Christmas is on the way!

An annual tradition that Lois uses to kick off the Christmas season is watching White Christmas on Thanksgiving! It is such a good movie to start this great season of love, service, and selflessness. It also has really good music. So if you want a good way to get into the Christmas spirit early; we recommend watching White Christmas!

Some Thanksgiving food for thought

This is a video from the Mormon Messages videos. I find it quite appropriate for the upcoming week! Happy Thanksgiving!

50 FREE greeting cards!

FREE 50 photo greeting cards. This is awesome. I found this deal on coupongal.net ! So, what it is is SeeHere.com is running a promotion where you get 50 free greeting cards AND free shipping! I think this is wonderful and thought I should tell EVERYONE! It is quick and easy. Create an account with SeeHere.com and the click on "order now: under the card section. Chose the 4x8 and then design a card. When you are done, SAVE it and then put 50 of them in your basket and the use the promo code "newbaby" when checking out. I just did it and they didn't even ask for a credit card # or anything! How wonderful. If you don't have cards yet for Christmas or need them for anything else (maybe baby announcements or something), definitely go there. Awesome deal!!

Words Kenya can say.

Here are some words that Kenya says and has meanings for:
Kitty (itty)- she began saying it just shortly after we got to MT. She was just shy of 5 months old and I think we are calling it her first official word. She still using to call This and the other cats here.
eat (ea)- without the "t". this word came shortly after kitty and occasionally still uses it.
dada- she calls for her daddy
mama-calling for mom
grandma (gma)- Yes she calls for her grandma!
grandpa (gpapa)- she has said it a few times before, but just tonight she was playing with grandpa and calling his name after he "beeped" her nose.
bye-bye (bye-bye)- so cute! She will wave and say it at the same time.
all done (da)- at the end of a meal, I tell her all done. Now when every I say all done, whether after eating or anytime, she will she da da.

There are often times when we say something she will mimic the sounds that we just made and they are very close. I think she has a gift of speech or communicating.

Other updates.
She is finally in the right side of clothing for her age. She is in 6-9 month size, but she is just over 8 months. She has done a lot of growing!
She crawls reguarlly!
Today she stood up by just holding onto my shirt and then stood there for a few moments. She then let of my shirt and still just stood there. This was witnessed by Chris, I am not making it up. I was impressed!
She loves to play with the kitty! She is getting good at being gently when petting her too.

I am sure there was more I wanted to say, but I am tired now and going to bed.
Please, if you have any memories or comments about Kenya up to this point in her life please leave a comment for us. I want to keep these posts and share them with her when she is older. Thanks!

Goodbye Halloween, til next year!

Halloween this year was good. We went to a party at some friends house on Friday and then enjoyed a mellow Halloween on Saturday. For it being Kenya's first Halloween we felt it went good. We dressed her up again and took her to the local grocery story. There they had 6 stations where they handed out snack items and had hot food to eat throughout the story. (No, not the food on the shelves, but pizza and hot dogs for us to eat. It was perfect because we didn't want Kenya's first Halloween to just pass, but she couldn't really do any trick or treating.

Next are some the latest pictures of her in her. They were take last Sunday. What a big girl she is now! She is in her 6 month clothing. What a cute outfit! She was all dressed up and ready for church.

Halloween Fun

These are pictures of our pumpkin carving we did last night for family home evening. These pumpkins were grown in the garden we had here over the summer. The one Kenya was standing on was 71.7 lbs when we weighed it yesterday. We had a lot of fun and Kenya really enjoyed it. We just had Kenya draw on her pumpkin this year. She wasn't too interested in it. Oh and of course, we watched It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. There are a few videos of the fun too.






Here's Kenya kissing the Great Pumpkin!
This picture is proof of how much the Great Pumpkin weighed. It is hard to read, but it says 71.7lbs. It used to be heavier, but it has dehydrated some since it was harvested!






This video is of Kenya "riding" the pumpkin. We placed her on it to get a picture and she started to wave her hand as if riding a bull. She did it several times and we all loved it!



This video has Kenya making a funny face! I wonder why? (Bwahahahahahaha!)

