Kara wanted to go on a walk this morning. With Christmas and being out of town, and then how rainy it's been since we've been back, they really haven't gotten much outisde time. So after the walk, I decided to let them get their bikes out for a while. Here they are getting their helmets on. I didn't feel like going up to get the good camera, so these pics are taken with my old purse camera. I don't know if that's the issue with this picture, or the bad lighting in the garage. Kara kept getting off her bike to help Kiersten with the steering of her trike. Kiersten just wanted to be pushed around. Maybe this summer she'll get better at pedalling and steering.
After we put the bikes away, the girls wanted to play in the backyard. I let them get out all of their balls and I brought out their bats and a new frisbee they got in Utah. Kiersten didn't hit the ball once, but she had fun trying. you can probably tell I went upstairs for the good camera.
She would announce every time she was about to go down the slide. If Kara and I didn't stop what we were doing to watch, she would get upset. Then we had to clap and tell her how good she did after she slid down.
This is a good picture of their cute raincoats. It was about 45°, but Kiersten still kept saying she was hot and wanted to take off her jacket.
Kara is a natural at throwing a frisbee. Her first throw was great. She got good height and distance. Even my throws wobbled more than hers.
Kiersten isn't quite as good with the frisbee. She basically just throws it straight down. She even climbed to the top of the stairs and slide, trying to get more height, but then she still just slammed it straight down.
They were more than ready for lunch when they finally came inside. Hopefully, when they're done eating they will go down for naps after playing outside for over 2 hours.
Kara's birthday party was at the children's museum in Tacoma. This was the first year she got to invite her own friends. I think we ended up with 10 children there, including Kara and Kiersten. And of course, the parents too. We really tried to let her pick out as many things as she could about her party.I even let her wear a necklace that didn't really go with her outfit. Kiersten getting her party hat on.
Here she is holding up 4 fingers. She is so excited to be growing up.
posing in the birthday chair. The museum had a girl there to help with the party. It was so nice to have her cleaning up after everyone, and making sure things were running smoothly and on schedule, so we could just enjoy the party. We ordered pizza, and Ben met the guy outside, and brought the pizzas down. The mom from another party saw him and thought he was her pizza guy. He told her that it wasn't her pizza, but she wouldn't believe him. Even though she ordered 6 pizzas from round table, and we ordered 4 pizzas from pizza hut. She got mad and went up to tattle to the girls at the front desk that we stole her pizza! I thought it was pretty funny when one of them actually came down to check that we had the right pizzas. Hers showed up a few minutes after that.
Kara opening her presents from her friends. She got some really nice gifts.
opening her gift from Kiersten. She gave her some play-doh and bendaroos. I was pretty surprised at her reaction to opening them. She has seen them on tv and always says she wants them, but I didn't realize how much. She didn't even have the package half open when she started saying, "bendaroos! I wanted these so much!" It was the most excited she got over any gift, to my surprise.
I wanted to take her picture in her party hat before the cake, and she kept making this face. I was confused, because it is not one of her normal "picture faces". It turns out she was practicing blowing out the candles. Ben had given her some tips on how to blow without spitting.
This is the clsoest picture I got of the cake. It's not my favorite cake I've ever made, but I wanted to let Kara help. She picked the shape, the flavor, the colors, the decorations, and I even let her help frost it and she put sprinkles on too. So I guess I should be proud of it, since she helped so much.
some of her party guests.
For the second half of the party, they got to play in the children's museum. All of the kids loved pretending to fish out of this little boat.
Kiersten crawling through a little door.
Kara selling food to the dad of one of her friends.
my girls learning to farm.
Kara is the best toy sharer. She got this new barbie, and brought out all of the others so Kiersten could play too. She did get upset when Kiersten made 2 of the princesses dance together. She said, "girls don't dance together!" After that she decided she wants to use her birthday money from Great Grandma Howard to get some boy barbies.
She made this cute mouse with her bendaroos. She played with them most of last night and a lot today too. I just can't get over how much she loves those things. It's such a simple thing, just wire covered in wax. But I guess sometimes those types of things are the most fun.
