Happy Holidays!

Happy Birthday to our Wonderful Boy!!

We saved a piece of cake in the freezer from the kids birthday party for Liam to have on his actual birthday. We lit a candle, and sang happy birthday to him.




And let him have his presents from us. We found this cute little chair at Costco, and put a big bow on it.





And we also go him a really cool backhoe loader.


Liam really 'got' his birthday this year. He understood that it was a special day for him, and was excited for his gifts, and could tell people that he was turning 3 by showing 3 fingers. He has changed so much since a year ago. His communication has improved greatly! He is really loving going to preschool, and loves his teacher, and his classmates. He loves to sing, and cook, and loves to play with his cars and trucks. He loves his little sister and is a really good older brother-most of the time ;)

He is taking after his mom in that he likes to color and paint. And he's taking after his dad by being very independent and always wanting to 'do it self'! He continues to surprise us by the new things he says and does, and is always keeping us smiling. Happy 3rd Birthday Liam! We love and enjoy you everyday!!

Happy Birthday to our Wonderful Little Girl!!

So the store we bought the kids birthday party cake at offered a free 4 inch smash cake for baby's first birthday. They forgot to make it for our party, so we went back for Rowan's actual birthday and asked for the cake, but it ended up being 8 inches. Not sure why it was so big, and they also spelled her name wrong..But, cake is cake, and free is free, so we can't complain! We lit the candles and sang happy birthday to her. We ended up just cutting her a slice since it was such a big cake. She wasn't sure what to do with it, and she started to cry just like Liam did with his first cake. I put a little on her lip, and then she decided she actually liked the cake!



Click on picture below to see the video:


Liam helped her open her presents. She got a Fisher Price Talking/singing tea set, an Abby Cadabby 'P is for Princess' DVD, and her first doll. She still is more interested in chewing on Liam's cars than snuggling a doll, but perhaps that will change when she gets older : )


Anyway, we just can't believe that she is ONE already?! This year just flew by, and she is just growing and changing so quickly. Everyday we just marvel at how wonderful a baby she is, and feel so grateful to have her in our lives. We love you Rowan!

Last Thanksgiving

Last Thanksgiving we spent the day in the hospital giving birth to our sweet little girl Rowan. We can't believe a whole year has flown by sooo fast?!?! We want to keep her our little baby forever, but alas time doesn't work that way. Here is a video of Rowan on her 52nd week of life, and the eve of her FIRST birthday.

Click on picture below to see the video.

Liam and Rowan's Birthday Party

We had Liam and Rowan's Birthday Party this past weekend. Rowan turns 1 on November 26th, and Liam turns 3 on December 7th. We decided to have the party early because some family members will be out of town during their actual birthdays. Anyway, we had our party at Arete Gymnastics. We had the whole place to ourselves for 1 hour of playtime, and then 30 min. to have our cake and gifts. The kids had a great time playing! There is a link at the bottom of the post for more pictures of the party. (I'm using the site on a trial basis, so they will be available to see for 2 weeks. Then I will have to decide if I want to pay for the site).

Rowan and Mom


Liam in the foam pit


Rowan and Dad in the foam pit


Their cake...well we had a Curious George theme, and we ordered a monkey cake, similar looking to George, but they did not have the kit to make it. So we had to pick a different design at the last minute, and we ended up with Finding Nemo...so we called this theme 'Curious George Goes Scuba Diving'. We put 2 monkey's on the cake, one for Rowan and one for Liam!


Right before we lit the cake I was looking for Mike to make sure he had his camera to take pictures, and while I wasn't looking poor Liam lost his balance on the bench and fell backwards onto the concrete floor! He hit his head pretty good, and I felt so bad. He cried for a bit, but he was OK thankfully. We sang happy birthday to the kids, and enjoyed some cake. We let Liam open his gifts, but we were pretty pressed for time, so we took Rowan's gifts home to open later. All in all I think the party was a great success! And I have a whole year till I need to start planning again : )

Thanks everyone for coming, and for the gifts! They will surely enjoy them.


CLICK HERE TO SEE A SLIDE SHOW OF MORE PICTURES FROM THE PARTY

Christmas Service Project

Below is a letter from Liam's school. We will be donating, and if anyone would like to donate as well to this cause, please contact me:

Dear K.V. parents,

As many of you remember, for the past several years we have sponsored a Hug-a-Bear project for our Christmas fundraiser. This year, we would like to shift our focus to help meet a need a little closer to home. We have as a part of our school two very special girls who are in the midst of their battle with cancer. This year, we will be replacing our hug-a-bear project with a fundraiser in behalf of these families.

