Moving, Halloween, and Birthday!

November 23rd, 2009 / posted by Jake

We are now home owners! We finally moved into our new home the first weekend of November.  We’ve tried our hardest to unpack everything so that we don’t fall into the moving trap where boxes remain unpacked for months, years even.  The kids have made friends with the other neighborhood kids which has made it all worth it! A day hasn’t gone by where Tyler and Kaitlyn aren’t playing outside with everyone or everyone’s over at our house playing with the kids.  This has  helped Lindsey and I focus on other things while the kids play and enjoy themselves.

I’m calling this last Halloween, my first Halloween with the kids.  Last year I was in a mandatory EMT class all-day and by the time it was over, the kids had already done their trick-or-treating and gone to bed which bummed me out.  The year prior, Tyler was 10 months old and Kaitlyn wasn’t even born so we didn’t consider that their first Halloween, or at least their first Halloween where they can actually move on around on their own.  So this Halloween was extra fun for me to watch them run around ringing door-bells and collecting candy.  Tyler was up to his usual antics as he was more concerned with being the one to ring the door bell than he was with receiving the candy.  In fact, when another kid rang the doorbell before Tyler could, Tyler began crying and refused to accept the  candy from the woman at the door.  Perhaps this is a sure sign that he’ll be an engineering genius?  It was cute watching Kaitlyn collect her candy because as the youngest, she was always playing catch up with everyone else in the group.  So while they were leaving a home, Kaitlyn was just running up (with me of course) saying “dad, wait. dad, wait”.  There were a few times where Kaitlyn fell behind due to the fact that she was trying to unwrap a piece of candy and stuff it in her mouth.  Tyler dressed up as an Alligator/Dinosaur (I can’t tell which one it is) and Kaitlyn went as a princess.

Kaitlyn and I both celebrated our birthdays this month.  Kaitlyn turned 2, and I turned 28.  As I age closer to 30, I try and think back to how quickly it seems time has gone and before I know it 60 will be here.  I have a lot of memories of my youth and I often draw on these to trick myself into thinking I’m still young.  It seems like yesterday that I was digging tunnels to China with Jeff in his backyard or playing hide-n-go-seek at night for my 10th birthday with everyone in our backyard.  Anyway, we celebrated at my parents house with home-made tacos, a cake the kids made for me, and of course gifts & cards from everyone.  It was a lot of fun and the kids were excited to show me the cake they had made which was the best part.

Overtime we’ve developed nicknames for Tyler and Kaitlyn – some have been typical nick names, while others have seemingly come out of nowhere but stuck.  One of Tyler’s nick names is ‘brother bear’ and Kaitlyn has taken heart to using this when referring to Tyler.  However instead of ‘brother bear’ she just calls him ‘bear’ which is pretty cute.  We’re not sure why she went for this particular name with him because she can say Tyler and brother.  Also when we ask Kaitlyn what her name is she promptly responds, “2″.

We’ve taken additional photos of our home for family who live out of town to see.  To view the pictures, follow this link.  When prompted for a password, simply type in our last name.