Thursday, May 24, 2007

No Training Wheels

Bryson has been begging for months to have me take his training wheels off his bike. But, being pregnant and then having a baby I had no desire to teach him how to ride without training wheels. Finally I thought since I could run now, why not. Well I could have taken them off a long time ago because he did it all by himself without me helping at all.

This is a video of him with his training wheels on for the last time. If you look closely you can see how he has been practicing to ride and even start and stop without the training wheels touching.



Here is a video of Bryson riding without his training wheels for the very first time. I seriously did not have visions of me being able to video his first try, I pictured me having to hold the back of the seat while running.



Bryson was excited but was kind of like, "of course I can do it". I was ecstatic, I still can't believe I have a kid old enough to ride his bike without training wheels.

Smile

Alyssa spends most her time smiling and just being content. She is so much fun!

Budding Artist/Author

Bryson loves to make books at his preschool. He gets on kicks - for the longest time every book had an apple tree ("because apples are my favorite"). Recently light sabers has been the topic. We have TONS of books with a different colored lines on each page. It is his light saber books, red line for Anakin's saber, purple for Mace Windu... Today when I picked him up he was very excited for his special book about our new home. I just had to share it.
There is a climbing wall at the park by our house.

We drive over the Wabash River to get to West Lafayette. However, Bryson told me that this isn't that bridge but the walking path bridge. (I loved how he didn't say 'the end' but "that's all".

Carnival

Saturday was the EV Carnival. It is right out our front door and it happens every May. (another thing we will miss about Stanford)

Of course a favorite thing is the pony rides.

Bryson loved all the games. (truthfully I think he liked getting the prizes more than playing the games)

If we are helping, we had to have popcorn! Kevin did a fabulous job serving the popcorn!

Bryson had the clown make him a balloon sword. She also made him a holster but he didn't want to wear it.

Besides popcorn, they also had sno-cones, cotton candy, and hotdogs.

The face painters were amazing this year! Kaitlyn had requested a little fairy on her face. One of the ladies misunderstood and I guess tried to make her look like a fairy - luckily she is easy to please and was still happy!Kaitlyn had the clown make her a flower.



When it was all said and done, Alyssa and Kevin took a big nap on the couch. (actually Kevin took the nap and Alyssa just layed there so adorably)

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Happy Mother's Day

Kevin should open a restaurant. Stacks #2! We had 'garden crepes' at Stacks and thought they were to die for. When I requested Kevin's delicious crepes for Mother's Day dinner, he made the garden crepe and it was as delicious as it looks.He then topped Stacks restaurant because I got a dessert crepe also (with strawberries, nutella, and whip cream). I know I am spoiled!!!
It will be nice to have a bigger kitchen and not have to have the laundry room and project drawers all in the kitchen!!! (less than 2 months but who is counting)
The kids love Kevin's crepes almost as much as me. Bryson has nutella in the middle of his
Kaitlyn has powdered sugar and lemon juice in the middle of hers.
And Miss Alyssa is being the perfect baby as always. Swinging and watching!
Thanks Kevin for the great Mother's Day and FABULOUS Mother's Day Dinner!

Swimming

Last weekend we went to my cousin's boy's baptism and then went swimming at my Aunt Linda's afterwards. It was even Troy's birthday and he still barbecued a delicious Cinco de Mayo meal! Thanks Browns!

The great thing was we had 4 families with little kids ranging in age from 2-8. The kids went swimming and we had no adults in the pool. We had dads lined up watching the little ones and Troy had to jump in just once to rescue Trevor, who was actually one of the older ones who "knew" how to swim.

Bryson was great with water wings.

We need to buy some water wings for Kaitlyn but we used this tube and then Nicole pulled Kaitlyn around in the water. It was the cutest thing to watch. (if anyone can share with me how to put digital videos on the blog, I have a fun one of Kaitlyn and Nicole)




Inside house

After several requests, here are some photos of the inside of our house. Remember, this is not our furniture, we actually live in a furnished apartment so we own no furniture so these will just be empty rooms (but with little ones, what could be funner that more room to run!)



This is the hallway upstairs.
One of our favorite parts of the house is the finished basement!!!
This will be a fun room. It is the sunroom (an enclosed patio!)

Sunday, May 6, 2007

House Hunting Trip

Baby Alyssa has been so good to us. She is such a good baby and doesn't complain about anything.
She has continued to be her perfect self even though her room is in the hall. (I love my precious babies but I can't sleep with all the noises they make in the night when they are in our room.)I will give Alyssa most the credit for being a good sleeper but I do have to give a little of the credit to the miracle blanket. It is truly a miracle. It keeps her so snuggley at night that she sleeps GREAT! (last night she went 8 1/2 hours and she is 7 weeks old!!!)

We went to Indiana last weekend. It all started off fabulous when our hotel gave us room with 2 bedrooms.
Alyssa was ecstatic that for the first time, she was going to get her own room. We told her to get used to it, in our new house, she would have her own room!!!



We bought a house!!! After looking at 10 or so homes in the area, we found one we really liked and we LOVE the neighborhood. We had originally planned to house hunt for several days but homes in the neighborhood were going fast and this one already had an offer on it so we had to move fast.

We couldn't be happier. We were able to be there for the inspection before we left town and the inspector looked at me at one point and said that I looked like I couldn't stop smiling, like this was too good to be true. I told him that it was exactly how I felt. We love our home and LOVED the area - walk to church and elementary school, Kevin can bike to work, park across the street, lots of young families, even a family just 5 doors with a boy Bryson's age and a girl Kaitlyn's age.


This is the kids' favorite part. There is a play structure in our backyard, by the blueberry bushes,that they are leaving for us.