The Worlds Best Painter!

Today Kyla got to have the most amazing time painting ever!!! For a long time Jon has had this idea of having a huge roll of white paper all over the wall and floor and having Kyla dressed in all white and doing whatever she wants with her paints, and today we did it! Jon and his friend Shawn who took Kyla's portraits the last time set up a great photo shoot with Kyla so that he could get pictures to submit to a photo contest at work. We had a huge roll of white paper all over our living room wall and floor and eight tubes of finger paint.

At first Kyla would tell me each time she got a drop of paint on her clothes or on her hand, then before we knew it she was covered in paint from head to toe. She had such a great time painting her hands, feet, arms, cheeks, clothes, paper and everything else. The pictures she painted were so great that we could not throw them away so Jon saved them to frame with the pictures. She painted for about an hour and a half before deciding she was done. We gave her a bath and had red bath water. As soon as she was done getting cleaned up she was out like a light. She had such a great time and we now have some really great paintings and photos to show for it!

St. Patricks Day

Happy St. Patricks Day

Making green jell-o

St. Patricks Day Cookies

Green Fingers

Getting Messy

All dressed in green

Jell-o Molds

Kyla and I celebrated St. Patricks Day a day late this year. On Thursday I dressed Kyla in green and she took all her clothes off saying that "Green clothes bug me, I'll wear them tommorrow." I had planned to make St. Patricks Day cookies and green jell-o, but the day seemed to fly by. So on Friday I bought Kyla a Shamrock and we made our St. Patricks Day Cookies and Green Jell-o in the shape of Leprachauns, Unicorns and Care Bears and tried putting green clothes on again.

Spring Break at the Cabin

Making Smores at the cabin

Going for a ride with Grandma

Kyla and Mommy

Kyla and Mommy

Feeding the birds with Papa

Kyla and I went to the cabin with my parents during spring break week. We had nice sunny weather, but it was still pretty cold and a little windy. Because it was so cold at night we were able to see the Aurora Borealis, I had not seen them since being back in Alaska but got to see them twice this week. We went out on a late night snowmachine ride to try to see them even better.

We had a fun weekend snowmachining and visiting with Grandma and Grandpa's friends and their cabins. Kyla got to play with her friends Madeline, Genevive and Paisley who seem to always be at the cabin the same times we go. Kyla was watching out the window and saw some people snowmachining across the lake with a dog running by them and thought it was really funny. A few days later Kyla said to me "Sometimes I want a dog, one that runs beside my snowmachine!"

It was a good weekend and hopefully we can get back up there before the winter is over. Jon needs to go with us next time too so that he can get a chance to ride his new snowmachine that he has not even had a chance to take out on a ride yet.

Ready for Preschool

Kyla likes to wear her backpack and pretend to go to school



Today I went and signed Kyla up for preschool for next school year! She always talks about going to school, mainly because she always sees the fun playgrounds when we drive past schools. We have been looking into different schools for a little while and just went in for our tour today and signed up. I have cousins who went to this school many years ago and really liked it, it looks like a great school.

Kyla and the boy I babysit Ethan will both go to St. Mary's Creative Playschool two days a week for just two hours each day. It is a co-op preschool so parents volunteer once a month to be in the classroom. I am looking forward to Kyla starting school and making new friends, I know that she is going to love it! When we were on our tour today she did not want to leave, we finally had to leave to get to gymnastics class and she was crying saying "I want to go back to preschool and check it out". I'm glas she excited about school and hope that she is just as excited to start school once the school year begins.

Iditarod Dog Sled Races

#21 Dallas Seavey waving as he passes by
#21 Dallas Seavey

Kyla got a dog bootie from one of the mushers

Throwing snowballs at Mommy

Kyla and Daddy watching the dog teams run by

Dog Musher Tom Thurston's Dogs

#18 Aliy Zirkle

Lance Mackey waving at us

#17 Lance Mackey's Dogs

Lance Mackey- winner of the past 4 Iditarods


Today was the ceremonial start of the Iditarod in Anchorage. Kyla had art class at 10:00 am so we were not able to make it to the start of the race in downtown, but we found a great little spot near the finish to watch some of our favorite racers. We were able to see Dallas Seavey go by, he is 24 years old and finished 8th last year. He just won the Yukon Quest and could be this years Iditarod winner too. We met Dallas over the summer when he was living next door to us. We also got to see his dad Mitch Seavey go by who has won the race once in the past. We were also excited to see Lance Mackey go by, who was the winner for the past four years. He is the only person to ever win four years in a row and if he wins this year he will be tied for most ever wins.

We watched and cheered for about 15 mushers before Kyla was cold and ready to get some lunch. Kyla had fun watching the dogs, clapping for the dog mushers and throwing snowballs at Mommy. One of the mushers even threw a dog bootie to Kyla as a souvenir. It was the first time that both Jon and Kyla have watched the Iditarod. Now we will be watching coverage of the Iditarod on tv for the next two weeks and hoping for Dallas to win and if he doesn't then Lance.

Fur Rondevouz

Fur Rondy Snow Sculptures

Kyla with the winning snow sculpture

A big bull moose we saw near the dog sled race

Fur Rondy Dog Sled Races

Grandma and Kyla watching the dogs

Kermit dog mushing

More Dog Mushers

Our out of town visitors Linda and Patty watching the races with us

Nearing the finish

The weather was really cold this year during Fur Rondy so we did not get out and do as much as we did last year. We ended up skipping the Parade and Carnival and only went to the final day of the dog sled races and to see the snow sculptures downtown.

Alyeska Ski Weekend

Taking a ski break in the lodge

Mommy and Kyla on the bunny hill

Kyla's first ski day with just Mommy

Kyla did a great job skiing

Having a great time at Alyeska

The prettiest girl on the hill

Having lots of fun

Mommy and Kyla on the Magic Carpet

Kyla's first time on the chairlift!

Worn out from a long day of skiing

We spent the night playing puzzles and games in the hotel room

We had a great weekend at the Alyeska Hotel! Jon, Kyla and I had a weekend full of skiing and eating out at good restaurants. Kyla did really well skiing and it was the first time that she has skiied with me. Usually she skis with Jon and he skis down backwards in front of her. I do not ski backwards so I was skiing next to her and she was doing great. Our first day skiing the weather was really nice so we were able to do several runs, but the second day was really cold and we spent more time in the lodge taking ski breaks. On day 2 of skiing Jon decided he wanted to take Kyla on the chairlift! They ended up skiing two runs on the lift. She liked going on the lift, but the runs were much longer and had much steeper spots on them so she had to ski down between Daddys legs for part of it.

Kyla also got to visit with her friend Eli at Alyeska and meet his new little sister Ali. She has not seen him in several months and after we left she said "where is my other frind Eli?", I told her that this was her only friend named Eli. She was still convinced that this was not the same Eli and said "He must be on the mountain skiing". Her friend Eli is not even 3 yet and was riding the tram and to the top of the mountain and skiing down the entire mountain mostly by himself. Kyla will no longer be able to ski with him until she gets a lot more practice.