St. George 2012 Music Video

From St. George 2012 Music Video

Summer Vacations Begin

On Monday, June 18 we drove 10 hours to Aaron's sisters house in Sandy, Utah.  We were all so excited to arrive.  We unpacked our very full car, ate a tasty dinner and due to the hour time difference tried to go to bed early.  The next day Aaron went on a run, I went on Jamie's awesome treadmill, and we all slowly got around for Katelyn and Taylor's swim class at noon.  Kara and Aaron swam too.  The weather was so nice. I actually allowed myself to sit, relax and read a mystery book on my Kindle that I have been "reading" for months.  In the evening when Chad got home from work we took the four kids to Snowbird.  What a cool place,  We went on the Alpine Slide, bounce house area and had pizza.  It is a beautiful area and has tons to do.  We left at closing, 8:00, went home and got the kids ready for bed.  Kara and Taylor are together constantly and don't ever argue.  (Yes, it has only been two full days so we will see how it goes.)  They love playing pretend, talking, playing trains, puzzles, chasing the poor cats and just plain laughing.  They are only 3 months apart and we sure wish we lived closer.  Today we are planning on visiting Hayley and Byron's new house.  Tomorrow will probably be visiting Seven Peaks--an awesome, huge water park.  Taylor has a dance recital, Cinderella, on Thurs. evening.  Lots of fun!

Busy Weekend!

UGH!

I am in sick and in bed.  I feebly tried to put 6 pictures on my blog just for a pathetic little update.  It didn't work and now I will have to go find them all again.  I feel like just staring at a wall.  :(

Preschool Pictures

Kara had preschool pictures taken a couple of weeks ago.  These are just two I took that day.  My dad wanted to stop by on his way to work to see Kara that morning so I got a few cute pics of them.  Aaron's mom is Kara's teacher so of course I got some great ones of them together too.  I know I am a total blog slacker and it haunts me daily.  Kara is growing so fast and learning so much I can barely keep up with it all "real time" let alone taking time to get it all on here.  Lately she LOVES to play pretend.  Unfortunately for Aaron and I we aren't really sure from one minute to the next which character she is playing and which one we are supposed to be.  She gets so frustrated with our clear stupidity. And corrects us often. :)  She is either Princess Zelda, Scarlett (a horse), Ursula (when she is being really naughty and doesn't want to take responsibility), Kara Grace (when she is being sweet), a cat, dog, dolphin (in the tub), The Mommy (while I am supposed to be Kara), or a dancer (whom must be loudly introduced every time she waltzes herself into the room for a new dance and loudly applauded every time the song/dance ends.)  This is tiring stuff over here!  Loving every second...usually.  :)

Binky Celebration

Kara has finally given up the pacifier! Her reward was to put her last binky inside of a Build-A-Bear. The problem is, she now wants her binky taken out. Poor "Kitty" might need surgery soon.

2010 Video

Aaron, Kim, Kara, and Ellie Annual Video 2010

Happy New Year!

Christmas morning

Quilts made from Dad's clothes

Aaron's new running shoes

Kara's Christmas present from Nicole

Kara's big birthday gift. Santa gave her the dining room set.

After a wonderful Christmas filled with family and friends we are off to a new year!  2011 was a hard year for a lot of people and I am quite happy to end it and start a new one.  So far, so good.

Passing Time

I can not believe it is November. Here is a recent picture so you know we are all still alive and doing well.  We have done SO many fun things and started a whole new schedule that finding (making) the time to write has fallen by the wayside.  Hopefully I will have the motivation to go back and write about Kara's first day of preschool, her AWANA class on Wed. nights, her dance class, our amazing trip to Sea World including dining with Shamu, and lots of fun times with friends and family.

Since I just have to start somewhere I will start with Halloween.  We had a great family party with almost all of Aaron's family.  We all dressed up (usually just the kids do) and took tons of pictures.  In case you don't know, Kara is Link, the hero from the Legend of Zelda games.  More specifically the one from the game Wind Waker.  We played it this summer in Oregon almost every night and Kara LOVED it.  Nicole (mostly) and I made her costume.  She was thrilled.  I am Batgirl and Aaron is Neo from the second Matrix.

I really need to get to bed.  Preschool at 9 tomorrow morning.  I really will try to AT LEAST get more pictures up.  :)

Making the Blog Private

We figure that it's probably a good idea to make our blog private. Don't worry! Just e-mail us at kanda61700@yahoo.com with your gmail address and we'll add you to our list of readers. We'll switch over to a private blog in a few weeks to give you a chance to let us know your gmail address.

May

Dance class

Kara's friend, Carolynn

April

Instead of posting for each event in April, I've decided to just get it all on here.

Our second Mammoth trip with Rose, Bill, Brent, and Emily. More good times!

We attempted to fly her 99-cent kite, but it just wouldn't take off without me running all around the yard. I'm sure Kara thought of it as a success.
Just before Easter, Jamie's family visited for a week! This is the first time I got to hold Cameron.

Painting at a place called Color Me Mine

Coloring eggs with Aunt Nicole
Easter at my mom's house
Kara loved playing with her cousins!

Mammoth in March

We went to Mammoth for the first time with our friends, Bill, Rose, Brent, and Emily. Aaron, Bill, and Brent went skiing for most of the trip and the girls hung out at the lodge. We also enjoyed their indoor heated pool while it snowed outside!

The Problem

Ok, to all of my avid readers here is the problem. My nice, quick, better laptop was recalled because of a heating issue we have had since we bought it a few years ago.  I had to send it in to get fixed.  While it was gone we transferred everything onto a refurbished, bitty, inexpensive laptop so I could keep up with the money stuff, e-mails...etc.  ALL of my pictures are organized and stored on the bitty laptop at this time.  I now have my nicer one back but it doesn't have any pictures saved on it since Dec. 2010.  Now that Aaron is officially off for the summer I am hoping within the next few days he will have a chance to transfer everything back on to the nicer laptop.

Also, we have all been sick so many times this winter/spring it is ridiculous.  A couple of weeks ago all three of us had the stomach flu at the same time.  SO not fair.  Now Kara has a terrible cold, which the dr thought was allergies, but now she has a temp. up to 101.  In between all the sickness we have gotten in a few fun things.  I will try to get the pics up soon.

Swimming Lessons

Kara loves the water--which is great--except at the lake in Oregon all summer.  We just want to make sure she stays safe if she ends up in the lake unexpectedly.  Her best friend Keira is in her class too so that makes it even more fun. 

Another 3 Inches?!

Kara's hair is growing so fast and is so healthy we had to cut it again.  She screams when I wash it, hits and kicks when I comb it and runs and hides when it is time to put a small ponytail in the top so it stays out of her eyes.  Three inches won't make that much of a difference to look at but it sure does when it comes time to comb it. 

February

Ok, ok, I know we are VERY far behind in our blogging.  We have been keeping pretty busy and have not had a month since last October that one (or all) of us have not been sick.  One of the cute things we did in February was Kara and I went to tea with our friend Theresa and her daughter, Caroline.  The girls had never met and after about 25 minutes of eying each other they decided they would be friends.  From the back it was hard to even tell them apart.  We are planning another play date after spring break when we are hopefully all healthy again.

Catch Up

In January we had a beautiful day so we decided to spend it at the park.  It was Kara's first opportunity to really ride her bike that she got for her birthday!  I love living in California (most of the year) we never know when we might have a gorgeous day in the dead of winter.