March Update

Finally getting around to posting a few more pictures of the kids. First couple are from Tyler's basketball games. It was amazing to see how well all the kids on the team progressed during the season. In his last game, Tyler grabbed several rebounds, then turned around and started a fast break. (see first picture). Notice Tyler's imitation of Michael Jordan's tongue thing. Apparently it runs in the men's side of Melissa's family.

After leading a fast break, sometimes Tyler would pass, sometimes he would keep it himself and shoot. It was great to see his confidence grow. He worked hard, practices often and it really started to payoff. Hopefully he will take after his Uncle Todd, who was pretty good left handed ball player as well.





The last two pictures are from Ellie's dance class. Ellie still loves dancing. She often practices her dance moves around the house. In the picture below, you can see her working on her moves with her instructor.

If you click on the photo, or here, you get a special treat - a short video of Ellie dance in her tap shoes. The file is a bit large (16 MB), so it may take a little while to load.

Hoop Dreams (or white man can't jump)

Basketball - it is the the latest sport Tyler has decided to try. One of Melissa's friends recommended a great program for kids called "Upward Bound". The program focuses on fundamentals, sportsmanship, and competitiveness. The whole thing is done really well, including nice jersey's and shorts, intros with music and smoke machine, and even cheerleaders (which distracts Tyler at times).

Each week, Ty has one practice and one game. Melissa and I have been spending some time at the gym with him working on the basics as well. Ty does well in practices, and does very good job of listening to coaches. But come game time, he gets so excited he something forgets what he has learned. His enthusiasm has been fun to watch. It reminds me of what we forget too often - that sports, especially kids' sports, are about learning and having fun.

Ty loves to practice, and Melissa has been working with him at our gym whenever she can. Dave even made it one day this week. Melissa, Ellie and Tyler all ganged up on Dave for a scrimage. Anyone that has seen Dave play basketball knows how unfair that is....for him.

This week was probably the first week we have seen Ty put it all together. He played good defense (making a couple of steals), dribbled and passed well, and even took a couple of shots. Of course, Melissa is taking credit for all the extra practice time she has put in with Ty.

Ellie's Dance Class

Okay, I am finally getting around to posting about Ellie's Dance class. Sorry this has taken me so long. My only excuse is that it took a while to learn how to edit movies files from Melissa's camera. The camera saves movies in Apple's *.mov format, and our home computer prefers Windows *wmv or *.avi format. Mr. Jobs and Mr. Gates don't play very nice together. Anyway, you aren't here for my complaining.

Before you look at the videos & pictures, I should explain why they look the way they do. The parents have to sit outside the classroom, watching through a large window that has open blinds on it. Those hozizontal lines you see aren't my fingers, it' s the blinds. You can pick out Ellie is by her black leotard.

To see the first video, click here or on the picture. As Ellie dances across the floor, she looks out the window and sees Mommy and Tyler. So what does she do? Click to see.

To view the second video, click here or on the picture of Ellie in her ballerina pose . It is great fun to watch her in class. She listens so attentively to what the teaching is saying. I wish she would listen to us half as well! Every Friday, she is so excited for dance class that she gets dress in her leotard as soon as she is done with breakfast. Of course, her dance class doesn't start until noon !!

The last video shows how enthusiastic she is. The girls are asked to spin around. To see what happens to Ellie when she spins too much, click here or on the last picture below.

Christmas 2006 in KC

This is the first year we celebrated Christmas in Kansas City. Even though we haven't celebrated the holidays here before, we found that most of our same traditions worked just as well here as anywhere else. As you can see, we had lots of help wrapping presents from Santa's little elves.

Another tradition our elves like to help with is making Christmas cookies, especially with Pop Pop. Aspen made sure to keep an eye on the cookies while they were baking. That is our new stove she is staring at - Dave's Christmas present to Melissa. Okay, okay, Dave didn't really buy the stove for Melissa. Our stove died on Dec 22nd, with family coming to visit the next day! Thank-you Lowes for delivering so close to Christmas.

