Kismet

Completely by accident we found a public fountain park in Portland.  Somehow we happened to have the kids' bathing suits in the car.  It was kismet.



Kennedy stole another girl's barbies while cousin Wyatt fended off any kids who thought they might be able to play with the same fountain as them.

Since Wyatt was in Noah's bathng suit, Noah was the only one not making trouble.

We love cousins.  We love random water play time.  And mostly, we love our darling kids (and cute Wyatt too).

Better Late Than Never

We only just found our camera cord from the move.  I have been taking pictures on my iPhone and putting them up here.  As such, I found some pictures from April that I wanted on here, but didn't have access to until now.  First up, my dad with all 3 of his grandkids before we left Texas.

From left to right, Wyatt (who is obviously not very happy about the whole thing), Noah (who was still so small that he was swimming in all of his clothes), and Kennedy (looking as sweet as ever).  Then, a fashion shot of Kennedy while we were out shopping with Grandma Lee in Utah.

She loves trying on hats and bows at stores.  And here's a really good one.  This is Noah with his Great-Grandpa Crosby.

We had a good time visiting with Grandpa since he happened to be in Utah at the same time as us.  We were lucky enough to be able to see a lot of Brett's family while we were there.  And although this one is relatively recent and not late at all, it's pretty cute, so I thought I'd share it with you.

Noah is getting so big so fast!  He's already 3 months old.  He smiles all the time and laughs a lot too.  He's really getting to be a lot of fun.  I'm sorry I've been neglecting this blog somewhat, but I'll try to get back on track.  I have however been updating my cooking blog much more regularly lately, so if you haven't yet, you should check it out!

Just When You Think You're Safe

Remember that incident I recently told you about in which Kennedy found chocolates and ate them while I was in the shower? Well, after the second morning in a row of that happening I put the chocolates on a high shelf so she wouldn't be able to get at them. A good choice, because the next morning she did not find the chocolates again. However, she did happen to find a tube of lipstick that I didn't even know I had.

Yeah, that's lipstick all over the desk and wall. You can't see it on the desktop or the chair, and I didn't get a picture of her face, hands and shirt, but believe me, it was everywhere. This morning I woke up early so I got out of bed and took a shower so I wouldn't have another incident today.

Also, just when you think your safe and comfy with how your daughter is, she decides to grow up and change some more. How about this grown up haircut?

If you don't remember, it was several inches longer than this and had little curls at the bottom. Now it just curls under and makes her look that much older. She also started Gymboree Play & Learn classes with her cousin Wyatt and is now learning to do all sorts of new things, including but not limited to: rocking, jumping, climbing and rolling balls down slides.

She has also gotten a little ahead of herself and decided that she needs to be the one driving the car. She climbed in that seat all by herself and started steering the wheel. I think I would need to be a little more worried if her feet were closer to the pedals.

She really is growing up so fast! Next week she will be 22 months old. That's only 2 months away from 2 years old! Time has certainly flown with her. I'm excited to have another little one, even though I know he'll only be little for a while. Still no letter from Brett, but I've heard that sometimes they will hold their mail for a week. If they didn't, then it's possible that bad weather on the east coast and here in Dallas could have delayed it. I will be sure to post how he's doing as soon as I know! Also, a quick shout out to my brother, Blake, who is graduating from Army basic training tomorrow! Good job!

Christmas Morning

We had a great Christmas this year with lots of family and tons of presents. Seriously, they just kept coming. We all got spoiled, but Kennedy really took in a haul. We left probably 97% of what we got in Texas since we'll be back there in 3 weeks anyway. We did get a nice surprise with a white Christmas too! Apparently it's the first one that Plano has had in 80 years. Brett was really mad because he thought that by getting out of Utah we wouldn't have snow. Unfortunately for him, we had about an inch and it was pretty cold. Kennedy woke up around 7:15 that morning and we went to go get her. She slept in her new Christmas jammies that were really cute.

