Krimme World

Disneyland

2012-01-29T18:01:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-17T16:01:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-10T10:55:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-02T07:33:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-31T17:02:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-08-31T14:53:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-08T14:49:00.001-07:00

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!

2011-07-19T07:48:00.001-07:00

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

2011-06-05T19:18:00.001-07:00

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.

Easter

2011-04-24T15:42:00.001-07:00

Here we are dyeing some eggs: My kids have not mastered the art of using the egg dipper, they much prefer their hands.

These are for Aaron's dad. . .

Yesterday it was a beautiful, sunny 70 degrees, our like 3rd sunny day this year, so of course we had to head outside. We walked to Fisher Basin Park and played for a while.

Here is Ramseys, the kids and Aaron playing some soccer.

Here is Kaitlyn putting those tennis skills to use. She is actually pretty good.

Then we walked back home for our Easter egg hunt. This is actually the first year since we moved to Vancouver that the kids got to have their hunt outside.

And here they are dressed in their Easter finery. You might be able to tell in the pictures that we all managed to get sunburned yesterday. Gotta love fair skin :) Happy Easter eveyone!

They grow up so fast

2011-04-22T17:31:00.000-07:00

I was talking to Wendy today, and she was saying something about Kaitlyn's boyfriend. I stopped her and said, "What?!?" And she said that Kaitlyn had told Annie all about her boyfriend, who had beautiful black hair, and dark eyes. So when I picked Kaitlyn up from school today I asked her if she had a boyfriend. She said, "Yep, his name is Kaleb Franklin."
I asked, "Why do you like him Kaitlyn?"
Her reply "He is so cute!" (I looked up said Kaleb Franklin in Kaitlyn's class picture and sure enough, he is quite the cute kid with black hair and dark eyes)

Another conversation:

This one took place while I was fixing Kaitlyn's hair this morning.

Kaitlyn: "Mom, guess what I see when I close my eyes?"
Me: "What?"
Kaitlyn, with her eyes closed, "A handsome prince in a mansion!"

Oh, to be six again. . .

Utah Trip

2011-04-20T14:20:00.001-07:00

For my birthday, Aaron and my mom and sister went in on a ticket so I could go home for a few days. I don't get to see my family nearly enough! Last friday I flew out. It was a great trip. It was great to leave the rain and fly into sun. My sister picked me up on Friday and it was beautiful! We put my niece Isabella into a stroller and took a 2 hour walk all around BYU campus. It's amazing how much has changed since I've been there, but then I remembered that it's been almost 8 years since I graduated! Friday night we watched Harry Potter. On Saturday we enjoyed another beautiful day and ate some Cafe Rio! Yum! On Sunday we headed up to my brother's house to see him and his family. Good food, games and fun. On Monday morning my mom took me out to breakfast and shopping, then I got on the plane and came home to sun! It was a great trip, and I loved meeting my new niece. Here she is with me: And here is my sister Megan and her beautiful family. Thanks Meg and Mom for the ticket! Love you all!

Sledding

2011-02-24T11:47:00.000-08:00

There kids were dying to go sledding. So I dug out our 1 snow tube from the attic and pumped it up. We then headed over to our park area. There are four or five drainage areas around the park, and they all have little hills. There was a TON of people and the snow was starting to melt, but the kids had a blast. As you can see by the last picture, the snow metling caused pools of water at the bottom of the hills. We were lucky to have a tube and not a sled so the kids wouldn't get wet. They outlasted every other kid out there. The last time they went, when they hopped out of the tube the water came half way up their legs! There feet were soaked, but they were happy :)

Snow Day

2011-02-24T09:20:00.000-08:00

We woke up to this today:

So of course, they canceled school. Kaitlyn was beside herself with excitement. They quickly got all bundled up:

And headed outside. They had fun playing, and especially throwing snowballs at Ramseys. The best part was Ramseys. He was so funny. He just ran around and around eating the snow. At one point he was running around and he plowed right into Matt, knocking him over into the snow. Matt didn't like it, but I thought it was hilarious! I'm sure it will all be melted by this afternoon, but at least they got to enjoy it a little bit.

Bowling

2011-02-18T14:11:00.001-08:00

Aaron had today off (since he worked last Sat.) so we told the kids they could pick something fun to do. They decided on bowling, so we headed to Big Al's. It was fun! The only bad part was poor Aaron couldn't bowl since he sprained his ankle playing basketball last night. But he was a good cheerleader.

Here is the final scores. Matt was first, Kaitlyn was second and I was last. We astound you with our bowling talent don't we???

Zoo

2011-01-29T08:22:00.000-08:00

Kaitlyn didn't have school yesterday, and Aaron had the day off, so we ran down to the zoo. It was an overcast day, but no rain. We had fun. It wasn't crowded at all. A few of the animals were gone for the winter, but we had fun anyway. My kids favorite was the monkeys. They were pretty active. One of the monkeys even came right up to the glass and sat and stared at Matt. He loved it!

Christmas 2010

2011-01-29T08:06:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in a while so I'll try to catch up. We had a great Christmas. We started Christmas morning opening presents. Santa brought Kaitlyn the new video Barbie and Matt an Iron Man helmet that he has been asking for since July.

We kind of rushed through opening presents, because we had checked the weather and Christmas day was supposed to be the best day to drive to Utah. So we packed up fast and took off that morning. We had great weather, but a word to the wise, if you travel on Christmas Day don't plan on stopping for dinner anywhere because nothing is open. My kids had to eat a lunchable from the gas station for dinner. We finally made it to Aaron's parents at about 1 a.m. I willl also say that we brought the dog with us and 12 hours with a dog in the car, trying to sit on your lap the whole way was NOT fun!

We had a blast with Aaron's family. All of his sisters and their kids came. There was 22 of us in his parents house. We played games, went sledding, made gingerbread houses, had parties and got stuck in 2 blizzards. It was great! We love speding time with Aaron's family. The car ride home was pretty uneventful and Ramseys did much better. Kaitlyn and I got really sick when we got home though. She missed the whole next week of school and I got an inner and outer ear infection. If you've never had one, pray you never get one. It was so incrediably painful and I still don't have 100% hearing back in my ear yet.

Aren't they Cute?

2010-12-23T16:38:00.000-08:00

Since we are going to be driving the day after Christmas, I put the kids in their clothes a week early. HEre's some pics. My camera if having problems, so they are not the greatest pics. And Kaitlyn is the worst picture taker ever. Unless you catch her when she doesn't know you are taking a pic, you only get cheesy smiles. But they are cute anyway. (Also, as a side note: Kaitlyn HATES dresses. She refuses to wear them .She says all dresses itch. She LOVES skirts however, and often wears one everyday of school except PE days. So I was glad that there was some Christmas skirts out this year).

Houses and Stables

2010-12-18T10:32:00.000-08:00

A couple of weekends ago for FHE we made gingerbread houses. The kids loved it. It's actually the first year we've done it all as a family. We still have our big one to make with Wendy and the girls, so we just did graham crackers ones for FHE. Observe and marvel the craftsmanship. It will blow you away! First is Matt's mine:

Kaitlyn's:

Aaron's:

On friday it was Matt's Nativity performance for his preschool .He was playing the coveted part of Joseph with his BFF Katie as Mary. I blame the shoddy pics on Aaron who was in charge of camera work. Here is Joseph getting ready for his part. Isn't he adorable?

Here is Joseph telling Mary it will be alright.

Here they are scoping out the inns in Jerusalem. I love that they are holding hands.

And last is of Matt's whole class singing their songs.

Here is some videos of Matt's class singing. See if you can pick out my musically inclined son's voice (that would be the monotone loud one) :)

See if you can notice those slippery jingle bells:

That Wonderful Time of Year

2010-12-05T19:11:00.000-08:00

First, We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with the Rays. It was so much fun. Mark made the best turkey (seriously, probably the best I've ever had!). We had delicious food and then played Wii and euker. Sadly Aaron and I lost to Mark and Karen's vastly superiour playing skills. All in all it was a blast.
The Saturday after Thanksgiving (between football games) Aaron and I hung up lights. We like to get new lights each year, so this year we upgraded the ones that go around the roof to the bigger lights, then took the little ones and decorated the big pine tree by the side of our house. Three hours later we were done. What do you think? This Saturday we braved the bitter wind to pick out our Christmas tree. After much debate, we finally decided on one. The kids were pretty sure it was going to roll off the van, and for a couple of minutes, Aaron and I thought so too, but alas, we made it home before it fell off. We then set to decorating. I tried to give in this year and just let the kids do it. So it's not very symmetrical, and the picture makes it look like it's leaning as well, but oh well. And the good news is that so far Ramseys hasn't eaten any ornaments. We'll see what happens when we put presents underneath. . .

It's Christmas Time!

2010-11-21T14:30:00.001-08:00

Matt looked outside a little after church and shouted "It's Christmas Time!!" So we had to explain to him that even though it is snowing in Vancouver, it's not Christmas time yet. It's not even Thanksgiving! Kaitlyn is just banking on the fact that if it keeps up, school will be canceled tomorrow. Ramseys is not quite sure about the snow, especially since Kaitlyn kept pelting him with snow balls, but he'll get used to it fast. What a crazy day!

Trick-or -Treat

2010-10-31T13:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our Halloween celebration. We started the day with going to the zoo. They have a scavenger hunt through the zoo and the kids get stamps on their map. When they are done they get a goodie bag. The kids thought it was great, but seeing as how it was pouring rain the whole time, Aaron and I weren't sure it was worth it. We then headed to Kaitlyn's soccer game where she got to play in a huge mud pit. She was covered from head to toe in mud, and she loved every minute of it. Then it was home for bath and into costumes. We headed to the ward Halloween party, which was great as usual. At least the kids got some trick-or-treating in at the party and they aren't even disappointed about not getting to go house to house. The pics are not that great since I forgot the flash on my camera, so in case you can't tell, Kaitlyn is a ballerina and Matt is a vampire.

Pumpkins

2010-10-18T18:51:00.000-07:00

We carved our pumpkins. Here's the before: Here's the during :

And yes, I had to stand on a chair to clean out Aaron's.

Here is Kaitlyn's:

Here is mine:

Here is Matt's:

And here is Aaron's. I must admit, it's pretty cool. It took him like 2 1/2 hours to carve it. Silly guys :)

Bizi Farm Pumpkin Patch

2010-10-17T16:31:00.001-07:00

It's that time of year again. We made the annual trip to Bizi Farms with Matt's preschool class. He had a blast with all of his friends. Here is him and Katie.

This is his teacher Ms. Carolyn and both of her preschool classes.

Here they are with their pumpkins.

We went to Bizi farms again the next day since Kaitlyn didn't get to go. This time we went as a family and with a bunch of friends. It was such a beautiful day. It was sunny and warm. The only downfall was that it was PACKED with people. We took Ramseys with us and he had a blast. Here are some hi-lights.

Top of the pyramid.

The corn pit.

