Idol, Musical, Miles, and Smile's!

Along with the rest of America, American Idol has been a "must see" at our house. This is the first year that we have really gotten into the show and have really enjoyed it! We've rocked with Gina, cried with Haley, lived through Sanjaya, and bee bopped with the best of 'em. To our surprise, however, Kelsie has become quite the fan. She looks forward to watching it every week and has her heart set on Jordin to win the ultimate idol title. I was very proud when I heard her singing outside at the top of her lungs, "livin' on a prayer" over and over and over again. The other night we were trying to encourage her to read her book from school and Wally said, "How do you think Jordin knows all those words in the songs? She reads a lot and learns a lot of words that way!" Kelsie's response: "Well, I already know how to sing..." It took all I had not to start laughing! Of coarse I believe that Kelsie can do anything that she sets her mind to and I will in no way keep her from achieving her dreams, we just might need to invest in some singing lessons!

The other huge thing at our house right now is High School Musical. We have listened to the cd thousand's of times, watched the movie over and over again, woken up in the middle of the night singing "Soarin', flyin'..." and have even learned the dance to the final song. Just when I thought we had all we could handle of the show, there is a concert out now and a sequel coming out soon. Even though it gets on our nerves, it is really funny to hear Brandon break out in song while he's playing pirates. Nothing strikes fear into the heart of an enemy sea captain when he hears a 3 year old pirate belting out "Together, together, come on let's have some fun!"

Last Saturday we participated in the Family Adventure Bike Race here in Richland. It was designed along the Colombia River bike trail with 5 challenges along the way each family had to complete. Upon completing the challenges, you would draw from a deck of face cards and get as many points as the value of the card (ace=1, king=13). At the end of the race the points were added up and the family with the highest points won the grand prize. Kelsie and Brandon were very excited to race and rode their bikes with Wally and completed all the tasks (Caleb and I walked part of it and then met them at the finish line). Most everyone on the race was very impressed with Brandon's biking abilities and Kelsie kept everyone moving being the leader. After FOUR long miles (that's right, FOUR) and having completed all the tasks, we were lucky enough to be the family with the highest number of points and won the grand prize. Call it luck, but now we have a party package at the laser tag place here in town and a gift certificate to a bike shop. We all had a really good time and are proud of Brandon and Kelsie for finishing the race. We knew it took it's toll on Brandon when he woke up in the middle of the night because "my legs hurt"! We'll definitely be doing this again next year!

Caleb has reached another milestone in his few months with us. He has started to laugh and is smiling a whole lot more. It is hard to get a good picture, but we were fortunate enough to get a little video of a big smile to leave you with. Enjoy!

A new canvas to "paint" on . . .

Brandon decided to experiment with a marker this afternoon and just about scared me to death when he came inside! It was just too funny!

Flower Power

I practiced some more with the camera tonight and was pretty pleased with the results. I have been working on macro photography (really, really, really close) and thought I'd try it out on some flowers we bought to brighten our porch. I don't mean to brag, but then again, I've posted them here for all to see! The best part is that these are all straight out of the camera, with a little sharpening for the web. By the way, check out the water droplets!

I'm 3 and I'm Free!

When Brandon turned two, it was pretty evident that he loved to be outside and especially to ride his trike. We were quite surprised when we found him one day on his friend's 12" bike with training wheels pedaling around like he had done it forever. This "passion" he has had with the bike has continued. He convinced Wally to take off the training wheels last fall and learned how to ride a "two-wheeler" just after he turned 3. His balance was great but the only problem was that he couldn't get the coordination down to start by himself. We realized later that he just needed to grow another couple of inches and now he rides around like a pro. This kid was born to ride!

Caleb's Blessing

Happy Easter!

Popping Grapes

We had lots of fun with Grandma and Grandpa while they were here. We sure had a good laugh popping grapes, especially since Grandpa couldn't quite get the technique down! We dubbed Grandma the queen of grape popping.