Liam's 1st Day of Kindergarten

Well, August 23rd has been an eventful day. Our "little" boy has officially started school for the rest of his life. Liam has been SO excited about today. He seems to love school and we're excited for him. As luck would have it, it turns out his good friend Jasper, from the summer pre-school lab, is also attending the Bear River Charter School. We're happy that he already has a friend :-)

We started the day out with a palmier from the Crumb Brothers and some yummy, buttery, hard-boiled eggs.




After a short, fun walk to school, here's Liam going in for his first day:




Here's Liam with his little friend Jasper:




And here's Liam, happy to be in school!

My ASL 2 Final - The Tailypo

So I've been taking ASL classes with my amazing niece Lyndsie. She and our friend Jenna helped me to film this. I show it to the teacher tomorrow night. I need to drop many pounds, but why does the camera have to add so many more!?

Is it wrong?

Is it wrong that I'm proud of Liam for yelling "Don't!" to a bully, chasing him down, grabbing the scruff of his neck and that smacking the bully in the back of the head?

William and Wendell took the kids to the McDonald's Playland tonight to let the kids run themselves ragged. The kids had a blast. At one point though Liam yelled "Don't" to a little boy, which scared the little boy who then ran off. Liam chased him down, grabbed him by the cuff of the neck, and smacked him in the back of the head. William placed Liam in timeout, but later realized why Liam had done what he had. The kid was being a Playland bully and was running around hitting all the kids on the Playland. In my humble opinion, that little boy got was he deserved, and I'm glad my little boy stood up for himself and the other kids that the boy was smacking.

Our Day at Hogle Zoo

After many stops and starts on June 3rd, and Aeva's first call to 911 (in which the police showed up to her cousins house...long story) we finally made our first visit as a family to Hogle Zoo. It was great! We went much later in the day and it felt as though we had much of the park to ourselves. There's a fun little scale model train that goes around the park (which Liam adored) and a great little playground. The big cats exhibit, which looks like a really cool Tibetan mountain village, was very nice. It was disappointing though since we didn't see any of the big cats. They were all hiding. My son thinks he is the Dude version of Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. Here he is, singing to the zebras to try and get them to respond or come over to him:

Here's our adorable Aeva playing in a huge egg:



And here's me and the kiddies on a cool elephant that made sounds (i.e. snoring, sneezing, and even would blow water out of its trunk and spray you if you stood in front of it). Liam was obviously a afraid of it:



Next desired adventure/outing with the kiddies: Children's Discovery Museum in Salt Lake :-)

Aeva's First Steps, Sambelina the St. Patrick's Day mommy, and more goodies...

Happy St. Patrick's Day! There's no better day to birth babies than on the most popular of all Irish holidays. :-) Our cute little Himalayan kitty became a mommy today. She scratched and meowed at our bedroom door this morning, which she's never done before. We thought that strange, and even stranger still when she kept trying to peer into and somehow get inside our dresser drawers. She was insistent. So I pulled out a drawer and in she went, deep inside the dresser, climbing over drawers internally to nest in a nicely closed drawer. We realized this must be the big event, so I pried her out to remove my clothing in the drawer and reline it with something appropriate. Less than 4 hours later, she'd given birth to 3 white kittens. Sadly, on of them was stillborn. The other two seem to be thriving.

Way to go Sam! :-)

Aeva is graduating to a toddler's forward facing seat, which we purchased at TJ Maxx last night. Here are the kids having fun with the box :-)


Here's a cute, recent pic of Aeva asleep in her chair with her baby doll:


And finally, here are some of Aeva's first steps! Cool stuff. Go little girl!

Aeva's First Birthday!!

Today has been a good day. Aeva woke up happy and was charming all day. For her first birthday, she decided to make two "firsts". She climbed from the floor to the very top of the couch today, and she took her first steps today! (5 in a row). That's my girl!! She also experienced her first nosebleed from an accidental smack in the face by Liam with her Cabbage Patch doll. She's tough!

We put on a simple party for Aeva and had a great turnout of family and friends. I made Aeva her own little white kitty cat cake, with blue M&M's for eyes, a sour pink Skittle for a nose, and a pink "sour straw" as the collar. Also, the flower on the cat's head matches the one I stuck on Aeva :-)






And then we sang Happy Birthday!


She picked off the sour skittle nose first and made a great face:



Here she is eating the sour string "collar":





We love our little girl!!

Halloween 2008

Well, Halloween has come and gone, but I wanted to post some pics of last Friday night. We went to a "Trunk or Treat" party and had a fun time. There were lots of cars in the parking lot and Liam went home with a healthy stash of which we have claimed our fair share of parent tax :-)

I'm looking to be more ambitious with costumes next Halloween. I have grand ideas of sewing elaborate costumes, but it doesn't usually seem to happen. Maybe I should start now for next Halloween...

Anyway, here's our adorable pumpkin, Aeva (her uncle Gordon is holding her):

and of course here's the ever precocious Liam as Thomas the Tank Engine:

And here are some family photos :-)