Fox Chase Farm

 I often pass this cute farm while driving. I notice that they were having a "Maple Sugar Days." I looked it up and it seemed like a cheap family friendly event, so we decided to go. Plus it was a good study break for Shawn. I am so glad we went because we had so much fun and learned that we want a maple tree. This is the time of year where the sap is coming up the trees, so all the trees had little spigots that only went into the tree a few inches with a bucket attached. This is us trying to see if there is any sap.

Once they collect the sap, all you have to do is boil is for a LONG time and ta da...you have syrup.

Behind us is boiling sap magically turning into syrup

This farm  is used for four H events etc, so they had lots of animals for us to see. Kanyin loved loved the horses! Now whenever I show her a picture of a horse she gets so excited and she says "sstt sstt" I guess that means horse in baby language. She wasn't the biggest fan of the goats, but she did love the pigs. I don't know why Shawn decided to pet the pig. Actually it was trying to bite him, so that is probably why, but his hand smelt like nasty pig for a long time.

We even got to try the syrup. We would have loved to buy some, but real syrup is a little on the pricey end. We will probably stick with the fake stuff while we are living on the student budget.

Shawn and Kanyin learning about maple trees.

The old farm house

Just had to throw this one in there.

and this one.

Moral of the story is we had a grand old time at the Fox Chase farm and are hoping to make it back to the sheep shearing day! Love living in the east. So much to do!

Kanyin is ONE

No wonder babies have to sleep all the time...they grow so much in one year! Kanyin turned one on February 25th. It's hard to believe a year ago, our lives changed completely! After having a baby, I decided that birthdays should also be a day of celebration for the mom. It took a lot to get Kanyin here, so I think I should get a cake or something. :) I really can't imagine life without her now. Thank you to those who helped celebrate with us and sent her packages etc. She is a spoiled happy little girl. Her birthday ended up not being all roses though....poor girl got her hand caught in the oven drawer while her birthday cake was baking and got some really nasty burns on her fingers! I felt so bad. I still feel really bad. Especially when I get comments in the store like "oohh her poor little fingers." They are pretty much healed now, but it was for sure a traumatic day for the both of us. What I don't get is she still wants to play with the oven drawer.

 Kanyin took her first steps a few days before she turned one. She could walk, she is just hesitant. Growth wise, she is pretty average, except for her head which is in the 90th percentile. Not sure what happened there. 

  

Kanyin has turned out to be quite the character. Some of her LOVES include:

-Dora the Explorer  whenever I ask if she wants to watch Dora she says "de de de" and gets really excited

-Cheese  She could eat cheese all day if I let her

-Books  This girl loves to read. Especially Dr. Seuss books. Sometimes I will find her surrounded by toys, and there she is looking at a book. Her favorite thing to do in the car is look at pictures in a book. She has just started talking gibberish while she is holding her books. SO so so cute. 

-Play Chase (especially with her dad) She loves it when we get down on the floor and say "I'm gonna get you!" She will turn the other way, scream and crawl as fast as she can. 

-Baths no matter where she is or what she is doing, as soon as she hears that bath water running, she is right there ready to go. 

-Walks Kanyin is usually always on the go, except for walks, she is usually really content and enjoys the outdoors. 

-Emptying the kitchen drawer it's pretty much a ritual now that while I am cooking she empties the tupperware drawer. At least it keeps her happy and allows me to cook. She just started learning that there are other cupboards and drawers with exciting things inside. Most of which are not baby safe, so we need to do something about that. 

We have loved being parents. It has been such an enjoyable time with lots of learning experiences in between. Shawn and I thank our Heavenly Father through prayer for bringing Kanyin into our family. It is a great responsibility becoming a parent. Whenever I think about all the negative in the world today, I get nervous about being a mom.  I think about Kanyin going to school etc and how I hope what she learns at home will help her to be a strong girl. I love this quote:

"Raising our children is a much greater responsibility than we can do alone without the Lord’s help. He knows exactly what our children need to know, what they need to do, and what they need to be to come back into His presence. He gives mothers and fathers specific instruction and guidance through the scriptures, His prophets, and the Holy Ghost."

—Cheryl A. Esplin

This does give me comfort knowing as long as ask for the Lords help and stay on the right path doing those little things to have the spirit in our home, he can guide us and help in raising children.

Happy Birthday Kanyin!  Click Here for the link to my photography blog where her one year pictures are posted. 

I also made this video to document her first year. My goal is to do this with all our future children as well. We will see if that really happens :)

Sometimes the video won't work in blogger. So here is the link if it won't work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GDiYNWvzFA
Happy Birthday Kanyin

A few days late

Simple Pleasures

Sometimes the smallest things give babies the biggest pleasure. Kanyin's new favorite activity is to stand on our bed and look out the window. So many things to find out a window! Oh I just love this little baby. Actually I just realized that she is almost a toddler and I have to stop calling her baby soon. That really kind of hurts my heart. Why do they grow up so fast?!

