Thanksgiving
This year we spent Thanksgiving with Matt's family in Salt Lake City. We flew to Utah from California, following Auntie K and Victor's wedding. We stayed at Aunt Emily and Uncle Mark's house along with Uncle Kevin, Uncle Mark and their families and Aunt Julie's parents. I think there was 27 of us staying in one house. It was so fun to see everyone. Derek had a great time playing with his cousins. This was the first time Matt's family was able to meet Rylie. Everyone kept saying how much Rylie looked like Derek when he was her age. The kids were AMAZING during the whole 10 day trip and all 3 legs of flying. Matt and I were so grateful. We had a great time traveling and are looking forward to doing it again.

Derek had a blast playing with his cousins' toys

 Rylie checking out Derek's new car seat, which we had to buy during our trip since Rylie's infant car seat broke. Thank goodness for Amazon Prime!

Rylie and Aunt Emily

 

Rylie and Uncle Mark  

Baby Ben (4 weeks old)

cousins Keegan and Christian

cousins Danelia and Alyssa

 cousins Megan and Finley

 cousins Kyla and Kaitlin

Rylie meeting Great Grandma D for the first time

enjoying the chocolate fountain

patiently waiting for the "OK" to dig in

Christmas Card 2012

Thanks Janet for designing our card. Check out her Etsy shop.

Derek 2 1/2 years old!!!

Its hard to believe that Derek is 2 and a half years old. We are so blessed to be his parents. He is a happy boy, full of life, enthusiasm and creativity. He is curious about everything and asks great questions. Derek has a grateful heart. He will often pray at dinner or even while we are driving, saying things like, "And thank you for my Mommy and my Daddy, and my sister. And thank you for God to keep Rylie safe and thank you for God to keep Zack safe." I LOVE that this boy is learning to be grateful. Derek is also encouraging. When we go biking I try to jog while Derek bikes and Derek will say, "Good job jogging Mommy." Derek is a kind and thoughtful friend and good at sharing. When playing with friends he will ask them if he can have a turn at something. If his friend gets stuck or hurt he will say, "I will help you." Derek LOVES music. He will listen intently to the beginning of a song and then tell you the title of the song. He often asks to dance around the kitchen with me and we sing and dance away. Derek LOVES reading. We have been going to the library once a month to pick out a dozen or so new books. He usually chooses several from the bunch as his favorites, which he asks us to read over and over to him and he will memorize them. The other night he said, "Daddy, I will read to you." He sat there and recited word for word each page, turning the pages at the appropriate spots. It is so amazing to see Derek grow and mature into a little boy. So many of the phrases and mannerisms we see in Derek are a reflection of things we say and do (which is very humbling both in a good way and sometimes in a revealing way). We love you Derek. You bring us such joy!
 Derek asks to set a timer for everything (changing diaper, taking a nap, leaving a friends house, coming to table for dinner etc). He responds SO well to the timer and we use it ALL the time. Usually, when we ask him to do something he says, "No Mommy, I'm busy. Set a timer." So I will go set the timer for 2 minutes and when the timer goes off he happily comes right away. Often times he lets us know that the timer went up. When we are out we set the timer on our phones. Thank goodness for the timer!

Derek LOVES his dump truck and brings it EVERYWHERE. Some kids have a blanket or stuffed animal, Derek has a dump truck. :) He carries it up and down the stairs for play time and nap/bedtime, in the car, and to friend's houses.  He is often heard asking, "Dump truck where are you?" or "Can I bring my dump truck?"or "Mommy, kids don't bring their dump truck to the race track." Rylie knows that the dump truck is Derek's favorite and she tries play with it. Derek comes right over to rescue his dump truck. Also, Derek loves to race his dump truck and we hear the phrase, "Let's race!!"

This month I put up a calendar in the playroom. Each morning Derek gets the calendar tag and puts it on the calendar. We briefly talk about the day of the week and date. Since we have been doing this he has been recognizing numbers everywhere! Earlier this month we were out shopping and Derek excitedly yelled, "Mommy, that's James' number!!" I looked over where he was pointing and sure enough there was a sign that had $5 on it!! I was amazed. Now he is constantly telling us that he sees Gordon's number or Thomas' number. He does know the real name of the number, but he usually yells out the train's name that has the number not the actual number. Derek has also been pulling down the calendar tags and matching the numbers to his trains.

Derek got new biking tires. 

"Mommy, these are my fast tires!" "Daddy, can I bring my new tires to the race track?

With the new tires, D can ride in the house again (the other tires were so bald that he would wipe out on the tile when turning).

biking through puddles in the park after a night of rain

We are SO grateful that we redid our backyard this fall and put in fake grass. With the beautiful weather we have been spending a lot of time outside. Derek takes good care of his Cozy Coupe and washes it.