Some of you may know one of our sweet Tater Tots named Alivia C. Alivia has been undergoing treatment for Pre B acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) since July of 2010. She is loving, tender hearted, playful, outgoing, happy, smart, talkative... all mixed together with a kick of diva! It's hard not to love her. She loves EVERYONE! And she'll be your best friend in a heartbeat. Alivia is very brave, and her treatments are going well. She has a long road ahead with weekly outpatient chemotherapy treatment over the course of the next three years. Her family is positive and full of hope.

The second little fighter is Daphne Y. Daphne was registered to begin Sweet Peas this fall when, last May, she was also diagnosed with ALL. She is currently not well enough to attend, but hopes to next year. Daphne is full of personality. She is the sweetest little girl you'll ever meet. She helps around the house, is polite, and always tries to be a good friend. She loves to giggle and play. She loves to learn. Her blue eyes twinkle, her nose crinkles, and her blonde ringlets bounce. Her parents, amazingly, count their blessings through this difficult time. They feel lucky to be near Primary Children's, lucky that Daphne has a curable form of cancer, and lucky their little girl has responded so well to chemotherapy. Her treatments should last about two more years.

There is so much hope for these two special girls. But that does not mean the road won't be hard or that it won't be long. They have bouts of nausea. They gain weight. They lose weight. They lose hair. They attend physical therapy. They receive weekly chemotherapy. And they need our support through this difficult time.

If you have a child, you know the fear attached to those moments when you look at your little one and you realize just how fragile and vulnerable their life really is. These two families deal with that reality in an agonizingly personal way each and every day. This holiday season, many of us are blessed with the means to help them fight this battle. Money should never have to be an issue when it comes to saving a child.

Not only do we have the opportunity to help these families, but this fundraiser also gives us a fantastic chance to help our children understand the true meaning of the Christmas season. Many schools hold fundraisers for many different purposes, but at our school, we like to use fundraisers as an opportunity to teach children selflessness, a value that is being lost in today's self-centered world.

We will start accepting donations November 8th and will continue to accept donations until the Christmas break. Here are some ideas on how to get your children involved and excited about helping these special girls:

· Talk to your child about what cancer is and how it changes the lives of the families affected by it. Ask them how they would like to help.

· Together, check out the families' blogs: www.loveforlivi.blogspot.com and www.dailydaph.wordpress.com The pictures may help them see that these are real children who aren't much different from them.

· If your son or daughter earns money through chores or receives an allowance, encourage him or her to think about donating some of that money.

· Consider how your family might help. Remember that absolutely 100% of your donation will go right to these families.

We would love for this to be a major home run for Alivia and Daphne! Please join us, and let us know if you have any ideas for ways we could encourage everyone in our school to give what they can. Thank you in advance for your generous support.

Most Sincerely,

K.V.

Update on Life and Halloween Time!

Ok, I know, I've been quite the blogging slacker lately. It's just that when you have a second kid, and that second kid starts to be mobile, life gets a little bit hectic. So here are some highlights of our recent days...Rowan has perfected crawling, and cruising, but really isn't too interested in walking, which is totally fine by us for now. She has started to say 'What's that?' a lot. She loves to 'read' books. She doesn't chew them as much now, she likes to look at the pictures, turn the pages and she babbles like she is reading them...it is pretty adorable. Liam is loving school, although he missed a week last month because there was a stomach bug going around. He has always been such a healthy kid until he started going to school. But, I guess it's just one of those things that is bound to happen sooner or later when you get exposed to the public. The stomach bug he got was the first major illness we've had to deal with so far. He had pretty bad runs, and had no appetite! Thankfully, no throw-up with this one! We tried putting him on the BRAT diet, which worked OK if he was in the mood to eat anything. It cleared up after about a week...then Rowan got a minor version of it...I'm so grateful that I have kept up with pumping because Liam is bringing all sorts of yucky germs home, so far she has been pretty good! I'm hoping to be able to continue till he's out of school in the spring, but we will see if my body cooperates. Anyway, he had his Halloween program last week. We went to see the kids sing. We were unsure how he would react if he saw us, so we hid in the back. The kids walked holding hands around the back of the crowd, and Liam and another boy got separated from the line and escaped into one of the classrooms...then Mike had to herd him back to the front. All the kids stared at the crowd in shock as the teacher belted out the songs. Liam started to dance at one point, but mainly he kept running down the hall, just to be herded back by his teacher. We got video of it, and hopefully we can figure out how to convert the HD to load online.