Our first visitors!

The Wrights live in Utah and decided to come and visit us over the long weekend in January.The Wrights are our close friends. Shawn grew up with Justin so they have been good ol pals since they were wee ones.  It was sooo fun to have them here! Their little boy Ryker and Kanyin got along so well. It was the cutest thing to watch them interact. We did the whole Philadelphia tour, which was such an adventure! Independence Hall, Liberty Bell, watched a rally, the famous "love" park, philly cheese steaks. Friday Shawn had school, and Justin volunteered to take the babies so Heather and I could have a shopping day. It felt so good to have a girls day out. Sadly Sunday night they found out that their apartment in Utah flooded! It wasn't the best ending to an awesome weekend. But things are coming together and they should be able to move back into their apartment soon. We loved having them and miss them already. We love having visitors.... hint hint. :) We live so close to so many neat historical fun things. I hope we get to it all while we live here.

Standing in line to see Independence Hall. It was really cold! 

the famous love park

love park

confessing to the "bishop"

Justin the gymnast 

Cutest thing ever! Ryker started pushing Kanyin in her stroller

They were good about sharing

Reading Termal market

One of the rooms in Independence Hall

The Liberty Bell

Not only are they helping with dinner, they are wearing aprons :)

Washington D.C.

I served my mission for the LDS Church in Washington D.C. I loved loved my mission because of all the people that I was able to meet. When we found out we were moving to Philadelphia, I was excited because I knew how close it was to D.C. I could bring my little family there! So to start of Shawn's Christmas break, we celebrated, by making the two and a half hour drive to D.C. Oh man did we have such a great time. We started our trip by going to the Visitors Center at the Washington D.C. temple. The Visitors Center has a Festival of Lights every year. There is a free concert every night in December and there are so many lights, nativities etc that bring the Christmas spirit. It was so neat to go back. The Visitors Center was completely redone and it looks amazing! There is such a special spirit there. If you are ever in Washington D.C. I highly recommend it. We were able to meet up with Jenny, Kristen and her family (sisters I served with) and another dear friend from the mission, Koshell.

We stayed with the Gordy family for the night. I helped to teach Ramona and Pat while I was a missionary. Ramona was baptized a short  while after I started my mission. I love these two so much. They are such a strength and example to me. I am so grateful I was able to meet them. If you ever want a spiritual pick me up you will have to check out Ramona's blog here. They spoiled us so much while we were there!

Our day in the city consisted of the National Museum of American History, National Museum of Natural History, eating hot dogs from a street vendor, yum yum :) and we ended by going to the white house to see the national Christmas tree. That was pretty neat to see. Even though we weren't to impressed with the decorating of the tree (I feel like some malls have better decorated trees), they did have a littler tree for each state. We found Pennsylvania, Colorado, but could not find Idaho. Of course it was way in the back tucked in a corner decorated with potato ornaments.

Sadly it was around this time when we noticed all the flags were half staff. We asked someone why and he told us about the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. Our hearts were so broken. All that kept going through my mind was "an elementary school?? really??" I did my student teaching in a first grade class and I just kept thinking about when we would practice the intruder drill and get all the kids under a table, lock the door, turn the lights off and keep them quiet. They were so scared even though it was just a practice. I cannot imagine what it would be like for real. Those teachers, and others that losted their lives for the children's sake will always be heros.  I just could not believe it and to think what is happening with our world is so scary. I still think about and pray for those families that were affected and hope that they find peace. I know those little ones are with our Heavenly Father and are in a good place.

Brother Brewer is outside the Visitors Center every night during the Festival welcoming people. Ice, Rain or snow he is  still there! IT was so good to see him!

I love the Washington D.C. temple. Here is a short and sweet video that explains about temples. 

jogger strollers on a city metro doesn't work very well :)

The Harry Potter rob! Shawn would have been a great Harry...look at that face.

My baby is being eaten by a dinosaur!

National Christmas tree

We wanted to knock on the door and sing a Christmas carol to President Obama, but the guy standing on the roof with a big gun steered us away  :)

The Gordys! Thank you for everything you did for us!

