What a Halloween

We had such a fun Halloween this year. I never got back to the blog to give more clues as to what Kiya was going to be, but we had some good guesses. I was going to put on a video of her singing the Indiana Jones theme song (which is how she won us over and "talked" us into letting her be Indiana Jones for Halloween) She was very cute. We of course put some pink with her. She had a pink scarf and a pink tie on her "satchel". She had a really fun time.

Here is the family all dressed up. We were going to all be pirates but plans changed a little.

Ryan really gets into Halloween. I go along. Kiya really likes that we dress up. I think that Brekken turned out real cute and I didn't even do much. I tied the blue lame around his waist and around his head. I was hoping that he would keep the head scarf on long enough for pictures but was so excited that once we got it on him he left it on all night. I know that I am partial but I thing he was the cutest pirate in the history of pirates! Okay maybe I took that a little too far. He did an awesome job on Halloween night. He was mostly content to sit in the stroller and watch all the people. He even took a nap. He really liked my sword as well (typical boy)

The best part of Halloween was that I was able to have my mom in town for 2 weeks and she was here for Halloween. We even got her to dress up with us!! (this is a big thing for my mom if you know her you know exactly why but for those that don't she is not the biggest fan of this particular day)

THANKS MOM for being such a good sport and for all the fun we had and all the help you gave us. We miss ya and can't wait to see you in a couple of weeks.

Kiya's Halloween Assignments

I was going to post this with my last post but it was late and I was kinda tired. The same evening that Kiya told us what she wanted to be for Halloween she gave out a few assignments for costumes.
Nonna you are to be a ghost. Poppy you are to be a dragon. Ryan is to be a dragon pirate. Brekken is to be a caterpillar and I am to be an ariel pirate.

You'll Never Guess

Kiya told us what she wanted to be for Halloween today. We had already decided that we would all be the same thing and we had narrowed it down to 2 choices. Kiya does not have the same idea as her parents. She told us what she wanted to be and we had to go with it because it was just so cute how she asked and how excited she got about it. So we thought it would be a fun surprise and for everyone to guess. Here is a clue.
It has something to do with adventures.
Leave a comment with your guess.

Stud Baby

I took this picture a couple of weeks ago. I think it is such a cute picture of him. I also think his little mohawk is so cute. He is so much fun and such a sweet baby.

sdrawkcaB yadnuS

So apparently Sunday was Backwards Sunday. Ryan must have got the memo and forgot to share with me. I have to give him such a hard time for this one. Sunday evening I went to a Fireside. He had the kids, got Kiya into bed and Brekken ready for bed. Good job Ryan! He did however manage to put Brekken's pj's on BACKWARDS. I guess that the funniest part for me is the fact that you can't really mistake the front from the back (see pictures for evidence.) Brekken was so tired that I just left him in his backwards state and put him to bed, then I had to take pictures in the morning when he woke up. TEE HEE! Now every time that Ryan is putting clothes on he hears " Make sure that you put the tag and snaps in the front and the picture on the back."

First Day of "School"

Tuesday brought us a big day!! It was Kiya's first day of Mothers Day Out. We also refer to this as school. She gets to play and learn new things. She was so excited about going and she did great when I dropped her off. She was ready for this new adventure. She likens herself to daddy. "I get to go to school just like daddy to be a dentist." Soo Cute!

All ready for school.

She got a special princess shirt for her first day.

And of course her backpack had to be pink.