Yes, I look extremely pregnant in that picture, and Kennedy looks very sleepy. When we started opening presents, Kennedy and Wyatt didn't really differentiate between their presents and just played with them all. We had to try and get Kennedy to come back and open presents because she was so interested in what she or Wyatt had opened that she wasn't interested in the next box. Here she is hoarding all of the books that she got - or trying to at least. They wouldn't all fit in her arms.

She ended up getting 3 doodle pads this year, and Wyatt got two. Apparently they weren't enough. She stole Wyatt's pad and had them both going at the same time.

Kennedy and Wyatt both got potato heads to play with, but they weren't satisfied with their own. Here is Kennedy with Mr. Potato Head and Wyatt with Mrs. Potato Head.

My cousin Orion (who is almost 3) and Kennedy both got tents for Christmas. We set up Orion's tent at my grandparent's house and Kennedy refused to come out of it. Wyatt would open the flap and look in and Kennedy would scream and laugh.

Kennedy and Orion kept going inside and playing together, which was really cute. I think Kennedy spent at least 60% of her time in that thing. Good thing we have one too.

We loved Christmas this year and had a wonderful time. We love being with family and are excited for Kennedy to be able to go back and play with Wyatt for a couple of months!

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

As you know, we headed down to Texas for Christmas this year. Kennedy and Wyatt took to each other right away and played the whole time we were there.

On Christmas Eve we decided to go down to Grapevine to see the ICE exhibit at the Gaylord Texan hotel. Apparently it was supposed to be pretty cool with slides made out of ice and such. It was Grinch themed and you could actually meet the Grinch. The weather was pretty bad (it snowed and we had a white Christmas!), we didn't have a toll tag in Christine's car, and we got lost so it took us an hour to get there. The walk to the exhibit was excruciating in the freezing wind, and when we got there they said it would cost $50 for just us 3 to get in and that their next available time was 2 hours later. Needless to say we did not go in. We just took pictures outside.

Kennedy and Wyatt loved the train they had set up. Kennedy actually cried when we made her get out of it. Then we all decided to pile in. Brett and I barely fit in that little teeny car.

In the lobby of the hotel they had a bunch of Christmas displays set up, including trains, villages, and a life size gingerbread house.

It didn't take us nearly as long to get home, and even though we didn't get to go in and had a huge ordeal in getting there it was fun to spend time with family and have some fun taking pictures! More Christmas pictures to come in the next few days!

Beach Bummer

Apparently Kennedy is not a fan of the beach.  Actually, I'm not positive whether it was the poopy diaper or the sand that actually upset her, but she was not a happy camper.

She was really happy and just being herself before Brett put her feet in the sand.  We didn't even go anywhere near the water.  But she cried.

And then Wyatt started crying because Kennedy was mad.

So they were not going to have any more sand.  Hopefully she'll get over this fear of sand before we go to Hawaii.

Thanks grandpa for such a fun trip!  We all had a blast.

Disney Hats

We all tried on a lot of hats at Disneyland since they are plentiful in the shops.  I have some Mickey mouse ears with a graduation hat on them from my senior trip to DisneyWorld with my family, and Brett and I have a set of bride and groom ones.  I had to buy Kennedy a hat, so we tried several on.  First up is pirate Goofy.  Christine ended up buying these and wearing them around.

Next up: Wyatt in the Sorcerer's Apprentice hat.

Here comes Kennedy as Minnie Mouse.  And you can see Christine sporting the pirate Goofy look.

Here are Kennedy and Wyatt in the hats that we bought for them.  I wanted this one because her name is embroidered on the back.  And of course Wyatt has his name on his hat too.

While we were waiting for the hats to be embroidered my dad found a Grumpy hat that we all thought was pretty funny.

Texas Teaser

I thought that I would give you a small taste of what's been going on here in Texas. I have more pictures to share, but they will have to wait until we get back to Utah. In the meantime, here are some cute ones that my dad took. First, here's Wyatt. He's so cute and getting so big! He's almost 6 months old.

We opened some presents from Grandpa Pitt the first day we got here. Kennedy loves the musical bee that she got. She's played with it every morning.
A cute close up.

She loves to open presents. It was fun to open some more with her because she had to take a nap in the middle of opening presents on Christmas morning.

Here's Kennedy with Grandpa. They've been having lots of fun. Grandpa watched her while we went to see Benjamin Button (which I highly recommend to everyone) and they had a blast.

We've been having a great time here! We went to the aquarium (pictures will come later), got to see my aunt, uncle and cousins who live in Beijing, have had some yummy meals, played some fun games, and rang in the new year with some Martinelli's. It's been a great trip so far and we're happy that we get to spend a couple more days here!

Celebrating 100 Posts with Santa!

That's right folks!  This is my 100th post!  And to celebrate I'm going to show you some pictures of Kennedy's first trip to see Santa.  We dressed Kennedy up in her cute new outfit that grandpa got her for Christmas and headed over to the Willowbend Mall to see Santa!

We got there right before his "milk and cookies" break, so there was only one person in line in front of us, which was awesome.  An hour later there was a line of at least 20 people.  The theme was The Polar Express, and we got to walk through the front of the train and pull levers and strings to make noise.  Then we got to walk through a huge snow globe.  I still had snow on me when I went to bed.

Kennedy did very well with Santa, and I wasn't expecting anything less.  She didn't smile, but she certainly wasn't scared.  First thing she did was try to pull on his beard.

Here she is checking out this big red man she's sitting with.

Wyatt went for his first trip to Santa too, and he also did really well!  We were proud of those kids for not freaking out, because the kid who came behind us did.

We then shopped at the mall and Kennedy melted out hearts when we looked down in the stroller and she was just smiling up at Brett for no reason at all.  We're so glad that we got to see Santa this year and start our Christmas traditions!

And now for something completely different, my quest for holiday cookies is going slowly.  Or at least the first attempt was not so great.  The Chewy Ginger Cookies I made last night were decent, but not tradition worthy.  I am bummed, but ready and waiting to make some Frosted Brown Sugar Cookies tonight!

Thanksgiving in Texas

As you probably all know, we flew down to Dallas on Tuesday morning to spend Thanksgiving with my family.  Kennedy was great on the plane rides and she loved getting to meet her cousin Wyatt.  He was so cute!  He gave us some really good smiles.

I got to see some good friends, and we did a little bit of Christmas early.  Kennedy got a new outfit from Grandpa Pitt (which you'll see in the Santa pictures in a couple of days) and her Christmas PJs too.  Grandma Pitt gave her a new stuffed sheep and a cute hat.

Christine enjoyed playing with Kennedy too.  And Spooky, my mom's cat, got along with Kennedy really well.  Christine gave us some great gifts too.  Kennedy got a new stuffed dog and Green Eggs and Ham.  I got a Green Eggs and Ham cookbook and the third season of Father Ted.  Brett got Trauma Center for the Wii, which I'm sure that he will thoroughly enjoy.

We spent Thanksgiving at my mom's and everyone was there.  We got Grandma Emigh's stuffing for the first time in a few years.  Brett made the turkey and I made the pumpkin pie.  We had a great dinner, and we all had a good time being together.

Here's a good smile from Wyatt, probably because he's sitting with his mom.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, today marks the beginning of Christmas at our house!  We're decorating tonight for family home evening and I'll be starting the holiday baking!

More Wyatt

Blake sent me some more pictures of Wyatt!  Everybody keeps telling me how cute he is, and I'm so jealous that we haven't gotten to meet him yet.  We won't get to see him until Thanksgiving, so we still have 4 months before we can see him.  He's going to be so big!  He already looks like he's grown.  Here are some pictures of him just chillin'.  He looks like both his mom and his dad.  The nose and below look just like a Pitt (and Kennedy!) but above the nose looks like his mom!

I love that last picture.  The look on his face is so funny!