They have a pumpkin launcher. So here is all of us giving it a try. None of us made it in the bucket however.

We picked out some great pumpkins. I'll post those after we carve them for FHE.

New Decor

2010-10-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to redecorate Kaitlyn's room for a while now. I tried to find some pics of her old room so you could see it, but I couldn't. When we bought the house we painted it with purple and white stripes. I wanted something a little older for her. So I finally did it. I think it came together well. There is a pink and white polka dot bedspread that I will be getting soon, and I really want a white dresser for her (we'll see if I can convince Aaron) and when we put new carpet in the house she'll have white baseboards, but at least it's a start. Aaron drew the flowers on the wall and I painted them. All in all, I think it is a much more grown up room :)

ignore the mess on the dresser. Kaitlyn is not the world's neatest girl :) Takes after her mom I suppose.

A Trip to the ER

2010-09-24T08:32:00.000-07:00

Last night while playing at Annie's house, Kaitlyn, being the graceful, light on her feet girl that we love, tripped and fell into the edge of a cabinet. At first I didn't see anything, because she was holding her forehead, but then the blood started to fall down her hair. So alas, a 3 hour trip to the emergency room later, and she is sporting 3 fabulous staples in her head. The best part is that today is picture day at school and we can't even wash her hair for 24 hours.

P.S. I've had a couple of people ask, and surprisingly I did not freak out when it happened. I think I handled it quite well. Of course, this was her third time splitting her head open, and Matt broke his leg when he was 1, so all in all, I think I'm getting quite good at handling these situations.

More Soccer

2010-09-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

Kaitlyn started soccer this fall. We were a little worried about putting her in, since she had never played before and since she is older, but she said she wanted to do it. She does pretty well. She's a good runner, and can run fast, so that helps her. She actually really good at the goalie position, but she is not very aggressive. So when girls are running at her she tends to get alittle timid and a little afraid of going after them. She is learning though. Here's a couple of videos of her playing, and yes, you get to hear me yelling in the background. :)She is a little hard to see in the first video. She has on pink shin guards and two little red pigtails. In the second video you can tell it is her because she is twisting her hair.

Another First Day of School

2010-09-23T08:34:00.001-07:00

Matt started preschool this year. He is going to the same place Kaitlyn went, My Friends Preschool with Miss Carolyn. He was so excited to go, even though Kaitlyn kept making up stuff to scare him. She told him that if he got put in the time-out chair, that there were realy spiders and bugs that would crawl all over him. He was quite concerned with that one, and Kaitlyn got in trouble for teasing him, but once we calmed his fears about the time-out chair, he was ready to go. HE is of course in class with Katie (his BFF). He still loves it and asks everyday if it is a school day.

a Necessary New Do

2010-09-06T12:32:00.001-07:00

I've talked before about how Kaitlyn is quite shy and that she gets quite anxious about things, especially new people and new situations. It also causes her to have these nervous habits. She started out picking the skin on her lip. She would pick it until she had these huge sores all across her lips. We finally broke her of that one. Then she moved on to chewing on her clothes. After that she moved on to the last one that she has been doing for a while. She twists her hair, and since she has curly hair, it will twist into knots. Then when she gets it into a knot, she will yank the knot out, pulling extra hair with it. When we went on our vacation to California she yanked out so much hair that she gave herself a bald spot. We thought she had gotten better until church yesterday when she yanked out a huge chunk. Something had to be done, so I took her today to cut off her hair. We didn't go boy short, but pretty short. I seriously cried when the lady was cutting it off. Kaitlyn actually likes the cut, which is a good thing, but I hate it. Aaron and I warned her that if she still twists when it is this short that we will shave it off. Hopefully this will break her habit and by the time it grows back out she won't do it anymore. Any advice from anyone would be appreciated :)

The picture is from my cell phone, so not the best quality.

1st Day of School

2010-09-02T12:02:00.001-07:00

Kaitlyn started first grade yesterday. She was a little nervous because all of her friends from last year ended up in a new class. She is quite shy to begin with, so everyday Aaron has been giving her school "goals." For example, yesterdays goal was she had to play with one other kid during recess (she tends to play by herself alot.) And she had to learn two new names of classmates. She was so excited when she got home to report to Aaron how she had done. She also started to ride the bus this year. It seems to be going well. The neighborhood girls have been good about taking care of her. She choose Panera bagels for her breakfast, and Baskin Robbins ice cream for her snack after school. I just can't believe how grown up she is becoming :) I still teared up when she got on the bus. I can only imagine what will happen next year when Matt starts kindergarten. I'll lose it completely :)

Beanser is 6!!!

2010-08-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Kaitlyn's 6th b-day. She had been counting down for weeks. She was so excited. She told us on Monday that since it was her b-day on Tuesday, she could do whatever she wanted and we couldn't tell her no. We politely told her that, yes, it was her b-day, but we could still tell her no. :) Anyway, she woke up and the first thing she wanted to do was open her presents. She got this game from Matt. She loves games, and particularly likes this one after playing it at her cousins house. The thing she wanted most in the world was a Nintendo DSi. Aaron and I debated for a while about getting her one. She is kind of a gamer, and loves to play Wii and computer. We have to strictly moniter her time, or she would play all day, so we were worried about adding one more thing to the mix. Also, they are very expensive. Way more than we usually spend on a b-day. We ended up telling her that if she could save 1/2 the money for it, she could maybe get one. I am so proud of this little girl. She saved for 8 months, and saved up $50. Everytime she would want to buy something, we would tell her to go ahead, but she would stop, think about it, and then say "No, I'm saving for my DSi." It also made her much more helpful at home. She was always asking for extra jobs to do so she could earn more money. So by her b-day she had saved $50, then she has to give us $25 of her b-day money, and then she got her DSi (pink of course.)

Since it was her b-day, we told her she could play as much as she wanted.

She didn't have a lot of time to play though because we had quite the busy day. She didn't get a party this year, so we told her she could pick on place to go. She chose Chuck. E. Cheese. So we headed there yesterday morning with our friends the Every's. Then in the afternoon we headed to the beach with a bunch of friends. I lugged down a cooler full of popsicles in honor of her b-day. We had a blast with all of our friends at the beach. I'm so sad that summer is almost over and we can't go anymore :( She is such a funny kid and for her b-day dinner she chose steak and mashed potatoes. Aaron thought that was the best idea ever, so that's what we ate. Then that night we did cake and ice cream. There is only this one pic of the cake because it is by far the worst cake I have ever made. I didn't plan it out, so it was a last minute cake, so I was forced to decorate with random stuff I had in my house. She wanted a Barbie cake, so here is the result (don't laugh, it truly is awful, but Aaron made me put a picture of it up).

Ramseys thoroughly enjoyed Kaitlyn's b-day. He got to tear up paper, cardboard, plastic etc. and had a blast for like an hour.

We love you Kaitlyn!!!!

It's A Boy!!!

2010-08-11T16:37:00.001-07:00

Yes, it is a boy, but not the kind you're thinking of. We did get a new baby in our house, but he walks on four legs, has tan fur and the cutest face you've ever seen. As soon as we got back from camping we picked up our new puppy. Our friends The Jackson's dog had puppies and they let us have first pick. We've visited the puppies tons since they were born and finally decided on this little guy. His name is Ramseys (Aaron will inform you that he is NOT named after the Egyptian pharoah, but rather the wrestler from Nacho Libre). He is a lab/boxer mix, so he'll be a pretty big guy. He is so adorable and has the best temprament. He never bites or barks (excpet at night when we shut him in his kennel, but that will pass). The kids totally torture him and he never nips at them. I will say that it has been a ton of work these past couple of days, and I'm really looking forward to him being potty-trained, but we totally love him!

Grandpa visit, Camping

2010-08-11T15:42:00.001-07:00

We have had a busy couple of weeks. First I headed to girls camp for a couple of days with my beehives. It was great! I had forgotten how much I really enjoy a bed, and a good nights sleep. Those couple days at camp quickly reminded me :) Then Aaron's dad came to visit. We had a great time with him. We went hiking to ponytail falls (sorry no pics), went to the zoo and the river. We ran Grandpa around. It was a lot of fun.

The day after Grandpa left we loaded up the car ( and I do mean loaded, it was packed!) and headed to Sacremento, California. We were meeting Aaron's 3 sisters and their families for a camping trip. We went to this great site on the American River called Coloma Resorts. We stayed in bunk houses that had A/C (thank goodness since it was around 95 degrees each day) and they had full bathrooms. We had to cook all our meals outside on camp stoves, but each family took a night so we just had to cook one big meal. I was worried about keeping my kids entertained for 5 days while camping, but they didn't get bored once. There was 10 cousins to play with, a swimming pool, playground, big open spaces to run in and of course the river. We tubed down the river everyday. There was a short run without too many rapids that the kids did. Then we traded off guys and girls going on a long 1 hour 45 minute float down. I never tipped, but Aaron got dumped a couple of times in the rapids. We also got to pan for gold, and even found some! All in all, a great vacation. We are planning on going again for a family vacation and I definatly recommend the spot.

My Baby is 4!

2010-07-16T16:16:00.001-07:00

Matt turned 4 today. It's so crazy to think my little baby is 4. I'm quite sad about it. I wish I could freeze him, so he doesn't grow anymore. He still loves to come and snuggle with me and gives me big hugs. He is such a boy. He loves to play transformers, dinosaurs and cars. He loves to run around outside and pick on his big sister. He is starting to write some letters, but is not really interested in sitting down and doing school work. He has a great imagination and I love to just sit and listen to him play with his toys. He makes up the best stories for them. I just love this kid sooo much!

Here he is on his b-day with his new Woody doll and his cowboy costume. He also got some Transformers, which he loves.

For his b-day party he wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese. So we invited 4 friends and headed to Chuck. E. Cheese. After they played for a while we came back and had lunch, and cake and ice cream.

He wanted a SpiderMan party, and SpiderMan cake. So I had Aaron draw a picture for me and then I attempted to put the picture on a cake. So here is the picture Aaron drew.

And here is the cake. It turned out ok. Not the best but it was the first time I had worked with fondant. I made some marshmallow fondant (and broke my Bosch in the process). It was pretty easy to work with, but took me forever. At least Matt loved it!

Soccer

2010-07-10T08:27:00.000-07:00

Summer finally decided to come to Vancouver, so this week we've been hovering between 95-100 degrees. It's been great! We headed to the river on Wed. with a big group of friends. I forgot my camera, but the kids had a blast. We were there for 4 hours and I did well with the sunscreen. Aside from numerous mosquito bites, my kids came away fine. I however have some advice, when applying your sunscreen, don't forget the back of your legs. Suffice it to say that I've had to take a couple days off of running, and I've been wearing skirts that fall just to the knee.
On friday we went with some friends to Portland to a place called Peninsula Park. It's a pretty nice park with two big playgrounds that are completely shaded. They also have a little spray park and rose garden with a big fountain in the middle. The kids had a blast at the spray park and playing in the fountain.

