Friday, December 11, 2009

Meeting Santa


Meeting Santa, originally uploaded by kokanary.

Our realtors have become friends. We spent quite a while looking for a house in KC and they were amazing through the entire process. They are truly good at what they do and make their customers feel like family. Each year they host a breakfast with Santa and invite all of their customers.

We had a blast! Katherine got her face painted, both kids got balloon animals, they both sat on Santa's lap, and Katherine talked to him a little bit. It was a fun morning and we got some great pictures!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Breakfast With Santa




Here are some pictures from a visit with Santa!

Friday, November 13, 2009

Our Month In Photos


Class Halloween Party

Helping Daddy with yardwork

Halloween - Lion and Magical Unicorn

Jack pulling his friend Timothy around

Jack's intro to pinestraw in GA

Kelly's wedding in GA

School BOO-fest - teacher Mrs. Heather, friend Ava

Class trip to the Pumpkin Farm

Trip to the Pumpkin Farm

Visit from Grandpa and Grandma

Katherine's 4th birthday

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Cute Kid Moments


I am continually amazed at the cute and funny things that come out of kids mouths. When they are learning to adapt their speech to our common usages the things they put together are so amusing. Learning that adding an "ed" to the end makes something past tense results in things like "goed" or "gone" instead of went, "maked" instead of made, "keeped" instead of kept. Those are common things coming from Katherine these days.
Other funny things stem from associating an object with what it does. Today, Jack was using the sign for nurse even though I was across the room (he sometimes uses it to indicate he wants something, not necessarily to nurse). Katherine, who was sitting next to him, exclaimed "Jack wants to nurse from me." That alone was comical enough to picture, but she followed it up with "He can't do that, my nurses are too little." Hysterical!
She must just have babies on the brain (no idea why). She has been pretending to be pregnant today and while we were in the car she informed me that she was going to have two girls and two boys: Melissa and Tatum for the girls and Conor and Jack for the boys.

Jack still only really says Mama, Daddy and now something like deedee for dog. However, he has started singing the tune to one of Katherine's favorite songs. For months Katherine has been singing the song "My God is Mighty to Save." She and James heard it on the radio in the car on their way to school and she sings it often. Over the last week or so Jack has started singing - really cute, especially when he pulls out a stool, stands on it, and sings to his heart's content. A couple of days ago I realized that he was actually singing a specific tune - he has been singing the tune to "My God is Mighty to Save."
Jack has really gotten into cars, trucks, and things that "go." Last weekend we all drove up to my family's farm in Minnesota for my grandfather's funeral. We stayed late with several cousins on Sunday to play around on the farm. I got to drive a tractor, James hit golf balls into a corn field and had some target practice with some of Papa's old guns, Katherine had a sleepover with Grandma and Great Grandma the first night, and Jack became enthralled with the tractor. Jack was the funniest - he watched me drive the tractor around, then when we had parked and turned it off my cousin Shannon lifted him up to the seat. He immediately grabbed the steering wheel with a grunt of satisfaction. Shannon hit the starter button, making a really loud noise - Jack didn't flinch. Shannon hit the button again, then Jack tried to press the button - he had a blast!
Out of the tragedy of Papa's death came the blessing of reconnecting with relatives I haven't seen in almost a decade. Most had never met the kids, some hadn't even seen me since I was a kid. With the blessing of modern technology we hope to keep in touch better in the years to come, and plan to get together more than once in a decade!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Late Summer Photos







I have been remiss in my communication (verbal and pictorial). Not much to say at this hour, but here are some recent photos!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Technology Trouble

Oh the joys of technology...I am having some trouble uploading photos from my phone (hence the post below re: Katherine's drawing that is missing the picture of the drawing). I guess I will have to figure it out and get better about taking out my camera for photo opportunities rather than relying so much on my phone!

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Apple with a worm

Katherine is so funny! She drew me an apple complete with a little worm coming out. All her idea, how creative is that?

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Trouble!

Jack has a T-shirt that says, "hello, my name is trouble." that is so appropriate! I turned around for 30 seconds and he was up on the stool, had pulled the coffee pot over to him and was taking the pot off the burner! Maybe he has a future at starbucks. I just know that I am in trouble!
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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

First haircuts...

Katherine finally got her first haircut. She sat in a racecar and watched Mulan so didn't even realize something was going on!
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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

I can do it myself!