She had so much fun at school, and when she got home we put all of her papers in her special school folders. (Nonna don't be surprised if you get copies of these)

Weird and Wonderful

Kiya had her first day of Mothers Day Out Program on Tuesday. It was so weird not having her here. I was able to drop her off then come home and put Brekken down for a real nap. (that means in his crib for longer than an hour) He slept for two hours. He usually gets woken up by Kiya playing. While he was sleeping I was able to scour our master bathroom, which sadly to say is usually the place that gets left behind when we don't have time to clean it all. It was in much need of a clean. It was so nice to be able to get it clean without having to worry about the kids and the cleaning products and all of the wonderful interuptions that mommies usually have. I bet it would have taken me 4-5 hours if I had done it with the kiddos around. Anyway, when Brekken woke up we had some "lunch" and then hung out and played. Nice to have some one on one time. I took some pictures of Brekken playing on the floor and practicing his crawling. He is such a cute little guy, and he is getting so big.

Brekken on Four

Proof that there is hope for us to have Brekken crawl. Kiya skipped crawling and moved from sitting to pulling herself up on furniture and crusing. Brekken does like to pull himself up on furniture and can move around it a little bit but he may just crawl too.

Violated

Have you ever read about people feeling violated after a crime was commited against them. Yeah me too! I always thought "Woo how awful",and "What a terrible thing for them to now feel so vunerable." I guess I never really knew how terrible and awful that would be until last night. I had been up pretty late watching the Closing Ceremonies and working on some games for Kiya. Of course when I was then ready to go to bed Kiya woke up. I helped her get back to sleep and them Brekken woke up. He however didn't want to go back to sleep so nicely. I was up with him for a little over an hour. I finally went to bed about 1:30am only to be awaken by a police officer at our door an hour later. Ryan's car had been broken into, and his wallet gone thru. Thankfully as far as we can tell nothing is missing, but because of online purchasing we still have to worry about the thieves having written down the information needed. Arrg! I didn't get back to sleep until 4:30 this morning. (About an hour after Ryan! It is times like these that I really wish for the ablility to fall asleep easily.) I could not shut my brain off! Sleep finally overwhlemed me but then I woke up at 5:30 when Ryan woke to get ready for school. Thankfully Brekken stayed asleep for all this time and that I was able to get back to sleep shortly after Ryan got up. Sadly Brekken woke at 7:30 this morning. 4 hours of sleep and only 2 of them were consecutive. I immediatley thought about starting the long list of calls that I am now going to have to make to protect us. I was hoping to get some of the most important ones done before Kiya woke up. NO luck. No one was open yet.
It is hard to explain how betrayed and vunerable you feel. We are very thankful however because it could have been much worse. We are also hopeful that if someone tries to use our accounts or idenity that A) we will have taken the necessary steps and precautions to protect ourselves and B)that we will be aware of and be able to stop anything that needs to be.
I am so thankful for my knowledge of the gospel and the knowledge that I have that know matter what happens Our Savior will be with us to help comfort and guide us.
So some advice or a reminder for you all. Weither you park your car outside normally or not. Make sure it is locked. Make sure all your valuables are out of it. Make sure your garage door opener is not in you car. Make sure you lock your garage if you can and make sure to lock the door from your house to your garage. I always lock the doors to the outside but I have gotten out of the practice of locking the garage and the door from the house to the garage. Last night I did lock the door from the house to the garage but not the garage. Ryan had garage opener in his car. If they had wanted to they could have gotten into our Garage. As far as we could tell. They didn't but things like this make you think. Ryan normally parks in the garage so we are out of practice. Hopefully you can gain something from our experience. We have learned.

Riverside 5000

I finally did it. A couple of months ago Ryan and I decided to start running again. Ryan ran his first race about a month ago. I gave myself a little more time. We both ran a 5k this past saturday. Ryan had a goal to improve his time. He did! He ran it in 20:56. There were 454 total runners and he was 125th. He was 116th in the mens out of 282,7th in his age group and 3rd in his weight class. He did awesome. My first goal was to finish, my second was to run the whole time. I did both. Yeah!! I actually did better than I thought I would. I finished with a time of 33:33. I was 422 of 454 runners. 151 of 172 women. I was 9th in my age group. Ryan was able to take a few pictures of my finish. [Dad you would be so proud, I still had a great kick at the end. In fact Ryan was quite surprised. He knew I was a runner before we met, but he has never seen me run. He wants me to help him with his finishes.]

