What a fun weekend! For the first time in years, we spent Memorial Day with the Smith girls! It wasn't at the lake but it still had all the same necessities... with a few kids thrown in!! This time around we got to have a Friday night Party Night that actually lasted longer than four hours... it was amazing! We had Cort, Jon and Connor as well as Colette and Toni at the house all weekend. We tried to Facetime with our fellow Friday Night Partyers down in AZ and it was mostly a bunch of us laughing and saying 'Hi' and 'Cheers'! The kids were pretty into the Ipad so I think the adults on the other end just saw their faces.


On Saturday, we went to the market, had some awesome polish food (which was recreated for us Monday night by Jon and Ryan), and hung out at Multnomah Falls. We didn't take the scenic route so they only saw the big waterfall but it was worth it. On Sunday we went to the local farmer market and had the kids run around like crazy at the playground. We tried to play some Wii Dance one night, it turns out Jon is surprisingly good Tonto, Jump on it. Laughing about his mad skills led us to do some Youtube searching for the original superstars of Jump On It... Carlton and the Fresh Prince. Yeah, we had a good time. 


Monday was spent getting pedis and making pierogi... this really good potato and cheese thing from Poland. I am salivating just thinking about them.


Enjoy the pictures!


~Ahna

The next thing we did was fly to Hawaii! We stayed on the Big Island in Kona. Ryan's grandmother had been a couple years ago and wanted to go back with us. We were more than happy to oblige. It was such a different world there. When you leave the airport, you see mostly black rocks, lava, everywhere. It doesn't look like what one would normally think of when they think of Hawaii. But it was beautiful. There were tons of sandy, amazing beaches with really blue, clear water. Then we drove to the other side of the island which was filled with waterfalls and botanical gardens and rocky cliffs. It really was amazing. 


Neither of the kids had spent much time at the beach so it was really fun to watch them get so into the water and the waves. Cooper was jumping all over them and by the end of the trip, as predicted, Olivia would just walk RIGHT into the water. Swimming was not high on her list of priorities however and it escaped her mind that she doesn't actually know how to do that yet!


We will definitely go back there someday. I could write more, but the pictures say it so much better!


~Ahna

It's hard to believe it's already been four years... I know every parent says that... probably with each and every year that goes by.  Cooper celebrated his fourth birthday in May. Mom and Dad were here to watch the kids while Ryan and I jetted off to Aruba for four days. There was a work trip I was invited to go on. I know, I know... it's a tough job. We got back to Portland and the next day was Cooper's birthday. I stayed home from work until he was awake. We had pancakes and a cupcake for his birthday breakfast. That night we had a little celebration and then we had another one later in the week where some friends came over. Dad also celebrated his birthday that week AND we had Mother's Day. May is a busy time for this family!


Cooper just finished his last day at Kinder Care. They had a spring program where all the kids got on stage. There were 12 kids in his class and 12 kids in the preschool class which is a year older. Cooper was the first one up to the microphone!! He said 'Hi, my name is Cooper and we're going to sing the A,B,C's!' Then... he BOWED... he's a stage genius. I had tears. He is scheduled to attend the same place next year with the same teacher but he may be able to get into the preschool program at his elementary school. We won't know until closer to the beginning of the year.


It's his summer now so hopefully we come up with all kinds of fun things to do for him!


~ Ahna

I was going to do one HUGE blog but decided against it. Bryce and Amanda deserve their own story after all! My brother in law Bryce met Amanda about 9 years ago when he was an angst ridden teenager. They say you marry a person who makes you a better person or you marry someone who makes you whole or you marry your soul mate. Bryce and Amanda are all those things to each other. She really did help him grow into an amazing man, someone that will always be there for her and take care of her. It has been so enjoyable to watch the two of them grow together as a couple.


Their wedding was amazing... our second one in two Saturdays down in Tucson! The first was our lovely friends Jasmine and Eric and that was a date night for us... but we didn't take the camera! Bryce and Amanda got married in this awesome place out in the middle of nowhere in Tucson... it was beautiful... although the owners of the house were less than hospitable as the night wore on. If I could comment card the place I would. They had the most delightful dessert table I've ever seen. Tons of large champagne glasses (I'm talking nine times the size of a normal glass) were filled with M&M's and Skittles and Jelly Bellies. My inner fat kid was in heaven, it was like a jubilee of candy. Then they had cake, and some crazy sugar bacon thing and just a bunch of different desserts all on the table. The food was delicious, of course, when you are attending a wedding where everyone involved is part of the cooking world somehow, you know it's going to be phenom.


