Happy Fifth Birthday, Arianna, Part 2

After painting the triceratops the kids had fun outside jumping on the trampoline.  It got up to 70 degrees yesterday!  It was a beautiful day, albeit a little windy.  Then we went grocery shopping and Arianna brought her Birthday money and picked out a couple of little toys.  She was delighted.  Thanks, Grandma!

Fun on the trampoline.  The previous owners left it for us at our request.  It is great!

We had lunch out on the picnic table and the kids had more fun outside.  Arianna chose to have sandwiches for lunch (no surprise there), which they made themselves.  The girls want to make their own sandwiches every time we eat them now.  I think they are enjoying the space in the kitchen where we can easily work together as much as I am! 

Lunch out under the trees in our backyard.

I was kept hopping all afternoon making the cake and dinner.  Arianna had originally wanted a fire-breathing dragon cake (yeah- she's an interesting one).  But, I did not want to construct one from cake and frosting and didn't find the right figurine in my searching over the last couple of weeks, so I took her to the store last week and had her pick out one of those Schleich animals that I then kept hidden for the week to up the suspense a little.  She chose an elephant so I went with a jungle sort of theme.  (She had an elephant on her 3rd Birthday cake as well!)  She loved it! 

Getting ready to eat dinner.  Arianna is joining the rest of the family is choosing Swedish Meatballs for her Birthday dinner.  And salad.  She wanted salad to go with it. Here I am 1 day before the due date.

Here is the pound cake with a jungle theme.  I bought some little animal crackers for around the bottom and used Pepperidge Farm Pirouettes for the trunks of the palm trees.  Good old cream cheese was the glue to stick stuff together and the green is all construction paper.



Checking out the cake.

It wouldn't be Arianna if she didn't think of something creative to do with her new animal.  Here is Ellie carrying a load of blueberries.

Now he's juggling them!

All afternoon Arianna could hardly wait for Dad to come home so that she could open the final Birthday gift.  When she finally got to, I don't know who was more excited, Arianna or Grant.  We got her some more Magna-tiles.  We gave a set of 32 to Grant for Christmas and ever since they have fought over them every morning (and at various other times in the day) because there just weren't enough for them all to play with.  They were all delighted.  In fact, as I write this the morning after, they are all downstairs playing with them!

Daddy making Arianna guess what the gift it.

Happy as can be!

The Magna-tiles!

We got the kids to bed too late after all the festivites, but I think Arianna felt special and had a great day.  We are so thankful to have her as part of our family. 

Happy Fifth Birthday, Arianna!

Kenneth and I both said to each other this morning that it seemed like just a few days ago that we were celebrating Arianna's fourth birthday.  My, how time flies!  I am thankful that the baby is being considerate enough to wait to come so that we can celebrate this day with Arianna.  (The due date is tomorrow!)  Arianna was delighted when she got up this morning and saw 'the' Brithday sign, which has become tradition in our house.  She requested pancakes for breakfast with whipped cream (about which Grant whooped for joy) among other things.  We had a mighty band of octopi visit the breakfast table as well.  Arianna thought they were cool, but she hasn't so much been digging bananas lately so she didn't even eat hers.  But, she loves animals, so the effect was good enough.
Here are some pictures of the morning (another post to come this evening of the rest of the day's festivities):


Here are Arianna and Grant at o'dark thirty finding the Birthday gifts

 

We let her open one gift at each meal  Here is the Breakfast gift opening- a painting kit with a wooden triceratops to paint

 

The mighty band of octopi

  

Arianna and her Octopus

 

They picked them up off the plate and according to the children, they transformed into squids- 2 in 1- way to go, Mom!

  

Arianna's horsehead pancake

Morning activity: painting the triceratops

 

After painting, she was reminded that there was a card from Grandma Pilz waiting for her to open.  She was delighted with the $5 bill.  She's excited to go to the store and "buy things".

