Merry Christmas!

Aimee is 4!

We had Aimee's party at Papa's Pizza this year. Easy, and she loved it. She wants it there again next year.

Check out that awesome cake I made!

I love her face in this one. Concentration!

 I can't believe my baby is four. She still has a cute little baby face, but she is so not a baby anymore. So sad! And also so happy, because let's face it, she was a pain in the rear for a long while. 

And while we're at it, about 4 years ago, she was in here:

My only shirt that fit, and it didn't even cover my whole belly by then!

I know this is a terrible picture of me, but look at how far my stomach sticks out! It's like she was trying to come out my belly button! And that's why my stomach will never be the same. 

Thanks Aimee. Happy Birthday! You'll be seeing this picture every year to remind you to be grateful to your mommy!

Aimee Dancing

This is Aimee at her finest!

Thanksgiving

This was a fun Thanksgiving!

As a kid, there was always a group of runners that went past our house on Thanksgiving. Ours was the kind of family that laughed at how crazy those people were. And now, we have become them! Lisa, Natalie and I did the Turkeython 5k!

Here we are in action!

Probably the worst picture of me ever! Natalie looks awesome though!

 Then I promptly ate way too much and undid any good I did by running. But I did make this cute guy:

And I think it will be a tradition, because it is awesome! I am very proud of my turkey. And very glad Kelsey took a picture of it, because it was annihilated very soon after this was taken!


And since it wouldn't be Thanksgiving unless I said something I am thankful for (thanks for that Dad!) I will say, I am so grateful for all of my family, including my in-laws. I love all of them! And I am also thankful it's the last Thanksgiving without my parents here! They'll be back in March, and I'm so excited!

Halloween

For some reason, every year Katie ends up with more than one Halloween costume. I only buy her one, and plan on the one, but she always picks something else (we already have). So this year she decided to be a witch. She went to a couple things as a witch, but on actual Halloween she decided she wanted to be a cheerleader. We already had the outfit (thanks to Erica!) so whatever. Aimee picked her costume (skunk) months in advance and wore it like 5 times. They are so different! On to the pics!

Katie is making a goofy face in every pic. With cousins Jessica, Kristen and Emily.

Love that face

And the one pic of Katie as a witch, sans hat and broom. She looks like Elvira!

First Day of Kindergarten!

Katie started her fist day of Kindergarten on Sept 9th. Half the class went on the 8th, and half on the 9th to get the basic routine down before throwing 21 kids all together! The parents were invited for the first half hour of class. So I put Katie on the bus for her first ride ever, and then drove to school. She was the only kid on the bus that day! 

Waiting at the end of our street

Sister hug!

Ane was nice enough to get one of me in there!

She looks so tiny on the bus!

The lone bus rider

She saw me!

in her classroom

silly face!

She loves kindergarten, and I do too!

Annual Beach Trip

Every year I like to take the girls to the coast sometime during the summer. This year we didn't make it out until the week before school, but the weather was awesome and we had so much fun!

Katie drew lots of sand pictures

A very Aimee face

Katie is posing!

A rare Jon picture

The water was freezing!

Aimee made a friend

Goodbye beach!

We can't wait to do it again next year!

Katie is 6!!!

Happy Birthday to my cute little Katie with the greatest head of hair on a six year old ever! We love her so much.

Here she is at school with her birthday crown

She had a party with her cousins, and they came to meet her off the bus.

She was so excited!

She also had her very first friend party this year. But since I was in charge of it and stressed out, I took zero pictures. But I did make her this cake, one layer pumpkin and one layer chocolate, with cream cheese frosting. We'll pretend it looked just like this :)

I can't believe she's six. She thinks she's so old now, it cracks me up.

Summer Catch up

So the last thing I blogged about happened in May. I'm just going to do a real quick summer recap with some pics! The girls were pretty much wearing their swimsuits starting the end of June right to the beginning of school in September. I love summer, but I'm glad the rain is back. I'm an Oregon girl, I love the rain and gray skies, and cooler weather. Anyway!

Katie is sooo serious

I am so sad this one is blurry. Funniest pic of Aimee ever!

Aimee got pink eye, and it was SO swollen. Poor girl!

They had their dance recital in June. None of the girls in the class remembered the dance, but it was still pretty cute.

Aimee cut her own hair, so she got a drastic (for her) haircut. So sad.

Aimee sticking her bum in the sprinkler. They got hours of entertainment out of this.

We went to see Kim and her kiddos, and this was the only pic I got! Sad.

They love to dress up.

So that is the girls' summer. I started the couch to 5K in July, and I'm almost done! I can now run 30 min straight, but I am soooo slow. But, I never thought I would be able to run that much, so go me! I'm planning on mostly running a 5K soon.