Anyway, back to the cookies. Melissa and Dave enjoyed a nice dinner out while the kids frosted cookies with Grandma and Pop Pop. At least we think they managed to frost cookies instead of frosting each other. All we know for sure is both the kitchen and the kids were clean when we got home. I wonder if Aspen got to 'help' clean up as a reward for watching the cookies? Oh well, at least the cookies tasted great. Sorry, no pictures of the cookies, we ate them all ;)



As you can tell, Santa was very generous this year, especially to the kids. Ty got lots of Legos, erector sets, sports stuff and a new fish tank. Ellie received a new baby doll and lots of princess stuff. Her favorite gift may have been the new 'big-girl' bed from Santa. For those of you who don't know, we don't raise good sleepers. Ellie has been spending lots of time in our bed. So we made a big deal out of asking Santa for a new bed. And guess who has been sleeping in it on her own most nights? Christmas really is a time for miracles.

I hope to upload a picture of Ellie's new bed shortly. Her room looks great - no longer a nursery, definitely a girls room. I should also have pictures of Ellie's dance class and Ty's basketball games up in the next few weeks.

Snow Day!!!!

As you might have heard, our recent run of great weather came to an crashing halt. First with a ice storm, then two days of snow. We received about a foot of snow, causing the schools to close for two days. Melissa bundled the kids up and headed over to the local hill for some sledding. Click on any of the pictures below for some video highlights.


Video 1 - Ellie Sledding (click here or on picture)


Video 2 - Tyler Sledding (click here or on picture)


Video 3 - Ty pulling Ellie (click here or on picture)

KC Christmas Tree Lighting

The day after Thanksgiving, we went down to the Crown Center, downtown KC for the lighting of the Christmas Tree. In addition to singing, music, ice skating, and the lighting of the Christmas tree, they had fireworks.

Since it was so nice out (for November), we had a picnic dinner on benches while watching the events. The kids loved the fireworks. Ever wonder what happens to the tree after the Holidays? In this case, they use the wood from each previous year's tree to make ornaments. All proceeds from ornament sales go to the Mayor's Christmas Tree Fund, which assists thousands of Kansas City's less fortunate each year.

However the best part was the fountain. Kansas City is second only to Rome, Italy, in the number of fountains it has. The Crown Center has one of the largest, with over 49 water jets that shoot water up to 60 feet in the air. Water is supplied from 7,500-gallon underground reservoir & is recycled into the fountain at a rate of 2,200 gallons per minute.

For Christmas, they created a water shows that featured the fountain dancing to "Carol of the Bells" and "The Nutcracker Overture." Click on the pictures below to see for yourself


Click
here to view first video or click on the picture




Click here to view second video or click on the picture

Tyler's 6 Birthday

We decided not to gamble with Kansas's oh so predictable (not!!) weather and celebrated Tyler's birthday inside this year. We held his party at our gym and enjoyed pizza and games. Tyler wanted a Lego birthday. We had a Lego relay, and topped his cake with Lego building blocks, and a Lego Bionicle creature. Compared to Ellie's cake, Tyler's cake was much easier on Mom and Dad - we put Tyler to work building the cake toppers.

During the party, the kids had a great time playing around running through an obstacle course and playing scooter hockey. The highlight of the party was a scooter train.

Tyler's friends were very generous - he received lots of great gifts. He even wrote his own thank you cards this year. Wow - how did he get to be 6 already??!?

Halloweeen Pictures

Just realized I haven't posted any pictures from Halloween. With both kid's birthdays and Halloween so close together, it is hard to find time to keep the blog updated.

Tyler has rely been into Superheroes, especially the Justice Leauge . Last year, he was Batman. This year, he wanted to be the Flash, the fastest human alive. We got him to slow down just enough to be photographed before he took off to collect as much candy as possible. Actually, it was Tyler's idea to pose like this.

Ellie, on the other hand, wanted to be princess (big surprise !!). Melissa found a beautiful Cinderella costume for her. Complete with tiara, blue dress and glass slippers, Ellie looked every bit the princess that she is.

Melisa got roped into dressing up as well, since she was 'room mom' for Tyler's kindergarten class on Halloween. She won't let me post any pictures, but she looked good in a cat outfit.

