Discovery Lake Park

We had a great morning at Discovery Lake Park with Jessica and her boys, Sammy & Micah. We hadn't been to this park in forever (since before Kaylie was born!) - it's always fun to explore a "new" park. This park has a fun little water feature that goes on at various times throughout the day and stays on for 15 minutes - pretty much a geyser that fills up this arena area so they can wade around in it, then it goes down a waterfall and empties out once the 15 minutes is up. The boys had a blast (Kaylie was a little more hesitant, but still seemed to enjoy it.) After the boys were thoroughly soaked, we took a walk/bike ride down to the duck pond and fed the ducks. Great park to walk, ride bikes, feed ducks, play around, we look forward to going back again - thanks for the suggestion Jessica!

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Fun Facts

For my records, to compare and contrast at some future date, here are some fun facts about the kids :)

Some fun facts about Matthew right now. . .

1. He loves Dragons. It all started when Grandma and Grandpa introduced him to the movie "How to Train your Dragon." Now he loves all things dragon. Clothes with dragons on them, dragon toys, dragon stuffed animals ("Santa" got him Toothless the dragon for Christmas) - he loves it all. He calls his toothless dragon (whom he sleeps with by the way) Fanciful the dragon - which is the dragon from the stories my dad, his Grandpa tells him. I love that he loves his Grandpa so much and that they share those stories. Matthew even comes home and tells me stories about Matthew & Fanciful the Dragon, going on adventures. In addition to the dragon, the main character in "How to Train your Dragon" is Hiccup, a not so average young viking. Lately, Hiccup has been Matthew's imaginary friend who has accompanied him on all his daily activities. Love :)

2. He loves Tomato Soup. I know I mentioned it in a previous post, but he seriously loves tomato soup. Specifically from Trader Joe's, bowl upon bowl of it. What a great thing to love!! Perfect on a chilly day with a grilled cheese sandwich. Yum!

3. He loves the colors green and blue. 

4. He loves to "read". He is just starting to learn to really read, that's our next focus, but he loves to sit with all his books and read them from memory. He spends a good amount of time doing that, reading to me or Kaylie, or just to himself. I love hearing all his excitement and voice inflections as the stories unfold. His current faves to "read" are Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.

5. He's a little goofball - he loves to call people silly names. His current fave is "stinky bug" and I think that's his fave because it's as close as he can get to "stinky butt" without getting into trouble. He's so funny, he loves just to be silly.

6. He loves Angry Birds. He could sit at the computer for hours (if we let him) and play angry birds, he has so much fun with it. He also loves a coloring app on the iphone, he could also spend hours on that as well. It's amazing what he can do already on the iphone and computer!

7. He's finally starting to sleep in a little (well, sleeping in for him) until 630 or so. Hoping that lasts!!!

Some fun facts about Kaylie right now. . .

1. She is very polite - she almost always says "kink you" (thank you) at the appropriate time, without being prompted - when bringing her a meal, or a sweater, or giving her a kiss, almost anything you do for her she promptly looks at you, smiles and says "kink you." I even offered her something at dinner the other night and she said  "No kink you." Wow. We must be doing something right! In addition to "Kink you" she also says "Gah Bees You" (God Bless You) whenever you sneeze. I won't even really realize I've just sneezed until I hear her say that, and I love it, every time :)

2. She LOVES her brother. She follows him around like a little puppy dog. She loves to play cars or trains, or "read" books with him, or run around and get crazy (oh boy, they about ran circles in the carpet the other night chasing each other around and laughing). 

3. She loves her puppy. She has a stuffed puppy she loves to sleep with. She also loves blankets (no particular one, but she loves whatever she's using at the moment).

4. Her favorite songs are the Itsy Bitsy Spider (her favorite part is "washed the spider out") and Twinkle Twinkle. 

5. She loves to wrestle, even more so than Matthew I think! Mostly with Daddy or Grandpa, Mommy isn't much of a wrestler.

6. She's a goofball too - both kiddos are goofballs. She has (unfortunately) already caught on to "butt" as a funny word - she'll be jabbering and laughing and I'll hear "jibber jabber "butt" jibber jabber giggle" - oh boy. :)

7. She loves being a little mommy to her baby dolls. She will hold them so gently, hug them close and give them a little pat, put them to bed etc. Love it. 

8. She's a better sleeper-inner, thankfully, usually waking up around 730. Love that about her, hope she stays that way!

I'm sure there are MANY more things I could add to this list, and I might come back to it and add things on later, but for now I think that highlights who they are right now. They are so much fun. I'm so blessed to be their mommy :)

Josh the Tool-Man Williams

Ok, ok - totally cheese, I know - but I just watched Tim Allen's new show (Last Man Standing) which of course brought back memories of Home Improvement - take that and add it to Josh's true handyman prowess and voila, cheesy post title :)

Like most houses built in the 80s, ours came equipped with lovely florescent light boxes, yellowing plastic light panels and all, in the kitchen and bathrooms. It's something we've wanted to change for a long time but have just never gotten around to it. Just a few months ago our friends, Andrew & Jessica Davidson, decided to take their light box out and turn it into a much nicer recessed lighting area. Josh helped out a little with theirs and I think that's what gave us a little more push to make a change to ours. Josh was able to take off the week between Christmas and New Years, and in that time he was able to complete the kitchen and the guest bathroom (with a little help from Andrew as well :)  The recessed lighting is so much classier, and did SO much for the lighting in the bathroom in particular - he was able to finish it all professional by himself in a week's time! I'm so thankful to have married Josh the Handyman :)

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29 and Feeling Fine!

Today is my 29th birthday. 29. Can't believe next year I'll be in my 30s!!! But I'm actually really looking forward to my 30s, most of my friends have already entered gracefully into their 30s and I think it's going to be a fun time in my life - the kids will grow into elementary schoolers, lots more activities and hobbies and fun stuff. I'm sure it won't all be great, that's life, but I think overall it's going to be a good decade in my life :) That being said, I'm going to enjoy every last minute of being in my 20s this year ;) 

For Christmas, my Grandma, Gigi (Great Grandma) to Matthew & Kaylie, gave us Seaworld passes! So today we activated them and took the kids to Seaworld for the first time - it was fun! We saw sea lions bathing in the sun, humongous sea turtles swimming around Turtle Reef - just like Nemo says Matthew - also saw lots of penguins, and a show. As we were about to enter the penguin exhibit, Matthew says "After this, I really want to go see Shampoo!" I'm sure that's a common mistake for any young kid seeing Shamu for the first time, but I thought it was cute :) We saw the Blue Horizons show, which was a lot of fun and kept the kids entertained which was awesome. We left the park at 2 - all and all a pretty good trip, didn't get to see it all, but we get to go back which is nice (Thanks again Gigi!) Ended the day at my parents house with a delicious dinner, birthday dessert and the company of my family. I am blessed :) Here's to a great final year in my 20s!!

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Matthew was so excited to be at Seaworld! (btw, isn't he growing up so fast?!?!)

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Father/daughter pic :)

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Father/Son pic :) (We'll get more actual Seaworld pics at a later date, haha)

Happy New Year!!

A few pics to start off the new year - 2012, woohoo!

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She's getting so big so fast!

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The boys at our family date night to the Old Spaghetti Factory

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Enjoying a movie with their buddies - Snoopy & Hello Kitty :)