Baby Stroller

The Gunderson Family sent Kendall a new baby stroller her for her birthday.  She absolutely loves it.

And so does her sister!

Happy Birthday, Kendall

We celebrated Kendall's birthday as a family a day early since I had a work event I had to attend on her actual birthday.

She was thrilled to help make her own cupcakes:

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

All three of the kids LOVED eating them!!

Party Time

We had Kendall's birthday party today.  It was such fun.

I started decorating before her actual birthday, and loved seeing her reaction when she'd wake to find new decorations.

Last night I spent a bit more time than I probably should have creating this for the party:

Kendall's reaction this morning made it all worthwhile.  She could not believe it was for HER party.  She is so sweet and appreciative.

We spent the next couple hours getting ready and answering the question:  "When is everyone going to be here?" a hundred times.  Everyone did arrive, and we had a blast.

The kids painted, jumped in the bouncy house and ate way too much sugar.  We loved seeing our friends and celebrating such a special 3 year old!

The adults watched the kids, and the Seahawks lose and enjoyed David's amazing Bloody Mary bar and Mimosas!

The deck painting.

The canvas painting.

The boys.

Laura and Natalie.

Shari enjoying the Bloody Mary bar.

The Bloody Mary Bar

The Birthday Girl

Mommy and Daddy

The kids eating cupcakes. Yum!

Me, Liz and KC

Bouncy House!

The boys playing football with Donald.

Esme with her smock.  I made these for each of the kids, but couldn't figure out how to work my sewing machine to stitch them on.  So mortified!  Needless to say, it had been awhile since I have used my machine!  They were still pretty cute, but I'm sure the letters didn't stay on very long.  :(

Miss Muriel.  Ryan went to Co-op with her, and now Kendall goes to Co-op with her sister Clara.  So fun to see her again!

The rainbow wreath!  Thanks for your help Grandma Karen!

Melanie and Lucy, Hanni's chicken.

The gifts!

Kendall received so many awesome gifts.  

Party!  Love this shot by Donald.

A very special thank you to Shari who stole my camera and took many of these amazing pictures!

Bya Bya

Kendall broke into song at the lunch table the other day.  This is what prompted me to start shooting video of her singing.  Her voice is so sweet in general but even cuter when in song.  I had been wanting to get it on video for quite some time.  A big thank you to Kendall for reminding me at the opportune time!

We started out with this little number that my Mom sings to the kids.  This is Kendall's rendition:

From here we did the "ABC's", and then came "The Cupcake Song".  I still can not believe I got that on video.  There are so many days I say,  "Darn.  I wish I would have gotten that on camera", and to actually get the debut of that song is really priceless to me.

Babble

Here's a clip of Natalie "talking".  She is saying way more words than she should be but when I wanted her to "Perform" for me she wouldn't.  I was hoping to get her to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" for me.  She can't actually sing the words, but she definitely has the tune down.  I got this instead:

What I love most is that 1.  I got her sweet little sway dance on video.  We all love when she starts dancing. It happens every time she hears any music.  2.  She got so hung up on the balloon, aka "ball", that was on the shelf behind me. 3.  When she bends down to kiss the guy on the flyer.  So hysterical!  She does give the best kisses, though!

The Cupcake Song

I'm pretty sure this is one of the cutest things I have ever witnessed in my life.  All the lyrics to the song are Kendall's original lyrics.  This is her debut of The Cupcake Song:

Three

This loving, sweet, expressive, silly, imaginative and beautiful girl is three today!  Happy Birthday Kendall Jo!

Peek A Boo!

Playground Fun

The playground is usually our final destination after our bike rides.  The kids LOVE this one in particular.

Our Little Smurf

Kendall was having way too much fun with the window crayons the other day.  I'm happy she had so much fun because I have since thrown the crayons in the garbage.  As you can see, they make quite the mess.  I'm still cleaning up residue from them all over the house.

Bye, Bye Bottles

We said goodbye to Natalie's bottles mid-August.  I forgot to pack them when we went to the beach one weekend so we decided to call it quits.  We'd been wanting to ween Natalie off of them for awhile, so just made it happen.  As a parent you always dread the weaning process whatever it is.  David and I thought ditching the bottles would be a nightmare with Natalie, our very sensitive child.  She handled it like a champ, though.  We just offered her a sippy cup of milk and that seemed to do the trick!  Yahoo!  We can't tell you how excited we were to say Bye, Bye Bottles.

Hello

Hello, Daddy.  Are you there?

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Seahawks Game

Grandpa Bill has Seahawks tickets this season.  He so generously invited us to go to the final pre-season game at the end of August.  David, Ryan and I tagged along and had a great time.  Ryan just takes it all in.

Grandpa, Grandma Karen, Aunt Melanie and Ryan went to the home opener yesterday and saw a big win! Woo Hoo!  Go Seahawks!!  Ryan had lots of stories, and picked up lots of new moves that he's been showing off to us any chance he gets.  We could barely get him to go to school this morning because he was so into playing football.  What a lucky little boy to get to spend the day with his Aunt and his Grandparents at the big game!

He cracks me up.  He has to sit in the seat his ticket says. 

Date night...kind of!  Photo by Ryan.

The moon was spectacular!

Ryan wanted to get a shot of the action.

Me and my boy.

Grandpa Bill and his boy.