  Here is her Birthday Interview:

How old are you today? four
What?  Oh, five!
Do you have a nick name? Anna

What is your favorite animal? dinosaur

What is your favorite color? yellow

What is your favorite treat? icecream

What kind of icecream?  What's that yummy, yummy kind? 
Emma: Butter Brittle. 
Arianna: Yeah, Butter Brittle

What is your favorite food? sandwich 
What kind of sandwich?  Peanut butter and honey

What is your favorite song? ABC

What is your favorite movie or show?  Dinosaur Train and The Land Before Time

Who is your best friend?  Hmmm. . . My best friend in California?  Marcie's kid, Natalie

What is your favorite book? a big book. 

Which big book?  The big one that's all blue on the outside. (Grant supplied her with the title)  Ready, Set, Read

What do you want to be when you grow up? a farmer

Who loves you the most? Mom and Dad

What is your favorite thing to do?  Help mom, actually, paint

Where is your favorite place to go?  pet shop

What is your favorite toy?  dinosaurs

What is your favorite time of the day? afternoon.  Why?  Because Emma reads us books

Arianna, is there anything you would like to say on your Brithday?  Well, there is: my favorite day is my Birthday.  Anything else you'd like to say?  Nope, that's all. 

Update and our time in temporary housing

Still no baby!  I am indeed thankful for that since we are still trying to get settled in our new home.  Every day I put a little bit more away and try to get organized.  It will still be a while until we are fully moved in, but that's life!  I have found and unpacked most everything we need for the baby and have my kitchen mostly put together.  I have another Dr. appointment tomorrow.  Last week I was 90% effaced and dilated to 1 cm.  We'll see if anything has changed.  I am feeling great- I feel like I have lots of energy to work all day.  I have some nerve pain in my legs that stops me in my tracks several times a day, but I can live with it.  

The kids are really enjoying the new house.  They still get confused sometimes and forget how to get certain places.  They are not used to having 3 levels and so much space!  

All in all, we had a great time in our temporary housing in Wichita.  I really like the size of Wichita; it's not too big that there is a lot of traffic and not too small.  It has lots of great restaurants (we've already gotten to go to two fancy-schmancy restaurants for work dinners).  We will not miss apartment living in other ways; the neighbors' loud music, the stress of worrying about the children's noise for the neighbors below us.  In the school work picture, you will notice Grant wearing an eye patch.  We took him to the Eye Doctor for a check up and he said he needed to wear it for 3 weeks to strengthen his weak eye.  He has been such a good sport about it!  Here are some pictures of our time in Wichita (including Christmas!) and our move into our new home:

Here are the kids the first night in Wichita in the hotel.  Poor Arianna!

Grant got sick of being on the bed with the girls.  He opted for the floor a couple of days after moving into the apartment.

They did a lot of t.v. watching- on our bed since Grant broke the one in the living room.

The kids had fun making forts.

Here is Grant inside his fort.

Santa came to the apartment complex office.  Grant wouldn't go anywhere close, but the girls wanted to be sure he knew what they wanted!

We did school work.  This particular day, Emma and I were using lentils (didn't have any dry beans) to do math and the little ones decided to use some lentils with the construction vehicles.

T'was the night before Christmas. . .

Opening stockings on Christmas morning.

Emma asked for an umbrella for Christmas.

I tried to discourage them. . . I thought it would be a bad idea to eat the popcorn that had been on the Christmas tree for 3 weeks, but they did it anyway. . .

Daddy took Grant to the store to pick something out now that he is potty trained!  Hooray!  He was delighted.  (Too bad the blasted thing was broken when we opened the box.)  Dad got him something else special. 

Boy, were we glad for this day!  The moving truck came!  I am so glad the baby waited!

Here are the kids in the basement of the new house just delighted to be unpacking their toys! 

Cutting it close and catch up

As mentioned in the previous post, we are currently living in a furnished apartment in Wichita until we close on our new home (1/2 hour away) and can move in.  We had hoped that the move-in date would have been at the end of December, but, alas, things haven't worked out that way.