On Thursday night Matt had his first soccer game. He was so excited. We got to the park and it was 98 degrees. It was sooo hot! They made all the kids get sprayed off from a hose before the game started, then they shortened each quarter to only 5 minutes. Then at half-time the kids had to get sprayed off again. It was so much fun seeing him play. All of the kids but 2 on our team are from our ward, so he has a lot of friends. Unfortunatly only about 4 of the kids would play, so Matt had to play a lot of the game. By the end he was so hot and tired but he did great. We lost by about 15-3. Our team was so funny, everytime one of the red team would come to get the ball, our players would pretty much just stand back and let them have it! I've included some great video so you can see Matt playing. He runs pretty well, now if he could just run while he has the ball, we'll be good! I was so proud of him though. Isn't he the cutest soccer player ever!?!

4th( or rather 3rd) of July, Vancouver Style

2010-07-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

We failed once again to convince anyone how truly spectacular 4th of July in Vancouver is, so no one came to visit this year. Hopefully this post will convince you to come see us next year. We headed to our friends that Jackson's again this year. They outdid themselves with the party this year. I think the people totaled around 150 this year. They provided all the meat, and everyone else brought sides and desserts. It was great. Here is a pic of everyone eating. They had lost of activities around their yard to keep everyone entertained before the show, including a D.J. to keep the party going. There was volleyball, badmitten, and ping pong. We got a big round of around-the-world ping pong going with a bunch of the adults. It was a blast, but I'm sad to say that I was out almost first everytime. Not quick enough. . . They had plenty for the kids to do too. I don't think I saw Kaitlyn the whole night until the fireworks stared. They had a "fishing" pond with candy, face paiting, the bounce house (below), tree house(also below), a trampoline and of course the puppies (their dog Sadie had puppies 3 weeks ago).

A few of the men got together and bought all the fireworks for the show and then we all just contributed to the cost. I won't tell you how much they spent, but it was a ridiculous amount, which means it was a GREAT show. Here is the mortar table where they lit them off from.

And last but not least, the show. It was great again this year. I love that nothing is illegal in Washington. There are a couple of pics, and some video, although the video of the finale didn't come through. Too bad, but the rest will show you how great it is and hopefully intice someone to come spend it with us next year. . .
Amazing that we get to shoot those off in the backyard! (ignore my commentary in the background, I wish you could turn the sound off on the video)

Juneuary

2010-07-01T16:13:00.001-07:00

The Pacific Northwest has not been kind to us this June. We've had something like 40 straight days of rain (starting to feel like Noah), then we were teased with like a week of warmer weather. And by warmer I mean we reached 80 like 2 days. But this week has been weak, with high 60's, low 70's. So when we hit 80 my kids begged to get wet, so we bought a new slip-n-slide and a new pool. They played in them for two days, and they have since sat on our patio. Hopefully summer will make it's appearance soon. We're getting anxious to go to the beach, but the river is so high there is no more beach!
Here's the pool:

Kaitlyn told me that she was cute this day and I just HAD to take a picture. . .

And here is what happens when all you play with is girls. He did tell me that it was a boy's color, so it's ok. His dad does NOT agree however!

Graduation!!!

2010-06-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

Kaitlyn graduated from Kindergarten on Thurs. We are so proud of her! Despite their crazy schedule, she advanced a lot this year. She is reading way above grade level, and is getting better and math and writing. She loves to read, and sits in bed reading for 20-30 minutes each night before bed. She loves to write and make up stories too, but is still working on penmanship and spelling. Math is definatly not her favorite (guess she takes after her mom), but she is working hard. She had a great time in school, and made lots of friends. She's still pretty shy, and still spends a lot of time alone, but is getting better. She can almost look her teacher in the eye now! We love you Kaitlyn!
Here is Kaitlyn with her teacher, Ms. Holmberg.
Here is Kaitlyn with her student teacher, Ms. Graham.

Here is a short video of Kaitlyn getting her certificate. (blame the horrible quality of the video on Aaron!)

Milestones

2010-05-08T17:07:00.000-07:00

So we've had a couple of big milestones in the family. Matt got his first bike a couple of weeks ago. He wanted a Spider Man one and refused to get on until he had all of his pads and helmet on. Good boy! He was pretty slow at first, but can almost keep up with his sister now. We tried to take off Kaitlyn's training wheels, but that was a monumental disaster, so alas, that milestone will take place on a later post.

But Kaitlyn did have something exciting happen. She lost her first tooth!! She was so excited and can't wait for the tooth fairy to come tonight. She ever wrote the tooth fairy a note explaining what she would do with the money earned for losing teeth (Buy her Nintendo DSI). I'm pretty sure that she is soon going to be trying to pull out her own teeth to earn money for that thing.

Utah Trip 2010

2010-04-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

We took our annual trip to Utah during Kaitlyn's spring break this year. My sister was kind (crazy?) enough to fly out and drive back with me and the kids. So we left at 5:00 a.m. on Friday morning. IT was crazy raining when we left, so going through the gorge was pretty sketchy, but we finally made it to Salt Lake around 7:00 Utah time. The kids actually did really good. We dope them both up with dramamine to prevent their violent car sickness and then put on movies. They slept and did some coloring too. All in all, a much better drive than the last time when Matt was still a baby. We stayed our first five days with my brother and his family. On Saturday we met up with my dad, kathy and Kara and went to the aquarium. It was pretty fun, although kind of small. We had a couple of days of good weather and my kids took full advantage, playing in my brother's acre backyard. The sand box was their favorite!

We then went to a place called Jumpin Jacks that my kids thought was the best. I'm not sure if Uncle Jason agreed since Kaitlyn made him play tag with her the whole time. I think he took the longest nap when we got home :)

THis is my sister-in-law Lisa and my adorable nice Alexa.

On Tuesday we met up with my mom and went to the dinosaur museum. This was by far Matt's favorite part of the trip. He would have stayed all day if we had let him.

On Thurs. Aaron flew in and we headed down to his parents house. We deposited the kids with Grandma and Grandpa and then we headed to our BFF's house, Dan and Emily. We spent the night eating food and getting beat at every game we played by the Olsen's. It was so great to see them again. And when you read this Dan, come visit us in Washington so we can get the Krimme honor back. :)

The next morning we headed back to Aaron's parents house. It worked out great because Erika and her family all came up from Cali and Michele and her family came from Roosevelt, and since Beth and her family live in Salt Lake we were able to have the whole family together, 11 adults and 12 grandkids all in one house. It was fabulous. Here is what Aaron did for most of the tripAaron's dad closed the store on Saturday and he planned a whole day for the kids. The day started out with egg coloring.

The came the easter egg hunt. Aaron claims that his dad has gotten soft in his old age because the eggs were so easy to find. He says when he was a kid they would search forever to find them.

He then had a whole treasure hunt for the kids with a huge cooler full of candy. The kids were pretty hyped up on sugar at this point. But oh well, what good is having all your cousins around if you aren't going to take advantage?

I actually had to wake my kids up on Easter morning because the Aaron and his sister's and I (along with Maddie and Taylor who were both 8) had tickets to Sunday session of conference. So I woke my kids up so I could see them get their baskets. Kaitlyn was excited that her and her cousin Megan both got the same book from the Easter bunny.

And yes, the easter bunny lugged a hulahoop all the way from Washington (hidden under blankets) just so Kaitlyn could get one for Easter. I had my doubts but she is actually pretty good at the thing. The sad part is that she learned at school, while playing all by herself at reccess. :( She doesn't mind though . . .

The morning session of conference was wonderful. We had to be in our seats before the Spoken Word started. It was so beautiful. The MoTab sang a bunch of Easter songs, including Handle's Hallelujah chorus. IT brought chills and tears. It was so powerful being there with so many Saints. Definatly the hi-light of my trip. We enjoyed a fabulous Easter dinner on Sunday afternoon, and left about 6:00 a.m. Monday morning for the trip home. It was great, although Aaron's swears he is never driving again :)

Early Easter

2010-03-23T18:21:00.000-07:00

So I know that Easter is 2 weeks away, but we are leaving for Utah this Friday so I decided to have the kids wear their Easter outfits early. They looked cute. Both are a little big, but my kids grow like weeds so I can't bring myself to buy the right size, I always buy one size up so it will last longer than a month. They are adorable kids though.

After 3 weeks of work. . .

2010-03-13T19:51:00.000-08:00

Our bathrooms are DONE!!!
In the kids bathroom we tore out the floor and put in porcelin tile. Then we replaced the vanity, and toilet and all the fixtures. We were doing quite well with it, until the pipes started leaking. It took Aaron a while to fix those, then we got the floor all done and were putting the new toilet in and we cracked a tile. So we had to dig it out and replace it. We finally got that all done and opened the box for the new vanity and the whole back of the vanity was caved in. So we had to take it back to Lowe's and get a replacement. After all that work, we are almost done. We still need a mirror and we're going to put some white cabinets over the toilet but you get the picture.The first few pics are the before.

For our bathroom we mostly just replaced the floor. Some idiot decided to put carpet in the bathroom, so that just had to go (after 3 years of living here). So we put the same tile in and I painted the bathroom all white (it used to be a light yellow) and I painted the cabinets black. Not much work, but I'm glad there is no more carpet. We still need to put the baseboards in our bathroom and get new white doors for both bathrooms. But we are glad to finally have out house not be a construction zone. I can't wait to clean it top to bottom on Monday!

Yes, Yes We're still Alive

2010-03-13T08:56:00.001-08:00

I know it's been forever since I've done a post. We are alive and happy. Not much has happened since Christmas. Kaitlyn went back to school. The novelty is wearing off and almost everyday I hear "Why do I have to go to school today?" She is however doing very well. She can now read most books she brings home completely by herself and now we've starting working harder on spelling and math. Matt continues to enjoy his time at home alone. He is excited to start soccer soon. In Feb. my mom and my sister came to visit. Sad to say, I got no pics and haven't figured out how to get them from my sister yet. We had a great time with them. We went shopping, played, went swimming and went to see Princess and the Frog. It was a lot of fun. The kids made Valentine frames for Grandma, (which you can see below). And yes, I celebrated my 28th birthday. Aaron had work and class that day, so my wonderful friends took me out to dinner and I spent the whole day at Wendy's watching BBC classics. On Thursday Aaron made me breakfast and made me dinner (Cafe Rio salads) and the kids helped with the cake.
We are now in the process of renovating both of our bathrooms. We've almost finished ours (just need baseboards), and we've been working on the kids forever. We were almost done, but as we were putting the new toilet in we crakced a tile, so we had to replace that. Hopefully we'll finish today and I'll post pics of both of them.

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year

2010-01-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful Christmas. On Christmas eve we went to the Every's house. We had a good time. That night the kids opened their pj's (Spongebob this year) and then Operation, which we played before bed. The kids actually slept in until 9 a.m. so we had a late Christmas morning. That afternoon we went to Gabe and Wendy's and had a wonderful dinner with them, the Rays and the Wards. 8 adults, 9 kids and lots of great food. Kaitlyn asked Santa for 3 Muskateers Barbie, but Grandma helped Santa out with that gift. Thanks Grandma!

