10 years! and a Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!  It snowed this christmas, and we never even got out to play in it.  The kids stayed in their pajamas all day long, and we all just relaxed.  What a great holiday!

Lydia composed her first piano piece too.  She does know how to write musical notes, but she went for their letter names today.  It took her about 30 minutes of serious thought, playing, replaying, etc.  It was so stinkin' cute to watch!  After she performed her piece, Alex played it too.. to prove that it was real.

Today is our 10 year anniversary!  This was the only picture of us together, without kids, this year :)   

For our 10 year anniversary I'd like to summarize our experiences by numbers

One home
Two children
Three cars (only one lemon)
Four international trips (we wish that was higher!)
Five emergency room visits
Six wedding dishes we have each broken (12 in all...)
Seven plane rides that we wrestled children on
Eight million hugs and kisses (I couldn't think of one for eight :)
Nine pets (2 fish, one dog, one rabbit, five chickens)
Ten Great Years!

Can't wait for the next ten!

It's the holiday season

Now that my kids are both in school for part of the day, I have loads of time on my hands!  Unfortunately, I have forgotten what being really busy is like.  Which is actually wonderful, except for when I become busy again (christmas) and have to figure out how to make it work :)

Alex will be 8 on wednesday, and so he had a birthday party on saturday.  He invited 9 friends, and only 3 could come because of vacations, ski-team, sickness, etc.  They still had a blast though!

I teach piano now, and so I had a recital with my students and their families.  We were able to pack 25 people into our small living room/dining room area, and the students all did really well.  Dave recorded it, but I thought I'd just take pictures of my kids "acting" like they're playing so you wouldn't have to watch the video.  

Dave and I realized that we have mice.  We're totally disgusted, and so yesterday (after the birthday party) we tore the house apart looking for the little buggers.  We didn't find much, except for droppings... but we have lots of poison out now.  In my "tearing up the house" I pushed the sofa too far one direction and knocked OVER the christmas tree!  Only a few ornaments broke, but one was from our trip to Mexico, the other from Naples, Italy.  I cried and cried.  Our family tradition is to get souvenir ornaments when we travel, so I mourn the loss of memories too.  So sad!

We also went to the Golden Candlelight walk.  You hold candles while walking down main street singing carols with about 4,000 (give or take) other people.  It's a great way to bring in the christmas season.

Besides this I've been baking, cooking, eating, shopping, and eating some more!  I love the holidays!

Failed

I failed on keeping this updated, and have failed on taking ANY pictures in the last month!  Wow!  Here's a quick update to the few that still read :)

We went to a Westernaires show.  It's horse riding and is actually REALLY scary, lots of kids fall off of those fast moving horses!  Alex and Lydia loved it (Dave went to the coin show next door instead :).

I turned 32, it was a nice and relaxing day and I got some great phone calls from long lost friends, which is probably the best part about birthdays.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with my parents and Dave's mom.  It was really fun to teach the kids a little more about table manners, and the food was fantastic (as always).

'Tis the season of parties, which is mainly why I have no pictures.  I get really distracted :)

One little quote from Lydia yesterday:

Lydia - "Riley (a friend's older sister) had a meeting with us yesterday"

Kendra - "Oh?  What about?"

Lydia - "She said that if we played with her paper again we wouldn't be allowed in the basement"

Kendra - "Did you mess up her paper yesterday?"

Lydia - "Yes, she said that we could choose, we could mess up her paper and never go in the basement, or we could play in the basement and NOT mess up her paper.

It was a pretty short meeting"

Hahaha!  If only all meetings could be that cut and dry :)

Halloween & birthday

Happy Halloween!  Alex was a vending machine (which was a hit!) and Lydia was Belle.

Lydia actually dressed up in an old costume that Grandma Jaynie (Dave's mom) made for Aunt Michelle (Dave's sister) about 20 years ago.  Back when Belle was a new princess.  Thank you Jaynie for saving it and keeping it in good condition.  That is a Mauger talent (one that I do not possess, I go through things quickly).  I did put in a hoop skirt for Lydia, because I've always wanted one.

We trick or treated the neighborhood, but had to go to the grandparents too.  I LOVE living close to two grandmas, it's AWESOME!  The kids love it too.

And, as the title suggests, I did celebrate a birthday!  I'm 32 years old now.  Not super monumental, but  it was an enjoyable and relaxing day.  Life is good :)

Soccer

I had to post this for posterity... here is Lydia's soccer team, they are REALLY fierce :)  And yes, their name is Princess Unicorns

Things I missed...

I missed a few events from the past months... here's a quick recap:

We went to the drive-in, it was SO awesome!  The kids watched the first show (Ice Age), then they fell asleep in the back while Dave and I watched the new Batman show.  It was super fun (and cheap)

We went to Lakeside and Elitch's thanks to our local library :)  Fun rides, scary rides, wet rides, and funnel cakes.

Lydia started soccer.  I'm too cheap to pay for the full uniform.  Hence, the green shorts :)  She scored a goal the very first game, but her favorite part are the snacks at the end.

