Lots to catch up on! Part II

Colorado Springs

After we camped we headed up to Colorado Springs. Sunday night we were supposed to go to a balloon glow, but the weather was bad, so on Monday morning we went out on our balcony of our room and watched them in the morning.

Monday we went to Cave of the Winds. I was a little worried that the girls would be scared being down in the cave, but they had no problems at all.

Me and my girls in the cave.

The hike through the cave was about 1/2 mile and had about 200 stairs. Aly insisted on walking the whole thing by herself!

No, the picture's not messed up. At one point in the tour they turned off all of the lights. Kayla and Aly didn't get scared at all, but my claustrophobia started to set in at that point.

The view from the entrance to the cave.

I took these pictures for my dad. This furniture was so cool!

On to Denver.....

We went and hung out with Naomi,

Erin, Sam,

and of course, Uncle Bo. (Thanks again for dinner and the soccer stuff!)

Back in Colorado Springs.... Tuesday we went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. It was so much better than the zoo here in Albuquerque. The picture above is of Kayla about to pet a baby wallaby.

My new friend. The girls kind of freaked out when they saw me go up to it. They thought it was real.

Me and my girls in My Big Backyard. (Everything was giant size.)

Kayla's new friend.

This zoo has the largest herd of giraffes in the world (in captivity). You can only see a few of them in this picture.

A baby giraffe. There were 3 or 4 babies.

Joe petting the giraffe.

Kayla feeding the giraffe a cracker. (Don't worry... it was allowed and we paid $1.00 to do it.)
Below is a video of Joe feeding his new friend. He wanted to come home with us, but there wasn't room in the van.

We also went to Old Colorado City, swimming, and we drove around a lot to see what Colorado Springs was like. All in all. the trip was really fun! The only downside was having to come home. (I had a migraine on the way home so it really wasn't fun for me!) I'm already looking around for ideas for our vacation next year. Any suggestions?

Lots to catch up on! Part I

CAMPING
Over Labor Day we went camping up in Cumbres Colorado. Joe's family has a cabin made out of old boxcars. It rained a lot while we were there, but we had a lot of fun. Joe and I set the tent up just minutes before a storm hit. Luckily we stayed dry through the night and the girls stayed asleep through all of the thunder.

The Boxcars

The backside of the boxcars. (With deluxe outhouse on the right!)

The land. (Look at all those mini-vans!)

Inside

Inside, the two rooms. There's two big bunk beds in one and one bunk bed in the other.

Aly taking a hike with Grandma and Jacob.

Kayla spent most of her time picking flowers.

Joe and Braden playing catch.

Kayla taking a stroll with Hannah and Katie.

Waiting for the train.

Kayla and her buddy Braden.

Here comes the Cumbres and Toltec train!

Joe's cousin, James, came and spent some time up there with us. They put in a zip line a while a go. Here's a video of James showing us how it's done.

I've been slacking!

I've been lazy with my blog lately! Not too much has been going on here. We've finally gotten back into a schedule around here. Kayla is loving school. Her teachers are Mrs. Prager, and Mrs. Grey. They are very sweet ladies and are great teachers. I was a little worried about how good the program was going to be, but it's very good. Kayla brings home a homework assignment every night and has a reading log we have to keep up with. She has impressed her teachers with how well she can recognize letters and she can even write them all now. She also can write her name without any help at all. I've been working on her with reading and she's starting to get the smaller words down. Hopefully she'll be reading books by the time she's 5. She's also getting ready to start her soccer season. She got to meet her team last week. They don't have a team name yet, but they are orange and black. I'll post pictures of her as soon as we have her whole uniform. Joe is going to be a referee for her team. It should be a lot of fun. I think I'm just as excited about it as she is!
Alyssa has suprised me with how she's adapting to Kayla being gone. I thought she would play with all of Kayla's toys and enjoy having me to herself, but instead when I ask her what she wants to do, she asks to watch her favorite show and lay on the couch the whole time Kayla's gone. I think she just enjoys the quiet. For me, it's been different only having one kid at home again. Grocery shopping sure is easier with just one.
We're getting ready to go on a vacation!! We're going to go camping with Joe's family for a few days and then we're heading up to Colorado Springs and Denver for a couple of days. I'm excited to get out of the house for a change. I've never been to Denver or Colorado Springs either. Plus, I get to see my new nephew Sam and his big sister Naomi. That should be fun. I'll have plenty of pictures to post when we get back, so until then....

Welcome Sam!

