Piano Recital

Here is Kaitlyn at her piano recital. She did a fabulous job. Her piano teacher (me!) is so proud of her!!!

Disneyland

Here is our Disneyland trip in pics. We had a blast. IT was perfect weather, 80 degrees and sunny every day. We spent all of Wed. at California Adventure (thanks Erika for the awesome deal on the tickets). California Adventure was pretty empty and we didn't have to wait longer than 15 minutes for any ride. The kids went on most of the rides a couple of times. Thursday we went to the beach for the day. Then on Friday we spent all day at Disneyland with Erika and her kids joining us in the afternoon.l IT was a little more crowded at that park, but we got to ride all of the rides one time. Most of the photoes are self explanatory. . .

Kaitlyn's favorite princess is Aurora, so she was super excited for the chance to meet her.

These two were the favorite meets of Matt.

Here we are on the tower of terror. This was our very first ride and it terrified Matt. He refused to go on any other rides for awhile, but we finally changed his mind.

Now for some videos. The first video is a Jedi training one. At Disneyland park they have a Jedi training facility, which is a show they put on throughout the day. They invited kids from the audience to come up to train. We arrived early and got front row seats so both of my kids and both of nephews were picked to go up. They get a lightsaber and some training and then out comes Darth Vader and Darth Mahl, which the kids then get to fight. It was pretty fun to watch and Matt will tell you that it was his favorite thing of our whole trip. He is still constantly talking about it. The second video is the kids dancing with Phineus and Ferb at California Adventure. The last video is one Aaron took of Matt on a roller coaster in TOon Town. It's pretty funny to watch Matt's face.

Christmas

Okay, so blogger is being weird and making me write with this font, but anyway, here is our christmas picture finally. We just stayed home this year and it was great. We had Christmas Eve with our wonderful friends, the Every's, and Christmas day was spent with some great families and great food!

We met my sister in Seattle a couple of days after Christmas and went to the Pacific Science Center.

Also over winter break, we tried out ice skating for the first time. The kids had a blast, especially Matt. At the ice rink they give the little kids these plastic chairs to help them with their balance. Matt was so funny, he would go so fast, and not watch where he was going that I was sure he would knock someone over, but he never did. The kids were cold, and tired when done, but they keep begging me to go back.

Here is a video of Matt, you can see how fast he goes.

Christmas Recital

Kaitlyn had her first piano recital today. I've been teaching her since July. She is quite good and is learning fast. I teach her along with 8 other students and they all did great today. I'm so proud of her for playing and enjoying it :) She was less nervous that I was! (Aaron was video taping and he missed the beginning of both songs and the middle of Holly Jolly, but you get the basic idea)

All Things Halloween

We've had a busy October month. First of all, thanks to Grandma Krimme for Kaitlyn great Halloween outfit (she made the skirt). Kaitlyn got so many compliments on it and she LOVED it! We went to Bizi Farms for our annual pumpkin picking. We actually went right at the beginning of October, thinking we could beat the crowds, but we also went on the one nice day, so it was packed. I actually don't have any picks of it, but it was fun. Then last week we found a great new place to go, Alderbrook. They don't really have a pumpkin patch (just a bunch of pumpkins thrown in their grass) but for the $8 fee you get the pumpkin, hot chocolate, a train ride, a hay maze with a treasure hunt (they hid a bunch of candy in the maze and the kids spent forever finding it all), a bounce house and (pictured below) the highlight of the day, a horse ride. The pictures don't show clearly, but it was POURING rain when we went. The upside was that we were the only ones there, so we didn't have to wait in line for anything, and as native Northwesterners now, we don't mind the rain.

Here we are carving our pumpkins

This is Aaron's pumpkin (can you tell what his favorite college football team is?)

Here is Kaitlyn's pumpkin, she drew the house herself.

Here is Matt's pumpkin

And here is mine!

Our annual ward Halloween party was as fun as ever. They had a trunk-or-treat this year. You were supposed to decorate your trunk. Aaron got totally into it. We had cobwebs, giant spider, glowing pumpkin lights, glowing skulls and of course a cauldron filled with smoking dry ice. I'm happy to say that his work paid off and we won FIRST PLACE in the decorating contest!

And last of all, here are the costumes. I'm pretty sure you can figure out what they are . . .

Katilyn picked out Ramsey's costume. He hated it! In fact, he would sneak into our room and get his hat and try to chew on it! But he did look cute. . .

Happy halloween to everyone!

1st day of school

Matt started his pre-K preschool program today. (Not the greatest pic, it is from my cell phone, my camera died). Matt was excited to start school, and actually went without crying, so I was glad. I'm still happy we decided to wait a year until kindergarten. I think emotionally he wasn't quite ready to go yet, so he'll enjoy this year of preschool and I'll enjoy having him home all afternoon! (Don't you love that hair? He refuses to let me cut it or fix it!)

Kaitlyn is starting 2nd grade. She was excited because her 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Munro, moved up to 2nd grade and just looped her whole class with her, so Kaitlyn already knows all her classmates and her teacher. I was happy because Mrs. Munro is a really good teacher, and is constantly challenging Kaitlyn.

Here they are together.

She's 7!

Kaitlyn turned 7 last week. She was so excited. She had been counting down to her party for over a month. She chose to go to Chuck. E.Cheese and do the whole party thing (the ticket booth, pinata, pizza, Chuck E. etc.). I don't actually have any pictures of the party since I forgot my camera, but she had a blast. One little story from the party that just shows what Kaitlyn is like: during the ticket booth, they stand in this booth with lots of tickets blowing all over. There are also big papers that are worth 100, 50 or 200 tickets. Kaitlyn grabbed quite a few of these. After she stepped out, she proceeded to give a big paper worth 100 tickets to each of her friends from her party. The party planner at Chuck. E. Cheese was so impressed, she said she had never seen a kid share their tickets before, that she gave Kaitlyn 500 extra, so she ended up with 1000 tickets. I just thought it was sweet that she wanted to share with her friends.
She wanted a puppy cake for her bday. This is my attempt. I spent 3 hours working on it, then the head fell off, so I spent another hour trying to piece the head back together. It's not that good, but Kaitlyn liked it so that is all that matters :)

As shown above Kaitlyn is a sweet, generous girl. She is very aware of those around her and tries to make everyone (excluding her brother!) feel happy and welcome. She is super smart and can memorize stuff amazingly fast. She loves to read. She read Diary of Wimpy Kid in two days, and the second one in 3. She is working on memorizing the articles of faith and is doing great at reading the scriptures with us. She has also starting reading the Friend and enjoys those articles. I started her on piano lessons this summer and she already can name and point out the notes on the staff better than students I have been teaching for a couple of years. She is a hard worker. She still loves video games, but she actually spent most of the summer outside playing with 2 girls from our neighborhood. She loves to ride her bike and she still loves to play tennis. We got her a badmitton set for her bday, so she's been spending plenty of time working on that. She is still a fiesty little red head, but I love everything about her! Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!!