Double Piggy Day

Zuri sported double pigtails for the first time the other day:

She's also been loving playing with the baby dolls and their strollers lately:

And there has been a lot of standing going on- especially to keep an eye on Kai and Rori in the back:

First Chapter Book

On Friday Kai came home from school and was excited that his teacher had begun reading outloud to his kindergarten class the first book in the Magic Tree House series.  Last year my Mom (the 2nd grade teacher) had hooked Kai up with lots of the books in the series so he is very familiar with these books and he really enjoys them.  Back around Halloween he even brainstormed about how he and Rori might dress up like Jack and Annie. 

Anyway, he was so excited about it that he went up to his bookshelf and pulled out that first book and continued to read the whole thing to himself before dinner.  Saturday morning we found him working on another one when we went to wake him up.  By the end of the weekend he had polished off 3 of the books. 

His reading and writing has really taken off this year.  He loves to make up and write stories so it is fun to now see him falling in love with reading as well.  Lance and I both remember loving to read as kids so we would be thrilled to have to pull him out of books to do family things versus out of video games etc.

Another Sunday- More Pics

 They just look so cute all dressed up.

Kai was heard recently saying that he's ready to grow up now and just take showers and sleep without a shirt on like a man.  Where does he get this stuff???? 

Every once in awhile I feel like I better put in a picture of me so the kids know that I was there too while they were growing up:

That afternoon I was loading up the dishwasher with some help from Zuri after trying out a yummy recipe for homemade cookie dough peanut butter cups (thank you Pinterest).  I looked down and saw a sudden flash of movement- she quickly pulled a still slightly chocolate covered spoon out of the silverware area and put it directly in to her little mouth.  I swear she is stealth like when she is doing something naughty.  Here is the evidence taken a moment later:

Another Park

Thanks to baseball pictures we found another park to check out that isn't too far away. Our kids love a playground and this one was different than a lot of the parks around here because there was lots of grass and trees. Here in the dessert we don't see such things quite as much. Infact, I sat Zuri down in some grass the other day and she was quite confused and alarmed about the unusual surface I had put her on.

Baseball Photo Day 2012

Here are my attempts at documenting baseball photo day:

Photo Challenge

Trying to get a good picture of all 3 of them together is a real challenge.  Someone is always moving, looking away, has their eyes closed, isn't smiling, etc.  Good thing they are so cute no matter what.

11 Months Old

It's hard to believe that Zuri is only 1 month away from being 1 year old. We all love this little girl so much. Zuri is in to everything these days. She is constantly moving and crawls so fast that getting a picture of her this month was a real challenge. She's also pulling up on everything and has even been caught standing in her crib a few times. She continues to be a beautiful sleeper and a pretty good little eater. She really wants bigger kid food now. Her favorites are crackers, goldfish, cherrios, yogurt and strawberries. We've also been starting to switch her over to regular milk which has been going pretty well. This month our goal is to get her switched over to a sippy cup, so we'll see how that goes. Zuri loves to wave and will do it whenever she hears the word bye. This really is such a fun age. She is so cute!

Baseball 2012

*The week after Spring Break was a bit crazy for all of us. Kai had his first coach pitch baseball game on Monday night. Lance came to the game and then headed back to studying as he later would have his thesis defense on Wednesday and his comprehensive exams on Friday. Needless to say we didn't see much of him all week and are very happy to have made it to the weekend and have all that behind him. So since Lance was using the computer for all his stuff last week I am finally getting around to all of these posts including this one about Kai's first game.

So far Kai seems to like coach pitch. They get 5 pitches from the coach and then if they haven't hit it they get to then hit it off the tee. Kids on the team range in age from 6 1/2-8 so this year he is one of the very youngest and he is the only lefty on this team. On Monday night he got up to bat 3 times and had 3 hits off the coach's pitch which all got him on base. His first time up at bat he actually hit the first pitch which was a good way to start things off. I actually got it and his last at bat on video which I will attempt to post below for the sake of the grandparents and great grandparents. He enjoys being on a team and playing pretty much any sport these days. The games are a little long for some of the other members of our family, but we're glad he is enjoying it.

Easter 2012

My parents had lunch with us Friday (which happened to be my birthday) and then headed back to San Diego. After saying goodbye (which brought on some tears from the kids) we headed home and packed up our own bags. A little while later we were on the road heading the opposite direction to St. George to spend Easter weekend with Lance's parents and extended family. It was noted how neat it was for us to get to see both sets of grandparents on the same day.

We were glad to have a fun little adventure away from home to wrap up Spring Break. St. George is a great getaway for us as it is only about 1 1/2 hours away. We've gone there several of the last few years for Easter so we've got our list of things we like to do. There was swimming in the pool, birthday cupcakes and later cake, the Kiwanis Easter Egg Hunt in the park (which Zuri found exhausting), the Arts Festival, in the hotel room treasures from the Easter Bunny, and all of the standard Red Cliffs family traditions -dutch oven dinner and breakfast, great grandkids Easter Egg Hunt, 2nd cousin buddies, and a little bit of hiking. The weather was great and we enjoyed being on a little adventure. Our kids love this trip every year and are always sad (more kids tears) for it to all come to an end. It is a strange feeling to watch most everyone head back up to SLC as we pull out the opposite direction for Vegas. But it sure is nice to have the short drive home and get to unwind a bit before starting back on school again the next day.