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!!

Multnomah Falls

We've lived in in beautiful Vancouver for almost 7 years, and we finally made it down to hike Multnomah Falls. It was a nice overcast day on Saturday, so not too hot for a hike. My kids were troopers and we made it to the top of the falls. The hike is only 1 1/4 miles up but it is a pretty steep hike. We had to take lots of breaks, but we made it. It was so beautiful and my kids said they had a fun time. Guess we'll have to check out some of the other hikes in the area.

We had to bring Ramsey's of course.

He's 5!

My baby boy turned 5 on Saturday. He wanted to go to Kids Club for his party. For those that don't live here, Kids club is a giant indoor playground. It was crazy busy because it was a saturday, but the kids had fun. Then we came back to the house for cake and ice cream. He wanted a Transformers cake for his b-day:

Here is his friends: Braedon

Kaitlyn, Natalie and Lee

Gavin, Katie and Matt

Aaron got him this gian lego star wars ship, and then proceeded to spend an hour and a half putting the thing together. Not sure how much Matt enjoyed that part of it, but he likes playing with it.

This was his favorite present, so thanks to Grandma Krimme!

Here is a little bit about Matt:

-He loves cars, planes, dinosaurs, Transformers, Star Wars and Super Heroes.

-He has also recently gotten into video games (Wii and Nintendo DS). He likes them a little too much, and we have to strictly enforce his hour playing time. I was kind of sad about this at first, but after his hour is up, he still goes and plays with his toys

-I love to sit and listen to him play (when he doesn't realize I am there) because he will make up whole worlds and they are so intricate and unique each time.

-He is a little resistant to school work, but is getting better at recognizing his alphabet and his numbers. I think he knows them, he just gets bored and doesn't want to work on them.

-He loves to ride his bike and is quite the little dare devil.

-His best friend is still Katie Atkinson, and they play so well together. Not to mention they are super cute together too :)

-He loves primary and his teacher tells me he is very well behaved. However my friend is in the presidency and she related that one Sunday her and presidency were cracking up because Matt had turned around in his chair and proceeded to lick the back of the chair over and over (Yuck!). So sometimes he does apparently get distracted.

-He still has a little trouble with his C's and K's and I love to still hear him call is sister "Taitlyn"

-He still loves to cuddle and I think it will break my heart when he no longer runs up to me just to give me or hug, or asks me to hold me. I love you Matt! Happy Birthday!

*Since I've had a couple of people ask, yes I am holding him back a year, so he will do one more year of preschool and will start Kindergarten next year when he is 6. There are many reasons behind this, but most importantly I think it will be the best thing for Matt*

Spring happenings

It's been a while since I posted, so bear with me as I play catch up. First up is Kaitlyn. She had a music performance at her school a couple of weeks ago. They have a really fabulous music teacher. He is energetic and friendly and really teaches the kids a lot. The best thing about him is he owns a set of murimbas and teaches his classes to play. So here is video of Kaitlyn's class playing. Keep in mind they are only first graders. It's really amazing how much they can learn. So the video will not load on blogger, I'll post it later. The other big thing for Kaitlyn is that she finally learned to ride her bike without training wheels. Aaron had tried a couple of weeks ago, but she just flipped out. So one day while he was at work (and it wasn't raining) she was outside playing with the neighbor boy Braedon. She asked Braedon's dad to take her training wheels off and then proceeded to teach herself to ride while I taught piano. Apparently she does better without her parents hovering and her dad telling her to quit being a chicken. Now she zooms all over.

Matt's preschool class took their spring trip to Bizi farms. It was quite cold that day, but Matt had fun. Here is Katie and him looking at the bees. They seriously sat and stared at those bees for a LONG time. Who knew bees were so interesting?

Here is Matt with Katie and there friend Natalie on the tractor ride.

This past week we had a visit from Aaron's parents. We were so glad they could come, and were determined to have fun despite the fact that it rained the entire time they were here. We went bowling, and they were suitably impressed with my entire lack of bowling skill (I think I didn't even break 50 this time). We saw Kung Fu Panda 2 (not as good as the first, but still funny). Aaron and his dad did manage to get some golf in. One day we headed over to the coast to Cannon Beach. IT was cold and rainy when we got there and of course both kids fell in the water, so they were freezing cold and wet. After we changed them the sun actually came out for a while, so they had more fun. Ramsey's was terrified of the water at first, but he got used to it. We couldn't let him off his leash though because there was so many dogs around and he still runs away. Aaron's dad had bought the kids some kites, so they had fun flying them.

On their last day here we went to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). We had never been there before and it was a really cool place. The kids had a blast.

My in-laws were kind enough to stay one more day and take me back with them. My wonderful Grandpa passed away and they took me out to the funeral. It was great to get to see all of my extended family. My Grandpa had six kids, 34 grandkids and numerous great grandkids. Out of all that posterity only 3 were not at the funeral due to a baby being due and missions. It truly is a tribute to what a wonderful man he was. Aaron stayed home with the kids, and then I flew back a few days later.