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 : )