Karalee is 4 years old today! I woke up a few hours before everyone else this morning, so I decided to blow up some balloons and decorate the front room a bit. Her birthday party was yesterday, but I wanted today to be fun and special too, since it is her actual birthday. I always like setting up all of their gifts on the table so they can see them all. Kiersten unwrapped her gift from Grandma and Grandpa Boot, and from Auntie Chris last night after the party, so she just ended up getting those two a little early. Here is the birthday girl coming downstairs. I had made a big breakfast, and was trying to ask her what she wanted to eat, but she ignored me and followed the decorations straight to the gift table. I went around the corner to see where she went, and she was just staring in awe at all of the presents.
opening the first gift!
She was so sweet to let Kiersten help her unwrap the presents. Poor Kiersten had a hard time yesterday and today. She really wanted some of the presents to be for her.
a new book from Papa and Grams!
Here she is posing with all of her super cool birthday gifts. she is a spoiled girl! we still haven't even opened up some of them yet.
She got a trunk of dress up clothes. Here she is dressed up as Cinderella.
And Kiersten as Snow White.
She was so happy to get dressed in her new threads and play with this cool My Little Pony remote control car. She seems so grown up lately.
Poor Kara has pink eye. She just woke up this morning with one eye looking really red and swollen. She really wanted to go to school because she was the class helper today. She has been so excited. So I cleaned out all the crusties in her eye, but within minutes it was full of goop and pus again. So I called the nurse line at her pediatrician's office, who said it sounded like pink eye and to bring her in. So I did, and she was very upset about not going to school. She kept hoping that the Dr. would say she was okay to go, but instead she said it is definitely pink eye. We got prescription eye drops for it, and she will only be contagious for 24 hours. Those eye drops sure were a pain to get in her eye though. I'm hoping it'll go better tonight and this weekend with Ben there to hold her down for me.
she was so sad until I told her she will get to go back to school again next week. Then she started to cheer up.
I got a text from my sister Jackie last night saying that she was in labor and on her way to the hospital. So exciting. I just called my mom, but she hasn't heard any news yet. Hopefully I will hear sometime today that little Kaymee has been born! Kiersten update: monday, in the car Kiersten said "mommy! I go potty" I was a little surprised, but just said, "okay, I'll hurry to get home". I totally expected that she would just wet her diaper. We were home about 10 minutes later and I went in to use the bathroom. She followed me in and said it again, while trying to pull her pants off. I helped her get them off, as well as her diaper, and put her on the potty chair. Imagine my surprise when she actually did pee in the potty! She was so happy and proud of herself. I gave her a sticker, which she showed Kara as soon as she was home from school. We haven't gotten her to do it again, but I think it's a good sign that she is getting ready to be potty trained. We have all been sick for the last week and a half. Kiersten has started coughing just this week. Last night, she crawled into bed with us. Ben was holding her, and she started puking everywhere. Ben started screaming that he was covered in puke, so it was left to me to run and get paper towels. I started cleaning some of the puke off him, and Kiersten just kept vomiting the whole time. As soon as most of it was off Ben's chest, he ran into the shower. Kiersten was sitting in a big puddle of vomit and crying while I tried to get her cleaned off. I rushed her into the shower with Ben and started soaking up as much of the pool as I could. The smell got the better of me, and I ran to the bathroom to throw up. I didn't make it to the toilet bowl in time and it got all over the floor, and walls. As I was trying to clean it up, and still puking, Ben realized I was throwing up, so he started puking in the shower. Just not a very fun night at all. Sweet Kara slept through the whole ordeal, lucky girl!
I'm finally on my final update from our Utah visit! The girls absolutely loved playing in the snow. Kara was very upset that we didn't have snow at home. She even asked Ben, "how can we have Christmas without snow?" So, she was excited to see all the snow when we got to Salt Lake. When we arrivced at Ben's Grandparents house she said, "wow! look at all the snow!" and both girls kept asking to go out and play in it every day we were there. throwing snowballs.
