Christmas pictures

The children were nestled all snug in their beds...


Time to open presents, sleepyhead!


Sean in the Santa hat:


Cami in the Santa hat:


Bryant attempting to wear the Santa hat:


Me wearing the Santa hat:


The room before the kids see it:


Now that we have all held still for a Christmas morning photo, time to unleash the kids on the stockings!


Cami found her rocking chair:


Cami with her new doll stroller. Her favorite present though, is actually the Pooh Bear sippy cup she is holding in this picture. She calls it her "bup" (a combination of Pooh Bear and cup?) and has not put it down since she opened it on Christmas morning.


A new pair of Batman sunglasses from his Uncle Ricky was apparently just what Sean wanted.


The kids had a great Christmas. So did Bryant and I. It was a quiet Christmas, with just our family, but we had a lot of fun. They are still really enjoying their presents. And we are loving having a week with Bryant home from work! Merry Christmas to all our friends and family.

Thanksgiving weekend in pictures

Sean at our table waiting for the Thanksgiving feast to begin:



Sean and Mommy:


Cami in her new boots from Mommy's day after Thanksgiving shopping trip:


Time to put up Christmas decorations:






Sean's mini-tree in his bedroom:

Snow!

We have had several days of snow already and it is only Thanksgiving! I may have to move to Florida. The kids enjoyed it though. We made snow angels and a snowman (of sorts) in the back yard.

Cami was very puzzled by all the white stuff on the ground. She mainly wanted to sit down in the snow and look at it.


Sean, on the other hand, preferred to play more actively in the snow. Here he is getting a snowball ready to throw at Mom.


Here is our lovely snowman.

Belated Halloween

Yes I am posting this a month late. But their Halloween costumes were so cute I just have to post them anyway.

Batman all ready to go out trick or treating. We went on Saturday since Halloween was on Sunday this year. Luckily there were enough other people around who wanted to trick or treat on Saturday with us.


My little duck. She loves ducks and was so excited to wear this costume.

First crush?

My kids do many things that surprise me, but probably the most startled I have been in a long time was this week when I went to Sean's Halloween party at school. We were walking down the hallway together when all of a sudden he grabs my arm, points at a girl (she looks like she is in fourth grade or so) and says really loudly "That's the girl I'm interested in!" Of course she and her friends hear him and are laughing (who can blame them?) and I am wondering what Sean is talking about because he is in kindergarten which is of course TOO YOUNG to have crushes!

Anyway, I started asking him questions, trying to figure out what he means by "interested in."

Me: "So do you want to be her friend?"
Sean: "No, I'm just interested in her!"

Me: "Do you think her face is pretty?"
Sean: "Not really much, but she has cool outfits! And she has cool shiny dark hair!"

I still do not know what he means by "interested in." But I guess I can't fault his fashion sense because the girl did have a really cute outfit on. We saw her in the hall again later and he repeated the performance ("There's the girl I'm interested in") loud enough for her and everyone around her to hear, of course.

Sean, despite having two parents who were very shy as children, is not at all shy himself. All I can say is, those girls better watch out when he gets to junior high!

A Sean moment

Some of you have probably already heard this story because I thought it was so funny I have been telling everyone. But for those who haven't, here it is:

The other day when I was about to take Sean to school, he had swept the kitchen floor and made a little pile. He wanted to sweep it into the dustpan but it was one of those times when we had to leave RIGHT THEN so I told him I would sweep it up for him while he was at school. At this point he became quite worried. He said: "No, because if you leave the bus stop you might not be there when I come back!" I looked at him strangely, then asked, "Sean, do you think I stay at the bus stop the whole time you are at school?" (It's three hours) He said "Yes?" I told him that I always went home and then came back when it was time for the bus to arrive. He looked slightly disappointed, and said "But all the other mommies stay! Don't you want to stay too?" "Oh Sean," I said, "The mommies ALL go home. None of us stay!" He thought about this for a bit, and got a sheepish grin on his face.

This totally made my entire day. I found it hilarious to picture Sean imagining all the mommies waiting faithfully for their children for three hours at the bus stop! Still makes me smile when I think about it. I'm glad I don't really have to spend three hours a day standing at his bus stop :)

Utah visit

So it's been a while but I am finally posting photos of our trip to Utah. Here are some of the kids at Dave and Melanie's wedding. Brenda got them some really cute little outfits to wear for wedding pictures.

