Busy Easter 2011

We had a crazy Saturday filled with a ton of fun! Then on Sunday church and one tired Kenya, but still fun!
So, on Saturday we went to an egg hunt at the park in Idaho Falls. We met up with some friends. Kenya loved it. While waiting for the hunt to start Kenya walked around trying to find all to dogs so that she could pet them. At the hunt they had age groups 0-2 years, 3-4 years, and so on. Well the 0-2 years group was suppose to stand in line and get 1 egg from the Easter Bunny. Yeah, right! We put her in with the 3-4 year old group. She did just fine!
This is Kenya's friend Hannah. Who we spend the first half of the day with.


She got 5 eggs and a little boy even gave her 1 of his eggs. I think he was hitting on her. All the eggs were just on the ground and when they said to start everyone just ran into it. Kenya even ran out on her own. Here she is getting her 1 egg from the bunny. She said "hi" and "Happy Easter!" to him. Oh and of course, "Thank you!" What a big girl we have!

Next we went to the zoo with our friends. We had a lot of fun there! Kenya LOVES animals and so we just bought a season pass. I am sure are you going to hear many more stories about the zoo this summer. They have goats and sheep that you can pet. Kenya notice right away that some of them have horns and some did not, so the entire time we were in there petting she was telling me which ones had horns. She notices EVERYTHING!
She wanted to sit on the lion and then she gave it a love. So, cute! While looking at the real lions she was roaring at them. Every time she did the male lion would look at her. It was fun to see the lion respond to her.

She asked mommy to get on the tiger with her. Then we both gave Daddy a BIG ROAR!
We went to lunch with our friends too. Then when we got home it was nap time. After being rested we dyed eggs. This was a hit and Kenya did really well! She didn't ruin or spill any of the dyes. We wrote on the eggs with white color crayon and while she was writing she kept telling me that it was not working. Then when we pulled them out of the dye she understood.







We boiled 9 eggs to have three a pieces, but we had one casualty before the dying began. Kenya dropped the first one she picked up, but then was careful with the rest. Here is our final products.

After dying eggs we went to a "semi-pro" football game. Kenya didn't freeze too bad and we even stayed for the whole game. So, she went to bed at like 11:30 that night.
Easter morning she woke up to a small basket by her bed. She knew that all the eggs would be hidden in the house and that she would be able to go looking for them when she woke up so, that is all that she focused on from the moment she woke up. Yes, we have played "hide the eggs," several times since then.



Kenya loves to count! She counts her eggs over and over again. She had 29 eggs that she found (including the 8 real eggs). She counted almost all the way to 20 by herself.

Kenya was already minus 3 hours of sleep from the night before, but then when we tried to give her a nap the neighbors were so noise that he nap was only 10 minutes. Poor girl, she was SOOO tired ALL day long.
Here I am right before church. I am already larger than I was with Kenya at 9 months.
This is Kenya in all of the Easter stuff I made her. I made her a dress, a purse, and matching hair bows. She loved it! I love it too! It all turned out so cute, especially on her.
These are pictures that Robert snapped as they were playing right before church.



And of course Kenya helped make Easter dinner. We made scalloped potatoes and super yummy ham.
There maybe more to come later with videos.

Kenya's Own bed AGAIN!

We got Kenya a bed this evening. I am hoping that we will have the same results as we have in the past of putting her into her own bed and own room. We have done this to her already at least 3 times in her 2 years of life and each time she had been amazing! She has been sleeping in our room on our air mattress for the last week that we have been here. She was very excited when we got the bed and wanted to go right to sleep. She thinks she is such a big girl now and she really is. She had kicked us out of the bathroom while she goes now. I got her a stool the other day and she can do it all by herself (except wiping, we still do that).

Initially I was going to just add this on to the other post that I just did, but then thought maybe I should let Baby Inside have a post of its own. I am sure for the rest of their lives everything is going to be shared, so I thought I could just let each have their own space now. As if Kenya does not have enough of her own posts in the last almost 2 1/2 years. Yes, almost 2 1/2 years ago because all of our pregnancy post are about her. It sure is silly the things we think of. Oh well.