6 Months

Brekken had his 6 month appointment the other day. He was such a good sport. He is 27inches long, and his weight was 17 lbs 14 oz. He is growing so much. He also sits very well and rolls all over the place, but if he had his way he would be standing all the time. He likes to jump up and down when we hold him and in his Johnny Jumper. He will stand up against his taller toys and the couches. He will try to pull himself up whenever he can. He isn't great at it yet but I know that all to soon he will be. Kiya never crawled she went from sitting to crusing furniture to walking solo. I think that Brekken is following in her footsteps.

Jasmine Moran Childrens Museum

We heard about this museum from a member of our ward so we decided to go check it out. It was a bit of a drive. Kiya had so much fun and I think Ryan had as much fun as she did, although I don't think he would admit it. Brekken and I enjoyed watching them and all the other children.

Painting

While Ryan had his short break from school we decided to paint our master bedroom.

Ryan let Kiya help a little and they had so much fun.

One of the days that we were painting I had the kids by myself and Kiya was so helpful with Brekken.

She even picked out his clothes for the day and helped me dress him. She is such a good helper.

Porter Peach Classic

Today was a very long but enjoyable day. We were up at 4am to drive to Porter. We arrived at 6:30am and Ryan got registered and warmed up for his 1st 5k. The race started at 7am and Ryan did a really good job. He finished with a time of 22:14. He was 1st place in his age group, 2nd in his weight class and 14th overall. The kids slept while we drove so they were great sports at the race. We even sighed Kiya up for the 50 yard dash. She did good. She was a little confused of when she was to start and then when she did she was trying to stay back with another girl. So cute. We walked around the little town fair that they had set up. Kiya got a PINK halo. We got some peaches and some peach jam. Kiya also liked the award ceremony. She wanted to keep daddy's medals. When we got home it still seemed so early in the day. We got a lot of little projects done. Ryan got a nap in as well. These are the days that it makes sense the saying "Early to bed Early to rise makes a man feel healthy, wealthy and wise." Too bad that I am not as great at following it,also perhaps 4am is a little too early.

Chillin'

I just thought that this was a really cute picture of Brekken chillin' in his baseball chair.

Kiya's Fairytale Afternoon

One afternoon about 2 weeks ago Kiya was playing dress up. I had Brekken on the floor next to me as I was working on some projects. He was getting board of laying there so I had just helped him get in his "sitting" position (we are practicing) when Kiya came in with a crown and put it on his head. I was informed that he was Prince Eric and that she was Sleeping Beauty.

"Prince Eric"- He does pretty good at sitting like this on his on for a while.


My Sleeping Beauty and Prince Eric. (I know that you can't see Brekken's eyes but it was the only one where Kiya wasn't blury. I tried to get more but Brekken was done with sitting)

A Few funny Kiya moments

A Couple of sundays ago Ryan was making real mashed potatoes. Kiya was "helping" and she then decided she wanted to eat one. Raw. We found it hilarious, she won't eat mashed potatoes but she will eat raw ones. She was munchin on this on for a couple of minutes but she ate it all. In fact I think she ate part of another one as well. It cracks me up at the things kids do. Oh and not that this relates to potatoes but it does go with funny kids. Not long after Brekken was born we were driving somewhere on a beautiful sunny day and out of no where Kiya says to me. " Momma, Jesus is in my eyes!" I had to ask her to repeat herself, she did, and I was left speechless. How do you explain the difference between the sun and the son? All that I could say was "Yes the sun is in your eyes." So cute. Another very cute thing she said to me recently was concerning my mom. As many of you may know she was in a car accident shortly after returning home from visiting us. Kiya love her nonna so much, in fact I saw a shirt that said "Momma your fired! Nanna is here," I think I need to get it for Kiya. Anyway so we were again in the car when Kiya told me that Nonna was comming in 5 weeks. I tried to explain to her that Nonna could not come in 5 weeks because her bones were still hurt from when she broke her car. She proceeds to tell me that Nonna can borrow our car. (Obviously she wasn't thinking about Nonnas ouchie bones being the reason that Nonna can't come.) So to her remark I replied " Nonna lives across the ocean. I don't think she will be able to borrow our car." She had a solution for that problem. She informed me that "we can borrow Jesus's boat and take it to her." Again, I found myself speechless. I love Kiya so much. She had such a fun personality.

