Kenidi's first day of kindergarten

Kenidi had her first day of school on the 11th!! She was so excited when I told her she would finally be starting school, she counted down the days and almost couldn't contain her excitement! She was a little bit shocked at how early she needed to wake up for school. It really isn't all that early but ever since she was a baby she slept in until eight thirty or nine. She was so excited about her new backpack and lunch box and wore it all around the house pretending like she was going camping. She was a bit upset when I picked out her outfit that morning. I didn't have a chance to do the laundry so she was narrowed down to only one pair of jeans. She was a bit emotional that morning and I couldn't figure out why, she had been so excited before...what had changed? Well I later found out that she was not thrilled about the fact that she couldn't have more wardrobe options, this is a very typical thing with her. I will do better from here on out though. I can't believe she is already in school, my little girl is growing up way too fast! She can now count by two's and is reading full sentences, she loves learning and is extremely independent...she knows how to tie her shoes and do her own topsy tails in her hair. It was very sad but the morning she went to school she didn't even look back, it was as if she had moved on to bigger and better things. She came home from school with a grin from ear to ear and informed me that she wants to switch to full day schedule. She has now made four really good friends! The teacher told me that she does great with the class and has been adjusting wonderfully and is a little social butterfly. I wasn't that shocked though because she has always been very friendly, she says hi to people everywhere we go and has even given several pass a long cards to people we have met! I love this school... it is not like public school, it is a montessori school and they have a ton of hands on activities, they teach so many wonderful skills that are not taught in public schools. Kenidi's teachers are Mrs. Rachel and Mrs. Tina and both have many years of experience teaching in public as well as in charter schools. I am so excited for my little girl!

Kaden is Three!!

I can't believe my little man is now 3!! We celebrated his birthday at our favorite park(Freestone). Kaden is growing up so fast, and is fully potty trained!! He is always changing and discovering new things. He is such a good little helper and is always looking for a way to get his hands on something to work with ( just like his daddy). His party was originally themed Cars but it kinda turned out that it was everything locamotive. His cake turned out great thanks to Adam :) If it weren't for him we would have had a big mess of a cake. Although he did make the mistake of accidently dumping the whole cake into the trash can when he was trying to shake the cookie crumbs off of it. Thankfully everyone had already eaten their fair share of it already. Kaden was so thrilled to find that he got his very own helmet just like big sister. I love this little guy he sure is one happy little kid. Happy Birthday Kaden!

This is hillarious!! With all the wind we had to have Shem and Shanna block it off as best they could. It worked great until I told them to pull it away so he could blow out the candles...the moment they did that the candles were out, we all had to play it off like he was the expert blower even though he never got close enough to blow it. Oh well he is terrified of fire anyways, which is kinda odd since he always says he wants to be a firefighter some day.

Britynn's first taste of pizza crust

The idea was to make it look like a mountain and have train track for the engines, but I think all in all it turned out pretty good. Adam has been watching cake boss lately so he had a few tricks up his sleeve. Thanks Adam :)

We had a brilliant idea to hang all the presents in the tree so he wouldn't start opening them too soon.

Why have just one toy when you can have them all?

I love this pottery store, it's called As you Wish. We had originally planned to paint a Steimle family plate but it was too difficult with all the kids bumping the table. Kaden ended up painting a car and Kenidi painted a cat.

Kaden is really sharpening his fine motor skills, I know the buttons don't match up but that is okay. I am so proud of you Kaden!