Sam Andrew
9.5 lbs.
Congrats Erin, Steve, and big sister Naomi!

Kayla's First Day of School

Today was Kayla's first day of school. (We thought that she was supposed to start on the 29th, but they actually don't start the preschool until the 14th.) She only went for an hour and a half today to get used to the setting and the teachers before next week. She loved it! They got to play outside, have circle time, and snack time. She didn't want to leave! As you can see in the picture, she has to wear a uniform to school. I had to order toddler size pants and they're still too big! Maybe by the end of the year they will fit. Where did my baby go?

My Little Girls

At the girl's doctors appointments we finally got their actual weight and height. We are happy to announce... Kayla is finally on the growth charts! Her whole life she's been way under where they don't even have a line. She is now in the 25 percentile in weight and the 50% in height. She is now 28.5 lbs. and 39" tall. Aly on the other hand remains in the 5th percentile on both. She is barely 21 lbs. and 31" tall. They were sad after they got their shots so we went and bought them a little pool.

Aly pouting in her daddy's lap.

The Popsicle cheered her up!

I love this picture of Kayla.

My girls.

Our garden. Since we have sand under the rocks, we had to plant everything in planters. We've got tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and cherry tomatoes. We had chilies but they didn't make it.

Finally Updating

Kari Ann told me that it was time for me to put something new on my blog, so here it is. The last month has been kind of crazy. Right after Aly's birthday we ended up going up to Farmington for Joe's aunts funeral. Since I was going to be going up for July 4th anyway, I decided to just stay up there and Joe came back home for work. I was up there just over 2 weeks. We stayed pretty busy and had lots of time to spend with the family. The girl's really enjoyed having their cousins to play with. On July 4th we spent the day swimming and having a BBQ with my family. That afternoon, Joe surprised us and showed up. He had told me he wasn't going to come back up, but he did anyway. It was a nice surprise because we missed him. We did fireworks that night with Joe's family. Aly was scared of them so her Aunt Amy took her back in the house and they watched from the window. Saturday Joe and I got to go on a date (which doesn't happen very often). We went and saw Get Smart. It was pretty good, but at the same time it was ruined because there were some really annoying people in the theater that kept repeating the lines and laughing really loud at parts that weren't funny. Joe headed back home on Sunday, but the girls and I stayed because Kayla took a dance class at the Kiddie Kollege with her cousin, Jaylee. She had a lot of fun and she did really good at the recital too. I'm going to post the video, but I don't have the cord yet so it will have to wait. (For some reason every store in town is sold out of the firewire we need to connect our digital video camera up to the computer. We have to order it online.) We came home on Friday afternoon. I drove through 3 separate rain storms. Thank goodness the girls slept so I could concentrate on driving. I'm also glad I had the van because our Nissan doesn't handle well in bad weather. Anyway... we're home and settled now. The girl's had doctor appointments last week and they both had to get shots. Then they were sick the day after that. Kayla starts school next Tuesday so I'm trying to think of fun things to do for her last week of summer break. She's going to a year-round school so they start a lot earlier than most schools. I'll have to post some pictures of her in her uniform. Well, that's all for now. I'll try not to get so behind on my posts anymore. :-)

The night before we left for Farmington, Kayla fell of her bed and hit her face on her dresser.

Kayla got a haircut! This is while we were waiting for her turn.

At the fireworks with their cousin Allison.

My surfer girl with Grandpa Churchill. She refused to put her swimsuit on that day.

Jaylee and Kayla getting ready for dance class.

Our little ballerinas.

My sisters and I had went and had pizza at a park one night. No kids!

This is how the Churchill's spend their 4th of July.

Aly's Birthday

Here are some pictures we took from Alyssa's 2nd birthday.

Aly's not too fond of cake so I made her a giant chocolate-chip cookie instead. She wanted My Little Ponies on it, so I just stuck them in big gobs of frosting. She loved it!

She loves Barbies, but didn't have any of her own. (And Kayla's not so good about sharing hers.) Kayla got her a purple ballerina Barbie and her Grandma Stradling got her a set of swimming Barbies. She was so happy! (Unfortunately, Kayla thinks they are hers now too and they have been fighting over them.)

Every since Kayla got a bike for her birthday, Aly's been asking us for one. Her feet aren't long enough to reach the pedals, but she can still scoot it around.

I took this picture on the morning of Aly's birthday and I liked it so I wanted to share it.

Happy Birthday!

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY ALY!!!!!!
We Love You!

Happy Birthday to Uncle Jon too!
&
Happy Anniversary to Greg & Tara!