Baby Inside

Today I had an ultrasound. It was fun to see and know that the baby is growing and developing normally. It's head was face down in my pelvis and so we did not see the face at all. No, we did not discover the gender! Kenya got to see the ultrasound and talked about Baby Inside all day after that. The ultrasounds measurements put me at 26 weeks and 5 days, about 1 week behind my "due date" of July 12, but that because it measurements were within 2 weeks he would not change the due date. All looks good and I will start my regular check up now. This was only the 3rd time I have been to the doctor this pregnancy. I went once in China and then once last Friday for blood tests and such with Dr Hopkin.
If you ask Kenya when Baby Inside will come out she says, "When it get really hot." That is what I told her ONCE a long time ago because I know that is when it starts to heat up. So, cute!

Pst...I think I maybe have seen some evidence that it was a boy, but I do not know! I really can never see anything on those ultrasounds anyway. I never have seen an ultrasound showing it was a boy. With the first ultrasound it is easy to see things because the baby is so small and it all fits on the screen. With the second one it is just body parts and I get so lost as to what I am looking at. So, really what I am saying is there is no creditability to my thinking and it is probably coming for EVERYONE telling me that it is a boy.

Again....

I feel like I post this a lot, but here we go again.
We are moving our little family on Tuesday. We are headed to Shelley, Idaho. Again! no real reason why other than we feel like it is the next stop where the Lord has us stopping on our journey. It appears Robert has another job that he can work while he looks for something more permanent. We are going to back to southeast Idaho where we said we would never really want to go back to, but we have faith it will all work out and that is the place for our little growing family!

Look what I can do!

This is the Easter dress that I made for Kenya this year. I have some really cute accessories to go with it, but you will have to wait to see those on Easter. I think it turned out rather well. I did this all in just a four days of working on it after Kenya went to bed, 1-2 hours each night. That might sound like a lot of time to make a dress and accessories for some, but this is only the 3rd dress I have ever made. I love the way it turned out and Kenya does to. She did not want to take it off.



How I got Kenya to take off the dress was to tell her that she could finish making pizzas with Grandma, but could not wear her dress. Here are some pictures of making pizza. Kenya LOVES to cook and bake pretend or real!

Baby Chicks!

Grandma in January told Kenya that for her birthday she would give her baby chicks to help raise. Well, they finally came in this week and we went and got some. On Monday we went to Kalispell and got 2 turkeys and 9 chickens. She loved it! We make several trips a day out to the ridiculously hot laundry room (the chickens need to stay 90 degrees for the first week or so)to check on the the chicks and pet and hold them. She loves watching them and enjoys taking care of chicks. On Wednesday we went and got 6 more chickens. My mom is going to have quite a few chickens and lots of eggs! We got a variety of breeds and colors as well as some that will have tinted eggs. My baby LOVES animals. She is such a great help and eager to learn.

Kenya and her cousin Mikhail looking at the chickens.
Kenya is getting the feed ready to out in the boxes with the chickens.

Turkeys on the left and 2 week old chickens on the right. This is from the first batch that we got on Monday.

These are the other ones we got on Monday. They are less than a week old.

Kenya Knows her Last Name!

So the other day, Kenya and I were playing with an old cell phone. After I was pretend talking to someone I said, “It’s for you.” Kenya accepts the phone and answers the pretend caller with, “Hello, this is Kenya Draper.” It was as clear as day! You’re probably thinking, ‘whoopee!’ Well, we are impressed because we have never, directly told her or taught that her last name is Draper. She just busted that out on her own. Yeah, we about soiled ourselves with surprise.

Random side note:

Today, referring to a piece of ice, Kenya said to Uncle Chris “It’s too cold, will you warm up it for me?”

Another random side note:

Today we went shopping at the grocery store and parked in the best place ever. We realized that parked in front of us is the reason why those postcards and commercials with dogs are made!

Hogle Zoo Videos

Kenya's & Robert's 1st Daddy/Daughter Date

The Start of a Great Tradition

I know it's late, but March 1, 2011 marks the first of hopefully many, “Daddy/Daughter dates for Kenya and I. While in SLC, Mommy so graciously allowed Daddy and Kenya to run an errand and then go have some fun. Kenya had a jones for the playground today, but we just didn’t know where to find one. So while Mommy went to visit Grandpa Evans at the VA Hospital, we eventually found Utah’s Hogle Zoo!

