Omsi

Yesterday we went to Omsi in Portland with my friend Lisa and her son Ben. We just played in the discovery science room. It is pretty neat and the kids love it. So here are the kids in an eagle's nest. There is only supposed to be eggs in the nest, but some other children left all sorts of toys in there. As you can see Kenzie and Ben love the balls. Kenzie can now say "ball". Monday is her birthday and she will be one! She likes to repeat sounds so she can actually say a few words. Her vocab includes: Mama, Dadda, hello, hi, Eliana, ball, that, bannana "nana", buh bye, and she makes kissing noises quite often. Her favorite game is ring around the rosy. Well, sorry I got off on a tanget, but I just thought I would give you a little update.

Eliana's favorite place is the water station. She loves to pour water into different things. At this station, you wear a smock and boots that they provide for you. The kids still managed to get wet.

Eliana showing Kenzie how it's done.
Kenzie at the sand station. She thought the sand felt funny, but still liked it.
Eliana showing me how the airplane takes her to Grandma Smith's. This was at the building station. It had a town floor mat thingy with lots of cars, blocks and planes.

Christmas Time!! Decorations

We decorated the house on Monday night, a little late on the pictures, but here is David and Eliana doing the tree. We decided to get a tree just not too big and such since we aren't going to be here for Christmas. But when we chose our tree at the tree lot we didn't think it was very big til we got it home. It was a lot bigger than I thought. It is nice though.

Babysitter

Last week we had to chaperon a youth dance so we had David's cousin Joel and his wife Lila babysit. She took some pictures for us while she was watching the girls. They turned out really cute, I thought.

Eli and Kenzie under the table. Kenzie is trying to follow Eli.
Kenzie trying to get the drum set off the bookshelf.
Kenzie and Eliana at the table.
This one I love. Eliana looking in the mirror.
This was what Eliana called her "wreath" She made it and hung it on her doorknob. Lila got this cute picture. Eliana looks proud of her creation.
Kenzie looking in the mirror.
Here is Kenzers close up. Don't worry that was a scratch under her nose not a bugger. Thanks Lila for these adorable pictures.

The Carousel

Saturday we went to the carousel at Riverfront Park in Salem with David's family.

Here are the girls before we rode the carousel.
Here we are on the carousel, you can't see Kenzie though. I am holding her on the horse behind Eliana. This is before it started moving.
Here is David trying to talk Eliana into staying on the horse. She decided she just wanted to sit in the wagon looking thing. She wouldn't even ride on a horse on the carousel.
Here it is in action, sorry the picture isn't very good. Eli is sitting on David's lap on the wagon. There was a Santa also at the carousel but Eliana didn't want to go see him. Oh, well, we still had fun.

"Stickers"

So the other day when I was on the phone, Eliana was playing in the other room in the diaper bag and found some pantyliner pads (female products). She decided to try them on, so she put them on her feet and came to show me. She had one on each foot. She said, " Look Mom I found some stickers". I think she put them on the bottom of her feet, I am not sure why. It was really funny though.

Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Ours was good. The first two pictures are of the preparation for Thanksgiving. Eliana helped me make 12 pies. I also had her help clean up the flour she got everywhere. Here is her vacuuming. She loved rolling out the pie crust, and I let her even though she seriously got flour everywhere. She loves to do anything us adults do. She really does vacuum with this little vacuum we have.

The Strasser's always have tons and tons of pies on Thanksgiving. This year we had 20 and we even had other desserts as well. I didn't take a picture of the delicious food, but here is the pie table. That's the important stuff anyway.
We enjoyed Thanksgiving at the Strasser's with several people from out of town. David's Grandparents from California came, David's brothers Bryan and Justin came from Rexburg, along with Bryan's wife Heather and their daughter Ashlyn. David's brother Cory and his wife Heather and daughter Alyssa came from Corvallis. And of course David's sister Aleta and her husband Joe and daughters Siosi and Kalo. Here is a picture of Justin holding Ashlyn. She is really cute!

New Baby Cousin/Neice

Last week on November 7th, David's sister, Aleta had another baby, her 2nd. Everything went well and just thought I would post a couple of pictures of the baby. She is so adorable. Her name is Kalolaine, or Kalo for sort. Another nickname maybe Kali. You should like that Kalli (my sister)! She looks very hairy which is really cute, I guess it is because she is 1/2 Tongan.

The Gilbert House

On Saturday we went to the Gilbert House here in Salem. The girls had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures of them doing various things.

Eliana and Kenzie in the little rocking chairs.

Eliana on the triceratops.

Eliana doing big bubbles with a hola hoop.
Also in the bubble room, Eliana is blowing bubbles on a wand.
Again in the bubble room, Eliana is standing inside a bubble. This was her favorite room.
My little shopper in the play store room.
Both the girls in the big rocking chair.
The outside is a big playground structure. They have a huge wooden playground type thing and they have swings, slides, and just a bunch of play things. Here is Kenzie on the swing.
The cousins on one of the play things outside.
Kenzie on the dinosaur chair in the dinosaur room.
Also in the dinosaur room, Kenzie is sitting in the dinosaur nest with the eggs.
Kenzie in her favorite room, the toddler/infant room. In this room there are just lots of toys for toddlers.

Trick or Treat

So our Halloween was a lot of fun. Eliana was an elephant, yes, Eli the Elephant!

My two jungle animals by the pumpkin Eliana painted. She loved painting the pumpkin. We painted them at Grandma and Grandpa Strasser's and I forgot to bring the camera. We also carved one pumpkin.
Here are all the cousins before the trick or treating outing. From right to left: Siosi the ladybug, Kenzie the monkey, Alyssa the Elmo, and Eli the Elephant.
My little monkey Kenzie!

These were the only adults that got up the courage to dress up, well somewhat. Yes, that is David in the mullet wig and me with blonde crazy wig and Aleta, the pregnant nun!
We meet at our house before we went trick or treating and we had Papa Murphy's. Yum! Happy Halloween!

Popsicles

The other night I gave David's Dad a Fudgesicle and of course the girls wanted them. I have never given Kenzie one, but she went crazy. I had to get some pictures of it. I even got a good video of Kenzie going crazy. Look how dirty she is. She's my chocolate monster.

Now, Eliana on the other hand had to have her shirt off so it didn't get dirty and some napkins. She is obsessed with napkins. She still gets dirty but does want to have napkins around. As you can see she is holding her Popsicle with a napkin.