Liam had a great Halloween! He actually was very excited to go trick-or-treating this year. He was very good about putting on his costume too. The first time we got it though it took a little convincing. We ended up putting Rowan's Flower costume on first, and just showed him how cute she looked, then he was fine putting it on. He was a dragon this year, and a very cute one at that! Halloween landed on a Sunday this year, so our state decided Saturday would be the Trick-or-Treating day...but unfortunately, it also was cold, windy and rainy! But thankfully Liam's costume was warm, and we had an umbrella. I took him to handful of houses, then we went home to warm up. After he ate some dinner, Mike took him to several more...the rain had calmed down, and he kept saying one more house, one more house. The next day he wanted to go again...we told him that it was over, but we could do some Trick-or-Treating in the house. It got pretty late and he needed a bath, so I asked Mike to have a few pretzels behind one door, and his milk behind the next one. He knocked on the first door, and dad handed him some pretzels, and then he said 'I want some candy'...such a funny kid! Anyway, it was pretty fun watching him enjoy Halloween!





I will post more pictures as soon as I get a chance to edit them : )

Pre-School Pics

We got Liam's school pictures back today....so cute! He's got a little bit of stubborn bed head going on, but I still think he's adorable : )


Here is his class...(I blocked out their names, except for Liam's)

Also, this is Miss Farrah, his new teacher. Miss Emily no longer works there.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY...

TO MY WONDERFUL HUSBAND!! HAPPY 34 YEARS TO YOU : )

BIRTHDAY VIDEO

Friendly Warning About Hand Sanitizer

It seems that hand sanitizer has only been around for a short time, but now it is EVERYWHERE! Especially after the swine flu epidemic. I try not to use it very often on Liam, but I do put it on his hands after we have been somewhere public. This past Saturday, I took Liam to the park. It was busier than usual, and there were some older kids there, and they were climing on top of the playgroud structure, above where the other kids walked to climb up to the slides. I was concerned that they could fall on top of Liam, so I tried to get Liam to go to another slide area at the park, but he would have none of it....so I took him back to the car, and was going to see if I could find another park nearby on my phone. Liam had been upset and crying, and I had a difficult time getting him into the car. I was flustered and upset with those older kids ruining our fun, so when I put the hand sanitizer on Liam's hands I was not paying close attention to him...I am guessing that the sanitizer was not fully dry, and because he was crying he must have rubbed it into his eye. He complained of his eye hurting, and it only got worse, and he cried for at least an hour. We thought of rinsing his eye out, but we didn't think he would cooperate with us...although hindsight we wish we would at least tried! He seemed to be OK after about an hour or so, but the following day, his eye was really puffy. I called the after hour clinic, and they said to just keep an eye on it, as long as it isn't infected, he should be OK. Then on Monday, it didn't look any better, it actually seemed worse! So I made an appointment with the Dr. He basically said the same thing as the nurse the previous day. Finally, Tuesday afternoon, it started to look better! Needless to say, I will be SUPER careful using this stuff for now on, and probably will stick with wipes for a while! In fact, after explaining what happened to Liam's teacher, his school is reconsidering the whole sanitizer stuff at the school...Here is a picture of Liam's eye, it was taken 2 days after he got it in his eye....poor guy!

Update on Life

So far Liam is doing well in school. The first couple of weeks were a bit of an adjustment, and we often wondered if he wasn't quite ready. He cried when I dropped him off, and he would say he doesn't want to go. But then when I picked him up he was happy...And then on some days he would say he wants to go, and to see Miss Emily. Since school is in the afternoon he does tend to be more tired, and his naps now are hit and miss from day to day, and I suppose that is partly the schedule change and partly he is getting closer to the age where he will be dropping his nap. Although, a couple of weeks ago he fell asleep around 4:30 pm for his nap and when we went in his room to wake him up for dinner, he was OUT! We couldn't wake him and wondered if we should try harder to wake him, or just let him sleep. We were concerned that he would wake in the middle of the night, but we took a gamble and let him sleep....well I think we made the right decision because he not only slept for the whole night, he ended up sleeping for 15 hours! That was a first ever, guess he really needed some sleep?! We even were able to get some pictures...


Rowan is now 9 months, and is ALL over the place! She is standing, clapping, 'talking', playing, dancing, showing her independence-and even doing things she knows we don't want her doing?! We are shocked that she has learned this rebellion at 9 months...doesn't seem like Liam started that till over a year old. The older she gets the more we realize how similar she is to Liam, and how much trouble we are going to be in...Right now they are both very cute to each other, but we think that the older they get the more they will clash...We are enjoying their sweetness to each other as much as we can...and hopefully we are wrong and it will last forever : )


This picture was taken earlier this month (9-5-10)...you can tell how proud she is of her standing. Now a couple of weeks later she is cruising, and walking across the room with the help of her lion walker. This girl is going to be walking on her own before we know it!

