Anna's 5th Birthday Party

On Saturday we celebrated Anna's birthday with a party for her friends. She has been saying since June that she wanted a Toy Story 3 party, so that's what we had. She had about 14 friends join her for the occassion and a good time was had by all. We played "Pin the tail on Bulls-eye," dropped army men off the balcony for a parachute contest, decorated Mr. Tortilla head, and took a swing at the home-made pinata of Lotso Bear (The villian from the movie). (That was hard for me to watch, but I survived!)Her actually birthday is Thursday and she really wants to head to Disneyland, so that's where we will be spending the day. Kris is going to take the day off to join us, and Katie and James will be celebrating with us too. It is hard to believe it has been 5 years since I became a mom. I am pretty sure it is the best thing to ever happen to me...after marrying Kris of course!

 

 

 

 

First Day of School, 9/8/10

Today is Anna's first day of school. We decided not to send her to Kindergarten this year and give her the "gift of time." She is at the same pre-school this year, but they have started a new program for 4&5 year olds where they have the option to stay all day. At our house we have been calling it "pre-kindergarten" because Anna had been talking a lot about going to Kindergarten. She will be attending 3 days a week, but only 2 of the days are all day. It is already strange thinking I have ALL day without her and find myself worrying about whether or not she will eat her lunch and actually rest at "rest time." She helped me pack her lunch, so hopefully that will help. I am sure I will miss her more than she misses me, and I know MJ will miss her. As we said bye to Anna at school this morning Mary-Jane was upset saying, "I going miss her! I going miss her!" Before long I am sure she will enjoy the one-on-one time, and it just won't be long until we have a baby to keep her company.

 

 

 

 

Surprise! It's Nana and Papa!

We chose to not tell the girls this time that Nana and Papa were coming to visit. We instead told Anna we had to go to the airport to pick up a package. At first she believe Katie and me, but not for long. She started asking us if we could wait to pick up Nana and Papa. No matter what we told her, she was pretty sure Nana and Papa were her "package." I said, "Have I been saying 4 more days! 3 more days! Tomorrow we get Nana and Papa?" And she would say, "no. but I still think they are coming!" She is a smart cookie! I took a little video of when she saw them!

Baby Sitting Mayley

Our really good friends asked us to watch their little girl, Mayley, while they went on a trip. We are having a great time with her and our girls are enjoying have another "sister" in the house. My parents came on the second day of watching Mayley, and she just LOVES Papa! She likes Nana too, but she is attached to Papa!



Anna has been a really big helper!


The girls had a lot of fun helping make pancakes!


And they really enjoyed eating them!!

More Graduation

 

 

 

 

Master of Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering

This morning we celebrated Kris's graduation from the Master's program at University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Although he officially graduated in December and has been working on his PhD. since January, UCSD only has one commencement a year after the spring quarter. Anna and I attended the 2.5 hr ceremony and were very proud of him as his name was called and he walked across the stage. I am hoping to take more formal looking pictures this week before he returns his cap and gown, but we thought we would share some of the pictures and video from today. He still has a lot of work and a few years until he is completely finished, but it was very meaningful to celebrate this milestone with him today.

a very "moving" Easter

We had a wonderful time celebrating the resurrection of our Living Lord. It is so fun with Anna and all the questions she asks. For her it is not about candy and the Easter baskets (although she enjoys that too!) but she is excited that Jesus comes back to life and does not stay dead! And it makes it more meaningful for me too, to be seeing the special day through the eyes of a child.





We spent the morning at church, and between Kris and me, we were involved in all 4 services! From church we went to our good friends' house, Christy and Darren, for a delicious Easter lunch and Easter egg hunt. Shortly after the lunch we experienced the large 7.1 earthquake that hit Baja, Mexico. For us it felt like a 4.2, but it lasted 45 seconds long and was quite disorienting. We are thankful no one was hurt and there was no damage, so we are able to look back at laugh.





Finally, after all the fun there, and naps for the whole family at our house, our girls hunted for their own baskets and eggs. The day finished with a bath in their new bathing suits they received in their baskets. It was a busy day, but a wonderful celebration!

Visit with Aunt Missi and Uncle Dan

The end of March Kris's sister, Missi and her husband, Dan came to San Diego to visit us as well as Dan's brother. We had a nice time with them, playing at the park, having a picnic and getting free Ben and Jerry's ice cream! It was great to see them!



Right after they left we got to see Uncle Nate for just one evening. He was in town for a photo shoot for work. Although the time was short, it was great!

It's been a while...

I want to apologize for the long pause in the blogging. For those of you have not heard, we are expecting Gibson #3 in October, and I have been pretty wiped out. Any down time has been spent napping. But I am feeling better now and am planning on catching everyone up on some of the things you have missed....starting with MJ's birthday!
MJ turned two on March 14th. Because we had the party in February, we had a fairly low key day as a family, going to Chuck E. Cheese's in the evening and having pie and ice cream after dinner with Aunt Katie and Uncle James. Mary-Jane enjoyed opening presents and had to sleep in her new Tiana night gown that night.