Love hot dogs :)

I think Shawn decided to forget PA school and run for President of the United States

 

9 Months Old

Miss Kanyin May is now  9 months old. It is weird to think her time outside the womb is equal to the time she spent inside of me. I prefer her in my arms then in my belly :) I feel very privileged to be her Mom. It is hard to imagine life without her. 
These last few weeks she has become a speed crawler!! I don't know why I got so excited when she first started to crawl because now my job is ten times harder. She is constantly getting into things. A few of her favorites....kitchen drawers, dishwasher, dvd shelf, and the nastiest...toilet brush! I am slowly learning to close doors behind me and learning new distraction tricks. 
Kanyin has had some separation anxiety being very attached to mom and dad. To the point that she will cry and cry if someone else is holding her and I am standing right there! It makes me sad, because at home she is the happiest baby. The last few weeks there has been  a lot of improvement, which is exciting. 
Kanyin is like her Dad and loves movies, well...two movies. Dora the Explorer and Baby Signing Time. She knows when I am turning it on and will clap and get really excited. Usually she is a mover and an attention getter, but if either of these movies are playing, there is nothing else going on in this little girls mind. 
She also LOVES to eat anything and everything. I feel like I could feed her all day and she would be content. I gave her a lemon one day to get a good face out of her and she liked it. Kanyin is a light sleeper like me. Often times we will tip toe into her room while she's sleeping and all fo a sudden her head pops up and she sees us and gets excited or cries. I can't complain though because she has been sleeping 11 hours at night for a long time now. 
Out of the blue, Kanyin learned how to slowly bat her eyes. It is pretty cute, especially when I tell her "no" and she turns around and bats her eyes.  She also gets on these giggle kicks that give us the giggles. She loves reading books. It is the only time of day when she holds still. Bath time is another highlight of the day. Whenever she hears the water in the tub turn on she is there in a second. 
Moral of the story is we love this little 9 month old baby. I hope and pray I can continue to teach her and she can continue to grow up to be a healthy good girl. 

Hopefully she will always be this eager to help with dishes :)

Naptime is a great part of the day for moms and babies :)

 I love going in her room to find these two laughing away. Kanyin loves her Dad if you can't tell. 

 Kanyin wants nothing else to do with the world when her show is playing. Usually when I have the camera out she is all over it! The end of this clip is my favorite. 

 I heard something in kitchen and this is what I found. She's a pretty smart cookie for figuring that out. 

Thanksgiving

We had such a fun and relaxing Thanksgiving. Our church did a Turkey Bowl Thanksgiving morning and we later went to our friends house, the Henderson's for the fancy feast! Of course I went black friday shopping. It is seriously one of my favorite days of the year. I was worried it was going to be a little crazy here in Philly. I was at the doctors office a few days before, when a lady was asking about my Thanksgiving plans, I told her about my black friday fetish, and she said, "oh dear...watch your purse." I was a little nervous, but it turned out to be so great. You can't beat new movies for $4! Decorating for Christmas was another success Thanksgiving weekend. It was so nice having Shawn home for a few days. Even though he had to study here and there it was great. Shawn also went and helped with the Hurricane Sandy clean up in New Jersey all day on Sunday. There are so many people that lost everything. It really caused us to reflect on all the MANY things we are grateful for. I cannot thank my Heavenly Father enough for the countless blessing I have received. I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. 

Getting ready for the big football game!

  

Spiders vs. Torrey

I love all of the trees and green you see here on the east coast, but the only down side is there are alot more bugs etc. I understand that it is starting to get cold and everyone and everything wants to be warm, but I am just struggling with sharing my warm cozy apartment with nasty looking spiders. Just a few examples:   

I was sitting on the couch feeding the baby when all of a sudden a spider came crawling out from under me!! Poor Kanyin thought I was having a heart attack. 
Another time, I went to grab a tissue to wipe Kanyin's poor little nose and when I pulled the tissue out from the box, surprise..there was another little spider friend. 
The real battle has been between me and the spider in my kitchen window. One day I noticed a very well designed spider web on the window ledge. I didn't want to stare at it while doing the dishes so I wiped it away. A few days later to my surprise it was back! I thought to myself that this is a very sneaky little guy, because I have yet to see him. I decided I would trick it and put a sticky trap on the ledge...hehehehe. The next morning I went to the window, excited to see what kind of clever spider it was. To my surprise, there was as web built around the sticky trap!! I have to say I was impressed.
Shawn says the next spider that he sees he is going to put it in a jar and make me carry it around all day, so I get over this fear. I guess we will see if it works. Moral of the story is I am not a huge fan of spiders, but I am grateful that we are mice free so far :) 

Hidden Treasures

We live just a few minutes away from a train station, busy roads, stores etc. Sometimes I crave nature and the peace and comfort it brings. Well, a week ago we went for a little walk and decided to go check out the train station. Turns out on the other side of the train station there is an AWESOME little park! Nature trail, creek, ducks, lots of trees, bridge and to top it all off a play ground at the end of the trail. I was so so happy when we found this place. How lucky am to have such a neat place just a few minutes away. I felt like a was at the end of treasure hunt. A little tender mercy from the Lord for Torrey. :) Kanyin and I enjoy walking there now. The only tricky and entertaining part of our walks is getting down and up the stairs with the stroller to get across the train station. Usually there are really nice people who feel bad for me and help me out.