Kayda's Third Birthday

Kayda's birthday was a kind of crazy day! She woke up to a family room full of balloons, which both she and Dillon thought was fanstastic.

Then Uncle Justin surprised us by arranging with his friend to go see their horses. They have two: Doc is the brown one that Kayda and Dillon got to sit on, Brutis is the HUGE black one. Neither of the kids wanted to leave after almost an hour of wandering around with the horses and dogs. The lady you see in the pictures is Liz.

In the horse trailer...

Then around lunch time Grandma and Grandpa G, Uncle Justin and Paige (Uncle Justin's girlfriend), Came over for icecream cake and presents. Aunt Kirsten and her family sent gifts with Uncle Justin and Kayda got a special birthday phone call from them later on.

Then in the evening...Grandma and Grandpa H, Uncle Scott, Aunt Anna, Uncle Greg, Aunt Liz, Baba, Peyton, Mikey, Jarrett, Ella, and our neighbors Jerry, Carla, Tazz and Kylie. Aunt Sarah and Uncle Pat spent the evening in the emergency room with Chase, he was having food troubles.

She named the big black horse Brutis after the real horse. We are so thankful to have so many people that care about our little ones and for them all to be so close. It was a wonderful third birthday. Thanks everyone for being there to celebrate with us.

Oh and the icecream cake was yummy. In a spring form pan: Crushed oreo cookies (1 package) with a little under 1/2 cup melted butter, 1/2 carton of icecream, hot fudge, another 1/2 of icecream, covered with whipped cream. Simple but takes a long time because you have to keep freezing in stages.

Thanksgiving

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving. Before I even begin though I want to share the top three things I am thankful for:

1.) My wonderful children and their Daddy

2.) Having most of our immediate family nearby (the furthest are in Pullman so they're still in the state at least) so our children can be close with their cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.

3.) Being home most of the day and for a hubby who is trying VERY hard to get me home with our little ones.

 

Now I'm done with the mushy part. When we were getting ready to start our day Dillon had been snuggling in bed, Daddy was in the other room and Kayda was in the bathroom with me. By the time I was done getting ready Kayda was in with Daddy but I couldn't find Dillon. I searched the whole house calling his name expecting him to just pop out at me. When he didn't I got worried thinking maybe he got hurt. I looked in my bed again because that's where he had been and there he was, hidden under his blankets and my comforter so that I couldn't see him, fast asleep. He was covered up more than this, I uncovered him quite a bit to take the picture.

While Dillon was taking a nap Kayda decided that she wanted to dance in her "sparkly dress" (no I did not make her put it on). She actually let me do her hair and everything!
She loves dancing on her toes!
While I went to Grandma and Grandpa G's to help with the cooking Daddy brought Kayda and Dillon over to visit Grandma and Grandpa H. Kayda got upset when they kept calling her dress "pretty" and "beautiful" because it is a "sparkly" dress. When Grandpa spotted an iceskater on tv with a sparkly gray dress Kayda was very excited and watched her for quite some time.

When the kiddos and Daddy got over to Grandma and Grandpa G's house they helped to set the table. Once it was all set and ready they didn't want to leave the room. They were so excited to sit in the dining room instead of the kitchen. Eventually we had to drag them out because this was still 30 minutes to an hour before we were supposed to be eating!

Waiting for dinner...

Kayda LOVES to take pictures with the digital cameras so that she can see them immediately afterward. She wanted to take a picture so Grandpa and Dillon obliged her. Then it was Dillon's turn to take the picture.

Kayda wanted to take more pictures and since both she and Dillon had been picked up by Grandpa, Belle had to be too. She went on to get Grandma G's camera and take HUNDREDS of pictures of random things around her house. Good luck sifting through all those Grandma!

Dinner was great, we played games on the wii too. Tomorrow's another big day...Kayda's turning THREE!

