Happy 3rd Birthday Kai!

Happy Birthday Kai! We love you so much and have such a great time getting to be your Mom and Dad. Hope you had a super fun day today.

Starting off the Celebration

Tonight Kai and his buddy Andrew had their neighborhood friends birthday party. Andrew's 3rd birthday was on Saturday and Kai is up next Monday. They had a great time as you can see and so did the parents. Andrew's Mom Rochelle made the super cool and yummy sandcastle cake. Oh to be so creative!

What We've Been Up To Lately

Golfing in the front yards with Romney, Addy, Amanda, and the Dads. Romney has super cool pink clubs of her own and soft golf balls. Kai hit balls for forever- the other kids moved on to other activities eventually but he loved finally getting to play some golf. I was surprised that he could actually do it. I can tell Lance is already getting excited to take him out on a course. Note who is trying to use the right clubs on the left side:







Enjoying his new booster seat. Thanks to the Edgley's for the tip!:



Loving the Zoo:





Friday Fieldtrip to FatCats. Many thanks to Kimberley's friend Amy for setting this up for us:





Getting Back to His Illinois Roots:

Swim Wrap-up

Yesterday Kai and Kennedy finished up their last swim class. The second session they had their best teacher so far and really did great. What a difference a good teacher and a year makes for this sort of thing. As an extra special treat Grandma Utah and both of their Dad's showed up to watch the last class. They were very excited about this!

One of my favorite things this teacher did was have them "swim" through a sideways hula-hoop. The first time she did this with them she started it up high with part out of the water and just kept putting it deeper and deeper until it was totally under the water and they were still going through it. They thought this was a super game and I thought it was a great way for them to get going on "swimming" under water.

So we're sad swim lessons are done for another summer, but it will be nice to have next week off. It is amazing how a 1/2 hour lesson 4 days a week can end up consuming your week so much. We'll miss seeing Kennedy, Kimberley and Jack so much though.







(This one I'm shooting in to the sun so sorry about that)

Welcome Cousin Kate!

Lance's sister Kirsten and family welcomed their 3rd child on Monday. She was a healthy 8lbs 10oz and over 20+in long which seems to be how babies who come on time come in this family. We are so excited for them and can't wait to meet her in person. Everyone seems to be doing great and they have now made their way home. My only 2 sister-in-laws and I are 100% C-sections (6 soon to be 7 kids so far), so Kirsten has already been giving me fresh reminder tips as ours nears as well which is really nice. So, today they officially announced her name which is Katherine. She will go by Kate. Yeah Mullins!

Fire Station Field Trip 2008

Today was our neighborhood field trip to the fire station. Kai had a fabulous time. Highlights included getting to carpool there with his buddy Andrew, playing in the hose water, and getting to climb through the truck. As you can see from the pictures it was a great turnout which was also really fun. We really live in such a great neighborhood!

Mullins Birthdays

So this is a big couple of birthday days for the Mullins family. Uncle Dave's birthday was on Tuesday, Emme turns 3 on Saturday, and their new baby girl is scheduled to be born on Monday. So, happy birthday wishes to them all! We wish we could be there to help them celebrate and to meet the new little one. We'll just have to anxiously await some photos. HAPPY BIRTHDAY and we're thinking about you all!

Water Love

We have been enjoying summer finally being here in full force. Kai and Kennedy started swimming lessons last week and are loving it so far. We've also spent some time on Grandma and Grandpa Utah's boat which is also always a big hit. Kai takes his role as assistant boat driver very seriously.

Kai's Gift

We found out we were pregnant with Kai the last few days we were living in London. So before we flew back home to the States we decided to make him a teddy bear from the famous toy store in London called Hamleys. Well "Hamley" the teddy bear has slept in Kai's bed ever since he came home from the hospital. That is really saying something too because Kai has never allowed any other toy, stuffed animal etc. in there.

So, we decided that it would be fun to take Kai to our local Build A Bear and let him make Baby Sister her very own teddy bear. I think we will have him bring it to the hospital when he comes to meet her. Perhaps she will also have a small gift for Kai. He seemed to enjoy making the bear and very clearly explained to the workers that this teddy bear would be for his sister because he already has Hamley. Hamley came along for the trip by the way. I believe it was his first trip out of our house in a very long time. Hamley generally prefers to keep watch over Kai's bed.

Kai following the workers instructions about the wishes you make before putting the heart inside the bear:


Giving the bear its air bath:


It was a fun time. We ended the special adventure by letting Kai go to town on his very own ice cream cone. He usually isn't a huge ice cream fan, but it sure is nice and cold on a HOT night.

On the Calendar

On Monday I had a baby doctor appointment. I'm at the every 2 weeks stage now and will soon be moving in to the 1 time a week phase. The big news from this appointment was we got to officially put on the calendar the C-section planned date. It looks like our new little one will be making an appearance on August 13! So that will be her birthday unless she decides to make an even earlier appearance on her own- which we hope she won't so we can get all done that we want to before then and so we can celebrate Kai's birthday before she comes- his is August 11. August 13 is a little earlier than we had thought so we are extra excited. A few weeks ago we got to have a 2nd ultrasound. Everything looked good and it was fun to have a look at her again. Some things we got out of it were she is standing straight up and down (not a big deal with a c-section) which might explain why I have often felt like I had someone pushing on my lungs, her femur bone measures in like the 78% which means she is probably going to be nice and long (also not a shock considering Kai was 22 in), she apparently is going to have some hair when she is born like Kai did, and they once again confirmed that she is really a she. Whew!

Mullins Cousins

Since Kai and I got back from San Diego we have been busy getting in as much time with Kirsten, Jake, and Emme who were in town visiting. Kai loves his cousins and had the best time. He thinks big cousin Jake is so cool. It is also fun getting to see he and Emme together chatting and playing now too since they are only about 3 weeks apart in age. They spent the entire first 1/2 hour they were together squealing and hugging in joy. It is fun to think that they will have little sisters who will also be about 3/ 4 weeks apart. Here are a few pictures of a fun hike we did with them on Saturday:

Flashback to June 22

Lance and I celebrated our 7th anniversary on June 22. I feel very fortunate to be married to my best friend. We have had so much fun and so many amazing adventures all over the world in these past 7 years. We also feel very lucky that we have been able to add Kai to our little family and we are excited about adding another new addition at the end of the summer. It is amazing to know that we have created these little people together. I consider Lance, Kai, and "baby sister" to be very special gifts in my life.

*And here is a very pregnant looking me for those who have been asking. :)

June 08 San Diego Pics

Many thanks to Mom, Dad, and Whitney. We had a great trip and enjoyed having an official start of summer. Here are some fun shots of the trip:

Travel Adventures

This has been a busy travel time over the last few days for our little family. Kai and I made one final trip to San Diego to spend some time with my family before the new addition comes. My Mom just finished up the school year so it was fun to get to share some vacation time with her. Lance went off on his own adventure with some friends (including Uncle Dave) to hike the Grand Canyon. I'll let him blog about that, but we are happy to know that they all seem to have made it back in one piece.

In the next post I'll put some of the pictures Kai and I have from San Diego, but here are some short videos that also tell some of the story:

Having Fun Playing Baseball:


Singing it:




We haven't decided on a name yet and if we had we wouldn't tell Kai who is known for his lack of secret keeping. :) It will be a surprise for everyone just like Kai's name was: