The Big Day: Kian's Three!

What better at a summer birthday party than

train cake and the blue angels? Boom!

You just wouldn't believe the fly-over that Kian got at that perfect moment on his big day!

Precisely as we sang the final note of the final verse of the Happy Birthday To You song, one of the solo Blue Angels buzzed us directly overhead and almost cast out the 3 candles before Kian got the chance. Wow! Daddy couldn't have planned it better if he'd planned it himself (believe me, I tried to take credit).

It was jet noise, not our singing that had Kian and Oscar capping their ears.

Happy Birthdays, you twos!

Cake? The yummy sign confirms its good.

Baby Henny at the water feature
while a nervous, or possibly laughing, Summer looks on.

After all of our park festivities were finished (pin the tail on the donkey) and the Blue Angels had concluded with our personal show, most of us wandered back to our place down the street to keep the party going. Beer and wine could now freely be displayed (no more plastic keg cups), the pig was dug-up and the BBQ'ing commenced, and then came the dancing and the constant limbo train. Annie put together a most prodigious spread of food and everyone ate until they burst at the seams. What a great day: happy birthday, Kian and Annie! Thanks for surviving another year so we could throw a party. Thanks for coming, everyone, and gracing us with your presence and your presents!

Grammy and my Aunt Barbara, who gets the furthest traveled award!

The visiting contingent of our Flagstaff family.

Awesome Oscar!

Happy Henny!

Marlin & Christine made an appearance
(Annie pictured in place of Marlin)

Aunt Jojee and Cousin RJ!

My cousin Lori and the twins, Sarah and Sophie.

Turnin' 3

Tomorrow is Kian's birthday, and what more would any 2-3 year old ask for on his birthday than to get to see the Blue Angels. Back to back to back to back (Thurs-Sun). On Thursday, yesterday, we all went down to the I-90 bridge to watch the practice session and a Seattle Times photographer got a shot of Kian and it made the online gallery, check it out here. Good thing too because I brought Annie's camera along not knowing that the batteries were dead. Lucky me that Mr. Siegel was there to catch Kian in action. Actually, I tried to get him to get a better shot of Kian with some blue sky in the background but he seemed satisfied of his previous shot. I'd a done better with my D-200 but I couldn't have garnered the audience that he did.

Tomorrow we're planning a little party at our park... OUR park: Pratt Park is pretty cool cause it has a huge covered space with basketball court and some sweet kiddy water features. Here are some pics of Kiki getting after it one sunny day last week.

Shoot or be shot at!

Unposted Pics

Here's some Kiki pics that were hidden away which I forgot to post -- yeah, lots more too. On the eve of Kian's 3rd birthday I'm getting a little sentimental about the little boy days since he's becomes a "big boy".

All growd up.

The Little Big Boy.

Playdoh Snake: Daddy's Got Skilz

Scary at first...

...then fast friends.

Let's Backtrack...

I took a whole series of B&W pics that I thought I'd already posted, but apparently not. Here's a few along with some color pics and some from random other times.

Incoming!

Railin it!

Kian and Daddy's color coordinated bikes.

Father and son day at the Flight Museum: this is where Kian got his
first taste of the Blue Angels with an innocent enough looking exhibit. O boy.

Then onto Chinatown for Quesadilla at a sports pub.

Parting the trees parting shot.

Biggest Day Ever

Those "firsts" monuments seem to come in waves, and today a tidal wave rolled in. A tsunami.

Kian came up to me as he was playing outside and said he had to use the potty. Not a super big deal, he's been peeing in the potty for almost a month or more now, but I asked and he said he needed to go poopoo. Again, the alarms didn't go off for me because I thought it was another false alarm, but Oma took him up and sure enough, today he pooped in the toilet for the first time. Woohoo! This represents potential big diaper savings for us, we're superstoked.

But even cooler than that, for me at least, is today was Kian's first pedal-powered ride on two wheels! He finally guilted me into setting up his little Fatboy (I was trying to hold off until his 3rd birthday in a few weeks -- it's a hand-me-down bike that I bought for my nephew Reid when he was 3 and was also used by his brother Justin, so its becoming an heirloom. I cleaned it up, put on a set of new tires, new chain, we picked out a new saddle for it today, and just as I thought might happen it did: I pushed him off and he pedaled away without a hitch. Never a doubt, hardly a wobble, just some early issues with the coaster brake but he seemed to have that all figured out in 20-30 minutes. Fun stuff, although I'm hoping he doesn't totally give up on the scoot.

This maybe 30-minutes after his first try.

Sorry, no pics of poopin...

... only pedalin'

June's Going Zoom

Yep, more excuses. My excuse this time is that I've been so busy making excuses that I haven't had time to post. We really shouldn't make excuses because its not for a lack of cuteness, and coolness, on the baby front.

Kian is amazing us DAILY! He's heading towards three -- yeah, 3 years old -- and he's blowing us away with his amazing little brain. His vocabulary, and even his grammar, is pretty incredible. He's probably not ahead of other toddlers his age but its a phenomenal occurrence nonetheless. Lots of energy, lots of curiosity, and we can engage him at so many levels now that its so much fun.

Camping with pool access... wait, that's not camping.

Yeah, it was pretty easy camping.

Let's go that way!

Yep, back at the pool with... shhh margaritas!

Here are a few pics we took last weekend on a short but sweet cycling jaunt up into the San Juan islands. We drove the RV up to Anacortes one evening where we had a Tortuga dinner, then spent the evening playing around the Marina: walking the docks and checking out boats, and riding our bikes in the vast grass and plethora of trails. Next morning we boarded a boat for Lopez where we hung out for two days, riding, hitting the pool, and... maybe the pics should tell the rest of the story.

Wawhat, Its June Already?