Matt got a lot of dinosaurs, which he loves!

Here is Daddy's old Superman cape, which Matt now inherited.

Thanks Aunt Beth for the umbrella, we've already put it to good use.

Grandma Krimme made this adorable tutu for Kaitlyn. Thanks Grandma!

The day after Christmas my brother and his family came to visit. I know you're all wondering how I fit 5 extra people in my house for a week, but it was actually really great. We had a blast, and my kids loved playing with their cousins. They all got to have sleepovers at night, and the adults played games late into the night. Here is Matt and my nephew Jaxon.

Here is my brother Jason and my adorable neice Alexa.

It actually snowed a little bit on Tuesday. My nephews weren't thrilled, but my kids thought Christmas had come again. It all melted by the next day.

Here we all are at the kids club.

We made some New Year's Party hats. Here are the kids creations.

Here's our spread of food. Real healthy, bacon-wrapped smokies, BBQ smokies, pigs in a blanket, 7 layer dip, chili cheese dip and veggie tray. I'm gonna be workin' that off for the next 2 months! But it was totally worth it!

Here's my sister-in-law Lisa and Alexa in her hat.

Here's Aaron's creation. Attractive huh?

These were the streamers they popped. The kids loved that part.

And last but definatly not least, another one of my adorable neice Alexa, who I just love!!

How you know your kids watch too much T.V.

2009-12-22T13:47:00.000-08:00

As we're leaving Walmart parking lot

Kaitlyn: Mom, guess what I heard?

Mom: What?

Kaitlyn: Christmas costs less at Walmart!, Good thing we shop there.

Don't We Clean Up Nice?

2009-12-20T16:41:00.001-08:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks for us. We've had tons of rain, but to my kids continued disappointment, no snow. I got to go into Kaitlyn's class and help her make gingerbread houses. Then we made some at home with Wendy, Annie and Katie, but my battery was dead, so no pics :( We've been getting boxes galore from granparents, and the kids are getting antsy for Christmas to come. We've tried hard to teach them the true meaning of Christmas, but alas, I'm not sure they are getting it. We'll keep trying though. Today was our Christmas program in church, so I bought Kaitlyn a new Christmas dress. I really wanted a green one to go with her red hair, and so I found one (not my favorite, but it does look nice with her hair.) I couldn't find anything I liked for Matt, so he just gets to wear his everyday church clothes. Don't they look great?

On a side note, here is finally a picture of my hair. I chopped off 8 inches. Sorry I didn't have the guts to go the full 10 Beth, next time I promise I'll donate it :)

Santa

2009-12-07T08:56:00.000-08:00

In years past my kids have been terrified of Santa. They would always refuse to go and sit on his lap, so I didn't have high hopes for this year. But one day while we were at the mall, I decided to try it. And to my astonishment, they ran right up there, told him what they wanted (Kaitlyn a 3 Muskateers Barbie, and Matt a big Batman with Batman car) and took a great pick. They constantly amaze me. Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving

2009-11-29T07:59:00.000-08:00

We had a great Thanksgiving. Some wonderful people in our ward invited us over, Sabrina and Dustin Ward. The kids were totally excited. The Ward's daughter Kylie is in Matt's playgroup, so they already know each other. The kids favorite part about going over there was their dog, Milo, who got fed a better Thanksgiving dinner than anyone via my kids. Sorry Sabrina! We had a fabulous dinner. Sabrina cooked most of it. I contributed a veggie tray, turkey cupcakes and a banana cream pie. Sorry, no pics! It was a great day though. On Friday we took the kids to see Planet 51. They loved it, I fell alseep. But in defense of the movie, I had gotten up at 4:00 a.m. to do some Black Friday shopping. We then decorated our house. This year we added some net lights on the bush, lights around the window and the red and green bulbs in our house lights. The kids pooped at about 1/2 hour into it, but it took Aaron and I almost 2 1/2 hours to finish it.

On Saturday we went with Wendy and Gabe and the girls and bunch of Wendy's family to Thornton's Treeland to cut down our tree. IT was actually a dry day! The kids had a blast. Kaitlyn actually tripped over a stump and face planted in the mud. Here she is after the face plant, still smiling! Here is the tree Matt wanted to get. He aims high don't you think?

Here is the tree we actually picked. We were a little worried because it's the biggest we've ever gotten, and we were worried we'd have to move the couches out to actually fit it in our tiny living room, but we got it anyway. And for those of you that have never been to a tree farm, I wish I could describe the smell to you. To me, it is pure heaven.
They had a petting zoo at the tree farm. The kids stayed quite a while here. Then we got some hot chocolate.

Next came the hay ride. They had this fabulous kettle corn, as you can see Kaitlyn holding. We ruined everyone's dinner by eating two bags full!

And here is the final project. It just barely fit in the living room, although the love seat is pushed all the way to the front door and it still squishes that one side of the tree, but oh well. We love it. It smells sooooo good!

SYTYCD

2009-11-21T09:22:00.000-08:00

For those of you that know me, you know that I'm a HUGE So You Think You Can Dance fan. I especially loved last season, when Jeanine won. So when I found out they were coming to Portland for their tour, I wanted to go. I was online to buy the tickets the second they went on sale. We went with our friends Mark and Karen Ray, and Gabe and Wendy Atkinson. It was amazing!! We had great seats, down on the floor, but in the first row of the bottom part, so we had a lot of leg room. We were also a little raised so we could see really well. They did almost all of my favorite dances. It was so great to see them so close, and to feel the music. The floor was literally pulsing with some of the music. It was an amazing night! We went to dinner at this fabulous Peruvian resturant, Nascas, owned by a lady in our ward. It was goooood food. Flash photography was technically banned, but everyone else was taking pics, so we did too. The only downfall of the whole night was that Phillip, one of my favorite dancers, was injured. So we didn't get to see him dance at all. :( The rest of the show was fabulous!

Here we are at the show, you can see all the foot room we had.

This is Melissa and Evan.

Here is the winner of last season and the runner-up, Jeanine and Brandon. This was my favorite group number.

Here is Phillip and Jeanine, once again, totally sad that Phillip didn't dance. Here is Kayla's solo. She wasn't my favorite, but she is a great dancer.

These last two pics are just for the Grandparents. Kaitlyn accessorized herself in a scarf yesterday and wanted me to take a picture. After the picture she informed me I had to send it to Grandma and Grandpa. Well, since Kaitlyn had a picture, Matt had to have one too, with Spiderman. He has a bit of a cold, that's why his nose is so red and raw. Silly kids!

Happy 30th!

2009-11-13T16:26:00.001-08:00

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband. We've been married 7.5 years and I love him as much today as I did when we were married, even more! He's such a wonderful husband, and most importantly a wonderful Dad! The kids were so excited for today. They helped wrap his presents ( a new golf club, spongebob golf balls, and a putting practice thing) and then helped make his breakfast (cinnamon rolls, eggs, and bacon). They were so excited because Daddy chose to go to Kidz Club for his b-day. For those of you that don't live here, Kidz Club is a big, three-story indoor jungle gym. The kids had a blast playing tag and hide-and-go-seek with Daddy, (who consequently needed a shower after the trip.) His chosen b-day dinner is crab legs and steak, so I'll get the chance to cook crab legs for the first time. The day will finish with his favorite, Boston Cream Pie, also baked with loving help from the kids. So Happy 30th Birthday Aaron!!!!

Happy Halloween

2009-11-01T09:13:00.000-08:00

As most parents know, Halloween is a hard holiday for kids. From the second mine woke up they were asking to go trick-or-treating. They couldn't believe they had to wait all day to go! So we told them they could pick one fun thing to do, and they picked bowling. So we headed to Big Al's! It was actually quite fun. The kids had a blast. Kaitlyn quickly discovered that she could run up and throw the ball (only dropping it a couple of times) and Matt pushed his. They did pretty good, although it was blatanlty obvious that no one in our family is bowlers. The final scores were Kaitlyn: 65, Matt:65, Me:80 and Aaron:97. I will say that Aaron finally got a strike and broke 100 on the second game, but the rest of us didn't really improve.

After all day of waiting it was almost time to go. Gabe and Wendy and the girls came over and we had some pizza, then went trick-or-treating together. The kids were all so cute! Everytime Matt and Katie would run up to a door their little capes would fly out behind them. We went around all block and by the end of it, Matt was done. So he headed home with Daddy, and the rest of us went over to Gabe and Wendy's neighboorhood. We made it about four more houses, then Katie pooped out. The bigger girls were die-hards and we made it a few more blocks. By then Annie was pretty cold and tired, but alas, Kaitlyn could have gone all night. Crazy kids pumpkin was totally full and she kept trying to smash it down so she could go to more houses. All in all, a great Halloween!

Pumpkins and Tutu's

2009-10-24T14:09:00.001-07:00

We finally carved the kids pumpkins this weekend. They were so excited, up until we pulled the top off and told them to clean them out. Then both turned back into the squemish kids that they are and refused to clean them out. That duty fell to mom. Then Kaitlyn drew her face on her pumpkin, and Matt got help with his and Daddy carved .They turned out pretty good. Hopefully they last until Halloween!

Today at Nordstrom's they were putting on a girls tutu party. The girls got to come in their tutu's and get some make-up on, glitter, their nails done and get some candy. Kaitlyn went with Annie and Katie and loved every minute of it. Thank goodness Kaitlyn has Wendy (Annie and Katie's mom) in her life, she might actually turn out to be a girlie-girlie. Heaven knows she gets no help from her mom in that department :)

P.S. if you are wondering about the stuffed dog that features prominantly in all the pictures. . .Kaitlyn's kindergarten class has a "pet" his name is D.O.G. and he gets to come home for a few days with each kid. The kid then writes in D.O.G.'s journal about what they did with him over those few days. They also attach pictures in the journal, thus, D.O.G. got to go to his first, (and I'm sure last) tutu party.

oh Where oh Where have the Krimme's gone??

2009-10-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

Last conference Sunday Kaitlyn came down with a high fever, cough, sore throat and achiness. She was pretty miserable. She just laid around all day. By Sunday night her fever was up to 104 and we were pretty worried. We took turns checking on her all night, and by Monday morning, it was down to only 101. But alas, by Tuesday both Matt and I had it. Poor Aaron had to play nurse, a role he did quite well in I might add. Matt and I didn't really move all of Tuesday or Wed. Kaitlyn was back to school by Thurs, but Matt and I were still pretty bad. The first time we made it out of the house all week was Sat. We had to miss church because Matt still had a cough, but luckily we are recovered. How not fun is it to sit in you house for a whole week though, especially when we were having some nice sunny days. Hopefully the flu is behind us though.
During all this sickness, Kaitlyn had her first tennis lesson. I was a bad mom, and didn't get her signed up for soccer in time, so we decided to try tennis. She goes twice a week for 45 minutes to the tennis center. She's in a class with 4-6 year olds. Her teacher is great. They do lots of little activities, and they had these oversized tennis balls that they play with. Kaitlyn is imporving each week and she seems to love it. Maybe she'll end up with better hand-eye coordination than her mom :)

Yesterday Matt and I went with Kaitlyn's kindergarten class to the pumpkin patch. It was luckily not raining and not too muddy. The kids got to pick out a pumpkin and hay-ride, hay bale maze, pet some animals and climb on a hay pyramid. They had a lot of fun, and it was great to see how Kaitlyn interacts with her class and her teacher. She can almost look Ms.Holmberg in the eye now! Great progress!