Florida Trip

Uncle Greg and Aunt Liz got married on Nov 10th. Daddy and I went down to Key West so we could be there for the wedding (Grandma and Grandpa H and Uncle Scott were also there). Kayda and Dillon were able to stay with Grandma and Grandpa G for the six nights we were gone. It was really difficult to leave them, I got all emotional.  Once I was on the plane I was okay but the drive to the airport was hard. The kiddos didn't seem to have any idea that we were going to be gone for that long. According to Grandma they were hard to get to sleep (it takes two of us at home), usually slept well, and were their normal selves during the day. Of course they wore Grandpa out because he wanted to take them to DO things, not just let them play at home. Thank you SO much Grandma and Grandpa G. Most of the times we called we were able to talk to Dillon, we only got to talk to Kayda twice though. We had a good time, it was weird not to have to worry about the exact whereabouts of two small children all the time. We almost didn't know what to do with ourselves...Hurricane/Tropical Storm Ida was around the area when we were in Miami and Key West so there were a lot of things we wanted to do that we couldn't. Here's some pics of what we could/did do!

The alligator farm in the Everglades. They give me the creeps...

In Key West

Daddy and Uncle Scott outside the Pirate Museum

Waves are a rare thing in Key West, normally the reef located a couple miles of shore act as breakers and the water is almost like a lake. Obviously not while we were there.

The southernmost point of the USA (90 miles from Cuba)

I thought it was funny that the birds were alternating, we were on our way out to the mangrove islands and we would've been snorkeling but the water was too murky. We were both very disappointed about that.

I just like the way this looked, it's the sailboat we were on and some of the only "blue patches: we saw the whole time.

The mangrove islands that we kayaked through/around.

Daddy swimming out in the middle of nowhere.

Halloween!

We were a little slow with our Halloween prep this year. We went to the pumpkin patch last Sunday, the kids painted their small pumpkins that day but they weren't carved until Halloween day. The kids LOVED painting the pumpkins! Can you figure out which plate belonged to which child?


The top one was Kayda's and the bottom one was Dillon's. I thought it was funny that the older child had the plate with the paints mixed together the most.

Kayda and Dillon both enjoyed pumpkin carving. They weren't very keen on the goo inside. It's funny for Kayda because her first Halloween she was orange because she was playing with it so much. Dillon was never into it. When Daddy was cutting the face, Kayda decided she should have a knife too, she went and got a butterknife out of the drawer and tried to cut the lid of the pumpkin. They helped us choose what the pumpkins should look like and even helped carve a little by putting their hands on top of ours and "helping" us cut.

After we finished carving they got to paint all the pumpkins some more.

Time to go trick or treating! Kayda would NOT take off her pretty dress at the end of the day. Dillon had fun with the "paws" but got tired of it after a while.

First stop Grandma and Grandpa G's.

They weren't answering the door fast enough to Kayda tried to open it, it was locked.

Each kid took one candy, Grandpa told them that they could have another one. It was pretty funny because each of them grabbed another one and then immediately reached for a third and so on.

Next we headed to Baba's. Baba is their great grandma. She recently had back surgery and is having a hard time moving around but NOTHING could stop her from seeing her great grandbabies. She adores them and they adore her, Kayda always gets excited when we're going to see Baba.

Third stop, Grandma and Grandpa H's. Unfortunately I realized that in the chaos that is the cousins' reunion we forgot to get a picture with Grandma and Grandpa H. But here are the pictures of the cousins that were at their house. Peyton and Mikey are missing because they hadn't come over yet.

They were having a great time spinning the chair around.

Finally we went to Jamie's and then headed home. Sadly, by that time Kayda just wanted to be home. We tried to take her trick or treating in our cul-de-sac, she rode her trike and Dillon rode his little car. She did fine until they were going to cross the cul-de-sac, she kept saying "car coming" and she KNOWS she is NOT to be in the street if a car comes, she bring her trike to the side and waits. Dillon is still learning but he does very well also. There wasn't actually a car coming so Daddy took them across the street and she fell apart, she got SO upset that we had to go home. As soon as we walked in the door she was fine. It was sad that it was cut short but I must say I am extremely happy that she knows that "car coming" means she better not be in the road.