Look out for Britynn! She is determined to start crawling, she hasn't moved forward yet but is getting the whole rocking thing down very well! I am sure she will be crusing all over the place within a few weeks.

christmas 2010

Christmas time is always very exciting especially when you get to spend almost a whole month with your husband completely uninterupted with work. Adam came out on the 19th of December and doesn't have to go back until the 13th of Janruary. We have been enjoying every moment we get to spend with him before he leaves. Dustin came to town to visit his famiy so we got to spend a few days with him while he was here. We tried our best to avoid the Christmas rush as much as possible, we went to bass pro shop since santa was there this year but the kids didn't get the chance to sit on santa's lap since the line was too long. We had fun looking at the fish tanks and got some fun pictures of the kids touching the stuffed bears instead. We went to the temple lights a few times and took a peek at the nativitiy's from all around the world, I dont have any pictures to show of that though. We went to the temple on christmas eve to see Jordan Bluth sing ( He is one of the singers with the forgotten carols). The kids were so excited for Santa to come to our house. Kenidi was very concerned that Santa was not going to make it to Aunt Shanna's house since she doesn't have a chimney. I assured her that he would find some other way to get in, but she still was not satified. We ended up moving into my parents house before christmas and Kenidi was very happy to find that Grandma and Grandpa did in fact have a chimney. Kenidi didn't know what she wanted for chritmas this year so we had to be creative. Kaden and Kenidi both got new shoes and a few new outfits. Santa brought Kaden a big bucket of lincolin logs and Kenidi was excited to find that Santa surprised her with her very own gumball machine! I love the christmas season and the spirit that it brings with it, the kids and I had a blast giving goddies to our neighbors and remembering the true meaning of christmas. I love my savior and for the ultimate gift that he has given to each of us wich is the gift of eternal life. Each year we put a not in a box and on the note we write a gift that we want to give to our savior and then can reflect on that throughout the year and stive to remember our goals. We then put the box under the christmas tree and leave it there as a reminder of the gift we give back to Jesus Christ. This helps to keep the spirit of christmas all year round :)

Gotta love Nixen sporting his cousins pink helmet

Washington DC Temple

These pictures were taken back at the end of October while on our way to our next pcs. It is sad to say that we had been to this temple on numerous occasions while we lived in virginia but every time we visited I always managed to forget my camera. I miss Virginia's beautiful colors I was sad to leave newport news and not even having the chance to see the beginning of the fall. So you can imagine my surprise when we got farther up to the northern part of the state to find this beautiful array of fall colors, It was so pretty!! While adam was inside doing a session the kids and I drove around the temple trying to find different angles to take pictures..it was a lot of fun, I wish I had the money to take photagraphy lessons.

This would have been the kids only chance to play in the leaves since by the time we got to New York the fall was well done and over with.

I was hesitant to put this picture on here but I does have a story to tell. If you look closely you may notice big holes in the sides of the purple and yellow flowers. Kaden decided that while daddy and I were distracted he would hop from one flower patch to the other as if they were lilly pads. It is sad to say that I was actually not all that surprised, knowing my son this is a very typical Kaden thing to do. Adam went into the front desk to let them know what happened, but they weren't too concerned.

This picture was taken while driving on the freeway just after leaving the temple.

Were are finally settled down and now have a chance to get up to date with the latest. We PCS'd (permanent change of station) to New York. We had to be to our next station on the 1st of november which meant that we had to travel over Kenidi'd birthday. We decided that we would celebrate her birthday at the ward trunk or treat that was on the 28th. Kenidi was a ballerina, Kaden was and army guy and Britynn was was a giraffe. We had the whole ward sing happy birthday to her, she loved her giant sized kitty cupcake. We were in the process of getting our stuff packed so we had a blast in an empty apartment. We rented a penske truck to carry the extra belongings we had that exceeded our weight limit and caravaned together, it was about an ten hour drive. We decided to do the move in 2 days and spent the night in a hotel close to the Washington DC temple since we had planned to visit the temple we wanted our stay to be close by.


It was actually kind of nice not having an overload of candy

Most of our stuff got ruined in the move including our couch that was already in not the best condition, you can tell they didn't pack things very good which explains the damage. I was most upset to see our fairly new dresser with dents scratches and dings all over it :(

This is one of my last memories of virginia I took this picture from our apartment on the third floor. The picture just doesn't do it justice, it probably didn't help that the screen on the window faded it out.

In the process of moving and packing we came across Adam's birth control glasses, the kids look so cute! This picture of Kaden reminds of of his uncle Jason when he was a little boy.