We have reached a milestone. Katherine has learned to pump her legs and power herself in the swing! She still wants is to push sometimes to give her an extra boost, but she can get herself on the swing and get started on her own too!
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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Another First

Katherine is once again experiencing the first day at a new school. This will be her third for the year! Today she started the Montessori Preschool that is part of the childcare facility run by Cerner. She will be going three days a week all day long so it will be a change for all of us. After lunch her teacher emailed to say she was doing well. With the email she sent some pictures of Katherine's first day. Here are my favorites:

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Water Fun

Jack playing in Hunter's water dish in front of the condo. The weather is nice and we are enjoying some nice family time outside!
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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Friday, May 15, 2009

Birthday cake anyone?

Jack quite enjoyed his birthday cake (unlike his sister on her first birthday).
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Monday, May 4, 2009

Walking

Wow, I can't believe that Jack is already a year old. The kids are both so much fun right now! Now that Jack is walking, he and Katherine are interacting more than ever. I fear that he may be starting the process of giving up his morning nap (something I am not ready for) now that he is getting around so well.

I took this video of him this morning, walking all over the place and having a great time.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Out of the mouth of babes...

This week my mom has been in town enjoying her grandkids. More than once she has remarked that we needed to find the baby book to write something down that one of the kids said or did. So, since I am terribly disorganized right now with 3/4 of my earthly possessions in one state and the rest crammed in a small condo with four people and a dog, I am going to attempt to capture some of the recent zingers here.

One of my current favorites is how Katherine shortens the word pretend to just "tend" as in, "Mama, tend your name is Sarah." A favorite of my moms: "yesternight." Last night we were in the car and James tried to join her in the ABC song. She preferred to sing it on her own so told him, "Daddy, I need you to concentrate on your driving. Can you do that for me?" Talk about hysterical - we all laughed.

The other night my mom was sewing new hair on an old doll (a doll from when I was little who Katherine has adopted as her own). Katherine was monitoring the progress and as my mom picked up a glass of tea to take a drink Katherine said, "Grandma, you either drink your tea or fix Molly's hair." Apparently we are big on having Katherine focus on one thing at a time!

Also noteworthy this week: Jack took his first steps! He has taken three in a row on several occasions over the last few days. I am excited that it happened while a grandparent was here to witness! So far he has a couple of sounds that resemble words: dada (and sometimes daddy) and something that sounds like Hunter. He has six teeth (four on top and two on bottom) and I think he is working on two more on bottom.

They are growing up so fast!

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Sweet moment

Looks like a sweet moment with Katherine reading to Jack. In reality she wrestled him into a seated position so she had an audience!
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Sunday, March 1, 2009

Is a kanary a songbird?

Katherine's school has an auction each year to raise money for the school. The week before the auction there is a preview at which each class gets up to sing a few songs. Here is Katherine's class singing:



How funny are they? We have come a long way from the Christmas program from her other school where her finger was in or near her nose most of the time!

Friday, February 20, 2009

"bath"room

Ok, one of the major issues we had with our house in Cincinnati was the lack of even a half bath on the main floor.
This shortage was especially painful during both of my pregnancies when I had to pee all the time.
Our current place in KC has a small half bath off the kitchen area. Awesome, right? Well, as you can see - between the dog bowls, the hockey equipment, the potty seat, and the two stools there isn't much room for an average sized human to use it for its intended purpose. Oh well, it works in a pinch.
Can you tell we are feeling a little overcrowded in our temporary accomodations?
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Wednesday, February 11, 2009

First Day of Her New School

Here is a video we took dropping Katherine off for her first day at the new school she is attending here in Kansas City. This is the second week she has attended and she really seems to love it! She comes home with lots to share every day, new songs to sing, new things to talk about (last week they did a unit on transportation), and new library books to read. We are happy to have found such a great place!

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Lunch

Here is a video of Katherine helping Jack eat lunch last week. So cute. I apologize for the shaky camera work, next time I'll put it on a tripod!

Friday, January 23, 2009

Baking cookies

We had to drop James off at the rental car place early this morning, so it has been a long day.
We needed an activity to occupy ourselves, especially after a post office fiasco. Baking cookies was the perfect distraction!
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Saturday, January 17, 2009

Moving day #1

Well, we are on our way! So far the weather is cooperating. No snow, just cold.
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Friday, January 9, 2009

Almost walking!

He is so mobile it is scary!
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Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Year

We wish you a very happy new year. The new year comes with a variety of changes for us, one of which is a move. In a little over two weeks we will be moving to Kansas City to allow James to take on a new and exciting role within the company he works for.

Moving means many things, not the least of which is leaving behind many close friends and family. So, in an effort to allow those close to us in spirit, but not in proximity to see the kids grow and change, we got a little video camera for Christmas.

Here is a video of Katherine and Grandma baking cookies at Christmas...