Months prior to the ceremony, Bryce and Amanda asked Ryan if he would officiate for them. He was very nervous and he didn't want it to be the same old 'boring' ceremony. We threw a bunch of different things together from other ceremonies and then wrote our own stuff in and in my completely unbiased opinion, he did an amazing job. I hope somebody videotaped it because I'd like to see it someday.


Speaking of videotapes... I've been MIA because our computer went down. Well, that and we haven't really been home for the majority of the last 7 weeks. But we lost a good portion of the photos we took from February up until the wedding. Technology... sheesh. Losing the pictures did make me commit to doing an actual photo book, one that I've been meaning to make for years; something where the very best photos will be on paper.


One of the nights I lost was our Friday Night Party Night before we went down to Tucson for the wedding. It was such a fun night and it seemed like we had more time together that night. I don't have any pictures of it... just memories... 


More blogs to follow!


~Ahna

This is a great time of year. Lots of stuff happens. There's Spring, and our anniversary, and Easter and a bunch of birthdays! Ryan and I celebrated eight years together on Tuesday and it was such a great night. We had a ton of fun but we normally do!


This weekend we celebrated Easter! I love Easter. Ahhh, who am I kidding... I love most holidays. But I really get into Easter. The year we got married was really close to Easter and when we returned from our honeymoon I actually made Ryan color eggs with me. Then (***CHILDREN DO NOT READ THIS SENTENCE***) we split them up and hid them for each other. Poor guy, he didn't have a clue what he had gotten into! This year, we had a beautiful weekend. We colored the eggs outside on Saturday after the kids naps. It was good that we did it outside because Olivia got a little overzealous with the dye and Cooper REALLY got into putting sparkles on the eggs! Clean up was really easy though and the color came off my hands by the end of the day today, mostly. Cooper was really involved this year and all day yesterday he was talking about the egg search and how the Easter Bunny was coming to hide the eggs. This morning before it was time to get up we heard him yell 'Mama/Dadda I need to go potty' and then run to the bathroom. A few minutes later I saw him come out of the bathroom and run right back to bed. He didn't even look at the top of the stairs to see if anyone was down there watching him. It was like he knew he had to wait until we got up to get him. The egg hunt itself lasted a very short period of time, but that's what you get when there are only 13 eggs. The bunny hid a few plastic eggs as well that he made sure were easier for Olivia to find. In her search for the eggs, she did accidentally step on one... it was still good!


We had some family and friends over for an Easter brunch. I forgot to take any pictures of course, but Ryan got one great picture of the new baby in the family, Knox. He was perfect the whole time the Dolans were with us. Olivia got really into the egg hunt once we were inside. I kept picking up the plastic eggs and putting pennies in them and then re-hiding them around the house for her to find. She kept finding them and would scream in delight at how exciting it all was. She would then pile them up wherever I was and look at me like 'we're gonna keep doing this right?' It was adorable so I took a video. It literally lasted until she went to bed tonight. She got some pretty awesome sunglasses in her easter basket. She loves playing with Cooper's sunglasses and putting them on so it made sense that she got her own pair. They have made it through an entire day without getting broken by her, so we call that a success. 


My only problem with Easter is the amount of candy I have to eat... I mean, what if the pastel colored pretzel M&M's taste different than the regular ones and what if the egg shaped Reese's Pieces pale in comparison to the original ones? I would need to be able to tell people about it and warn them away if necessary. Luckily, I'm always willing to take one for the team. 


Hope everyone had a great weekend! Happy Easter!


~Ahna

Sweet Readers (all 9 of you, HA!)... it's been awhile. It's not that we've been too busy. We've been up to lots of things. Cooper went ice skating sat on the ice with his preschool. Olivia started dance class where she mostly wants to be held, which is of course the opposite of when she's at home. We had friends and family come to visit. Olivia wore pigtails for the first time, it lasted at least 2 minutes. We celebrated Valentine's Day, we lost a portion of a tooth, we had a birthday. We had snow, we had sun! We had a beautiful winter. What's that you say... you want to hear about the broken tooth? So do we, but she can't talk yet. We didn't even take our eyes off of Olivia. We were in the same room, the same five foot vicinity, the same breathing space, and somehow Olivia broke a portion of her tooth. We may start calling her 'Snaggletooth' but we're not sure yet how that might affect her in the future.