They played in the snow with their cousins at my parents house in Provo, but I didn't get out there to take any pictures. So when we were back in Salt Lake, I thought I'd better at least take a few. This is the little snow man Ben helped them make. Kara really wanted to make one, so I made Ben come out and help her. It wasn't very good packing snow, so he decided to go small. The girls didn't mind.
Kara posing with her buddy. It was her responsibility to find all the trimmings to decorate the snowman, and she was very proud of her work.
Kiersten was so bundled up, and the snow was just deep enough, that when she would fall over onto her back, she wasn't able to get back up by herself. It was pretty funny to me.
Here they are making snow angels. Well, Kara made snow angels and Kiersten just laid motionless in the snow next to her.
Jackie's baby shower was on Jan.2, while we were still in Utah. I was really happy to be able to go to it. Here are a few pictures of the showery fun. Jackie opening gifts. If you can't tell from the pictures, she is having a girl. The official due date is January 31!
All of the little girls wanted to participate in the games. They mostly just drew pictures, but Makayla and Addy did pretty well.
Me holding Rylynn again. She is just such a sweetie! Angie and I bought that sweater for Makayla when she was a baby. We fought over who would get it when we had Kara and Laynee. Now Rylynn is wearing it too.
some of the shower guests hanging out.
It was a fun time together, and I can't wait for little Kaymee to be born within the next few weeks!
We spent New Year's Eve at Troy and Shelly's house in Eagle Mountain. It was really fun to hang out with everyone. I really like this picture of Ben and Kiersten. The guys watching sports together. Josh, Dad, Kiersten, Ben, and maybe you can see Zac sitting on the floor.
Andrew, Jayden and Lathan playing their video games. They were really upset when Shelly took them away and said they had to do somthing else the rest of the night.
Addyson, Karalee, and Afton playing together. I have only a few pics of Kara because I barely saw her all night. She loved playing with Addy and Laynee, and threw a tantrum when it was time to leave because she wanted to have a sleep over.
Cash, Linkin, and Kiersten all wanted to play with bouncy balls, but even though there were more than enough for all of them, they still kept fighting over them.
I was surprised to walk into the kitchen to see Afton eating this huge jelly filled, frosted donut, and he even put cherry chocolates on top. He is just the cutest, sweetest kid.
more guy bonding time. Josh, Clint, and Ben STILL watching football instead of playing games with the rest of us. I guess some of the games would have been chaos with any more people playing, so it's okay.
waiting for the ball to drop. you can tell some people were getting really tired. Mom, Dad, and Chris on the couch, and Angie holding Kyrie in the chair.
2 of my favorite nieces, Makayla and Laynee.
I just adore my cute little niece, Rylynn. She is just the daintiest little thing. Kiersten did start to get a little jealous of her though, because I was holding her so much.
Happy 2010! It's fun to think what will happen this coming year. I hope it will be a fun filled and exciting year for all of us.
Kara kept getting off her bike to help Kiersten with the steering of her trike. Kiersten just wanted to be pushed around. Maybe this summer she'll get better at pedalling and steering.
After we put the bikes away, the girls wanted to play in the backyard. I let them get out all of their balls and I brought out their bats and a new frisbee they got in Utah. Kiersten didn't hit the ball once, but she had fun trying. you can probably tell I went upstairs for the good camera.
She would announce every time she was about to go down the slide. If Kara and I didn't stop what we were doing to watch, she would get upset. Then we had to clap and tell her how good she did after she slid down.
This is a good picture of their cute raincoats. It was about 45°, but Kiersten still kept saying she was hot and wanted to take off her jacket.
Kara is a natural at throwing a frisbee. Her first throw was great. She got good height and distance. Even my throws wobbled more than hers.
Kiersten isn't quite as good with the frisbee. She basically just throws it straight down. She even climbed to the top of the stairs and slide, trying to get more height, but then she still just slammed it straight down.
They were more than ready for lunch when they finally came inside. Hopefully, when they're done eating they will go down for naps after playing outside for over 2 hours.
