The Big Two!

We just celebrated Spencer's second birthday! He couldn't figure out what we kept talking about until he woke up the morning of and saw balloons and presents. He was so excited all day to open his presents - he had lots of practice with that on our trip. He helped me make his birthday cake, and was even more excited to blow out the candles. We recently helped a friend celebrate his birthday and Spencer was very intrigued with the blowing out of the candles part. He got a practice blow and the real thing! He loves call his presents - I do have to say that his favorite one was probably the bottle of candy Great Grandma Riska sent him!

This was my first attempt at decorating a cake with fondant. It was fun, I just wish it (fondant) tasted as good as it looks!

Spencer has been preparing for this life event for several weeks. It probably came on with the stress of the move, but he definitely had been acting more grown up - like a two year old! :) We love him to pieces!

From Omaha to Philly

Well we've made it to Philadelphia and are settling in. We miss our dear friends in Omaha. We spent the last few weeks in Omaha spending time with everyone before we left. We put the hill in our backyard to good use with a slip and slide. We had our neighbors and some friends over for some water play.

Memorial Day weekend we went camping with our good friends. It was a fun, quick camping trip. We learned how cool Heather's 'crank-it' flashlight really is when we pulled ours out with dead batteries!

Hailey's first smore! Spencer's first smore! We went camping almost a year ago. Here is a picture of Hailey and Spencer this year: And some from last year:

Their favorite part was throwing rocks in the lake!We got in one good swim at the Lau's. Spencer loved the pool and was more brave than I expected him to be. We'll have to find a pool around here to go to.Spencer did great amongst all the packing and moving. They packed the house in less than 5 hours and loaded it the next day. He loved the Big Orange Truck. He would wave and say good bye to all of his things. We told him the orange truck was going to meet us at our new home. He had a blast in the big empty house with so much space to run and play hide and seek. We made the 21 hour drive out here in three days. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but we were definitely ready to be out of the car when we got here. I got the best advice from someone the night before we left. She told me to wrap some toys for him to unwrap every hour or so. I wrapped several and he loved it. Everyday I rewrapped the same toys and he would unwrap them. He just loved the unwrapping part - not necessarily the toy that was in it!Spencer was even more excited to see the Big Orange Truck when it arrived at our new home. Having been without our stuff for a week I was ready for my own bed and a soft couch to sit on (instead of the floor). We got everything unpacked by the end of the week. I think we just have one or two boxes in the garage to unpack still. Note to self - moving is like labor. After a while you remember that it was painful, but you forget just how painful it is until you do it again and our move wasn't half as bad as it could have been because we moved with the company.

The house wasn't quite as move in ready as we had hoped it would be. We ended up doing a bunch of cleaning and painting, but after a bit of Tingey touch (as Brooks called it) the place is beginning to feel like home! Here is a picture of the living room walls before we did some painting. It looks much better now! (at least 5 different colors of green right there)