Here is Kaitlyn's class, see if you can pick her out, (she's the one posing for the camera) and see if you can find her teacher. . .

W.R.E.C.

2009-09-30T07:11:00.000-07:00

So yesterday my friend Maria called and invited us to go to the Water Resources Education Center. I know what you're thinking, and I was skeptical at first too, but we decided to go. It was cold and rainy yesterday, plus this activity was free. So we hopped in the car and left. It was actually quite a fun place. They had all these exhibits teaching about water and where it goes and how it gets there. Plus how to save water. They also had a cool kids area with slide, puzzles, games, puppets, toys etc. The kids had a lot of fun. They got to play with all the exhibits and look at fish, frogs and birds, and just run around. IT was educational and fun, which is a double bonus. Thanks Maria for showing us!!!
Here is Matt checking out one of the exhibits. Here is Kaitlyn trying to pump water to all of Vancouver without overflowing the pump. She was working pretty hard!

Here's Matt navigating the "stream" and in the lower corner you can just make out his friend Gavin.

Here is Matt, Kaitlyn and Marshall having fun in the tunnel.

We tried to get Kaitlyn to put on a puppet show for us, but apparently show buisness is not in her future, she was too shy :)

Fishin'

2009-09-22T08:20:00.001-07:00

Last night Gabe and Wendy invited the kids and I to go fishing with them for FHE. Aaron was sadly at class and unable to participate, but we made sure to text him and let him know we were going :) My kids were so excited. Kaitlyn was so loudly excited that I'm pretty sure she scared away most of the fish. Matt and Katie had a blast playing with worms, which included, but was not limited to putting the worms on their arms, bellies and head. Annie was quite the caster and could get the line almost as far as her dad. Gabe did most of the actually help, but Wendy and I did are part. Wendy got the great job of unhooking the fish so the kids could throw them back in the water. I made sure to test the worms out to make sure they were edible for the fish (I'll leave this story to your imagination since it is still quite awful for me to remember). All the kids caught a fish. I was going to draw an arrow on the picture so you could actually see their fish, but alas, haven't figured out how to do that on the blog yet.

You can see from Kaitlyn's picture how well I dress my kids for such an outing, and of course Kaitlyn has to make sure and pose with her fish.
Annie shows what most of the kids were actually feeling as they pulled their fish in.

Here is Gabe, showing the pure exuberance of what I'm sure was his biggest catch ever!

The Greatest Show on Earth!

2009-09-17T12:53:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to the Barnum and Bailey Ringling Brothers Circus with Gabe and Wendy and the girls.It was our first time ever at the circus. It was pretty cool. We got there an hour early and you got to go down onto the floor to meet a bunch of the circus people. The show was great too. Kaitlyn said her favorite part was the tigers, Matt said his was the cannon (they shot two girls out of these HUGE cannons). They also had elephants, horses, clowns, tightrope walkers etc. It was a fun, but late night. Matt fell alseep with a half-hour left, but Kaitlyn braved it until the very end, only to fall asleep the second she was in her seat in the car. We'll see how tired she is when she gets home from school today, I actually had to wake her up to get her to go. It was worth it though.

Kindergarten

2009-09-09T18:16:00.001-07:00

Today was Kaitlyn's first full-day of kindergarten. She goes from 9:25-3:35 on Monday's, Thursdays and every other Wed. I know, what a wacky schedule! I asked her what she wanted for her special breakfast, and (she takes after her mom), she wanted bagels and cream cheese, or as she calls it, the white stuff. So I made an early run to Panera and got her a blueberry muffin with hazlenut cream cheese.

We then got her all ready for school. The kindergartners for the first two weeks have to wear name tags with their bus number and their teacher's room on them, so if they get lost from the bus to the room, anyone can direct them where to go. That would be what the big green paper is on her shirt.

Matt and I then walked her to the bus stop. There was a nice boy named Alex (a 5th grader) who was a bus buddy and was in charge of getting the two kindergartners from the bus to the classroom, so I was a little less worried about Kaitlyn. I was good and didn't break down until after she was on the bus, but then I cried the whole walk back to the house. Matt was unconcerned. He actually was quite excited to have the house all to himself, and when I asked him later if he missed Kaitlyn he gave an enthusiastic "NO!"

Here she is after school. She was pretty pooped, but actually hasn't fallen asleep yet. She did tell me however, that she doesn't like riding the bus. Aaron and I asked her why, but she didn't give any reasons. We asked her to try it one more day, then we'll see. I might be taking her. All in all, she had a good day. She is excited to get to buy lunch tomorrow (it's pizza day) and check out her first book from the library!

New Form of Punishment

2009-09-04T18:09:00.001-07:00

The kids were driving me nuts today. Between pulling hair, hitting, spitting, yelling, kicking and fighting I had had enough. So when Aaron got home I ordered him to do something about the kids. This was his response. (This ledge it about 8 feet up from the floor). But I don't know, I don't think they look too repentant.

The Big 05!

2009-08-24T18:57:00.000-07:00

My sweet little (big?) girl turned 5 today. I can't believe it's been five years already. She is such a wonderful girl. She loves to learn. She is always asking me to help her read books, and to write her letters. She is so excited to start kindergarten (even if Mom is not!). She loves to play with my little ponies, polly pockets and to do anything arts and craftsy. I can't believe she started out so small. She's pretty average now. We just love her personality and her fiery spirit. That red hair really comes into play sometimes :) Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!!!

Kaitlyn had her pony party today. She invited five friends. We started out the party by painting some wooden ponies. Then we played pin-the-tail on the pony. Lunch was Little Ceasers, and then it was time for a little game with each girl getting to open a pony to take home. Then came Kaitlyn's favorite part of the party, the pony pinata. The girls had a blast hitting it, with Annie Atkinson doing the honor of breaking it open.

Then came the cake and ice cream. I think Kaitlyn had a great time. She was so happy that her friends could come a spend such a special day with her. Happy Birthday Bean!!!

Here are Kaityn's friends starting at the left : Lauren and Carly Ray, Kaitlyn, Annie Atkinson, and Gabby Lacher. They are all such great girls!

A Simple Request ?!?

2009-08-23T21:58:00.000-07:00

It all started out with Kaitlyn asking for a My Little Pony party for her 5th birthday. I thought, okay, I can do a my little pony cake. In fact it will probably be one of the easiest ones I've done. Not in the least! After I started doing my research to find the best way to make one, I quickly realized it was easier said than done. You could buy the Wilton Pony pan for like $35, but what's the point if you're only going to use it once? Then a bunch I looked at were just a cake with ponies set on top, or elaborate pony houses made out of fondant, but since I believe that cake should be edible, and let's face it fondant just isn't, I quickly ruled those out. That left one option, making my own. Once again I was feeling rather confident. I had done some pretty cool cakes over the last couple of years (excuse me for bragging a little bit),
Here is the duck cake from Katilyn's first birthday. I did have help from my mother-in-law for this one, and a duck pan complete with directions. Kaitlyn's second birthday was Mickey Mouse, and my sister helped with this one.

Third year was a Little Einstein's theme, ergo a rocket cake. I did this one by myself.

Her fourth year she wanted princess. This was probably the coolest, but by far the easiest one to make. Did this one myself to.

Now we are to this year. I went to Michael's and bought a 12x18 inch pan, since a regular 9x13 was not big enough. Then I had Aaron draw me an outline for the pony, since my would end up looking like a stick figure. Then I placed the outline on my finished strawberry cake (and just f.y.i. it took three cake mixes to fill that pan!), then I cut out the shape and set to decorating. 2 1/2 hours later I'm finished. I'm sure Kaitlyn will point out that rainbow dash actually has a blue body instead of pink, but oh well. I did the best I could. It is far from perfect but I think it looks like a pony. What do you think?? I'll post pics of the pony part tomorrow!

Clark County Fair

2009-08-14T10:28:00.000-07:00

On Wed. night we went with our friends, the Atkinson's, to the Clark county fair. My good friend Betty had set us up with some free tickets to get in. So we went. This was the first time we had ever been, but it was pretty fun (if not a complete rip-off, each ride costing 4 or 5 tickets and each ticket costing $1). Luckily the kids were too small to ride most of the rides. Kaitlyn did go on the swings, and I must admit that my heart was in my throat the whole time she was up there. She looked so little on those big swings (she just barely made the height cut-off) and this big punk teenager behind her kept running his swing into her. I wanted to hit him when he got off, but I restrained myself. Matt conned me into doing the tea cups with him, and after I had finished being sick afterword, we went on to ride a little roller coaster and go on two big slides. We ate dinner there, sharing hamburgers, corn on the cob, and huge elephant ears. We also got to watch a little bull riding, which was pretty cool .The kids liked it when the riders came out on their bulls, but got pretty bored fast since it took a while to switch bulls. I thought it was great though. We stayed pretty late, so the kids were pretty tired, but it was definatly fun. Now for the bad news, I had some great pics of the kids on the rides but alas, I accidently deleted them all. I'm hoping when Aaron gets home he can find the in the great expanse of our computer, and then I will add them to this post. Until then, I leave it up to your imagination :)

Beat the Heat

2009-08-03T06:44:00.000-07:00

If any of you ever decide to move to the Pacific Northwest (and I highly encourage you to do so) don't let some crazy realtor tell you you don't need air conditioning. It's a big, fat lie. Since we've been sporting St. George-esque temps around 108 degrees (plus like 80% humidity) we've been blissfully happy that we have a working air conditioner. But alas, you cannot stay in the house all the time, so we've tried to find others ways to stay cool. This includes a wonderful place known as Cottonwood Beach. It's only about 15 minutes away, and it's this great place on the Columbian River. There is plenty of sand, and water for the kids to play in. There isn't any current by the beach, so you just have to make sure the kids don't swim out too far. As long as Kaitlyn has her life jacket on, she's as happy as a clam. She'll swim all over in that thing. Matt is more of the "as long as the water doesn't pass my shin" mentality, but hey, at least he's getting in. This last week we didn't go until later so Aaron could come with us. It was a blast. We go with a bunch of friends, and we always stay at least 3 hours. You can all thank my wonderful friend Karen for the pics, I, of course, forgot my camera. :)

I know that you're all admiring my fetching farmer's tan here, (and the complete lack of tan on my legs) what can I say, it takes work to look this good :

The Year of the Triathlon

2009-07-20T13:48:00.001-07:00

So last year around Nov. my sister-in-law Beth had this great idea that we should do a family triathlon. She would swim, Michele would bike, and I, or course, would run. The boys would also do one with Aaron swimming, Shawn biking and Jon running. The boys took place at the end of June at Jordanelle, in Utah. They took second place out of the relay teams (only 3 teams competing). Aaron was the ninth person out of the water, and got an awesome time of 23 minutes for 1 mile swim. The girls race took place on July 11th down at Hagg Lake in Oregon. So all of Aaron's sister came out (Erika was our cheerleader/driver/baker). The girls took gold medal for the all girl relay (there were only 2, but at least we beat one team!). My sister-in-law Beth posted an awesome time of 24 minutes, and was the sixth girl and 30th person out of 250. Michele did great as well, completing her 25 mile bike in 1 hour 45 minutes, and I finished the 6.2 mile run in 55 minutes. We had a blast. It was a really tough course for Michele and I, with no straight aways, only up a hill, down a hill and so on. Erika was waiting with some fabulous chocolate/peanut butter cupcakes and diet Coke.
We also decided to have some fun since this was the first time they had been to visit us in Vancouver, and we were almost kid-free. The pictures are of the whole trip.The first few pictures are of our beach day. First we went to Astoria, OR, and for you Goonies buffs, this is where the movie was filmed. Then we went to Seaside to check out the beach. It was soooo windy that day though, so we didn't stay long.

