Sister Pics!

We wanted to take some pictures of the girls.

We hadn't really taken many pics (that weren't on a cell phone) of Zoe since she was born, so we tried it.















Kyra loved the idea of taking pictures (we just told her it was a princess dress, with a princess clip for her princess pictures.... don't know where the princess thing came from... I certainly didn't encourage it! )



















Zoe did a great job too! She's such a good baby... hardly fusses at all.














Ok... so this was reality. Zoe cried, Kyra really did NOT want to hold her sister or be in a picture with her (mostly because of the crying), and the pics she took on her own she "cheesed" so big that her eyes are squinted shut. Not to mention the man who was supposed to be holding up the background :) .... ah the joy of family pictures.

Snow Day!

We had an unexpected (-and huge-) snow day!

Kyra had so much fun last year in the snow in Utah, and she missed it. She couldn't have been happier when it snowed in her very own backyard.

My friend in CA knitted these matching hats for the girls... too cute!
















Eating the snow (of course)















Snowball fights with Daddy (all day.. I might add)















Kyra's new friend, Frosty...





















"Give frosty a kiss" we told her (or a lick I guess)

Doin' a Little Catch-up

As you may have noticed I'm not a 'regular' blogger. This causes frustration for many, which is understandable because I'm also not really a phone person... or an email-er... or a letter sender. So, in the spirit of catching you up, I'm sending pics of a few bigger events from last year (i.e. the events that people other than me were involved in so I was asked to bring a camera).

I know that you all would like to see more blog so this year I promise that I'll try harder-ish

Kyra's Room

Last year many of you may know that I painted Kyra's room. For those of you who haven't seen it, here it is right after I finished it. We have since put in furniture and drapes but taking a picture of the whole thing totally finished is asking a little much, don't you think?













It's a mural. A really big one. Kyra calls it her "bery own hundred acre woods," so that's what it is. I figure it will grow with her.


Merry Go Round and Round

Kyra also went on the merry-go-round last year for the first time. She went with Daddy, Grandpa Randy, and Grandma Jill. She was delighted!
















November at the Pun'kin Farm














Feeding animals, a hay ride, a tractor pulled "train", picking a pumpkin all by yourself, and a big red truck... any toddlers paradise.














Kyra loves her petting zoo animals, and she has no fear.














And she's definitely not a germaphobe...














In case you were out of the loop... tractors are cool, even little broke down ones are fun to pretend with.














The hay ride was fun (it was pulled by a tractor).














Plus, she loves anything that is like a train (including 50 gal water barrels sawed in half, strung together, and then pulled by a tractor).














So when you are 2-1/2 and you get to sit on a tractor just your size, and then you get pulled by a tractor twice in one day...it was a good day.














Kyra and the big red truck. I love this picture.








All Hallows Eve














Halloween was the other post I never posted. We went out with friends this year, and Kyra dressed up as Winnie the Pooh the Super Sleuth (from a new Disney show that she loves).














She thought that was cool, but didn't really want to dress up to leave the house. Once we got to our friends house and she saw that everyone else had dressed up she was all over that. This was the little group of kids that went. Too cute!














She was very independent this year, and wanted to keep up with the older kids. She did everything herself (with the exception of the houses with scary noises and strobe lights... despite her maturity she still has instincts).














You may wonder what Jon and I dressed up as... well he has his Waste Management shirt on, and I am a bag of garbage.... ha ha.

Rome!

This has been a long time in coming. Rome was almost a year ago. Yet, I still need to take the time and talk about it... because I LOVED ROME!

I was there just over a week, and most of the days I spent by myself while Jon was working. This means that I walked everywhere, went to a lot of museums and churches, and got lost frequently (direction is not my forte). I saw so much, and took so many pictures it is ridiculous. So here is a whirlwind tour of Rome for you.

Jon and I at the Colosseum. The Colosseum is cool. It's old and fascinating. Lets see... what else can I say about it?... its the Colosseum for crying out loud... and I was there.

This is me in front of the Pantheon. It is huge, and it has a hole in the ceiling that gives the Pantheon the boast that they have the biggest pillar in Rome... a pillar of light. Very crowded, but hey it's cool too, I can't blame everyone for wanting to see it.

These are the Baths of Caracalla. I loved this place. Peaceful, huge ruins that still had things like colored mosaics on the ground. They were fascinating. (I of course took all the self-guided audio tours whenever I went to a historical site/museum... because I'm a geek, and because I hate looking at stuff when I don't know anything about it... that's boring)

I took a whole day and just hit the churches in Rome. Each one I went into was breathtaking, and every one was breathtaking in a slightly different way.

Amazingly intricate detailing in this one...

This is a completely freestanding organ...

I had never seed so many different types of stone and marble....

There was a lot of interesting decor choices... a knight in one church ..... skulls, skeletons, and crossbones was the theme of another

This church had the head of John the Baptist as a relic.... the whole idea of relics was new to me. I guess I always knew about them, but just never thought about it. The idea of relics is now fully understood after Rome. We saw St Peter's chains, wood from the baby Jesus' manger, entire popes preserved and "on display" (for lack of a better term) under glass, all with altars and/or pews where you could pray and leave an offering. It was very different.

Saint Paul's Outside the Wall was the BIGGEST church I had ever seen (I hadn't seen the Vatican yet). It also had circular mosaics all around the church of all the popes that have ever been... and there have been a lot of popes.

Other things we saw in Rome...

This is the Trevi Fountain. It is pretty, and we saw it almost every night, because our favorite gelato place was just around the corner.... good memories.

The Ferrari museum/shop. Jon had to go in. Obviously.

And then Jon and I did go the Vatican together.

The museum was huge, and it had a whole lot of statues (which we had just seen a ton of) yet it didn't stop us from looking at almost all of them.

Jon found Gimli...

And raced chariots...

And then we hiked up the dome to the top.

Yes I am standing up straight. And Jon is a relatively skinny person. It was a tight fit.

This is us at the top.

So we had an incredible time in Rome. We saw just about everything, and yet the list continues of things we would like to see, or would like to see again.

I was one in a million tourists, so although I felt out of place, I really wasn't. And, I only got hopelessly lost once; but just so you know... even at 11:00 at night (and the subways shut down at 11:30) you can find people who will help you get where you need to be. And they are nice even if they don't speak ANY English and the only Italian you speak is made up from Spanish words you remember.

Needless to say, I would go back. In a heartbeat.