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.

 

Ty's 1st Day of Kindergarten

It is official - Tyler is now in Kindergarten. Not quite sure when it happened, but it somehow snuck up on us. If you know Ty, you can imagine how excited he was about his first day. New back-pack, shiny new sneakers, he even got up early to make sure we got there on time. We all went with him for the first day, being a big event and all. The school even had coffee and donuts to make it easier on the parents.
Ty's teacher, Mr. Stidham, is great. He is very out-going, taking as much time with the parents as with the kids. You can guess which ones are harder to handle ;) Surprising, Mom & Dad held up pretty well.


Tyler has already told Melissa she can't give him hugs when she drops him off. I figured we had a few more years before that started! Must be he is worried about his image. Take a look at the cuties he is hanging with. That's my boy!

Vacation back East

Melissa and the kids recently returned from an end-of-the summer vacation back East visiting friends and family. They spent the majority of their time in Chartlottesville visiting both sets of grandparents. It sure was nice of them to move to Charlottesville to make things easier for us. I am not sure who was more excited, the grandparents or the kids. Everyone had a good time, with visits to the library, pool and a tour of some university located in Charlottesville we had never heard of. ;)
Melissa's brother, sister-in-law and niece came down to Charlottesville the second weekend. Ty and Ellie were very happy to see Uncle Jon, Aunt Nikki and cousin Kaylee. Ellie and Kaylee could even pass for sisters, especially in their matching outfits.
Melissa and the kids spent their last few days visiting friends in Northern Virginia (aka NOVA). Since moving to Kansas, Melissa has been feeling a little land-locked. Melissa wanted to take the kids to the beach, since Ellie had never seen the ocean and Ty was too young to remember his first visit. They spent two days in a house near Bethany Beach with the Robinson clan. We were lucky enough to overlap our visit with the Robinson's who were visiting from Belgium. It took Ellie a few minutes to get used to the "noise" of the ocean. However, she quickly grew to love the big sand box and shed tears when it was time to pack up. Ty, Ellie Maddy, Emily, and Will played in the surf, buried Will in the sand, and collected tons of sea shells.
Besides catching up with Robinsons, Melissa and the kids spent some time with "Aunie Ceil and Uncle Anthony". Their kids, Chloe and Jordan were great hosts to Ty & Ellie. We also squeezed in a visit with the Biancheris. Ty loved playing with Adam's trucks, and Emma and Ellie played with dolls and rocked out on a keyboard and electric guitar. Ellie also insisted on doing lunch with her first friend, Abbey. We had a great time and hope to be back to visit soon.

Ty has been asking to go fishing for quite a while. We finally made it over the local farm / park the other day and had a great time. While Dave had to the do the dirty work (read "hook the worms") the kids had a blast. Ellie didn't want to wait; she put her pole in right away while Dave was trying to bait Ty's hook.

These fish were pretty crafty. I guess they are used to finding hooks in their food, because they knew just how to nibble without getting caught. However, it didn't take too long for Tyler to land his first fish. It was a little small, but hey - it was his first fish! In no time at all, he landed his second fish. What a natural!

Not to be out-done, Ellie also caught her first fish. Even though she only caught one, it was the biggest fish of the day! I don't think she was as excited about it as Tyler was, at least not until I put it back in the water.

Have to apologize - it has been a little while since the last update. Now that school is out for the kids, we have been busy doing all the typical summer-time activities. Melissa and the kids spend lots of time at the neighborhood pool. Tyler has been practicing his swimming every chance he gets. He is learning to swim pretty far on his own as well as starting to swim under water a short way. Eliana also loves the water, especially when she wears her water wings. She loves the freedom she has, swimming / floating both on her belly and back.

Tyler has started tee-ball. It took a little while for him to get used to the tee vs. pitching, but he is having lots of fun. Last week he cleanly fielded a rocket off of once bounce, turned to first and through the ball on target. Dad was very proud.