This picture is at the Goonie house.

This is the Flavel house, or the museum where Mickey's dad worked. This is the county jail. Here we are after the race with our medal. I think we look pretty good after doing all that work, don't you?

This is at the pit, where we had to do the hand-off.

On the Thurs. before the race, I left my kids with Wendy, and the girls went up to Seattle for the day. We spent about four hours in Pike's market. So this is (starting on the left) Erika, Beth, Michele and me. (i just love, love, love Aaron's sisters!)

We also took a ferry ride.

We had dinner at a resturant called the Crab Pot, where they just bring a huge bucket of crab and dump it on your table, and your only utensil is mallet. (i had a seasme chicken salad, since I hate seafood, and everyone in the resturant looked at me like I was crazy!) Beth's sister-in-law, Annie, joined us for dinner.

After our race on Saturday, we picked up Kaitlyn and treated ourselves to a pedicure. Then the girls (minus Kaitlyn) headed to Cinetopia where we saw Tranformers 2 in the living room theatre. It was not so great of a movie, but the food for dinner and dessert was fabulous!

Here is the boys with their medal.

Here is Aaron coming out of the water. Word is that he collapsed shortly after this.

My Baby is 3!!

2009-07-19T09:32:00.001-07:00

My little baby boy turned 3 on Thursday. I can't believe he is that old already.

A few things about Matt:

*He loves to build legos. He is alway putting them together and explaining what he has built in intricate detail.

*He has quite the imgination. He is always playing make-belive, usually involving monsters and knights.

* He also loves cars and has quite a collection going already.

*He is very cuddly and loves to just sit and cuddle on the couch right after he wakes up in the morning.

*He can count to 10 (although he almost always leaves out six)

* His favorite person in the world is his Daddy, who he still cries for sometimes after Aaron has left for work, especially if he gets hurt.

*His favorite past-time is to pick on his sister, whom he really loves, but also torments.

* We love him to death and can't wait to see the little man he is going to become!

He had his first b-day party this year. We invited seven of his friends for a festive pirate party. We dressed all the kids up, and gave them all swords (which were the hit of the party, literally!) The party started out with the kids making telescopes (from paper towel rolls), then we played a version of pin-the-tail, only with a treasure map and the kids had to put their treasure chest closest to the X. We ended with a treasure hunt. THen cake and ice cream. Aaron's mom was here for the party, so luckily I had help making the cake this year. Matt had a blast. I tried to take pictures of the kids all dressed up, but getting 8 3-year-olds to sit still long enough for a picture is no easy task. Happy Birthday Matt!!

4th of July, Vancouver style

2009-07-05T08:45:00.001-07:00

We started of our 4th of July with our annual ward breakfast. Aaron went early to play tennis, and then we joined him at the park. There was then a bike parade for the kids where they ride around this path at the park. Since Kaitlyn just got a new, bigger bike, I followed her along the path to make sure she did okay. At one point there was this hill they had to go down. Well, kaitlyn got going pretty fast and started to get really scared, so being the good mom that I am, I grabbed onto her bike to slow her down. In hindsight, I should have told her to push her brakes, but I didn't. When I grabbed onto her bike to slow her down, it tipped the bike over, and she ended up with a scraped knee and I ended up with a torn off toenail. All in all, not my finest moment.
Later that night we went over to the Jackson's (some friends in our ward) for a BBQ. There was a bunch of other families from the ward as well. We ate hamburgers and hot dogs, the kids swam in the pool and jumped on the trampoline. About 9:30 they started the sparklers for the kids. All was going well until Kaitlyn stepped on a burning spark and charred the heel of her foot. It was just a little burn, but still hurt a lot! So word to the wise, make sure your kids are wearing shoes when they do sparklers. Kaitlyn is all right now, and I fully expect her heel to make a full recovery (despite what she might tell you!).
After the sparklers, it was finally dark enough to start the real show. I will not embaress my family by telling you the ridiculous amount of money that Aaron spent of fireworks this year, but apparently all the other families did too. It was the best show we've seen so far. And just so you all know that Vancouver really is the coolest place to spend the 4th, I've provided pictures and a little video of our finale. All of the fireworks that you see were shot off in our friends backyard byt the men of the families, (who incedently are all part of a pyro club, I think it's a gene that only men have which draws them to dangerous explosions!). There would be like 8 guys who would line up all the fireworks, and then light them all of at once and run away before they went off. There are no illiegal fireworks in Vancouver. You can buy and shoot off pretty much anything, as you can see in our video. Next year Casa De Krimme will be taking reservations for anyone who'd like to join us for the festivities!

Belated Father's Day

2009-06-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

So I'm late in posting this, but Aaron hopefully had a great Father's Day. He woke up to French Toast, eggs and bacon. He then had a stress-free morning, and then church. For dinner he got steak, and "white" potatoes, with peanut-butter brownies for dessert. As you can see from the pic, the kids made him a wonderful tie that he proudly displayed at church. I think it's his new favorite. We love Daddy! (Me especially!)

The next weekend, Aaron took off to Utah to do a triathlon with our brother-in-laws. He was doing the swim. They were doing olympic distance, so Aaron swam about 1 1/2 miles, and he did it in 23 minutes. He was the ninth swimmer out, so he did awesome! He was so sore afterwords that he couldn't move for like an hour, but he finished! They had a great time and even got silver medals (granted there was only two relay teams, but still . . .) I'm just so amazed that he could go to work full-time, go to school, and train for the race. He really is an amazing guy. We love him and are sooo proud of him!!!

Bedtime Conversation

2009-06-29T20:16:00.000-07:00

Mom: "Kaitlyn, why are you out of bed again?"
Kaitlyn: "I have to go to the bathroom."
Mom: "I told you to go to the bathroom before bed."
Kaitlyn: "I know Mom. But when you told me I standing up, and when I'm standing up, my ears are asleep, so they can't hear you."

No truer words have ever been spoken.

End of the Year

2009-06-18T19:37:00.000-07:00

This post is a little out of order, but this past Sat. my sister Megan and her husband JJ came to visit. We took them to Blue Lake Park on Sat. to have a picnic. This park is great. It's HUGE and has like 5 playgrounds, a lake, beach, kids water park and lots and lots of green grass and picnic tables. Seeing as how JJ is a kid himself, the kids had a great time dragging him everywhere. They had races down the slides, played frisbee and then Kaitlyn dragged him through the lake with her for like an hour. We didn't bring their swimsuites, because it was kind of cold and we didn't think they would get in, but kids are apparently impervious to cold. JJ finally had to drag Kaitlyn out when her lips were totally blue. (THere are no pics of Matt in the lake because you have to be 5 to get into the lake, and yes, we fudged on Kaitlyn's age just a little bit). They then built some sand castles and we headed home. It was great to see Meg and JJ, even if only for a couple of days!

Thanks to Grandpa Morris for these awesome new shirts. The kids love them!!!
Last Friday was Kaitlyn's last day of preschool. She was devastated. She LOVES Miss Carolyn and the only reason she stopped crying was when i told her she could still see Miss Carolyn sometimes in the hall at church. She had a great year. Her evaluation was good. Her teacher said she is very eager to learn, and knew the most Spanish words out of the 14 members at Miss Carolyn's school. The last video is one of the songs she did during her little end-of-year performance. And yes, that loud off-key voice you can hear is in fact Kaitlyn. You can thank her Dad for her complete lack of musical ability. I'm hoping piano lessons will help remedy that. Also, the cute little girl next to her, who is quite the little performer, is her best friend Annie.

Can't you tell how sad she is to be done with school in this picture? (really it's just her refusal to EVER smile for a picture)

Hair Cut

2009-06-09T19:18:00.000-07:00

Cut Kaitlyn's hair on Friday. Mightnot look like it with the curls, but they cut off about 5 inches. She loves it.

Life Without T.V.

2009-06-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

So last Friday, Matt and I were watching Finding Nemo, and there was a really loud crack, and then the picture went off on our wonderful 42 in. plasma t.v. We were quite distraught, none more so than Aaron, who was sure his beloved t.v. would last forever. We luckily had bought it from Costco back when they had their return anything, anytime policy. So we lugged the t.v. down to Costco, only to hear them tell us that we had to try and fix it first. So we waited all week for the t.v. repair guy to come, and when he finally did, of course he can fix it, but only after he orders a new part that could take at least another week to come. As ashamed as I am to admit this, being without t.v. was a frightening ordeal for me. To not be able to just turn on a cartoon for my kids when I needed a little break!?! Least you think me a bad mom, I really do moniter my kids t.v. watching and they get, at most, 2 hours a day, but still. . . the worst has been trying to get ready in the morning. I used to be able to turn on a curious george and Super Why, and get showered, breakfast dishes done, all kids dressed and hair done by 9:00 a.m, thus giving the illusion to my friends, that yes, I am super-mom. But alas, my only super power was the the power to turn on PBS. So this last week has been a struggle (joy?) trying to figure out creative things to do in place of t.v. I have discovered that my kids love to color, and said activity will keep them busy for at least 20 minutes, but if I would like an hour of peace, then I turn to playdough. Although the clean-up from the activity also takes an hour, my kids will usually leave me in peace for that long. The other problem with no t.v. is that when Aaron is gone to class and I finally get my kids to bed, I just sometimes want to veg a little. I have missed being able to watch t.v., but I have of course filled my time with reading. Last night was the worst, because I found myself without a book to read, and so I turned to my fall-back, Harry Potter :)

We've had some enjoyable activities in place of t.v. though. We invited some friends over to play on the slip-n-slide. It only took Matt 45 minutes to work of the nerve to WALK acrosss the slip-nslide, as you can see from the attached picture.