Derek racing Rylie

picnic lunch with best friend Zack

Derek and Rylie

Derek LOVES water!

 

Kristin and Victor's Wedding
We were so honored and excited to be able to attend and be a part of Kristin and Victor's wedding. God put Kristin in my life at just the right time! She has been an amazing friend who has walked life with me for the past 4 years. Kristin and her family "adopted" us into their family! We are so grateful for the way they invested in our lives and the life of Derek. Derek knows Kristin as Auntie K. She came with us on our house hunting trip to AZ and we flew her out to help when Rylie was first born. Its been a joy to watch the Kristin and Victor grow in their relationship with one another and now get married. Derek was the ring bearer in the wedding.

 Derek loves his Auntie K (9 months old)

after dinner one night when Victor and Kristin were first dating

Auntie K helping us out when Rylie was first born

Our flight to CA was not only Rylie's first fight, but my first time flying along with both kids. Matt flew in later that night at midnight. By the time Derek was 8 months old he had been on 10 round trip flights. Both kids did awesome and I was so grateful.

Here we are at 6 am...ready to check in

 

Derek LOVED watching the airplanes land and unload luggage etc.

Derek watched Cars on the iPad.

Rylie even took a nap after take off.

Janet picked us up at airport. I cried tears of JOY when I saw her. It had been about 18 months since we had seen any of our CA friends. It was a pretty funny scene watching Janet and I get everything to her car. Janet had Jude (10 mo old) in the Ergo and I had Rylie (8 mo old) in the Ergo. Janet was carrying our 2 car seats and I had 2 large suitcases. Derek ended up pushing the stroller because we didn't have enough hands. Wish we had thought to have someone take our picture. We spent the afternoon at Janet and Tim's new house. They have an amazing backyard and the first thing Derek said was, "Can I play outside?" He had a blast playing with Caleb and Asher. When the boys weren't playing in the backyard they were playing trains.

Jude and Rylie

Ellen drove Derek, Rylie and I to the rehearsal in the Presidio.  Traffic and rain made for a long drive, but that's San Francisco for you. Rylie fell asleep on the car ride up, after screaming for a long time and Ellen graciously offered to stay in the car with her. Derek did a great job practicing walking down the aisle. And it was SO great to see Kristin and her parents give them a big hug!! The rehearsal went long and since the kids had been up since early that morning I decided to call it a night.

We stayed the night at Jamie's house, in the Presidio, only a 5 minutes from the rehearsal. I taught at Trinity School with Jamie. Derek and Rylie were so amazing. They were so tired from our long day that they fell asleep right away. Matt flew into San Jose and drove up to the Presidio arriving after midnight. The morning of wedding, we went with Jamie, Chris, Caden and Emma to the Aquarium by the Bay in San Francisco. Derek loved it! Before leaving we stopped by the sea lions on Pier 39!

 Derek had a blast playing with Caden and Emma. Here are the boys watching Cars.

Derek was the CUTEST ring bearer ever! In order to keep him occupied before his time to walk down the asile he played with Gordon or watched Cars. He really wanted to walk along the curbing and run down the hill, but he kept getting wet. He was adorable in his tux and Rylie looked so cute in her dress. Unfortunately, it was too difficult to carry around my camera and watch the kids, so all our pics are from our phones.

The wedding was amazing, but with just Matt and I to watch the kids we had to keep running in and out of the ceremony. Kristin was a GORGEOUS bride. It was so special to watch her and Victor say "I do!" and have their first kiss!

After the reception we drove to Menlo Park to stay with Vanessa and her family. Vanessa and I worked together at Trinity School. Derek enjoyed playing with Mariana and Lucas too! I also got the opportunity to visit with Ana (another fellow Trinity teacher) and meet her sweet girls Olivia and Zoe.

 

We went to church on Sunday morning at Peninsula Covenant Church and got to see so many great friends and hear Gary preach, such a treat. While in Menlo Park we visited our old stomping grounds (our apartment, downtown (Santa Cruz Ave), and Peet's). We also ran into some friends who just happen to be downtown too! God's timing was awesome.

Coffee at Peet's with Bethany

 It was so nice to have Matt with me on our next flight. We flew from CA on to UT for Thanksgiving.

Rylie did not want to sit still at all...Derek LOVED watching Cars 

(see a common theme with his iPad time? :) )

We had such a wonderful trip visiting dear friends and being back in CA. Derek and Rylie were amazing and God blessed our time. We miss everyone so much and hope to catch up again soon.