July to September...

Let's get caught up through mid-September...

We were blessed to celebrate Emily's 10th birthday with the entire family at the beach. It was such a gorgeous day...not only the beautiful weather, but incredible time to relax with some of the most important people in our lives.

Loving those blonde curls and yellow frills!

Reesie hanging with Uncle Pat...

...and Uncle Mike!

Emily blowing out her candles (on a delicious cake!)

Living far away from our family is so hard. But it has helped us truly understand how precious our time together is. I wanted to get a family picture (knowing this might be the last time in a long time we'd all be in one place at the same time)...so we planned ahead. I am so happy we did! This has become one of my most favorite pictures and memories.

Love and miss these faces...

The next birthday we got to celebrate was Reese's first! Wow...I know everyone says it, but truly...where did those three hundred and sixty five days go?

These are some of my favorites

from her one year old photo shoot.

I love how she's looking and smiling at Gidget.

For Reese's birthday lunch, we went to the same Claim Jumper in Monrovia where we took Daly for her first birthday. We ended up being seated in the exact same booth!

Still think they look alike?

Giving a super special 'Big Sister Smooch'.

'I'm one!'

Reese's birthday party was such a great time with family and friends!

Homemade cupcakes.

Reese's birthday cake...a bit blurry...

sort of like the first year of her life... :)

And to leave you with a big smile on your face...

Remember Daly's 'cute face'?

Reese has learned it too...

'Gentle' Annie

It all started with a friendly facebook message from Gareth...something along the lines of, 'We've got snow about a 30 minute walk away. Road trip?' Sounded great, so we packed up and headed to The Highwayman Motel in Masterton to meet up with the Teahans.

Gareth packed his dogs in the van and lead us to the base of Mt. Holdsworth. Our fun and leisurely, 30 minute walk started with lots of layers...

...and turned into a two hour, fairly strenuous hike, with fewer jackets.

Gareth wasn't lying about the snow though! When we got to the lookout point, it actually snowed on us! It was our payoff for being duped into a 'fun afternoon walk' up a trail called 'Gentle Annie'.

The view was incredible, definitely worth the burning legs and sweat.

Daly throwing her first snow ball. She could not stop talking about playing in the snow.

Make like a tomato

Where did May go?

We went from an immobile Reese, to a crawling Reese, to a pulling to stand and cruising around tables Reese! {video coming soon} Both of our laptops died within about a week of each other. {only one was fixable, hence the lack of blog posts} Our container arrived from the US, which was incredibly exciting and incredibly overwhelming. Lots of basketball, and with that came the opportunity to explore more of the North Island.

One of the games we road tripped to was in Taranaki. We had a blast with the Craigs and Teahans!

The leaders of our caravan, during a stop so Caitlyn could have a snack.



After a tough loss, we packed up the kids and went for an amazing walk through Pukekura Park and visited the Brooklands Zoo in New Plymouth. Absolutely gorgeous.



The girls had a blast. The moms tried to stage this picture of Daly, Kyra, and Aaliyah throwing leaves in the air...it was semi-successful.



Also worked on staging some sister pictures. Behind the girls is the venue where Jack Johnson will be playing later this year. {Ryan made sure to get tickets the minute they went on sale...should be incredible.}

Daly telling Reese all about the park.





Beautiful colors and beautiful girls in the poppy garden.



Daly's personality continues to grow and grow. She's so much fun to watch. She was very concerned about this poor little flower bud that had fallen on the ground.





Two little monkeys.



Giving new meaning to 'fish kiss'.

Hawkes Bay and Napier

A few weeks ago Ryan had a day off and the weather was a bit dreary, so we decided to pack up the car and take a little trip. We had heard so many wonderful things about Napier, a town on the east coast that boasts gorgeous vineyards, stunning views, and beautiful weather.

On our way in, we stopped at a couple vineyards in Hawkes Bay to let the girls stretch their legs. Of course, we couldn't pass up the wine tasting.

We made our way to the coast, parked the car and took a walk.

Found this hilarious ice cream shop...

...and had to stop. This was the week Heather was visiting us from California. She and Daly shared a cone...

...and Reese had her first taste.

Then we found our way to The National Aquarium of New Zealand. Daly went absolutely nuts. The aquarium was almost completely empty, so she had the run of the place. She looked in every tank for Nemo 'Mamo', Dory 'Doughy', and sharks 'arks'. Both girls found Bruce.

Most of the aquariums were on the ground, which kept a lot of the sea life at eye level for Daly. She was very intrigued by the eel who came out to go nose to nose with her.

There was an incredible tunnel where you could walk through a HUGE aquarium. There were hundreds of fish, sharks, rays, turtles, almost anything you can think of. Daly was beside herself she was so excited. This sting ray kept swimming in circles, coming around again and again to swim right over our heads. It looked like he was smiling at us.

The next picture has officially made it into my top five memories of Daly and Reese together. I can't wait to get it blown up and framed to hang over our fire place. This was the front of the aquarium with the tunnel going through it.

After all the excitement, Daly feel right to sleep in the car. Reese took advantage of some quality daddy time.

Reesie Update

Sometimes, it feels like Daly has so much going on...singing, dancing, running, talking, swimming...that Reese doesn't always gets the 'me-time' she deserves! Here's an update on what's going on with our little girl.

Reese is in complete awe of her big sister. No one can make her smile or laugh like Daly does. She is also already showing signs of wanting to do everything her sister does {which I hope will be endearing to Daly, although I'm sure it will become annoying at some point...}

She still has just two teeth on the bottom {we think she's working on a few more though}, and is much more willing to show them off lately!

Reese really does smile all the time, showing off those gorgeous dimples. We have people asking, 'Does that girl ever cry?' Okay, truth...she doesn't smile ALL the time...

...but the tears are always an easy fix with this one.

She is getting so close to crawling. You can see in her eyes how badly Reese wants to be able to get moving and at least try to keep up with her sister. And at seven months, she already has that risk-taker quality that is so obvious in Daly. Love you, baby girl!

Pohangina Valley

Last weekend, Dave and Rach took us to the

Pohangina {poe-'hahn-gah-na}Valley for a picnic.

The campground is about a 25 minute drive from us. We're finding it so cool 'sweet as' that there are so many things for us to do just a short drive away. There is a beautiful river, and lots of trails to explore.

We hiked tramped through the wilderness bush {and are slowly working on the lingo}. Daly, as usual, was not afraid to blaze her own trail and led us around most of the way.

And to any of you who have heard about Daly's 'little walk' {story for another time}, she is getting much better at calling out to us when she gets too far out of our sight.

Realized as I was going through our pictures from the day, we took more family portraits than anything else! But at least you can see the beautiful surroundings {and now I have more pictures for the wall.}

Retrospection Collection: Jan '09, Our Little Artist

Been too long since I've posted, nothing too exciting lately. Easter was fun! Daly wasn't really into the hunting for eggs, she was more interested in getting to the "Shhh" {read: candy} inside them. We had some of the guys from the Jets organization over for a brunch to watch the Final Four {loving Slingshot and getting to see American commercials...except, of course, for the In-n-Out ones...KILLING us!!}

So thought I would throw up some fun pictures I've found. Last year, we had the brilliant idea of letting Daly create some art for us! She was about 10 months old.

We did the prep work for her...

...and then let her go to town and create masterpieces!

And this...

...turned into this.

After all her hard work, she finished up with a sink bath.