We also took a trip to the zoo with our friends. Most of the time our zoo experiences last about 1 hour, with Kaitlyn spending approx. 15 seconds at each animal's cage before she demands that we go see more. But this time we lasted 3 hours. It was overcast and cool, so the perfect day for the animals to be out. We got to see all of them, except the tigers, which I now suspect are stuffed and placed there to look like real ones, seeing as how I have never, in all my trips to the Portland Zoo, seen those tigers move.

And now a couple of funny stories about my funny little Matt. We were playing with his pirates the other day and he says : "Mommy, pirate go to the dungeon."

Mommy: "The dungeon? Where did you learn that word?" (as I wrack my brain trying to figure out what thing I let him watch that taught him that.)

Matt: "I learned it in nursery Mommy." Aww, the things they're teaching our kids in church these days.

Another one, although this one came from said nursery.

Bro. Luthi (Matt's teacher) "What are you building with the legos Matt?"

Matt: " A house"

Bro. Luthi: "What kind of house?"

Matt: "A macho house."

Bro. Luthi: "A Macho? House"

Matt: "Yep, a macho house." At this point Bro. Luthi was laughing too hard to continue the conversation with Matt, and per his asking, no, I have no idea where Matt learned that word either.

And last but not least our final picture will show what happens when you tell an almost 3-year-old to go get in the bath, without supervision.

Fun in the Sun

2009-05-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

The last few days we have been having some wonderful weather. Beautiful, mid-70's. It's been great. The kids and I have tried to take advantage, but unfortunatly both kids have had pretty bad colds, and the sun really bothers their eyes. Luckily they are doing better and we've been getting out. This last Wed. we went to Bizi Farms for Kaitlyn's preschool class. They got to go on a tractor ride, and plant a strawberry and feed a bunch of goats. The best part was when I got mauled by a rabbit. That's right folks, a cute, cuddly bunny. I had gotten one out of its cage for the kids to pet. When they were done, being the good person that I am, I went to put the furry little thing back in its cage so it wouldn't get trampled on. But it did not want to go in. After a long struggle I finally dropped the rabbit to the ground (it was fine). I, however, was not. I had scratches all up my arms, and holes in my shirt (a shirt I really liked too). Can you catch any diseases from rabbit scratches??? Anyway, I also forgot to take my camera, so no pics of the farm.

Last Sat. we decided to get out and do something. So we called up our friends, and aksed if they wanted to go on a picnic. Gabe, being the avid outdoorsman that he is, suggested fishing. Despite the fact that none of my family has ever been, or has any fishing equiptment, we agreed. It turned out to be super fun. We went to Salmon Creek Park, and they have a man-made lake there that they stock with like 30,000 fish. There is also a park, and picnic tables. So we packed some lunch and went. The kids thought it was great. Kaitlyn's attention didn't last too long with the fishing, but Matt sat in his chair for like 3 hours, just waiting for a fish to bite. We didn't actually catch anything, but the kids had a great time. And the parent's took home some awesome sunburns. Why is it you always remember to slather up your kids, but forget yourself?

Not much else going on with us. Aaron started spring semester last week, and is really looking forward to his three-week break in August. We got Kaitlyn all registered for Kindergarten. They are doing a new kindergarten program here next year. So Kaitlyn will go to school on Monday and Thurday and every other Wed., but she will go all day on those days. I'm not sure how I feel about her going all day, but she's excited to ride the bus and eat lunch at school. She got to meet her teacher and take a tour of the school. All in all, we're just enjoying the sun!

Trip to Utah

2009-05-04T08:46:00.000-07:00

Last week the kids and I took a trip to Utah. Aaron had to stay home (although from the amount of golf he played, I don't think he was too sad about it). We had a great time seeing all the family. Megan picked us up from the airport and we spent our first couple of days at her apartment. We played at the park, went to the duck pond, and toured BYU. It was fun to be back on campus and see all the new buildings. On friday we got to see Megan graduate with her B.S. in Social Science teaching. Hopefully she'll be able to find a job for next year. Sadly, I forgot my camera and didn't get any pics.

We then headed up to my mom's house for a couple of days. My dad was in town too, so we got to see everyone.

Our last couple days were spent at Aaron's parents house. Grandma Pat came into town the day after we got there, and it was great to see her. I also got to go to dinner with some great friends of my from high school that I haven't seen since we left Utah. It was so fun to see them :)

The last day we were there we went with Grandma Krimme and Grandma Pat to the Thanksgiving Point Dinasour Museum. It's a really cool museum. The kids had a blast, and since it is the only pics I took the whole trip, it's the only one you'll get to enjoy too. The kids favorite part was digging for the dinasour bones. The must have stayed in the that pit for at least 45 minutes. Maybe we have some budding paleontologists :)

Easter Extraveganza

2009-04-13T14:32:00.001-07:00

We had a wonderful Easter. On Saturday we went to our ward brunch/easter egg hunt. The kids had a blast. Then Saturday night we colored Easter eggs. Kaitlyn's fingers are still dyed blue from the experience, and Matt wanted to dump his orange color in his bath so that he could be orange all over, just like Curious George. :) On Sunday they woke up and found their Easter baskets and did a little egg hunting. We then got all cleaned up for church, and spent a good half hour trying to get a good picture of the both of them. As you can see, if one smiled, the othe didn't. After a wonderful church meeting we went over to a friends house and had a delicious Easter dinner. Lots of fun for all, enjoy the pics!

Seattle Trip

2009-04-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

Aaron's work was gracious enough to let him have 4 days off (actually forced him to have 4 days off is more like it, but oh well, at least he still has a job). So since his days off coincided with Kaitlyn' s spring break from pre-school, we decided to take a trip. Since we've never been to Seattle, we thought it would be fun to go visit. So we booked a hotel and went. We did some research and found a great hotel only 2 blocks from the Pacific Science Center and the Space Needle. We also found the cheapest way to go was the purchase a city pass. It got us into five wonderful Seattle attractions for more than 1/2 the cost if we had paid for them all seperatly. Our first day there was beautiful. We parked down by the pier, and went to the aquarium first. We weren't that impressed, but that could be due to the fact that it was coupon day and there had to be well over 1000 people there. It was crazy! The kids still liked the few exhibits they were able to get close to.

Our next stop was a wonderful harbor cruise tour. It was great. It was an hour long cruise ride around the bay. It was beautiful and probably the kids favorite thing we did. They even stayed outside on the deck of the boat when it started to rain (which meant that Aaron and I got to stay outside while it rained too).

After the cruise we checked into our hotel then walked to the Pacific Science Center. If any of you ever make it to Seattle I highly recommend this place. It was great. There were so many interesting things there, for adults and kids. They have an enclosed butterfly exhibit and butterflies landed everywhere. Of course everytime one landed on my kids, they quickly screamed and shook it off, so no pics. It was fun though. The only sad part was that we didn't realize it closed at 5:00 so we actually didn't get to spend as much time there as we wanted.

We then grabbed some dinner from the exquisite McDonalds (kids choice!). As part of our city pass to the science center we also got tickets to their IMAX theatre and they were showing Monsters vs Aliens in 3D. So we went back to the science center for the movie. I've never seen a 3D movie, neither has my kids, so I was a bit worried how they would like it, or if they would even keep the glasses on. My worries were unwarranted. I've never seen my kids sit so still for an hour and a half. They were enthralled. Even I must admit that it was pretty cool seeing a 3D movie on a 6 story screen.

Then it was finally time for bed. Having never slept in a hotel before, the kids were pretty wild and everybody only got about 6 hours of sleep. The next day we were going to hit the zoo first, but true to Northwest weather, it was snowing. So the zoo was out. The only left from our city pass was the Museum of Flight, which turned out to be really cool. We spent almost three hours there. The kids loved getting to sit in a bunch of big jets. We also got to tour the British Concord and see Air Force One. It was a great museum. Aaron and I would have loved to take a guided tour of it, but didn't think the kids could handle it on only 6 hours of sleep. Next time. . .

We then came home. It was a great trip.

Fire Safety

2009-03-23T10:32:00.001-07:00

Aaron and I cleaned out our filing cabinet, so we had to burn all the papers with our information on them (since we don't have a shredder). So Aaron proceeded to burn stacks and stacks of paper in our fire place. The kids thought it was great! A couple times they got a little close, so Aaron and I figured it was a good time to discuss fire safety. We let them know what to do if there was a fire in the house or if they were on fire. Then we all practiced crawling to the door, and of course Stop, Drop and Roll. This was their favorite. Needless to say they practiced it many times.

*We were at the library on Wed. and I had just finished chekcing out the books when Matt announced he needed to go to the bathroom. We were almost done, so I asked him if he could hold it until we got home. He took me quite literally and walked around the library the rest of the time holding "it" if you catch my meaning. I need to find a better phrase when asking him to wait until we get to a bathroom, otherwise we might solicite many more enquiring looks.

*Whenever I make any kind of treat, I always have tons of help. From measuring ingredients, to mixing, to the best part, licking out the bowl. Aaron continually bemoans the fact that since we had kids, he never gets to lick the beaters or spoons, but what can I say, he wouldn't look as cute doing it.

The Music in my Head

2009-03-07T16:05:00.000-08:00

This week was my birthday, the big 27! I had a great day. Aaron let me sleep in (until 7:00) and then we proceeded to paint Matt's room. We had done the blue the day before, and had to finish with the brown stripe. It took a lot longer than we thought, and ended up being an all day project. But we're happy with the results. Matt however, could really care less. Although he did enjoy sleeping in Kaitlyn's room while we let some of the paint fumes out. Aaron then took me to lunch at the Olive Garden, and then got pizza for dinner. The kids helped him make some cupcakes for me to blow out. All in all, a fun day.

Not much else happened this week. Just the normal school, piano and hang out. I did capture a little video of Kaitlyn's interpretation of the Nutcracker. You might notice the lack of music in the video. Our camera was working fine, Kaitlyn was just dancing to the music in her head :) (she does that a lot).

Reversal of Roles

2009-03-05T19:38:00.001-08:00

Tonight instead of me reading a bedtime book to Kaitlyn, she read a bedtime book to me. That's right folks, Kaitlyn read her first book all by herself. The wonderous book is Happy Christmas, Honey! by Laura Godwin. I just picked it up from the library yesterday. It was a momentous occasion. I would like to think that she worked so hard for the pure love of reading, but alas, 'tis not so. She was promised a Belle doll when she read her first book by herself. So tomorrow we will embark to the toy store to get the infamous Belle doll, and thus complete her collection of Disney Princess polly pockets. Next she'll be taking on War and Peace :)

Children's Museum

2009-02-27T09:08:00.001-08:00

We went to the Portland Children's Museum with our friends on Thurs. The kids had a blast. They did everything, shopped, played with water, painted their faces, played with clay, dug, built etc. It was a fun day, and it was not busy at all.