Aunt Linda came to visit from Texas.  She's so fun to have around, and her dog "cindy rose" is a hoot!

Our elementary school does a BBQ at the beginning of the year.  It was great as always, and Lydia got such a pretty face paint!

We changed our front yard.  The rocks and flower bed used to just be grass.  I, however, drive on the grass often :)  So, we changed it to rock and I LOVE it!

We can finally do long bike rides as a family. With no one in training wheels we can even do a little off-road.  It's been awesome.

These next two pictures are out of order, but it was when we were shoveling rocks Lydia and her friend wanted to help, look at the size of their shovels!  So stickin' cute.

And last, we planted two apple trees this spring.  One of them gave us two apples this year!  We thought it was hilarious that these big apples were on this little tiny tree.  Picking these and eating them was a big event in our house :)

I think now we're all caught up!

Colorado springs

For Labor Day this year we went to Colorado Springs and saw their "balloon classic" 

 At night they have a balloon glow, which is AMAZING!  The balloons are all puffed up, but kept on the ground and they glow, so so so cool.

 In the morning (early morning) the balloons take off.  The weather didn't cooperate right away so the kids got their hair chalked and styled at the Fantastic Sams booth :)

 Don't look too close, it's early for me :)  But I loved that we could go in the middle of the action... they just shooed us out of the way when it was time to take off.

 Then we went to the zoo, which was such a unique and fun zoo, it was really great.  And, we got to see the Manitou Cliff dwellings.  My family went here when I was younger (maybe 9) and I forgot my shoes so I had to sit in the car the whole time.  It was really fun to finally see them!  (I've always been a scatter brain).

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

Yesterday was the first day of school

 Alex is in 2nd grade this year, and Lydia is in kindergarten!  I have at least 3 hours every day all to myself (notice that I'm blogging :).  It was so much fun to send them off to school and see how excited they were.  I can't believe I'm at this stage of my life now.

Summer

Just a quick update with pics :)  Papa Gary and Christine visited, so we rode the Georgetown loop together.  It was a beautiful ride.

All our chickens are laying now, although one still needs to get the "kinks" worked out.  

I went to a baby shower where we had to wear mustaches.  They are really annoying, but I had to get a picture before I tore mine off.

Alex dressed up in a 3 year old's dragon costume... nice and tight :)

Mt Rushmore

Last week we went camping up by Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills.  It was beautiful!  And the company couldn't be beat :)

                          Mom & Dad with the "cutest grandkids in the world"

                                   Alex & Elijah hamming it up

                                 Mom, Dave, & Jaxen in a sideways cabin

                             Lots of time in the car leads to things like this...

                                 At the active Mammoth dig site, very cool

                                                 
We had a great time, and stayed at an AWESOME campground.  We even had an adventure!  Saturday night it started raining, then hailing, then raining some more.  We were in our tent trying to wipe up little puddles that were starting.  All of a sudden I noticed that the floor of our tent felt like a water bed.  I looked outside and we were in a river!  We had about a foot of water in our tent and we saved as much as we could.  The kids were pretty scared but we finally found a hotel to stay the night in.  (on a side note, my brother told me that my mom was always scared of flash floods while camping so she would make Jason dig a trench around our tent every time we camped.  Probably just to keep him out of her hair :)

So, we lost a few flip flops and such, but not too bad.  All in all, great camping trip!

Renaissance Festival

We went to the Renaissance festival yesterday!  It was a first for all but me (Kendra).  Alex is the blob hanging onto Lydia for dear life on the elephant ride :)

Ms. Lydia riding a ship swing.  The guy running the ride was so nice and got some awesome pictures while he was swinging on the side

Sir Alex, princess Lydia and Sir Dave

Today they were still in character :)  

One of the acts we saw was a comedian magician that didn't speak.  His comedy was mostly making fun of other people and doing cheesy tricks.  It was hilarious :)  He would ask people to come up on the stage, have them bow, do a trick with them and make fun of them the whole time.  I have a video of what happened on stage when he asked Alex to come up.. but I can't upload it.  Here's the link

http://youtu.be/GqxRg2yZRH4

He's afraid to ride an elephant but not afraid to do that in front of at least 100 strangers!  We are exact opposites :)

We had a great time.

summer pics

We decided to tear up our linoleum and carpet and put in wood floors.  There were three layers of linoleum, at least 3,000 staples, cork board, carpet, tacks, etc.  Lots and lots of scraping... here's the "in progress" pictures. (not sure why the dishwasher is open...)

And here's the (almost) finished product!  We need baseboards, but I LOVE how it turned out.  Dave did a great job!

Lydia went to a birthday party where Cinderella came and dressed them up in princess garb.  The girls were a little shy at first, but they warmed up after the princess waving lessons :)

We went to Casa Bonita with the Arps (Simone was MIA here :)  Horrible food, but a great place to visit!

Alex's last day of school picnic, this guy next to him is his good friend Torin.  I like his hair :)

We also went camping at Red Feather Lakes, and the kids played with fish heads... but I forgot my camera :)