Our sweet Annie

Annie is changing so fast. We are having so much fun with her. She will be 9 months in a couple of days. She got her first 2 teeth about the same time last month. She sits and plays really well and a has been scooting around for a couple of weeks. A couple of days ago she started crawling. She hasn't done it much since the first day, but she does move all over the place mostly backwards. She can go from laying down to sitting up all by herself. I have been doing baby sign language to her and she will say all done when she is done eating and last night she waved bye bye to Grandma and Grandpa. She says dada, but I don't thinks she knows that it means daddy yet. Most everything she says starts with da. She saids diedie when she waves bye bye. Matt still can't keep his hands off her and she is starting to get annoyed by him. She pushes him away when he is in her face too much. She is such a pleasant little girl.

New Year of School

We are year round here so the kids started school in July and they off track for the month of August (a little strange to go to school for one month, but o well). Matt started Kindergarten and loves going to school everyday. He has a little bit of trouble sitting still for so long, but he is learn so much. I can't believe how much he already knows. Kate loves school and was so excited to start 2nd grade. Getting her to do homework is so easy because she loves it so much. Let hope that never changes.

Family Reunion in Oregon

We just got back from our family reunion. We left after school last Friday and flew into Boise, ID. We stayed at a really nice hotel there and then drove 3 hours to eastern Oregon Saturday morning. This was Brandon's dad's family. We were at the reunion on Saturday and Sunday. There was so much to do and the kids had a blast. I took almost 200 pictures, so you can check them out and see all the fun stuff we did. We camped out on Saturday night, which was an adventure with 3 little kids. Kate and Annie did really good and slept all night, but Matt had a little accident and woke up cold. Once he was redressed and covered up he fell asleep and slept till 10am. Brandon and I had more trouble sleeping since right after we took care of Matt the sun came up. It gets dark after 9:30pm and light at 4:30am. Monday and Tuesday we stayed in a hotel (thank goodness) and hung out with Brandon's parents and visited more with his extended family. Kate made good friends with Libby, one of Brandon's cousins daughter and had a blast running around with her. A couple of funny things happened that I want to remember, but I'm afraid they won't be very funny to anyone who wasn't there. Frank (Brandon's dad) was talking to Kate and Libby and said "Libby I'm your grandma's big brother", Libby then said "You look younger than my grandma", so Frank took out a dollar and gave it to her. When Frank's sister Tammy saw the dollar she asked about it and Libby said "I told him he looked younger than you". Tammy said "WHAT?!!" and Libby said (trying to defend herself) "He didn't make me say it, it's true". Another day we drove up to the lake in the mountain. We were on a skinny dirt road and a park ranger truck was coming toward us. We pulled over to let him pass and as he passed (very slowly) he had his window down and he nodded at us. Linda (Brandon's mom) said to Frank, "he wants to talk to you". So Frank rolled down his window and just stared at him. Well he just stared back for like 3 seconds, until they both said "what?" Then Frank said "I thought you wanted to talk to me" and the ranger said "I thought you wanted to talk to me", then they rolled up their windows and drove away. It was an awkward moment and we laughed for a long time about it. Too bad Linda didn't do it on purpose to embarrass Frank.

Where are the training wheels?

We decided that Matt was ready to learn to ride his bike without training wheels. He wasn't that excited about it and was a little scared at first. It only took him 3 short days of practice and he can do it now. We haven't practiced in a while since we went on vacation, but lets hope that its true that once you learn you never forget, "it's like riding a bike".

Kate is done with 1st Grade

Kate did so well in 1st grade this year. She loved going to school so much that she won an award for perfect attendance and also one for academic achievement. Her class voted her friendliest, which I think is true. She is always nice to everyone. I can't believe that she will be starting 2nd grade tomorrow (we are year round here). I was the room mom for her class this year. The end of the year party was a lot of fun. Her teacher told me she wanted to have a breakfast, so I had parents contribute food and I had Brandon come and make pancakes. We played a bingo game I made with all the kids names. Her class was called Bear Country so I made little white bears for all the kids and we used permanent makers and decorated the bears, then passed them around for all the kids to autograph. The kids really seemed to like it and there were some very creative bear decorators.

Brandon is getting old

or I'm just always young. Kate wanted to put the exact number of candles that Brandon is old on his pie (his favorite so I didn't do a cake). It looks like the whole pie is on fire. We had a family birthday party with his parents and David and Christy the Sunday before and then the kids and I decorated the house and had a "surprise" party for him the day before his birthday (can you believe he was on call the night of his birthday?) Kate has always wanted to have a surprise party. She and Matt were both so excited to jump out and surprise Brandon.