I will be back to blog about the Hornibrook family reunion, and the start of Kindergarten!

Tahiti again

Thurs

Shopping day! We went downtown to the market, and I got quite the shock there. There were little animal boxes made out of coconut shells and wood, and I opened one to find 6 or so HUGE cockroaches that skittered out. I threw the box back down. There were a ton of cute ones, but after that there was NO WAY I was bringing one home. My mom bought the girls cute matching skirts at a little shop:

And little necklaces too.

Fri

We went to Moorea, and island an hour away by ferry. I was very excited to go!  We went on a little boat around a fourth of the island over to an atoll called Motu Fareohe.

On a boat!

Look at that water!

My dad, touching a ray. I abstained.

 At the atoll we had a bbq where they made poisson cru (raw fish) and grilled chicken, and Uru. Uru is breadfruit. And it pretty much tastes like potatoes, with the texture of a banana. I got banged up by some coral, and an awesomely bad sunburn. (My mom offered to put sunscreen on me, and I was like, no, I'll be fine. I was not fine!) In order for my coral lesions to not get infected we had to rub limes on them. That really stung, but my legs are still attached!

That night we went out to a restaurant that one of my parent's friends works at. I really didn't want to go because I was so tired and ouchy from the sunburn, but I'm so glad I did. The food was AMAZING! The best meal I've had possibly ever. They brought me a vegetarian platter with every single side dish, and an amazing cream sauce to pour all over it. They brought us drinks, and salads, and dessert. We all thought we were too full until we tried them. My mom and I had some tropical fruit sorbet, but my dad had and apple tart that really was the yummiest thing I've ever tasted. We were stuffed, but it was soooo good.

Sat

Moorea. We did a tour of the island, saw sea turtles at the intercontinental:

Turtle!

And we drove up to the Belvedere lookout.

Awesome view!

Then my dad and I hiked up to the top of the lookout, which was also beautiful.

Check out my awesome sunburn! It was ouchy.

aaaaand more roosters. They were everywhere!

Sun

Church, and we picked some figs, which were so good. And I packed.

Mon

 I finished up some shopping in the morning, and my mom drove me around while I looked.
We went to the Roulettes, which is a bunch of food carts downtown. We went with my mom and dad's group of American friends, the mission and temple presidents, and temple couple. It was a lot of fun, and the food was really good. They all gave me shell necklaces and it was so nice of them. I cried because it was so nice, but mostly because I was glad my parents had such good friends there. Two of the three couples are done with their missions, and my parents are really missing them!

My flight left around midnight, so we headed to the airport pretty soon after. It was sad saying goodbye, but I missed Jon a lot.

THE END!

Tahiti (Part deux)

*Blogger is having issues with pictures. It is so frustrating. Takes the fun right out of blogging! That is why this post took so long. Also because it has so many pictures. Enjoy!

Tuesday

We went to a tomb of some king or chief. My dad would know. One thing about Tahiti, is there are dogs and chickens roaming around everywhere! And they are skiiiiiiny. Seriously, when I got home I just kept thinking the chickens are so fat here!

Ok, so this particular dog is not skinny, but most were. That tomb up there is made of coral. And there were banana trees all around.


Then we went to Venus Point. It's a really nice black sand beach.

Me and my Dad

 And then to a waterfall where I demanded that my parents kiss. They did, of course.

Cute!

Wednesday

So Wednesday we did the tour of the whole island, Tahiti, and the Tahiti-iti.(which is almost like a tiny island off of the mainland, but it's connected by an isthmus. I think.)

So first off we got this gorgeous view:

This is looking out to the main island from the plateau

This is where I stood too close to the edge of the rocks and slid down, nearly doing the splits. So graceful looking, I'm sure.

This looks like a scene from Apocalypse Now

Kids getting out of school

So many of them!

That was right after we ate lunch at this little place where I had an amazing salad, and realized I like goat cheese. It was sooooo good.

The next few pics are from the same place

This is a scene from one of Tahiti's gardens, famed for their gorgeous flowers... in the bathrooms.

Ew!

This is evidence of the waterfall I made my poor parents hike up to see. It was pretty steep!

Enlarge it if you want, but you can barely see it.

Giant Ferns!

They look like they could eat you!

There were trees like this all over, but this one was huge!

The branches grow roots!

That was my favorite place. The bathroom garden. 

We also went to the Paul Gauguin Museum (where we got eaten by mosquitoes) another waterfall, and some awesome grottoes. They were dark and kind of creepy, and cold, but so cool. And of course, there were chickens.

this one's a rooster

Alright! Part three coming up sometime soon!