Kirsten and Mark

We had a few Santa photo opps this season. Kaia, surprisingly, didn’t even cry!

We just happened to be in one of the 10 or so cities in the country Microsoft was doing this photosynth thing–2 years in a row! Anyway, the digital files are small, so this is as big as we have.

These are from the ward Christmas party:

Seriously, when does Kaia ever have this mild of an expression when anyoneholds her besides me?

He was a great Santa and we had a really nice party. It was fun getting to know people in our ward a little better and having a a chance to think about Christ as well

I’m all out of witty titles today. But, I do need to post about Thanksgiving and our trip to Orange County before Christmas at least.
We headed down the day before and it took 10 hours! It didn’t help that it was a holiday, plus we hit LA right during traffic time. But, we did make it all nice and well.
The next day Kaia decided she would walk for the first time. We thought it was for real, but if you read the last post, not so much.

B and K with Grammie

Pretty little girl

Unfortunately, these are the only pictures I got on Thanksgiving. But, we did have a day of thinking of our blessings. We do have so much and I am thankful that we were able to visit with family this holiday.

Also on our trip we were able to spend most of the day with some of our best friends.

Britton and Mav had a great time! I loved visiting with Paige too. It’s been a while and we had a lot to talk about.

For my birthday Mom made some DELICIOUS French Toast, then we went to Newport Beach for a bit. I don’t think I’ve ever walked down that pier at all. We always go to Balboa’s. But it was practically perfect weather and the kids really liked looking at the water.

Britton even got to touch a crab a local fisherman caught. He thought that was cool.

After lunch Mom watched the kids while Mark and I went to a movie–finally, it’s been months! We saw Twilight–and this time it actually worked. Saturday we tried to go, but the theatre was having problems. We ended up with 4 ticket vouchers and 2 popcorn ones. Too bad they don’t have those theatres where we live. So, we were glad it worked out this time!

Happy Birthday to me!

Kaia decided that she would show us she could walk on Thanksgiving Day.

Then she was done. She has no interest in it. Other than walking on her knees. She does that a lot when she wants to carry something.

She didn’t do it again till my birthday 4 days later. Tried again? Nope. When she doesn’t want to, she just kneels down when we stand her up.

UPDATE: She has started to take a step or two away from us or the wall every once in a while. Hoping for progress this month or the doctor wants to see her again since at 15 months she’s in the last 10% to do it.

So, the site Star-Kidz has a holiday Q&A where fans can submit questions and the stars answer.

Here’s Britton’s: Q&A

I just typed as he answered. What do you expect? He’s 3!

Britton wanted to be a kangaroo for Halloween again this year after he saw me packing it.  That was just fine with me since I didn’t have to think of anything. We thought it would be cute if Kaia was a koala to go with him. Oh, and it was pretty darn adorable!

Our super cute little town had a community parade, crafty activities and trick or treating at local businesses. It was pretty warm, and a bit crowded, but I think Kaia had Britton had lots of fun.

Koala yawn

Zoo Keeper and her favorite Koala

And favorite Kangaroo

The parade: In front of us

The parade: Behind us

parading

animal friends

Ward costume parade

Look Mom! I got candy!

Little doggie...um, I mean Koala

cool! A whistle!

They had a great time with all of their trick or treating and got quite a haul. Both of them were quite excited. Now…we still have the actual Halloween night. yikes!

Ok, maybe we didn’t eat these, but it was fun carving them.

ok, I'm ready

ewe...guts!

"helping"

carving time

Look at mine!

kid pumpkins

Mark and I did ours later but didn’t get pics. His was big and scary and I carved a white one to look like a skull. It was pretty cute.

From the second day we moved in and the box with my cookie cutters was found Britton has been asking to make cookies. I just LOVE that! For a while I was a little worried that I wouldn’t have a holiday cookie partner, but since Christmas last year he’s been all about the making and the decorating of our sugar cookie tradition.

It took a while, but as soon as I got the kitchen into some reasonable sort of order I told him it was time. More than a week before Halloween, but why not?

He got to pick which shapes we’d use. It was really hard not insisting on the Halloween shapes, but in the end, he picked those ones. And Mickey.

Adding sprinkles

frosting the moon

and a purply gray witch

Kaia dug right in

Yummy!

Some of the finished product. Not super cute, but they tasted pretty good!

We took a Sunday drive to see the beautiful mountain leaves…some are blurry ’cause they’re taken from the window

Climbing a rock while climbing his mountain

Summit achieved

Kaia had to climb too

Britton loves Thomas, and trains. When we became members of the Colorado Train Museum we found out about the annual Day Out With Thomas and knew we just had to take him. We bought the tickets back in June or July, but didn’t tell him because we knew he would ask constantly when we could go. Then PBS Kids started advertising for it and the asking/telling us about it started. Finally we told him that we already got tickets, but it wasn’t until September. So we had to look at the calendar and see how long that was. Then every time he’d see the add he’d tell us that Thomas was in September and he wanted to get to September.

Finally the day arrived! Yay for us all! He had a lot of fun, and I think Kaia did too.

Waiting to for our train

All aboard!

A big Sir Topham Hatt

And a whole tent full of train tables. It was little boy heaven. We barely made it out of there.

We all had a fun day with Thomas and his friends.

This is what greeted us the morning of Miss Kaia’s birthday

What a little doll!

Then it was off to swimming lessons. She was doing really good floating by herself.

I just had to put this one in. She looks terrified! She’s more looking at me like “mom, how could you do this to me?” She really didn’t like it, but could do this:

Float all the way by herself, so I told her to get over it.

When we got home she got a bath and some new bath toys. Then we opened her presents

Ripping open her presents

She loves books lately

Talking on her new phone

It was the members only opening day for the new dinosaur exhibit at the Denver Science Museum. They had Sue, the most complete (and maybe largest) T-Rex skeleton ever found. Plus a few different robot dinosaurs that were really cool, and lots of dino info. We couldn’t take any pictures inside. =( But, Kaia LOVED the T-Rex robot. They looked real and moved around. There was a Triceratops and a Velociraptor too. But, she kept wanting to go back to the T-Rex. Britton liked the whole thing.

Afterward, we stood in line to meet Buddy from Dinosaur Train (on PBS)

Kaia and Mommy

Kaia and Daddy

The whole fam

Kaia with Buddy

We left and stopped at a cupcake place down the road. They were very pretty. And tasty. Kaia picked the Vanilla.

Yummy Cupcake!

Fingers are good too

She doesn’t mind getting dirty like Britton did, so she reached right in.

We think she had a fun birthday. It turned out she really liked the dinosaurs, so that was good. We love this little girl! She is so fun and adorable. Happy Birthday Angel!