We first stopped to play with the ball that was floating on the water.

We stopped and roared at the Cougars just before we went to the playground.

Once we got to the playground we probably spent close to 50 minutes there! She was lovin' it!

The next two photos are of Kenya being regurgitated by a giant snake! She wanted to do this big slide all by herself...and she did.

Then we stopped at the pond and watched and talked with all the water fowls. This is a Wood Duck.

We saw Swans, Geese, and many other species of duck. We stayed there for about 30 minutes! Kenya kept talking about how she wanted to go swimming with them. She got to throw some food to the birds too! Someone was nice enough to share some of the food that had to be bought from a gumball machine.

We then went to see some desert animals. We saw this sweet Owl. As Kenya and I waved at the bird it reacted to us by puffing out its feathers.

As we walked around some more we saw and heard two Geese honking away on the roof of a building.

We went and got a snack and then we saw a Peacock struttin' about. Of course Kenya could not resist pursuing it. There was a boy climbing this wooden fence so Kenya was quick to follow suit. We tried so hard to get it to show its feathers, but it was stubborn.

Later we went to see this building that had small animals and other birds in it. However, there was one quite large animal in there...a male Tortoise named Kronk! There was a female Tortoise that lived with him named Yzma. Yeah, they were totally named after the characters from the Disney film Emperor's New Groove! Kronk weighs 450 lbs!

This little monkey was very curious and friendly. He was interacting with me like no other. He was giving me the "thumbs up". It's a bit blurry.

Kenya had made some cute little girl friends while we were going around looking at the animals. They all got along so well and they were talking like they knew each other from somewhere. We didn't get to see all the animals in the building because the girls were having sooooo much fun together.

We went to see the big cats, but it was pretty much their blasted nap time! We were blessed and briefly saw a Tiger. We saw a sleeping Snow Leopard, but the camera batteries were acting up.

After the girls left and we went elsewhere to see the big cats, we went back to see the rest of the animals in the small animal building. Kenya was very impressed by the Iguana. So impressed that she specifically requested me to take a picture of it.

Here are some Porcupines cuddling together. Ouch!

We were on our way out of the zoo and I had the overwhelming feeling of being watched. You know...like all eyes were on us! Well, they were! We were the last people in the zoo! We could have gotten eaten by a wild animal and nobody would know til the next day! We spotted a Peacock with its feathers open just for us!

There are some cute videos that are to come in another post. Overall, we had such an awesome time! I look forward to continuing this awesome tradition!

Kenya turns 2 years old!

Thank everyone for helping to make Kenya's 2nd birthday a special and fun one!
I think Kenya's birthday was all a 2 year old could ask for. So much family around, dancing, games, and good food.
This is Kenya with her cousins Rachel and Sara who were here for a family visit.

Kenya and cousin Sam.
Sara and Kenya were pretending to be chickens and eating some chips off of the table. What 2 year old doesn't want steak and baked potatoes for their birthday lunch!! We had a BBQ in my dad's honor and it happened to be on her birthday.

Speaking of honoring Grandpa Evans. Kenya sure looks adorable in my dad's glasses.

Thanks aunt Michelle, all of the kids love the vacuum! Thank you all for the gifts for Kenya! She loved them all and felt very special that the presents were for her.
As you can see in the first video we made a slide and the kids loved it!

Here is Kenya playing by herself amongst the chaos of family.

We began her party with the chicken dance. This was something fun we had taught her at the hospital after my dad entered the ICU and Kenya could not see him anymore. Robert was great and we really had to get creative to keep her happy. So, we figured it was a great way to start a party!!


We played "Pin the Tail on the Donkey." It was fun.

Here is a video of the cake. We went really easy this year because I did not have a lot of time to think and/or prepare a cake. It is just a plan cake and on it we put her present from us. Since being back in Montana she has really taken a liking to horses and any farm animals and so that was the theme for the cake. She blew out the candles on her own, after 3 tries!

What a Man!

Donald James Evans

December 12, 1950 to March 3, 2011.

I love you Daddy! I pray that you remember everything you need to!! I am so happy for the answer to so many of our prayers!