Audrey's Gymnastics

Here's a portion of Audrey's last-class-performance on Monday.

Christmas program

Our church had its children's Christmas program on Sunday. Here are a few pix of before/during. The girls were angels and Kai was a donkey. You will only see he donkey ears in the "before" picture, because he ripped the ears off of the hat in the minutes before going on stage and then calmly handed me the rest. The pic of him walking would be him during the MIDDLE of the performance. He was a very free-spirited donkey. =) Afterwards, one of our friends told me that, because she had never seen him with the ears, she thought he was a log! =)

 

Winter fun

A few random pix from the last couple of weeks.

Having fun

Iain and I went to an embassy Christmas party last week. I wouldn't normally put this picture on because my eyes are CRAZY, but Kai is so cute, I couldn't resist.  =)

Martin & Janelle

Some great Aussie friends of ours, that we met in San Diego, are back in the US and living relatively close to us. We had a chance to go see them last weekend (and their daughter, who had just turned one when we saw her last). We had such a great time catching up, eating Japanese food, and even found a farm to visit with them.

(As a side note, their daughter is 4 1/2. I asked her what her favorite food was and she told me "sushi." Audrey said, "I like sushi too! Especially peanut butter and jelly sushi.")  =)

Iceland

Here are a few clips from our trip to Iceland over Thanksgiving with Iain's parents. We were looking for the Northern Lights. We didn't see them but still had a great time!

Kai Praying

Our girls are hilarious!

Case point #1: Yesterday, we were playing Pictionary. The way we play is that you are allowed to draw a card and then draw anything on the card you like. Audrey looks at the card, starts laughing, says, "this one is VERY funny" and then proceeds to draw a perfect diaper. Perfect. She clearly did not get her art genes from me.

Avery and I guess "diaper". She says, "yes, but look at it closely. What kind of diaper?" So we guess baby diaper, dirty diaper, clean diaper, every kind of diaper you can imagine, but we never got it and had to give up. She starts laughing again and says "LITTLE diaper".

I was thinking to myself, "that is so strange that they would use "little diaper" as a clue." So I looked at the card. Sure enough, there it is. Except that it says "Little Dipper". I'm now laughing, Audrey is laughing, Avery is laughing, and we left it at that. What a crazy card to have "little diaper." =)

Case point #2: We went to dinner last night and at the table they had those kid placemats with crayons and activities. One of the activities was tic-tac-toe. Avery and I were playing and she had two x's in a row. I put an "o" to block her. She looked up at me, completely serious, and said, "Mommy, you focus on yourself. You don't need to worry about what I'm doing." I try not to laugh at the kids when they are being serious, but I couldn't help myself. It's possible that she's heard that phrase before ...

Happy Halloween

The highlight of last night was Kai stripping off the top half of his lion costume in the front yard after he had done a "practice" trick-or-treating at our own front door. He happily collected his piece of candy from Grandma, ate it, then wanted more. When we told him he couldn't until we went to another house, he threw himself down and ripped off the costume. So the short story is that he stayed home with Grandma to pass out candy while the rest of us went around the neighborhood (though Grandma says he was a little scared of people coming to the door and kept going further into the house).

Here are a few pix from last night, as well as the kids' school parade yesterday and their class Halloween parties.

Halloween Parade

Our neighborhood had its annual Halloween parade yesterday. Iain led the way with the bagpipes and the kids had a great time!

It took us about 45 minutes to convince Kai to put on his costume. After he got it on, he didn't try to take it off, but he wanted nothing to do with getting his picture taken.

 

Marine Corps Marathon Fun Run

Audrey & Avery ran in the 1-mile fun run on Saturday. They ran the whole way. So proud of them!

The Last of an Era

Iain and Kai are taking down his crib and we don't have any plans to use it again! Happy and sad about this reality...

Reading with Grandma and Grandpa

Iain's 15-Year Reunion

Two weekends ago we went to CT for Iain's 15-year reunion. We stayed with some great friends and had a great time. Here are a few pix.

(The pic of Kai with something in his mouth is a bone from a chicken wing. I wish I had taken a pic of the actual bone. He ate EVERYTHING off the bone.)

Coal Mine and Boat Show

Three weekends ago, we went to Pennsylvania to ride a train and see a coal mine, and then to Annapolis to a boat show. It was a last-minute decision (I made the plug for Niagara Falls but Iain thought 14 hours in the car in two days was too much) and we had a great time! Here are a few pix. One of the highlights was eating in a diner in a small town for breakfast and the short order cook invited Audrey to cook her own eggs on the griddle. They set her up on a chair, tied an apron on, and let her go. She had so much fun!

And Avery learned how to do the monkey bars!

Life in front of the fire