A couple weekends ago Ryan and I went up to the mountain for our first snowboarding trip since we lived here. Only it was less of a snowboarding trip and more of a really long drive to the snow. It was blowing forty mile per hour winds and for a good portion of our drive up the mountain we couldn't see anything. I really love snowboarding, but I don't enjoy paying money to spend my whole day miserable due to wind and vertigo like conditions. Ryan, being the good man he is just drove back down the mountain. We stopped for some pictures which didn't really make up for it.

For my birthday last weekend, I got to hang out with the family. We had great food all weekend. We took some good walks around the neighborhood and we got to go on a great hike. It was almost two miles and Cooper did the whole thing by himself. It was an awesome weekend. On our walk to get ice cream on Sunday night, we were both saying what a perfect weekend it was. There is an ice cream place by our house that mixes the craziest flavors together, one that comes to mind is pear and blue cheese. They have some more normal ones (things like caramel, etc) so I can appreciate the place as well. The one I tried on Sunday night? It was a rainbow sherbet, invented by a local second grade class. I tried it because the rainbow of flavors was that of my favorite candy... Skittles... TASTE THE RAINBOW. Ya, it was good.

Here are a bunch of pictures from the last few months.

I'll try not to stay away so long next time.

~Ahna

Well, it seems as though the holidays went too fast again this year. We had a Christmas tree hunt after we returned from Thanksgiving to get it started. The kids were great on our hunt and Santa was there as well. Cooper mostly just wanted to point and smile at him though, he didn't actually get close to him! 


We took lots of walks to the park and Cooper went on his first boat trip down the river on a field trip with preschool (Dada got to go with him and take pictures)! We also took advantage of a twofer at Zoolights (2 for 1 tickets). It was so much fun to take the kids out and have them see all the lights. We even got to see the big elephant!


We spent Christmas Eve with some family, Billy and Brynne and their daughter Claude. We had a delicious turkey and all the good stuff that goes with it. The kids got to play and it was a good way to spend our time waiting for Santa to get here! After getting the kids to sleep, Ryan and I drank hot chocolate and watched Elf which I'm thinking is the beginning of a new and incredible Christmas tradition! I love that movie, it always makes me laugh. I was so excited for Christmas morning I could barely stand it. The kids got all kinds of fun books and new clothes and building blocks. Cooper got TONS of hotwheels from Santa which is pretty much all he wanted (those and a plane but luckily Santa was able to sneak in some matchbox planes!). Olivia got this awesome little walker/pusher thing. She doesn't need help walking but she ABSOLUTELY loves to sit in something and have her brother push her around. She also likes pushing it around while there are things in it. She sometimes likes falling out of it too, just depends on her mood! Santa brought Ryan a bunch of fun stuff for brewing beer as well as some other goodies and I got an awesome new camera!! I'd been wanting a point and shoot for awhile so we have a smaller camera to take with us on quick trips to the park and it is such a cool one! I've been using it almost everyday! 


We hung out all day mostly in our pajamas (cause why would we need to get dressed on Christmas?). We had a great dinner that night, which almost made up for my epic failure of a pull apart (note to self... frozen bread rolls that have been in the freezer for over a year are definitely not still good). 


The next day, Nonna and Papa came to visit and we had another Christmas! The kids always enjoy having Nonna and Papa around and Ryan and I take advantage by going out on dates. We went to an early dinner on New Years Eve and ended up ringing in the actual new year with my parents! I don't remember when I've last made it until midnight... so pathetic. 


The weather here has been gorgeous and we have been taking advantage of it as much as possible with trips to the park and just spending time outside. In Olivia news... she is oddly fantastic at blowing her nose, something that I think is a definite skill to have. I remember being in the third grade and having my teacher try to explain to all of us the 'proper way' to blow our noses (she was a bit off though, right Colette?? :) ). She is also really excited to test out the strength of her head and she does so by falling on her face as often as possible. As soon as we get one scratch or bruise all healed up, she makes sure to put a mark on some other part of her face! 


Happy New Year everybody!! Here's to a wonderful and healthy 2012!


~ Ahna and Ryan