4th of July

On the 4th of July we celebrated by watching the Bothell parade with a few other families.
Below is a picture of Kayla sitting miserably in the heat. The umbrella helped a little. This experience made me remember all the reasons I hate parades.Kayla did enjoy her first piece of parade candy, a blue jolly rancher. It turned her mouth a very patriotic shade of blue.After naps we had a big BBQ with about 5 families. As it got dark we set off fireworks in the street. Most types of fireworks are legal here and we had some pretty spectacular ones. As the ash fell I worried about neighbors roofs and trees. But luckily nothing caught fire. Kayla did not like the loud noises that the fireworks made, but she found it bearable if we covered her ears.

When we got home we were surprised by the consistent snap, crackle, pop of fireworks going off in the neighborhoods around us. Literally, you can hear 3 or 4 fireworks going off every second. This went on for at least 3 hours. Luckily the sound was muffled by the trees that surround us so we could get to sleep that night. We took this video around 10pm to record the sound we were hearing. The low rumbling you hear in the video is NOT feedback from the video camera, but actual fireworks popping.


The next morning when we drove to church there was a slight haze in the sky.

Family Reunion

At the end of March we had a Family Reunion in Las Vegas.

We spent most days enjoying the swimming pool.

Kayla was a little shy of the water at first, but by the end of the first day she was pretty good at floating in the ring by herself. By the end of the week we had to make sure she didn't jump in without someone there to catch her!

Kayla even had the same swim suit as her cousin Adrienne, so of course they had to pose together.Other activities included black light mini golf......a trip to the natural history museum...(In the picture above, notice the lions and zebra in the back ground. Now look at Seth, Kayla and Laney. Below is the close up.)...a walk around the Las Vegas Temple......a staring contest with Uncle Matt......and of course, lots of pictures.It was great to spend some quality time with parents, siblings, nieces and nephews that we don't get to see too often.

April and May

We just wanted to share some of our fun times from the last two months.

Once in a while I will make bread in my bread machine. Kayla likes to watch the dough spin around as it gets kneaded. She also likes the rhythm it makes. We call it the Bread Machine Dance.


Every parent hopes their kid is a genius. We are no exception, so we've been working on reading with Kayla. As you can see from this video, she reads pretty well for an 18 month-old.


This one is Daddy shooting Kayla with a lazer gun.


One day while doing laundry, I emptied the dryer and came back to find this waiting for me:
Now I know where to look for Kayla when she goes missing.

Waving Hello to Ants

On warm sunny days, Kayla and I like to get outside as much as possible. We go to the park or take walks around the apartment complex. One of our favorite activities is to walk to our little bridge and throw pine cones into the stream. We even saw an otter swimming in our stream once!

Kayla is very social and is excited to play with any kids we might meet at the park. When there are no kids around she loves to say hello to any dogs, cats or birds we might see. She even likes to say hello to the ants and bugs.



Here are a few pictures a neighbor took for us while we were playing with her dog.

Laundry Day Fun and More

Getting ready for bed + empty hamper = FUN!!!


Kayla modeling a post-bath hair do. I meant to take a picture but took a very short video instead.



This last video is actually from last November, right before Kayla's 1st birthday. I pulled it up while working on these other videos and got a laugh out of it. This is just Kayla being crazy one night. She decided it was pretty funny to sit down then flop onto her back.


Kayla has thinned out quite a bit since this video was taken 5 months ago. It's amazing what a little walking can do!