 We went on our house-hunting trip the week after Thanksgiving and put an offer in on a beautiful home and we didn't get it.  We almost put in another offer on a different home soon thereafter, but a few days before we were going to arrive in Kansas, our realtor called and said she found a house that just might be perfect for us.  So, we decided to wait until we got there to be able to see it and then make our decision. (This already puts us to the 11th of December).  It turned out not to be the house for us, and within that week another 2 homes came on the market that were fabulous.  Finally, we settled on one and put an offer on it (it was only on the market for 4 days) and it worked out that the closing date is January 18th.  Yeah.  The due date is the 29th.  Yikes.  Now, historically, I have always had these babies of mine on time.  Emma was a C-section scheduled the day before her due date.  Arianna came right on her due date- no induction, nothing and Grant also came right on his due date.  So, for a long while I wasn't really worried about it.  It's not ideal, but no problem.

Well, on Thursday, 36 1/2 weeks along, I had my first appointment with my new OB here in Kansas and she said I was already at 1 cm. and 70% effaced.  When she left the exam room she said, "I'll see you next week at your appointment, if not sooner!"  So, now I am thinking we will most likely be having this baby while we still live in this temporary apartment with all our our personal belongings (besides what we brought with us across the country in our van) in a storage unit 3 hours away.  Luckily, we have a great ward that is already willing to help out by letting us borrow any baby things we may need for a couple of weeks.  This will definitely be interesting!

Here it is!!  After 3 1/2 years of renting, we are excited to have our own home again!

Now for some catching up...

I have been very sporadic in my posting, but our last few months in California were wonderful.  I'd like to share some of the highlights before life gets crazy again with a new home and baby!

In  September, we were able to see the Historic flight of the Endeavor Shuttle being carried piggy back to its final resting spot in L.A. at the California Science Center. Kenneth's work is right next to NASA, so the shuttle did a fly-over here in the Bay Area.

Here it is up close.  It was a very neat experience to be able to be there and see that.

We were given some apples from some friends in our ward and we sauced them.  Delicious!  I think we put up around 16 quarts and still had lots of apples to eat fresh.

In October, we enjoyed the semi-annual General Conference of our Church.  I printed packets for the kids and it kept them busy for most all the sessions.

For Science we created a volcano.  The children were so nervous!  Here they are before it blew!

They really had nothing to be nervous about!  They loved it.  I think they made me do it another 6 times.  Then we saved it for a few days and did it again a few times!

Here are the kids on Halloween with our Co-op group - the last time it was held at our house.  They had a parade in the backyard.

The Halloween picnic on our back patio.  We will miss those kids (and their moms) so much!

Here's the potluck spread for our picnic.  Hot and Sour Soup, adorable little pigs-in-blankets dressed up like spiders for Halloween, persimmons, vegetables and mini pumpkin muffins.  I also made creamy chicken taquitos, but of course, I was not on the ball and they came out of the oven after we had all almost finished eating!

The kids and I on Halloween evening.  We dressed up and went to eat at Chipotle.

We had family pictures taken shortly before we left.  Gotta love that smile on Grant-man.

Our kiddos

Through her charter school, Emma was able to have 2 horseback riding lessons before we left California.  She loved it and did so well!

The 2 little chickens standing on the side-lines watching Emma ride the horse.  That November weather is beautiful!

One thing I definitely wanted to see before leaving California was the Monterrey Bay Acquarium.  I am so glad we fit it in!  It was incredible!  The jelly fish were my favorite.

The kids enjoying the jelly fish.  These three were non-stop loving the aquarium all day long. 

This was probably the kids favorite thing there at the aquarium: A tunnel you stood under and a wave came crashing in over your head.

Arianna and Grant enjoying the fish.

Daddy decided to take the kids to Great Jump (a trampoline play place) one last time before we left town.  The kids had a blast! (And slept very well that night!)

Our last evening in town, our dear friends threw us a going away party.  There were so many people there we love!  We had such a great time.  I will not include pictures because I have so many great ones of the people we love and I don't want anyone to feel left out because I can't share them all!  I cried when we drove away from that party.  I will miss our friends in California very much.  