This video is of our pumpkins glowing. Robert's has a flame coming out of the top and mine was haunted or something. The flame would dim and almost go out and then light up again all on its own. Spooky!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOIS!!

Today is Lois's 26th birthday! It is also her first birthday as a mommy!


Lois got to eat two birthday gifts from Red Robin! And of course endless fries! Red Robin Rocks! We had a good time with Kelsey and Aaron and Harmon who actually shares his birthday with Lois!

She also got birthday gifts from Baskin Robbins, Cold Stone Creamery, & Dairy Queen!

And she got a birthday gift from Disney Rewards!


Thank you to anyone who may have gotten a gift for Lois. We truly appreciate it!

We All Love Fall!

Why do we love Fall time? Well it's because of all the foliage that creates an amazing spectacle of color, motion and nature! These are pictures of our time at Snoqualmie Falls. The kids loved it too! They were able to enjoy the abundance of color and texture offered by the surrounding trees.

More Fun in Washington!

Dinner with the Fox family

We were invited to a nice Sunday dinner with Kelsey's Dad and family, in Bellevue. We had great food and a great time. As you can see Kenya did too. Kenya and Robert played the piano together! Kenya loved it! Don't believe it...look at the second picture!


Booyah! "Look ma, one hand!"Thanks a million, Rick/Dave! We had such a good time!


Here is a pic of the amazing view from the back of the house.
Here are some more cute pics of Kenya eating dinner with her cute cousin Harmon.
(This specific smile gives a nice, old man feel to his mullet!)


Here are some cute pics of Kenya's feet!
What a gorgeous little girl!

These last pics are of Kenya in her Halloween outfit, compliments of her aunt Kira! Thank you Kira!
This is the pumpkin that Kenya uses to stand up with! She has been doing this ever since we got here and she holds herself up with one hand and walks around the table and what not.

Teething

Of coarse, Kenya yesterday got her first tooth to come in. We are visiting family and that tooth made her cranky. It is the bottom right front tooth. It popped through yesterday morning and went back down last night. This morning it has come back up again. She is not a good teether. Really, for a least 2 1/2 months now she has had her top left molar trying to come in too. I thought it was an ear ache for a while and then when I got a good look one of her cuspids keeps breaking the skin and then going back under. Poor girl her mouth hurts so much! I guess she can't be perfect in everything.

What's Seattle like this time of Year?

Well, it's rainy! But that's OK, because it's not freezing cold yet! That's right ladies and gents, lads and lassies, herren and damen, we are in Seattle, well, Renton, to be exact, visiting Aaron, Kelsey and Harmon Evans. Aaron is going to Switzerland and we are keeping Kelsey and Harmon company whilst he is away. We will keep you posted as the fun unfolds.


First, of course, we have some cute cousin pics. Kenya and her cousin Harmon play together.


This one's a kinda blurry, but you get the picture!
Kenya's classic "Deer in Headlights" shot. It never gets old!
Today we visited Aaron at work in downtown Seattle in Columbia Tower(building on right). Here are some pics of the place!

(Ding) Going UP! Next stop, 17th floor. Aaron's office.

(Ding) 17th floor! Aaron's office
We are all with Aaron in his corner office on, that's right, the 17 floor! (Ding) Going WAY UP!

(Ding) 73rd floor! Observation deck!
Here we are with proof that we were on the 73rd floor. We wanted to go to the observation deck, but it cost five bucks a person and Aaron was on a lunch break. So this will have to do.

(Ding) Going DOWN! 40th floor! Starbucks and alternate viewing opportunity!


(Ding) 40th floor! Starbucks and alternate viewing opportunity!
We were lucky and were able to go inside a conference room and take a gander.(Ding) Going DOWN! Leaving Aaron's work!
Well, that was what we did. As we exited the building Robert got eaten by the revolving door! It was pretty hilarious!

After Aaron's work we went to Fred Meyer; the same Fred Meyer with the deadliest parking ever. (At least that's how Kelsey tells it.) Here Harmon gives his cousin a lift through the store.


What up, Cuz?

No drinking & driving here! They are off to a great start! That was our day in Washington. If anything else cool, funny, or interesting happens, we will do our best to get it on the blog!