Liam's First Day at Pre-school

So Liam had his first day of preschool this week. Unfortunately, our 'old' camera was on a manual focus setting that I didn't realize till later, but thankfully I had my phone with me and grabbed a few pictures. I couldn't get him to look at me either...but I still think he's cute!

Here is Liam standing outside his school...


Here is Liam in his classroom...


They had some toys out for the kids to play with while the parents dropped them off in class for the first day...a few of the kids were crying, as to be expected. Liam looked rather confused, and a little withdrawn. This is the first time he's been in a setting like this with other kids. The room was pretty chaotic, and I stayed with him until class started. I'm not sure he even noticed me leave the room...he sat here playing with the toys.

When I picked him up he seemed happy to see me. Some of the things he said he did was play with crayons, saw some kids...he also mentioned that he made Miss Emily cry, which I hope is just in his 2 yr. old imagination!

Rowan's 7 Month Professional Pictures

CLICK HERE TO SEE SLIDE SHOW OF PICTURES

Pre-School

So for the past several weeks as we drive by Liam's school I will point it out, or Liam will. A couple of weeks ago we got an e-mail announcing who Liam's teacher will be...Miss Emily. He has been very excited to meet her, but unfortunately he came down with a cold, and we didn't want to expose him to the other kids, especially right before the first day of school. So Mike and I went to meet his teacher, and she was kind enough to let us take this picture for him. He seems to be on the mend, so we are crossing our fingers he will be ALL better for his first day of school next week!


(BTW, come to find out she went to high school with Mike...small world, eh?!)

Happy 8 Months to Rowan!

Well Rowan is now crawling! She's not too fast yet, but getting there! We had our pictures done on Friday. There was a communication issue, and she ended up being an hour late! And with young kids, an hour is a huge deal! Rowan wasn't as happy as she usually is. Partly she was tired from being up from her nap for over an hour, and partly I think she was overwhelmed by it all. Liam was wanting to be around the action, and like a 2 yr. old was getting in the way. Mike had to chase him around and try to keep him from messing with the equipment. She almost got a super cute picture of him, but her battery was low, and the light didn't go off. Despite it all, I do think she managed to get several cute pictures of Rowan. Rowan really started to smile when I picked her up, so I think she got some good ones of me and her. Sadly, though after about 90 min. the kids were pretty fed up, and we were not able to get a good family picture! Also, we totally forgot to get a 'Dad and Rowan' picture too. Man it was so much easier to do Liam's 7 month pictures with just one baby! Anyway, Mike's cousin has offered to do some family shots for us, so we are looking forward to finally getting a good (or as good as the kids will let us) family picture!

Update on Life

Been feeling a little behind on things lately...mainly up keeping the house, working, editing pictures of the kids, maintaining the garden, etc. all while making sure the kids are getting enough love and attention as well. It is a juggling act for sure, and I feel like I'm dropping the ball somewhere. I often wonder how people manage more than 2 kids and keep their house running because I am just feeling...well, overwhelmed!

Anyway, I just wanted to write a little update on us, so that morph kid isn't staring at you on the top of the page! Mike and I hired a babysitter for the first time over the weekend. We felt it would be nice not to drive the kids south to our family's house when we are heading north, so we signed up for a babysitter site online and found a nice girl. We wanted someone that was older, not a teenager, and had experience and knows CPR and first aid if anything happened...yes we (or at least me) are picky! We paid a lot for her, but Liam really liked her, and it is nice to know now that we can actually go out for a dinner and movie sometime! We haven't been out to a movie since I was pregnant with Liam, how sad is that?! So below is a recent picture of Rowan...she is sitting like a pro now, which is good because our pictures are this Friday! She is also sitting herself up!! The other picture was sent to me this morning from Auntie Tiff (thanks!) It is a picture of Liam and his cousins eating ice cream at our 4th of July party.

Morph Thing

Well, this is what the 'Morph Machine' came up with when I put in Me and Mike's picture....I do say our kids are MUCH cuter!

Outing with the Kids at Thanksgiving Point

So, now that my foot is healed, I have been getting caught up on our pictures, and I realized that I had these pictures from Thanksgiving Point from last month. The day before I went to the Dr., on June 3rd, we met Mike's cousin's family at the Farm at Thanksgiving Point...Liam and his 2nd cousin are only 3 weeks apart, and they just have a great time playing together.

Sadly, Liam was a little scared to ride the horse this time...Mike ended up having to carry him for the ride...Hopefully, it's just a phase!


He had a great time feeding the ducks!


Cute pigs...


This little duck kept following me around, it was pretty funny.


Liam hanging out...


Goat...


Horse...


Liam and Cousin playing...


Liam sitting on bench...


Cute face sitting on bench...


Two peas in a pod!


Rowan being a saint in her stroller...