New niece (that is already getting old)

BRYNLY BETH OLSEN.................................
My sweetest little honey of a niece arrived March 17th, 2010. Her parents Rissie and Tyler, and brothers Tucker and Payton couldn't love her more. She weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long. My sister already has a bigger hair accessory collection than I do and my girls are 6 and 3. Rissie has been sending me pictures of this cutie since she was born, but all of them to my phone. Me, being the phone illiterate individual that I am, was not able to get the pictures off my phone. Finally Rissie sent a picture to my computer so I can now post her arrival with a picture. Just last week Rissie texted me a story. In her words, "Brynly got shots today. Tucker punched the nurse in the leg and yelled, you no hurt my sister! I laughed. Nurse didn't."

I can't wait to hold sweet little Brynly for myself.

Exersaucer

Ridge's favorite toy and the best $10.00 I've ever spent at a garage sale.

Puppet fun

This is the kind of random fun that makes we want to have the imagination my kids have... A puppet with a cracker taped to it's mouth. "He was hungry Mom."

A large pot and a blanket for the puppet show stage.

Fourth of July Treat....a better late than never post.

We spent a very quiet Fourth of July. I was sick the whole weekend (and for the next three weeks). All was not lost... we were able to make some red, white and blue fruit pizzas. The girls had a great time. Half the fruit was in their stomachs and the other half on the fruit pizzas. We were also able to set off a few fireworks with the Giles family and shared our fruit pizza with them.

Kauai Academy of Creative Arts

Kyleigh spent four weeks this summer at the Kauai Academy of Creative Arts. It is a summer program that has various types of creative classes to choose from. You can go in the morning, afternoon or all day. Kyleigh went for four hours every morning from 8-12. Her schedule included three classes and a snack break. She had to move from one classroom to another to get to each class. I was really nervous about sending her. She has never been to public school, she was going to be switching classrooms and she was the youngest age you could be to attend. They don't separate age groups so her classes were filled with kids several years older than her. On the first day I went and helped her map out her route and meet her teachers. When we were done we still had some time before classes started. She made her first two friends waiting outside the classroom and politely told me she was just fine and I could go now. I waited anyway. I couldn't make myself leave. She chose beading, airbrushing, and draw and paint for her three classes. Her favorite was beading, but it didn't beat airbrushing by much. She made lots of earrings and necklaces in beading and she learned how to sew beads onto fabric for larger beaded pieces. She made a heart necklace piece by sewing beads onto fabric. She also made a really cool 3-D beaded gecko. For airbrushing the teacher encouraged them to bring anything they wanted to airbrush. Kyleigh made shirts for herself and Katelyn and Ridge. They were pretty much the cutest, sweetest shirts ever. She also airbrushed some pillowcases and their final project was a lampshade. Draw and Paint was kind of a bust. They didn't really learn anything about drawing and didn't get much time to paint. The picture below was one that they worked on for almost two weeks, but Kyleigh finished hers in the first day so she didn't get a whole lot out of that class. It is a cool picture though. They had an open house at the end of the four weeks where we got to go have dinner and see/get the projects Kyleigh had been working on. The whole thing was a great experience for Kyleigh. They had to fill out a survey at the end of the four weeks and one of the questions was whether or not they would like to go for 5 weeks instead of 4. She has told us about 6 times that she answered with a YES on that question. She made lots of friends and can't wait until next year.

"I love my bruthr and sistr."

"I love you sis."

"I love you kutee"

The draw and paint picture.

Kyleigh's beaded items.

Father's Day 2010

Per Rusty's request our Fathers day dinner this year included steaks, salad, potatoes, jello, homemade rolls, and 2 apple pies (so he could have the leftovers for breakfast). Mike and Holly joined us for dinner. Rusty spent Friday and Saturday of Father's day weekend hiking to Kalalau so I had plenty of time to make pies, rolls,etc. I took some new pictures for Rusty's frame. I thought I was being so organized but I forgot the D-A-D letters for the pictures so they will have to wait until next year. It is fun to have three kids, one for each spot in his frame. I called Rusty's boss and had him bring the frame home from work on Friday so we could take the pictures while he was gone and have them printed and in the frame for Father's day. We had a great Father's day. Fitting, because we have a great Father!

Ridge's first food

Ridge is a solid little guy. We thought he would be so excited to try rice cereal for the first time. Wrong again. The pictures tell the story better than I can.

We waited a week to try again. The second attempt started a little better....

and ended about the same way.

We have continued trying to feed this little guy rice cereal and his reaction is about the same. He does like bananas though. Could it be that we have a picky eater?