Not much else to report. Aaron is busy working on his classes (he was up until 4:30 the other morning doing homework), and he's been pretty busy at work. The kids and I are just hanging here. We've been having more crazy Vancouver weather. It was so nice last week we went to the park everyday, then this week we've had tons of rain and snow. Can't wait for Spring and Summer to get here. Kaitlyn is working hard on her reading and writing. She's working hard to be able to read one whole book by herself because she's been told she'll get a Belle doll when she does. There's a great store here called Learning Palace, and we went on Monday and got a bunch of work books for writing, reading and math, and Kaitlyn will sit for like an hour everyday doing pages from each of the books. I actually have to limit her to only two pages in each a day. I swear she would sit and finish the whole workbook if I let her. Guess that's a good sign for Kindergarten next year. Matt on the other hand won't sit still long enough to learn anything. Although he is getting better at counting. If you ask him to count he'll say "1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9," and then yell at the top of his lungs "10!!!" We're working on it. He loves to sing though and aks all day long to sing Itsy Bitsy spider. He also loves to have books read to him and will bring out every book on the bookcase while Kaitlyn is at school for me to read to him. So he's probably retaining some important info right?

The Power of Deception

2009-02-21T15:30:00.000-08:00

This last week my mom flew in from Salt Lake to visit. She got here on the 13th, so Aaron and I were able to go to the movies for Valentine's since we had a very willing free babysitter. Being the wonderful camera person that I am, (not) I took absolutely no pictures the whole time my mom was here. We had a great time though. My mom and I were able to go to the movies and shopping together, and the kids were able to spend lots of time with Grandma (Kaitlyn beat her at least three times at Wii bowling). The highlight of the trip however was our lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. My mom has always wanted to go there, so we drove down to Tigard on Tues. afternoon to go. I should have known that something would happen, since the drive is longer that 30 minutes, but I was not thinking ahead. We got a little lost getting there, so after many windy back roads we arrived. Kaitlyn was looking a little pale, but she said she was fine. So in we went. We were seated immediatly, and then our waiter appeared to take drink orders. Just as he arrived, Kaitlyn threw up. She was on the inside of the booth, and she was facing the wall, so I quickly grabbed a couple of napkins and put them under her mouth. While this was going on the waiter was casually taking our drink orders. So while my mom and Aaron tried not to break out in laughter, I calmly told the waiter that Kaitlyn would have a sprite, Matt some apple juice and I wanted a water. The waiter left to get our drinks, never knowing what had happened. I took Kaitlyn to the bathroom and rinsed her off, and then we went back and had a very enjoyable lunch. The dessert was delicious. And the whole time, no one ever knew what had happened in the booth. A bit gross, I know, but the napkins caught it all :) So thanks for visiting Grandma, and next time I'll remember the Dramamine.

Dance Mania

2009-02-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

I realize it's been awhile since my last post, thanks to Aaron taking forever to teach me how to get video off my new camera. I could have just read the manual, but who really reads those 3 inch thick books? Especially when you have a perfectly tech savvy husband who can figure it all out for you. It's why you get married right?

Anyway, Katilyn had her dance recital on Sat. Jan. 24. She did great. This is her second year doing this little dance class, and for $20 bucks a month, it's perfect. She really loves to go, especially since her BFF is in the class too. I've included a few videos for your viewing pleasure. Natural talent at its finest don't you think?

Okay, so due to the fact that it takes like an hour to upload a video, and I have no patience today, you only get two videos for you viewing pleasure. So if you would like more dance mania (i.e. Grandparents) e-mail me and I'll send you the rest of the videos. Later that same day, I bought a piano!! For those of you close to me, you know I've been bugging Aaron forever to buy me a piano. You'd think with 13 piano students, I could convince him, but he always said the same thing "Our house is too small for a piano." He finally relented however, and I bought a beautiful Kohler and Campbell Spinet from a very nice man in Happy Valley (that would be Oregon, not Provo). I was euphoric. To be able to sit down and play any time I want, and to have lessons at my house is the best thing ever.

After the dance recital, Aaron made an impromptu trip to Utah. Since WaferTech, like the rest of the country, is suffering, they decided to close the plant for a week, thereby freeing Aaron up to go help his dad open the new store. So if any of you in Utah are looking for a new mattress, I recommend Mattress Solutions, found in the Meadows shopping complex in Lehi :) With Aaron gone, the kids and I just hung out and vegged. It was good, but we definatly missed Aaron and were super happy when he returned.

This last week has been spent trapped inside, craving outside interaction. Poor Matt has had a terrible flu all week. He started with a fever on Monday, and still has the fever today. It is accompanied by a horrible cough, runny nose, and watery eyes. Needless to say, he is one sick little boy. So despite the beautiful, sunny 60 degree weather we have been having, my kids and I have been indoors, watching movie after movie after movie. It's great to be able to take care of Matt though, he is so cuddly when he is sick. Hopefully the weekend will help him feel better, and nobody else will come down with it.

Last but not least, Kaitlyn is doing very well in preschool. We have been working on her reading here at home and she gets better and better each day. She gets to put a sticker on a chart everytime she learns a new word, and when the chart if full she gets to buy a new My little ponyville pony. She is aiming for a purple one to add to her growing collection. She is also really enjoying Miss Carolyn's preschool. This week they are learning about the letter "S", so today was silly day. Thus explains Kaitlyn's crazy outfil and hair-do. Does she look silly enough?

He's a Big Boy Now

2009-01-24T10:50:00.000-08:00

We decided to start potty-training Matt this week. He's about 2 1/2, which is how old Kaitlyn was. I had no allusions that this would be as easy as Kaitlyn was, and on the first day he proved me right. We had five accidents and no successes. He was excited to wear his Lightening McQueen underwear though. I was sure we were in for a bloody battle, but by day three we were down to only one accident. And he's woken up the last three mornings comletely dry. We have, however, been secluded in the house all week, so today was to be the first test. We had to go to Kaitlyn's dance recital (photos and video of that later) bright and early this morning. We tried to get Matt to wear a pull-up, but he only wanted his underwear. So we packed an extra pair of clothes and took off. About half way through the recital he told us he had to go, so I took him and that was that. No accidents, no tantrums, nothing but a wonderful, potty-trained big boy :)

Kidz Club (and a little Christmas)

2009-01-13T13:41:00.000-08:00

I don't have any of our pics yet from our trip to Utah, but the one of the cousins, so I'll post the rest later. You might realize that Kaitlyn is absent from the cousin photo, she was having a really hard time on our trip to Temple Square. I don't think the time change, or the lack of sleep, or the fact that she started throwing up a couple of hours later helped anything :) Also, every year we give our kids matching pajamas that they get to open on Christmas Eve, so that is what that picture is about. The first pictures are of the kids new church clothes.

The rest are of our time at Kidz Club. It's this great indoor playground here in Vancouver. The playground is three levels high, and has these great slides. My kids love it. It's also fun for adults, except for the beating your legs take as you crawl through the place. The slides are super fast though, so at first my kids were too afraid to go by themselves, but after I'd gone a few times with them, they started going by themselves. They had a blast, as did our friends Wendy, Annie and Katie. It's a great way to pass the time since it is always raining here :)

And as a side note, every one is healthy and well again, and I was lucky enough to never catch what the rest of my family had. I know that the Lord was blessing me so I could have the strength to take care of my family that week and get them all home in one piece. And for that I am soo thankful :)

A Few Trip Hi-Lights

2009-01-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

We went to Utah to spend Christmas with Aaron's family. The trip didn't quite go according to plan.
-We spent three hours on the plane, while the plane sat at the gate. Then another two hour flight. The kids did suprisingly well.
-Matt, Aaron and Kaitlyn all got the flu, Kaitlyn a bad ear infection, and all three of them strep, which we then proceeded to pass to everyone in the family.

Aside from those not so good moments, the trip was great. It's been two years since we've seen most of Aaron's family, so it was great to spend a week with them. The kids had a blast with all of their cousins (there are 12 now), and we had fun staying up until the wee hours of the morning playing games.
We also got to spend a couple days with my family as well. One of the perks of having both families living within a few miles of each other.
We head home today, hopefully our flight will go well, and the kids will make it with no further illnesses. I'll post pictures when we get settled again (which could be a few weeks) :)

A little rant

2008-12-22T13:28:00.000-08:00

Matt has pink-eye. And I'd just like to say that whatever genious pharmaceutical company decided that drops were the best way to get rid of pink-eye obviously never had to administer them 4 times a day to a two-year-old. At least Aaron and I are getting some practice in for if we ever want to join professional wrestling, or hog-tying. . .

It's Christmas Time

2008-12-21T09:30:00.000-08:00

We had our first snow this last week. For Vancouver, it is pretty rare. We got a light dusting (as you can see in the pictures) on Wed., so of course they canceled school. But it kept snowing and snowing. As of this morning (Sunday) we have about six inches. All church meetings have been canceled today, so we are holed up inside for the duration of the storm. For those of you laughing that school and church would be canceled for a measely little six inches of snow, remember that Vancouver is pretty hilly and has no snow plows. Needless to say, driving is pretty fun. The kids of course are loving every minute of it. We've tried to build two snowmen, with no success. So they've just had to play on the snowy swing set and have snowball fights. We're hoping the snow stops long enough for us to fly out. Fingers crossed!Last Saturday night Matt started hacking away at night, and this continued all Sunday night as well, so we took him to the doctor on Monday, and found out he had croup. So after a couple of very stressful nights with the most horrible sounding cough you can imagine, he got better. Needless to say after being locked in the house for four days with no outside contact, my kids were ready for some fun. So we got together with Wendy, Annie and Katie and made some gingerbread houses. And yes, I cheated and just bought the kit, but I must say that the kit worked pretty well. Nice thick frosting and nice sturdy gingerbread. It tasted horrible, but the kids only wanted the candy anyway.

And last but not least, Kaitlyn's preschool had their Christmas program on Friday. Kaitlyn was the angel. During the singing you could hear her voice the loudest. At least she's not shy :)

A New Do

2008-12-17T09:07:00.000-08:00

We straightened Kaitlyn's hair today, just to see if we could straighten all those curls. I think it worked quite well. She loves it. She keeps running to the mirror just to look at it. Her next statement was "Miss Carolyn is going to tell me how beautiful I am. " (Miss Carolyn is her preschool teacher for those who don't know). Since when did I raise such a vain little girl???

Let there be Lights

2008-12-12T06:51:00.000-08:00

Last night we went to the Portland Zoo to see the lights with our friends the Atkinson's and Peterson's. It was a perfect night to go, not too cold and actually clear, so of course it was packed. We had a great time though. You just walk through the zoo and there are thousands of lights all over, mostly in the shape of animals. There is also a train ride (which of course was the kids favorite). It was a great night, only slightly marred by the hour we sat in traffic on the way home due to an accident on the freeway :)