Here I am right before we drove out of Milpitas.  Kenneth took this picture of me from our neighbor's lawn.  Our house was across the street with the tallest tree in front of it.  Goodbye, California!

We drove that night to Reno and were able to have breakfast with our good friends who used to be our neighbors in Milpitas who had moved to Reno.  It was so great to see them!  Then we made the trip to Salt Lake and stayed with my mom for a few days. 

It's always fun to go to Grandma's house!  She made them breakfast turkeys the first morning we were there.  

Also while in Salt Lake, we were able to visit a good friend we knew from New York who now lives in Sandy.  We went to Scheel's and rode the big ferris wheel.  The kids loved it! 

Here are the kids in front of the Ferris wheel

Riding on the Ferris Wheel with Andrea.  Grant was with me in the car behind them.

After a few days in Salt Lake we made the trip up to Logan (Smithfield) to be with Kenneth's siblings there.  

Thanksgiving at Karen and Allen's house.  Poor Arianna got sick in the car the night before and had applesauce for dinner.  The food was so delicious! Thanks, Karen!

We were able to go to the Brigham City Temple with Karen and Allen one day.  It was so lovely.  Here are Kenneth, Karen and Allen in front.  I was the photographer.  Boy was it cold that day! 

So, as you can see, life has been very busy for us the past few months!  We feel so thankful for family and friends and so many wonderful experiences.  We are excited for our new adventures in Kansas.  We've really been having a great time here so far.  More to come on our Christmas and our days in temporary housing- hopefully, soon!

Go Figure

We have never purchased a television in our entire 8 1/2 years of marriage. . . until now.  Our first t.v. we got from beside the dumpster at our first apartment.  I can still remember keeping my eye on it all day while Kenneth was at work and I thought if it's still there when he gets home I'll have him carry it up to our apartment and test it out to see if it still works- and it did!  We finally replaced that one a few years later when someone in our neighborhood put one out in front of their house with a free sign on it.  Another one we got free on Craigslist along with a free set of couches.  (Are we cheap or what!?!)  And finally, our next door neighbor gave us one not too long ago (that actually had a remote!!)  So, it has never been a high priority for us to have the latest and greatest techonology.  In fact, my brother-in-law was just giving a hard time about the fact that we still have a tube t.v.  He said I was wasting electricity.  I said, "Well, it's a good thing we don't watch it very much!" 
We are currently staying in a furnished apartment while we wait to close on our home here in Kansas.  There was a 42 inch LCD t.v. in our family room when we moved in.  Grant, who has been having kind of a hard time with the transition of leaving the only home he ever knew, spent the first litte while here venting his frustration and confusion in violent ways.  Unforturnately, the t.v. got in the way.  The first day we were here, Grant threw a plastic Little People Santa Sleigh at the screen.  I definitely let him know that was NOT acceptable, but when I looked at the screen I couldn't see any mark whatsoever- thank heavens (or so I thought).  At that point we hadn't even turned on the t.v.  A couple of days later I finally tried to turn on the t.v. to let the kids watch pbs and couldn't get it to work.  I figured some cables weren't hooked up properly or something, but when I looked into figuring out the problem I noticed a digital 'crack' when the t.v. was on in the same corner where Grant threw the sleigh .  So, reluctantly, I emailed the person coordinating our corporate housing to let her know what had happened.  She said she had to get back to us to let us know what the charge, if any, would be.  A couple days later she emailed and said we would need to pay $488!!!!  Argh!!!!!!!  When the furniture people came to replace it, I had them march the new one right back out the door.  I did not want to take a chance of Grant breaking a second one. 

So, we finally purchased our first t.v. (and a fancy flat screen t.v. at that) and we don't even get to use it!  Go figure.

Speaking of being behind-the-times and not up-to-date on technology. . .We gave the kids an Etch-a-Sketch for Christmas.  When they opened it, the first words out of their mouths were, "It's an I-pad!!!!"  Sorry kids, not from your technology-laggard parents!