The little princess:


Sean looking handsome:


The day after the wedding we went to a really cool park in Logan.




Cami loves swings:


We had a lot of fun on this trip with friends and family. Sean asked me afterward if we could move to Utah sometime (probably not, sorry). I wish we had more pictures of this, but the time we spent with my family was so busy that I didn't get much of a chance to take pictures, and then I used up the camera's battery fast taking pictures of the wedding and of the park. I guess we will have to visit again soon so I can get more pictures of family!

Kindergarten!

I am having a bit of a surreal moment here. Today is Sean's first day of kindergarten! I put him on the bus just 10 minutes ago and I am still having a hard time believing he is really at school. He was so excited.

Here he is all ready to go to school, with his backpack on:



Hugging baby sister goodbye:



Waiting to get on the bus:



Actually getting on the bus (mommy freak out moment!):



I love you Sean! You're going to do great in kindergarten!

Updates

Unfortunately, whenever we do a lot of fun or exciting things with the kids, and I have great blogging material, that is exactly when I have no time to blog about it! (which is what has been going on recently)

Here's what we've been doing:

My family came out to visit and we went to the Pacific Science Center and several parks. This is Sean at the butterfly garden in the Science Center:



This is the play place at the Pacific Science Center. Cami loved it and would happily have spent the entire day there:



Last week, Sean started soccer again. Also, this week he will be starting kindergarten. It's only two days away!

Sean went on the Father and Son campout last month. It was his first time going camping with just Dad. He loved it.

Primary party and a primary class activity were last week as well. I also took the kids to get their pictures taken and they turned out really cute! Unfortunately I can't post them on here because I don't have a scanner.

Our trip to Utah is this Saturday. Sean is VERY excited for it. I'm hoping Cami survives the 14 hour drive since she is not a child that likes to sit still.

That's what we've been doing lately! Hopefully it's not another month before I get to post again. I will try to get pictures of Sean's first day of school up right away at least.

Random Cuteness

It's been a while since I've updated the blog because we've been really busy lately. Bryant took a vacation week and we took the kids up to Seattle to have fun for a few days. Unfortunately I forgot to bring the camera to every one of our vacation outings. So this is mostly just an update post with recent pictures of the kids being cute.

So we got Cami some new shoes this summer:


Those look a bit big. Luckily these are the ones we actually bought her:


Cami likes her new pink shoes.


Sean's favorite new trick is to do headstands. He can actually maintain them for a while:



You might think Sean is playing hide-and-seek in this picture. He isn't. He is playing "hide-the-ball" instead, a game of his own invention that is nice since our back yard is ill suited for successfully hiding in without getting dirty and/or scratched by bushes.



We've been enjoying the warm weather, and Sean had a great time riding the light rail to Seattle this week. Cami and Sean had fun at the beach and the aquarium. I'm only sad that summer is almost over! Happy summer to everyone.

The many adventures of swimming lessons

Sean has been taking swimming lessons at the aquatic center in Renton for the past two weeks. This is his third and final week of lessons. It has been really fun, not just for him, but also for Cami (and therefore for me too) because there is a fountain area where kids who are not currently in lessons can play, and because it is a large open area where she can run around (as long as I keep her from running into the pool areas).

Sean in the water:


Cami loves this dolphin. It's unfortunate that it's a garbage can.



Getting some sun while brother is in the water:



Sean loves playing in the water fountain after class:



To commemorate swimming lessons, we made a water-themed cake as the treat for family home evening this week. Sean decorated it himself:



And ate it himself (well, not ALL of it):



Hooray for swimming lessons (and cake)!

Picnic and playing at the park

A little while ago we went out with some friends to eat lunch and play at a park. It was a really cool park, with a rock climbing wall, a lake, and of course, plenty of toys to play on. Here is Sean having some fun:



Cami kept considerately giving me handfuls of wood chips:



Cami doing some exploring:



Cami riding on a toy with one of our friends:



Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures of Sean--he was running around too much for me to get very good pictures of him. But they both had a very good time!