First Time in the Snow

Blake had the day off on Thursday and so we decided the weather was decent and we would take Kenlee out to play in the snow. She had never really been in the snow so it took her a while to get used to it but when she did she loved.

Grandpa Daines took Kenlee around the house in the sled, she didn't want him to stop. She had a hard time staying in but she got the hang of it.

Dad and Kenlee playing in the snow.

Kenlee attacking Mitch while he was making a snow angel.

We found out that if someone road with her in the sled she didn't tip over. Blake got to pull Mitch and her around the house.

Kenlee and I walking back up the hill after it was our turn to use the sled.

Gingerbread Houses

Grandma Daines likes to get the grandkids together and have them make gingerbread houses out of homemade gingerbread. It was so fun. This was the first year that Kenlee was old enough to try and praticipate. In all reality I made the house and she ate the candy but it was so fun. I had never done a gingerbread house before so I had a blast with it.

Kenlee asking for more candy, she loved the sixlets!

Kenlee and her gingerbread house!

All of us with our gingerbread houses. Didn't they turn out great! The girls had a blast and now we can us them to decorate for Christmas!

This was our finished house up close, it was so fun to make.

Thanks Grandma Daines!

Thanksgiving 2010

I am a little late getting to this post but its because I wasn't quite sure how to do it because I didn't get my camera out much on Thanksgiving.

This year for Thanksgiving we were with my family up in Idaho. I love when everyone gets together. We always have great fun and funny conversations. This year I made two pies, a low-fat pumpkin pie and Blake's favorite pecan pie. They turned out so good. Blake's mom helped me with the crust so they actually turned out good this year.

Because of all the snow we got the Tuesday before we were not able to go get our Christmas tress like we normally do so we played games. We really needed to get home before the canyon got to dark but the game was so fun that we stayed a little later then we probably should have. O well we got home safe. Thanks Cheryl for hosting our Thanksgiving, it was a great one!

That night when we got back we gathered at my parents house to play some more games. Nathan picked Twister, I quickly volunteered to be the spinner.

Mom and Tiffany were really good at it.

Then Kenlee wanted to try, she thought the mat was so cool!

We decided to put Kenlee in her pj's for the night but after she got her stripped down I remembered that her pj's were in the car and dang cold so we let her run around in her onesie. Karlee turned Christmas music on and Kenlee danced on the twister mat like it was a stage. It was so funny!
We had such a good time and hope to continue our good memories and traditions through the years to come.

Growing Up

Over the last few weeks I have really noticed signs that Kenlee has become a toddler and a pretty smart one at that. She often goes down to her room and plays for a while but today I realized things had got pretty quiet so I went to check on her and found that she had climbed into the big chair in her room and was reading a book. It was so cute! The funniest part was that when I got out the camera she looked at me several times like I was interrupting her reading time. Funny girl!



Also she has decided that she loves to color. I got the jumbo crayons as a test to see if she was interested in coloring and she has loved it. I was writing out my grocery list yesterday and she decided that she wanted to draw too. Instead of letting her draw all over the list like she wanted to I got out her crayons and a piece of paper. She sat and colored for quite a while. I was impressed because she never holds still to do anything. We will have to make coloring an activity more often.

I can't believe she is so grown up. Everyday she surprise me by showing me how well she understands things and comprehends what we are asking her to do. For example when we get ready to go some place we ask her if she wants to get her shoes and she runs down the hall and points at the basket where her shoes are kept. She has also started pointing at her jacket before we even ask because she knows thats what comes next. Then she makes sure we have the diaper bag and if she thinks we may have forgotten it she tries to drag it down the hall to us. Then she makes us get our shoes and jackets on. If we are not fast enough for her she goes and gets the shoes and puts them on top of our feet. Then she points at the key hanger and makes sure we don't forget the keys, then she knows we are ready and she knocks on the door until we open it. She is so smart that sometimes it scares me. I know that I really need to be careful of what we do because I don't want her learning bad habits so little and I want her to keep learning good things like putting things away (she loves to try to put things back where we got them from even if it means asking us for help by grunting and screaming) and the new challenge of teaching her to share her toys.

Halloween 2010

This is Kenlee's Halloween shirt for this year. It says "Daddy is under my spell."

Doesn't she look so big?

Here is my cute little pumpkin :

She really didn't want to hold still so I had a hard time getting a picture of her in her costume but she was so cute!

Blake was "Where's Waldo" and he had a great time with it too. At work they played where's waldo through out the whole store. He would go and hide and then the other manager would make an announcement that waldo was hiding in the store and whoever found him got a bag of candy. I think that was one of his favorite days at work.

We took Kenlee trick-or-treating at a few houses and then went to a party at Blake's friends house. Then on Sunday we had another Halloween party for Karlee's birthday. All of us dressed up. It was a really fun Halloween and it just makes me look forward to more years of dressing up my little girl.

Carving Pumpkins

Tonight we carved pumpkins at my parents house. This year was the first year that Kenlee could really be involved so I was really excited. I wasn't sure she would really like the feeling of the slimy pumpkin guts but .....

She wasn't sure at first what was going on, I tried to get her to put her hand in the pumpkin and she wasn't sure why mom would be sticking her hand in a weird object. So I pulled some of the guts out of the pumpkin and handed it to her.

After that she loved it! She helped dad gut her pumpkin out and put it in the bucket. The funniest thing was that she keep licking her hand and I thought she would stop because it would taste gross but she liked it.

She entertained herself playing the bucket of stuff for a long time. She would pick guts up and tease Karlee by waving it in her face. Then she discovered the spoon and started flicking stuff everywhere. Thats when she got to go take a bath while we finished carving.

This year Blake carved a spider, Kenlee's is a ghost and mine was a bat with the year on the bottom.

All of us with our cute pumpkins!

Fall Drive

Today we went on a drive up Smithfield Canyon to see all the beautiful leafs changing color for fall. I always remember going leaf hunting with my family in the fall and wanted to start that tradition with my family. When we got to the top of the Canyon we got Kenlee out of the car and showed her all the pretty leaves on the ground. She loved it!

She ran up and down the road picking up leafs.

Blake threw leafs in the air to fall around her, she thought it was so funny.

She loved to pick them up and show me.

She is so cute!!!!

Near the end of our trip she decided to pick up little rocks and hand them to daddy. He would throw them in the river and she would watch for a while then pick up more rocks for him to throw in.

We had a great family outing and I love watching Kenlee's curious adventures and discovery's. I love my cute little family!

The Wheels on the Bus

Kenlee has always danced at music, she loves music. She will push a button on a toy just so she can dance to the music. On Sunday evening I got a bus out of one of my moms games for her, she danced to the music again and again!

Fun Pictures

I had a few cute but random pictures on my camera that wouldn't take a full post so I decided just to group them all together.

Kenlee getting her bangs trimmed before family pictures.

Kenlee and Blake watching Sunday night football. They are so cute!

Kenlee discovered the blanket cupboard at Grandma and Grandpa Daines house. She loved crawling in and out of the blankets. Silly girl!

Marching Band Parents Night

Yesterday we attended Sky View and Moutain Crests Marching Band Parents Night. This year Karlee and Brady are marching in the band so it was a new treat to try and spot two people that look like everyone else. Brady is a freshman and Karlee is a senior this year. Karlee gets to play a duet with a friend of hers. It sounds amazing!

There show has influences from Japan. They have these really cool drums that the percussion director and his son made for an eagle scout project. They turned out way cool. This was my favorite part with them.

I am so excited for the band this year, they have an amazing show. Good luck Karlee and Brady, I know you will do awesome. Love you guys!

Play Ball!

Kenlee found a little soccor ball in the toy closet at my parents house and brought it out to show everyone. She started throwing it and Brady would go and get it. She finally picked up on the idea of throwing it to Brady and they played catch. She thought that it was hilarious.

Kenlee is ONE!

Kenlee turned one on August 26th! The year went by so fast! She has grown and changed so much over the last year. When she was born she was 9 pounds 1 ounce and 21.5 inches long. Now she is 21 pounds and 30.5 inches long.

For her birthday party we decided to do a big BBQ with all our family in my parents backyard. Just about everyone was able to come.

She did pretty good at opening her presents and loved the attention.

We did a Prince and the Frog themed birthday party for her because she loves that movie. There for I made her frog cupcakes for her cake this year.

She loved her cake! She ate the frosting very fast and then went for the cake.

First Trip To Hoogle Zoo

Blake and I have been talking for awhile now about going to Hoogle Zoo because I had never been there. The trip just never seemed to work out. Now that we have Kenlee we decided we needed to get down to the Zoo. Kenlee has really started to love animals, especially cats, so we knew that she would love the zoo.

This is a gorilla's hand print compared to Blake and Kenlee. It was a funny difference in size for them.

The animals were all out and active the whole time we were in the zoo. It was so fun, the monkeys were swinging around and chasing each other. The elephant was eating and walking around. Even the big tortoise was slowly walking and eating his leaves. Kenlee was able to see a lot of the animals because of this. When the monkeys jumped from branch to branch she would scream in excitement.

We loved the photo opportunities with the bronze statues.

Blake loved the water fountains! We took several pictures.

We had such a great day at the zoo and I think everyone enjoyed themselves a lot. It was a the perfect day to go to the zoo.