Even I got into the act. We have a costume contest at work. Since everyone knows how much I like the Steelers, I decided to go as Troy Polamalo. If any of you have ever watched a Steelers game in the last two years, he is the guy on defense with the long flowing back hair hanging out his helmet. I even had a small Larry Johnson hanging off the back - a little jab at the local Chiefs fans.

Trip to Arboretum

Not too much to say, just some pretty pictures from trip to Overland Park Arboretum last weekend

Ellie's 3rd Birthday - Part 2

Did I mention that Ellie likes princesses? Take a look at the cake we made for her. Melissa found the design on-line. Basically, it is two sheet cakes on top of each other. The towers are two ice cream cones stacked on ends, with a 3rd sugar cone for the turret. Strawberry wafers and licorice string combined for the drawbridge, with Hersey kisses around the top. We were pretty proud of our creation. Best of all the kids thought it tasted great.

We had several activities for the kids, including: decorating crowns and coloring pictures of princesses such as Belle, Ariel, Cinderella and Snow White. We also played 'pin the crown on the castle'. I have to confess to spending a little too much time drawing the castle. But hey, nothing's too good from my little girl, right? Oh, I guess I should explain the kids' expressions. We took this picture after the party, and kids were having a little fun. I don't know where they get their silliness from. Personally, I blame grandpa and pop-pop.

Had to get one shot of Ellie posing in front of her Princess decoration. She was pretty excited to see it hung up. We had to leave it hanging in our kitchen windows for several days before she let us take it down.

Ellie's 3rd Birthday - Part 1

Can you believe Eliana has already turned 3? In some ways, she is definitely a little girl. Take princesses and dress up for example. She loves to play dress up. You can see her modeling a pretty sequene dress and feather boa - a birthday gift courtesy of grandma. She even has the right look and pose for a run-way model. I don't think my mother has had this much fun shopping for Ellie since she picked out her first, new-born outfit.
Ellie also loves anything to do with Disney Princesses, so imagine how excited she was to get the Snow White dress up outfit from my Uncle and Aunt. She has been running around in one or the other outfit for days now.
Last picture is from Ellie's birthday party (more pictures in the next post). She received a special call from Cinderella, wishing her a happy birthday. For once, she was speechless. However her smile tells you how excited she was.

Trip to Pumpkin Patch

October 1st was unusually nice day, so we packed-up the family truckster and headed south to the KC Pumpkin Patch. Lots of fun things, including a corn maze, pumpkin toss, zip line, and hay rides. Tyler was really impressed with the pumkin cannon - pumpkins were launched more than 300 yards using a propane tank.



Thought I would start off with a rare family shot. Notice how we are all smiling before entering the maze. It was pretty tricky - turning us around several times. If it weren't for Tyler, we might still be lost in the there

Of course, no trip to the pumpkin patch is complete without a picking out a few pumpkins to take home. Ellie and Dave are eying a few nice pumpkins to take a rest on. We also found some that were good for carving.

Look Mom, No Hands!

David decided it was time for Tyler to ride without his training wheels. We figured it would take lots of work, patience, and band-aids. We were wrong - Tyler is a natural. He only needed a little help getting started, and he was off. Dave had a hard time keeping up with Tyler. Not only did he ride across the cul-de-sac, he learned how to turn and stop. Ty then started riding over bumps, the sidewalk and even on the grass. Look-out Dave, I think Ty is ready to start mountain biking!

Pretty soon, Ty was too fast for Dave. Hmmm, this might be a good way for Dave to get his running in! I think the best thing Dave taught Tyler was how to fall. If any of you have every seen Dave after a ride, you know that falling the one thing he has had a lot of practice with!

You know Ellie had to get into the act. Once again, she is showing no fear, riding over what ever gets in her way.

Hey lady, come back here with that bike! I didn't realize the circus was in town. Okay, Melissa didn't really steal the bike. The kids started to get a little tired, so she road the bike back up the cul-de-sac to our house.

Baseball

Ty decided he wanted to try Tee-ball next.