Rhyan's First Invite

Rhyan got invited to her first official birthday party (that wasn't a go to the neighbors with the whole family type thing). She was so excited!. It was a princess party, so she got to put on all her princess stuff and go be girly. Mayson was at one of her friend's birthday parties, but Kaleb came with us and helped Rhyan with her crafts.

Cutting Down a Tree

Cutting down our own Christmas tree was such a hit with the kids, we decided to do it again this year. We all went out and braved the cold to find the perfect tree. The final decision when I had it narrowed down to the two options was which one was bigger. That was all the kids cared about. It is a beautiful tree, and everyone had fun decorating it. For some reason though, this tree had exceptionally sharp needles on it. Like it hurts if you touch it sharp needles on it. So, setting it up and decorating it was a little harder. Larry got poked in the eye while cutting it down and was complaining about it the whole afternoon. After trying to decorate it though, I had a little more sympathy for him! It is still dripping sap, but it smells awesome! I'm not sure Asher knows quite what to think of it, but the other day he some how got himself from the middle of the room under the side of the tree and was chewing on a present. Someone is getting something juicy!

Our Cute Kids

Our kids are such cuties. I try to remember that on the days they make me crazy. Her you see the two older ones being rock stars!
As you can see, Rhyan still loves to lick the beater. She sits in the kitchen and waits for me to get done so she can have it. This time was banana bread! And last but not least we have Asher. Mayson made this Christmas tree in art at school, and when she brought it home Rhyan decided it looked like a party hat. So, she puts it on Asher's head and sings over and over "Happy Birthday to Asher!"

Getting Ready for Christmas

The day after Thanksgiving we got out all the Christmas Decorations and got ready for Christmas. Everyone was excited, especially the kids. I love to get the house all decorated every year. It just makes it so warm and festive!

Isn't Asher a cutie!! He is so happy all the time. He truly is the best baby. Everyone around him comments on it, everywhere we go. He just happily hangs out whatever we are doing, and he is always so smiley! Doesn't hurt anything that he is also adorable!!
Below you can see him rethinking this whole santa hat thing...Wait a minute, what did they put on me?

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was a lot of fun. We have started a new tradition in the Kalke house... pie for breakfast. You are always so stuffed after Thanksgiving dinner that pie just isn't as good. So, we start the day off with the pie. The kids were so excited leading up to Thanksgiving about getting to eat pie in the morning. It's a fun way to add some excitement to their day. Besides, we had Apple Cranberry and Pumpkin... so really, we had fruit & squash for breakfast!We then went over to Julie and Aaron's house for dinner. There were seven families... a little over twenty people, all crowded in and it was a lot of fun. Julie moved all of the furniture out of her front room and set up tables so we would all fit. Here is a picture of the girls. The guys were up in the attic watching football after dinner, but hey, they had all the kids up there running around with them so it's all good. It gave us a chance to pick up & chat!
Now this is what happens when you eat too much turkey. The triptofan kicks in and you just pass out where ever you are. We came in from the kitchen and Rhyan was asleep like tis on the couch. Oh, to be two again and get to take a nap anytime, anywhere!

Kaleb's Piano Recital

Kaleb had his very first piano recital, and though I know her was nervous he did really well. He had all four of his songs memorized, and we were very proud of him.

Family Photos

We just got our new family pictures taken. We do them about this time every year... and this year we really needed one so that the picture on the wall would include Asher. We think they turned out pretty cute. About as good as we could expect at least when you're dealing with trying to get four kids to look at the camera and smile!

Rochester Trip

Larry had an interview in Rochester, NY for their pediatric program, and we decided to make it a family trip. We drove out on Saturday and stayed downtown. Not too far from our hotel was the waterfall on the river that runs trough town. This is the upper falls (one of three waterfalls) and its about 80 feet high. On Sunday we drove to Palmyra to see the Joseph Smith Farm and Sacred Grove again. It's only about a half hour from Rochester. On the way back we noticed this section of "Mason" stuff... road, hills, etc... Even though it is not spelled the same, Mayson thought it was cool so we stopped to take a picture of her next to one of the signs.

Strong National Museum of Play

This is the coolest children's museum I have ever seen. Apparently this is the largest children's museum in the nation... I had thought the one in Houston was good size when we were there, but it doesn't compare to this one. Larry was at his interview all day on Monday so I took the kids here for the day. It is two stories, and we were there for almost five hours and didn't get to play with everything on the main floor. They had a full Sesame Street town with all the shops and places you see in the show. There was a room that was Elmo's World that was just like the one on the show. Rhyan was so excited!! Mayson found the street vendor cart and kept trying to feed everyone everything she could find. There was also a Berenstien Bears town, with all the places out of those books. They also had Curious George's world, with the farmhouse, the rocket, the factory, and a lot of the other places that were in the Curious George books. Rhyan loves Curious George, and was giving him hugs and kisses and climbing all over him.


































The grocery store they had in this place puts to shame any children's museum grocery store I have seen. It was huge, and it had all the different departments for the kids to pretend to be a baker, butcher, produce person, etc... And the registers were really fun. The belts worked just like in a real store, and everything had a bar code and actually rung up. After everything was rung up it totaled out and printed receipts and everything, just like at the real store. The kids thought they were so cool. Mayson's favorite was the fairy tale land, that had princess stuff, play areas out of tons of different fairy tales, magic things, pirate ships and so much more. This is not even half of the stuff on the main floor. We were only upstairs long enough to look and see what was there, because we ran out of time and had to go pick up Larry. But, they had a huge toy museum, and a huge room to play with classic toys like slinkys and hula hoops... they even had an Atari set up that Kaleb thought was neat. If we ended up in Rochester, we would definitely have to get ourselves a membership there. The kids absolutely loved it!! Asher was in sensory overload the whole time. He was smiling and kicking his legs and waving his arms around as he rode around in the stroller. As you can see, Asher's shirt is soaked. He has his first tooth coming through on the bottom and has slobber everywhere. You can see though he is trying to take advantage of being toothless as long as possible... he sucks his little bottom lip in to look like a gummer!!

Election Day at the Zoo

Well, the kids were out of school for election day because they vote at the schools here, and you don't want the kids in the school when the crazies are there. So, it was beautiful outside and we went to the zoo. The kids were very impressed with the bear eating the pumpkin, and Rhyan likes the lions because she can tell you what they say. As you can see, Kaleb and Mayson thought they were the monkeys...

Asher's First Rice Cereal

Our other election day excitement was Asher's first experience with rice cereal. He actually did really well. He made a few faces about it but he ate the whole bowl. He needs something more than milk to support that chub!

12th Anniversary

Well, Larry and I have now been married for twelve years. It seems like just yesterday... Anyway, we had a fun night out. We went to the Winking Lizard and had dinner, then went to the theatre to see "The Male Intellect." It was hilarious!! It was a really fun evening, and these are the beautiful flowers Larry sent me.

Halloween

Here are the kids for Halloween. Mayson was Pippi Longstockings, Kaleb was Anakin Skywalker, Rhyan was a chicken, and Asher was a Pumpkin. We have been reading Pippi Longstockings to the kids, and they think she was quite funny. The picture of Mayson with her tongue sticking out was her pose when I asked her to show me some "Pippi attitude."