4th of July

We had such a great 4th of July. We had some friends come up to our house. They came to the Parade with us and we played and went swimming. They also joined us for fireworks. We had a BBQ at some friends house with a whole bunch of people. It was a great time. We were able to do fireworks from their house. It was a pretty darn good show. Ryan got a bunch of fireworks from one of his paitents. His patient knows his fireworks he got us some awesome ones for a great deal. We are so grateful to live in this country and for all the freedoms that we have.

The Zoo with Daddy

Ryan hasn't been able to go to the Zoo with us much this year so we decided to go on saturday. We didn't decide until noon and by the time we got some things done around the house, and got ready to go it was HOT but Kiya was really excited to go and so we went. Even in the heat we had a great time.

Brekken enjoyed the ride.

Daddy got Kiya Ice Cream. Yummy!

Looks like an advertisement for Coca Cola. Mom and dad got some refreshing drinks.


Daddy always makes things so much fun. Kiya likes to go to the Zoo with him because he makes such good animal sounds and actions. Here she is doing her gorilla impression.

New Car Seats!!

So Brekken was almost over the car seat limit in his car seat and Kiya was quickly approaching the limits of her seat. We did a lot of reasearch before we got their car seats, and we got some money that we were not planning on so we were able to get the ones that we wanted. We are so excited about them, and the kids love them. Well that is my interpretation of them both sleeping a lot more in the car.

Brekken used to scream in his carseat for long periods of time. Now he fusses for a minute or two and usually passes out. He looks so cute and comfortable sleeping in car seat.


Kiya loves her seat, mostly because it is pink. I love it because she can be in a harness for a long time but her seat will convert to a booster when we need it to. We have had trouble with car seats for her because her torso is so long. This one is perfect. She also looks comfy when she falls asleep in the car (which she has been doing more lately with this new seat).

The Baseball Lovers Dream Chair

I wish I could inserts sound effects into this post, but I can't so you will have to use your good imagination skills.
Since Brekkens 4 month appointment I have been doing some research on carseats. At his appointment I discovered that he would very shortly be surpassing the height limit on his infant seat. (heartbreak- My baby is outgrowing his infant seat) So I had decided between a couple but I wanted to try him in them before I bought them. Much to Ryans dismay when he came home from school one evening I drug the family to a local store that had the seats I was looking at. We had tried out the seats and made a decision. We were about to leave and Brekken had a near blowout. (Yuck) While I was changing him Ryan and Kiya were wandering around near the bathrooms when there it was! ( uha! Picture a light beaming down on the holy grail) The coolest baseball chair ever. Ryans spirits turned up. He looked like a kid in a candy store ready to wet himself, ( Oh he might get me for that comment) when I returned from the restrooms. He had the biggest smile and the cutest puppydog eyes. We had to get the chair. I'm not so sure I had a choice in it. I don't think I would have been able to pry it from his clutches. It is pretty darn cute I will have to admit, but I probably over exagerated Ryans enthusiasm. It makes for a better story though.

Here it is in all it's Glory!

Some fun pictures of the kids

Kiya loves her brother soo much. She is always loving on him. I thought it was such a sweet picture of the two of them.

Brekken loves to stand, but he hasn't quite figured out how to stay standing. We are in trouble when he does.

Timmmmbbbbeeeerrrrr!!!!