I was getting tired the girls got a second burst of energy so we worked on our letters online. This is Lucy's new favorite thing to do and I thought we would show everyone the letter A.




They also continued to play a chase game around the living room, which actually was rather comical to me.


The final thing that they did before daddy got home was Lucy climbed up on the table while I was packing our bags for tomorrow.



So I just thought you would all enjoy to know what happens around my house at about 5:30 when we all wish for daddy to be home. And we are so thankful that there are less than 10 days before he will be home around that time. Hope you all are enjoying the beginning to your April.

Washington Spring Break

For the beginning of spring break we went to visit my family in Bellingham, Washington. We stayed with my Aunt Dee and Uncle Phil and had a lot of fun playing outside. Thankfully it was nice so we could got to be outside most of the day. My cousin Michelle brought over her kids bikes to play with. Her kids don't got to school on Monday so we got to play with Allison and Brandon during the day. We also got to play with Samantha, my cousin Sherri's daughter, during the day and then that afternoon her brother Andy came to play with us. We had a lot of fun playing with all of them and can't wait until we get to see them in June. I took a lot of videos of the kids and you can watch them, and I hope that you all have enjoyed your spring break even if you didn't get a break.

Videos are below and you can find pictures by clicking HERE.

Dance Class

We did dance class at the community center and had a lot of fun. This time we did the Terrific Twirling 3s &4s. Here is Avery's favorite dance, and my favorite dance to watch. It is called the Bird and the Explorer dance. They get ribbons and when a certain type of music is on they are birds and then when it changes the explorers come out and they have to march with the ribbons. Hope that you enjoy watching it as much as I do.

Swimming Lessons Feb. - March 2010

So last night was our last night of swimming lessons for a little while. Avery was a Penguin and Lucy was an Angelfish. Both of them really enjoyed it, and it was a lot of fun to see them progress through the last five weeks.
Lucy has been doing a lot of jumping into the water. She gets all geared up like there is going to be a huge jump and then pretty much falls into your arms. If I had to guess I would say that jumping in and trying to blow bubbles are her favorite. Right now she just puts her mouth in the water open, and to her she is blowing bubbles. We haven't quite figured out how to teach her to close her mouth, but there is a little more time before she needs to do it. Brett and I have been trading off nights with her in the water which has been great because we get to both see how well Avery and Lucy are doing.
This is Avery's first time in Penguin class. They do a lot of front floats, back floats, and bobs. We ended up buying Avery goggles so that she would put her face in the water. The only problem is she wont let us put them on tight enough so every time after she puts her face in the water she has to dump out the water. The goggles have really helped with the bobs and front float. Her only problem is the back float. (You can watch the video and see how much she doesn't like it.) One night though she did do it for a couple seconds all by herself and was so proud. Her favorite part of swim lessons is when they do Red light, Green light, Yellow light, Monster Green light, and Disco light with their kicks. She also really likes the game of Mr. Shark, and enjoys chasing people in the water. Overall she has learned a lot, and will have the wonderful priviledge to be a penguin again the next time we take swimming lessons.
I hope that you enjoy the pictures and videos, and all are having a great time. And only one week until Spring Break and one month until taxes are due. So those are two major HOORAY's in our lives.


Swimming Lessons Pictures and Videos

March 2010

So I know that March has just begun, but we have already had some really fun things that happened in it. First we have been doing swimming lessons and both of the girls have really been enjoying it. Avery is learning to do back float and front float, and Lucy is all about "jumping" in the pool. We got Avery goggles so she is now starting to put her face more in the water, and is getting way more into jumping in the pool. It has been really fun to watch her get more excited about certain things in the pool. Lucy has always been excited about swimming, but now wants to do more things by herself.

The second exciting thing that happened was we got to celebrate Auntie Mandy's 30th Birthday Party. She had an 80's rollerskating party and it was a blast. We all got dressed up and got to see how quickly you can forget how to rollerskate. Avery did have skates and only fell once, but she didn't really enjoy it. Lucy had more fun at the end of the night when Brett pushed her around for a couple of minutes in them. Avery spent the night running around with Dahlia, and they had a blast together.

Hope that you are all enjoying your beginnings to March, and enjoy the pictures.

March 2010

January 2010

We hope that you are all having a great start to this year. I just had some pictures of the girls hanging out at home and in Washington. We just got back last weekend from my Papa's 80th birthday party, and so I had some pictures from that. Also I took some video of the girls playing on the Wii, and Lucy trying to say words. It was very funny to listen to, and she is starting to get better at words. Hope that you all enjoy.

January 2010