We also take time to slow down and enjoy small stuff, like popsicles, miniature golf and bicycling. Tyler loves to go for rides. We went five miles the other day on a new by trail - Ellie rode in the trailer, pulled by Mom. Ty only had one crash the whole way. Again, Dave was very proud - especially the way he crashed

Melissa took time last weekend to paint Ellie's toenails. She waited very patiently to get her favorite color - pink! She insisted on wearing sandals for the rest of the week to show off her feet.

These pictures come from Melissa's newnikon cool pix s3, a Mother's day gift from her really cool husband. We needed a second camera for spur of the moment photos. Our Cannon Digital Rebel is great, but makes Dave look like a tourist carrying it.

Grandpa and Grammy French came to visit us in Kansas the 2nd week in May. Unfortunately Tyler, Melissa and I were all sick for a good chunk of it. Ellie seemed to make it through fine. At least the grand parents got to spend lots of time with the kids :)

We did manage to make it out to the Johnson County Arboretum. The Spring flowers we in full bloom. Tyler and Ellie had lots of fun smelling the flowers & running in
the prarie grass.

Wrap up of Tyler's Soccer

Ty's last couple of soccer games this weekend - with two games today and one yesterday. Busy! You can see Tyler's team in the first photo, minus two kids who could make it. The team did great, finishing with 4 wins and only 2 losses. I know, we aren't suppose to keep score, but what are proud parent's to do?

I also included a couple of action shots of Tyler. He played really well in the first game, never wanted to come out. Photo 2 was taken just before he scored his first goal - YEAH! I would show you a picture of it, but unfortunately, I only got his legs. He also had a real nice assist and started a couple of fast breaks.

No more soccer games for this year. It looks like T-ball is next. Hopefully he will have the same coach and many of the same teammates. The kids sure had a lot of fun and got along very well

Couple of photos of the kids

Just a quick update - tomorrow's will be longer.
First picture is Eliana hamming it up. Do you think she knows how cute she is? Melissa didn't even have to get her to pose - Eliana just does this when the camera comes out. I think we are gonna be in trouble when she gets older.

Here's Tyler showing off the loss of his second tooth. His is still very excited to show his friends and teachers at school, but isn't telling complete strangers like he did with the first tooth.

Saturday was Ty's second soccer game. He is having lots of fun and doing pretty good as well. He has an advantage being left footed, and is not afraid to mix it up. If he keeps it up, he get a goal sooner or later. Even though they don't keep score, his whole team knows they have won their first two games!

If you have never had a chance to watch a bunch of 5 year olds play soccer, you are missing out. 90% of the time they're all crowded around the ball, with the remaining 10% being when someone gets lucky by kicking it clear to start a fast break.

Ellie enjoys going to the games too, and often gets involved during warm-ups. During the game, she proudly tells everyone 'that's my brother'

Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

Went to our neighbor- hood Easter Egg Hunt last Friday. Unfortun- ately, we were either a few minutes late or they started early.

Either way, Melissa flashed some East Coast attitude, until she realized the kids didn't really care and were having fun regardless. At least it made it a lot easier for us to get some good pictures!

Last one for today. First picture is Tyler showing off his missing tooth. He was very excited about losing it - he told everyone all about it, even strangers. He was especially excited to get a gold one dollar coin.


The second photo is from this weekend. Ty and Ellie went with Melissa to a charity concert. Several business where on hand to help out. Ellie got a free hair styling courtesy of a local salon. She was very patient, sitting through the whole process. She really liked the sparkles in her hair.

A couple more post, mainly about Ty and Ellie playing baseball.

Tyler is getting real good at throwing, and pretty good at catching. Of course, he will tell you it is your fault he didn't catch it if you don't throw the ball right to his glove. Always wanting to do what big brother does, Ellie makes sure she is not left out. She has a pretty good arm.


Aside from baseball, Ty will be starting soccer this weekend. Once a week, they practice for 1/2 hour, then play a game for 1/2 hour. Both kids are taking swim classes as well and love it. Should be fun once the pool opens for the summer.